Posts tagged with "memories"

Dinner With The Timmites

Thumbnail: Philly melt
Thumbnail: Quesadilla
Thumbnail: Ham tortellini
Thumbnail: Veggie burger
Thumbnail: Zoom H2

Tim was in town for a pre­sen­ta­tion this week­end, so a few of us went to din­ner at a restau­rant close to where he used to live. It turns out this place used to be called Drumlin’s Pub, which I knew from sec­ond year of uni­ver­si­ty, ohhh…seven years ago? I dis­tinct­ly remem­ber being in there once, doing shots at the bar1 while sit­ting next to an old­er guy who was over $30k in debt to OSAP, telling me to go after the big­ger girls cause they do way more “stuff”. On our drink­ing tours of the city back then, we would always try to find a place that served good, cheap wings, and Strongbow. If I remem­ber cor­rect­ly, Drumlin’s had hearty hon­ey gar­lic, but no cider.

Now that it’s under new man­age­ment, it has a real­ly gener­ic name — like Sandy Hill Bar And Grill — though it makes up for this fact with much bet­ter pub fare. Such social oppor­tu­ni­ties are great for test­ing out the 360° sur­round capa­bil­i­ties of the Zoom H2 sound recorder I recent­ly pur­chased as an invest­ment towards bet­ter sound pro­duc­tion in my videos.

In his defence, Tim was sur­prised to dis­cov­er that Jess has a new boyfriend, and was being (jok­ing­ly) self-dep­re­cat­ing about his sex life. Next at the table was Reagan2, who was asked about hers. Jess picked up the mic and point­ed it at me, per­haps to shift the atten­tion away from Reagan and shield her from embar­rass­ment. Of course, it all plays out much nicer when you have a record­ing of it.

  1. Back then I drank with Iain, so it would have been tequi­la. [↩]
  2. Note to self: pro­nounced “Ray-gun” [↩]

Sex In Between

One time, she sud­den­ly asked me, “Have you had sex with any­one else?”, which she used to imply as between the last time and what we were about to do. It was a valid ques­tion, since we’re both sen­si­tive to the pro­lif­er­a­tion of Cupid’s itch and Venus’s curse.

I was insult­ed that she asked, because at the time I felt like sex with some­one else would have been cheat­ing on her. As uncom­mit­ted as the rela­tion­ship was, she still had my heart, and con­se­quent­ly, oth­er parts of my body as well. I’m also not like that, and it takes a lot before I decide to be inti­mate with some­one. But at the same time, I was flat­tered that she thought I would or could, a lit­tle boost to my ego that is rarely ruled by machis­mo or testos­terone.

“I haven’t either”, she reas­sured, which was some­thing I nat­u­ral­ly assumed of my mod­est muse, so it was of lit­tle com­fort to me.

Hide And Seek

Sometimes, when cer­tain songs come on, a tinge of jeal­ousy will strike me.

I’ve been known to be very pos­ses­sive about my music, because songs often mark my mem­o­ries and expe­ri­ences. These melodies I keep to myself mean much me, and I don’t share them with just any­one. A per­son has to be spe­cial before I let them hear it. They have to be able to appre­ci­ate the music. They have to deserve it.

I gave her my Eva Cassidy, Blonde Redhead, Vincent Gallo, Sia, Hooverphonic, Postal Service, Iron and Wine, Knife, Mars Volta, Shane Watt, and Scott Matthew. I let her in, I shared with her so many chords that stir up emo­tion in me, I ren­dered myself vul­ner­a­ble, and now I can’t lis­ten to some of them with­out think­ing of her. It seems unfair that I gave her so much, that I sac­ri­ficed things I hold so dear and sacred in my heart, with noth­ing to show for it.

But when I hear Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap, I start believ­ing that I’ve come out ahead.

One night, we sat in silence as she showed me this haunt­ing video, and it moves me now as much as it did when I first heard Imogen’s ethe­re­al voice fill­ing my head with lay­ers upon lay­ers of haunt­ing har­monies. Ironically enough, it’s been help­ing me through this peri­od, because I feel like I’m not the only one who was start­ing to get com­fort­able, let­ting the dust set­tle, only to have every­thing change, and to dis­cov­er cir­cu­lar inden­ta­tions in the car­pet where the fur­ni­ture used to sit, the sun-bleached dis­coloura­tion on the walls out­lin­ing places where pret­ty pic­tures once hung.

This song has made up for every­thing, not only because it brings com­fort and com­pa­ny to me now, but because it reminds me that every­thing I did was worth it too.

You Nostalgia, You Lose

Found this old video of back when I lived on Island Park in a 16th floor apart­ment, with Trolley and anoth­er per­son who shall remain unnamed.

Trolley looks so young! It’s not his face, just his hair that does it. And remem­ber when I could­n’t stop lis­ten­ing to that AFI album? Seems like so long ago. I guess you’d only remem­ber if you’ve been read­ing since 2004/2005, when we did stuff like this.

I won­der if I’m still too young to feel nos­tal­gic. It seems like the only peo­ple who rem­i­nisce are those who are much old­er than me, but I already get nos­tal­gic about my uni­ver­si­ty days, when things were relaxed, I could sleep in, or skip class, and I did­n’t have a mort­gage to wor­ry about.

The Regret Of A Night Lost

I should be hap­py. Or feel­ing bit­ter­sweet, at least. On the one hand, I’m thank­ful to have had the chance to share so many things with her:

  • lis­ten­ing to Bring Me The Disco King (Lohner Remix), as she sat curled in my lap in the dark­ness of my room
  • runs for bub­ble tea before set­tling in for the night with a movie or two
  • a road trip to Toronto, where I got to intro­duce her to my friends, Pacific Mall, and drag­on’s beard can­dy
  • par­ties at Pat and Jen’s, with board games, Rock Band, deli­cious food, amaz­ing peo­ple, and gen­er­al silli­ness
  • moments like this
  • look­ing into her eyes while our bod­ies were locked in blan­kets on the liv­ing room floor
  • read­ing my favourite parts of The Prophet to her
  • just the two of us going to dim sum on a beau­ti­ful Saturday morn­ing, and intro­duc­ing her to a med­ley of new dish­es

But there’s one thing I regret, and that’s not being able to spend the night with her, for she had nev­er slept over, you see. Sure, there were times when we stayed awake well past sun­rise, with only the touch of hand and flesh as silent dia­logue, my desire to pro­long the plea­sure dri­ving my will to stay awake to every moment pos­si­ble with her. Those are some of my favourite mem­o­ries. But the sleep that even­tu­al­ly took us was only our bod­ies pass­ing out briefly from exhaus­tion, and when we woke, she’d be gone soon after.

There are oth­er things I wish I had had the chance to do while it last­ed — shar­ing a relax­ing bath, pho­tog­ra­phy and video ideas, get­ting involved in a deep co-op game — but none of them were as impor­tant as a night spent sleep­ing togeth­er.

A long time ago, I wrote about how a girl­friend helped me fig­ure out the impor­tance of the night because of my ear­li­er romances, and the sit­u­a­tions that nev­er let me share some­thing as sim­ple as sleep, the most inti­mate of inti­mates.

In a rela­tion­ship, shar­ing the night is more impor­tant than shar­ing flu­ids. Falling asleep with some­one is an accep­tance of trust, a way of say­ing that we’re com­fort­able enough to drift into our sub­con­scious minds.

Perhaps it was my fault for keep­ing her awake. I won­der now, if on one night, I should have let myself sleep, instead of let­ting our pas­sion take us long into the next day.