Wine and Design

It's been a good long while since I've gotten propperly tipped off of a bottle of wine, so here I am... PROPERLY tipped. As of word #10 of this entry, I've decided not to correct my spelling mistakes unless they are due to "fat-fingering." So what's new boys and girls?! What has been ricocheting off of the interiors of my skull like a well aimed bullet? No clue. But I'll take a stab at rememberizing things nonethelessly.

Primero:: the surfing rampage is over, so don't ask. Poseidon has seen fit to banish me to a a topology of infinite dissatisfaction. --If I were only closer to Haptron.

Segundo:: I caught The Dark Knight Tuesday night with Conor, Ashley and 5 other people. The movie was insane. Go see it. Wear two pairs of underwear.

Tercero: On the topic of psychological mind-f***ing. I finally finished House of Leaves... the book was good, but very intense and dense for my slow mind. Imagine reading three books at once and being expected to link subtleties between them all in some sort of big conspiracy, except there really is no conspiracy, it's all just a big, beautiful, self-recursive metaphor. I would love to start describing the premise of the book, but even that would take about 2038974 pages, so I'll just quit while I'm ahead.

Que mas?

Ashley has been enjoying working at the summer day-camp. She gets to be creative and teach kids dance routines. They put on shows, and in the time between it all, she swims like crazy. I actually just wrote about this in an email to a friend:

"...Work is kicking along well. I've started rewriting our HCS analysis software (CellProfiler Analyst) in Python. This language is AMAZING. It's everything I've ever wanted in a programming language. Never again will I code in Java -- BLEH! Of course, maintenance of our old code is already making a liar out of me. Whatever, work is going really well... and yet not perfectly. It's funny, because this job is almost the perfect fit for me. I get pounds of coding experience; am surrounded by brilliant people; have many opportunities to learn about the state of the art in biotech; get flexible hours and vacation time. Still, there's a very elemental part of me that resents being cooped up in an office 8 hours a day, 5 days a week while Ashley is swimming every day in the sun while teaching kids to dance at a summer camp. Maybe it's the artist in me that feels like he is being neglected. I'm almost certain of it. I told Ashley about this and she says she's sure she'll see me go back into graphic design in the long run, but I don't know if that's what I want either... For some reason, I feel like you probably get the same essential feeling -- that you always have to be moving and changing, because as soon as you sit still, then the grass is suddenly greener on the other side."

Writing about this stuff at least seems to help me get a perspective on it all. Now that I've finished House of Leaves, maybe I should get back into drawing on the train. For some reason or another that made me feel ridiculously happy. Whatever it is, I've got to find the holes and fill them, because there's seriously no excuse for even slight discontent with my current situation.

Al Final: I took some photos recently and felt completely inept. I keep up with photography, even if my camera does need a serious overhaul. I miss art.

Uprooting and Replanting

My arms and back have a good ache going on after surfing four times in the past two days. The sets today should be rolling in around chest high, but you won't find me out there. Nope -- I'll be spending the day uprooting myself from North Chelmsford and replanting in Lynn.

To be honest, I feel kind-of anxious about the move. Money could be a huge factor, but there are other subtleties that give rise to my anxiety. Whatever happens, I need to make this location work out for me. This move will plant me much closer to Ashley, work, and the ocean, not to mention the fact that I'll living with my best friend since forever. If there are so many blatantly positive aspects, why then is it that I still feel a bit uneasy?

"Don't worry. Be happy." Bobby McFerrin, you always know just what to say to make me feel good.

So the entourage (my family) should be arriving hopefully within the next 30 minutes. For now, I'm sitting the the rubble that is left of my room. It's a sad sight, for a site that I put so much time into making my own. I remember telling Gary once that I wished I could paint a mural on one of my slanted ceiling-walls, to which he laughed and replied, "Don't worry, I don't think you're room could possibly have more character than it already does." For whatever reason, I took this as a massive compliment.

Fisheye

Bizarre, though it may have been, the past week was truly excellent.  After helping Ashley move into her new abode this passed weekend, I noticed a clunking sound in my front right wheel well.  To make a week-long story short, the clunking turned out to be corroded and broken spring(s) somewhere in the suspension.  Luckily, the part was under warranty, but it took about 5 days to get everything looked at, figured out, dropped off at the dealer, and finally fixed (today).  What this has meant for me, is that I've been staying at my parents' house every night this week.  How weird and yet fun!

Each day has gone basically as follows:

1) Wake up at 6:20, maybe shower, put on old clothes.

2) Get a ride from my mom at 6:40 to Newburyport station for 6:55.

3) Arrive at work around 8:45.  Work for 8 hours.

4) Return home by 6:30/7:00, surf at The Wall or Jenness until 9:30.

5) Shower, do a crossword puzzle with my mom, go to sleep.

While the crossword puzzles have been a totally rad, albeit strange tradition, I must say that I am far more stoked to have surfed 5 out of the passed 6 days.  Moreover, I was further pleased to be accompanied on most occasions by Brother Chris or Bill Mosher.  Tonight all three of us were out there just eating up the low-to-high tide push after a massive thunderstorm passed us over at The Wall.  Last night, however, it was just me and the perfect sunset.  Nothing calms the soul like glassy, waist-high surf in the beautiful everglow of sunset at Hampton.

On the topic of surf, I'm also in the market for a short board.  I had arranged to meet with someone in Cambridge to look at their 6'6" Local Motion board, but he ended up selling it before I even got a chance to look at it in person.  Nevertheless, that's what I'm looking for: About 6'6" by ~20" wide with a "fat ass" squashtail as Ed tastefully put it... what can I say, I like me some ghetto booty.  Basically, a shorty designed for the small-mid sized surf in the North East.

Lastly, I'm feeling really good about the fact that I'm still drawing on the train pretty much every day.  Yes, almost all of the drawings have been surf inspired, but what I'm really into right now is just capturing the body in motion: Where the weight is distributed, what a particular pose looks like from different perspectives, especially distorted ones like a fisheye lens would produce.  What I've always liked about drawing is that it has always helped me to understand the world around me a little better.