aaron schwab

the ninth year of the first decade of the first century of the third millennium — as far as Greg is concerned, anyway. 2009 CE (AD?) has begun. but now, without further delay, here’s my month-by-month blow-by-blow of the past twelve months that made up 2008, which turned out to be a pretty fascinating year for me. i’m not sure this will be the blogzilla that Chris wrote for his retrospective, but i hope it’ll suffice, nonetheless.

January
my January started off in some dude’s messy kitchen with Tim and Katie, surrounded by inebriated people, a couple of whom i knew and most of whom i didn’t. i had an alright time at the two house parties i went to a year ago, but it wasn’t my best new year’s eve to date. not long after the beginning of the month, i started chatting on Facebook with a friend of my dear friend Candice’s. Candice had told myself and this girl about each other, and had the notion that the two of us would get along well. after some online correspondence and hanging out with Candice at two different shows at the Registry Theatre (Shotgun Rules and Two Liner’s last show, if i recall correctly), we decided to go on what ended up being our first date, although i’m pretty sure neither of us acknowledged it as that at the time. two days later, over my favourite flick at her apartment, our first kiss happened (cue “aww.”) oh, also; her name is Cagney and she’s very short and very cute. i was a tad smitten, really.

February
things continued with Cagney, with getting to know her and spending time with her. unfortunately, a lot of our February time was spent at her apartment drinking tea, as she’d fallen unpleasantly ill — a bit of an inconvenient foot to get off on when just getting to know someone, but it was of no negative consequence, as we had our first sleepover that month (cue “giggle giggle!”) we also dubbed her throat ailment her “neck baby.” on the 14th, Cagney and i had our first Valentine’s Day together, during which she gave me a giant plush rose. February was also privy to my 22nd birthday. i found it rather cryptic that i turned 22 on 02/22 this year but, to my chagrin, nothing monumentally hilarious happened in light of said numeric alignment. also, Steph ended up taking me rock climbing for a birthday present for the first time. it definitely wasn’t the last time, although i haven’t been in months and i miss the Guelph Grotto dearly.

March
Facebook is a peculiar thing — it seems to guide peoples’ social lives as much as reflect them. this held true in the case of mine and Cagney’s relationship, as we became “officially” boyfriend and girlfriend as of me confirming a Facebook relationship request on the 23rd of the month. along with it came a text message from her, telling me that “boyfriend” is how she’d been referring to me with her family, so that — along with plain old missing me while away from me — was enough convincing to make it Facebook-official. after all, it’s got to be under one’s relationship status line to be true, right? in spite of that mark of officiality coming in March, we’d basically been seeing each other since January, and we’re celebrating our anniversary as such.

April
April was a glorious time — not only did i finish college for good, but i got to attend Cagney’s graduation ceremony from hair school. i ended up going out for dinner with her, her sister Gwyneth and her folks after the ceremony, which made for my first time meeting her mom and sister and second time meeting her dad.

May
aside from the beginning of the rollercoaster ride knows as photographing UW’s engineering faculty’s graduating class of 2009, May’s biggest milestone was the completion of my first tattoo. after 18 and a half hours under Travis MacGregor’s needle between September 2007 and May 2008, i finally had a finished half sleeve. i’m incredibly happy with how it’s turned out, but the goal since then (as it remains now) is to extend it into a full sleeve; the groundwork for that leg of the journey is already in place, so to speak, as Travis left the bottom of my tattoo sans border so that the rest of the design can flow seamlessly past my elbow, down to my wrist.

other than that, i recall May as the month i wrote a long and introspective blog entry (dig for it if you like or check the May 2008 archive) regarding my transition from non-drinker to casual consumer of alcohol. in other words, xEDGExBREAKx2008x. just kidding; i never claimed edge, simply because i felt that particular title — though descriptive of my desire to not drink, as far as encapsulating it in a nutshell goes — was too limiting in the sense that a desire to start drinking casually would have then merited some sort of justified explanation. i never claimed edge, so breaking it was easy like pie. sitll, it was a critical decision for me, in the sense that it involved waters previously uncharted to me; waters that had been charted years ago by the vast majority of my friends and peers. in retrospect, my life hasn’t changed much since deciding that drinking responsibly is okay for me, except for the freedom to say yes to an offered drink or — if driving isn’t a necessity for the evening — the ability to let go and get a little buzz on.

