Jack and his Many Skills.

Let me tell you about my friend Jack, (well okay his name isn’t actually Jack per say, it’s just that he can do so many things, and so I consider him to be somewhat of a Jack of all trades (even though all trades is a little bit of a stretch.) But he can do a great many things, more than me, and some of the things that he does/has done are things that I myself wish I could do. He is that friend many of us have who inspires us to do more, that friend we aspire to be more like.

(Don’t worry this is going somewhere.) It took me much time and money to find my preferred artistic outlet, at first I thought sketching and so I bought a nice sketchbook and some decent pencil sets. I tried it out but it just didn’t fit, and so I leave the sketching and drawing to my cousins. A couple years before I had been told that playing guitar was a good way to meet girls, and so for that Christmas I got a guitar. But I didn’t want to put in the time it would take to learn guitar from the instructional vhs tape it came with. Then the next October I went to this concert, I mean it was just there two local bands, but one of the bands was Jack’s current band. But this is not the first time I meet Jack. They were a great band, so I would go and see them play whenever I could, and I would try and promote them to the best of my ability, not for Jack’s sake but because the music was great. Also what helped our friendship was that every two or three weeks him and his then girlfriend would go to the movie theater where I was working. At that time the two tickets that got them in was $18.00 and when paying with a $20 bill it would leave him with a toonie/townie? (I’m Canadian and I’m not even sure) And after a while he started to give me the change, not because I’d ask for it, but because I think he started to recognize me from his shows, or just because he felt like it, I’m not sure. Then one day I found him on Facebook, added him as a friend, which resulted in a growth in our friendship. But then he moved away and I missed the music. About a year after that, my little brother found my old guitar and expressed an interest I learning how to play it. So my mom arranged to get him lessons, and after like two or three weeks which equaled out to around 2 or 3 lessons, I felt a little excluded, I felt the desire to fill the artistic gap again, and to remember my guitar playing friend, it was a perfect idea and so I as well started guitar lessons. But I only ended up taking them for about a year (probably closer to around seven months at once a week,) and because my desire to play guitar was renewed. For Christmas that year I got a new nice adult sized guitar. I still enjoy guitar, and was re-inspired by Jack to give it a real shot, by that I mean photography of course, my primary artistic outlet.

Another thing about Jack is that he has self e-published two novels. As I think I’ve mentioned before I am a story teller at my core, and so writing a novel is a dream of mine. Now I’ve just started actually reading it because before this Christmas I didn’t have an e-reader. But I have read a previous semi-unedited version of the first novel and that was great. So I am really excited about reading this published version, as well as reading the second novel in his series. And in that way I aspire to be like Jack.

Besides his musical talent and his writing ability, Jack also does good. Jack also helps run a decently sized youth program in Edmonton. Now I’ve been involved in helping with a youth program in the past, but that was mainly helping with rides and providing minor supervision. So I didn’t have any type of major role in it much.

Music

https://soundcloud.com/danwmcintyre

https://soundcloud.com/hashtagboom

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/artist/dan-mcintyre/id4283851

Books

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/book/vincent/id430825053?mt=11

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/book/vincent-founder-triumphs/id791293988?mt=11

To be clear, he does all this while maintaining a steady job designing kitchens and seeming to keep up a social life. And in conclusion jack is awesome and I wish I was a bit more like him.

Post Script: Despite this post being the first where I include a tangible link to whom the person the post is about. I still hold firm that I don’t openly tell people that I chose to write about them. I should also mention that there is really only one more of these that I plan on writing, and that I haven’t even started it.

With a "Y" the Stages of Friendship.

The Introduction.

“Y” is one of my oldest friends; I met him shortly after my first remembered city to city move. It was the first day of the 6^th grade, and for me it was a new town, and new school. Till then school had not been overly pleasant for me, I was bullied at both of my previous schools, didn't really fit in and at that point I was thinking “at least I knew people at my old school, and here I don’t know anyone.” But it being elementary school in a small town, and me being in french immersion it didn’t take long for “Y” to come over and ask me first if I was “Brooke” as what I thought was a joke to which I only responded with a shake of my head in the negative. Then he asked if I was “Tommy”, and once again I shook my head except this time in the affirmative. And from there he told me to come and wait with him because we were in the same class. It was a grade 6/7 split, which I don’t think is actually all that uncommon for French immersion classes, he was grade 7, and as mentioned above I was in 6^th.

The beginning.

Now the friendship between me and Y didn’t grow out of geography, where we went to summer camp (because we went to two separate summer camps), it didn’t grown out of me thinking of him being an older or younger brother type thing, it wasn’t a matter of me being inspired by him or aspired to be him, or for any of man other reasons. But our friendship had sprung from something much simpler. Our friendship came from having similar interests, things like Lego, Legend of Zelda, collecting things, the first Matrix movie, as well any number of other RPG video games. And we complimented each other quite well.

But then I moved. And I had thought that was it. It was another friendship that had ended because I had moved again. It wasn’t nice, it was by no means good in my eyes, but at that time I had accepted it.

The Return.

