Yearly Archives: 2005

The Everyday Sickness Of Stress

Thumbnail: Card by Elle

I called in sick again today, but this time I did­n’t go in.

In Psych 101, you learn that a group of stu­dents are sprayed in the face with the cold bac­te­ria dur­ing their exams, while a con­trol group is sprayed dur­ing the reg­u­lar school year. The result is that the stu­dents going through their finals are more than twice as like­ly to get sick. Stress low­ers the immune sys­tem, and the les­son here is that there’s a direct con­nec­tion between the health of the mind and the body.

Knowing this isn’t enough to pre­vent it. Sometimes it all adds up, and you get worn down.

Little sur­pris­es come in the form of friends offer­ing to pick things up from the phar­ma­cy, peo­ple I’ve nev­er even spo­ken to ask­ing if I’m okay, or care pack­ages from ex-girl­friends, con­sist­ing of choco­late bars, vit­a­min C drops, African peanut soup, a DVD of BMW shorts, and even a get-well-soon card.

Trolley's B-Day '05

Thumbnail: Chillin outside
Thumbnail: Strike a pose
Thumbnail: Shots of Jag
Thumbnail: Dual Stella cans
Thumbnail: Cheers

A cou­ple of shots (no pun intend­ed) from Trolley’s birth­day cel­e­bra­tion, also mark­ing my first for­ray into the dig­i­tal SLR cam­era world. I had no idea how much was involved in pho­tog­ra­phy until I start­ed going ful­ly man­u­al (quite a change from my sim­ple point-and-shoot Elph), but just try­ing to achieve what’s “tech­ni­cal­ly” cor­rect has made me appre­ci­ate both what the pro­fes­sion­als go through and what the artists try to express.

Still Being Tested

It’s been rough going the last few weeks. Every day is a con­flict between doing some­thing relax­ing, doing the chores that will make me feel com­fort­able, or going to bed. Even now I can’t relax. I clean my mir­rors of fin­ger­prints in between sen­tences, or brush Dolly of excess fur as she force­ful­ly nudges my wrists in mirth, and only con­tin­ue writ­ing when I come up with the next idea.

A sore throat and weary body had me call­ing in sick today (I sus­pect that I caught some­thing from pet­ting the same cat as Karen yes­ter­day, who’s seems sick as a dog), although I end­ed up going in and work­ing six hours any­way. All the extra cur­ric­u­lar things are slow­ly wear­ing me down. There’s the two side-busi­ness­es, the new effort of learn­ing as much as I can about my new Canon Rebel XT by pho­tograph­ing every­thing, and the blog­ging. I also start­ed table ten­nis again, although I’m not sure how often I can attend, tak­ing four hours out of a week­day. The one reprieve is a LAN par­ty I’ve had planned since September that starts tomor­row, and even though it’ll be a good week­end of gam­ing, it’ll still mean lit­tle rest. Normally I’m planned, pre­pared, and prac­ticed for a LAN, but this time it’ll all be impro­vised.

I’m being test­ed, and even though I know that I’ll get through this, it’s still dif­fi­cult. I’m forced to deal with peo­ple I’ve avoid­ed my entire life. I’m push­ing myself past the lim­its of any­thing I’ve ever gone through. To be hon­est, it’s a lit­tle eas­i­er than I would have imag­ined. The strength and con­fi­dence that I’ve gained over the last two years has helped tremen­dous­ly. Knowing that things get done in their own time keeps me from being over­whelmed. If I can make it through this, I’ll be stronger than ever.

Thrice = Love: Far From The End

The con­cert was quite amaz­ing. The set last­ed just over an hour and a half. Nothing was per­formed off the first album, which makes me think that Thrice actu­al­ly knows how weak an LP it was. They did two encores, one of which was Dustin play­ing an acoustic ver­sion of Staring At The Sun, and the oth­er which was a short lit­tle piece from the mid­dle of The Abolition Of Man, where Dustin actu­al­ly hands off his gui­tar to a guy who comes on stage with a grey hood­ie, and walks into the crowd to scream the last few bars. Unfortunately, my mem­o­ry card ran out of space dur­ing the LAST WORD, ulti­mate­ly ruin­ing the clip.

It was good to see that peo­ple knew all the words to Artist In The Ambulance, and Deadbolt (which they did­n’t play until every­one was yelling it in cho­rus).

Thumbnail: Crowd
Thumbnail: Dustin with acoustic guitar
Thumbnail: Stage

On his celebri­ty, Dustin once said, “It’s pret­ty awe­some. A lot of peo­ple throw under­wear at bands, but our kids bring us books”. If I ever had the chance, I’d give him Huis-Clos by Jean-Paul Sartre.

There’s more that can be said, but I think I’ll put this to rest for now.

Thrice is Love.

The Thrice = Love Series

  1. Introduction
  2. The Journey
  3. As The Crucible
  4. Rock It
  5. The Rush
  6. Far From The End

Thrice = Love: The Rush

I want to take the bul­let,
The one aimed straight for your heart.
I want to meet the wolves halfway
And let them tear me apart,
But that’s not the way they do it here.

I want to lay on the tracks,
Feel hot steel scream­ing at me.
Expose the bones on my back,
Let me show you what I mean.

Yeah, it’s a dif­fer­ent kind of love.
I want to climb barbed wire fences
And warm our hands in blood.

And this is my gift
Asking you to fix my ruined hands.
And it’s a gift that keeps on giv­ing,
And right now it’s all I have to give.

I want to write the per­fect song,
And play it just for you,
While you are tan­gled up in sleep.
I need you more than I’ll ever know.
Until I stop breath­ing,
My lungs will take you for grant­ed.

—Thrice, In Years To Come

I remem­ber a time in my life when I was scared about love. A set of rather ado­les­cent expe­ri­ences in high school, of which I only now find myself com­fort­able speak­ing frankly, had caused me to cling to an unat­tain­able ide­al. In Lolita, Humbert Humbert well describes such a hap­pen­stance that sim­i­lar­ly “made of it a per­ma­nent obsta­cle to any fur­ther romance through­out the cold years of my youth. The spir­i­tu­al and the phys­i­cal had been blend­ed in us with a per­fec­tion that must remain incom­pre­hen­si­ble to the mat­ter-of-fact, crude, stan­dard-brained young­sters of today”.

Eventually, I had giv­en up my ide­al, but still felt for­ev­er taint­ed, regret­ful­ly break­ing more than enough hearts in the process.

It only took an ardent, extreme­ly brief sum­mer romance to free me, and a jour­ney of 12500 kilo­me­tres to real­ize it.

And as fleet­ing as the entire expe­ri­ence was, it still enough to gal­va­nize, to make me want to take that bul­let, or let the wolves tear me apart. Being tan­gled up in that mad love, the love that goes against rea­son or bet­ter judge­ment, soft­ened the stone in my chest, and it felt like I was final­ly alive.

Gimmie a girl who can make me feel this way.

The Thrice = Love Series

  1. Introduction
  2. The Journey
  3. As The Crucible
  4. Rock It
  5. The Rush
  6. Far From The End