June
aside from continuing to power through day after day of work (the likes of which was taking an undue and stressful toll on my psyche due to a volatile co-worker), June brought about a monumental change in my workplace environment. about as drastic a change as was possible, actually; Joe and i had, by the end of the month, completely vacated our studio space. the building the studio was set up in had been sold several months before and the new landlords were offering a rent increase that was, and is, wholly illogical from the company’s perspective, so we moved out, taking everything that was ours with us, including the floors and ceiling rigging. Joe took everything home to his garage, and we’re now a mobile operation, which actually imposes far less of a burden on the company, both financially and practically.

June was, if i recall correctly, the start of a summer that Cagney and i spent largely at Phil’s, with bar night outings that frequently included our dear Candice. when not at Phil’s on our bar nights, Cagney and i would occasionally trek to Guelph to be with Candice at her adopted hometown haunt, Club Vinyl. i enjoy Vinyl quite a bit, as it feels like a smaller, hotter, cleaner Phil’s, and with better music on most nights, to boot (any club that will play not one, but two Ol’ Dirty Bastard songs in a night gets a thumbs up from me.)

July
July started off with a big move for Cagney. literally; her lease at the apartment she lived at in Kitchener had run out and she was moving into an almost identical building in Waterloo to room with the sister of one of the girls she went to Voila with. it was a beneficial move in terms of getting to split rent with a second person, as well as her new place’s proximity to her salon, but living with someone always comes with a slight decline in personal privacy when contrasted with living alone (not that i’m bringing this up as if it’s been a presing issue, mind you; it simply stands to reason.) since it was the summertime, i’d gotten quite used to hopping on my bike to go see Cagney, and i still could with her new apartment being in Waterloo; it was just a bit of a longer ride, but i got used to it quickly.

Cagney and i seemed to see Toronto frequently enough this past summer, starting in July, when the two of us, along with Steph and Liam, went to the Rogers Picnic on the 20th. aside from rain and mud, excessive standing around and contending with a sea of umbrellas in the crowd as a result, the concert was a lot of fun, with the highlight of the day belonging to Chromeo’s performance. they succeeded in getting some dancing out of me, in spite of the mud puddles that abounded. being a Rogers-sponsored event, Historic Fort York was laden with Rogers ads, promos and products to partake in throughout the day — one promo piece i found particularly interesting was the gigantic projector screens set up at either side of the stage. between sets, Rogers mobile customers (which Cagney and i both are) could text any message to a given number, free of charge, and have the messages appear in chatoom log format on the giant screens. i took the opportunity of 30,000-odd people reading my texts to tell the festival that no one in the audience besides my girlfriend was named Cagney. audacious, i know, but i bet i was right!

August
two more Toronto trips were on the August schedule, within eight days of each other. the first of these two trips, on August 15th, was taken by Greyhound with Cagney, Sara and one of their Jeffs to see Radiohead. the fact that such a monumental band was coming to Toronto was awesome; the fact that i actually managed to score tickets — lawn tickets, but tickets all the same — was astounding. the concert ended in a blast of ecstacy after seven encore songs. much like the Rogers Picnic the month before, Radiohead’s performance at the Molson Amphitheatre was peppered with rain, but the four of us were umbrella-equipped and — at least in my case — wearing shoes that didn’t mind seeing a little mud. in hindsight, i’m glad we didn’t bring a blanket for the lawn, because we would’ve ended up staring at nothing but muddy ankles had we tried to sit.

the next weekend, on the 23rd, Cagney and i met up with Gwyneth after a day of shopping for Paramore at the Koolhaus. the venue was small and the three of us must’ve been within the oldest ten percent of the evening’s audience, which was all a stark contrast from Radiohead. it was an awesome show, nonetheless; girly-ass pop punk can be really refreshing!