Then an opportunity for me to return to the town I thought I’d said goodbye to. And so I jumped at it, not because I expected to see the people I knew but because I enjoyed the town itself. (Also not just because visiting also happened to mean that I would be missing school.) Then by pure coincidence during some of the, well I guess you could call it, free time, I went out with a couple other people for what was supposed to be a brisk walk. But who should I come across, but Y himself and his at then girlfriend. And we got talking, only for a short while because we were both busy for the rest of that day. But before I left, we proceeded to meet up again several times that weekend. Before the weekend was over we had agreed to keep in touch and so we did, electronically of course, at that time meant through MSN messenger and myspace. This time when we parted I had no doubt we would see each other again.

And we have seen each other since, several times in fact. And on more than one of these such occasions happened to be instances where we stayed at each other’s houses for days at a time.

Post script: He had this nickname in a somewhat self-imposed manner. Because though he had a somewhat common name, rather than it being spelled normally it unconventionally had a “Y” where commonly there is an “I”.

The Choosing.

So this is something that I have thought about doing for a while. Sharing with you not advice, or rules, or opinions or anything like that. But today I am choosing to share with you a morsel of one of my friendships. And today I will tell you of The Choosing.

Let me take you through a bit of the process I go through when choosing a nickname/title for a friend. And by doing so telling you about a friend of mine.

So, we were never close enough to consider each other part of the pseudo or non-blood families we create for ourselves, and we were never romantically linked so no titles related to those would work. She's a pastor's daughter, but she's never looked at that as a way to define herself by either rebelling against it or playing it up. She's one of those people that has only really ever defined herself by being herself. I could call her The Coyote, not because she resembles a coyote (which she absolutely does not) but because we both describe our own singing voices with the same movie quote. "Like a coyote in a trash compactor," but I feel like giving her a nickname based on an inside joke just wouldn't do her the justice she deserves. Now because it's her I find this to be a little more difficult because I've never been able to pin her down or capture even a bit of her adequately, she has always been illusive to me in one way or another. I could call her The fox for the reasons above, but that might imply that she is hunted, but she is quite clever, and not bad on the eyes either for the other connotation of fox. We do have plenty in common but we were never two peas from the same pod, there is enough different between us for that analogy not to work. Calling her the variable might work, the unknown element, X in the equation, but that could make her seem like she is the answer to a question, or some missing piece but like I said above we were never romantically linked. Because if she is X, she has already found her Y. But if there is one thing I know for sure, she is not just one single thing, but many things, a blend or even an amalgam if you will. But that just doesn't really feel right. I could call her A, but that is too simple for her, unless of course it was a stylised A. Now what I could do is refer to her as the Greek letter alpha, it is after all still an A, which is the first letter of her name after all, and it could also stand for amalgam. But as well I do associate her with the beginning of something in my life. And so it is decided, she is alpha.

Post Script: She once asked me which song I would use to best describe her and I told her, after a bit if thinking that it was "In the Hall of the Mountain King." And I'd still say it was so if she asked.

The Traveler Letters

So this is something that I have thought about doing for a while. Sharing with you not advice, or rules, or opinions or anything like that. But today I am choosing to share with you a morsel of one of my friendships. And today I will tell you of the Traveler Letters.

Okay, so to start I will explain a little more. I will not be using the real names of my friends, but instead I will be using nicknames, or titles that I have given them. And most of them don't even know that I have done this. And even then I do nit do this for all my friends, but only for those whom I believe have had a good impact on my life.

So, since around mid 2012 I have been writing letters to The Traveler. (He is not named as such because he is constantly traveling, but because I have been around, noticed and still noticing his travels and growth in life. I'm not even sure is he knows that is one of the reasons I gave him that title.) Now in these letters we discuss all matters of both little things and much larger things. We've talked about books, and girls, of our future plans and present activities, and so much more. Needless to say, the Traveler Letters are very important to me, and reading and writing them are some of my favourite things to do.

Some more explanation. As mentioned in my old post entitled "Community" I've moved around a bit, and so building and maintaining friendships have not been the easiest of things in the world for me. But now living in the digital age as we do this has become easier to do. With Facebook, instant messaging, texting, and the like you don't have to live in the same place to do that anymore. But in opposition to this short little burst messages and internet abbreviations are not the best for growing friendships. But then there are e-mails, which is actually what the Traveler Letters actually are. (Now I think of them as letters because I first actually write them out pencil and paper before typing them out and sending them to him.)

Now a bit about me and the Traveler. I have known him since I was in the midst of puberty and he was prepubescent, I can't remember our exact ages, but he had a significantly smaller amount of both hair and height than he does now, and I could not yet grow a full beard or even a proper goatee yet. But before 2010 we had never actually lived in the same town, or even next town over. His parents looked after my summer camp during the off season. But none the less, I've seen him grow up and I'd like to think that he has seen me grow up. I count him as one of my closer friends and greater confidants (one of the reasons I do the Traveler Letters).

So, Traveler when you read this, and I hope you have been reading these lately, I thank you. Our letters help keep me myself, they help me stay grounded, and where I like to be emotionally and mentally.

Post Script: I hope posting on Mondays works for people. Next week I will be telling you about another one of my friends, but after that I will probably be interchanging them with other posts.