BoldUlysses.com

Wow. I mean… Wow.

Got the grad. school orientation manuals from the printer today, and they’re missing a section. A section. The handbook section. Yeah, they’re going to be pissed about this one, but for once it’s not my fault. I gave explicit instructions, repeatedly, about which sections were supposed to be in the manual, their order, and I delivered the files ahead of schedule. It just boggles my mind. And this isn’t the first issue with this job, either. They’re already almost a week late and delivered to the wrong location. Jim (the director of Printing Services)… I feel for that guy. He goes on vacation for two weeks and his whole operation has a meltdown. Well. It’ll be interesting to see what he says when he returns my call about it–but he’s probably fielding very angry calls from the grad. school already. Man.

Anyway. It was hard to get up this morning, but it’s been a good day. I puttered along shoring up some web work this morning, doing a little administrative housecleaning here and there. My car still smokes like a napalmed jungle in ‘Nam, but I’m going to investigate that this afternoon. Got a few theories. In the meantime… More hummus!

i don’t miss the driving
seems like forever
and i’m always driving in my mind
and wearing out the road that gets me there

What a rotten couple of days. I’d appreciate your prayers… I’ve been under some pretty heavy spiritual attack lately, between my unmotivation, and complete and utter paranoia about my job situation, even though I’m here, and it’s as secure as it can be, and they keep giving me work, which is a good sign… But every whispered conversation in the next room causes my ears to perk up a bit, every phone call is something that’s going to go wrong–it’s no way to work, to be here. Today’s been okay–I’ve been knocking stuff out, gritting through it, but I just wish the undercurrents would go away. A lot of it is because of my experience down in Florida of getting let go, and how every time I think about the experience and relive it in my mind I push it back because it was so painful, so traumatic… But I honestly don’t know what to do. I was always the good kid back in elementary school, the kid who if he got in trouble thought it was the end of the world, always the teacher’s pet, regardless of whether or not I was a particularly stellar student, and I think my experience in Florida was the epitome of “getting in trouble with the teacher,” or at least that was the source of the greatly magnified emotion that I felt. I felt like I disappointed so many people, I had let everyone down, I had failed utterly and completely, even if the job itself was complete garbage, I didn’t push through it, suck it up, grin and bear it… It was hard.

But you know what? God took care of me then, and He will now. I have a vastly better job now, which pays better, I’m surrounded by friends even if I don’t reach out to them all the time; I may be completely devoid of prospects but He’s going to take care of that too, along with everything, my development as a person, my destiny, His purpose.

*sigh* Just tell that to my gut.

I really, really really, REALLY really really do not want to be here at work this morning. I could have called in sick. Something inside me said, “Go to work,” though, so here I am. Heh. I’m still bleary-eyed from waking up, and I got here about five minutes late, but oh well. Betty (my boss) is out of the office most of this weekend anyway. And now I have to deal with stupid timesheets, where I basically have to account for every hour I worked during the month of July, and bill as many of them to clients as possible, but not too many, ’cause they’ll call me and say, “This didn’t take that long,” and blah blah blah… It would be alright, and it has been in the past; I just wish I had been more diligent about it last month. Phooey.

No nap yesterday, which is probably just as well since I don’t really want to develop a habit of taking a nap every day, as that opens the door to feeling really tired during certain parts of the day, typically early afternoon, and I get dependent on them. Happened in college, so I know. Went shopping with Leslie. She was buying birthday presents for people on her upcoming missions trip to Romania, and I had to get some odds and ends for the apartment. We went to Walmart first, which was a huge zoo since it’s back-to-school week, and then to the mall, where we ran into Erin (my ex) and her current beau, Dave. It was really awkward for me. Dave’s really a great guy, and goes to our church, helps out with youth and everything, and I have nothing but respect for him, but it’s still just odd, all the more since she’s about 5’9″ and he’s considerably shorter about probably about two-thirds her size. I can’t really see them together, but they must get along well… It was just weird. Leslie and Erin made casual conversation about the Romania trip while Dave and I stood there, then somehow we started talking about my glasses, and Leslie, being the very forthcoming person she is, mentioned that she doesn’t really like them, that they’re too big for my face, and Erin chimed in, by which point I’m laughing about it and everything, doing my best, but I can still feel myself turning red as a beet (when I do, it’s obvious)… Yeah. That encounter didn’t exactly leave the best taste in my mind, so to speak.

The rain fell last night. It made me want someone there next to me in bed, someone whose rhythmic breathing I could feel as the sound of the rain manifested itself. For some reason, the night hasn’t erased that desire, but only made it stronger this morning.

Okay, mind over matter. Work.

