Posts in category "Daily Life"

Josee

So, what I meant to say was that I got a hair­cut. Due to a series of bad expe­ri­ences, I gen­er­al­ly don’t trust women to cut my hair, but Josée is dif­fer­ent. She’s sar­cas­ti­cal­ly fun­ny, she’s cute (Trolley thinks her eyes stand out the most), and she does a great job with tex­ture. I also feel com­fort­able sit­ting in her chair, talk­ing or not, and don’t have to wor­ry about her think­ing that I’m try­ing to get in her pants (a wor­ry, due to yet anoth­er series of bad expe­ri­ences) because she’s not stu­pid­ly fuck­ing self-absorbed like so many oth­er girls are.

What I real­ly want­ed to talk about, though, is the dis­count she told the recep­tion­ist to give me. The dis­count came in the form of stu­dent rates, although I’m not a stu­dent any­more, and she knows this because we dis­cussed it dur­ing the tex­tur­iz­ing process. I’m not sure if she did it know­ing­ly and I don’t like to take advan­tage of any­one, but I also don’t want to men­tion the fact that I don’t deserve the dis­count in case she did it on pur­pose. I thought about it for a few days, and even­tu­al­ly decid­ed that she most like­ly act­ed out of gen­eros­i­ty, and the next time it hap­pens, I would leave her an extra tip so she could share in that gen­eros­i­ty.

The Shirt Tucking-In

I’ve start­ed tuck­ing in my shirt. The only two times that I remem­ber tuck­ing were both at wed­dings; Dr. Lea’s and Jono’s. I did­n’t even tuck for my cous­in’s wed­ding, even after (or should I say, espe­cial­ly after) a chid­ing from Priscilla’s unpleas­ant boyfriend. Admittedly, I have a very thin waist, and tuck­ing always makes me look extreme­ly skin­ny. I don’t always tuck now, just when I’m wear­ing a dress shirt with cer­tain new v‑neck sweaters. If I don’t tuck, the sweaters end up bunch­ing up odd­ly around my mid-sec­tion and make me look even skin­nier.

I don’t mind it so far, although it feels a lit­tle odd to have so much mate­r­i­al stuffed into my pants, like I have a skirt on under­neath (not that I have ANY idea what that feels like, or ever pre­tend­ed I was Candice Bergen from Attenborough’s Gandhi after find­ing a cache of my moth­ers old clothes as a con­fused ado­les­cent). I’ve always been most com­fort­able with the casu­al untucked-shirt with tie or blaz­er style. I’ve been against tuck­ing for so long that it feels like I’ve sold out, start­ed lay­ing down to the prover­bial “man”, but real­ly, I’ve only start­ed to tuck my shirt in on occa­sion.

I’ve also start­ed try­ing to sit up straight. I think that pos­ture is an impor­tant part of self-image, and real­ized that I’m con­fi­dent enough now to project it. My par­ents would always tell me to keep my shoul­ders back, because they’re gen­er­al­ly for­ward in a sleazy slouch. I’ve been try­ing to go cold turkey and not slouch at all, instead of only sit­ting straight when I feel rest­ed. The great­est chal­lenge is sit­ting up straight while eat­ing soup. The extra dis­tance the spoon has to trav­el to the mouth is scary, and after a while, I end up slouch­ing again to pre­vent stray drip­pings from mak­ing large splash­es.

Moleskine

I wrote this on the bus this morn­ing:

I wrote this on the bus this morn­ing. I gen­er­al­ly hate writ­ing on the bus because it always seems so pompous. I don’t like to come off as some­one who thinks he’s an impor­tant writer, or as some­one who’s look­ing for atten­tion. Then I try to tell myself not to care what oth­er peo­ple think, because the fact is that all I’m doing is writ­ing in a note­book. And then I pull out my note­book.

