Category: Slice of Life

Toronto Trip: Strange Weekend

Travel

Yesterday morning, a Saturday, I packed up a bag and headed to Toronto via train for a short vacation, its ultimate purpose being to see The Smashing Pumpkins for their Spirits on Fire tour. It was to be my first time spending a night away from Scout since adopting him last spring and despite my excitement at taking this vacation, I also worried about how he would handle it. More than that, I would miss my boy!

He was in good hands, though; My brother and his girlfriend agreed to care for him while I was away. I gave Scout his breakfast and a big cuddle, then I set off for the train station just in time. That in itself was an interesting experience, because the last time I’d taken the train (from Montreal to Ottawa) had been nearly 15 years earlier, so I truly had no recollection of the area. I had the sense, as I was walking up to the station, of already being in a different city.

My short long-weekend adventure had begun.

The train ride itself went fine, and we arrived at Union Station on time, but not long into the journey I began developing a migraine and it only got worse with every passing hour. The sun was piercing through the window (of course I had taken a window seat, right in the path of the sunbeam) and though I closed the curtain over the window, there was nothing for it: the migraine was intent on developing. I spent most of the ride breathing through the discomfort, returning messages, and tinkering with projects on my phone.

I… also had to use the bathroom at one point, and the amount of swaying that the train did made some ordinarily simple business into a comical and tricky balancing act. While nursing a migraine.

Suffice to say it was An Experience.

Thankfully, after the train arrived at the station getting to my accommodations simply meant a short subway ride and then a brisk, rather straightforward walk from the subway station, right along Church street, through the heart of Toronto’s gay village.

I had to do a double-take when I passed by a record shop because when I had glanced in the window, I had noticed the shopkeeper trying to wrangle a flailing pigeon in the window display. When they noticed me trying not to laugh, they gave me a sheepish look, still trying to catch the music-loving bird, and I went on my way.

It was a relief when I stepped into the house I had booked a room in. Quiet, the entry hall dark. Considering that the migraine was starting to get nauseating, the dim environs were a blessing. I climbed a narrow staircase, reached an equally-narrow landing, and let myself into my room.

It was all dark, heavy wooden furniture, elaborate embroidered art pieces, and grey walls with an electric fireplace. I was charmed.

I changed out of my travel clothes, freshened up a little, and tried to pluck up the nerve to go out and eat, but simply couldn’t. The thought of eating made me feel sick, and my head pounded like hell unless I covered my eyes and curled up in a ball, so I ended up unintentionally falling asleep.

I woke up well after dark, and while my migraine had almost entirely dissipated at that point, and some restaurants would still have been open, I decided to well and truly call it a night and just get into bed.

The next day, I vowed, I would truly feast.

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When I woke this morning, despite my gnawing hunger, I felt a whole lot better. I double-checked the map on my phone, put on an outfit, and set off on a walk. As is sometimes my habit when I’m in a new urban area, I found the restaurant I wanted to order from right away, but kept walking past it at first in order to explore the street I was on a little more. And on Yonge street, there was certainly plenty to see, both in terms of the types of shops I found, and in terms of the graffiti that urban artists had scrawled in the margins of the buildings everywhere.

On the way back, I happened to walk up to an enormous gathering of pigeons and instead of scattering and waddling away from me like Ottawa pigeons normally do, they all rushed over to me, some on foot, some flying, and cried out for food. I was more amused than alarmed by them… but I certainly wasn’t about to share my delectable sandwich. I kept on my way and they let me.

The egg BLT sandwich on Japanese milk bread was almost too good to be true. Soft, fluffy, flavourful… I was in heaven. Their house-made hash brown stuffed with seasoned mashed potato was utterly delicious too. It was just the sort of rich meal that my stomach had needed.

I had intended to go on a Haunted Walk tour in a pioneer village, but the only time slot that worked for me sold out before I could buy a ticket. There was a later time slot available, but there was no way in hell I was going to return to my hotel alone near midnight after experiencing the (delightful) creepiness of that place.

I shook off the small disappointment and once again headed out, this time to another part of the city but despite having looked the shop location up on the map, I… got lost. I got off at the right stop on the subway, but upon exiting, I lost my internet connection, and so for a bit just wandered up the wrong side of the street I was on until I finally reestablished connection and had to do a big U-turn. Even then, I accidentally missed the shop, tucked away off the main street as it was, and when I finally did find the place, I was a little tired but incredibly relieved.

Members Only Waffle House

A little waffle house that deals exclusively in salacious puns.

That is, in waffles shaped like penises and vulvas.

And just in case you’re wondering whether it is simply a gimmick, it’s not — the waffles are cooked and topped to perfection. Firm on the outside, velvet-soft on the inside, the one I was saddled with was an absolute delight to eat.

The staff were extremely attentive, guiding me through the ordering process with a plethora of euphemisms, double-entendres, and puns. I left a satisfied customer.

Instead of loitering around the shop to take my first mouthful, I walked a little further down the side-street until I eventually found a little park. There, I sat, admired the perfectly-garnished member, took a few selfies with it (of course), and then finally enjoyed my glorious treat.

Ahem.

I returned again to my room sometime before the sun began to set, and after a bit of hemming and hawing decided to try a pub that had intrigued me the night before. A certain Storm Crow Manor.

Only problem was, I hadn’t thought to bring my trustiest D20 with me. But it turned out alright and we’ll get to that.

Even going there as late as I did into dinner service that evening, I almost didn’t get a table. Despite how much I enjoy quiet places and keeping to myself, a packed restaurant or concert hall offers its own sort of comfortable anonymity. And being among so many other nerds was great too. Come to think of it, I hadn’t been in that kind of atmosphere since before the pandemic started, when I’d gone to my last board game café night with friends, or attended a comic convention.

They had to search through their seating charts for a bit but eventually found me a table and led me on what felt like a labyrinthine path through the manor to get to a room on the upper floor. The Star Wars room, as it turned out. Just across from where I sat, overhead, was a model of the Millennium Falcon suspended from the ceiling, surrounded by an small field of asteroids and a plethora of smaller ships approaching from somewhere above my left ear.

There were many things on the menu that interested me (including a Dragon Ball themed noodle bowl!) but none more so than their signature customizable burger made by rolling a D20 and filling in a character sheet for it. When the server asked if I needed an explanatiom for how to roll and fill out the character sheet, I held up a hand with a chuckle and said, “no, I’m good, thanks.” Mercifully, they provide a D20 to all patrons that need one, as not everyone carries a D20 everywhere, but I sorely missed my dice collection in that moment. Still, the die I was given served me well, and I rolled several crits!

For the most part, I did just go with the roll of the dice, but I admit, there were a few instances where I made some adjustments. In the case of alignment, though, I was kind of annoyed when I rolled a crit and had to choose my own instead of being saddled with one. I selected Chaotic Neutral at first, hesitated, scribbled it out, and selected Chaotic Good instead. Chaotic Neutral behaviour. Ha! It reminded me of my old character Helecretia, though. She was possessed by a chaotic god (or demon) and so whenever I had to make a choice, I would roll a D10 to determine what her alignment was in that moment. I would also change how I spoke during the session whenever I changed alignment. My group… was not particularly fond of that playstyle choice. Heheheh…

But I digress.

The burger turned out pretty tasty, all in all! Though the side salad was so enormous, I could only eat about half of it in one sitting. I named the character (burger) The Sagacious Gunner… but if you look closely at the photo of the character sheet, you’ll notice I misspelled Sagacious.

Alas. I am incorrigible.

At one point when I was partway through eating, the lights in our room suddenly turned red, and The Imperial March started playing. A very familiar voice then filled the room, as a harried server scurried past our tables holding the speaker’s helmet aloft. The music ended. The lights turned back to normal.

A table had ordered a Darth Vader themed bowl of punch.

Man, it was frickin’ awesome.

There were individual bathrooms dotted throughout the establishment, but the majority were down in the dungeon so after paying for my surprisingly entertaining meal, I made a beeline for the bathroom area. I simply had to see it for myself.

After descending multiple flights of stairs, I reached one covered overhead in skulls, and figured I must be in the right place. I found the sign saying ‘CONTAMINATION PROTOCOLS ACTIVE’ to be rather a comforting one. At the bottom of the stairs was a concrete-covered landing with tons of doors, all of them looking like they were out of horror, science fiction, or straight-up zombie apocalypse scenarios. The message spray-painted at the end of the hall gave me a chuckle. I loved everything about it.

I selected decontamination chamber 0005 and, well, decontaminated.

It appealed so well to my sense of humour, it almost didn’t seem real.

It was the type of place so filled with attention to detail that you could go five times, be seated in different rooms, and have completely different dining experiences each time. Which is to say, I would definitely go back if I ever visit the city again.