Ma Theresa’s joined the mob and is happy with her full-time job

A scattered assortment. More to come.

For a busy evening, it’s a busy evening.

So I’m still here. Had to work through today since I got a call from Scott saying they need me at the Gazette today at 3. And my neck still hurts from my workout on Monday when I popped/pulled something. I think I need Paul (my brother) to give me a massage. The guy is good. Freakishly large hands run in the family, though his are even bigger than mine, as are his feet, weird considering he’s about two inches shorter. But much bigger. Not fat, just…big. He’s pushing 230, and I’ve been hovering around the 190-5 mark for ages. I used to be able to pin him–not anymore :o)

This camera is so cool. It’s nearly silent, too–when I turn the beeps off only a tiny *click* gives away that it’s taken a picture. I sense this will come in handy in the future. And so begins my soon-to-be-burgeoning career with the CIA… Maybe I’ll get to be a NOC operative, just like in the movies. That would rock.

O-kay. Back to hummus and pita bread and Clif bar and Photoshop and Quark.

Well…hmm…hrmm. It seems the camera and the Mac OS both here at work and at home (which is a little more to be expected) don’t like to communicate with yon camera. Of course, when I plug it into Donald’s PC with Windows XP, it recognizes the camera immediately. The only feature I’d take from that OS… Remember that crisis of incompatibility I mentioned yesterday? Yeah…yeah. It is upon me. Looks like we’ll be waiting until I get home to upload the images. Unless… I go home for lunch today. Could do.

I am going to buy a digital camera today.

And Donald will be my trusty sidekick in selecting one, since he knows his stuff.

Yee haw.

So…barring a major Mac meltdown (MMM?) or a computer crisis of incompatibility of Michael Jackson/Lisa Marie proportions, I should be posting thousands of words tonight. Poetically speaking.

What a stellar film. Watched Amélie (or its proper French title Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain) last night with Donald (who slept through, according to his estimate, 40% of the movie) and Leslie. I won’t make sweeping generalizations about French films and certain qualities in which they completely surpass American movies, but just speak of the film in question. There was visual poetry to the imagery and cinematography, an admirable amount of restraint in the actual romance, and the movie was just so chock-full of little intimate details that that alone makes it worth repeated viewings. It appealed to me immensely on many levels, but two main ones: I’m a dreamer by nature, and certain (okay, most) of the movie has a surreal, augmented-reality feel to it, where we overlap more often than not into the character’s thoughts, but as a matter of course, not self-consciously at all, and seamlessly integrated into the overall vision of the film. In this regard it was very dreamlike, very fantasy-driven. The other level is simply the movie’s French-ness, the visuals, the locations, the discourse, the reactions, the mannerisms… It makes five years of my life come tumbling back onto the brim of my subconscious, just enough to press upon emotions and memories long dormant. Oh, it was so good.

*roll High Fidelity clip*

Rob: I want more; I wanna see the others on the big top-five. I want to see Penny and Charlie and Sarah, all of them. You know? Just see ’em and talk to ’em. You know, like a Bruce Springsteen song.
Bruce Springsteen: You call, you ask them how they are and see if they’ve forgiven you.
Rob: Yeah, and then I’d feel good. And they’d feel good.
Bruce Springsteen: They’d feel good, maybe. But you’d feel better.
Rob: I’d feel clean and calm.
Bruce Springsteen: That’s what you’re looking for, you know, get ready to start again. It’d be good for you.
Rob: Great, even.
Bruce Springsteen: Give that big final good luck and goodbye to your all time top-five and just move on down the road.
Rob: Good luck, Goodbye. Thanks, Boss.

The Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez flick Gigli has displaced Manos, the Hands of Fate from the #2 spot on the imdb.com Bottom 100 list (the 100 worst films). This provided a moment of amusement this morning, especially since I’ve seen the latter film and can testify to its absolute, derelict awfulness. It’s not even funny bad like Plan 9 from Outer Space; it’s just bad bad. How can I have seen Manos, and not Jurassic Park? Good question.

Donald was about half an hour into Amélie when I returned to the apartment in the middle of doing laundry last night. Seeing as how I can’t start watching a movie that far into it, the film is in the cards for tonight. Looking forward to it, especially after Donald’s raves about it.

J’écrirai davantage plus tard.