The note­book itself, how­ev­er, may be the impor­tant detail. I bought a new ruled, pock­et Moleskine to keep track of my ideas. It cost me a pret­ty pen­ny, but I’m hop­ing it’ll last me a while. What I used to do was use a text file saved on my desk­top when at my com­put­er, or my Dominion Blueline A9 (com­ing in at a hefty 9 1/4″ x 7 1/4″) when trav­el­ling. The Moleskine is per­fect because it’s small enough to car­ry on the bus, and too small (a pock­et-fill­ing 3.5 x 5.5 inch­es) for oth­er peo­ple to read over my shoul­der. I can’t stand it when oth­er pas­sen­gers nosi­ly glance at my words.

It has a rib­bon to keep track of the cur­rent page, a small pock­et in the back to keep loose items, an elas­tic to keep the pages togeth­er and pre­vent dam­age, and some of the smoothest uncoat­ed paper I’ve ever used. Perfectly, all of the things I look for in a note­book. This does­n’t mean that I’m going to leave my A9 in desue­tude; I’ve rel­e­gat­ed it to keep­ing track of mis­cel­la­neous notes, lists, songs, etc., recent­ly the only task I have been using it for. The Moleskines also come with a lit­tle card in the back explain­ing an inter­est­ing his­to­ry:

It is two cen­turies now that Moleskine has been the leg­endary note­book of European artists and intel­lec­tu­als, from Van Gogh to Henri Matisse, from the expo­nents of the his­tor­i­cal avant-garde move­ments to Ernest Hemingway. Many are the sketch­es and notes, ideas and emo­tions that have been jot­ted down and har­boured in this trust­wor­thy pock­et-size trav­el com­pan­ion before being turned into famous pic­tures or the pages of beloved books.

This long-stand­ing tra­di­tion was con­tin­ued by writer-trav­eller Bruce Chatwin who used to buy his Moleskines at a Paris sta­tionery shop in Rue de l’Ancienne Comedie where he would always stock up before embark­ing on one of his jour­neys. Over the years he had devel­oped a ver­i­ta­ble rit­u­al. Before using them he would in fact num­ber the pages, writ­ing on the inside his name and at least two address­es across the world, and a mes­sage promis­ing a reward for any­one find­ing and return­ing the note­book in case of it being lost.

He even sug­gest­ed this method to his friend Luis Sepulveda, when he gave him a pre­cious Moleskine as a present for a jour­ney they were plan­ning to under­take togeth­er in Patagonia. And there was no doubt as to how pre­cious it was, giv­en that at the time even the last Moleskine man­u­fac­tur­er, a small fam­i­ly-run firm of Tours, had dis­con­tin­ued pro­duc­tion in 1986. “Le vrai mole­sk­ine n’est plus” was the short and curt state­ment of the own­er of the sta­tionery shop where Chatwin had ordered one hun­dred before leav­ing for Australia. Despite hav­ing lit­er­al­ly swept up all the mole­sk­ines he could find, they were not enough.

Now, the Moleskine is back again. This silent and dis­creet keep­er of an extra­or­di­nary tra­di­tion which has been miss­ing for years has set out again on its jour­ney. A wit­ness to con­tem­po­rary nomadism, it can once again pass from one pock­et to anoth­er to con­tin­ue the adven­ture.

The sequel still waits to be writ­ten and its blank pages are ready to tell the sto­ry.

Now I feel free to do this. Write what I want, when I want, where I want. I love writ­ing in this thing.

I’m back.

Have I Slept?

I think my alarm woke me up this morn­ing.

In uni­ver­si­ty I would dream of dif­fer­en­tial equa­tions, log­ic gates, algo­rith­mic proofs, any­thing that I crammed in my head the night before. If I did­n’t dream it, I was­n’t ready. Everything was ster­ile, unemo­tion­al. I would­n’t be watch­ing myself write an exam, I’d be writ­ing it. My con­scious thoughts would take over my sub­con­scious mind.

This is dif­fer­ent. All day I think. At night, I try to sleep but can’t, and all I do is start to think again. Then, some­how, my alarm wakes me up. Have I slept? Was I actu­al­ly think­ing, or just dream­ing about it? My jaw is sore. I’m clench­ing my teeth. When did I start? Was it before or after I got in bed? My eyes are sealed shut again. Have I been cry­ing? Did I cry in my uncon­scious, or did I do it con­scious­ly and for­get?