oh, the burger joint from yesterday - w burger bar in the yonge/college area, reviewed by blogto here. it was good, it was cheap... i could see going back, though there isn't much else to draw me to to that intersection (except for my first amato love). plus, one of the owners mistook jay (who was on his way to the bathroom) for some hired help and told him in a less than friendly tone to move some boxes down into the basement. easy mistake if you've seen jay (ha ha), but once he established that no, he was a customer, the guy made not a word of apology.



i can forgive the mistaken identity, but two things i can't overlook:

- he apparently is not so nice to the hired help
- he didn't apologize to his customer for ordering him around

that should have been worth at least a comped beer.

so i don't know, maybe i won't be going back.

shit, today turned out a little differently than expected. i had a bunch of chores to do but i accidentally emailed a link to a review of a new burger joint to a hungry friend and before i knew it there were three of us there for lunch, and, uh oh, $3.75 pints is just too affordable. then there was an accidental trip to pick up some more beer followed by a round of some serious rock band. then, um, six straight episodes of band of brothers.



whoops, where'd the day go?

i need:

- more photo work
- failing the above, a new day job

the timing worked out great - i needed to get out of town and away from everything like never before, and i had already booked a weekend away with (brosz7, henceforth know only as) matt, mike and jay to try out each other out for maybe, possibly, making music together. baby steps, sure, but i have to say... it felt pretty good for a first go.



the other guys arrived late friday night and got everything set-up - after a long and obviously stress-filled saturday morning, i managed to extricate myself from the city by 1-ish getting me there, beer-in-hand by 3.



after a few beers and some initial nice-to-meet-you introductory jamming (the first time any of us have played together) it occurred to one of us that since it was so warm out that it probably made sense to build a fire by the lake, if for nothing else other than inspiration. and since we were already out there, and after a few more beers it quickly became indisputable that the tv should be out there with us, as the leafs game was on and we could pick up the cbc with the bunny ears.



one of the stories that kept coming up as we worked on pretending that we didn't care if the leafs won or not (actually, to be fair matt really didn't care) involved the possibly irresponsibly large fire that the other guys had all built last time they were there. it was so large in fact that matt's hotdog skewer had to be lance-like. he was almost tearfully proud when he found it still intact under a pile of brush.









alright... i'm out of gas right now, so more tomorrow. but the jamming went really well today and i'm feeling positive about something for the first time in too long.

so this is probably one of the last things i expected as part of the healing process: the breakup of my relationship makes the national news. take a read if you want, but perhaps unsurprisingly the author used only one quote of many i gave - so i'm going to share here what i was asked and how i responded. (photos of dog day from thursday at the horseshoe)



why you didn't blog about the break-up?

well, i wasn't trying to keep it secret. to anyone who is friends with either of us on facebook, a large number of which are readers of our sites, it became immediately apparent that we had parted when i changed my status to single. when it came to writing about the breakup, i wanted to respect the privacy of my partner of five yours, who, for what it was worth, i still cared a great deal for. also, i think it was quickly obvious to her readers through what she was publishing that she wasn't living with me anymore and that our relationship had ended. as for sharing details with readers about the how and the why, i felt no desire or obligation to do so . i acknowledged that i was feeling awful, but i tried to let my photography tell most of the story.



why [do] you think Raymi didn't?

at first i thought that maybe that there was still some air of indecision, and it didn't make sense to write about it. later i amended that belief - i think it was her, like me, respecting the privacy of a person she had shared such a long time with.



why [did] she reverse that decision earlier this week?

well i have somehow been disciplined enough not to visit her site since our actual break, but i gather she as been under a lot of pressure from her readers to share the story of what happened, what went wrong. i mean, i have also on my site, but her readership is significantly larger than mine and i can only imagine that she got it a lot worse than i did. also, i suspect that she felt, based on the comments from readers that i was getting on my site (and presumably comments that she was getting on hers) that people in general had the impression that something terrible had happened that resulted in the relationship ending and that perhaps that she was being portrayed as the bad guy. so, i guess in the end, she felt that the need to set the record straight trumped any privacy concerns.

she did email me the text of that post immediately before she published it, and i obviously have some things to say about it, but i reserve that for conversation with friends. i remain committed to not discussing the details (in a public forum anyway - for the most part i have been open and candid with friends and family, likely to the point where they are getting bored).



[What is] your take on the debate, i.e., were yours//Raymi's readers right to expect full disclosure on significant life events?

i believe when it comes to an online journal, a reader has no rights to full disclosure. in fact, there aren't any rights to honesty or truth either. a blog is not a news source, nor is it bound by rules of journalistic integrity. have any of my personal friends demanded to know what happened to us? absolutely. what happened if i told one or two of them that i didn't want to talk about it? they said sure, of course, no problem, maybe they gave me a hug, maybe they bought me a beer, and we moved on to other things. they care and are curious, it's natural, but they respect my desire to be private about things or not be private, and it is because i have real relationships with them they care more about me feeling okay than they care about their curiosity regarding the details of what happened.



then i mentioned a few other things when asked if i was going to respond to her explanation of the breakdown online, and that i believe is where my one and only quote came from.



fucked. up.

at long last, el cid makes his triumphant return to these parts. a few people have commented that they thought perhaps of all the troubles that have encircled me lately, cid's health (or death even) may have featured prominently.



alas, no. he stubbornly remains in slightly overweight good health.



ornery as hell, just like always.



perhaps missing his usual target on which to take out his aggression.



s'okay little buddy, we'll find you a new one someday.

by popular request (okay one) i am cooking up a cid-centred post. unfortunately, it's been a busy day and we haven't had the time to schedule a proper shoot. we may just be able to squeeze something in between dinner (what does an emotionally damaged bachelor eat for dinner anyway - a banana) and the dog day show at the horseshoe, which i have decided to attend on the advise of someone who seems to consider herself a burgeoning arbiter of what is good and what isn't. we shall see.