I feel like I’m flailing about sometimes, heart and mind grasping for something, anything, in the night air. This is a sometime. They usually come to me on Sunday nights, but I guess this one’s a day early for some reason. It’s been a productive day, even, I mean, I helped out Mike with his car, went for a drive with the guys, hung out with Joel and John, assembled my table, celebrated mom’s 50th with the rest of the family, went shopping, had a good workout… And I’m caught on this end of the day, seemingly trapped between my longings and sleep, tired but with no place to go but the bed and dreams and another day, but not wanting it for some reason, as if staying in this moment, clinging to these feelings which cling to no one at all could avail me, could fulfill them, could satisfy me. But nothing happens. I sit here; I poke around the internet; I listen to music that really doesn’t help matters, and no one comes. It’s not a plea, just a situation, a place I’m going through and have been through countless times that will deepen the experience of having companionship of a certain nature on these quiet weekend nights. And the sofa is only a short walk away. My mind jumps around, tracing the emotional constellation that appears for a split second, then vanishes into stars again, and my hands close around emptiness. There isn’t a direction right now, just an existence.

The Goonies.

Last night.

For the first time.

On the big screen.

It rocked.

So…yeah. Lunchtime.

C’était un matin très long, et je ne vois pas encore la fin de la journée.

There’s a giant poster on my wall here at the office. It’s solid grey except for the upper right corner, which says “no 5,” although it’s a bit truncated. It relieves the off-white of the walls and provides at least a semblance of another window to the room.

After that heart-stopping preface, here I am. Listening to music with the headphones, but only the right speaker covering my ear. Grey shirt, khaki pants. Timberline boots. Matching belt. Mismatched socks. 6’4″, though not sitting down. Green eyes. Red hair. Goatee in progress. My monitor looks remarkably akin to a flower on account of the post-its arrayed around the perimeter.

Had lunch with Leslie yesterday, who shared a real insight about the NH girl. She was just being real. She’s a thoughtful person, and it wasn’t that I might have been unattractive (although little things may have played a part), it’s just she thought, “Where is this going to go, really? How much of my time do I really want to fritter away on something that has little chance of coming to fruition, whatever that might look like?” It was good for me to hear. Stops the self-doubt. It’s something that should have occurred to me a long, long time ago. And it makes it easier to move on.

I have no creative energy today, just as I’ve had little this week. I could reach down and write about another memory from France or earlier in my younger days, but it would just be the same hackneyed, trite prose I always write. I always end up writing about the curtains to start out, then I lose myself in some other mishmash of sensations and crap like that. It’s old.

I don’t want to be here. I don’t know where I want to be.

Oh, did I mention I bought a plant for the apartment on Sunday?

His name is Francis.

And he sits on the end of the wall and needs to be repotted.

less

I watched far too many movies last week. Finally, finally saw Gladiator last night. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before now. I’m a big Ridley Scott fan. Thought it was good–I think the movie can be enjoyed on several different levels, just watching it on a surface level, or delving into the intricacies of the plot and characters and their motivations. I was in the first mode last night, so I didn’t get my brain more involved than I had to, and it was a good standard epic picture. Maybe the next time I see I’ll get more into the shifting loyalties and maneuverings and dependency paradoxes of the film.

I took a few minutes this morning to cut and paste all our correspondance into a Word file and print it out, so I can clear her folder out of my email account. 89 pages, single-spaced, 10 point font (it’s a novel). And that’s just since last September. It was rather depressing, but it will help me put that episode behind me and move forward.

The movie Out of Sight has some of the best chemistry I’ve ever seen in a film. The air between Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney is just palpable at times, especially during the seduction scene at the hotel bar, intercut with another scene… The sexual tension hanging in that conversation is substantial. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen, and not for the reasons you might expect. In a way I thought it was a shame they showed what they did, since I just wanted to hear more repartees. It’s like a French character study film in a lot of ways, where the idea of a plot is almost incidental, secondary to the dialogue and observation of the personalities playing off one another.

Bought a real, hardwood dining room table today. Tomorrow I’ll be shopping for plants and beanbags and sleeping. Not shopping for sleeping. Actually sleeping.

experimental

Yay for new webspace! It’s like a blank canvas. I can’t resist. More to come, certainly.

Wop bop a loo bop.

Bim bam boom.

Picked up Ashraf to go to lunch today for our weekly “Italian Thursday” or whatever… It seems like every day is construction day here at UNC, but today was particularly bad. Going down the hill from the hospital area on Columbia street, the left lane was blocked by construction. It’s over a rise, so the cars in my lane (including me) didn’t know it until the last second, and many of them were turning around after minutes of frustration trying to get into the right lane. Not wanting to pull a u-turn, and having sat there with my blinker on for more than a few minutes, I saw an opening in front of a white Chevy SUV, so I moved forward and nosed in. This action was immediately followed by a nice horn blast from Mr. SUV Driver as well as a few lovely comments directed out his open window. My window was down, so I stuck my hand out in a gesture of, “Thank you.” He must have thought this was an affront of some sort, since as soon as I was stopped I saw in my side mirror his car door open and a pair of jeans walking up to my car. “Wonderful,” I thought. Didn’t have time to roll up my window; got a few choice sentences peppered with, ah, colorful metaphors, to which I responded, “Thank you very much for letting me in. I appreciate it.” I think he was expecting a confrontation, either that or I didn’t seem as intimidated/defensive as he thought I’d be, since he staggered back a few steps, wordless, then lurched back to his car, muttering. Kinda put a damper on the whole lunch hour, but we got over it and had a good time. And some jerk chicken pizza and cheese breadsticks at the Mellow Mushroom.

