![[icon]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/93040269/1674853) |
Faberlinguae, Fabermundorum
|
| Today the briefing went very well. Got a question about one of the topics, which always makes me feel like I'm delivering useful product. The heartburn was really bad again, so I broke down and bought some Zantac 75... read the possible side effects, but so far nothing but relief. With that largely out of the way, tomorrow the big focus will be on working out after a long day working, instead of just getting work done through the pain. I have no set-in-stone plans for this weekend, and really may stay in the house for at least one of the days until I have the living room area cleaned up (which may take the form of putting a lot more stuff in the spare room at least for the time being.) Part of me wants to just go into furious cleaning mode right now, damn the consequences of a lack of sleep again.
Ours is a very understated age, all told... architecture tends to grittiness, or the same Norman Foster and Partners confections of brushed aluminum in contorting, yet somehow undramatic figures. Music is better possibly than ever, but not particularly innovative or interesting, but there's so much of it and of such quality that it doesn't matter. Art feels like it's on hiatus. When was the last time a piece of artwork really moved you or anybody? Books are a refuge, but only just, and seem more and more to dig back through the loess and moiraines of the great glacial ages of literature-that-came-before instead of whacking new paths into jungles unknown of potential human imagination. The Renaissance may have been a remake of the Classical, which rehashed itself quite thoroughly twice over through its own course... it is human nature to reduce, reuse, and recycle culture. But our recycling as a "global civilization" seems particularly pervasive. You can sample exotic flourishes from any previous style of anything, and meld them into something interesting, but few new leaves are turned. Running out of metaphors, I'll leave this topic behind.
In summary - I have to buckle down, take better care of myself, and see about throwing my hat into the ring of regurgitating language and knowledge and trying to create something of my own if it's even possible. | comments: Leave a comment   |
| Work today was good - I accomplished almost everything that I had set out to this morning. Having a frank discussion with one of my coworkers really gave me a good, grounded perspective on things that I've been "fretting" over with regards to work. It's not necessary for every single thing that you do in any given job to really "make a difference" or "tell the big story" or whatever ideals you may cleave to along those lines. Sometimes just hoping that something you talk about sticks with one of the folks that you brief and might change their life, or change events in the future for the better, has to be enough to motivate you to do your best. It was also very, very weird spending my first full day with Captain's rank on. Not only do I feel different, but people treat me very differently, not as much in my office... for them things are incremental and they're used to me being me at work, but other places. Moving up in rank, as opposed to aging another year, really does feel pretty dramatic. I remember wanting hitting "milestone ages" to feel like this - like there's some acknowledgement of your survival of the passage of time - but our culture doesn't really do outward symbols of age. If anything, we avoid them until absolutely impossible.
But still, little by little, through red wine and good people on weekends, fantastic summery May weather, unraveling good and interesting books (btw, Umberto Eco's the Prague Cemetery is fantastic, if even more cynical than I can manage,) looking forward to small things, and realizing that you can push past paranoia and cynicism with a little help from your friends, I'm getting better again, from some malady not of the body. I'm not sure what's drawn me back to livejournal, either, but it was always a good format, and I think I'm back. Maybe I'm slowly travelling backwards in time while moving forwards - I did start shaving with brush-and-puck shaving lather instead of gel from a can. Which, for any guys out there who might happen across this, makes for a much better shave, and really adds very little time to your routine if you're just using a safety razor anyway. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| This weekend I went with some friends of a friend and said friend and stayed in a gigantic Tuscan villa outside of Arezzo. A weekend of wine, bike rides, amazing homemade food, great weather, chilling by and in the pool, lighting fires, and listening to music. No TV, no laptop, my phone had internet but I was not on it very much. Tomorrow is going to be the start of a very long week, but having had that experience, and realizing that it is not going to be the last of its kind while I'm here, makes me feel very grateful for getting to experience all of the things that I have.