Re-connecting in the Market

Photo Reflections, Slice of Life

Yesterday afternoon, I went to meet with a friend from university at the Galerie Lee Matasi Gallery in the Byward Market where she was showcasing her artwork. The last time I’d seen Stephany was at the same place this past June for the vernissage of the Ottawa School of Art’s graduation art exhibit, to which she’d contributed several pieces, having just completed her program. That evening, the place had been sweltering and positively stuffed with guests, so we’d had very little time or space to have a proper chat, especially since so many others had come out in support to see her work.

In stark contrast to that first meeting, the gallery yesterday had been quiet and cool, virtually empty of guests other than us. When we’d exchanged hellos, she led me through the front doors and then turned off to the right side, ducking into a bright corner room with high windows and an exposed ceiling. With the afternoon sunlight giving the entire room even, natural lighting, and the soft yet bright colour palette of the pieces she had put up, the space felt effortlessly warm and inviting.

My gaze was immediately drawn to one watercolour in particular, however, and it took some effort to look elsewhere. The piece she had called Affection was just that beautiful.

Though Stephany is an interdisciplinary artist, she has a particular affinity for watercolour, a medium she has been passionate about painting in since I first met her. All of the experience she’s had in painting with it, cultivating her talent over the years, really shows in her pieces.

We had the little space to ourselves when we arrived, and Stephany was kind enough to oblige me with in-depth explanations on the meaning of each piece in the room; I took a picture of her artist statement when we arrived, but I didn’t read it until later that evening. The artist statement feels appropriately professional and left plenty of room for the viewer to form their own impressions of each piece.

On the other hand, Stephany’s in-person explanations for Re-connect were deeply personal, as she had a warm, sometimes humorous anecdote to tell me for each piece. The exhibit as a whole is a tribute to her mother, who passed away. In acrylic paint, a medium that her mother loved, Stephany reproduced four photos that her mother had taken and shared on social media for family — photos of things that represented elements of who she was as a person.

For some paintings, she took extra care to make colours true-to-life (a particular brown bowl that her mother had always made a certain Cambodian salad in represented the taste of home), while for others, she embellished the subject of the photograph, paining it the way that her mother’s aura had felt (in Bloom an ethereal flower is held up for the camera in her mother’s hand).

The piece she had called Crabapples had sort of stumped me when I had first seen it in the graduation exhibit; as pretty a painting as it is, I just hadn’t been able to guess at the significance behind it. Yesterday, I got the answer. Stephany explained that whenever they’d gone to parks and come across crabapple trees, her mother had excitedly gotten out a plastic tub of a container and they’d picked the best specimens to bring home to be made into a spicy dish that Stephany assured me is very tasty. I couldn’t help but laugh in surprise, because I’d grown up believing they weren’t edible. Her anecdote completely changed the way I viewed that painting, especially with the way she described her mother’s enthusiasm.

The watercolours, meanwhile, were Stephany’s recreation of three family photographs that held particular significance for her, each transformed through the aesthetics of her soft yet vibrant colour choices.

When she’d answered my (many) questions, she let me finish admiring the watercolours — that is, until she let out a sigh of annoyance, punctuated by a short laugh. When I asked what was wrong, she showed me how someone had rearranged her business cards so that they no longer went in the order they had been meant to go in. Originally, she had arranged them so that taking one card (the Witch in the foreground) would reveal a different card (the Familiar in the foreground), each with her name and contact information on the back. I snapped a photo of her artistic vision once she’d rearranged them. I was laughing at her being particular about the setup, but only because I know I would have had the same reaction.

I took home a card with the pensive Witch in the foreground, in case you’re curious.

When everything was back in order, we left the gallery and headed for La Catrina, a small family-owned churreria/café in the Market, whose fare I have thoroughly enjoyed several times now. We both decided to try their churro ice cream bowls to cool down, and they were exactly as delicious to eat as they sound.

Though… we got chased out of the restaurant courtyard by a very insistent wasp soon after we started eating. Luckily our churros were entirely portable, so we took it as a good excuse to walk through the Market and then over into Major’s Hill Park, the good weather having attracted plenty of locals and tourists alike.

We considered crossing over the bridge into Gatineau once we reached the little lookout over the river that gives a clear view of the Parliament from the back, but it was getting hot and we were both in need of a cold drink. So we headed back the way we had come in search of iced tea.

At the tea shop, we both immediately set our sights on their jasmine tea, of which there were two varieties, and had a laugh with the worker behind the counter when we asked what the difference between the varieties was and he admitted he wasn’t certain. Flavour-wise, one was just a bit more strongly scented than the other; the other difference was that one variety was the type of leaf that has been carefully rolled by hand (that is the type that I have at home, that I drink on special occasions).

I first tried jasmine tea when I went to Japan in 2012, and had lunch at a Chinese restaurant there. It was a good meal, but easily overshadowed by how much I had loved the delicate fragrance of the jasmine tea. It remains one of my favourites, still. Stephany explained that it is a variety that she drinks often because it was a fragrance her mother adored (she grew a jasmine tree and used to pluck the blooms and tuck them in Stephany’s hair). It was a cool coincidence that we both immediately gravitated to that particular tea.

We decided to take a walk around the terrace of the Rideau Centre as we sipped our iced jasmine teas, and by that time, it was late afternoon so the sun was turning a golden orange and preparing to set. Even though I have lived most of my life in Ottawa and went to the Rideau Centre often starting in my teen years, it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I realized you could actually go up onto the roof and that there was a nice, quiet terrace up there.

We’d covered so many topics by that point in our conversation that, finally giving in to sitting down on a concrete bench, we got out our phones and began exchanging photos and anecdotes about our cats (hers, Marcel, is a grey tabby that, like Scout, gets into a great many shenanigans). We laughed. We talked about family, creative pursuits, developing a good work-art-life balance, and about web design. And then we parted ways and went home.

To be brief: it was a really good afternoon.

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You can find Stephany Lay’s portfolio, shop, and socials [ here ].

Speak

Photo Reflections, Slice of Life

This was the first morning I haven’t woken up in a cold sweat in at least a week.

Also, it was my birthday yesterday.

Ah, the little things we take for granted.

I couldn’t get this Friday, my actual birthday, off work so I took Monday off instead, and I have every intention of using the long weekend to get more words in and do some much-needed cleaning up in the apartment. I celebrated my birthday by having a private crying spell (a yearly tradition), and feeling silently grateful that I am still alive — a feat that manages to seem both miraculous and nondescript.

I received messages from family, friends, and acquaintances, wore a favourite outfit to work, and afterwards, went grocery shopping with my parents. When I got home, after having given a very excited Scout his supper, I noticed that I’d just missed a phone call from my grand-mère and so I quickly called her back, hoping she would pick up. She did.

We had a short, but really heartening conversation, laughing a lot about nothing, really. It feels like a privilege to have conversations with her now, because for a very long time, I hadn’t been able to.

When I was really little, before the age of six, maybe earlier, I spoke French quite readily. I am told that French had been my first language, the language that my papa and I spoke to one another in, the only language his side of the family understood and spoke.

I have a crystal-clear memory of being in my grand-mère’s vegetable garden behind her house, and explaining to her that a coccinelle, in English, was a ladybug. She’d been showing me how they were nibbling on the leaves of some of her plants, and I’d been excited to share the word with her. I must have been three or four years old, and we would have been visiting my grandparents on their farm in Québec for summer vacation just before heading on back to Gander, Newfoundland, where were living at the time. She still has that memory too. Because it was the last time I truly spoke to her until I was well into adulthood.

Close up of sunlight lighting the leaves of a blueberry plant, the blueberries still not quite ripe.

I spoke English with my mom and with her side of the family (who only understood and spoke in English) but I had favoured French in my early childhood, apparently. That changed for some reason (or maybe a host of them) around the time I turned six.

Whereas before, I had spoken in French with both my papa and my other relatives, I suddenly became terrified of speaking in French around them. I understand French, and particularly the thick, Québecois country dialect that my relatives speak, very well. I went to a French school and was completely fine speaking in French there, but in the presence of my close family members or relatives, I could no longer utter a word. I would merely nod my head yes, or shake my head no. After many years, I was able to start saying the words oui (yes) and non (no). Then in my teenage years, I became able to add s’il-vous-plait (please) and merci (thank you) to my yes/no utterances when I wasn’t too anxious.

I always knew what I wanted to say, and the words would form in my mind, but I couldn’t get my mouth to open — or if it did, no sound would come out. And when it did, it was limited to the phrases above.

