The first time I saw you, sitting on the 99 B-line to UBC, you were dressed all in black from your dark hair down to your shoes. It might have made you look gothic or suicidal except for that little thread of white on your headphones, and you were smiling.

What he was doing I don’t remember, but you were smiling at the old asian man on the bench seats at the very back of the bus. Was it that he was laughing? Singing to himself? It made me smile to see him so happy, and to see you thinking the same.

Tonight, as it happened, I found myself sitting where you had been that day on the same bus, and there you were where the old man had been. Your hair and shoes were as dark as before but this time the white line from your headphones matched a white t-shirt beneath your jacket.

As I remembered having seen you before, you chuckled at something in the paper you were reading and suddenly looked up to see if anybody had noticed, still smiling. I’ve done it before too, where you loose yourself in something only to suddenly remember as you find yourself laughing that you’re still in a public place. Or perhaps it was an instinctive move to see if anybody else had enjoyed the joke as much as you. Don’t worry—I thought it was cute. You tore out the article and went back to reading it, but for a second time it had made me smile to see you smiling on that evening bus back home.

Thank you for that.

Making a stranger smile

Taking the stairs

Getting a package from your mom

Giving a compliment

Writing a script that works the first time

Knowing the lyrics and singing along

Baking cookies and sharing them wtih friends

Spotting symbolism

Taking the bus

Cooking supper that looks and tastes as good as you imagined it would

Giving directions

Crepuscular rays

Long arpeggios without any flubs

And comments on my blog ;)

(For more, look for the song of the same title from “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown”.)

That was the most delicious apple I’ve ever eaten.

I think after about three months, I’ve finally started to understand some of the lyrics to Regina Spektor’s On the Radio—”You’re young until you’re not, you love until you don’t, you try until you can’t.” Combined with this week’s series on xkcd, I’m feeling very much like asking the next person I see to go fly a kite with me. Preferably one that looks like a pirate ship, but I won’t be picky about it.

I just came back from the gym. The sun was protesting the indoors, so I swam a few lengths in the outdoor pool before going back into the weightroom. I heard someone mention one of my professors at McGill. I suppose if I had really learned to seize the day I would have jumped into the conversation like, for a moment, I wanted to, but declined.

Later I noticed someone checking me out, and though I did say “hi” later as we walked past each other, I was content then to otherwise keep to myself and enjoy the boost in self-confidence. Is it bad that that boost is directly proportional to how attractive the other person is? I suspect we’re all guilty of following that formula. Regardless, it’s good to feel like the hottest shit in town.

I bought an apple on my walk home from the produce stand. Jona Gold. Forty cents. Sweet and with a texture almost like nashi.

Continuing my walk, I passed a couple of really good looking guys my age. For reasons unexplained, and for a just moment, I felt a little like a chimpanzee. Seeing guys like that in the gym, say, always makes me both a little self conscious and a little more determined in my workout.

But today I decided instead to forget it, continue walking, and enjoy the sun and the most delicious apple I’ve ever eaten.

Sorry, Audrey, one photo isn’t really enough for a whole gallery, but it was a yummy meal. Cheers to the first jacket-free day of the year—a balmy 15 degrees just four days after the snowstorm!

I’ve been spending a lot of time on Craigslist looking for an apartment to sublet, and as is only natural with a midterm to study for, I’ve lately started wandering around other categories. In particular, I lose myself in Missed Connections.

I recently read The Hipless Boy’s eight one-sentence stories. That same feeling comes out of each of these ads. There is a mystery behind some of them. Who wrote them, and to who? What encounter inspired them to reach out into the cyber darkness for that connection?

They range from the sweet and innocent:

Thankyou
You might think you did very little, but you’ve given me a confidence I’ve been searching for for months. I hope one day I can somehow repay the favor.

to the slightly creepy:

The girl at McGill every Saturday
We keep looking at each other everytime. We have never been engaged in a conversation. I find you very cute. Do you feel the same thing I feel? [...] Hint: Not that I am handsome, but I am really visible in the classroom!

No thanks, Professor. But then, it is only what I imagine that makes them seem as such. My imagination makes almost every character cute and shy, and every word genuine. Many may be frauds, jokes, or without meaning. I have no way to know.

They remind me of similar missed encounters I’ve had. Sharing a look with a stranger, that girl that said “You’re welcome!” when I thanked her for holding the door, or a smile on the subway. Nothing ever comes of them and I don’t expect them to. I live for those moments. Craigslist’s Missed Connections is evidence that other people do too.

If I were to write one right now:

Tell me your secrets
Dear R&R,
We met in January; Your curvature attracted me.
I’ve crossed the event horizon and there’s no going back.
Let’s make naked singularities.

Time to study.

