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Nov 20, 2009 9:07 pm
Mood: contemplative,
190 Views
(Picture from Cape Cod, where so many of my thoughts linger...)
After going through violent changes in my life... the now apparent calm is an opportunity, to regain some semblance of stability in my life...
... to sit still, to look around, to listen, and ponder.
It seems that it my domain, we're a lot of single guys. And single gals too.
Though in my department, we're about 6 guys to a gal.
It could be said the job has something to do, though I'm rather thinking that the kind of job attracts the kind of people which... for one reason or another, being solitary is the way to go.
Why so? I've been wondering. Heck, if I have answers to such questions, I'd be a rich man and I'd be writing books instead of having to go to work everyday.
I look around in my network of friends who are single or recently divorced.
And you hear them, see them... and get used to their quirks.
And the mindset of guys being what it is... do I need to elaborate much? I feel there is a bunch of AK47 pointed at me, just in case I utter something about women.
If I need to define myself, I wouldn't even think of wealth, personal belongings.
Nor I would define others by their physical appearance, their wardrobe, their job or their pastime, things they do, etc...
It's a matter of being, not of having and not of doing.
But what do I want ? Even who am I ? When I set aside myself for so many years... there is that.
---
I finish early today, and as I mentioned in another blog post, I'm revamping my apartment.
At the time the wintry weather being an open invitation to hibernate, I think it is the ideal moment to start rebuilding my nest, hence being in a home... which I feel comfortable.
After years of neglect, including years when I was a caregiver to my parents, I had just no time for anything else. I went to my home just to crash on my bed at night, and up I go the next morning for another caregiving day and then my regular job.
So I was there in an empty room of my apartment, pondering...
What do I want ? What makes me feel good in that room?
I've tucked deep deep underneath what I want, what I need...
... which all in all, when it gets to that kind of dilemma,
It means that things are going quite well for me.
I'm thinking of what it was just a year ago... physically and emotionally drained, almost literally crushed by my caregiving duties by then...
... and here I am, dreaming about the future. Again.
Very hard times are still ahead, as I have to ready myself to see my dad going away, but in the meantime, my life, MY life is all mine. That is just awesome and still feel awesome, months later.
Even if I don't have answers now, they'll come later, I'm not worried.
---
With the odour of that fresh coating of paint on my walls, there's an odour of...
Yesterday morning was one of those days that exists only in the North...
Freezing fog. Freezing thick fog.
Since the ground isn't really frozen, so it makes a bi weather? I always thought that nature is always bi. Always two of something seemingly contradicting, while they aren't really?
Frozen guard rails, frozen car windshields, key locks, and yet, streets and sidewalks that are just wet, like it is with any fog.
I took a walk to the end of my street. That's the northern shore of the island. (Montréal is a city, but it is first and foremost, an * island * ).
I live next to the river and next to a heavily wooded area.
On this foggy day, I could barely see what's ahead of me, erasing remaining signs that I live in a big city. Like the condo towers in a distance, the bridge to the next island (Laval or Ile Jésus). It also muffles distant city noises.
Then I walk on that bike and walk path along the shore and for which it also wanders in the woods.
Sure the cold humidity goes right through my clothes and it gets to my bones.
The woods on one side of the path, the river on the other side, even the grass with its white-ish frosting...
It is calm, it is in silence...
I stand still, to immerse myself.
It is one of those blessed moments.
I don't ask much in life, but it is one of moments in a guy's life for which I crave.
I'll never have too many of these moments.
It is that diffused feeling. I feel... good. So diffuse that it is difficult to say specifically what it is...
... but compared to the downtown city life which its sheer craziness...
It's my little oasis of peacefulness, of serenity, and even the cold and the humidity can't spoil it.
And this is literally just next door, in that big city...
I was on "Face the book" this morning, and reading what is on the mind of fellow bloggers here made be pondering.
A fellow blogger is doing an impromptu get together at her garden, and the general comment that we would have attended to... if we weren't so far away.
Another blogger feeling isolated, not living at a major city.
I could add my own voice. How many of you guys would come to my place, on a whim, for an impromptu gathering? Nice patio, there's booze in the fridge, some stuff to eat, and I could even offer hospitality soon, as I'm currently revamping my apartment and I will have again a room for guests coming from far away.
Be frank, you need a passport to get here in Canada, thanks to Bush's paranoia, first thing first. And I would bet that you don't have one, or one that is still valid.
And these days, you might see a snowflake or two. Anyway, you get the idea about isolation.
And yet online, we're all here, as if distance doesn't matter.
When I had my forums many moons ago, that was one major frustration with the online world.
Used to read fellows' words, but to bring such gatherings of nice looking witty intelligent people in the real... the logistical aspect is dizzying.
