thundering blissful

April 27, 2009

put the sounds of your house in a song

last week marked the last party in Kerrisdale Alpha, and also the last party wherein Al and Jordie have been roommates, an arrangement which had existed for most of what I think of as my adult life.

It's weird to realize how much that space, and the access thereto, changed things for me. It's been pretty much the textbook definition of safe space (esp. after Gavin's party, wherein I made out with Gary and lost my glasses, leaving me metaphorically and literally stumbling into awkward new territories.) I've slept it off, chatted over breakfast, came in to hang out, stored, lost, found, and made myself at home in every definition of the word. I worked my first show off that couch, fleeing V-Fest at T-Bird to return, shower, sleep, and leave again. I've spent at least four New Years in the last five years with Al, Jordie, Rob or some combination thereof. There's been shelter from snow and adventures in baking, post-bad-date moping, laughter and sadness and drinking and some of the best people I know.

We gave it a grand Viking funeral, with a room filled with balloons and a house filled with joy, and as I closed the door behind me for the last time, I felt a weird pang of sadness for the times we wouldn't be spending there any longer.

So: on to better things. I didn't leave my identity in one place again, which was nice, and I've lined up another couple places to crash, which is sensible. Time moves quicker than it used to, it seems, so I should go do things and not write about them.

It's been a wild ride, party house. Thanks for the memories.

April 12, 2009

band-aids

I ended up at karaoke last night for the fifth time in three weeks (seriously: a birthday, the post-AGM celebrations, ducking into the Gallery, ending up at not-Hoko's again, and then the Biltmore), but only last night was there any actual talking, and it was most definitely uncomfortable truth hour.

in the midst of an excited exchange about everyone's new homes, I let out a defeated sigh about my continued existence in suburbia and suddenly all eyes were on me, with the usual litany of why can't/won't/don't you move out? and as much as I want to say fuck, yes, let's go, I know that I can't just yet, that part of it is that I'd like to leave on good terms and part of it is that I still don't feel whole, and that were anything to go wrong again I'd much rather be here than out on my own, to some extent.

Part of it is cliché "first generation children operate in two sets of social realms" but then you add in the whole queer thing and suddenly I am a Venn diagram of identity sets and operational expectations. It seems silly to want to align them a little better before another round of turmoil, but I do, and will try.

There was substantial support for just going whole hog and pulling the band-aid off all at once, so to speak-- operating on the assumption that reconciliation was inevitable and that time and knowledge was all that was needed for my parents and their peers to adjust and accept. The problem is that the one test case doesn't bear that out, and it's difficult to explain to people just how weirdly insular the family-cluster is, as odd as it seems.

I could just work in the extra ten hours a week I wouldn't be travelling, reconnect with friends and make an actual go at a relationship and just leave this life behind. It's a tempting thought and one that doesn't stand up to scrutiny; as much as it frustrates me, I know that it's not a tie I'm willing to sever and I'm not alone in it, (as my sister and el babytron are here basically every day and that's pretty unorthodox, to be honest.) so that remains an idle fantasy.

I realize that at the end of the day I want this to happen on my terms and not for reasons of convenience. I also don't want to come out as a means/attempt of hurting them, and part of that is knowing when and how to bring it up (myself out? no idea) as well as having the logistical side ready. Being about to put myself into a sizable debt hole which I regard as all sorts of necessary evil, I can't proceed thoughtlessly here.

I'm going to keep thinking, then.

March 29, 2009

grace and chemicals

it's weird how much these three words have resonated with me since I first heard them in an M83 song. I think I will write more on this when I'm not in the middle of Ubyssey production.

Yes.

March 21, 2009

on a good mixture

there's a lot to be said about the Battlestar series finale that aired last night, and I won't be saying it here. Looking back (to yesterday, admittedly) it was less about the show and more about the showing. I watched it at Goh's place, with a couple of other guys from the paper, and absolutely demolishing beers.

Demolishing.

