Half-assery and Happiness
Today I was told I needed to update my blog. I’m going to imagine the person was scolding me and wagging their finger, but I can’t be positive because it was over text message. Coincidentally, I had actually started writing something yesterday, but it wasn’t long before I got distracted and was unable to finish. Here’s all I had:
Just like every other Spring, Charleston got it’s first few days of beautiful warm weather, and I am sick. It’s the damn pollen. Or, the rapid barometric change. Or, maybe it’s just the universe’s way of punishing me for who knows what. But, here I am on one of the first gorgeous days of Spring in this wonderful city, and I’m one giant walking ball of snot.
If I didn’t feel like someone was punching me in the face every time I moved my head around, I’d probably be out riding my bike and getting lunch somewhere. However, if I had done that, I never would have made such an awesome realization: I finally have a zen spot again.
Basically, my front porch is the shit. And, if you’re curious as to what exactly I’m talking about, read my previous entries tagged “backyard” (keeping in mind the most recent is the first one).
Now, as much as I wish to honor that request to write something, it’s late and I don’t want to use my brain. And, since I’ve been tweeting a lot more over the last several weeks, I shall instead share the last week or so of my life according to my Twitter feed.
high heels & two wheels: Biking = romance
This article states that “Human powered is romantic.” The writer expounds:
“I bike home from work with my boyfriend almost every day, and it’s one of the best parts of my day. We talk about what we see along the way or what smells are coming from the Hostess Cake Factory. When it’s sunny, we sometimes stop for a beer along the way. When it’s a crisp winter night, we stop and watch the ships pass under the Fremont Bridge.”
This just made my day. Too cute.
If the Creature from The Black Lagoon and Bender from Futurama had a baby, it’d be my steam cleaner.
It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn’t matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.
Stop electing these morons. Please.
“Representative Ed Orcutt (R – Kalama) does not think bicycling is environmentally friendly because the activity causes cyclists to have “an increased heart rate and respiration.”
…
“You would be giving off more CO2 if you are riding a bike than driving in a car,” he said. However, he said he had not “done any analysis” of the difference in CO2 from a person on a bike compared to the engine of a car (others have).”
This is awesome and beautiful.
Via the-science-llama:
Piano notes made visible for the first time
Music is beautiful isn’t it? The team at CymaScope visualized the dynamic sounds of the piano’s first strike and the eventual plateau and decay phase of different notes. You can listen to the sounds here and watch as the geometric shapes come to life.
Cymascope - Sound Made Visible
Did you see my post about piano notes as visualized via the Cymascope last week? Now with hypnotic animations!
I love when our senses combine to illuminate something that would otherwise be invisible, or worse, ignored. A reminder of the limitations of our senses, and an artistic nod to synesthesia.
Follow that with another example of sound made visible: Beautiful Chladni lines.
(via patador)
Yesterday was an awesome day for me. Having finally moved everything out of my apartment, and not having to attend any meetings or do anything at home for work, I made a point to fill the day up things that make me happy: yoga, bike riding, drawing, great music, and beers with a friend. It was especially nice getting to finally crack open the full 132 pencil set of Prismacolors I bought myself on Valentine’s Day too. I was absolutely drooling! While this isn’t my favorite mandala that I’ve done, it was so nice getting to center myself. I haven’t done any drawing in a few months, and there’s something so therapeutic about drawing mandalas.
As for the video, I probably spent more time making it than I did the actual drawing, and I was just reminded of how much I hate editing video. I’m far too impatient to sit and wait for all the times stuff is compressing, exporting, finalizing, whatever, etc. I want to do what I want to do, and I want to do it now! My Macbook gets the job done, but it gets the job done slowly, and in order to get the two hours of footage into less than five minutes, I have to import the video, wait thirty minutes, speed it up to the max of 2000%, finalize it, wait, export it, wait, reimport it, wait, speed it up some more, and then of course go about with the other edits. Mad respect to people who edit videos for a living.
It’s so weird seeing my apartment empty, but Thursday was my last day to move stuff out. Looking back at my time there, I only have fond memories. That is, aside from being on the third floor. I am so glad I never have to go up and down those damn stairs again!
Over the month of February, I had an absurd amount of help moving my stuff, and I couldn’t be more grateful. But, I’ve also been crazy busy lately too, which is why I haven’t bothered to write anything. I really just haven’t had the time, and despite March being a very busy month for me as well, I at least won’t have to worry about moving. Unpacking and organizing is the only related concern, and if I want to put that off so I can take the time to write, I can. No biggie.
So far, I am loving the new house and living downtown, and in the last couple weeks, I’ve made a pretty big effort to improve my overall wellbeing. It’s been great being able to ride my bike everywhere instead of taking my car, and even though work and moving hasn’t left me with much free time, I’ve started running on some days, and I’ve been doing Bikram yoga again. Being able to effortlessly touch my toes, wow, you have no fucking idea how awesome that is for me. Seriously. If I could go every day, I would.
Not everything in life lately, though, has been all peaches and roses, but I’m not letting it get me down. There’s just way too much awesomeness right now for me to even give it a second thought. Sure, I have my moments, but it’s fleeting. I just remind myself how much the positive outweighs the negative, and I’m over it.
This weekend is the most free time I’ve had in a while, so I’m trying to strike a nice balance between productivity and leisure. I haven’t done laundry in a month, and it looks like a bomb went off in here, but the sunny outdoors are calling! We’ll see what happens.
I’ll probably spend a good bit of time reflecting on how much has changed in my life since I moved into that apartment almost two years ago. The universe has been good to me.
What a weekend! My body hurts all over, and I am super exhausted, but I am almost all moved in. Despite how much moving typically sucks, Saturday was a blast. After the truck was unloaded, I met some of my neighbors who seemed pretty cool; a strange lady showed up asking for directions and then hung out for an hour and a half; we played kickball under the bridge using found liquor bottles as bases, and that evening we went out for some food and a few more beers. I’m pretty sure I was passed out by nine o’clock, too.
No amount of thank-yous can express my gratitude for my friends that helped me, especially those who also helped me move last time. It means a lot knowing I have friends I can count on.
Most of yesterday I spent moving around boxes and furniture, and things are starting to come together. Today, however, it’s rainy and I am still getting over my cold. My body is telling me to slow my roll, but there’s just too much to get done today, not even including unpacking. In fact, this whole week is going to be pretty busy, and then I’m leaving on Friday to go out of town for the weekend. Maybe next week I’ll finally be able to kick back and relax a bit, but I just hope my body doesn’t give out on me before then.
