Posts tagged with "friends"

let's leave these rusted old folks back in the city

It’s been too long since we took a ride togeth­er. Too long since some­one else was at the wheel and I got to score the pass­ing Canadian fields with my new favourite songs. Too long since I saw the old crew and filmed them land­ing aeri­als on the farm.

two dogs in a car

We dri­ve through love­ly lit­tle vil­lages I’d nev­er want to live in but always think of vis­it­ing some day. They’re too small for com­ic book stores and decent Chinese food and any pos­si­bil­i­ty of get­ting lost, but big enough to hold the hopes of any­one who ever want­ed to build a life for them­selves in a qui­et com­mu­ni­ty full of old-world charm and decay. The tiny econ­o­my based on tourism from an annu­al coun­try music fes­ti­val or his­toric school will make sure it stays like this for­ev­er.

Continue read­ing “let’s leave these rust­ed old folks back in the city”…

just another diamond day

In the mid­dle of this heat wave has come a hail­storm that’s dent­ed the shit out of every pan­el of my car, fol­lowed by a series of unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly cool nights. I slept with the win­dows open, and the breeze kept me con­tent to be wrapped in my duvet until wak­ing.

It may as well be a lazy Sunday morn­ing in Autumn as I write this, sit­ting by the warm light com­ing through the blinds, wax­ing nos­tal­gic about more than I care to admit. I’ve been try­ing to write, but I don’t know what I’ve been feel­ing late­ly.

airplane ride!

Maybe it’s cause I haven’t had time to think. And it’s only going to get busier in the fore­see­able future. I’d like to spend more time alone, but that seems a lux­u­ry that’s quick­ly dis­ap­pear­ing. When I’m try­ing to nur­ture the rela­tion­ships that are impor­tant to me, it’s hard to refuse a hang­out, and mak­ing reg­u­lar plans quick­ly fills the week.

playing Magic: The Gathering

Tiana taps two swamps to add two black mana to her mana pool, and increase her sex­i­ness to nerds every­where by 500%.

Probably a good thing, cause I also feel like I’ve been spend­ing too much time alone dur­ing my bouts of intro­ver­sion.

It’s also been a while since I stepped out of my com­fort zone. I guess I did enough trav­el­ing last year to know where my bound­aries are. Since return­ing from my sojourn in the Old Dominion, I’ve been too com­fort­able, and slow­ly I’m being forced out of it as life catch­es up with me. But I know I can han­dle things, cause I’ve done it before.

So I’m try­ing to enjoy what I have now, caught some­where between day and night, iso­la­tion and over-stim­u­la­tion, work and play, sum­mer and fall.

happy child

The sum­mer start­ed unevent­ful­ly, with a mix of rainy weath­er and cold nights. I long for after­noons in the bright sun, Lou Reed dur­ing his Velvet Underground years croon­ing to me over small speak­ers, with noth­ing bet­ter to do than wip­ing the con­den­sa­tion off a cold drink. It’s a life that does­n’t seem far away, and yet a life I nev­er imag­ine mak­ing for myself. I always think it’ll just hap­pen some day, that things will fall into place if I can take care of every­thing else.

Friday Night Magic

It’s okay to be OCD about how your cards are orga­nized as long as every­one else is.

Aaron has me over for din­ner every week with Karen and the two kids. It’s a rit­u­al he has yet to break, even though he told me he did­n’t want it to be a cal­en­dar event when I asked him if we could do some­thing on a reg­u­lar basis1. Every Wednesday he leaves work ear­ly to let me in the house, and makes up the time by work­ing longer hours on oth­er days, a sac­ri­fice that means more to me than he’ll ever under­stand, and some­thing I nev­er had to ask him to do. It’s nice to be able to look for­ward to reg­u­lar plans, and some­thing I share only with him that makes me feel like I belong.

About as often are Magic nights with Trolley and Steph, and these invari­ably include some­thing deli­cious for din­ner, when Steph takes the culi­nary arts to a whole new lev­el. They take care of me with food and con­ver­sa­tion and boost­er packs that they nev­er let me pay for. I’m sure I owe a great deal of my san­i­ty to them, when Magic was the only thing that took my mind off the fact that every­thing fell apart.

pretty wolf

Nobody fucks Pretty Wolf.

In between are things less fre­quent, but no less impor­tant. Musical projects with Jesse or Seth that give me the kind of goals and pur­pose I’ve been look­ing for. Sessions with Lisa, when we get to share the things we don’t share with any­one else. Hangouts with Tiana to debrief on our ever-chang­ing lives, and to give each oth­er advice or a pair of ears. Dinners with Heather G when I need my dose of opti­mism and adven­tur­ism. Not to men­tion the peo­ple who send me mes­sages of check up on how I’m doing when they can’t be here for me phys­i­cal­ly.

big dog and two girls

HOW ARE YOU SO BIG

It feels strange to be busy again. To be pro­duc­tive, and social, and to need days off when I’m not even employed.

Not that it’s been an attempt to stay occu­pied; more like mak­ing sure my needs are being met. That I have ful­fill­ing rela­tion­ships that pro­vide me with what I need, involv­ing peo­ple who make me feel hope­ful and worth­while and con­nect­ed and nur­tured and pro­tect­ed and sat­is­fied and accept­ed and under­stood and val­i­dat­ed and loved and con­fi­dent and safe and in con­trol.

  1. Only because it’s some­thing he want­ed to keep casu­al, where nei­ther per­son felt any pres­sure. []

the tide you swim against will carry you back home

How quick­ly my world fell apart. How sud­den­ly things have changed, nev­er to be the same again. No one blames me for being unable to cope when so much has hap­pened all at once.

When diag­nos­ing the sever­i­ty of your mood, the pro­fes­sion­als always ask if you have a plan. Even the two cops who show up at your door at mid­night cause your friends fear the worst will pose the ques­tion. I guess a plan is the sign that you’re in imme­di­ate dan­ger, and I had three.

It means I get to be self­ish now. I get to do what I need to sur­vive. I get to think of myself for once in my life.

Even if my friends have nev­er been through this, even if they don’t under­stand, they still care, and they prove it to me with every lin­ger­ing hug, every meal they leave me, every call to ask how I’m feel­ing, every mes­sage left to let them know if there’s any­thing they can do, every reminder that they don’t want to lose me spo­ken through tears from those I’ve nev­er seen cry.

I used to have noth­ing but guilt for wor­ry­ing them, but now I under­stand that guilt is the last thing they want me to feel. They only want me to be okay. They’ve done so much to make me believe this, and that’s exact­ly what I need right now.

booster draft

Today, I got to intro­duce some very good friends to each oth­er. Everyone got along famous­ly, although it could­n’t have gone any oth­er way with these guys.

It was the first boost­er draft for three of us. I was mas­sa­cred in every game, and did­n’t have any less fun los­ing to such great sports.

Magic: The Gathering booster draft

Two Innistrad and two Dark Ascension. Oh what glit­ter­ing gold­en sym­bols lie beneath these wrap­pers.

Unfortunately, noth­ing inter­est­ed me when we were pick­ing out rares1, so I got noth­ing for the deck I’m cur­rent­ly build­ing, and no direc­tion for a sec­ond deck. But as Aaron said, even if you lose, it’s cheap­er than a night of pok­er. Sometimes you lose it on the riv­er, some­times you draw 13 con­sec­u­tive lands, and some­times you OH GOD WHY ARE MY CREATURES DEAD ARGHGHHGHGH LETS PLAY AGAIN.

  1. And there was­n’t a sin­gle green rare — exact­ly what I was look­ing for — out of 17 rares. I have no idea what the chances are on that, but I know they’re not big. []