I think next time I’ll pick a restaurant that’s a bit closer, though, i.e. one on Franklin.

Kinda makes me wonder what he would have done if Ashraf and I had gotten out of the car, though.

Back to work.

Used the scanner back at my parents’ house, which means they’re kind of washed out, but oh well…

The first 11 are new additions. Sifted through the ’92-’94 albums while my whites were drying.

Now for sleep.

I feel like peeling out at one of the stoplights on my way home. Just one of those days. But I really should be responsible and not waste the rear tires… We’ll see. Probably depends what music is playing in my car at the stoplight in question. And whether or not I’m at the front of the pack, which rarely happens.

My office plant is dying. I know nothing about gardening, but I’m taking it home so it’ll be easier for it to receive sunlight and I can put a dish underneath the pot to catch the overflow water. We’ll see how this works. I think if I put it out on the porch and water it sufficiently, it’ll make it. Doesn’t hurt that we need plants back at the apartment, either.

Something inspirational, something deep, something thought-provoking. Today I’m all plagiarism and wading through the oceans of others’ thoughts. I need to do something creative. Hmm. Now that I have the scanner hooked back up to my computer… *insert sound of mental gears turning*

In other news…

We have enough peanut butter in this apartment to kill a horse.

A peanut butter horse.

Okay, yeah, that was completely me, “singing” along with Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name” on the way back from lunch… Darn those “All ’80s Lunches” on the radio station. Yeah, I should be shot.

Have I mentioned my brother and roommate put three bottles (!) of bubble bath in the fountain of a local mall last night? Apparently it took a while to get started (since the water was so cold), but eventually the foam rose to a height of about two feet above the surface of the water and attracted the attention of the mall security guards. We were hoping it would make it onto the 11 o’clock news, since “Monday is always a slow news day,” (yeah Donald :o), but no such luck, not even as the shot they roll the credits over at the end of the broadcast. But I guess there are more important things in the world than bubbles. Though it’s hard to imagine what.

She was all in white at the foot of my bed
I said, “Angel of mercy am I alive or am I dead?”

I find my dreams being rekindled lately… Dreams I’ve held for years, reappearing in a different light. Dreams of being a pilot… Dreams I had pushed to the wayside during these first few months on the new job, but are now returned. The funny thing is, they’re strongest when I start thinking about my future in a responsible light, instead of the romantic, fanciful images and scenarios that had always pressed upon my mind, something one might expect, given the nature of thinking about the future and my already overbearing propensity to dream big… I’m a visionary, for better or for worse– meaning I see the big picture, but I’m terrible at working out the details. It also means that I tend to overcommit to things. But hey, at least I’m self-aware.

My dad is building a front porch ramp for a friend of the family who is handicapped and more or less confined to her house. She’s also not the most alert, visual person in the world, so my dad comissioned me to draw a few “artist’s impressions” of various designs under consideration, just so that he would have an easier time communicating to her what was going to happen to her front yard. It felt good to draw again, basically rectilinear forms notwithstanding… Just to throw the lines, visualize the shadows and angles and overlaps and play with line weights. Don’t do that much here at work unless I’m at the very beginning of a project and I’m drawing thumbnails of layouts and such.

I should have a new website up soon. Just need to find some non-advertised webspace. Stay tuned.

This is the single most beautiful piece of string music ever written. It’s a grey ocean, a long-awaited homecoming, an embrace, a lingering glance wrapped in the comfort of familiarity, it aches, it moves… It’s…incomplete.

Can’t sleep. Dunno why.

1. I should be in bed. That’s probably my most frequent admonition towards myself… Heh. I tell myself that practically every night.

2. Watching Moulin Rouge at this point in my life is bad. But it’s so good. I think I’m going to rent Strictly Ballroom tomorrow night–I’m on a Baz Luhrmann kick.

3. Three and a half miles in 26 minutes and change earlier tonight. Not bad.

4. I should post this in the community, but ah well. Notch a Cavalier and an Accord in my belt this week. (more…)

Yay geekdom!

