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.

I thought I had lost you. Until I lost you.

The thing I'll remember most, big guy, is how good you looked the day we found you.

You weren't skinny and you didn't even look beat up. No scratches on your nose. No scars or trauma of any kind. Nothing physical, anyhow. You just sat there with your thick orange coat and your paws tucked under you. Watching with the weary eyes of a cornered criminal. Nothing except the realization, maybe, that the jig was up. Your vacation was done. Your days on the streets were suddenly numbered - thirty six to be exact - on this improbable and dreary Saturday afternoon. That's what had you whining, I bet. The unassuming end of it all. Time, place and coincidence all lost on you. That's what had you whining and crying and racing for the staircase. Running for the exits. Looking fr an extension. You were just fine where you were, weren't you? A stranger in a strange alley one kilometre in the wrong direction. Eating out of a stranger's hand. If it was up to you, you would have never come home. I know. I realized that when I called your name. And whistled my last whistle. And stared into the blankness of your eyes.

Turns out we have more in common than even I thought. Me and you and our terrible long-term memories, big guy. So easy to say goodbye.

Now we'll become a part of each other's fuzzy pasts, Pepsky. I'll forget you and you'll forget me. It's okay. Maybe we were already halfway there. I'm not gonna fight it. There's no consolation prize at the end of this life anyway. We just lose little pieces of ourselves along the way.

I'll see you in the eyes of a stranger in another life. We'll walk the alleys, me and you.

blind spot

i've been doing my best to memorize every twist and turn on the way to the office.

every palm tree.
every speed bump.
every mud-filled pothole.
every type of honk possible.
every understocked vegetable stand.
every intersection with its own blind spot.
every pile of fresh and cow dung you try to avoid.
every lonely tear you can't blame on the wind alone.
every torn garbage bag we mistaken for something worse.
every moment that gets away from us despite our best efforts.

and all that will be left of these fading moving pictures will be you.
the feel of you - what never makes it in the rearview
of your hands, wrapped around my waist.
your head, pressed against my back.
your chin on my right shoulder.

forget me. forget you

sometimes i wonder if cats really do have any kind of long term memory - or whether they have the luxury of waking up every day with a clean slate.

after nearly two full weeks in perfect hiding, Angel is finally being spotted with some regularity. more often than not i'll be behind the window of the door to her room, just passing by, staring. the first time i caught a glimpse i remember almost being taken aback by how perfectly soft she looked in that moment. nervous, yes, but absorbed in the comfort of her own routine. way different than the terrified little animal that had pissed all over the cat carrier and run away under the couch without ever coming back out to say goodbye to her owner. sad way to say goodbye to your pet of twelve years. i would have been devastated.

now, i just look at her and wonder if she even remembers what the life was all about. i mean, i'm sure she memorized its scent. but had she even internalized any kind of sadness or anger from being wilfully (or unwillingly) abandoned? or was it just a question of self-preservation.

i still can't solve her stare.

all i see is a curious animal slowing making a new home. and starting over.

the day the longest sun went dark

I'm not really sure how to commemorate this anniversary in words.

Tigger died on this day one year ago. Technically, he died the night before, when he tried to cross Clark Street for probably the first time in his life. We're still not sure what he was doing there in the first place. It was not like him to stray far from the alley. From us, really. But that Sunday night, he did. And he never came home. And I think both Amy and I already knew why, deep down in the pit of our hearts. We went out looking for him just the same. I even woke up super early the next morning and walked the empty alleys and streets, calling his name and shaking his food. I went to work telling her it would be fine. She got the call early in the afternoon. I got her frantic call right after. I didn't really cry on the drive home. Not until I got home and saw her. And then I couldn't stop. We couldn't stop. I begged her not to come to pick him up from the stranger who had been kind enough to pick him up off the side of the road. He would be the only person who actually saw it happen. But he was short on details. All he said was it happened quickly. There was no unnecessary suffering. Except that our beautiful cat died alone, scared and inconsolable. Just that thought is enough to still rip my heart in two.

It really only hit me when I looked in the box and felt how stiff he was. We cried right there on the side walk. We cried at the vet. We cried the next week, in each other's arms and by ourselves. And when there were no more tears to shed, the real grief began. Those weeks and months became the ugly climax to one of the worst periods in my life. And judging from these tears, the wound is still fresh when poked and prodded.

I try to think about him everyday. But I still can't look at pictures too long or the leopard-print collar that's still sitting in the plastic bottle by the window - the one he loved to drink from early in the morning, by Amy's night table. His death has left me chronically paranoid about Pepe and Fiona. I will never think about the first official day of summer the same way ever again. But my mind is designed to forget - possibly for my own sanity. And so specific memories are starting to fade. Over time, I will probably forget all the tiny little moments, fights and annoyances that make having a pet so inexplicably consuming. 