I couldn’t say je t’aime (I love you), so I’d give my grand-mère a hug instead when she said so to me, and hope she recognized the sentiment being returned in my expression as well.

Though I was never formally diagnosed, I had likely developed selective mutism as a child.

A dog with black, red, and white fur sniffs the sandy exposed ground of the inside of a shed, the back walls filled with debris. Just behind the dog is a filthy, once-white door without a handle.

In my late twenties, I began speaking a little more. Just a little, and only when I was one-on-one with a relative, which I had avoided as much as possible as a child and as a teenager, because it had made me feel too anxious, knowing I couldn’t hold a conversation with them.

Knowing they couldn’t understand why.

I… couldn’t understand why.

A couple of years before I turned thirty, after a long, slow decline in health and mobility, after going from being a hardworking, hands-on farmer, to a person receiving round-the-clock hospice care, my grand-père passed away peacefully. The last time I’d visited him, he’d regaled us all with some stories (including one about a time he’d taken my grand-mère on a date), and had been trying to make us all laugh, as he usually did. Just before it had been time to leave, he’d taken my hand and exclaimed, c’est si p’tite! (it’s so tiny!) and started crying through a laugh. Everyone else was crying. I couldn’t, not until later, privately.

I just held his huge hand. Smiled warmly back at him.

It’s how I wanted him to remember me.

In the background of a frozen farm landscape stands a low, lone mountain, its peaks all rounded. In the distance, the sun is setting, colouring the snowdrifts in gold and dark blue.

So many people packed into the church the day of his funeral, so many more people than I had expected, so many people that I didn’t know. As one of his immediate family members, and as his oldest grandchild, I’d been one of those lining up along the pews to greet each guest who arrived, each one of them stopping to offer their condolences and to shake our hands as they filed in and took their seats. It felt strange, like I should be offering many of them my condolences instead, because some of them had known him far better than I did, even though I only exist because he once lived.

I still spoke very little at that point, but my grand-mère had made a request of me a few days earlier; she had wanted me to read a prayer in French, aloud, during the ceremony. I didn’t know how I would manage it. I didn’t know if my voice would fail me. But it was important to her, and I’d given her so little over the years, given my grand-père even less, maybe, so I accepted. The night before the funeral, my grand-mère handed me the prayer which had been printed on a sheet of white paper, then folded twice. It was long. It took up the entire page. She took my hands and thanked me for agreeing, told me how much it meant to her that I would read it. I believed her. I didn’t know how I would do it, just that I needed to. Just that I wanted to.

I read it over several times, but didn’t memorize it. Couldn’t.

There were butterflies in my stomach.

I had an accent now when I spoke in French, my first language.

It was sad, but it was reality.

Partway through the ceremony, the priest called me up to the front of the church, and I held the paper in my hands, stood up, and went up to the microphone, smoothing the paper out on the little stand in front of me, holding my tears in check the way I had been the whole day, while everyone else cried.

I began to recite the prayer, and my voice worked.

It was amplified by the microphone, echoed throughout the hall.

I said the words for both of my grandparents, and then I returned to my seat, shaking, finally.

My relatives all expressed their gratitude afterwards for my having recited the prayer, my grand-mère most of all. I was glad — am glad — that I could do that for her. That small-huge thing.

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The weather that afternoon was perfect. Sunny, warm, but with a nice breeze.

We went back to my grandparents’ house, to their farm with its little mountain view in the distance, and stayed outside till supper, most of the cousins (and some of the aunts and uncles) playing catch and football on the lawn near the vegetable garden, while I sat under a tree in front of the house and read a book, my close relatives stopping by in ones and twos to comment on the book I was reading in Japanese, and to talk to me a little, while I did my best to respond in shaky French.

Close up of my legs folded on some grass, lit up in bright, direct sunlight. My mustard-yellow skirt is fanned out in the grass, while I hold a book in my lap: the Japanese edition of "Catwings Return" by Ursula K LeGuin. Before me, a pair of well-worn brown cowboy ankle boots sit at the ready in the grass.

I like to think that my grand-père was gifting us that perfect outdoor weather as a final goodbye.

It’s such a good memory, and incredibly bittersweet.

After that day, I started being able to have conversations with my grand-mère, even ones over the telephone — which is saying a lot, because for most of my twenties, I couldn’t even have conversations on the phone in English.

I initiated a ten-minute conversation with my grand-mère on the phone yesterday.

And we laughed, and caught up, and chatted, as though we’d been doing it all our lives.

A field dotted with white and purple wildflowers sits in the shade of several trees, beyond which the sun is setting. In the centre of the field a silver fishing boat lays overturned. It belonged to my grand-père.

That does still sort of feel like a small miracle.

Delving Into Subconscious Times Past

Dream Diary, Music, Slice of Life

2022-07-30, approx. 1:00 pm

I don’t remember the true beginning of the events that followed, but I have a sense that I had spent the previous day at work. Where I worked was a strangely vertical, cramped area above someone’s rather gargantuan living room. I recognized the living room. It was either a very strange imagining of the living room of someone I grew up with, or it was a living room that I used to dream about as a child. Either way, my workstation was above this living room, which had a chasm in the centre of it. I never saw the chasm, I just had the very profound sense that it was there, and that that was why we kept our gazes high or level, and had to use things like ledges, bridges, and rope-swings to get from one side of the living room to the other. When I was in that lower, living room space, I felt like I was a kid again, interacting with other kids. Moving around and across the living room with trepidation, gravity, and a paradoxical ease that I may not felt as an adult. There, I played video games with the other kids whenever we reached the TV — more than likely, we were playing on N64, Dreamcast, or PlayStation, but I don’t remember any specific game or console from the dream. Up some steep, carpeted, curving stairs, was my cramped, carpeted workspace, with other coworkers. I didn’t recognize any of them, and maybe that is simply because I didn’t truly interact with any of them in the dream.

It was a new day.

It seems that I lived with my parents, or at least near enough to them that I could go over in the morning before work and ask if I could drive one of their four cars to my office. This is strange for two reasons: I do not currently and have never had a driver’s licence, and they have never had more than one car at any given time. To make matters stranger, after accepting, my parents told me to take the car “at the end”, a vintage vehicle, newly restored and looking pristine.

I protested, but they insisted.

Off we went to work — and I do mean “we”. My parents also insisted on coming along. I’m not certain what the rationale was, but when we arrived, my mother wanted to have a look around and, of course, chat with anyone in the vicinity. I felt very stressed, knowing this, but for whatever reason I had truly needed to borrow a car to get to work that morning, so I mustered up patience and tried to get on with things. Sure enough, as soon as we’d parked and gotten out of the car, she began chatting with everyone we passed, though thankfully, it seemed, not with anyone I worked for or with directly. From the outside, my office appeared to be a trailer, a truck, or a luxurious shipping container — that was the sense I had, even though I never looked at it directly during the dream. It seemed to have some sort of vertical protuberance, like a tower, jutting out of it. This small-seeming exterior of course belied the fact that the fully-carpeted interior contained an upper floor that served as an office for who-knows-how-many workers or companies, an enormous split-level main floor that served as the house of someone I had been friends or acquaintances with as a child, and in the centre of all of that (of course) a fucking abyss.

No big deal.

My mother wanted to come into the office and attempted to do so, despite my protests.

The next thing I remember is that I was just outside the back of a Winners, and that it was winter — or at least cold enough for me to have shrugged into what seemed to be a new coat before walking over. I didn’t work there. Nevertheless, I went through the back door — me and a couple pushing a cat in a coat in a stroller. I found the sight both endearing and bizarre. Though I did not seem to find it unusual to be entering the store from the nearly-unmarked back. The room that we found ourselves in was well-lit, but had strange dimensions, with a winding foot path cut through piles and stacks of children’s toys, mainly. The couple wheeled over to a miniature aisle (child-height) in order to look through new clothes for their curiously-calm cat.

In the top-left corner of the room, there was a very small flat escalator, moving in an oval around that small section of the room; a loop with no apparent purpose other than perhaps to entertain children and keep them in one place. I got on it and when I did, I was at such an angle that I could look through a large window set into that back corner, looking down into the rest of the store, which strangely seemed to have been built continually downward, below ground level. From that vantage point, I also noticed that down below the window there was a separate conveyor belt that you could get on in order to be taken down there.

So I got the hell on it.

Down below was a large, mostly empty atrium of sorts, with a few patrons passing through it, mainly crossing from doors and hallways at opposite ends of the room. I turned away from the conveyor belt and followed a rather dark corridor leading back from where the upper-level window had been.