I think I’ve watched too many movies this week. Saw Jaws last night on the big screen–Regency Park in Cary. It’s a reasonably-sized ampitheater, pretty modern architecture. It’s apparent that at least some of the big bucks made in the area are going towards things like that instead of straight into some CEO’s retirement fund. I had never seen it before, so it was doubly exciting. There was a video projector situated underneath a tent projecting onto a big screen on one side of the arena, with a generous speaker system arrayed above, and subwoofers strategically placed around the lawn, where we were all lying on our blankets and lawn chairs and what-not. One of the best parts about the whole experience was the lightning. The rain had already passed before dusk, so the grass was almost completely dry, but the air was still muggy. And as the movie started, flashes of lightning appeared in the clouds overhead, growing in intensity and frequency, but without the threat of real rain. It was absolutely beautiful, and underscored the suspense of the movie, already loud and on the big screen. What a great show. I couldn’t believe they got away with a PG rating for that movie, though. It’s scary, and there’s a lot of blood and severed limbs, and what happens to Quint near the end really took me aback. Makes you wonder which MPAA bigwig they paid off to bump the rating down. It’s insane.

There is something of the melancholy element in me today… Don’t know quite what it is. I think somehow the thinking back yesterday on all my relationships and young women I’ve come into contact with made me sad… To a certain degree. I felt a measure of poetry swelling up in me this morning, bits and phrases, pieces of my emotions coming through inencumbered by the trappings of syntax and conventional grammar (which I usually cast aside anyways). But I don’t think it’s time for that just yet. There’s still prose to be written.

Why do the forces of reality and romanticism seem to be perpetually at odds in my life? Why do I long for those who live far away, are inaccessible, or have long since faded into the mist of previous years? There’s always a simple answer, and I know it. I always want what I can’t have, and on top of that, their distance makes it relatively easy for those romantic upwellings to idealize everything about them. I’m not a doormat, though. I have been in the past, and I’ve learned from it; I take the good with the bad; I’m not so rosy-eyed that I won’t stand by my opinions and tenets. I felt like I tempered my idealism in her case; I watered down the desire to go full-bore, which would have been realistically impossible anyways, as previously alluded to is usually the case… But I wanted to at least keep the lines of communication afloat until…until… Until I don’t know.

And I felt it too–the lack of chemistry sometimes; over the phone, during our conversation at the diner… But something in me fights against that rationale, almost without my control. I want to give reasons it wouldn’t have worked out, but my emotions, seemingly of their own accord, dismiss those reasons. And in presenting counter-reasons, my emotions play their trump card on the realistic side of me by using the essence of what they are, feelings, to induce me to consider the emotional reasons more plausible. And so it never really goes away, it just comes and goes…

I still have her pictures in my daily planner.

I still have the crushed fragment of lavender she sent me from France last summer. It sits in its envelope in a box in my closet, along with all her letters and emails.

I feel so stupid sometimes.

I shall conquer this.

Well, I had something interesting to say, but I think it’s gone now…

Finished watching St. Elmo’s Fire last night. I should’ve rented The Breakfast Club instead, I think. The former movie is plot-less, the script leaves quite a bit to be desired, and all the characters display an obnoxiousness and self-centeredness that would shame the Party of Five crew. Not the best ’80s movie out there, by any stretch of the imagination. But it was diverting.

Aaron came over last night, his first visit to the apartment, and he and Donald and I talked about plans for a trip to Europe next summer, over pizza. Donald and I both have a few connections over there (he has a friend who lives in Vienna, and I have lots of friends living in the Nice, France, area). We talked about getting there, what we would do while we’re there, and how to get around over there. Kind of convenient that there were three of us, and three major parts of the trip to consider. Helps with the division of research. So right now we’re thinking about three weeks next May. Plane fares are pretty cheap this far out, and it’s not the smack-dab middle of the summer, so that helps as well. I’ll keep you posted.

Waking up is such an interesting experience. It’s unwelcome most of the time, but no less intriguing. I’m particularly bemused by the way my mind seems to be resolutely stuck on one idea or song or sound bite from a film or TV show I saw. It’s only there for the first few minutes of the morning, until more sensory input arrives, by why I wake up with that song in my head just plain baffles me. Also, just the fact that the initial 15 minutes of my day are basically one long, extended reflex action is something to think about as well.

It’s ’80s movie week! Well, sort of. Watched Sixteen Candles last night, St. Elmo’s Fire (which I’ve never seen) is slated for tonight, and Thursday I’m going to watch Jaws on the big screen in Cary. Okay, technically, that’s a ’70s movie, but as a Spielberg movie I just kind of lump it in with the rest of the ’80s fare. Regardless, I’m looking forward to that. All the more ’cause it’s free (yay friend with free coupons). I feel like I should grow a mullet and rent some parachute pants just for the occasion. One thing’s for sure–I will be listening to Star 102.9 (my ’80s station) on the way over there.