August also brought about the 2008 installment of Cambridge’s annual Rock The Mill concert. as per what seemed like a new trend, it got rained out, with the excessive precipitation shorting out equipment and whatnot. i had only been able to use my press pass to photograph Lifestory:Monologue before tucking my camera away in Chris’s car so that it could stay dry. Rock The Mill being cut short was more than made up for that evening, however, as Farewell To Freeway, The Artist Life and Lifestory again had convened at the house of two of the LS:M guys for an impromptu house show. it was loud, packed and awesome, and stands as one of my favourite concerts i’ve photographed to date.

i’d also like to point out, on a sappier note, that August was the first time that Cagney and i exchanged the L-bomb. telling someone you love them — as in, in love with them — can feel pretty daunting beforehand, but it happened with the two of us (while in Phil’s the first time, of all appropriate places!) and it’s something i hope continues to grow and thrive between us; after all, why say it or even entertain the notion if not serious and excited about it?

September
September was a bit of a rite of passage for me at Newschool Photography, as i became a full-fledged shooter, instead of having to tend exclusively to assistant duties. i was joined at work by the wonderful and effervescent Mary, who took up the camera half the time and did assistant duty the other half. it was nice to have someone to switch duties with throughout the day, as well as to feel fully competent with photographing and posing students for their portraits.

the 25th saw Cagney and i check out You Say Party! We Say Die! at the Starlight Lounge (which, even outside of concerts, was becoming a regular alternative of ours to Phil’s, which had seemed to become somewhat lackluster in terms of music, attendence and dance floor action.) YSP!WSD! put on an awesome show, but both of us ended up falling in love with the second opening band. they’re called Winter Gloves and i can’t wait to see them next time they come through town. the 27th of the month was the annual Apple Butter and Cheese Festival in Wellesley. i accompanied Cagney and her family to it, which involved getting up ridiculously early, but the fudge and maple candy made it more than worthwhile. oh, and i bought a monkey mask. it’s excellent.

lastly, but definitely not least — and apparently out of chronological order — my band of the past three years played what ended up being its final show under that name at the fiveonenine.com 5th anniversary/Sellout Productions 10th anniversary show at Club Vinyl on the 21st. Tim and i, along with our longtime and extremely talented friend Anuj and an as-of-yet unchosen drummer, have plans for an all new band in the works, with a debut performance tentatively slated for the springtime.

October
early in the month, Cagney and i attended a stag and doe-style event called Raising For Ryan. it was a charity event, hend in honour of Jeff’s late brother, Ryan, to raise money for the Sick Kids’ Foundation, which is a goal it achieved with gusto. the food, drinks, dancing, prizes, pies in the face, conpany, worthwhile cause and Cagney’s brother Brandon drunkenly forgetting the entire second verse of an Oasis song made the evening a blast, and i hope Jeff’s dad, Ian, decides to make this fundraiser into an annual event.

on the 24th, three brand new Kitchener bands — Gracefield, Set Anchors and Kingdoms — made their debuts at the King Street Theatre, with LS:M headlining the event. i quickly fell for Kingdoms, and they’ve since been one of my favourite bands, area or otherwise.

Hallowe’en also fell — predicably so — right at the end of October. Cagney went as a flapper girl and i went as a big friggin’ dork. no alarms and no surprises, here.

i also acquired my first vehicle in October — my grandfather’s old 1999 Dodge Caravan. its odometer is still pretty low, considering the vehicle’s age, and it runs pretty well, for the most part. the only caveat i had with it was the smell of nine years’ worth of cigarette smoke that it came with, but Tim helped me deal with that in December, using his workplace’s steam cleaning capabilities.

November
Cagney and i got a crucial part of the impending holiday season out of the way early in November, by having Shara take our Christmas card photos early in the month. one of the better ones made its way into prints, which Cagney and i signed and mailed out to a select few people. i sent out a few dozen Christmas cards for Christmas 2007, complete with long-winded messages, but for 2008, we decided to keep it small, brief and simple, largely because opining at length doesn’t really work when the cards are from two people instead of one.

December
shooting finished up for the remainder of the year in the first half of December (which i can, as of now, refer to as “last month,” though it feels far from it) and i was left with a choice of what to do with my time between the eighth and the 24th; sleep in and sit on my ass, or take up some seasonal hours at my mom’s place of employment. as tantalizing as vegging for two weeks seems, i went the way of the latter, knowing full well that i’d be bored out of my skull by the third day of doing nothing, and poorer than if i’d been working, to boot. Christmas and all of its associated festivities fell but last week, and it was one of the finer Christmas seasons that i can recall from memory; it was my first Christmas with Cagney, and i greatly enjoyed swapping gifts with herself and her family and spending a few days with her in Stratford.

