Posts tagged with "trip"

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My sin­gle-lens reflex used to be a con­stant com­pan­ion on my trips, some­thing I car­ried with me every­where so I could have visu­al records of my expe­ri­ences. Nowadays, my only inten­tion is sur­vival. Always try­ing to make sure I’m nev­er too hun­gry, tired, anx­ious, or sober, lest I have break­down in an unfa­mil­iar place. It leaves lit­tle room for com­fort, even less for any form of artis­tic expres­sion. Fortunately, I always have with me a smart­phone with a cam­era. It may not be able to give me the razor-thin depth-of-field that I favour, but it can cap­ture things in slow motion, which is great for cock­apoos who are born to fetch.

I thought I was sta­ble enough to make it a few hours in a house alone with one of her broth­ers, but the anx­i­ety attack I had while try­ing to fall asleep taught me oth­er­wise. Being in the pres­ence of a per­son with such a flat affect reminds me too much of the time in my life when I was so numb and bro­ken that noth­ing could pro­voke inter­est or emo­tion. Sometimes I’ll find him in a lounge chair for hours, legs reclined, com­plete­ly motion­less and silent and star­ing into space. Even though we’re all glad he’s home and no longer liv­ing on the streets, being around him can be a dis­com­fort­ing still-face exper­i­ment I’d rather not take part in.


Her mom knows how hard it is for me to leave the house, let alone trav­el to anoth­er town, so she always makes her con­tent­ment known when I show up at her door. The shelves in her house are adorned with pic­tures of cou­ples, fam­i­lies, chil­dren, records of a life rich with friend­ships and mem­o­ries. I’m hon­oured to be among them, for I can­not con­cede to being sig­nif­i­cant enough to take up such space in many oth­er homes.

She’s the clos­est I’ll ever have to a moth­er-in-law, and she gives me a hug and tells me she loves me for the first time as we leave. Heather will lat­er ask if I think it’s true, know­ing how hard it can be for me to process and accept love after so many bro­ken rela­tion­ships with sig­nif­i­cant peo­ple. I tell her I haven’t been giv­en a rea­son believe oth­er­wise.

Visiting Pita

Pita is soon mov­ing to the west coast of Canada, so I went to vis­it him in Montreal on the week­end. We lived togeth­er in res­i­dence in uni­ver­si­ty and for two years in an apart­ment down­town, but had­n’t seen each oth­er in years. I’m prob­a­bly the only per­son to still think of him as Pita, the nick­name giv­en to him from the first week of res­i­dence. There were two pairs of room­mates named Jeff and Peter, so every­one decid­ed that one pair should have nick­names to make the dis­tinc­tion, and that end­ed up being us.

Pita's house

He’s mov­ing out in two days, so his house is a jum­ble of packed box­es and mis­cel­la­neous items.

Continue read­ing “Visiting Pita”…

At the Ontario Science Centre

Back in the sum­mer, ____ and I went to the Ontario Science Centre. The plan­e­tar­i­um was up-and-run­ning, so we got to view the lat­est Mars land­scape pic­tures in 360 degrees. We also arrived at the Science Arcade just in time to see a girl on the stage with her hand on the big Van de graaff, one of those mys­ti­cal flag­ship images you often see in their adver­tise­ments.

We had­n’t been there since we were lit­tle kids, but the inter­ac­tive tests and exper­i­ments are always fun, even when you’re old­er.

Thanksgiving Weekend '07

Ah yes. My first trip “home“1 in about a year and a half, since my par­ents got divorced.

The entire­ty of my trip was in the com­pa­ny of Andrew and Alex, who host­ed me for the week­end. Pictures tell the sto­ry.

Drinks at the Madison

Thumbnail: Wide-angle Madison
Thumbnail: Jason and Kerry
Thumbnail: Alex and Emily
Thumbnail: Anne
Thumbnail: Rob and Sampson
Thumbnail: Alex and Kerry

On Friday night, we went to The Madison to catch up with their old drag­onboat team­mates. The Madison is a mas­sive pub, made from two or three amal­ga­mat­ed hous­es in the down­town dis­trict. A very pop­u­lar spot, which was appar­ent from the amount of peo­ple in it as the night went on.

I had­n’t been out drink­ing in…two years? Something like that.

Continue read­ing “Thanksgiving Weekend ‘07”…

  1. I’ve decid­ed that from now on, the quot­ed “home” will refer to Toronto, and the unquot­ed home will refer to Ottawa []

New Hampshire: Conclusion

Thumbnail: Three drinks
Thumbnail: My clam appetizer
Thumbnail: Jazz night
Thumbnail: Scallop entree
Thumbnail: Tuna sushi
Thumbnail: Chinese food
Thumbnail: Pecan pie
Thumbnail: Guinness in a bottle
Thumbnail: Bath feets
Thumbnail: Fire hydrant
Thumbnail: Frozen river
Thumbnail: Fungus
Thumbnail: Cosmo horoscope
Thumbnail: Live free or die license plate
Thumbnail: The bed in my room

What an over­whelm­ing expe­ri­ence.

There was bare­ly any time to explore; we took one walk and pret­ty much stayed with­in a 10km radius. Too much read­ing, test­ing, and meet­ing to do any­thing else. It felt like the time went fly­ing by, yet dragged on, the longer I was from home.

There’s some­thing about being away. Being iso­lat­ed from your rou­tine and every­thing that’s famil­iar. It’s a dif­fer­ent set of stim­uli.

As an intro­vert, you fall back on mem­o­ries and past expe­ri­ences, and it dri­ves reflec­tion and re-eval­u­a­tion.

I’d be lying if I said that it did­n’t affect me. I learned more about myself in the last two weeks than I did in the last year, and I’ll be writ­ing about it for weeks, if not months.

Continue read­ing “New Hampshire: Conclusion”…