The next thing I remember was being in my aunt ’s living room, though a very strange version of it. She’s the one that used to babysit me and make me Delicate Cookies when I was a kid living in Newfoundland; still one of the best recipes in my collection. I don’t get the sense that she looked like herself in the dream, but I knew instinctively that it was her. I was with at least one other person — my brother, maybe, but I can’t remember who it was. In her house the living room, dining room, and kitchen are all on the same level, with a door separating the living room from the two other spaces. In the dream version of her house, the living room and darkened dining room were on the bottom level, and then walking up a small set of stairs took you to a small, purposeless landing, where you could take another small set of stairs to reach the kitchen at the top. It was all open plan.

In reality, she is still sound of mind and reasonably healthy, physically, but in the dream, she seemed confused and kept putting things in unusual places. At one point, she startled when I came near her and explained that she’d actually been sleepwalking the whole time. I felt unnerved. The house was very dark, all the curtains drawn; the only light that had been on had been the one above the stove. She led me and whoever I was with away from the kitchen, over toward a set of double doors. Beyond them, it was broad daylight, and other relatives were sitting on the patio chatting and laughing as if nothing had been amiss.

I sat and stayed for a while, but then suddenly I was walking out into another large atrium, brightly-lit and far more cavernous than the one at Winners had been. I recognized this place; much like the living room abyss, this was a location I had dreamt of more than once in my childhood.

It was the McDonald’s corporate headquarters, it was the 90s again, and a gaggle of families were there with their children, sitting at the heavy, restaurant-style tables scattered throughout the atrium, eating cake. Some sort of celebration was underway, but we had likely arrived just as it was winding down.

My parents led me and my brother through that carpeted main hall without stopping for cake.

We were little kids again. Six and three.

One section of that main hall had been walled off in glass or plastic barriers and filled with child-size tables and chairs so that kids could mingle freely on the inside while their parents watched on the outside.

For some reason this detail stuck out in my mind: one kid in a dress, sitting on a chair, shoes just barely touching the carpeted floor, eating cake.

I don’t know what my parents were looking for, but it clearly wasn’t cake.

They led us all the way over to the other side of the atrium, where barely anyone had chosen to sit, and then into a corridor. It was carpeted too, and felt both too-clean and still-grimy, the way old airports tend to when they don’t get the foot traffic they used to. It was too quiet back there, and I started to feel uncomfortable.

Then my little brother and I were alone.

I don’t know why, just that we were.

So we had to be brave — I had to be brave.

I took my brother’s hand and started to walk back through the corridor we were in, though I had no idea where we were going, or how to find our parents again. I tried not to let my fear show. A few people passed us, but we weren’t to talk to strangers, and curiously, they paid us no mind. Finally, after wandering through several corridors without success, we came upon a glass door that led into a unlit room. My little brother opened it cautiously, and together we stepped just inside, the both of us holding the door ajar. The light from the corridor gave us some sense of what was in there. To our left were pools of water, the water running and overflowing gently into each one. I didn’t like being in the dark, but there was something strangely calming about the dark pools of water, like they were the beginnings of an aquatic garden.

My little brother tightened his grip on my hand, and I looked over at him quizzically.

Which is when my eyes caught on the sight that had alarmed him.

Eyes.

Countless eyes flashing back at us from the other side of the room, the humanoid figures that belonged to them shrouded in shadow.

A cry caught in my throat, and holding even more firmly to my little brother’s hand, I pulled him back from the room into the hallway, the glass door shutting behind us as we broke into a run, going back the way we had come.

Or at least I assumed we were heading back the way we had come.

We were utterly lost, fear sharpening our reflexes and making our panicked minds go fuzzy.

At last, we ran into another room, this one lit from above by pot lights and filled with rows of large, oval tables, some sections of the room fenced off with plain chain-link panels. But there they were: our parents.

Sitting at one of the tables and eating some sort of meal — though not cake.

The rest of the room was conspicuously empty, and my hackles rose.

My parents seemed rather relaxed and unbothered, and somehow I knew that their food had been laced with a drug of some kind.

We needed to leave, all four of us, as quickly as possible.

Something told me that the eyes that had stared back at us from the depths of that darkened water-garden had been adults like our parents at some point, having been whisked away to be experimented upon after having ingested the tainted food. I kept urging our parents to follow us and leave, but they didn’t have any real sense of urgency. They were humouring me.

I kept hold of my little brother’s hand, and we led the way, but the hallway was darker coming back out of the room than it had been going in, and we slipped off into a side passage where I hoped we could avoid notice so that our parents wouldn’t be captured. This new corridor’s walls were made of curving glass, and utterly dark; I thought there might be some sort of liquid on the other side of them, but I couldn’t be certain. The floor was a wooden boardwalk suspended in water and lit dimly from below. Water sloshed up over the wood, the walkway bobbing and swaying, as we made our way across.

My brother and I were so busy looking at our feet to make sure we were walking on the planks of wood and not getting our little feet caught in the watery spaces between them, that we didn’t notice the researcher’s approach until it was too late.

From the depths of the snaking, eerily-lit corridor, a figure wearing a full diving outfit, complete with glass and metal bubble helmet came lunging toward us, and —

I woke up.

Scout, eyes wide, stared back at me from the foot of the bed, curled up on a light brown faux-fur blanket.

I woke up to Scout giving me a quizzical look from the end of the bed, because I’d just emerged from a frankendream and probably seemed rather flustered and sweaty. I’m not actually certain when I fell asleep, but given that the dream-turned-nightmare went four levels deep, I have to assume I was under the influence of the stranger parts of my subconscious for a good hour or two.

Not long after that, I made myself presentable, gave Scout and early supper, and headed out to my brother’s house for a family dinner.

Seven cod tongues frying in a cast-iron skillet, most of them already golden-brown on the top.

A dinner that featured a roast expertly-prepared by my brother’s girlfriend, sweet corn shucked by my brother and I (inexpertly, according to our very amused and somewhat exasperated father), and fried cod tongues, a belated birthday present for our mother, whose favourite food is exactly that.

As soon as I got in the door, though, I was greeted by two cardboard boxes: one filled with some LPs from my mom’s twenties, and one filled with tons of not-for-sale singles from her days as a radio DJ and morning show host that she’d been allowed to take home from work and keep. My father didn’t have any records, because instead of those, he’d been collecting 8-tracks and cassettes, all of which he’s long had converted to mp3 files. He seemed particularly delighted when we unearthed a single by The Alan Parsons Project (Side A: Eye In the Sky / Side B: Gemini), one of several bands, apparently, whose works he’d collected almost entirely on cassette.

Close up of a single on vinyl; in the background, the inside of a cardboard box filled with more singles on vinyl is visible.
Close up of a single on vinyl; in the background, my younger brother is seated on the floor, looking through other vinyls

I felt a little indignant about the fact that my parents used to listen to those sorts of bands but would always just put on soft rock radio stations at home instead of playing cassettes/records of albums that they personally collected. What gives?! Which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy the music on those stations. I just. Could have had more exposure to rock and albums made to be listened to as whole works of art much earlier — rather than simply listening to individual songs in isolation the way I did for most of my childhood.

The important thing, I suppose, is that I’m trying to work through a backlog of cool sonic journeys now, as an adult. And enjoying all the new ones that are coming out currently.

ALICE NINE.‘s as-yet-unnamed album will be one such epic sonic journey, I’m quite sure, especially given how cool the lead track Funeral is, and the passion that Saga currently seems to be pouring into the recording of said album, if the following tweet is anything to go by:

Half of the album has bass solos,
I’m playing acoustic guitar the whole way through on I dunno how many songs,
And I’m singing the chorus, rapping, growling, chanting, and doing backup vocals, so 😇
What’s my part now? 😇

Live still of Saga singing during the chorus of a song for their their tour finale in December 2021.

I love Saga deeply. Reading that update made me so very happy.
Let your passion and musical talent be unleashed even more!
My ears, my mind, my heart, and my imagination are in for such a treat on release day!
楽しみだよ！♥

Live photo of Saga holding an acoustic guitar just before playing a song, taken during the 2021 Saga Birthday Festival concert.

Ahem. Back to discussing the family dinner.

When my mom noticed the gold pearl ring on my finger, while we were chatting between supper and dessert, she expressed how pleased she was that I still wore it, because she was the one that gave it to me when I was twelve (it used to be hers), but then my father chimed in to explain something about it that I hadn’t known. Apparently it had originally housed a ruby (mom’s birthstone), but the ruby had fallen out long ago. When they’d been living in San Diego as newlyweds, they’d repaired it by having a pearl set in the ring instead. My mom insisted that the pearl had been chosen from a clam “at a Japanese garden”, while my father had insisted that the pearl had been bought “at Sea World”; maybe they were somehow referring to the same place. My little heirloom just got more mysterious.