extremely recent memory tells me that last night (well, technically two nights ago, by this time in the morning) was New Year’s Eve and, instead of trying to find something of interest at a bar or house party, Cagney, Sara, Jeff and i stayed at Jeff’s place for the night. a few bottles of wine, Boggle, Scattergories and Rock Band made the evening completely worthwhile — this New Year’s was definitely better than last year’s, and i was more than content to spend it inside with a few people i like instead of going out with a load of people i don’t particularly know.

phew.

that turned out to be far longer than i had anticipated — i suppose brevity isn’t something a long-winded individual should expect of themself. i have another monumental blog in the pipeline to work on, concerning resolutions, plans, goals, dreams and aspirations for 2009, as well as a recap of my 2008 resolutions. i’ll get around to that piece of prose tomorrow, at a time that’s preferably not three in the morning. happy trails!

after a brief jaunt back to KW this past Saturday, Cagney and i returned to Stratford for Saturday night and hit Bentley’s with Jeff and Sara. Sunday involved a whole lot of no reason to bother getting dressed; today did, however, as we met Jeff and Sara again at Bentley’s for coffee and a bite. it was a windy day, and we were met with a gust of wind and dust upon exiting Bentley’s that was reminiscent of the dust storms in Wall-E, albeit on a much smaller level, which Cagney and i ended up watching again today. and right now, i’m writing this blog entry basically out of habit; if i go too long without writing one of these silly blow-by-blows of my day-to-day, i find i tend to lose track of time, what day it is and what i’ve been up to (tragically enough, most of my profound thoughts leave me before i can get to a keyboard. alas! woe is me. and so on and so forth.)

at any rate, Cagney and i have to be up nice and early — though not as early as we did on Saturday morning — to get her to work on time and to get myself home, which feels more like a place i visit occasionally than a place that i live nowadays, on account of my always being out or doing something elsewhere. i figure i’ll be seeing my house plenty once i need to buckle down and start working for a while again but, until then, i might as well go and see and do everything that’s fit to be gone to, seen and done while i can.

new year’s eve, at this point, looks like it’ll be a low-key occasion, which i’m perfectly fine with — i’d prefer it to be, in fact. as much as i enjoyed hanging out with Tim and Katie on the last eve of 2007, going to random house parties that we never really planned on going to isn’t something i feel too keen on this time around. much like many key events throughout this past year, the 2008/2009 new year’s eve/day will be mine and Cagney’s first new year’s together. our anniversary is just around the corner from that, too, and it blows my lid to think we’ve been together almost a solid year. that girl has, with the exception of two otherwise uneventful weeks in January, been involved in my whole year. (don’t tell her, but i’m shitting bricks — mildly so, but shitting bricks all the same — over our anniversary. i think i have an “outdo her” complex when it comes to this sort of thing.)

this blog could be my last of the year, but it likely won’t be. i still want to hash out a year in review for 2008, some resolutions for 2009 and a recap on my 2008 resolutions. it also blows my lid that this blog is going to be a year old come January 1st. maybe i’ll commemorate the occasion by changing my blog’s theme or something (either with or without painstakingly going back through the blog to adjust every posted image to fit a new theme’s body column width — i’m thinking i’d lean towards the former, in such a case.)

as for the more immediate past, i’ll likely get Christmas eve and Christmas day photos, as well as photos from mine and Cagney’s walk this afternoon, edited and Facebooked/Flickr’d tomorrow!

what a fantastic Christmas this year’s was. after all, how can i complain after spending the 25th (after giving my folks their gift and receiving my well-deserved supplies of socks and underwear) in my pyjamas with Cagney’s family, especially when you factor in the gift exchanging and turkey? fantastic to say the least, indeed. it was a nice and lazy day thereafter, too, with no real reason to change out of pyjamas — the lot of us ended up watching The Dark Knight and Eddie Murphy: Delirious, the likes of which made me laugh harder than i’ve ever laughed at anything, ever. i’m serious; i’m not big on a lot of Eddie Murphy’s stuff (and especially not the abortion known as Holy Man) but i was in stitches the whole time.

yesterday was Jeff’s birthday party, which was conveniently thrown right on his birthday, which, ironically enough, inconveniently falls on Boxing Day. and, aside from a couple Christmas songs almost sneaking their way onto the karaoke machine, the party was totally unmarred by the fact that it fell so close to Christmas. suffice to say there was red wine and pumpernickel bowls (like, three of them) and good people.