I cried a little, we laughed a lot, we got drunker and cast awkward toasts to absent friends and idle notions, discussed the people we work with and who'd do whom and where things would go next year and moved conversation from inside couches to outside balcony (along with the vices.) and realized I'd blindly lucked into yet another fantastic group of people.

went to karaoke (high), ran into but did not speak to richard (I was very singularly focused on getting cash from the machine. I swear.) and spent the rest of the night drinking beer and singing badly.

Back to Jordie's to sleep, and now I am home, post-hangover and wondering what it was I was thinking of in the first place. I think I just wanted to memorialize this, one of the first days I went through without the usual litany of anxieties-- I am dealing with serious future-planning stuff (photo editor! raising freelance rates! more clientele!) and doing pretty alright, given that earlier versions of me would have self-handicapped and nothing would have happened.

Maybe growing up isn't so bad, after all.

February 06, 2009

things I didn't put in a facebook meme:

7. I spent half of 2006 and most of 2007 on antidepressants.
8. I came off said antidepressants the hard way, when I decided that this wasn't a good idea and then spent three weeks tapering down my dosage and another three days in withdrawal.
10. I am a terrific liar. The reasons for this are many, and it pains me to do it, but it's easier in the short-to-mid term and I'm getting disowned in the long run so whatever.

February 02, 2009

rael-izations

Autechre: opera for robots?

I put it on when I want to do something else; it ends up soundtracking a commute more often than any circumstance wherein I put it on just to listen to it, but now that I am giving it a fair shot, I'm liking how it feels; how it seems to skirt the edge of something and then careen away wildly to bury traces of emotion between a pile and a driver. It doesn't make conventional sense, and doesn't map in any way I'm used to, and I think I like that.

January 28, 2009

like a little drop of ink in a glass of water

reviewing the archives, I notice that this has been the third time I have announced a resurrection.
maybe it'll stick. here's hoping.

thinking out loud, you said, I'm overwhelmed

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, for some cataclysm to rear its ugly head and send me back into prior paralyzed depths of my ridiculous anxieties, to return to the space I took so long to get away from.

I watch myself more astutely, now. Sometimes it's to keep a lie alive; nouns are edited and verbs omitted, timestamps skewed and intoxication temporarily ignored. More often, though, it's to spot the signs in case of disaster; am I sleeping enough? what's my diet like? why am I worried about what I'm worried about? Sometimes I feel like a miner who too focused on the canary, runs the risk of falling down the mineshaft.

I brush against them, sometimes, as I root for missing socks, the lone rigid object in a drawer full of fabric tubes; the childproof lid and orange bottle reminding me of a simpler time when all I had to do was take with meal and do not operate heavy machinery. I don't have a record of those days; they passed in a vague haze of office work and utter apathy punctuated with occasional bus treks from Langley to somewhere that didn't suck and periodic episodes of catastrophic doubt. I don't miss them.

I wonder, sometimes, if the easiest thing would be to start up again, to let the days wash over and by me in some obscene parody of a time-lapse montage as I sublimate my own desires and let my life be lived for me again, because today was a bad day and school is hard and work blows and I can't keep this up and and and everything is no good.

Then I remember the bottle, and I remember how I stopped feeling like things were so bad, and then I stopped feeling like myself, and then I stopped feeling altogether.

The bottle stays in the sock drawer. I will only throw it out when it is an empty gesture, not because I might need it and can't be trusted not to cave, but when I don't need it and have no use whatsoever for it.

That day is getting closer.

well whatever, you do this

I find myself compelled to write at inopportune times; it doesn't help that I will get myself all jacked up on caffeine and then do things I need to focus on because of my atypical reaction to large doses of stimulants, then find myself distracted in new and exciting ways.
So far, this has led to the addition of a business card blog (!) to my RSS feed, at least three bookmarks about CSS grid layouts that would necessitate a full teardown and overhaul of any web project I was on before it could go live, and about two pounds lost to fidgeting.

There are a lot of things that I have gotten good at whose necessity and proficiency I am mostly alarmed by, and along with lying (I am the best liar you know.), I'm now used to building distractions into my workflow; it doesn't help that I have three to five things on the go at once, and there are notifications popping up at inopportune moments but it makes me wonder if/when I hit a wall on this front, and suddenly I stop being able to pay attention to anything at all.