If there's any one positive in all this, it's that I no longer have the luxury to take anything for granted. I remain keenly aware that all our days are numbered. 


At least I'll never forget that, Tiggy.

aren't you that GUY from that Band?

When I actually was a Kamikaze Baby, I used to get mistaken for the drummer of the Strokes. Often. In fact, Jules and I got to hang out with Broken Social Scene one very strange night while on tour in Toronto, courtesy of the aforementioned mistaken identity on behalf of said band lead singer's drunken girlfriend - who was convinced we had recently hung out backstage at some American festival. She was cool. He was apparently unimpressed and a bit of an ass. We just made the best of it.

Anyway, now I just get stopped on the street as the singer of my former band. It happened to me again yesterday morning as I was stepping out of the Royal Bank in my old neighbourhood. I guess I still look the same. The problem with this is that I rarely recognize the people who recognize me. Story of my life. I tried my best to place Dimitri - friend of Jules and current engineer at Planet Studios - but to no avail. I'm assuming he liked the band or else why would he have bothered to stop me. Why go out on a limb and risk having the wrong guy just to say: "Hey, you're that guy from that band I never really cared for much. What else are you doing now that I might not be interested in? " Memory or not, I feel like I navigated the side walk meet-and-greet quite well. These things have a way of catching me off guard.

Still playing?
Yes. Just not with the band. You?
Not as much. I try to write on the guitar before work but, you know, it's always crazy hours in the studio.
Yeah, but at least they've got some killer gear.
Yeah. So just refresh my memory. It's...
Rob.
Rob. Rob Scalia, right?
Yeah.

In retrospect, I feel like I should have at least mentioned this blog or the Mothership before going our separate ways. (After all, we are scientists) Or at least asked for his Facebook. Is that common practice now? Or do the two parties in question assume that once you know each other's names and current places of work, the friend request will come if it was meant to be? I wonder.

well, aren't you just full of stories

When I hear that my Uncle Mario is coming over with the kids, I get slightly annoyed. I probably shouldn't, but I can't help it.

I guess I have become somewhat possessive of Sunday dinner at my parent's. Or maybe it's just the dread that comes with having to endure someone talking about their kids all night long. I believe he's been over three or four times since he got out. I know it makes my mother and her mother super happym so I would never dream of saying anything. Just me being selfish.

But yesterday just ended up being a really fun night. A pleasant suprise.

Say what you will about the black sheep of the clan, the truth is that Uncle Mario can be extremely likeable when he puts his mind to it. He knows it. And we know it.

I think it's got a lot to do with his storyteller's charm, which he gets directly from my Nonna. They both have stunning long-term memory and an eye for detail. I have seen both stop in the middle of a story, lift up their sleeves and expose the goosebumps on their forearms - if only to prove just how powerful what they're recounting is. "See what I'm talking about?" I ask my father after my Uncle finishes the story about the old 'witch' (actually one of his Aunts from back in Cairano) and how she cooked her pasta from a giant cauldron with flies all around it. "You don't have to have a photographic memory to remember those details - just a good visual one." Shit, I visited that very same aunt in that very same dingy cave and probably ate that very same meal and I couldn't pick her out of a witch lineup if my life depended on it. My brother probably could. My father nods and I assume he understands the difference now. Our memories stink by comparison. "Yeah, but we got the logic," he assures me matter-of-factly. Perfect.

So while my father entertained the kids with number tricks based on simple algebra, my Uncle Mario
recounted the now infamous story about how he almost drowned my teenage mother after dragging her rubber raft out into the Nassau ocean. A practical joke almost gone terribly wrong.


It was fun to hear about my Uncle Sal and the crazy fishing/hunting trips trips he dragged his younger brother on back in the day. How they rode trains that dropped them deep in the bush and waited to board Cessnas piloted by drunk Natives. How he left my thirteen-year old Uncle Mario in the middle of the woods holding a loaded shotgun with clear instructions to shoot and then actually pretended he was the Moose - cracking branches with his hands - just to fuck with him.

But that one image of my Uncle Sal leaning back on his side of the canoe with nothing but a pair of shorts, his fishing rod and a cigarette hanging from his mouth while an all-but mummified Mario crumpled under the swarm of black flies and the pounding sun on the other was the killer.

In a different time and place, that would have been my brother and I. And I suddenly understood a little more about both my uncles and the power that comes with being the older brother.