(Which is why I'm thrilled to see so many blogfests organized, and having a good attendance. Nonetheless, for each of the attendee, it isn't something that one can afford on a regular basis. We're just too far away, geographically. We have to drop everything, say for a weekend, spend good money on travel, lodging, etc...) it isn't easy.
Isolation comes in different ways too. I've been thinking about work, assuming I want to continue in that domain, which is already a big if, Montréal isn't the place for me to grow. I'd should go "south of the border" (read: the US)... with the many implications of such a move.
And yet it is a job which could get done online... to some extents, so regardless of where I'm living, so it could be viewed as a "portable job", but a bit like online forums and blogs, you have to be physically present for some capital parts of said job to be done. By that point, why bother with the virtual aspect. That's why there have been so few portable jobs.
And on a dating site, something could be said about LDR, Long-distance relationship, which the online fills up for the geographical distance, when the time comes that each lover are away of each other.
We're humans... and we live in the real, not in the virtual. Technology is there to help us humans. Which is why it got me into computers in the first place.
But the virtually of it, just as very close to the real, but will never be like the real, there comes the frustration.
We're here altogether in this virtual gathering, and yet geographically so far apart to make a physical gathering so difficult.
There's no answer to that. Heck, in 25 years of being online, if there is an answer to that, I might have found it.
However, just to be open, welcoming. Be kind. Do love people, as you would in the real.
And take the frustration of the virtual world with a grain of salt. Even a mighty big grain of salt.
And you would tell me that your very first thought was that it was all about Mr. Farlow's building?
And in the Chinatown, You see nothing odd to have a first name like Hung, probably a variation of Chung, Tchung, Chong, etc. So there is Hung, even if his last name is Far...low? ?
And you wonder why people are giggling?
Seriously! I'd bet that you were thinking, even having *that* mental picture of something well hung.
Dirty minds, I'm telling you.
Which is ok, if you put that dirty mind to good use, which most do.
Sometimes, the obsession with sex may not be such a good thing when it can't channeled into anything else. Not even humour.
Just a thought, from reading some blog entries recently... and a reason why I was silent here, letting the storm, or the surge of testosterone going away.
Cheers,
-E
----- Credits to the Thunder Woman for showing this part of Portland Oregon to us. Photo taken during the original Soggyblog blogfest, held last year.
Bonus point: If you look at the photo further, you'll notice that the street's name is.. Couch street. (However, it is pronounced "cooch". ah, spoiler! )
(Note to Sumo readers: When I'll have time, I'll repost there with the appropriate links).
I don't watch much TV. In fact I didn't have a functional one for more than a year 'til I inherit one from cleaning up my parents' former place. Since it was just a few years old, yet still in SD format, better to keep it. I would get nothing for it.
So for the past couple of months I've been watching a documentary on photographers. Useful television, I definitively like that.
They share their passion of photography. They also share some of the techniques they use. This student is taking some notes!
Some photographers love landscape photography (which I also love!), some do portraits, and among them... cough cough, nudes.
Enter "Heavy in white" and Lynn Bianchi.
Models like photographers will tell you that as a model you ought to be in shape if you're doing nude modeling. The photographer has to work with what is before the lenses.
There is this cult in this western world about being thin. Utterly thin. Supposedly a synonym of beauty, of sexiness, of even health. Yet, it is utterly unhealthy, often unsexy and squarely ugly.
Weird.
So, how's about taking photos of women... who are overweight, even squarely *obese*.
With no clothes to hide yourself.
Mhhh...
Her idea was to highlight our relationship with food.
Looking at her photos, there's nothing gross, raw nor anything repulsive. And they are posing nude for the camera.
One thing that strikes the eye is the sheer sensuality (as in senses) that radiate from these overweight women.
They are people who are literally at ease with their skin (must be something in the air with that topic) who are happy and enjoying life. And yeah, eating is a pleasure to the senses too.
Lynn shared some of her secrets, such as the inherent sensuality of photos of human bodies taken in black and white (which I wholeheartedly agree), she also takes photos that are just slightly out of focus and also being a bit overexposed, which give an artsy white-ish look to her photos.
In many cultures, white is often associate with something pure, virgin, or something with good spirit.
It is said of a good photographer to make the best of a model being photographed.
You also see the world through the eyes of that photographer.
My first reaction as a wannabee photographer...
Wow.. I wish I am _that_ good to make people looking *so* great!
Despite the difficulties...
And then I cringe at what I just said. Difficulties, what difficulties?
Why being overweight would make you... less sexy? less desirable? less of who you really are?
Unless the world is seen by someone who does *NOT* equate overweight with ugliness.
And a photographer to tell you that, through her work.
