Posts tagged with "Pat"

Pat and Jen's Wedding

Thumbnail: Before getting married

Though some­what hec­tic, every­thing worked out in the end for Pat and Jen’s wed­ding.

Preparations

I missed the wed­ding rehearsal because I had to close the books for the month at work. I did­n’t get to Pat’s place until 9:30 that night, which went late into the morn­ing as loose ends were tied up, and Jason and I stayed up until 3:00 am to fin­ish the slide show.

The girls got even less sleep I’m sure; the last I saw them they were gig­gling in bed like a high-school sleep­over.

Before leav­ing for Jason’s place to stay the night (leav­ing the house for the girls), Pat gave me God of War 2 and Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal as gifts for being in the wed­ding par­ty.

Thumbnail: Kevin and me in the car
Thumbnail: The edge of downtown
Thumbnail: Groomsmen boutonniere
Thumbnail: Ken pins my boutonniere

In the morn­ing we woke up at sev­en, had some muffins and cof­fee, dec­o­rat­ed the cars, got dressed, and raced to the church.

Continue read­ing “Pat and Jen’s Wedding”…

Pat's Bachelor Party

The best part of the bach­e­lor par­ty was­n’t the fact that it was Pat’s first time being drunk1. Or the fact that he was break danc­ing next to street musi­cians down­town (the video of which shall not be shown).

It was the fact that he was com­plete­ly off his guard, too drunk to remem­ber what hap­pened the next day, but he was the same old Pat: fun, friend­ly, and con­sid­er­ate2.

Imbibed by the great truth serum, when all the bad and angry thoughts have a chance to come out, we dis­cov­ered that there isn’t a spot of dark­ness in his soul.

He also said two affect­ing things, lucid in his drunk­en state.

The first, in slurred speech, he advised us bach­e­lors, “Find the right one. Just make sure you find the right one. She might not be the per­fect match, but she is the right one. Just remem­ber that. If you look for your per­fect match all your life, you might not find it. Just find the right one.”

The sec­ond was when he was going around the room, and he came to me: “Jeff, you too. You’re going to live a hap­py life. Sometimes it’s rough on the edges, but you know what’s good for you. You know what’s good for you, you know peo­ple will take care of you. Don’t wor­ry, man. You’re going to live a hap­py life.”

“Life is rough on the edges”, he said. Not that my life is par­tic­u­lar­ly bad, I just don’t han­dle things very well, and this is often when I turn to him. It’s nice to hear from some­one — whose opin­ion which I respect great­ly — that things are going to be alright for me, that peo­ple will take care of me when things get bad.

Because I knew in my heart that when Pat said “peo­ple”, that includ­ed him­self.

  1. Not that Pat has any­thing against drink­ing, as he some­times has a beer with din­ner, he sim­ply does­n’t see the point to drink­ing to get drunk [↩]
  2. About throw­ing up on Mike’s “nat­ur­al-oak, nat­ur­al-stain lam­i­nate floor”, or “wast­ing mon­ey” I spent for his hal­ibut din­ner [↩]

The Tao Tattoo Experience

Part of The Tao Tattoo Series

  1. The Meaning
  2. The Experience
  3. The Background
  4. Tattwo

I decid­ed to get my Tao tat­too about a month before I actu­al­ly had it done. Choosing an artist was­n’t hard. Tiana, who’s awe­some bro­ken argyle tat­too reminds me of insou­ciant kites against a sky, had hers done by Jay at New Moon. After see­ing some more of his work, which fea­tures fine­ly detailed lines sim­i­lar to what I had in mind, I decid­ed to go with him as well.

The appoint­ment was short. A quick check to make sure the posi­tion­ing close to the wrist joint was accept­able, and to leave a deposit.

The recep­tion­ist asked me, “What does the kan­ji mean?”.

“Kanji?”. I ques­tioned her assump­tion, and she quick­ly cor­rect­ed her­self. “Sorry, is it Chinese or Japanese or Korean…?”. I explained the char­ac­ter, and how it’s writ­ten the same way in Chinese and Japanese, the cal­lig­ra­phy being in a Chinese style.

Continue read­ing “The Tao Tattoo Experience”…

Pat Doesn't Need Me

Sometimes I feel like I don’t offer any­thing to Pat. I call him for advice all the time, ask him to give me rides (gro­ceries, fur­ni­ture, large items on which he bar­gains), vent to him. He grew up rely­ing on nobody but him­self, so he nev­er asks me for any favours, and I sup­pose he has Jen with whom to express his feel­ings.

Maybe this is the root of my inse­cu­ri­ty. Pat’s friend­ship with me appears dilut­ed. We’d both take a bul­let for our friends, but mine is a far more exclu­sive club than his.

Pat does­n’t need me.

But I need him.

Embracing My Emotional Reactions

I laugh when I’m ner­vous. Especially around girls I’m attract­ed to — total gig­gle­fest. I also laugh uncon­trol­lably around peo­ple I meet for the first time. People low­er their guard when there’s laugh­ter, and I sus­pect my mind sub­con­scious­ly finds humour in every­thing to put peo­ple at ease around me.

Around peo­ple I hate, I’m dead silent. That’s how you know I don’t like you: if I don’t talk. The mere pres­ence of one of these peo­ple forces me to ful­ly con­cen­trate on not drilling a 4‑inch hole in my tem­ple with a cord­less DeWalt.

Pat’s dif­fer­ent. He told me once that if you ever see him shake his head and shrug his shoul­ders, you’re in his black­list. In an act of faith, he’ll give every­one respect and will even go so far as to stab you in the front, but he gives up if you cross his line of ethics. He’ll nev­er be involved with any­thing relat­ed to you after that. It’s not that he hates these peo­ple, like me, he los­es all inter­est. This is prob­a­bly even worse than my reac­tion which, because his is cold. You mean noth­ing to him. I try to let go as well, but I can’t. In the back of my head I cling to the hope that these peo­ple can change. Sometimes I also won­der if these peo­ple ever lis­ten to them­selves and can under­stand exact­ly why I hate them, because it’s so obvi­ous to me.

I also cry in emo­tion­al sit­u­a­tions. It does­n’t have to be any­thing par­tic­u­lar­ly sad or hap­py, just a time when emo­tions are high. Intense sports games, Tim Horton’s com­mer­cials, some­times just because some­one else is cry­ing. I can hide it pret­ty well though; peo­ple don’t under­stand if you start cry­ing in a seem­ing­ly innocu­ous sit­u­a­tion.

As frus­trat­ing as these emo­tion­al reac­tions can be, I know they make me who I am.

I used to try des­per­ate­ly to remain cere­bral and log­i­cal — like Pat — but my emo­tions would always get the bet­ter of me. Now I’ve learned to embrace them. I could only do this after accept­ing myself and becom­ing con­tent with who I am. They give me some­thing Pat does­n’t have: intense inspi­ra­tion. That rush, when your stom­ach churns, when your head is burns, when you heart flut­ters.

They’re a part of me, and they make me who I am.