After dessert (an incredibly rich wild blueberry custard pie that my brother’s girlfriend had picked up from the farmer’s market), me and my brother’s girlfriend exchanged an inordinate number of cat photos (…okay, I admit, it was mostly me showing her a ridiculous number of Scout photos), as well as some recommendations. She advised me to listen to Lizzo’s newest album Special (I did so while doing dishes this morning and it elevated the entire experience into something playful and joy-filled), while I advised her to listen to Beyoncé’s RENAISSANCE in full because, where Lemonade was an album imbued with a confidence born out of anger and hurt, RENAISSANCE is an album filled with confidence couched in ease and trust — both powerful for different reasons. I also recommended she listen to the latest Billy Talent, Crisis of Faith (a rallying cry for social justice and compassion wrapped up in a truly hard-hitting, excellent sound), and to my brother, I recommended OFF-TRACK, Steve Neville‘s first solo album, created and recorded while he was undergoing cancer treatment, and you can hear all the humanity and raw emotion of that experience in the sound on the record. His sister Jacquie Neville and former bandmate Liam Jaeger participated in the creation of the album as well.

As an aside, the Neville siblings and Liam Jaeger were the founding members of The Balconies, one of my favourite bands, which happens to have been formed in my hometown of Ottawa, Ontario. I never actually attended a show when Steve was part of the band (he left shortly before I managed to see them live), but I did attend the very last concert they played for their 10th Anniversary on February 3, 2018. It was stellar. They also released a final album at that point, “Show You“, that boasted recordings from 2012 — compared to their last two albums, Fast Motions and Rhonda, the sound on Show You was a lot more ‘garage’, and it featured earlier arrangements of songs that had come out on later albums. It was a great surprise release at the time, is what I’m saying, and I recommend it.

Just after dessert, my father made a big announcement: he’s going to be interviewed for an internet security podcast this week (he’s a big name in the white hat/security world). As someone who listens to a lot of podcasts during the workweek especially, I thought that was pretty cool and I’m looking forward to listening to the episode, even if a lot of the shop talk goes over my head.

If you’re curious, some of the podcasts I listen to regularly are ones like RISK! (since like 2014 or 2015 — incredible cross-section of true stories that are moving, hilarious, filthy, shocking, and thought-provoking), Getting Curious with JVN, Writers Ink, The Secret Room, What Was That Like, The Dark Paranormal, Financial Feminist, Hiroto’s Voicy, Kei’s SYNERGY twitcast, and lately, the back-catalogue of Supercontext, which I can already tell is going to become a bit of an obsession for me. I’m currently listening to a detailed examination of David Bowie’s Blackstar album, and then I’m on to an absolute treat… an in-depth analysis of one of my very favourite comics: volume one of the incomparable space opera, Saga (art by Fiona Staples, story by Brian K. Vaughn).

And no, it’s not a favourite just because it shares a name with Saga (though I love that link). It definitely delivers on the “space opera” front, has a diverse cast of characters (including plenty of queer ones), incredible art and witty writing, is steamy and filthy in all the right ways as well as being perfectly fluffy and romantic when the mood calls for it, will move you to tears, and then later make you laugh with its often dry and irreverent sense of humour.

It’s a favourite because the comic series itself, both visually and narratively, is stellar.

And I was today-years-old when I realized that they actually started releasing new issues of Saga again this January after a long hiatus; their 10th volume is going to be published this October, so I might wait to buy that and then start buying single issues after that. Yet another thing to get very excited about.

Okay, I’ll stop waxing lyrical about Saga2. （´・ω・｀）

It’s a long weekend, so I get to stay home and do more creating tomorrow.
Back to writing and editing TE9…

Time Lag

Slice of Life

It is Thursday.

I had convinced myself it was Friday.

I must now face the reality that I have another work day ahead of me tomorrow.

Goddamn it.

Work this week has largely consisted of training four other coworkers in a fairly rule-intensive indexing job, so I’ve been doing a lot of getting up and flitting between desks in order to address issues and answer questions. Training employees is work that I generally enjoy, despite my shyness and awkwardness (and overabundance of quips and boring jokes). It certainly makes the work day go by faster.

My week’s been pretty alright, is what I’m saying.

I just wish it were already the weekend.

A black and white furred cat lays stretched out and bored-looking on top of a kitchen table.

I sat down to do a bit of writing before bed tonight, and managed a couple of paragraphs before sleepiness took hold, but as is often the case these days, Scout simply had to add in his two cents before I closed the window. His contribution to this sentence-in-progress is as follows:

If the universe and the collective imagination/imaginary share the same property of being without known limit, then perhaps they are, 000000000.222222222222222222222222222 (by Scout)

You know… it isn’t half bad.

I had a real titter over his good grasp of theme.

Which reminds me: earlier this week Scout gave me both a bit of a scare and a bark of a laugh when I settled in for a bubble bath. He started out very wary of the tub, and has gradually grown incredibly fond of hiding in it to ambush me from behind the shower curtain, as well as being incredibly fond of watching the tub fill with water or peeking around the curtain at the fountain of water when I’m taking a shower.

A black and white furred cat, its forepaws perched over the edge of a bathtub filling with bubbly water, looks back at the camera with an inquisitive expression of devastating cuteness.

When I’m relaxing in the bath, he likes to sit by the door and supervise, peer over the edge of the tub, or else walk along said edge and touch the surface of the water with his paw.

A black and white furred cat inspects his waterlogged tail and back paw miserably.

Well, earlier this week it finally happened: Scout slipped and got a scare when half of his body got drenched with bathwater. He didn’t injure himself, thankfully! But he resented the tub for the rest of the night and slunk off (after I patted away the excess water on his fur with a towel) to lick himself dry.

He looked so miserable I didn’t want to laugh, but he was alright… and it was hilariously cute.

In case you’re wondering: he harbours no lingering ill-will toward the tub. The next morning, when it was again dry, he hopped in and proceeded to ambush me while I sat on the toilet. As usual.

All is well.

Ontario Storm

Slice of Life

In the afternoon yesterday, I suddenly got an emergency alert on my phone warning residents to take cover as a severe thunder storm was about to blow through the city. I’d known that there was a thunder storm on the horizon, having checked the weather earlier that morning, but it had seemed odd to me nevertheless to send out that sort of alert for a thunder storm. Sure enough, it blew through the downtown area, and the downpour was strong, but it wasn’t particularly out of the ordinary.

Though the white slats in blinds, grey, rainy weather is visible, the tail lights of cars and lit street lamps visible but blurry through the downpour. In the foreground, the silhouettes of potted plants on the windowsill are visible.

If you’re wondering how Scout handles the sound of thunder, I’m happy to report that he is as cool as a cucumber.

So far the only thing that truly seems to scare Scout is his hairbrush…

But I digress.

A white and black furred cat snoozed sprawled out and contented on a brown, white, and lavender bedspread.

The most interesting thing that happened in our abode was that the toilet began gurgling and bubbling, unnerving both Scout and I at first… but after it quieted again without the water overflowing (thankfully), it seemed more funny than anything else. Indeed, other than that, I just worked on the CSS issue I wrote about in the previous entry, and Scout napped contentedly on the bed.

Which is why I was puzzled when I got a text from my parents on the family group chat urging us all to stay inside and that they were sheltering in their basement. I was downright shocked when they sent us photos some time later of what it looked like outside their front door after the storm had finally passed in their area.

Our cherry tree had been uprooted by the wind and fallen over on the neighbours’ car. Two enormous trees across the road had been uprooted and fallen as well. In another picture they sent, the tree and entire sheet of grass that covered the front yard of a neighbour two doors down had been uprooted all together and fallen over. If they hadn’t sent photos, I wouldn’t have believed it.

View of uprooted trees and driveways strewn with debris after a powerful thunder storm.

A storm like this, the likes of which we never used to see in these parts, is climate change in action. Rightfully alarming.

Several people so far have been reported as having died in the Ontario storm (as it’s being called), and there were several injuries as well. Tons of uprooted trees, flying debris, and downed powerlines, the widespread likes of which we haven’t seen in this region since the huge ice storm of ’98 (I was in elementary school back then, but I remember it vividly). My parents lost power and as of my writing this, it still hasn’t been restored, because people have lost power all over the region. It’s incredibly fortunate that my area wasn’t hit with a power outage or the heavy wind and rain that my family members’ and friends’ areas were subjected to.

It took until late at night for us to get back in contact with my brother, who had lost cell reception, internet and power early on, but for whom the storm seemed otherwise fairly typical in strength (like it did in my area). His power was restored overnight.

I’m glad that everyone is okay.

View looking up at cherry tree blossoms in full bloom, lit up bright pink in the sunlight, the bright blue sky visible between the flower-laden boughs.