It's a worrying notion, and I realize now that I carry a couple of low-level worries with me at all times which carry the potential to grow alone or in concert and return me to the space I occupied before-- all passed deadlines and learned helplessness.

and now I'm rambling. This post is shelved.

January 21, 2009

facial horrors

yesterday at the orthodontist, they filed down my front teeth, which makes them smooth and leaves me a little closer to someone with normal teeth. My mouth feels weird again.

January 15, 2009

cold boot

went to Saskatoon with the Ubyssey, had a blast, learned a lot and slept a little, came home starry-eyed and full of (urban) fervor. that's another post entirely.

Returned home, and the next day I called the ol' bookstore to see when I was in next to find out that hours were cut by 1/3rd and that I had no hours on the schedule, that I might be able to go on EI, and that boss was v. sorry but that there was nothing she could do.

Moped around for a couple hours, simultaneously hanging out with sister and niece (who was happy to see me, apparently) and being all frown-like when my sister asked me how much I had in checking, in savings, and on my Visa. She's been the financially sound one for as long as I can remember (working in banks will do that, I suppose) so I answered and she said I'd be fine, which got me thinking: well, now what?

I have a pretty solid idea of where I don't want to work, and a decent one of where I do, so while a job hunt happens, I have a lot of freeish time, suddenly. There's a possibility of EI while I'm off, and so maybe it's time for a sabbatical-- I could get my online presence under control, get on top of my distance ed, and do more shooting as a whole; freelance, paper, and just for kicks.

So what's standing in the way? I'm not really sure. I guess it's time to find out.

January 04, 2009

kickstart

I do this yearly, hiatus or deadblog or no, and maybe this will mark the return from two years of not writing.

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
Got As in distance ed, marked 12 consecutive months at a job, bought a zoom lens, started making money off photography, went to Pride, shot shows, stuck to a five-year plan.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
No and yes.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes. My sister.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Yes.

5. What countries did you visit?
The US.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
Sanity, sig. other, a job that I don't hate, a return to UBC.\

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Odd Balls (NYE, Pride, Halloween), Pride as a whole, closing Seymour (and getting drunk with Ashley) the day I got my grades back, Radiohead, Okkervil River interview, Canada Day, starting at Davie, the birth of ye olde niece, Ubyssey 90th, New Year's at the Lotus. Night's at Al's and mornings at Art's, Corn Maze and Jess' whirlwind tour of the city, motherfucking snowed-in Boxing Day.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I got As in some courses, I got ahead with freelancing, and I didn't get fired. Or kill myself. That's probably the biggest one.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I continue to be unable to motivate myself without a fuckton of caffeine.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Yes but I didn't go mad again.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Tossup: 580EX/17-55 2.8/IS

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
They know who they are.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
They know who they are, too.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Braces, mortgage, tuition, camera gear.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Music, restoration of sanity..

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
Blue Tulip - Okkervil River

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Saner.
b) thinner or fatter? Definitely fatter, working on it.
c) richer or poorer? Richer.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Admitting.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Commute, settling.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
At home.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?
Love no, like yes.

22. How many one-night stands?
None.

23. What was your favourite TV program?
Battlestar Galactica, 30 Rock comes in a close second.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Nobody new.

25. What was the best book you read?
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

honorable mentions: White Walls, Consider the Lobster, Wild Sheep Chase, Cloud Atlas.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Frightened Rabbit, The Dodos, St. Vincent

27. What did you want and get?
Material stuff, space, etc.

28. What did you want and not get?
Material stuff, freedom.

29. What was your favourite film of this year?
Wall-E

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
23: I don't remember, probably I went drinking.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
I miss ACF. A lot.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
I like selvage denim. I bought something like four pairs of the stuff.

33. What kept you sane?
I'm not really sure.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Uh, most all of the cast of Battlestar Galactica.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
American election/Prop 8

36. Who did you miss?
Most everyone from AUS. We seem to have grown up and apart.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
More Ubyssey kids: Goh, Keegan, and Trevor Record; Carl, Jake, and Endie from BW; Ian and George and Fife from roadie-ing, and Kristen, Chloe, and Marg from RBF.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008:
This is worth doing right.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
The Notwist: Good Lies-
let's just imitate the real
until we find a better one

alternately, Radiohead: Nude-
Now that you've found it, it's gone
Now that you feel it, you don't
You've gone off the rails

June 03, 2008

recycled:

this is from the LJ, in January:
up again, down again, out of my head
I'm not sleeping again.

