Posts tagged with "busy"

Patterns in the Chaos

I hap­pen to have a chance to write now. It’s rain­ing, so nat­u­ral­ly the win­dows are all open.

My life has been some­what chaot­ic late­ly. Weekends spent being social have been turned into intro­vert­ed exile, a way of charg­ing my bat­ter­ies once again. The added ben­e­fit is that I have more time to tie up loose ends on my projects. I’m even get­ting back into the still pho­to medi­um again.

Dry erase boards

I installed these dry-erase mark­er boards next to my front door. I use them to keep track of my tasks, projects, and errands, so I can come home and imme­di­ate­ly decide what I feel like doing. The two sil­ver clips are used for hang­ing notes and let­ters.

Nothing feels bet­ter than putting that thick black line through a task. Writing on frost­ed glass is pret­ty tasty too.

Dry erase board closeup

I use the oth­er board for quotes, a way to keep myself moti­vat­ed — or ground­ed — every time I pass by on the way in or out of the house. It’s also a nice way for me to prac­tice my hand-drawn typog­ra­phy, by try­ing to bal­ance char­ac­ters, words, and lines on the board in dif­fer­ent vari­a­tions in an esthet­ic man­ner.

There’s some­thing famil­iar about this. A feel­ing like I’ve been here before, not in this sit­u­a­tion exact­ly, but in the mid­dle of the chaos.

All I know for sure is that I feel like I can han­dle it much bet­ter than if this was hap­pen­ing a year ago.

Long Weekend

It’s almost two in the morn­ing. Yet again, I should be sleep­ing, but I’m writ­ing now, not because the inspi­ra­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly strik­ing, but because I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to write again. So now I’m enjoy­ing my new scent­ed can­dles and the way the apple cin­na­mon aro­ma mix­es with the night air com­ing through my back door.

I need­ed this long week­end.

Julie and I just got back from Pat and Jen’s one-year anniver­sary par­ty, in which I was final­ly able to give them the anniver­sary gift I’d been sav­ing since the wed­ding: a col­lec­tion of video mes­sages left by guests dur­ing the recep­tion (record­ed on the lap­top I’m using to type this right now, no less).

I also got a chance to try their new Wii Fit, learned how to play Bohnanza (a bean trad­ing game), and pigged out on gigan­tic ham­burg­ers and German pota­to sal­ad.

Been try­ing to fin­ish my projects and tie up loose ends.

Been try­ing to match sched­ules with peo­ple: next week­end is din­ner with Misun and Frédéric and their two boys (which we’ve been try­ing to coor­di­nate for more than a month now), the week­end after is ____’s vis­it, and the one after that is din­ner, movie, and Cranium with Dan and his fam­i­ly.

Been buy­ing light fix­tures and shelves and can­dles, indulging my obses­sion with frost­ed glass, and mak­ing minor house upgrades.

Been spend­ing more than I should.

Been in love with her more than I can help.

The week­ends are all I have left. After work­ing 8+ hours dur­ing the week, I don’t feel like doing any­thing but veg­ging out when I get home. So now it’s already Sunday — or Monday morn­ing, I should say — and I feel like I’ve accom­plished noth­ing so far. Not that it’s a bad thing, since I’ve been able to enjoy myself instead of feel­ing guilty that I’m not get­ting enough done. I tell myself that I’ll be pro­duc­tive when I wake up, but who knows.

Sometimes, long week­ends are for catch­ing up on doing noth­ing. And man, am I behind in that.

Randomness and Disconnection

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”.

  1. Listed as the first of the Eight Truths of Tai Chi. [↩]

On Being Busy

Thumbnail: Girl outside Compact Music
Thumbnail: Bakery sign
Thumbnail: Rockstar Jeff with his bling
Thumbnail: Julie peers into a furniture store
Thumbnail: Zaphod Beeblebrox night club

So the next two weeks are:

  • a walk by the riv­er with Frédéric, Misun, and their two boys
  • four Tai Chi class­es
  • a hair­cut with Jeff
  • table ten­nis with Dan at the uni­ver­si­ty, then back to my place to watch Constantine
  • Victoria Day long week­end
  • a tat­too appoint­ment
  • a ses­sion with the ther­a­pist
  • lunch and a movie with Aaron

Not includ­ing the work I need to do on my lat­est pho­to project for the next show. I’m also sup­posed to catch up with Naveed at some point in there; he’s hav­ing a pool par­ty for his lat­est invest­ment prop­er­ty. I got us some cig­ars because he’s a new father, which I’ll have to do for Aaron as well, since his first (a boy) is on the way.

Busyness seems to come all at once, leav­ing me bewil­dered. Never a bit here and there.

Then all of a sud­den, I’m alone for days at a time, won­der­ing what hap­pened and where every­one went. It’s a strange flux that goes from one extreme to the oth­er.

The goal becomes a bal­ance of both. That way, the soli­tude is a wel­come change from the over­stim­u­la­tion and vice-ver­sa.

Give Me One More Day

I’ve been bit­ing off more than I can chew.

I used to enjoy my qui­et, lazy, relax­ing nights where I could sit down and write, but chances for cre­ativ­i­ty, expres­sion, socia­bil­i­ty have recent­ly been sprout­ing up every­where. These oppor­tu­ni­ties that don’t come around often, so I force myself to take the ini­tia­tive before they’re gone.

Tomorrow.