I’m also sad that the cherry tree is gone… it had been growing in the front yard since before we moved in in ’97, survived the ice storm in ’98, had been home to countless bird nests over the years, and was just beautiful to look at, especially in the spring.

木漏れ日

Photo Reflections, Slice of Life

I needed to clear my head yesterday afternoon, so I got ready and went out for a walk downtown, intent on eating my first gelato of the year. We’ve only just barely started spring in earnest, but it was already 30 degrees with the humidity, and the streets were filled with people in sandals, pushing strollers, eating out on restaurant patios, and admiring all the tulips blooming in the parks and city planters.

Close up of a blurred purple tulip with more yellow and red tulips visible in the background, sun filtering in through a hedge and a cherry tree.
My hand holding a cup with two scoops of gelato in it; bright mint green on the left and a soft rosewater cream on the right.

With mint chocolate and rosewater flavoured gelato in-hand, I wandered up the streets towards the park, deep in thought. I spied a chipmunk dashing through an expanse of tulips and wondered what it must feel like to be that little creature, to live that exciting little life in this comparatively huge city.

Close up of blooming mauve tulips in a sun-drenched park.
Close up of blooming white and pink tulips in a sun-drenched park.

For all its wonder, for all the amazing innovations we’ve managed to make, human life feels, sometimes, so unnecessarily complicated. We so often long for things that we cannot actually have, or that were never for us to begin with. Our world isn’t just made up of a little territory, our home range, or a migratory path — it’s global. It takes practice to like and appreciate what you have when you are constantly shown all the other possibilities that exist. It takes practice to understand, as an adult, that slowness and quiet are luxuries, when the rest of your days are filled with packed schedules that don’t leave you any time to think. When you constantly think to yourself, how is it already insert-month-here?

It is Sunday, as I write this, and outside my desk window a light spring rain has been falling, making all the vegetation and brick buildings I can see look so much darker, more vibrant with the rain. After all the heat we’ve had this past week, the rain has been sorely needed. It is Sunday, which also means that I’m indulging in my weekly cups of coffee… meanwhile, Scout hunts birdie (his favourite toy, a red bird) on the bed.

Funny story about birdie…

That toy started off being attached, by a string, to a stick so that I could make the toy fly around and land for him to catch it. He enjoyed that well enough for a few days, but eventually started getting annoyed with me. At a certain point, he started catching birdie in his mouth, setting the toy aside, and then attacking both the string and the tip of the stick where the string was attached. Until finally… snap! He bit clean through the thick, springy string and liberated birdie!

A black and white furred cat ignoring a red bird toy on a bed in favour of chomping on a wooden stick.

Oh, was he ever pleased with himself! I cut the rest of the string off birdie afterwards, laughing, and he’s been carrying birdie around in his mouth ever since. He likes for me to throw birdie for him as well so he can catch it, tumble around with it, and then bring it back to me for another throw. The toy is starting to lose some of its stuffing, so I’ll have to sew it back up soon… I’ll also have to see if I can buy a backup, though I’m sure he’d realize it’s birdie-the-second, and be annoyed with me again.

Looking down at my feet on the hardwood floor where there is a torn packet of cat treats and a guilty cat snacking on a scattered booty on the floor.
A black and white furred cat peeks out from behind a white shower curtain where he is hiding in a bathtub.

Speaking of which, shortly after the birdie’s liberation day, I came home from work to find that Scout’s bag of insect-protein treats had been curiously torn open, the treats strewn across the living room floor. When I asked Scout what had happened, he gave me a look of practiced innocence and then went about snacking as I tried to remain stern and not laugh. I suppose the treat-fairy must have liberated the treats from their bagged oubliette. We may never know.

When Scout first came to live with me, he was very curious about the bathtub, and loved to get up on his hind legs to look into the tub (whether it was filled with water or not), but he wouldn’t jump into it. Brave as he is, he is nothing if not cautious. He had to carefully study the tub over the course of a couple of weeks before he finally jumped into it of his own accord. He absolutely loves it in there now. Whenever I go in to use the toilet, he’ll follow me (I’ve given up on shutting the door behind me) and then hop into the tub to play behind the shower curtain. He is not a fan of showers, because this means he has to wait outside while the water is running. Sometimes he will meow at me in protest. He prefers when I take baths so that he can stick his paw in the water and take a nap on the bathroom floor.

A church steeple and a the branches of a cherry tree in full bloom stretch up towards a deep blue, sunny sky.
Close up of the white blossoms of a cherry tree, with a tall stone building in the background, the sky overhead a pale, cloudy blue.

On my way back from my walk yesterday afternoon, I kept stopping to admire the cherry trees in bloom, the surest sign of spring that there is. The driveway of my childhood home has always been flanked by two dark pink cherry trees, so I grew up gauging the changing of the seasons by the way that those particular trees looked at any given time of year; I love their gnarled branches, and how both trees together used to form a canopy over the driveway, whether they were flowering, laden with leaves and cherries, or covered in snow and ice in the winter.

Before the pandemic started, I’d decided I was going to move to Japan and so in preparation had gotten rid of a lot of my things, taken a part-time sales job while I sent in applications and prepared for a JLPT exam (that, at least, I accomplished), and then… the momentum that societies worldwide had been functioning on changed or stopped entirely. Borders shut down. A lockdown was put in place in my city. The new job that I had started had to let me go because of lockdown-related shortages (thankfully, the government covered me and many others financially during those months). I had to cancel the trip I had planned and paid for to Japan for that month to go see THE ALTERNATIVE in concert (they had to postpone the concert, too). The last overseas teaching job I’d applied to turned me down shortly after, and I gave in to despair, my mental health deteriorating as the lockdown lengthened, the pandemic showing no sign of letting up.

It’s hard to think about that period of my life, for a lot of reasons. I feel shame at how I acted. I feel shame at the beliefs (not to say delusions) I came to hold. I don’t really want to revisit those here. But it took me far longer than it should have to understand that I had the ability to change and improve my immediate circumstances and wasn’t as “stuck” as I had come to believe; that started when I moved out of my parents’ house and into an apartment again and began living by myself. It was a relief to all of us. Even though it wasn’t what I had truly intended to do, it was a step towards the goal I’d originally had. That real subsequent isolation also allowed me to face a lot of things that I hadn’t allowed myself to face before then, and it allowed me the privacy to finally start online therapy which I hadn’t been willing to do in earshot of my family members.

The pandemic disrupted all of my plans, and I gave into despair and delusion instead of using the time I’d had while out of work to get my novel written… to get literally any of my short stories finished. To cultivate self-respect that would be worthy of respect from others. To use the financial support I’d been given while temporarily out of my new job to write fiction, to sharpen my translation skills, and to study for the final level of the JLPT so that I’d have even more job opportunities. I will always regret that. Even if the things I did, the private letters I wrote at the time comforted me in a way and did come from a genuine place, however warped they were by things I was dealing with in my home-life. But I can’t change the choices I freely made back then. All I can do now is reconsider what my goals are and how to get there from here.

After several months, I was welcomed back to my full-time position at the office and began life as one of the “essential workers” in the city that could go in to my physical workplace even when we entered more lockdowns. I carried a letter from my employer that would confirm I had the right to be out and use public transportation even during lockdown periods; that was an interesting experience that I may never (correction: that I hope never to) experience again.

And finally, in my own space, though I wasn’t past the sense of despair and certain bouts of delusional thinking, I began to write in earnest again. Though this had to be done around my work and commuting hours. Still does. I’ve gotten into the habit of spending my Sundays writing because I don’t normally have the energy to do any after work during the week (lately I like to do a bit of translating before work every morning, though, to wake my brain up).

Sunlight filtering in through leafy green treetops.
View of a long kitchen, a cat trotting in towards the camera from the doorway. On the counter is a steel mixing bowl filled with chopped red cabbage and flour, while beside it lies a fresh nagaimo in a vacuum sealed bag.

Do I want to teach, do I want to write copy, or do I want to translate? Do I want to try again to live in Japan, or do I want to move to a city like Vancouver, where I can get a direct flight whenever I have the time and the means to visit? I don’t know. I don’t entirely know. Scout hasn’t given me a clue either, but he’s a little adventurer, and I feel certain he would be up to trying whatever I decide is best for us.

I find it so soothing to see 木漏れ日sunlight filtering in through trees; to be in partial shade where leaves are lit up a bright green wherever the sunlight is trying to pass through, shadowy everywhere else. The lens flare in the photo above has such incredible coloration, such a mysterious birdlike shape.