Good day overall. Productive, but under control, and the sun’s come out! La vie est belle, n’est-ce pas?

The light fabric of the curtains blew inward a touch. It receded into the window again, then cautiously swayed back away from opening it shrouded. I rose from the bed, reached through the curtains, and pulled the windows to, interlocking their edges as they swung closed like double doors. A twist of my hand latched them shut, halting the unseasonably cool breeze.

The room was small, and seemed even more diminutive on account of the slant of the roof bisecting its otherwise rectilinear form. The sleeper window cut into the incline of the ceiling, partially relieving the lack of space. I could hear my brother David’s rhythmic breathing on one of the room’s two beds more distinctly now that the window was shut, though it almost echoed the ebb and flow of the breeze through the curtains. I looked at him. He was the image of peace itself, head turned on the pillow, mouth slightly ajar, covered in a thin brown blanket captured in the slanting rectangles of city light passing through the panes. I moved again. The carpet fibers worked their way around my toes as I padded deliberately, quietly into the restroom, intent on preparing for sleep.

The restroom was even smaller than the previous, covered in glossy auburn tilework, and contained a window the size of the bedroom’s perched above the bathtub, for which there was no showerhead. I resigned myself to a bath, late as it was. The water was loud as burbled and flowed into the basin, and it took me a while to find the right angle for each of the knobs so that the water filled the tub with an agreeable temperature. The tub full, I closed the tap, undressed, and slipped into the basin. It was more than a bit warmer than I had forseen, so I settled in as much as I could and opened the window above me. A cool rush of air fell from the sill onto the surface of the water, quickly cutting through the steam in the small room. I breathed relief and sunk deeper into the water, until only my head and my knees broke the surface. I listened to the sounds of the city outside, now distinct: the grumble of the tires passing over the recently rained-upon cobblestones, the buzz of the scooters in the night, the dissonant symphony of distant horns at intersections, far away from the hotel’s side street, and far below the fourth floor. The breeze washed in again, covering the din with its movement, passing underneath the warm lights flanking the mirror, illluminating the old-world sketch of details that was the room. I rested in that moment for a long time, soaking in the subtleties of a night in Paris.

[venting]

My roommates need serious help with basic household duties. I come in and the dishes still aren’t done from last night, some of which are mine, granted, but not the vast majority of them. They seem to have trouble lifting the lid on the trash can to put things in, and instead of actually getting a paper towel and compressing things a little to make more room, they just perch trash items on top. It has been several months, and John still has not bought a plastic recycle container for his beer bottles sitting on the counter, so it now looks like we’re a bunch of drunks. He got extra trash bags after I instructed him that we were going to need more, but he got the regular kind, with no drawstring, so they’re practically useless. Donald leaves his barbells and his pushup contraption out in the living room, which is just really tacky, and he doesn’t clean the commode or the bathtub when he cleans the bathroom. I’m the only one who actually mops anything and seems to know how to clean the dishes so that the kitchen is really, genuinely clean.

Alright. I think I got that out of my system.

I am going to propose a rule that states that we will not go to bed while there are dirty dishes in the sink. It will go over like a lead balloon, but I gotta do something. This may be a bachelor pad, but it’s not a hovel.

[/venting]

Lunchtime at the Gazette. Cozy. Scott keeps iTunes playing on Susan’s computer when she’s not here (which is every day except Monday and Friday). He’s older, but he’s got pretty progressive musical taste, which is nice. This morning we listened to a trance/house/trip-hop playlist, nothing too dark, just some EBTG, Faithless, and assorted Massive Attack…

Went to the gym last night for the first time since the youth conference a couple of weeks ago. It had been too long, so I just did a basic all-around workout. It’s a great club, but the music in there is alternately amusing and disconcerting. Last night it was the latter. Most nights have a certain “theme” to them, i.e. one night they’ll play Euro-dance music, the next some upbeat R&B, and so on… Last night I swear it had to have been death metal night. The look on the faces of the housewives scurrying about from the water fountain to the elliptical trainers and back again was completely dazed as Korn, NIN, KMFDM, Tool, and what sounded for all the world like Marilyn Manson blared over the loudspeakers. I was going to say something, but the worst of it came on just as I was about to leave, so I just high-tailed it out. Ah well.

