Cause Trailer Park Boys never give up.
Cause Trailer Park Boys aren’t stuck in the rat race.
Cause Trailer Park Boys smoke weed, drink, and eat cheeseburgers all day.
Cause Trailer Park Boys love kitties as much as I do.
Cause Trailer Park Boys always dream, hope, believe in something better.
Web design is a frequent itch for me, as inspiration comes from everywhere. Quite often, I come across a beautiful site that has a clever element here or an interesting pattern there, and get the urge to redesign my own.
But as there’s no such thing as a perfect athlete, there’s no such thing as a perfect design. Minimalism, while functional and accessible, tends to lack personality. Style — while beautiful and full of character — tends to be biased and stagnant. I find myself in a constant state of flux between the two ideals.
Right now, I’d love to have a bigger canvas, something like Days With my Father, where I can display my photos in a much larger format (because, really, the impact of a photograph is lost when it’s small). I’d love to have items organized by columns fit that perfectly in a grid, aligned along natural vertical rules. I’d love to have something a little more complex, something that invites a viewer to explore further.
But I’m happy with this one. It does what I want. It looks right, no matter what day or mood I’m in.
Having a design that matches my situation is important to me, which means they generally don’t last longer than a few months, as I tend to evolve within that time. There have been many times that I’ve written, “This is the last redesign for a while”, only to be unsatisfied in some way and to change it within a few months. I unveiled the current one at the beginning of the year, and it’s probably the one I’ve been most satisfied with. Whenever the itch strikes me, I browse through the archives and admire how clean everything is, and how different types of content seems to work in the same area. Then I realize how hard it would be to come up with something better, and the itch goes away.
So no redesign for a while.
Promise.
We met on the bus, side-by-side, reading books that both won Nobel Prizes.
I was supposed to meet you here three years ago, and they’re out of apple cider. The cranberry cider is tart, but only too much when you sip it so. There’s a subtly distinct taste to it, barely enough to stop me from wondering if I just paid $2.45 for warm cranberry juice. I didn’t even want this drink; I just wanted to sit down and write.
I never would have come here if you hadn’t suggested it. There are too many people. Too many going for the freshly-grounded, shade-grown, fair trade bullshit that’s been marketed to the hipsters who think they’re doing the world a favour by patronizing the right kind of places. Pretentious people who come here to read, then put their headphones on because it’s too noisy.
I don’t fit in. That’s probably a good thing.
I was supposed to meet you here three years ago, but your boyfriend got jealous and wouldn’t let you come.
We met on the bus, and I haven’t seen you since.
I hope John’s wrong. Not because he’s a pessimist, but because he’s a realist. I came to him overflowing with excitement, perhaps with a bright naïveté, only to be brought down in seven words, and the words have been ringing in my ears ever since. I use to think he was tactless and unsupportive. Maybe he is. But he tells the truth, and instead of my hopes, I can only turn to him for this.
That doesn’t change the fact that I’m a fantasist, who wants this right now.
Who needs this right now.
My room is a mess, a side-effect of my busy schedule. I should be cleaning. Hell, I should be sleeping, but I’d rather write instead, seeing as how I haven’t had a chance in four days. It would appear as if I’m going through some sort of expression withdrawal.
Vincent Gallo practically wrote this entry for me.
I had When by Vincent Gallo playing here.
(If you’re going to listen to this song, turn the lights down, or at least close your eyes. Remove yourself of any ambient noise. Breathe slowly for 30 seconds before playing it. This song deserves it. You deserve it.)
Even though it went up to 28°C today, the morning started cold and calm. There was so much moisture in the air that one could taste the grey.
It made me strangely stoic when I left the house. Something about the whether that reminded me of how comforting it can be to feel sad. It’s as if the earth had decided to compliment my mood with cloud cover. I can’t even explain the cause of my sadness, and can only guess that realization and acceptance are setting in. The only saving grace is that I feel confident enough to pick myself up and move on. Not that I want to do it alone right now. Wish I had the option.
As the day dragged on, things started to wear me down. Exhaustion dried my eyes. I kept trying to pick myself up, kept trying to hide my sighing sadness from those around me, to no avail.
Wish I had a smile in my wardrobe for days like this.
Tiana asked me to take some pictures of her during her pregnancy so she could have a record of what her body looks like compared to the rockin’ body it was before. In return, she posed for some other projects I had in mind.
It was an exercise in colour tones and mood. As I’m getting more comfortable in working with RAW files, I wanted to try my hand at adjusting tint, exposure, saturation, and contrast.
At one point I asked her how to spell “pregasaurus” (a term she came up with to encapsulate her girth), and she reminded me that it was a made-up word, with no commonly accepted way of spelling it.
The media makes pregnancy out to be such a glamorous affair, with designer clothes and celebrity births, that it seems to be deleteriously affecting the younger generation. I wanted to portray pregnancy in a much more casual, natural light. Hence the ghetto T-shirt and the belly sticking out.
Thanks goes to Tiana for not only getting nude for me, but for being so photogenic at eight months through the pregnancy, and working with me on these ideas.
So much to say in my head, but when I sit down, it all disappears. It’s as if being in front of a blank page, with the all the possibilities before me, is catharsis enough.
Many things to do has left me with little time to write. A trip to Toronto for the long weekend means I have to make sure all my batteries are charged (one for the digital camera, two for the HD camcorder, three sets for the flashes), and my memory cards (two for the digital camera, two for the HD camcorder) are cleared.
