Collage as in I pasted vectors and patterns I found elsewhere into an artboard in Illustrator. All while listening to what I think of as a struggling-to-hold-on-hold-tight playlist.
I think the word 'hope' is too off-center for my liking, but then hope always is ... Originally intended to make it into a cutting template but no way am I gonna be cutting that many curves.
... do I appear to have an unnatural amount of anxiety about the interview this afternoon?
And, honestly, I don't think I'm anxious about screwing up the interview or that I'm nervous about being turned down for the position after the interview. I feel like I'm more anxious about being offered a position than having the interviewer dislike me. =( This is so weird.
Well, it's been ... awhile. A long while, to be sure. I left my job, had lovely gifts and a send-off from my colleagues, and have been bumming ever since and it got a little dark ... too dark for me to handle.
But I think the dark clouds have passed — at least for now. I've been riding this wave of can-do spirit this week and I hope it doesn't peter out too soon.
The last time I'd been despondent (though maybe not as desperately as the past few weeks) was when my thyroid condition left me incapable of doing the activities I love and I just gave up.
Then, one night, I happened to catch just this bit of Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted on telly/cable:
Katy Perry's empowering lyrics, the visuals — but especially Alex and Gia, and Marty and Stefano, flying through hoops, etc. — suddenly motivated me to stop moping, get off my ass, and start working to get back to where I was. (It was a long process: I started aerial yoga without even being able to do the easiest things; it was just really horrible. I'm stronger now, controlling the thyroid condition with meds, training under a great aerial yoga instructor, and thinking of getting back into aerial arts, starting with the hammock and/or lyra.)
The other things in my life ... well, I hope what I've been doing this week is the first step to getting back on track. I just need to find more aural and/or video motivation.
Addendum: I can't believe I forgot to add that meeting with Ola on Sunday, soaking up her optimism and listening to her fresh (and positive) perspectives, was prolly the gust that blew the dark clouds away.
My guess: The almost-full moon, my period, and physically, emotionally, and psychically stressed and exhausted. So it's a 'Multiply' kinda day — that one with a soundtrack composed of 'Addict', 'Hurt', 'Multiply (In A Minor Key)' and X-Japan ballads.
Of course I did what I always do — shut down, went offline, and did a bit of therapeutic cutting.
It's the simple roll box which I got from Paul Jackson's Folding Techniques for Designers: From Sheet to Form to which I added random patterns I cut into the long-side panels. It looks okay, but I think the patterns should be planned next time so the two sides that each has two layers would look nicer.
I think for Hazel's gift I might do a shadow box/frame with different folds on which patterns are cut. White on white on white maybe.
As I was folding and unfolding, cutting, and refolding, I watched (casually, meaning with an ear open but without really watching the screen) Bobby Jasoos. I do like this movie but it's mainly because of Vidya; Ali Faizal did fuck-all and didn't look very compatible to Vidya. The story was interesting enough but the denouement was a bit of a letdown.
I also finished Bol Bachchan — oh lord why had I even started on this in the first place?! It's Rohit Shetty, ffs. Argh, why don't I ever learn???
It's ridiculous to feel so bloody fragile and sensitive that every little thing seems to matter and bruise the soul so much.
Maybe it started with the news of the Nepal quake, which I'd read about before I even got out of bed. Then at aerial yoga, a classmate from India was quite indignant that not many people seemed to care — because, Nepal is a country that, as she said, is "not important".
So after cooking this week's lunch, I looked for a show that would indulge this downward spiral and settled on That Girl in Yellow Boots, figuring if an Anurag Kashyap movie couldn't make you utterly depressed, prolly nothing else would.
I actually like this movie a lot. The actors were all fantastic, but Kalki — she was the light in the murky shadows of the movie. And, I thought, she had never looked more beautiful than she did in the lift scene (back to the massage parlor after realizing who the father she had been looking for was) — pale and completely broken.
The sequence in the streets during which Prashant was looking to kill Ruth's father reminded me a lot of Chungking Express. It's not Christopher Doyle's signature frenetic style, but the streets and the crowds and the futile searching all came together in a way that was reminiscent of Takeshi Kaneshiro's chase and his (later) futile search.
I didn't really get the connection between the cult/god-men-pedophilia thing that Wiki mentioned, mainly because I think Arjun/Benjamin Patel was said to have been told to leave the ashram. Also, was Rajat Kapoor's cameo meant to be a red herring? If not, then it's a really weird and short cameo.
Anyway.
Nine Inch Nail's 'Hurt' makes my skin tingle. I guess it's a feeling, a — not need — want, that never really goes away but just hides right beneath the skin, waiting to bead, bubble, and surface with a scratch.
Or something.
I've always thought Maximilian Hecker's 'Rose' was the song to slowly bleed into oblivion to.
So, this afternoon during my appraisal meeting with my manager, I said I haven't been on a proper vacation (which, in my books, means at least five to 10 consecutive days off) since 2013.
My manager said I should take my break before I burned out. I could only think: lady, that fucking horse was so long out of the bloody barn, both horse and barn are now fossil fuel.
So, the question about to burn or not to burn bridges is now pointless. I'm nothing if not self-destructive, and all that time I'd spent thinking about whether or not to burn bridges, I've managed to set myself aflame.
I know you shouldn't burn bridges when you leave because you never know when you might need help or to return, but what if burning ALL the bridges meant whatever nightmare and horror on the other side of the bridges won't be able to distress you ever again?
How bad must things get so that the burning of bridges is justified?
... I'm sure I'm just being impulsive as usual. Hopefully sleeping on it will bring about some sense and sensibility.
Also, my The World Before Her DVD from the Kickstarter I supported arrived! The Hindu fundamentalist camp is horrible, and the girl who is thankful her father let her live even though she was a girl-child is horrifying.
I also recently caught Queen which I really like — OMG Kangana Ranaut as Rani is soooooooo adorable!
Today, I also attended a modern calligraphy workshop which was really nice (I have terrible handwriting)! Can't wait to go to the next level workshop!
Some things that make you sad will always make you sad, I guess. It's days like these that make me believe that happiness is transient, elusive, and unreal - the dream within a dream.
Being sad is slightly more real. Well ... at least it's familiar grounds.
Now that my body had me drop out of aerials, I feel there's nothing to lose and everything to gain if I were injured in a bus crash somehow because - hey, I won't have to be at work then.
After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t mean security.
And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,
And you learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.
After a while you learn…
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure…
That you really are strong
And you really do have worth…
And you learn and learn…
With every good-bye you learn.
Jorge Luis Borges
Just across this tonight. It makes me want to cry. How long is "a while"?
I came across an old note I wrote back Nov 2008 in which I was mad at the boss. Funny how I'd forgotten the anxiety and turmoil of my decision.
Mephisto offered to shoot the tires off the bus I'd said I boarded and couldn't get off ...
No regrets, I still wonder what would've happened if I had got off that bus.
Mephisto had left before i returned and I don't know if he's even still alive. I have been missing him. He's always so sure and I guess that's what I need now - that confidence and self-assurance.