I still don't know what to do with my future, and it still feels very much like I can not see one, or at least figure out what I'm "going to do with my life." My dad put it into an interesting perspective, pointing out that even though to me it feels like I've done very little or do a job that does little for anybody, or at least it seems that way, I'm actually very successful and should be proud of being a pretty good person. I think, overall, I'm an ok person at best, but it was nice to have someone say "hey, you're not screwing it all up all the time" and just be forward about it.
Now as the summer starts, and work gets busier as people are starting to move on to their next assignments or to other jobs, I just have to keep my head screwed on tight and not become demotivated. Knowing that there will be more weekends in Tuscany, or Paris, or other places in Europe makes me feel like I can focus more on the job, instead of lamenting being alone, and just enjoying the people that are actually there for me, as opposed to trying to build up relationships with people that I don't get along with all that well. I may still be a spoiled brat who gets to have nice things, but please don't think that I don't understand that acutely. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Dunno if any of the people I used to read besides Mab are still around, but I wanted to post something to the internet besides using Facebook - Facebook is exhausting, it's like being at a social event all the time when you just want to be yourself online. But that's what I wanted to write about anyway. I don't even recognize what "myself" is anymore. I turn 26 in a few weeks - rounding the quarter century mark uncertain if I even want to make it past the next five years, feeling lonely but never alone, and finding love in the strangest places (not a hopeless place, all credit to the Rihanna song notwithstanding.) I think I'm "grown up" now. Like I can still find wonder in the oddest things, and the feeling of summer breezes and beautiful landscapes and wild imagination still have a power to me, but the basic sense of wonder at reality is fading.
I live in Italy, in a gorgeous town on a perfectly flat plain under the impassively gigantic gaze of the front range of the Alps. I have a great car, good coworkers, a job that pays me a very large salary compared to a lot of people my age, the opportunity to travel all over Europe while Europe's internal opportunities are slowly dying away as the generations stop breeding, and I eat very well by the standards of human history, or even the human present for 3 billion of the globe's people. I have no "right" to complain or be unhappy, and I realize and can analyse just how fortunate I am. I don't feel a deep call to religion, but I do feel this sense of something "missing."
I think what I want is just endless novelty, to always be somewhere else, maybe even with someone else, or with people that I feel comfortable around, but at the same time I feel like maybe I just alienate everyone even when I'm endearing or entertaining. I can't fall asleep anymore - there was a brief time where I could sleep easily and sleep happily, but once again I find myself restless and pensive and analysing every move I or anyone else makes hoping to find something that I've missed. I suppose the simple solution would be to find a cause or some way to help other people and that would quiet things down with the self-satisfaction of "making a difference," whatever that actually means.
I've read so many books, it's not even funny anymore. I just keep reading and reading and reading until my eyes unfocus and my brain screams "enough." But I still crave more stimulation, or freedom, or something undefinable that will make sense of all of the things that have happened or are happening. But there is no "sense" to life and reality - no matter how hard people try to make this "God" thing happen, it's no different than trying to make "fetch" happen for a mean girl - it's not going to, it just isn't. And it's going to mean millions of deaths in the coming decade as freethinking peoples, who have stopped reproducing, face the menace of totalitarian, reproductively successful religious fundamentalism of all stripes.