Watched Notorious last night. Stellar film, with some of the best camera work I’ve ever seen in a movie, period, especially the long zoom shot that starts high up with a view of the whole room, then closes until it just frames the key that Ingrid Bergman is nervously holding in her hand. Why do you even need dialogue to expose the plot or characters’ motivations when Hitchcock gives us shots like that? It’s one of my all-time favorites.

Much, much better this morning. I went home a little early yesterday, managed to make it into bed, and slept for a solid three hours. I even got into bed last night around 12:30, no mean feat for this night owl. Sunday night (working very late), and Monday evening (playing tennis with Aaron for several hours) had conspired against my energy levels, and last night at least partially recovered them. Another good night and I’ll be set, but at least I don’t feel like I need a nap as soon as I get up.

I’ve always had a bad habit of comparing myself to others. It’s quite ingrained into my personality, since I’ve been doing it for years, to the point where hardly notice it anymore, but I’ve been more consciously aware of it recently. It really hit home yesterday as I was driving back from work. I was thinking about my car, and the hobby that it is, and how my dad thinks that I’m too impulsive with money with regards to upgrading or fixing my car. My natural response, which I caught this time, was, “Yeah, and he’s not impulsive with buying golf equipment or model trains.” But then I thought, “Don’t compare yourself to someone else, compare yourself to the standard of how you should be doing and how you really should be spending your money, not necessarily what you buy, but the attitude with which you do it, and the priorties that reflects.” It wasn’t a guilt trip, just a little twinge of conviction, and I’m glad for it. It’s funny how I always told myself not to compare when I did and I came out (in my mind) behind someone else in some area or another, but when I came out (or so I thought) ahead, I wouldn’t notice that I was comparing myself at all. It’s only in retrospect that I can see that the habit was symbiotic with my personality to a much greater degree than I had known. It’s nice to have my viewpoint realigned, by His grace. It brings life.

This probabaly doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it helps me to write it out sometimes.

I’ll be at the Gazette this afternoon for “Matt’s issue” number 2. Got the insert done yesterday, and they loved it (it’s really nice when a client uses words like “perfect” to describe your design). More later.

I’m not getting enough quality sleep at night, especially after the epic tennis battle with Aaron last night. I beat him for the first time in a long while, probably a year or so. Our respective serves were models of inconsistency, just like they usually are, to the point where, in a set, we’re not breaking each others’ service games, but we’re breaking each others’ returns. Heh. My ground strokes were under control and accurate, though. There was a confidence there, so although I have the height to be a serve-and-volleyer, I was “just” a baseliner last night. ‘Twas good fun. I won the first set 6-3, then being the triathlete that he is (seriously), he kept going while I faltered a bit and won the second set 6-4.

Funny how watching the sport on television (in this case, Wimbledon) inspires me to go out and play a better tennis game. Maybe I’m a visual learner? That’s probably part of it.

Nothing of depth this morning. Maybe after I take my nap this evening…

I am extraordinarily tired this morning. Fortunately there’s an A/C vent right under my desk blowing cold air at me. It’s not the most comfortable thing in the world, but certainly better for my state of alertness than having warm, cozy, sleepy air blowing at me. Where’s the study that showed naps were beneficial for office productivity? I need that information now. :o)

It’s not as bad as it could be, though. A year (or more than a year, ha) ago in Florida, I came into work at 7 in the morning every day, which meant that if I was tired, or even if I wasn’t, I would have to make it 5 hours before my next possibility for a power nap. Never happened. Not once. But still, starting at 8 is the way to go if you’re trying to decide–maybe I’ll feel differently when I get older or suffer a bout of insomnia or the like.

*big stretch*

Okay, different music. Goodbye, Enya. Heh.

And here I sit. At work. At 11. On a Sunday night. Darn my conscience for making me sit here and finish the Gazette insert for Scott tomorrow.

*sigh*

Come visit me. 2 Bolin Heights, Chapel Hill. Knock on the door; I’ll answer.

Went to a Matchbox Twenty concert earlier with a slice of college-age and suburban North Carolina life. I had free tickets, and nothing better to do on a Saturday night, so I went. It was about as good as I expected. American Hi-Fi and Sugar Ray opened. American Hi-Fi was decent, genuine, but Sugar Ray was pretty bad, to the point of having their stage props resemble a Mexican bar, complete with bar and real bartender serving the band drinks while they were playing. It was more than a little tacky. It was apparently ’80s night for the tour, though, so all three bands played covers of selected ’80s songs throughout the night. American Hi-Fi played a Night Ranger song, Sugar Ray played a cover of “Fight for Your Right to Party” (incidentally the highlight of their set), and Matchbox Twenty played a couple, Simple Minds “Don’t You Forget About Me,” (pretty good) and U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name” (not U2, but good taste nonetheless).