And this is what I like about photography, and I wish I could refine my craft.
To tell you a story. To tell you what I like, to tell you what I believe, and to tell you what I really want to say.
Straight from a visual thinker, in pictures, without the dictatorship (and betrayal) of words.
Now I have to refine my craft to get there...
... And I have to mention that I've lost about 25 pounds since May, at a rate of about 4-5 pounds a month. All the extra work I did for the past 6 months at my parents' place, also doing some bike riding while going to work and visiting my parents at their new place definitively help.
That said, I still maintain that there's nothing to be ashamed of having extra padding.
That if you get the flu, chances are 99.999% in your favour that you will... survive? You'll be back on your two feet in matters of days ?
That there are more people who will die from the "ordinary" seasonal flu than from H1N1, and yet no one gets excited about the seasonal flu?
So, I have to get all upset about getting vaccinated at all costs, fearing that I might that H1N1 thingy?
Mhhhh...
The amount of insanity... amazes me.
Heard from a colleague: Her kid is in cries and she confess to her whether she's going to die if she gets the swine flu?
Open the radio and tune to any local station, the silliness is raging.
There was this horror story about a pregnant woman *heavily* pressured by about everyone close to her, including her hubby... to get the vaccine, even getting name calls for being such a bad mother for "endangering" herself and her soon-to-be-born baby by refusing to get vaccinated?
Hello ?
And people waiting as much as 8 hours, outside, in cold weather (Hey, this is Canada), to get vaccinated? Incredibly loooooong line ups, everywhere. It makes great headlines on newspapers. Even the local TV's 'copter went on with live coverage of these looooong waiting line at various vaccination centers.
Mhhhh...
Heck I wouldn't wait even 5 minutes, I'd turn around. If I get it, so be it. Just another flu, among others. It's part of living in Canada, One flu at a time.
Now someone had an idea that they should do like Disneyworld, or to a live concert. You go to the admission to get tickets. For a specific day and time... and you are part of the show.
And to make matters worse, or to shoot way up the paranoia level... there is going to be a severe shortage of vaccine.
Ah.
(see how scared I am! )
Whether I'll get vaccinated, I'm still debating. There are some serious questions about the vaccine itself, and considering that it is unlikely that I'm going to die if I get the flu...
I can afford to sit and wait.
One would see conspiracy?
Mhhhh...
Don't see evil when it can get explained by just sheer stupidity of humans.
Lifting my kilt... Dang no response from the crowd.
Yup, FC has scr*wed up big today.
I've lost all my mails (0 out of 0), my blog doesn't appear unless I access it via the link below my photo, on a comment I left on someone else's blog.
Access on FC's other portals broken. Datingfaces is more or less functional, though.
Sometimes more, often less.
Yup, typical FC behavior!
Time to take the proverbial grain of salt...
... and enjoy a break, while FC engineers eventually figure out what they break on purpose.
Things will eventually go back to a semblance of normalcy, or whatever it means.
Oct 26, 2009 8:15 pm
Mood: rejuvenated,
2757 Views
(Toronto Islands, photo taken from the boardwalk, facing Lake Ontario)
The trip to the islands wasn't planned at all. In fact, the only thing planned was the hotel and train reservations. The rest was at the whim of the moment.
Mhhhh...
While there are places which I connect strongly, whether on Cape Cod, whether on the enchanted islands in the Pacific Northwest...
It still felt good, very good being on Toronto Islands, the other day.
And I've been pondering...
One common point, on places which it felt good being there...
... how easy, how simple, life is.
And how amazingly complex life gets when heading back home.
Mhhh...
A digression that isn't really one...
As a programmer analyst, there are times I've been stumbling on problems, literally banging on my table...
... and no go. The answer wouldn't come up. Worse, on some problems, just being able to modelize the problem in such a way a computer can handle...
No go. Pitch dark. Nada. I just... can't.
Over the time, I've learned the best way to handle such a situation is...
... to leave. To have a short break.
It seems counter intuitive.
Yet, when I return, the hiatus would make me see things from a different angle.
and it is funny how that impossible problem to solve... things begin to get clearer, pieces finally begin to fit together... and making sense.
Things have been rough in my life for the past 3 years, and the breaks I took at regular intervals...
to relax, to be at peace, to sort things out... even if it wasn't a "lightbulb" moment everytime...
when those vacations ended and I returned home...
Somehow, the acquired peace of mind, a clearer mind, helped tremendously.
And the current situation less panicking.
Being on the islands, it is very appropriate to say...
To link to this blog from blog posts/comments, use [blog The_Eskimo], from anywhere else use http://personals.sfweekly.com/blog/The_Eskimo,
and to read it remotely use the feed.