My job is to make sense of the world and anticipate the changes that are coming, and I'm actually very good at it, I really am. But what that leaves me with is very little hope or optimism about nearly everything. It also gives me a sense of just how historic a time we live in (as opposed to the nonhistoric parts of history? I don't know how to define this, exactly... I guess as opposed to the relatively, very relatively peaceful decades of the 80's-90's and much of the 19th century for a decent chunk of the world.) At the same time as I'm motivated to attempt to "make a difference" or "be a part of something bigger" I just feel like running away from it all and seeking ignorance and its concomitant bliss | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | DJ Kneo's Podcast - "Nothing Else Matters" | | Current Location: | Aviano, Italy | | Security: | | | Subject: | Old Spice Komodo | | Time: | 01:58 am | | Current Mood: | awake |
|
| | Maybe I'm wasting my shot at what amounts to life. But I dare people to say that they've had a more variable and meaningful experience... I've been rich, I've been poor, I've been comfortable, I've been scared for my life. I may be a horrible person, an asshole, douchebag, liar, lover, cheater, comfort, confidant, and everything in between. But most of all even though I can only write about it like a flailing beached whale can send hypersonic pulses through the air, I've been living and loving it. So fuck you, world. Fuck you, judgmental assholes. Even though I'm a selfish prick, I will still give my shirt to someone who looks cold, or empty my wallet if you need money, or drive across states to be there if you just need a friend. If that's arrogant to say, then so be it. But I want to be a better person than self-righteous pricks, and a better person than self-denying idiots who think that the pursuit of pleasure obviates the ability to care for other people. I will likely never be rich enough to make the changes that I want to to the world at large, but damn it if I won't talk about them until I die. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | air conditioner (that's finally working) | | Current Location: | Korea | | Security: | | | Subject: | I Miss LJ | | Time: | 06:34 pm | | Current Mood: | busy |
|
| I still read you all's journal postings, but I miss writing my own. Lots of things to talk about, but I can't really simultaneously, ROFL.
It's a good time, here, in Korea. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | Ke$ha - "Dancing with Tears" | | Current Location: | Korea | | Security: | | | Subject: | An Update | | Time: | 10:10 pm | | Current Mood: |  disappointed |
|
| I swam 2.5k today, getting closer to that goal of 5k at least halfway, although at my current lap pace that would be almost 2.5hours of swimming including warmup/stretching. I started smoking regularly again during our most recent exercise (you may have heard a passing headline about it, lol.) and now I'm reining in my consumption to get rid of that habit again. It's been a rough two weeks physically, and one in which I neglected my eating, exercise, etc... the really "depressing" part of the whole thing is that within days of starting smoking again I lost almost eight pounds; I'm scared to death of trying to quit again, even if I'm diligent about working out and trying to eat more vegetables (I had a bag salad today!! I've never actually eaten a salad not at a restaurant before.) It felt so good to get back down even just to 163.5 (where I've been steady for the time I've been smoking again) that I don't know what to do. Stop smoking aides only cause you to gain weight (i.e. Chantix) and even though I'm going to be on a "normal" work schedule pretty much from now on (at least until I get to another country in 2011) I just feel some pressure to try and manage the negative effects of smoking enough to get down to the weight I want, and then maybe less, and then if I have to gain 10 pounds, at least it'll keep me under what I am now.
I remember reading an interesting article about how the body gets to a certain "mass" (since weight is irrelevant to the systems responsible for homeostasis) and then neurochemically kicks your ass if you try to change it after that (non-science anecdote: hence why people rarely lose their freshman fifteen after carrying it for a year or more.) I guess we'll just have to see how it goes. It may be that without being a cave-dweller (if you could see where I work, you would know this is an accurate description) I'll get some health benefits and, SHOCK, Vitamin D from natural sources.
I'm already looking forward to it getting up consistently into the fifties or higher to go running the flight line perimeter. I'm pretty grateful to running and swimming in my youth, as I still get immense pleasure from both activities. Runner's high is in mechanism of action pharmacologically the same as heroin/morphine, too, so you can trip balls with the right music and a long enough distance. (Well, it's not tripping, it's just this grand music-video-looking fantasy that plays out overlaid on top of the road.) I await it impatiently. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| So far in my book he's 3/3 on his movies, with Donnie Darko, Southland Tales and now the Box. I haven't even finished watching the movie, but already it's really awesome and full of roller-coaster plot twists but all handled with an eye towards keeping everything grounded, even when it gets strange. Imagine LOST, but with the events playing out in the real world instead of a mysterious island. There're some allusions to literature both subtle and hamfisted, but they work in any case. I realize that it won't be everyone's cup of tea, but to me it's still incredible, and though it didn't do well at the box office, that was probably because it's not like any other movie that came out in 2009. It's got period drama, in 1976, suspense, a little horror, and aspirations towards grandeur of storytelling. It also makes you think philosophically at times, which is never good for popcorn sales nowadays, but it yet again shows that Richard Kelly is a master craftsman now, if Southland Tales can be counted as a journeyman piece.