Two days ago I wrote about how my energy consumption has gone down by quite a bit thanks mostly, in my belief, to putting up some extra insulations on my windows this winter. I speculated that my monthly payments would be going down on the next reevaluation. What I should have done was actually looked at my latest Hydro bill. Notification had arrived in my email inbox a few days prior, but who actually bothers to download the PDF to see if there’s anything interesting? Well, today I did, and look what I found:

Dear Sir or Madam:

To help you plan your budget as accurately as possible, Hydro-Québec has reviewed your monthly installment for it to reflect your actual electricity consumption. Following are the results of our review:

Current installment:
$ 45,00

New monthly installment as of the next billing date:
$ 31,08

That’s a reduction of over 30%! Now that’s satisfying.

Before moving to Japan, I had had exactly one cup of tea in the 18 years, 1 month, and 20 odd days since I was born. It was from a pack I bought in Montreal’s Chinatown the previous year and it tasted like wet cardboard. Regardless, while I was in Japan I had more cups of different blends then I could possibly count.

In one evening my host mom made seven or eight different types and we sat there sampling each of them for quite a while. They came from Asia, from Africa, from different regions and different plants. This was, however, still quite early in my stay, so it ended up being a lesson more in Japanese language than a tasting of world teas.

But by the time my year was out I was doing much better. I knew my regular ocha from matcha, my uuroncha from my mugicha. I didn’t know what any of these things were in English, but I at least knew what I was talking about when I used the terms. I was communicating well enough that I could not only ask what the tea was but also understand the answer.

There was one particular type of black tea I had while living with the Kusano family. It was excellent all by itself without pollutants of milk or sugar, and it did not turn bitter even when left to steep a little too long. It was light in colour yet rich in flavour. I asked what it was but did not recognize the word—it was not Japanese. Shown the silver tin I saw it written in English: Ceylon.

Upon my return to Canada in 2003 I still remembered this word and saught it out. All I could find for ages was something called “orange pekoe”. Bitter, dark, disgusting orange pekoe. My disappointment was only compounded by the failure of everything marked “green tea” to be anything like green tea. Sure, I found the occasional relief when I discovered Earl Grey, but the taste of Fruit Loops is always just a little less than desireable in my drink. (Can anybody confirm or deny that Kellogg’s Fruit Loops contains bergamot oil? If not I must be going crazy.) In almost four years I was only ever able to find one small jar of Ceylon tea, but overpowered with the flavour of orange rinds and only enough for a few cups.

Then, finally, a newcomer in the tea aisle at my grocery store! Ceylon tea, and lots of it. I considered getting the small 25 bag box, but who knew when I would have the chance again? Was Ceylon seeing a surge in popularity? Had it been here all along, avoiding my gaze year after year? Or was it just a fluke, a random stocking experiment to test market demand? I couldn’t take the risk. I bought the biggest box, carried it back home through the deep snow against cold winter winds, and prepared myself for months of warm delicious quality time with my old friend from the East.

I dropped the groceries on the floor, took my new box of tea, and went to straight for the kettle. Within minutes I was sitting comfortably on the couch warming my hands around the mug, and took my first taste of — orange pekoe! The box may have said Ceylon, but it was a far cry from the fine quality of tea I had shared with Kusano-san that summer four years ago.

So to this day I have still not found it, that perfect blend of tea to make a day complete. I know of only one place where it can be found in the entire world—inside a little silver tin, in a house on the side Kagashira Mountain, half a world away.

I shall call him Clocky, and he shall be mine, and he shall be my Clocky. He may have been created as a Masters degree project at MIT, but he’s my baby now.

He certainly was an expensive little guy, and many people would equate it with a useless gadget you’d only buy if you had nothing better to spend your money on, like a device to butter your toast or turn the pages of a book, but for me—a guy who will sleep through fire alarms, who regularly sets both an alarm and a very loud radio to go off in the morning, and who will hit the snooze button for three hours straight until the alarm clock gives up and then sleeps for another four hours—an alarm clock that runs away from you and hides while going off is a gift from God. The necessity of it is especially apparent now, having arrived the day after I slept through two classes this past Friday where attendance was required.

I find it particularly entertaining that, despite there being lots of open space in my room to run around in, Clocky immediately runs under the bed almost every time. I don’t think he could possibly find a more awkward place for me to find him. He’s got a chipper personality all his own which is quite cute now but will probably be very very annoying in the early morning. Which is exactly the point! It’s fantastic!

Another wonderful pancake day has come and gone, this year with a little dinner party at my place yesterday to mark the occasion. The real official pancake day might have been February 20th, but I say it’s always an appropriate time for a pancake party. One highlight of the evening—

While everybody else was in the other room, we heard from the kitchen:
*FRPLOP!*
*SPLASH!*
And Shelagh screaming, “I got it open!”

I’ve learned my lesson. I need to buy a corkscrew.