Discovering early No Motiv is like finding missing pieces of your childhood.
2 years, 5 months ago
The Only Way To Listen To Music
2
The only way to listen to music is with your heart in your throat and your headphones on, sitting on a curb in the shade, telling yourself you’ll be fine as long as you get the voice out of your head and the smell out of your senses, killing your top rated, wondering if you can call someone, anyone out there, to distract yourself, but no, you’ll handle it on your own, because you’re strong enough, you’ve been through the worst of it already, and this is just another thing, wondering why it’s only in situations like this that the beats pound your chest like a sledgehammer and the voices sing out achingly in place of your dumb silence.
Now Bronwen wants my sperm if she doesn’t have a baby by 35. Maybe I’ll be looking for a womb by then too.
2 years, 5 months ago
Looking for a new kitty litter system for Dolly. There are self-cleaning systems over $300! Is it worth not cleaning cat poop again?
2 years, 5 months ago
Surreptitiously Published
It started with this tweet by Jay Hori. I was all like, “What? What blog design book?”.
Jay told me the name, so I found a copy of “クリエーターのための3行レシピ ブログデザイン” through HMV Japan, and they shipped it to me.
I flipped through the book and noticed that some of my web design idols were in there, like Dan Cederholm of SimpleBits and Shaun Inman1. I wonder if Dan or Shaun know they’re in this book. That’s right, I’m on a first name basis with them. We hang.
When I got to recipe 57 (they label all their design tricks as “recipes”), I saw a picture of my website. My experiences with therapy were on the front page, along with me saying “Sometimes I come out feeling like a monster, like some horrible, fucked-up person.” I guess they don’t use English copy editors, and my curse-filled words may give English speaking Japanese people the impression that Canadians are psychological monsters.
But aside from my own words, I realized it was the only thing I could understand. I had to ask someone who could read Japanese. Someone who just came back from studies there, and wasn’t allow to speak or write English for a month. Maggie. She sent me this:
Your site is being used to explain “Navigation through simplistic icons”. Or like, simple, low-key, uncomplicated. The right side introduces WordPress and Moveable Type and talks about their uses of templates and template customization, then introduces your site as doing something (can’t understand the word) with the background in contrast to how you use simple/clean icons as your navigation.
On the left page, under the screenshot of your site it says “Displaying navigation through minimum design. Designated using CSS, the minimum use of files is excellent.” Bad translation. The way you use your files (I’m guessing this refers to the actual number of pages and stuff on your site) is also quite minimum and that is nice.
Cool.
And with the code for my comment bubble right in front of me, I had to wonder about the legal implications. It probably wasn’t legal for them to publish my source code, which is why they didn’t contact any of the owners of the websites to tell them that they were published. I hear the copyright laws are notoriously lax in Japan.
- Regarding his use of the old flash header that was a wave, inspired by anime. Shaun and I were also featured in the Perishable Press minimalism in web design series. [↑]
Maybe if I was dating someone who went psycho during her time of the month.
2 years, 5 months ago
As useful as Appbox Pro is, I wish there was a way to hide certain apps. Do I really need a “period calendar calculator”?
2 years, 5 months ago
You run out of medication a lot faster than you realize when you take six pills a day.
2 years, 5 months ago
The Regret Of A Night Lost
I should be happy. Or feeling bittersweet, at least. On the one hand, I’m thankful to have had the chance to share so many things with her:
- listening to Bring Me The Disco King (Lohner Remix), as she sat curled in my lap in the darkness of my room
- runs for bubble tea before settling in for the night with a movie or two
- a road trip to Toronto, where I got to introduce her to my friends, Pacific Mall, and dragon’s beard candy
- parties at Pat and Jen’s, with board games, Rock Band, delicious food, amazing people, and general silliness
- moments like this
- looking into her eyes while our bodies were locked in blankets on the living room floor
- reading my favourite parts of The Prophet to her
- just the two of us going to dim sum on a beautiful Saturday morning, and introducing her to a medley of new dishes
But there’s one thing I regret, and that’s not being able to spend the night with her, for she had never slept over, you see. Sure, there were times when we stayed awake well past sunrise, with only the touch of hand and flesh as silent dialogue, my desire to prolong the pleasure driving my will to stay awake to every moment possible with her. Those are some of my favourite memories. But the sleep that eventually took us was only our bodies passing out briefly from exhaustion, and when we woke, she’d be gone soon after.
There are other things I wish I had had the chance to do while it lasted — sharing a relaxing bath, photography and video ideas, getting involved in a deep co-op game — but none of them were as important as a night spent sleeping together.
A long time ago, I wrote about how a girlfriend helped me figure out the importance of the night because of my earlier romances, and the situations that never let me share something as simple as sleep, the most intimate of intimates.
In a relationship, sharing the night is more important than sharing fluids. Falling asleep with someone is an acceptance of trust, a way of saying that we’re comfortable enough to drift into our subconscious minds.
Perhaps it was my fault for keeping her awake. I wonder now, if on one night, I should have let myself sleep, instead of letting our passion take us long into the next day.
What the…yellow in the bowl? Did I sleep-pee last night? How come I didn’t sleep-flush? At least I didn’t sleep-miss.
2 years, 5 months ago
Monday long weekend > Friday long weekend, cause you ease back to work with a short week. Amirite?
2 years, 5 months ago
Exchanging Ottawa blogrolls with Tiana. Any suggestions for both of us?
2 years, 5 months ago
See You In Toronto
I’m so glad that Toronto remains a place where I can go to get away. There are places to stay, an endless cycle of friends or acquaintances to visit, and someone else takes the wheel and drives.
It’s amazing to see how much Toronto has changed. How certain streets downtown have turned into trendy, expensive shopping districts, a Canadian version of Rodeo Drive, and a far cry from the run-down roads I would visit every lunch in high school by rollerblade and subway to buy Magic cards and Warhammer figures.
After Bill Clinton’s speech at the CNE, there was a brief question and answer period. The host asked him, “What do you like most about Toronto?”, adding that Torontonians seem to have a sort of self-deprecating humour1. After making a diplomatic comment on the Aboriginal art as being his favourite thing, Clinton said, “You folks can make fun of yourself, but people would kill to live a society like this. You should be very proud.” I had to agree.
Before leaving, I had dim sum with my dad, and we caught up on each others lives a little bit. He sounded pretty happy when I called to ask him if he wanted to go.
I bought a pair of windshield wipers but didn’t replace them, bringing them with me to his house instead, hoping he could show me how to install them. I could just as easily have read the car manual, but I wanted something to share with him. Maybe now I can catch up on these father-son things that I seemed to have missed in my childhood.
- I suppose you have to, with how well the Leafs have been doing in recent years. [↑]
So strange to have a lingering goodbye with a friend, only to have them say, “I’ll call you tomorrow” as usual.
2 years, 5 months ago
