Posts tagged with "self-portrait"

29 1/12: The Adolescent

A lit­tle while ago, I stopped shav­ing. I had the flu for about five days, and already had a five-day shad­ow devel­oped when that began. Then with a lack of social engage­ments, I decid­ed to let it keep grow­ing, lest I lose such a gen­er­ous head start that only began because I was too lazy when I was sick.

I took this pic­ture, and it was more than three weeks with­out touch­ing a razor at that point.

Self portrait at 29 1/12

 

Aaron always keeps a neat­ly trimmed beard, so I asked him how he takes care of it; which direc­tion to shave, what length to start trim­ming, etc. It was strange to be seek­ing shav­ing advice from some­one at this point in my life. Most of the hair is around the mouth and on chin, with only an embar­rass­ing half-dozen wires sprout­ing ran­dom­ly from my cheeks, so it required a touch of main­te­nance.

For a long time, I did­n’t know what to think of it, whether I liked it or not. Aaron said to me, “Sometimes, you don’t need to know”, and I went with that for a while. Maybe time would give me an answer.

Soon after, I start­ed shav­ing again. It was­n’t get­ting any thick­er, and I did­n’t think I could pull it off.

I turn 30 in 11 months, and I still can’t grow a beard.

The Turning 30 Series

Birthday Weekend

At The Japanese Village

I prob­a­bly looked like this the whole week­end, cause it was non-stop awe­some­ness.

The Japanese Village

Last week, Aaron asked me if I want­ed to go to The Japanese Village. I thought it was just to hang out, since we had­n’t had a guy’s night in a while, so I did­n’t clue in that it was for my birth­day until the day of. Aaron told me I could order any­thing I want, as it was his treat, but I ordered the only thing I ever get when I’m there; the filet mignon cooked medi­um rare, which I think is the best in the city. It was good to hang out with him and Trolley again.

And, of course, silli­ness is always present with these guys around.

____ in town

Chilling on the couch

____’s been work­ing two straight months, with­out a week­end off. The last time was when he came to Ottawa to vis­it. Between all the activ­i­ties, we only had enough time to watch one movie — American Graffiti — and between the two of us, we could sing every song that came from this film based in the 60s (me cov­er­ing The Platters, him cov­er­ing every­thing else).

I usu­al­ly only get to see him once a year, so twice in two months was a spe­cial treat.

Cranium Party

I’d love to do games nights on a reg­u­lar basis, but peo­ple aren’t avail­able on the same days, so I used my birth­day as an excuse to get as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble togeth­er for a giant Cranium par­ty. I told them that instead of giv­ing me a present, they should just come to the par­ty. It worked, and we had enough for four teams of three. Some peo­ple also brought snacks, like hon­ey mus­tard pret­zels, car­rot cup­cakes, and fresh­ly baked choco­late chip cook­ies.

It was the high­light of the week­end.

Dim sum with my dad

John and dad at dim sum

On Friday, my dad called me to wish me a hap­py birth­day, and told me he was in town for 10 days. We made plans to have dim sum. ____ came too, which is always inter­est­ing to see his reac­tions to what food is as the token white guy. I had a phoenix talons for the first time1, because I was feel­ing adven­tur­ous, and I have to say that they weren’t bad, but I did­n’t care for them either. They’re too hard to eat, and the sauce was­n’t to my taste. It was strange to see both John and my dad at the same place, and in Ottawa instead of Toronto.

I told my dad he could prob­a­bly sit and observe one of my Tai Chi class­es, so he could see what I do, but he was­n’t inter­est­ed, and I’ll admit that the indif­fer­ence hurt a bit. Afterward, I asked John what he thought as a 3rd par­ty observ­er, and he told me I had a good rela­tion­ship with my dad. I’ll take his word for it.

I needed this

I need­ed this week­end so much. To recharge. To stop think­ing about things. To get com­plete­ly wast­ed. It felt like it was my birth­day the whole week­end, and I won­dered what I did to deserve it all.

  1. It was­n’t the taste, but the look that has always pre­vent­ed me from try­ing them. [↩]

29: The Child

I turn 30 in 12 months.

But it does­n’t feel like I’m turn­ing 29 today. More like I’m turn­ing a‑year-away-from-30. 29 has always been so incon­se­quen­tial. One step on a stair­case before set­ting foot on a land­ing.

Self portrait at 29

 

The thing is, I’m not sure what’s sup­posed to hap­pen when hit 30. I expect some­thing big, but I don’t know what exact­ly. Like I have yet to open my eyes to some­thing. Maybe because 30 has always been adult ter­ri­to­ry in my mind, not 18.

So if I still feel like I haven’t grown up yet, is some­thing going to hap­pen in this year? Something to make me feel like an adult by the time November 13 hits in 2010?

