Cold feet

The wind whipped up the snow in every direction. The initial storm was done and now the air growled with the smell of gasoline. The snowblower provided the unintended movie magic and did a good job of hiding the tears that had started to blur the letter I had been waiting for all day. A closeup would have perhaps caught the moment. The perfect angle cropping the glow from the screen and the slight crumpling of my face. But there in that manufactured snowstorm there was only you and I and my phone as messenger. The right words at the right time. Again. My socks would have already been soaked by then. Maybe I hadn't even noticed. Somehow, a steaming hot bath was the only thing on my mind when I reached home. After the last-minute MacDonald's promise from the night before, my cold feet were in desperate need of relief. No book or no beer this time around. Just me and my thoughts and the heat. And your words. And suddenly, lyrics from the last song I never wrote. The one I could never properly explain. The one that now explained everything.

You came
And everything went down the drain
All my pain

And then one simple little question, sent back halfway around the world.

the old switcheroo

we were on the big stage, Amy and I. kind of like the auditorium where we had our high school graduation ceremony. despite the size of the place it still felt really intimate - almost like we were being simultaneously filmed and watched on giant screens. she was behind a drum set and i was in a rather large claw foot bathtub with four other guys. my soccer pal Carmelo was at least one of the other three and i'm pretty sure I recognized the other two from Vincent Massey as well. during the "concert" i felt almost compelled to dip below the water and wet my hair. i would come up all slick, then start to feel self-conscious as the interviewer tried to keep the discussion going. i tried my best to draw attention away from the the tiny little curls floating in the dirty water. i temporarily lost track of what Amy was doing but whatever it was, people really seemed to like it. after the show everyone came up to her and congratulated her and asked if she sang as well. most of those same people just shook my hand politely and assured me i as also a hit. i wasn't downright jealous of all the attention she was getting. maybe just a little surprised. but happy at the same time.

the moment of truth

I sat in the bathtub this morning and contemplated life without some of my most precious memories. (No, I don`t often take baths in the morning. But my left wrist is still quite sore from the spill and I figured a shot of heat might counteract all the ice I`ve been giving it.) But back to life without those precious memories. I can`t believe what I thought to be a harmless glitch on my external hard drive has become a life-or-death situation for my life`s worth of writing, vacation pictures and god knows what else I haven`t even brought myself to account for just yet. Amy`s coworkers are on the case but the prospects seem grim. Steven Cohen is running some 24-hour retriever software that worked for him some time ago. Still, everyone reminded Amy to tell me that one backup is never enough and suggested several online storage lockers I could rent for five bucks a month. I will not get into the discussion of how I put all my faith into one dumb little box and just how many dumb little boxes and clouds one really needs to feel good about the safety of their information. Not while my baby is still lying there in the operating room. I`m just wondering if I`m destined to live a life without a recorded past. And, by default, without memory.

waiting for the dust to settle

I am spent.

My body is tender from two days of painting and what feels like countless Insanity workouts. I really meant to go to the hospital tonight but I don't think I would have been much company. Besides, there were some reinforcements for the night.

Instead, I took a long, steaming bath while Fiona clawed at the bubbles from the relative safety of the ledge. Caught up on my book. Caught up on my thoughts.

Then I stood outside in the backyard for about two minutes in my towel. That felt nice.

I've been getting along with my brother lately and so the slow transformation of the old/new Terzo Piano lounge has been quite enjoyable. There was a moment early Sunday morning where I thought I was going to kill him for whipping up a dust storm after taking a grinder to the very stairs we were supposed to be painting. Dust is a terrible thing to have to face on a partial hangover. So I went to pick up some coffee instead. Then all was well. 

I feel like we've been chipping at the place for a solid two weeks now. We go through these very productive bouts. It's the way my brother likes to work in winter and I really don't mind. The goal is to have the downstairs ready for the Billiardini tournament this Friday night.

Then maybe I can slide back into a little more creative work. Maybe spend a little more time thinking through this blog. Perhaps make it a little bit more eye catching. And a little bit more public.

Yes, a little more public.

please, just one more chance to soak it all in

I'm not sure what most guys find so special about the bowl. When i want to relax, I head for the tub.

Tonight's bath was a thing of beauty. Even if I could still hear Chuck Hughes seeping under the bathroom door. it was fairly easy to ignore the iron chef and sink into One Hundred Years of Solitude. I can't believe how good this book has been to me this past month. Perhaps good books always feel that way. Let's just say that between Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Leonard Cohen, I am definitely not lacking in role models.

But what was actually most inspiring tonight was not so much sweating through the final moments of Colonel Aureliano Buendia but the actual bath itself. Something about watching the steam rise and coat the walls of the washroom is therapeutic beyond simply warming my bones. Strange, ever since Davey Cleinfeld and I took that last-minute trip to Spa le Finlandais just before Christmas, I have been counting the weeks until it's fairly reasonable to go back. I have been craving the saunas and steam room the way i crave Sushi or Rolo Ice Cream. Except I think what I'm really craving is something much more specific. I want to jump into one of those natural Volcanic hot springs that you find in Iceland or Argentina- or the ones Amy and I visited when we went to Costa Rica several years back.

It's funny because I remember not really being all that interested in visiting those springs when we were actually there four years back. The traveller in me thought it would be a waste of good nature-seeking time. The judgmental bastard in me was obviously was proven wrong. Still, as relaxing and beautiful as it was to be lying in those steaming pools of dark water and staring at the Mountains, I remember getting fed up and being anxious to leave. Always so anxious to leave, to move on to the next thing.

So naturally I had to ask Amy if said hot springs exist in Panama, the current topic of travel. Yes, there is one but it is rather difficult to get to. In other words, a challenge with a defined reward. If I do ever make it there, i'm going to soak myself to spiritual bliss or prune up trying.

this is what a negative feedback loop sounds like

i'm scared if i don't write something today i will ruin my streak. one blog a day. at LEAST one blog a day. that's the plan. that's the way. i might fancy myself impulsive, but i'm at least as equally calculating. not writing means not caring - not caring to categorize those small inconsequential details that i might actually care to remember somewhere down the road. is blogging supposed to feel lame? and if so, is it something you get used to? what about blogging about blogging? am i setting myself up for some kind of existential crisis here, where i begin to question the worth of every last word i write and wonder (aloud, of course) if i've become that very person that i so often want to clothesline when i read my own stuff?

no, not gonna happen. let's start again.

today, i learned that kittens grow their adult teeth both during and before they lose their baby ones. thank you Fiona. i learned how to spell clothesline, the verb. thank you Mirriam-Webster. i learned that shipwrecked carnival cruise ships can actually end up on their sides like rubber toys in the bathtub. and i learned that facebook has apparently officially amassed enough social influence over me to violently shift my mood, one way or the other. 

there. that's better.