Birthdays

I’m trying to creep out my little nephew.

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I celebrated my birthday a week ago. Well, “celebrate” is not the most accurate term. We commemorated it by going to my favorite South African restaurant. I celebrated Canada Day last Friday at a Canadian restaurant and bar last Friday, but despite it having great food and authentic nods to the Prairie provinces, the South African restaurant is still closest to my heart.

We were joined by another couple, friends of my wife. The woman shares my birthday as well.

Now, I try not to dwell too much on birthdays because from my experience, they tend to be the most disappointing of events. There’s so much prior to the day, and at the end of it, you just get older. Of course, people would say that age is just a number. What matters is to be young at heart. Well, it’s getting harder and harder to be young at heart when I’m starting to look (and smell) more and more like my father.

 

Canada, I love you.

I will be visiting Canada this week. I haven’t been home for two years, so I’m quite excited about it. I say “quite” because I’ve kinda been struggling with bouts of depression lately. It’s been like this for over two weeks now and my recent birthday didn’t really help to cheer me up. Birthdays at a certain point become no longer a celebration for surviving a year on the planet, but a marker on how closer we are to death. In any case, here’s hoping that Canada puts me in a better mood.

Being in Canada means being on the move, which means being unable to update the site for a while. It’s not like anybody would miss it, but yeah, my journey back home would explain the lack of updates at the Weekly.

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My sister’s best friend caught this on her TV a few weeks ago. It looks like my art is now gracing television sets all over my home province of Manitoba. Thank you, Shaw. As artists, we all aim to somehow contribute, no matter how small, to the zeitgeist. As an artist with no plans to have kids, my very small contributions are everything I have in terms of a legacy. Here’s hoping that someone, somewhere, will perhaps be inspired to draw and make art.

Ow! My Back!

Ugh! I hurt my back this morning. It’s a dumb cliché, but seriously, Mondays aren’t working out for me lately. First I had tremendous migraines, and now I hurt my back and walk as if I’m pregnant.

Last Friday was my best friend’s birthday. A great artist, gallery owner, as well as community figure, Jordan Miller. http://www.jordanlmiller.com/ She’s one of the many reasons why I will always be tied to Winnipeg and will always consider it home. I’ve already bought tickets and we’re scheduled to visit her sometime in the future. I can’t wait to hang out and watch her down at least a dozen rum and diet Cokes.

Tonight, we’ll be celebrating my wife’s best friend’s birthday which happens to be today. Jordan, if you’re reading this, you’re way cooler and I would rather drink away my Monday night with you, bad back and all.

Canada Day, Etc.

Oh Canada! Happy Canada Day! Canada has been one of the best things that ever happened in my life. The country is not perfect, I learned that a lot in the past couple of years ever since I started studying more about Canada. And we Canadians have many problems that we need to work on for our future, to keep the country the way it is and not just be a colder version of our neighbors in the south (I’m looking at you, Harper). But despite everything, Canada has been one of the greatest good that I’ve been lucky enough to be blessed with. The country educated me and helped me grow up to be a man, gave me the greatest friends in the world, comforted my mother in her dying days, and generally just made me a better person. Even though I don’t live in Canada at the moment, my heart will always be there. Right now, I live in South Korea, but Canada will always be home.

Last Thursday was my birthday. One of my best friend’s birthday was the day after. Alan. I called him yesterday. We both had pretty low-key birthdays. I guess when you’re older, birthdays don’t matter so much anymore. You see it for what it is: time passing. It was good talking to him though. I haven’t seen him in years, but every time we walk on the phone it’s like high school all over again. Good times.

Back in 2008, I was in the city when a man in a Greyhound bus bound for Winnipeg was beheaded by a mentally deranged individual who claimed he heard voices from God. He was found guilty for reason of insanity, and is now being held in a mental institution. Fast forward to this weekend, a morning show in Korea caught the story, had it re-enacted, and instead of just presenting facts, it chose to highlight how the incident was reminiscent and could be caused by the “Windigo” phenomenon, hinting that evil Windigos could perhaps exist up north.They also made it appear like the attacker was set free after the verdict (and in cinematic idiocy, both the prosecution and the defense were acting all confused at the not guilty verdict). The whole spin was taken from an article in the Edmonton Sun, a tabloid. Ugh! And it was based on the opinion of Nathan Carlson, “one of the leading authorities on the Windigo phenomenon.” UGH! They just unwittingly turned the incident into a cartoon for the entertainment of Koreans overseas.

Seriously though, it got me thinking. If I was the only one in the world trying to make science out of legends, does that make me a “leading authority” in the matter? What if I just made up a legend about alien vampire flamingos, wrote a paper about it, and perhaps connected it to some recent tragedy… does that make what I do dumb or evil?