I got home and gave Scout his supper (which he was certainly delighted about — and he’s gotten very good at doing the food dance before I even start to do my answering pirouette), then set about making mine. Since I was able to get my hands on a very nice 長芋nagaimo at the asian grocery store (along with packets of 焼あごだしdashi, which they hadn’t stocked in forever) the week before, I was able to make my first batch of お好み焼きokonomiyaki in a long while (I make mine based off of this recipe). I can’t get any 青のりaonori here so I top it with parsley flakes instead. I used to buy お好みソースokonomi sauce but I stopped because I could never use all of it in time… I suppose I should hunt for a good recipe so that I can make it at home as needed. In any case, okonomiyaki is one of my ultimate comfort foods. And this time, I tried making it with a red cabbage! I prefer using thinner, softer cabbage for okonomiyaki and cabbage rolls, but this very thick variety was all I could get my hands on. Still, with extra nagaimo and steaming time in the pan, it turned out soft and delicious.

Close up of a freshly pan-fried okonomiyaki, bright purple because of the red cabbage used to make it.
View, looking down, at a place setting with a Saga-logo glass of water and a red cabbage okonomiyaki slathered in mayonnaise, parsley flakes, and bonito flakes.

And gorgeous. Look at that mysterious purple hue.

And my maidenhair fern peeking out from the top of the right-hand photo… it really did bounce back from what had seemed at the time like death. The rain has entirely stopped now, and it’s turned into an afternoon just as sunny as yesterday’s. Scout has switched to enjoying the fresh air coming in through the open window in the kitchen… and I’ve now finished drinking all my coffee.

Close up of a black and white furred cat with striking yellow-green eyes lying on a sparkly purple blanket and resting his paws on a furry grey cat tree in front of him.
A black and white furred cat sniffs the lifted blinds in front of a partially open window that looks out into a sun-drenched street, the room comparatively dim.

Yesterday, it wasn’t just the effects of the pandemic that had me ruminating, but also the grief I wrote about in the previous entry regarding how it had taken me such a long time to get the help I needed for my mix of mental illnesses. The event that initially caused PTSD in me as a pre-teen would not have had the prolonged, lasting effect on me, would not have snowballed into cPTSD if I’d received the treatment I needed back then. If someone had chosen to set my proverbial broken bone back then, I would not be trying to treat all the secondary effects now as an adult. I was a child when it happened, I was a pre-teen; there was no way that I could get the help I needed for myself the way that I am learning to now.

For this, and any other type of grief, it is true that there are really only two ways to make it better. You have to be able to face it honestly, to honour how you feel, and move through it, not bypass it. It takes time, and it heals in fits and starts. I felt so angry, such hurt yesterday, thinking about what might have been. And so I wrote up a storm in my private journal, and I let myself feel all of it, and then… I went for a walk to ground myself in what actually is. I can’t go back and change anything, though that fact alone didn’t and still doesn’t melt away my hurt as if it were nothing. I just let my thoughts take their course and stopped to find all the small details along my walk that reminded me of the beauty and mystery that there is still to be found here and now. The things that make my artist-brain light up.

Close up of light grey wood planks studded with old nails and covered in the criss-crossing shadows of a geometric-patterned guardrail.

I think it is the province of dreamers and romantics to constantly imagine what might have been and what could be; this is an incredible skill to have. But it can hurt just as easily as it soothes. It can motivate just as readily as it can demoralize. When your imagination is strong, making peace with reality and moving forward in a self-compassionate way isn’t always the easiest task.

It’s okay.

It’s okay to take your time. It’s okay. You need to.

Close up of small lavender-coloured flowers blooming above a patch of rough, light grey stone.

I am repeating that reassurance to myself as much as I am writing it to you, reader.

我が輩のお城でござるにゃ。

Slice of Life

Yesterday morning I went to visit my parents and help with an afternoon of errand-running. My father is still healing after a recent surgery, and while the healing is going very well, he’s still not able to do any heavy lifting. That’s where I came in. I went to help with pushing the shopping cart, loading some heavy and unwieldy purchases into it and then into the car… that sort of thing.

On the way to their house I encountered a few photo opportunities, as I’ve been working on lyric translations lately, and decided to start adding photos to each one. In particular, I took photos that made me think of the lyrics to Waterfall (in my parents’ neighbourhood) and PENDULUM (on the stairs of an Ottawa train station).

I got in some shopping while helping my parents run their errands, and once we were done with with those for the day, my parents drove me back home, along with a very unwieldy purchase of my own… a cat tree for Scout!

My studio apartment isn’t huge, but it’s the perfect size for one person, especially given that there are plenty of great walking spaces nearby. For an indoor cat, however, I figure it could get a little dull, which is why I invested in a fairly large cat tree so that Scout would have more vertical space through which to enjoy in the apartment.

This was also the first time my parents were to meet Scout, and they were the first people to come over for a visit since I’d brought him home, so we weren’t quite certain how he would take to new visitors in his territory.

Very well, as it turns out.

He was quite happy to brush up against both their legs and allowed them to pet him a little bit. He’s not social exactly, but he’s certainly not shy either. Given how anxious yet bold he was in his initial explorations of our apartment, I’ve taken to describing him as brave. That’s the core of his personality. He liked my parents and my parents liked him… I couldn’t have asked for a better first impression.

After they left, Scout got a late afternoon snack and so did I (a grilled eel onigiri and a curry bun… I had bought a taiyaki too, but I decided to save it for today), after which we got to work on building his cat tree. He mainly helped by inspecting the tree at each stage of the build for structural integrity. My fluffy foreman.

Through the reflection in a solid-wood framed mirror, the partly-built grey frame of the cat tower is visible. Scout stands on the second level, sniffing one of the fleece-covered support beams while I take a photo of us from behind the structure, holding an allen key in one hand.
Scout hugs one of the support beams of a light grey fleece covered cat tree, sinking his claws into the sisal rope of the support beam. On the level above him, the building instruction booklet is propped open by an allen key where it lays flat in front of a cat condo.

If you’re wondering…. yes, the cat tree is slightly taller than I am.

Only by a few centimetres, but still. It was a challenge to secure the final level of the tree without a proper stepladder, but I got it done on tiptoes, all the while chuckling at my own shortness.

Scout was ultimately pleased, not least because he got two presents: the cat tree and the box it came in.

流石だにゃ。

He’s been surprisingly good about respecting my things and not meddling with the altar of objects in the refinished fireplace’s old hearth. He also loves walking along the mantel of the fireplace and relaxing on his twinkly purple knit blanket. Or jumping onto the bed from the other edge.

He’s still a little unsure about the structure as of this morning and never stays in the tree for long, but as he continues to interact with it and understands that it is a space just for him, I’m sure he’ll spend more time in it. It’s not visible in the photo above, but I’ve placed it right next to my desk, in the hopes that he’ll start to snooze and hang out there whenever I’m home writing (or doing whatever at my desk).

Meanwhile, I restored the second bench to my kitchen table (I’d been using it, temporarily, as a way for him to access the fireplace mantel before we got the tree), and moved his food dishes out to the side of the kitchen table beside my usual bench… so that we can still eat side by side, but we can have a guest over, too. The reading chair is in as cozy a spot as ever, but now Scout sits up on the window ledge beside me (and Whiskers’ memorial box) and, well… scouts!

Scout, the black and while cat, eats a meal on the floor of our kitchen, lit with natural light. Beside him is a narrow kitchen table in dark grey wood and upholstery, a poster of Saga above him, a framed print from Kei's utopia album beside him, and a print of a painting of a person with three cats stuck in their long hair from Stay Home Club above that.
Bands of late-afternoon sunlight adorn the wall above an ornate antique chair upholstered in gold fabric. A pillow with a black cat wearing a skull with antlers on it sits on the chair. Beside it are some trinkets on a windowsill, a memorial box filled with Whiskers' ashes, a heater covered in a length of navy checkered fabric, and two prints on the wall of paintings by niyoels.

Side note: he rubs my legs and twirls excitedly whenever it’s meal time, so I’ve started twirling with him and exclaiming food dance, food dance! just before I set down his food-laden dish. Because I am very cool, you know. It’s kind of reminiscent of the magic spells that they put on your meals at maid cafés. The food dance yummifies Scout’s food. We are still in the early research stages of this hypothesis. The verification process thereof is both serious and what you might call “fun”.

Anyway, halfway through the build of the cat tree I started developing a migraine, but building furniture is so damn fun I managed to push through the pain and complete it before curling up in bed and calling it a night. I gave Scout his supper before that of course, but only had enough energy to make myself a bowl of cereal and sluggishly eat it before it was lights out for me.