I hope that the Box gets cult status like Donnie Darko because so far it hasn't gotten much love or attention from anybody in the critic world. Although Roger Ebert actually gave it a favorable review, even with his general disdain for Richard Kelly's other movies. Again, I recommend the Box.
Edit: I've finished the movie, and I still recommend it. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | This Will Destroy You - "Quiet" | | Current Location: | Korea | | Security: | | | Subject: | One Whole Month | | Time: | 02:18 pm | | Current Mood: |  level |
|
| So, for the remaining people who read this, if you care, just wanted to let you know that I've made it through and beyond my New Year's Resolution. The resolution was to not drink for the month of January, even a drop of alcohol. After the overnight "celebrating" New Year's, I decided not to drink for a whole month, after realizing that I had two empty bottles of whiskey next to my computer chair, and nothing to show for the hours spent spinning in and out of a rolling drunken stupor. I wasn't getting blackout drunk like I was earlier in 2009, but up until New Year's, I was still drinking almost every day that I didn't have work, just drinking and drinking and drinking, looking for quiet in bottles of expensive whisk(e)y.
What I found as January plodded on, broken with a few bright moments of hanging out with Molly, and good conversations with coworkers at work or friends online, was that far from becoming "noisier," my mind just... stopped; my dreams stayed all right. I certainly started remembering more of them. But in the opposite result to what I expected, my emotions flatlined. I went from feeling angry, upset, happy, ecstatic, betrayed, alone, joyful, close, to just feeling... alive, and little more. Not like everything became dull shades of grey, or I became "depressed" in a clinical sense, but just... things became unremarkable. It still feels off, I still don't feel like myself. I don't physically miss the alcohol, at all, and I had no symptoms of withdrawal or any other signs of alcoholism from that perspective, but I still don't feel things very strongly. It's like putting on blinkers, or having a muffler placed over a speaker, or something. I just don't care as much about anything, anymore. Is that good?
I also haven't had a cigarette since around Thanksgiving; no health improvements, whatsoever, but I'm sure there're some I just don't see/feel... I get the spins slightly less frequently, but conversely, I now constantly get colds and mouth ulcers. But I'm not particularly "proud" of stopping smoking, I mean, I am a little bit in that it's not something everyone can do, but I take no joy in having stopped. Nothing has taken it's place quite properly, and every so often I'll get wracked by a craving so strong I almost want to chew my face off. Not drinking was different, it was actually a set goal, and one that I met and have surpassed; that's kind of cool. I just wish food worked the same way, but food (eating well) is a matter of eating things you loathe, despise, and abhor, and not eating the foods that you like, savor, and spending larger and larger swaths of time on preparation to eat something I want to less and less. But unlike drinking, or even smoking, you can't just stop.
In some good news, moving off-base so far is working out well. I may actually start moving my stuff on Thursday, if the inspection goes well on the place (which is almost brand new, so I'm not worried.) I go in for my international driver's license tomorrow morning, which should be a fairly straightforward test (the driving laws here are little different from the US, however differently they are actually followed.) I'm pretty psyched, even if I get a fairly junky car it still opens up a LOT of Korea that is kind of inhospitable if you're dependent solely on trains and taxis, particularly in the mountainous areas, which is most of the land area. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| |
|
Faberlinguae, Fabermundorum
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
mizukaze's journal
chipper
determined
calm