It's weird to be going through it all again, to recognize the patterns and sidestep the usual caltrops, only to find three more in their place. I need the meds, I hate the meds, I think they're the wrong ones but they're right enough to get me through a day without an idle thought of something spectacularly dumb (and something that I couldn't get right, although whether that was last-ditch self-preservation or sheer incompetence is an exercise left for the reader.)

I don't want to be here, I think, is what it comes down to, but I have too many balls in the air to simply leave, and as much as I want to think that the journey to a space where I can do that is worthwhile, I still can't seem to get it together. Mostly, I guess, I'm paralyzed because the choices are pretty much equally unappealing:

- stay the current course: wrong meds, distance ed until i return to UBC, work so i can pay for it all, etc
- get off the drugs, see where things go from there; attempt to stay course listed above
- go crazy
- another round of doctors and poking (literal, metaphorical) another attempt to fix me (tighten that bolt; keep his marbles in) and maybe success, maybe this again.
- crazy hippie bullshit (acupuncture, incredible amounts of weed)
- doing something dumb to retain control (squid tattoo, ill-advised piercing, etc)

they've all got their pros, they've all got their cons, they've all got me realizing that I should have used a list tag on them, and that this was a good exercise. I had a Moleskine book for recording this sort of thing and I filled it up. I guess it's time for another.

May 23, 2008

the ghost of you lingers

thoughts, assorted, below.
___
have become a social smoker, it seems. had a couple colts last night with some dudes from BW and woke up with the taste still in my mouth this morning. I dunno why they always seem like such a good idea at the time. will have to stop, to be sure that I can. addiction is too easy; reliance remains something I have problems with.
___
Other habits remain - have caffeinated pretty hard in preparation for (re)doing econ assignments but have not yet the point where I am together enough to do it and I don't know why. It would be easier if I could figure out the root cause and address it but I don't see that happening without counselling or possibly fullblown psychiatry.
___
Thinking about travel again, and how 2010 might be better spent raking in money than by getting out of town... this requires a mild alteration to the travel plans by either pushing back Emily Carr or by moving travel to summer breaks only; will cross that bridge when I get to it.
___
missed shooting National/Modest Mouse/REM because I didn't check my email soon enough. Must figure out way to do that like a Blackberry, without actually having to get one. Clunky fuckers.
___
schedule:
bbq tonight, chez rob.
late night/early morning study times (1-5am, probably)
m83 tomorrow night
work on 4th sunday (wolf parade)
jamie lidell sunday night (with abra, possibly chad)
doesn't hold a patch to this week last year, which was: end of v-fest, bjork @ deer lake, sasquatch.
so it goes, I guess.
___
fuck me, the camera was a good idea. why i didn't do it sooner is beyond me.

May 11, 2008

on passing

I am a terrific liar.

It's an unfortunate development and a dubious skill and I would give it up in a moment, but not yet. There are times when I need every iota of it to pass as someone I'm not and to do so convincingly, and I hate the situations but I think I hate myself more for it.

Today was one of those times; as much as I try to rationalize I wish it wasn't.
Tactics were pretty simple; deflect relationship questions by talking about work, keep conversation topics to sports, beer, cars, and comics, and ogle passersby badly.

It's good practice; if/when I go back to concert production it'll come in handy.

[sigh]

May 08, 2008

tripartite

not quite ready to talk about job news. all in good time.
___
have realized that clean breaks are impossible, and that for the most part, it's bad habits I need to break, not some ill defined aspects of my personality and identity. thus, changes are ongoing and it's important that I keep up the progress but it doesn't need to stress me right the fuck out.