Cagney and i got up nice and early today (seven or so in the morning; i’m surprised i’m awake right now) because she had to get back to Waterloo in time for work at nine this morning. as for myself, i just got back from a brief band practice with Tim, and i’m going to have to grab a shower and clean up a little before heading back to Stratford for the remainder of the weekend and then some with Cagney — but first, i’ve got some videos to watch from something i treated myself to yesterday.

Felice Navidad, as Cagney might say; merry Presentmas as i might! either way, i hope everyone is being excellent to each other, today and onward!

it’s been a pretty hectic past couple of days, for reasons up to and including last-minute gift acquisition and wrapping and the weather. oh, the weather. i know i’ve dismissed talking about the weather as a trite thing to do in lieu of genuinely interesting conversation, but dammit, i’m going to talk about the weather for a minute.

last night, when coming home from Cagney’s place, i was met with what can be considered nothing less than a charlie-foxtrot of snow. you know those video clips you’ve probably seen of locust swarms destroying Chinese crops? it was like that, except replace each insect with several million snowflakes. the sky — and, subsequently, the ground — was just that full of snow. there was a van off the road that had, as its treadmarks in the snow indicated, spun out and slid into the ditch on the expressway, as well as one that spun out not 100 feet in front of me on Victoria Street. the latter of those two vans managed to stop on a dime in the opposite direction’s left lane after doing a perfect 180, after which it continued on in its new direction. i thought to myself that, if the spinout was accidental, the driver made a perfect (and rather impressive recovery); on the other hand, if the spinout and change of direction was on purpose, then screw the driver for endangering myself and the car ahead of me. but i’ll stop talking about the sheer volume of snow that KW experienced last night; suffice to say that two feet of snow sucks to shovel or snowblow after its started melting.

i’m far more stoked for tomorrow (well, technically later this morning) than i was at this time last year — having Cagney to share Christmas 2008 is definitely contributing significantly to that excitement! i started my Christmas shopping well over a month ago, and i acquired the final present that i have to give out last night, when it was conveniently and graciously delivered to my doorstep. everyone’s goodies are wrapped and tagged, Christmas cards have been sent out to several lucky recipients and i have a whole day of tearing gift wrap, reading cards and sipping hot chocolate with an adorable wee damsel to look forward to tomorrow. i think it goes without saying that pictures will be taken and Facebooked soon after the festivities wind down.

merry Christmas to all! be safe and full of love.

portraits from Sunday’s outdoor shoots can be found in my portraits set — look, critique, enjoy!

in taking outdoor photos of two separate sets of siblings today — Andre and his brother Neal and, later on in the day, Joschka and his sisters Katrin and Anneli — i learned a few things: that taking photos through blowing snow can prove to be rather difficult; that lenses have to warm up when coming inside from outdoors before you clean the waterspots caused by flying snow off of them; that fingerless gloves are a blessing for taking pictures in the wintertime and a curse for the fact that they’re fingerless in the wintertime; and that Tauntauns would’ve come in right handy, as the weather conditions in KW today more or less mirrored those of Hoth.

Andre, Neal and i ended up going to Pioneer Tower for photos and, upon discovering it’s locked, opted for photos of an impromptu game of catch with a football outside of it, some friendly sibling wrestling and antics involving a slide and about a foot of snow at a nearby playground. Joschka and his sisters were photographed in Victoria Park doing nothing special besides being three siblings who seem to love each other very much (outwardly, at least!)

i think the photos from both sets turned out largely on the positive side of things, and i’m going to spend all night editing them in my pyjamas, with a hot cup of cocoa every now and then. check my Flickr tomorrow; they should be up by then!

i don’t think i’ve been able to lay personal claim to a snow day since one day during my first year of college, when Conestoga closed down due to weather. and even though it (and WLU) closed today for the same reason, i can still count on two hands the number of times that college has closed due to weather in its 30-odd years of operation. the reason i can claim today as one, however, is because my mother’s workplace closed down at noon, so our preemptive notion of not going in in the first place seems to have paid off!