Tough crowd. Everybody was resolutely sitting down until halfway through the headliner’s set (except for Sugar Ray’s Beastie Boys cover). A local radio station, G105, was handing out free sampler cds at the concert, and walking in I was accosted by an employee of the station and handed a rather heavy box of the samplers to do with as I liked, since apparently they just had to get rid of them. I continued walking in with the box for a while, then realized what I was doing, and deposited it on a nearby bench, suspicious-looking as it was.

There was a great fireworks show immediately after the concert as well. So I didn’t go a whole fourth of July weekend without seeing fireworks, which was good. If I sound apathetic about the whole experience, it’s partly because it was pretty mediocre overall, minus the time I got to spend with my friends, and partly because I’m dead tired. Need sleep.

I think I like small, more humble bands, and local, more intimate concerts better. And now to go listen to some U2. Just savor the irony.

More pictures uploaded. Photography is a common interest my mom and dad share, so there’s never been a dearth of snapshot-taking in our family.

What was getting to me, looking through especially the early ’80s photos of all of us, was that in ten years or less, I’ll likely be where my dad was then, with a family, holding my newborn children in my arms and being overjoyed with them… There was a poignancy to my mood as I flipped through those pages. Something was moving within me; I felt like an oddly-placed third party, as my vantage point on the memories undergoes the subtle shift from participant as the child, and my life reconciles more closely with my parents situation then… It will be different; I know, but enough will be the same that it gives me reams to think about and conjecture.

Pictures of the brothers. Paul is 21, David just turned 18 in mid-May, and I…well, read my profile and do the math. They called us the Viking men at the wedding in Boston, since Paul, the shortest, is 6’2″. We ran with that idea and I became Bjorn, Paul was Knut, and David adopted the nom de plume Sven for the remainder of the weekend. Yeah, we’re a bunch of geeks.

I raided the photo albums at my parents’ house earlier, hence the pictures. I really need to find some of them, but seeing as how my dad was the one taking all the pictures, photographs of both my parents together are hard to come by. This was just a quick raid, though. I’m sure I can find something with a more extended sortie.

Went running about an hour ago through the dark of the neighborhood across the street (a far cry from running on the beach down in Florida, but I gotta take what I’ve got). It’s been raining quite a bit today, so I was dodging puddles as the water was still running down the storm drains… Going ’round a corner, for a split second, a gurgle from the water sounded just like a particularly ill-tempered dog sneaking rapidly up behind me. I can’t explain exactly how it sounded; it just did. I must have jumped three feet in the air. Didn’t panic; didn’t increase my pace at all, just whirled around to see what it was… But holy cow, during a run isn’t exactly the best time for that sort of thing.

Donald, Paul, and Michael are watching the DVD of The Emperor’s New Groove in French. Just ’cause. Paul can likely understand almost all of it, Donald bits and pieces, major words and phrases, but I’m sure Michael’s bored out of his mind. I’d join them, but between a load in the dryer and cleaning the dishes, I want to get to bed on time, never mind the 11 hours I got last night.

Going to Bullock’s Barbeque tomorrow for lunch with Betty. It’s one of those locally famous places that has every celebrity or semi-celebrity sign a picture as soon as they walk in the door, and then hangs them in the waiting area. Best hushpuppies I’ve ever had, though, and I’ve had a few. It’s our present to ourselves for making it through this week.

What a hellish week, and it’s only Wednesday… Betty and I are the only two designers here this week, and we normally have five, and that’s understaffed; Scott is breathing down my neck about a University Relations webpage; I have a insert for the Gazette due tomorrow that I haven’t started on, my School of Public health clients are being ridiculously anal about paper weights for their brochure (they want 100 pound text, same as last year’s, not 80 pound like I had spec-ed, so I’m having to reprint the whole batch of 3000 at our cost), among many, many, various and sundry other things…

I think I blew a fuse yesterday afternoon. I had been going full bore all day until about 6, and then it was like I just couldn’t think about anything design-related anymore, like running into a mental brick wall. I wandered around the office for about five minutes until I realized what was happening, somehow drove home, ate the rest of my calzone, some pita and hummus, and a powerbar, watched the last few minutes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which I had wanted to do on Sunday night, felt sleepy, so I went to take a nap around 8, and didn’t wake up until 7:15 this morning. So I’m alert; that much I can lay claim to. At least I have Friday off.

It’s pouring this morning. I had rainwater toast for breakfast, since I eat it on the way to work, and I don’t have an umbrella, so I carried the plate out to the car in the rain. Didn’t seem to adversely affect the peanut butter spread.

Still raining, a deluge from the eaves…