| Persistence Revisited |
[Oct. 16th, 2009|03:00 pm] |
Having lost Chester almost a month ago now, Gershwin has changed a bit in his absence. It's weird. She reaches out to us more, now. She doesn't try to bite me nearly as much as she used to (though I've learned that she flat-out dislikes the smell of my aftershave). I think she's bouncing back from her initial confusion and grief.
She even gave me a gift I'd no idea I'd ever receive:
A few days ago, while I was on the couch eating, she came in to the room, looked up at me, and did a series of dances. Just like Chester did! I couldn't believe it. This rabbit has always hated me. I think she felt threatened by the bond I had with her late husband. It was a bittersweet occurrence, but I'll take the joy over the pain. |
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| Remove the Teeth, Regain the Wisdom? |
[Oct. 16th, 2009|02:52 pm] |
Yep. On the 15th, I finally went in and had my perpendicularly-seated bottom row Wisdom Teeth extracted. It was well past time. The things had erupted to the point where they were closing in on my "normal" teeth and constantly trapped bit of food against them, leading to the onset of more cavities. Knock on wood, once my jaw heals up and I get those new cavities fixed, I should be all done with cavities as I'm fairly OCD about my oral care.
Things are pretty sore as of this writing, and I'm trying not to talk a whole lot. I'm just in that waiting period where I deal with the very gradual healing process. Wouldn't have been so bad if they were seated more "normally." Oh well. Might as well complain about the weather if I'm going to grouse about things I can't control. |
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| The Persistence of Loss. |
[Sep. 23rd, 2009|01:45 pm] |
Chester died yesterday.
He was one of the pair of pet rabbits that Amy and I brought home shortly after we abruptly lost Cynthia, our first one. The difference, this time, was that we were able to see it coming. A couple months ago, we noticed he'd started losing weight. Chester was the bulky, masculine bunny of the house at a little over five pounds. I often referred to him as "Mr. Handsome." He just plain looked like a male with his plump, muscular build and strongly defined jaw line. (Yes, I sound like I'm describing a person here. Transcode these descriptions into bunny form and they make sense.) That build started to go away, and at four pounds, we took him in for an ultrasound. There was a tissue mass on his adrenal gland. It jibed with what I thought when I first discovered the weight loss: cancer. To be fair, a cancer diagnosed was never formally reached, even after a second ultrasound that showed no real change.
But Chester changed. He got fussier and fussier about us hand-feeding him. He got skinnier and skinner, and when he got down to three pounds (a net loss of forty percent of his body weight) and eventually quit eating, we had to decide on either in-home hospice care with painkiller drugs for him, or euthanasia. We decided on the former first, watching for any sign that he's given up on life. Chester was too strong. His attitude never faltered, even if he was in pain. It's hard for us to know if he was. He passed away on the night that we'd upped his medication to something stronger.
Amy woke up to late-night commotion as the little guy had doubled over, and his bunny wife, Gershwin, started freaking out. She got me up, and I took a look at him and knew. He was stretching his feet out trying to get up, but was too weak to do so. I called out his name, put my hand on him, and he went limp. Amy gathered him up in a towel, we all went to couch and she held him, pleading with him to give up, that it was okay. I kept him calm by stroking his head and whispering to him. A few minutes later, he was gone, and I closed his little eyes for the last time. No more worrying about what to do next.
Even after his ordeal, he kept his handsome face. Such a sweet bunny.
When we first got the two of them, we didn't really like them. Gershwin, his life-mate, was extremely stand-offish and protective. She wanted nothing to do with human companionship. Looking to replace the loving void that Cynthia had left, Amy even considered taking them back to the shelter. Time went by, however, and they eventually softened up.
A fun rabbit to have around the house, Chester was a sweet, horny, active doofus. He wasn't particularly the smartest of our rabbits. Gershwin would try to initiate game playing with him and he just wouldn't figure it out. He'd get himself going into a good run, and then bonk into a table or chair leg. And he never picked up on the concept that even in the rabbit world, "no" means "no." His play style was aggressive. It took me a while to figure this out, but when I did, we'd have fun playing tug-of-war, or I'd put my hand down for him to pounce on (sort of a "gimme five" on attack mode) or I'd chase him around. He loved Gershwin, and spent a lot of time burying his face under hers, or simply trying to hump her. (Yes, this is after neutering. The mojo was strong.) He wasn't necessarily a faithful bunny however. We'd let him out on play-dates with Fern, and the two of them hit it off really well. They'd been curious about one another ever since Fern came to the house, and it was quite fun to watch them play together. Gershwin never actually witnessed this, as she was in the other room that is now our office.