This morning I did some more translating; I’m working on ユクエシレズ by VOLLAND GUMP… the solo project that 沙我 released quietly under said penname back in 2015. I started translating it a while back but didn’t feel quite able to finalize it because my Japanese wasn’t at a high enough level to handle the nuances. It’s a really great song, and the tone of the music and the lyrics is really complex and beautiful. Saga’s singing soars with the heightened emotion of the lyrics, searching for meaning in the pain of reality that is laid out through the lyrics. The project’s website and youtube have recently been taken down so I can no longer link to the video that enhanced the meaning of the lyrics even more, but the lyrics themselves with the music are more than enough to give you a sense of the song’s urgent search for meaning. It’s beautiful: listen for yourself, if you haven’t before.

Other than that, I’ve been getting this blog of mine organized. I went through a very long (recent) period of intense anxiety in which I started writing a lot of blog entries (and other sorts of posts), but ultimately couldn’t bring myself to push the post button. Many of those pieces of writing remained unfinished, after having lost the nerve to continue them halfway. Some of them I’ve since deleted, some of them I may end up finishing at a later time. One post in particular, which I wrote last August about my birthday, I finally backdated and posted this morning.

To say that Social Anxiety Disorder (along with the other diagnoses that I have) has negatively impacted my life would be a massive understatement.

In November of last year, after having suffered two successive, major panic attacks in a single evening, I finally filled a prescription from my doctor and started taking medication to treat my host of mood disorders.

While the stigma surrounding mental illness has eased considerably in recent years, and eases more with every passing day in Canada at least, the culture surrounding it was very different when I was a kid. For many reasons I didn’t think I “had it bad enough” to take medication (spoiler alert: I do have it bad enough), was discouraged from taking medication from the adults in my life, was told to keep my conditions private, and was told to just think positive when I originally brought my concerns forward to an adult I trusted as a pre-teen, barely more than a child. All of those experiences sunk into me on a subconscious level.

Not to mention, said adult I trusted insisted, all the way up into adulthood, that I shouldn’t medicate.

I finally went against their cautioning and trusted my own judgement.

In the months since taking medication, I have had no major panic attacks (these generally entail hyperventilation to the point of causing chest pain for weeks afterwards), and have had only a handful of minor anxiety attacks (these generally entail racing thoughts, pounding heart, rapid breathing, crying, a sense that my life is ruined, or that I’m in danger even though I’m not… etc).

I used to have what I called a “minor” anxiety attack just about daily, sometimes multiple times a day.

That was my reality for years, my sense of normalcy.

The medication that I take has sort of taken the edge off a little, so that I’m starting to experience what it feels like to live without constant anxiety attacks and depressive episodes that leave me completely drained and unmotivated. In the months since going on medication, I have had to sort of grieve all of the time that I spent living with anxiety that could have been treated with medication. Anxiety that prevented me from doing so many things. Anxiety that kept me exhausted and confined to my bedroom.

I am an introvert and a homebody, so I naturally enjoy being at home, doing things on my own, and socializing in close-knit settings… but there is a gulf of a difference between often choosing happily to stay home, and being too terrified to go out and do things, or meet like-minded people.

Who am I without constant anxiety distorting my choices?

I grieved the life I might have lived through my teen years and twenties. I grieved the truer choices I might have made, and the abusive situations I might have avoided. I grieved my past, while also gearing up build a better future, while learning to live in the moment more… and trust my own judgement.

A tall order.

But one that I (and anyone else living with similar conditions) have the ability to fill.

Close up of a maidenhair fern sprouting through the dark soil of a planter. In the background daylight streams in through the blurry slats of a window.

I bought my maidenhair fern last year and it thrived for about a year until, for reasons I still don’t understand, it simply died. Or so I had thought. I kept sadly giving the dead fern water because I had loved the leafy plant on my windowsill so much. One day, I was astonished to see tiny green buds in the tangle of dead stems and leaves. I did some research, and sure enough, this dramatic plant has a tendency to return from the dead! I pruned away all the dead leaves, removed the planter from direct sunlight, and kept the soil moist. Finally, the biggest bud unfurled into a fuzzy little frond!

Well. The first night that I brought Scout home, I went to bed and woke up in the middle of the night to a bit of a commotion going on in the kitchen. Sure enough, that little scoundrel had decided to prune the leaves off of not one but two of my plants. One of which was my poor little fern.

I despaired.

I laughed.

I sighed at the wheatgrass that I had started growing for Scout just a day earlier, not yet tall enough for him to eat.

Despite the interruption into the fern’s cycle of regrowth, though, it has continued, and is now a tiny collection of fuzzy little fronds. Not one of which Scout has decided to prune. He’s too busy enjoying his patch of wheatgrass on the living room window sill… success.

Scout and the maidenhair fern are not so dissimilar, actually.

Scout, a black and white furred cat, naps sprawled out happily on a bed covered in a white blanket.

When I was setting up the adoption appointment for him over the phone, the counsellor told me a little about his history (specific details for which had not been available on their website); that’s how I knew I was about to adopt the right cat. He was a stray that someone had found nearly frozen in a snowbank this past winter. No previous owner had come looking for him during his treatment and fostering period, so it is likely that he had been an outdoor or farm cat, perhaps regularly going to eat on some kind human(s) porch(es) and otherwise fending for himself. He isn’t feral, as he seems very comfortable around and friendly towards humans, though some “normal” household things have completely perplexed him (like mirrors, filled bathtubs, and water faucets). But for whatever reason, through a stroke of luck, he survived his near-death experience and bounced back with the help of the humans who found him.

I wanted to call him Phoenix or Ghost because of that story, but Scout fit his personality much better.

I’m just so happy I get to be his human and keep him warm.

Thank you for choosing me, Scout, my sweet boy.

The Cat’s Pyjamas

Slice of Life

After over a year of trying to make conversation with my houseplants,

I finally made the happy decision (after careful consideration) to adopt a cat.

This is Scout ★

As soon as I met him, he brushed up against my legs and then anxiously set about examining every nook and cranny of the enclosure we were in. He did the same when I brought him home, nervously darting from his carrier to bravely scope out the terrain of our home. He’s as resourceful as a boy scout, and as inquisitive as Scout Finch. I had thought of so many names for this little 4-year old rescued stray before my adoption appointment, but when I experienced his personality firsthand, I knew he was a Scout.

He has already turned on the PS4 twice on his own by pressing the PS button on a controller. He was so hilariously matter-of-fact about it too!

I feel so lucky that I get to be his human.

Welcome home, Scout! ♡

The 300

Slice of Life

I started the New Year off with an unexpected urge to write again, which was a delight and a relief all at once. I’d tried several times since the last piece that I put up here, to complete a short story or even get back to writing a quick poem daily, but the blank page was proving to be an impossible adversary.

300 words.

It really isn’t a lot, but that was once my daily word goal. And it’s what I managed yesterday. From winter 2018 to spring 2019, I was between jobs, my 5-year job contract having ended, and so, while sending out applications for new ones, I figured — hey, why not dig into my novel more consistently? Thus the 300 word minimum was born. I resolved that, between waking and going to sleep every day, I would write at least 300 words; but I often wrote far more, if I was feeling particularly inspired. I stopped when I was hired at a new office and started putting more emphasis on reading and writing in Japanese (not that my use improved all that much!).

So. 300 words.

After so long struggling with writer’s block, yesterday’s 300 words felt like 3000.

It was also a lot more tiring to my brain than I had thought, because after laying down to read (The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith), I got through just 2-3 pages before I drifted off, mid-evening. Only to wake up just after 2AM.

ALICE NINE. have a song called RAINBOWS, and in it one of the lines is:

さあ行こう　2:00AMの革命
Yeah, let’s go to the 2:00AM revolution

That’s a slapdash translation, but you get the picture.

So for an ALICE NINE. fan, waking up at 2:00AM is always kind of a delight… It delights me, anyway! Everything was sort of thrown out of whack in 2020, and I’ll be the first one to admit that I didn’t handle things well. At all. In normal years, waking up early or going to sleep very late usually meant I had hit upon a well of internal productivity… this year it generally meant I was panicking about something.

Today? Hmm. The jury’s still out on that one. But here I sit, in my worn babydoll and fuzzy slippers (…seriously, my brother’s girlfriend gave me some for Christmas lol). And I am not only writing a blog entry, I’m waiting for my rice cooker to click so I can go sauté something up on the stove to go with it.

Instead of a 2:00AM revolution, I’m having a 2:00AM supper.

(It is actually past 3:30AM as I write this… shhhh)

The fuzzy slippers, by the way?

They’re pastel-rainbow colour.

So I thought to myself, “Excellent! I’ll be walking around on Mt. Fuji every day!”

Only family will understand that super dumb joke.

Ah. The rice is ready.