I turn 30 in 12 months, and I don’t know what to expect.

The Turning 30 Series

Swine Flu Movie Reviews

Being sick is one of the most dif­fi­cult things for me. It’s a psy­cho­log­i­cal mind game. Not only am I unable to be pro­duc­tive1, which is some­thing that nor­mal­ly keeps me sane, it’s the only sit­u­a­tion in which I feel like I can’t take care of myself. All I’m left with is this mis­ery, this suf­fer­ing that men­tal­ly wears me down. On a long enough time line (though I’m talk­ing months to years), I lose the will to live.

I start­ed get­ting some symp­toms since Tuesday after­noon, when I was feel­ing faint at work. When I woke up the next day, the symp­toms had got­ten worse. I spat into the sink, and cheered the fact that my phlegm was­n’t dark green, which is the case when I have strep throat (some­thing that seems to hap­pen annu­al­ly to me). I should say that I only sus­pect swine flu, since I did­n’t have a blood test con­firm­ing it, but the per­son who gave it to me told me she had it, so I’m going on her word, and my symp­toms match up with how swine flu is dif­fer­ent from sea­son­al flu.

For me, it’s been:

  • run­ny nose with extreme­ly watery mucous
  • stuffed nose
  • loss of appetite
  • mild­ly sore throat
  • dry cough
  • headaches
  • very slight fever
  • hot flash­es and sweat­ing

This flu, though drawn out, has actu­al­ly been eas­i­er than strep, which is so painful for me that I get fair­ly severe headaches. I went through two entire box­es of tis­sues, and I’m sure I would have gone through more, I had not spent almost the entire time like this:

Nose tissues

On the upside, it was an excuse to drink Neo Citran every night, which I also call Yummy Sleep.

In the five days since I real­ized that I have the flu, I did­n’t leave my house, aside from going across the street to buy gro­ceries. Not a sin­gle one of my friends called me (although some of them prob­a­bly did­n’t know I was sick), which was a lit­tle dis­heart­en­ing, but I did­n’t let it get to me. Jen offered to pick up gro­ceries for me, but I did­n’t take her up on it because the offer was enough of a morale boost.

This time, I sur­vived, I did it by myself, and I’m stronger for it.

To keep myself sane, I watched a record num­ber of movies. Usually, it’s hard for me to watch movies, because I feel guilty for not being pro­duc­tive, but this time I embraced my sick­ness. I may watch one every two weeks when I’m healthy, but this time it was nine in five days (ten if I had­n’t passed out in the mid­dle of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice). Here are some quick reviews. Warning: SPOILERS.

Continue read­ing “Swine Flu Movie Reviews”…

  1. I have the moti­va­tion, but it isn’t enough when my head feels like it’s explod­ing from the inside. [↩]

Horizontal Eyebrow Piercing

Horizontal eyebrow piercing 1

I should start by say­ing that I’ve want­ed a pierc­ing since late high school, either an eye­brow pierc­ing or a tongue stud1.

For some rea­son though, I nev­er seri­ous­ly con­sid­ered it. To me, it was like hav­ing chil­dren; one of those things you know you’d want some day, but don’t take it seri­ous­ly. Then last week, I was sit­ting at my desk and ran­dom­ly thought, “Why not?”. So I slept on it, and woke up the next day still want­i­ng one. That’s when I decid­ed to do it.

My biggest con­cern was that it would­n’t match me. Some peo­ple with pierc­ings look like they’re try­ing to over­com­pen­sate by being part of a “scene”, or by being younger (i.e. the midlife cri­sis, which my dad seems to be liv­ing out with three pierc­ings last year), or it just does­n’t fit their face. The last thing I want­ed to do was get some­thing that screamed atten­tion for the sake of it. Most peo­ple have told me that I’m a far cry from mid-life cri­sis age, but I’ve feel­ing much old­er late­ly.

So I fig­ured that I’d rather get it at this age, than when I’m in my fifties like my dad, when it looks ridicu­lous. But as Tiana remind­ed me, it’s much less per­ma­nent than a tat­too. If I don’t like it, I can just take the pierc­ing out with min­i­mal scar­ring (as long as there are no oth­er com­pli­ca­tions).

So I decid­ed to get a hor­i­zon­tal, because I find that ver­ti­cals are not real­ly my style (and alto­geth­er too com­mon for my tastes). The side seemed some­what arbi­trary to me, and I did­n’t decide which side until I did my hair one morn­ing and noticed that the part on my hair was on the right, and so it seemed like there was a more open space there for the pierc­ing to fit.

Continue read­ing “Horizontal Eyebrow Piercing”…

  1. My work in the den­tal indus­try, how­ev­er, has made me shy away from get­ting any­thing in the mouth, so that elim­i­nat­ed the only oth­er option for me. [↩]