___
resultantly, writing on skytrain again. snippets, mostly, in the moleskine that used to be denoted for marking up breakdowns. extracts follow:

...skytrains pair compression of distance with removal of personal space; windows ground passengers while reminding them of how far it actually is. add windows and suddenly everyone faces outwards (or steadfastly ignores them, to focus in, down, away. motion brings sickness, some times.) Been doing this so long that it's become prosaic.

scenes:

passing over and by an elementary school; peer down to vignettes of playground life - swings, balls, pecularities: one boy bounces a ball across a netless but fenced court and across from pitcher stands another. he wields a hockey stick half again his height and swings a lumpy arc as a building passes between us and resolution never comes.
skytrain cops embark; doors slide shut behind them with a synchronicity that belies repetition and possibly weariness. Fares checked to find that everyone obeyed the law, today - are they relieved? Underutilized? Restless? Cop shows have taught us nothing, I think.
sidenote to above: utility belts aren't nearly as awesome when in the actual world.
argyle sweater, tortoiseshell wayfarers, selvage jeans (cuffed, possibly with a square), suede wallabees, and ipod touch. Two-day beard, slight frown (with the way the world is, or what shuffle hath wrought?). Torn, here; do I want to hit him, or hit that? I am a terrible person.
guy at door, and i want to make this about his shirt. four vertical panels one tequila/two/three/floor, each portraying an knockoff Speedy Gonzales, prompting me to think "wuss". More interesting is the wearer than the item, though. Sunworn creases and careful goatee; chin up and eyes down as he looks out the window - sunset over the industrial zone between downtown and northeast vancouver. Grimaces as we slide into a station, shape of his shoulders suggesting a prior trespass, and as the doors whir open he casts another tentative glance and steps out. Paths here aren't crossed as much as they're tangents. Transit turns us all into loops.

It feels overwrought, more than a little clumsy and with a tendency to repeat tone and form. At the same time, it feels really good to be putting things out again. T-Shirts remain the final frontier; I think I can hack having an Exacto knife handy at all times, now, so I think it's time to make the shirts I have promised so many for so long.
___
last thing: this muxtape thing is some fun. I am (obviously) here: heeeraldo.muxtape.com.

May 02, 2008

eversions

I seem to have turned my sidelines into main ones, which is a promising development. Michelle asked me at Jordie's party when I was going to start making money off the photos I took, which to be honest was a bit of a surprise.

I bought the camera thinking I would have an exciting expensive hobby, being a grownup and all; barely six months later... this! I suppose that part of it was that I approached it on a lark, and really only associated going pro with people who have crazy gear and the experience to use it right.
Somehow, it never occurred to me that they had to start somewhere, too. There are times to muck around and there are times to buckle down and get the goddamn shot. As long as I know which is which, and how to get what I want out of a camera (and the people in front of it) I'll be just fine.

The impending BA Psych is becoming increasingly useless for what I want to do, but with so little left on it, I may as well finish and GTFO. UBC is rapidly becoming a place I no longer wish to frequent, and now more than ever I am ready to move the fuck on.

Plus, I have to meet Matt in Guam in two years. Can't do that without getting through this.

April 27, 2008

jesus.
did I seriously just put Matt Good lyrics as a post title?
shit, when I did I turn sixteen again.
Fuck.

anyway: May is a break from fiction. School books, Web books, and that's it. No lit, no comics, no pulp or scifi or food writing (not fiction but still.)
it's time to shift from consumer to producer, and while I won't be writing necessarily, it'll still be output.

Three days to go... better get through this last book, and then one more spin through Pattern Recognition. It's like an old t-shirt... and now I have two copies in case of disaster.

April 22, 2008

one foot in front of the other

can't seem to get anything done in the house; tiny panic-fuelled burst of efficacy today has drained into lethargy and feverish RSS feed checking.

c'mon c'mon. I'm better than this.

April 06, 2008

april update:

Take meals to work
more meals taken, but not at 100%

No more refined flour or sugar
close but not yet.

Go to gym.
nope.

Finish off current distance ed classes, figure out next 9 credits thereafter
did the second half but not the first.

Put up portfolio site, get business cards made, finish pro bono projects
getting there but not yet

Move GTFO money into high-interest savings account
turns out it was already there.

Write (and stick to) budget.
nope.

Get forms and receipts for sending off, send off.
part one, yes. part two, not yet.

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