10.0 is currently being featured at Perishable Press, the first in a series of articles exploring minimalism in modern web design. From the article:

Equivocality’s new minimalist design is very impressive. The site appears clean, bright and refreshing and navigates with natural simplicity. Jeff has eliminated clutter to focus on content, which is strongly unified within the site’s sharp, spacious design. Attentive visitors will revel in the site’s exquisitely restrained details, such as the subtle texture provided by the bleached background grid, or the dynamic interplay between complementary typefaces, Arial and Avenir. Overall, the design’s thematic neutrality and universal approach inspire visitors to relax, focus, and enjoy.

In addition to a detailed site review, Jeff Starr did a mini interview with me. I’ve come across Perishable Press several times through my Wordpress wanderings and it was great to work with someone I’ve always known but never met.

The rite of passage for the males of our generation — the generation of the metrosexual and hairless pornstar — is getting waxed. As an act of true love for Sheila in enduring the pain, John asked me if I would clean up the hair on his back and arms. I agreed, as long as I could film it.

I suppose that near the end of the video my sadistic side comes out when I start to laugh, or dare I say, enjoy hearing him scream.

“This is like true friendship”, he says, “Waxing your best friends back when you’ve got a Y-chromosome”.

I met her a few times. She was nice. Quiet. I was one of the more junior students and she would occasionally give me words of encouragement.

But what endeared her to me was the way she interacted with him. A comfortable familiarity, an unspoken bond they never overtly displayed in public but kept hidden between them, a secret they shared as if to reveal it was to spoil it.

Sometimes, they’d talk about their kids. They were getting older. Getting married. Moving out.

When they found the cancer in her body, he suspended classes immediately. He told us we could find new teachers with his blessing. I looked up their address and sent a basket filled with pâté and dipping oils. That was over a year ago.

And as much as I’d like to do something, anything to make him feel better — offer my condolences, tell him he has an ear — there isn’t anything I can do. Nothing will make up for his loss.

Our bond will remain unspoken too.

If you gave me the hypothetical option of photographing anyone I wanted, I’d ask if it could be someone who had already passed away. If so, I’d choose a Byronic hero like Mikhail Lermontov, or another one of the 19th century Russian Romantics, or even Lord Byron himself.

If I could choose someone living though, I’d choose Tiana.

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I have suicidal thoughts every now and then.

They don’t necessarily come out during bad times. It’s rather random. And it’s not like these thoughts involve planing how I’m going to do it, I just think of how much simpler things would be if I weren’t living. A line from Being John Malkovich comes to mind:

[Consciousness] is a terrible curse. I think. I feel. I suffer.

I think the root of my “suffering” is the anxiety I harbour. Anxiety about social situations, the state of the world, and other trivial details that make life seem complicated. I don’t want to have these thoughts, but I do. Then life gets even more complicated, and I get more anxiety. It’s a vicious circle, until it becomes not about the anxiety itself, but anxiety about having anxiety. I didn’t really identify it until I was in the car with Julie, feeling sick and sicker until I almost asked her to pull over on the highway.

All I want to do is stop thinking. Suicide would be such an easy solution, and as much as I disagree with the reasons for suicide in the first place, I honestly believe this is true.

I know I have a good life, I know how illogical these thoughts are, but that doesn’t stop them from reoccurring on a monthly basis. I remember having these thoughts as early as high school, although they were much more common back then.

More frequently, I have thoughts of mutilation, about once a week. Not self-mutilation, because there’s never anyone specifically doing it to me. It’s just me in blackness, then a floating knife flying into my windpipe, or an axe splitting my head down the middle, or an ice-pick in the back of the neck, or…well, you get the idea.

I’ve never told anyone about this. Not because I’m ashamed of it, but because I didn’t want anyone to worry. Not even my closest friends know.

But harbouring this fear and anxiety, I’m slowly realizing, is difficult. It’s preventing me from enjoying life. I’ve decided to get some help; my first appointment is in three days.

I’m tired of living with this.