Hands-down, this is my favorite memory of Chester:
During one of the seasons of Lost (I want to say late 2008, but I don't know if that's right), we had the two of them out for their run time. Chester decided that it simply wouldn't do that we were paying attention to the television instead of him. So he decided it was time to grab our eyes with a series of dances. Truly hilarious! He'd dart around frantically in several directions, do a little jump, making sure to land in such a way that he faced us. It seemed like a one-off and until, sure enough, he did it again! We started laughing and cheering for him, and this only egged him on. Three or four more dances followed, and then he got winded and needed to just plop down.
When we tried to save him and nurse him back to health, I told Amy that my goal was to see him healthy enough to dance like that again. Alas, we just couldn't do it.
Goodbye, Mr. Handsome. |
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| Made in Malaise-ia. |
[Jul. 22nd, 2009|08:02 pm] |
It is perhaps coincidental that as I sit here struggling to put together a portfolio website-- months after I should rightly have done so-- and curse my lack of productivity, vision, drive, what have you that I decide to import my entire Alice in Chains music collection into my iTunes. Truly, this is the perfect soundtrack for moderate despondency and frustration. And to be honest, I'd forgotten how damned good so much of it is.
Looking forward to their new record with new singer William DuVall.
But that's not really what I'm writing about. It's occurred to me that my last update was quite a long time ago, as I sit here in the waning days of July of 2009. Virtually everything I discuss any more has some relation to the passage of time, and its inescapable influence. It's a mixed bag, time. One cannot enjoy any of life's pleasures without its passage. Each coital thrust, each swallow of wine, every drum beat and musical riff-- all of these are the time-stamps of delight and I'd be lost without 'em. Each of them takes us away from the fact that it's all counting down to zero, and that when zero arrives, we depart. Therefore, it's what we do before departure that matters most.
And I'll be damned if I still don't feel like I've done absolutely nothing. Even if, rationally, I know that this is not true. So many goals un-met, accomplishments un-accomplished, and status un-achieved. It's irritating, because I live fully in the knowledge that it all falls on me to rise above and make sweeping changes with the power of my own drive. And yet-- that drive seems to have given way to Loser Inertia. Even after finishing tech school. Not sure where this has taken this odd turn. Has the decade of waiting on the super-rich done me in? Do I really view myself in such low regard that I make no effort to put myself out there and finish my portfolio and apply for jobs? What is it, exactly?
A strange, counter-productive anxiety. I still wonder if maybe I shouldn't see a doctor and get medicated.
--Greg
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| Last Day of Class. |
[Apr. 23rd, 2009|08:58 pm] |
"...and so ends our challenge."
-Col. Millard, Macross Plus, episode 3
Yeah. It's done. I graduate in a week and a half on May 6th. I began "the countdown" from 52 weeks way back in May of last year, and here we are. Ground zero. Now the REAL work starts. Taking every low-man-on-the-totem-pole job I can find to get my start. Internships. Volunteer work. A little bit of all three with a dash of "going into business for myself".
This was simultaneously the fastest and slowest year of my life. Primarily the fastest. When people go to college when they're supposed to-- in their late teens and early twenties-- it's hard enough. Just going to school all by itself is a full time commitment. People who go to school while working a full time job have two full time commitments. People who go to school while working a full time job and being married have three full time commitments. It's extremely difficult to reconcile all three of those things. And for a while there, I was also playing once or twice a week in a rock band. So that's three full time commitments and a part time commitment. THAT was brutal.
Now I'm back to square one. Wife, job, and the search for a new career.
I can BREATHE again.
Now to get to the REAL work..!
Take care and I'll do the same.
--Greg
(PS: I will be resuming my former, former band project THE ANALOG LIGHTS with Roy Tousignant and Brandon Frye. This will happen in a matter of weeks, as I sort my shit out, and the three of us figure out what we want to do. Musically, it will be equal to DEAD LETTERS in being the awesomest thing I've ever done.) |
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| Two-thousand nine. |
[Jan. 25th, 2009|08:44 am] |
It's creeping up on February, and I haven't really bothered to write about the fact that we flipped the odometer by one more year. I don't make "New Year's Resolutions" any more, but I look at the year ahead in a general way and try to lay down an overview for what I want. This year, it's pretty obvious: finish school in a mere 13 weeks, and make the leap out of retail and into a graphics company.
I have this idea in my head that when I'm no longer working nights and weekends and holidays, I will begin to catch up on a lot of my secondary (or dare I say, tertiary) endeavors like comics, music, and the like. But it's difficult as hell when your work schedule is ever-changing, and impossibly invasive. I currently find out the hours I'm working the next week two or three days before I have to work them. And last-minute changes to the schedule can happen all the way down to the day before. How the hell does anybody plan anything around a working life like that? My current life provides an easy answer to that one: you can't. If I ever see anyone or do anything, it's by complete coincidence and good luck. Not a good way to live.
That having been said, there's a lot of excitement in the air. I've been learning Flash, After Effects, Illustrator (my love), Photoshop, InDesign, and a general sense of design that is already paying off. I became the in-house designer for Dead Letters, saving us money on promotional materials, and I did a CD layout for a friend of mine (uploads coming soon), as well as some freelance work that has paid fairly well. The future looks doable. I've got a handful of texts coming from Amazon that are going to be really handy for Flash, After Effects, and Illustrator. Change is in the air.