they’re calling today’s weather “snowmageddon,” apparently, since it’s supposed to continue until Tuesday, with calm periods on Saturday and Monday — although it’s eased up a little since earlier this afternoon, the snow was, at one point, coming down and blowing hard enough to obstruct everything i was trying to take a picture of from my window. because, you know, the first thing i think of doing upon hearing about staying home from work due to inclement weather is taking pictures of the aforementioned reason for staying home.

the photo doesn’t really do justice to the reason my temp workplace is closed, but rest assured, the roads are terrible.

aside from catching up on some sorely-needed sleep, i’ll be able to use the remainder of the day to edit the photos i took of Matt and Kayla on Tuesday night, catch up on some book reading and movie watching, trim some of the fat from my Flickr, practice styling my new ‘do (courtesy of Cagney’s talent with shears), wrap some presents and fire up the snowblower when the snowfall finally relents enough to make doing so worthwhile.

vitamin D³. i need it — i crave it. it’s synthesized in the skin from dehydrocholesterol under the action of ultraviolet B light (thank you, Wikipedia), which is conveniently emitted by the sun.

the sun, however, is something i haven’t seen in what must be a week or more, which has surely been detrimental to my health and mood. aside from that fact alone being enough of a total bummer, i seem to feel more lethargic and blah when all i see is grey skies in the day (either that, or it’s been sunny for the past week and a half while i’ve been indoors at work.) either way, i’m sure my wretched sleep schedule doesn’t help the matter — i really ought to do something about that, which i’ll get to as soon as i wrap up this blog.

as per the usual Christmas season procrastination, this week has felt hectic so far, which i don’t mind so much, knowing i’ll have a chance to sit down and rest very soon. but in the next few days, there’s work to do: i have two sets of sibling portraits to do outdoors on Sunday morning and afternoon, and i just did couples portraits for the illustrious Matt Bresee and Kayla Ellis in Guelph this evening before braving the shitshow of snow that currently is Highway 7 and heading over to Cagney’s to take care of some Christmas card-related duties, the likes of which we’ll hopefully finish up tomorrow. the photos of Matt and Kayla will be in their hands and, subsequently, up on Flickr well within a week’s time, so i’m looking forward to those being completed.

for some reason, i find myself more content with low-key recreation in the wintertime, whereas i’m more apt to do something active in the summer (staying in for a hot chocolate and a movie or sitting down for a pint and some food versus hitting a dance floor, for example.) it’s not that i don’t enjoy dancing or other forms of frolicking in the winter, but i almost feel more apt to adopt a hermit’s lifestyle when it’s cold and miserable out.

if it’s cold and sunny out, however, i tend to feel fantastic. it’s the whole vitamin D thing with sunlight, i swear. at any rate, the weekend was good; Cagney and i toddled off to Stratford last night and i ended up coming home this afternoon, where my attempt to reinstall an operating system on a friend of my dad’s computer ended in vain. i was pretty surprised that the 233MHz system managed to run Windows XP in the first place, but i guess 233MHz is its bare minimum requirement. actually, most of my surprise came from laying my hands on an at least partially-functional computer of that age.

i’m excited for tomorrow; i’m pretty sure i’m going to be able to finish up my Giftmas shopping completely after work, which will subsequently allow me to stop fretting over that particular aspect of the holiday season so i can concentrate on becoming adequately festively plump.

my van is done exchanging hands for the time being — after Tuesday’s mechanical work, Tim took it into his workplace on Wednesday to steam it out and toss some chemicals into it. the steering wheel is still a little bit gooey with nicotine residue, but at least the fabric smells stellar, and Tim told me he used a chemical that’s used to get rid of the smell of dead bodies and carrion on the van’s ceiling fabric. awesome.

my first week of work as a seasonal temp at my mother’s workplace is done and, thusly, my tenure there is half over. i’d tell more about the job itself, but beyond taking books off of carts and putting them onto shelves, taking them off of shelves and putting them onto other carts and taping book spines, there isn’t a lot to tell. i’m sure i’d get sick of such a job if i had to do it every day for years, but it’s just dandy for now.

as for today, i just got back from the jamhall where i met Tim and Anuj to do some writing, which i’m glad we did for the couple hours we could before Anuj had to work. we’re aiming to jam with a prospective drummer next weekend, i think, but i have high hopes for the songs we’ve been working on. they’re definitely different than things we’ve done in the past, and i’m really excited about them!