A lifetime of things.

in ,

This has been a very productive weekend of unpacking my books, records, and ephemra — and deleting some stuff in the process — excluding old journals from the previous, oh, 22 years. A memory of a prescient entry on a flight back from Spain in January 2002 came to mind:

"Slowly, slowly. Thoughts come back to me as I re-enter my Boston life… We have spent all day traveling… When we left Barcelona the moon was waning and birds were beginning to chirip in the morning....... well, I can’t quite call it light. I’m ready to see the rest of the world. I’m ready to give up what I have here if it means I can go further elsewhere. I am ready to drop the bullshit completely, and deflect — not reflect — the image-conscious, exterior, impersonable, fake, trendy, piss-ant-quality-minded folk I sometimes encounter, and stick to my guns for some real solid work and play. And while we’re on the matter, it probably isn’t so far away that I get rid of more stuff — stuff I think I will one day need or one day re-use… With a sharp mind I’ll be able to rely on it as experience-minder, and not need the object-based heavy sentimentality that comes with carrying around a lifetime of things.”

(Not so) funny

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I feel like I’ve spent half my life — almost to this moment — conveying my seriousness, my commitment to making the world a better place through design and other of my skills. Now that I’m perceived ever-so-slightly more seriously, I am feeling the need to integrate my fun-lovingness into my days and moments. So strange.

Poem, 7/17

in ,

yes, summer,

I accept your grandiosities.

the relentless dusky colors,

the honeysuckle, the shrub rose,

ev’ry hilly meadow seems a dream.

 

how you show your stillness

is a whispy memory. so much bursting

and so much calm.

I wait for the road home to change;

I do not wait for the cold.

My first three lessons as a Jeep Wrangler owner.

in ,

I’m acquiring a friend’s ’97 Wrangler because it maximizes my outdoor + summer + fun experience. Plus it’s the only place I can play cassettes now. I’ve already learned three things in the first week of riding it around:

  1. With so much bouncing around, it feels like a core stabilizer exercise nearly 80% of the time.
  2. Acknowledging other Jeep Wrangler owners — all of a sudden I see a lot of them! — is as simple as a wave of the hand from the steering wheel. They wave back the same way.
  3. Windshield wipers don’t mean diddly when you forget to put the top up when there’s threat of thunder and you have rain on the inside of the windshield.

Noted.

Pride reminder

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Just a reminder: friends, friends of friends, friends of friends who have friends who may know someone who is gay, lesbian, trans, questioning, queer, exploratory, GLBT, LGBT, BLT, or getting better — you do not have to be extra prideful* all in one night or one 24- or even 48-hour period. You can feel your pride every day.

 

*see also: partying, woo-hoo, livin large, trashing the city, causing a commotion, wild rumpus, extra loud, exacerbated, or god forbid reinforcing stereotypes.

Pinball wizard 3.0

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While working in midtown and staying in Jersey City this week with dear friends Tamara & JP, after work one night JP and I checked out (and I “checked in” to) the new Barcade location, close to Grove. Besides the delicious craft beer selection, and the equally delicious NJ-style hipster specimens beginning to trail in, JP said the owners rented a trailer and drove around the country to stock up their space with vintage 80s video games. What could be better than a custom pint-wide shelf between each free-standing game! It had been decades since I had been among that many machines — with the exception of one random Ms. Pac Man game with Matt at a laundromat in DC a year ago, and a night at Ground Kontrol as part of the 2008 AIGA Leadership Retreat in Portland, OR. Galaga, Millipede, Joust, and Burger Time were always only somewhat appealing, so I continued, as I have since I was a kid, to plunk my hard-earned quarters into Qbert, Tempest, Frogger, and Ms. Pac Man (luckily, the sped-up version). These games are controlled simply via joystick or with the addition of a single button — fire! That’s their only interface. Let’s call this Pinball Wizard 2.0. This is my generation.

Now, it’s safe to say that my Jersey City compatriot JP is a gaming geek, with both XBox 360 and Wii hooked up to the projector, and generations of previous gaming platforms and gaming promotions proudly on display around the apartment (anyone else remember Sony’s Easter Island campaign?). During my stay, he fired up Portal 2 and grabbed the dozen-button controller to solve it — I could tell he’d done so given the rolling credits. I realized that the more heady and narratively complex games (which seem to have started with Myst) — the ones that require you to figure out what you’re doing first before you start figuring out how to do it — require more buttons to control.

JP is clearly a Pinball Wizard 3.0 maven. I kicked his ass at the arcade.