Thunder has interrupted this post. I opened up the blinds to see the rainfall, and the light from the street lamps has come spilling into the room. This makes me realize that the hot chocolate candle Shirley gave me for Christmas, along with the glare of my Macbook Pro screen, weren’t doing a great job of illuminating my writing nook. I had Thrice playing, but have turned it down so I can hear the sheets of water pouring through the street.
Got a bunch of stuff done tonight. While picking up some groceries, I was served by a bookish girl with braces. She had a distinct lisp, but carried on ebulliently as if she had the most beautiful voice in the world. Later on, as I walked through the mall, I caught this Katherine-with-a-K slouched back in a seat in the food court, eating dinner with one arm in her lap. It reminded me of an entry I wrote about a girl doing the same thing six years ago. How I wish for that kind of peace and serenity. How long ago that was (university!). How different I was back then.
Been feeling very aloof lately. Not sure if it’s me, or something my mind is doing to protect itself. Maybe it’s a way of disconnecting myself from the world. I must need it right now. This afternoon I was reading from a book of Tai Chi classics Louise bought me, and found one part particularly fitting1: “Do not be concerned with form. Do not be concerned with the ways in which form manifests. It is best to forget your own existence”.
She is the light, I am the prism.
She is the words, I am the voice.
She is the viola string, I am the vibration.
She is the bud, I am the bloom.
She is the life, I am the living.
She is the heart, I am the pulse.
She is the medium, I am the message.
She is the water, I am the waves.
I’m going through another phase where I’m tired of the comfortable stagnancy I’ve created for myself. I need to throw my life into a bit of disorder so I can fix it again.
So amongst the projects that have been occupying most of my time lately, I’ve started making plans to see friends I haven’t seen in a while. It’s about time for another long drive out to Toronto, a trip to John’s cottage, or playing host for dinner-and-a-movie-night.
There’s a different sort of comfort to be found in other people. It’s a different voice, instead of the one in my head. A way of gaining some objectivity. The key is finding right people. Fortunately, my friends all fit this category.
Maybe I’m trying to occupy myself, as a way to stop thinking so much. Maybe I’m just craving a change, because I think it’ll fill a little part of me that’s empty inside.
I have 106 unpublished drafts in my database.
Things I don’t feel like saying. Parts of myself I’m not ready to reveal.
The written word has always been my medium of choice. Photography is only an extension of that, when I need to express myself better than words can let me, and video goes one step further.
I used to be a terrible writer. During a parent-teacher interview in grade 10, my history teacher asked my parents when we came to Canada. They were quite embarrassed to tell him that I was born here.
Aside from picking up a useful word here and there, I’ve never made a conscious effort to improve my writing. The things I say are taken from my memories, experiences, and thoughts. How I say it is inspired by snippets of Nabokov (when I’m feeling lyrical or verbose), Cohen (when I’m feeling sad or romantic), Herbert (when I’m feeling dry), or Irving (when I’m feeling quirky or honest). The only way I’ve been able to gain any semblance of a writer is by mimicking to the best of my ability the lyrical styles I enjoy the most.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever stop. Writing is often a need, not a want. I do it when I’m feeling restless, when I have something to say, when things are unsettled, when I have things to figure out. And the case most often is that life is filled with these moments. Perhaps if I ever find some sort of permanent serenity, I’ll be able to stop.
But I probably wouldn’t want to.
This little vial, along with a few drops of anti-coagulant, is filled with blood. My blood. I needed some for a photography project I’m working on, so I got a friend of mine in the medical industry to take it from me.
Now I’ve both figuratively and literally bled for my work.
When I was young, the only affection my parents ever showed for each other was occasionally (maybe five times ever) holding hands in the car. They never kissed, never hugged, never said “I love you”. Aside from sitting down to eat dinner, their lives were completely separate. They wouldn’t even sleep in the same room.
Now that I have a car, holding hands while driving has come to define a relationship for me. I leave my right hand on the shifter, tapping it to the beat of my music, but I always have this urge to hold someone’s hand, as if it’s some strange ideal I’ve never been able to experience.
Last class, Mike asked how I was doing, and as a somewhat phatic response, I told him I was doing well.
He told me, with a chuckle, that if he didn’t know me any better and went only by my writings, he would imagine me to be like Joe Btfsplk, with a perpetual rain cloud above my head.
So I went home and read through the last couple pages of my entries, and found that they painted a somewhat lugubrious picture.
I’ve always contended that happiness is too hard to write. When I feel like expressing myself, it’s often because of a problem of some sort, internal or external, that I need to figure out. Writing has always been a way for me to get my thoughts in line, and off my chest. Not much of a peaceful, detached, care-free Taoist, am I?
Perhaps I’ll always lead a Cohen-esque life, where love, sex, philosophy, and depression are the dominant themes.
The funny thing is that my life has improved tremendously after therapy. I used to be a very dark person. After gaining the stability of a house and a career, along with separation from my mother, not much else has changed. I’ve come to realize that it’s not so much the things in my life that’s improved in the last few years (aside from the struggle with anxiety), as my attitude. To be honest, I have nothing to complain about.
That doesn’t change the fact that my entries have been somewhat depressing.
Perhaps I’m still not truly happy yet.
Or perhaps I’m still not looking at things the right way.
For Canada’s 141st, Aaron had the regular characters over, along with some new faces, for the annual barbecue. We stayed outside this time, lawn chairs in a semi-circle while the burgers and dogs were being cooked, and took it easy while the sun bathed us.
It was a beautiful day; sunny, with a refreshing breeze blowing through the air.
I don’t get to do this often enough.