Not every change is positive, however.
Because of my increased work load, I had to make the (extremely difficult) decision to retire from Dead Letters. Too many scholastic close calls that would've been averted had I used practice day to stay caught up. Too many practices cancelled where I did, in fact, use practice day to stay caught up. The writing was on the wall. And of course, a couple weeks after the fact, I'm itching to go back out and play again. Ugh.
Gotta stay focused.
Take care, and I'll do the same.
--Greg
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| Still alive. |
[Jan. 18th, 2009|10:53 pm] |
14 more weeks of school left. Very excited for change. Speaking of which--
1 more full day of the Bush Administration left.
So long, buddy! This is how I'll remember you.
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| Stolen From Stevo. |
[Dec. 9th, 2008|09:27 pm] |
A is Age: 31.
B is Beer of Choice: Red Bridge gluten-free beer, if I have to drink one.
C is career: Graphic Designer, digital illustrator.
D is dog's name: No dog. I have five rabbits.
E is essential item you use every day: The iMac.
F is favorite TV show: RIP, Boston Legal. I miss you already.
G is favorite game: Legend of Zelda.
H is hometown: Ferndale, Michigan. At least, these days.
I is instrument you play: Electric Guitar, Bass Guitar (also electric), mixing and recording gear.
J is for favorite juice: Grape?
K is for whose butt you'd like to kick: Show me a failed overcompensated CEO and I'll show him the firing squad.
L is last place you ate at: Grand Azteca Waterford.
M is for married?: For four years (!!!) in January.
N is for middle name: Dean.
O is for overnight hospital stay: When I had a kidney stone at 20 and was told I was going to lose a kidney. I didn't, incidentally, lose the kidney.
P is people I was with today: My graphic design class, my wife, most of my immediate family.
Q is quote: "There is no spoon."
R is biggest regret: Not getting on with life sooner.
S is sex: Oral, preferably. NO BABIES.
T is for time woke up today: 7:00 AM.
U is underwear you have on right now: Boxer-briefs.
V is for vegetable you like: Corn. It's in EVERYTHING.
W is for worst habit: Procrastination, being "tentative."
X is x-rays: Most recently, the teeth.
Y is something yummy you ate today: Chicken enchiladas, gluten-free pancakes with chocolate and peanut butter chips, yogurt.
Z is zodiac sign: "Leo woke up in his bed again."
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| Double Jeopardy. |
[Nov. 30th, 2008|12:55 pm] |
One of the benefits of being married is that you have two sets of family. And when they're within reasonable driving distance, it's all the better. We had two Thanksgiving dinners this year on two different days. The first was at my wife's family's place. This was a somewhat conservative, "nice" dinner where not a great deal of very heated (or even interesting) conversation takes place, but the food is good. The second one is the one I really look forward to-- Thanksgiving at my old home. Aubry Thanksgiving is generally a sprawling, inclusive affair with lots of "not really related, but family nonetheless" in attendance. This year was no exception, and we had a house of at least 15 people, with several bottles of wine, a half-dozen pies, and a good sized turkey as well.
The real blast is after the food is put down, and the games come out. Before we had realized it, we'd gotten in no less than five hours of Mario Kart, and various multi-team board games. So many quotes that I'll have to keep in my head, and lots of great moments.
They say you can't go home again, but I really need to stop in and visit more often.
Time is short and the party doesn't last forever.
Hope you enjoyed yours. |
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| Anticonsumerism. |
[Nov. 28th, 2008|09:58 am] |
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No getting caught up in Black Friday this year. While there are always things that I want, I'm content to wait. Waiting generally works out when it comes to things like technology that make up the bulk of the consumer products I desire anyway. |
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| Happy Thanksgiving and Such. |
[Nov. 27th, 2008|10:53 pm] |
I haven't overeaten on Thanksgiving in years, and this was no exception. However, I've only been to one of my two Thanksgiving get-togethers. So the verdict is still out on the Saturday Aubry Family get-together. We had a nice quiet evening and actually rented movies(!). Haven't done that in a long time. Picked out Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Indy was fun. Inconsistent? Yes. Improbable? Yes. Ridiculous? Yes. Also: Fun. The same could be said for Sarah. This was essentially a "teen comedy" with twentysomethings instead of teenagers, and was basically a modern version of your 1980s sex comedies. Amy was really surprised at how dirty it was. And those meat shots of the supporting dude from How I Met Your Mother..? Hide the kids!
Have a good one, all.
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| Working. |
[Nov. 25th, 2008|10:03 pm] |
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Pushing digital fish around for a CD booklet for a record called "Squeeze the Fish." I'll post 'er up when I'm done. |
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| Tiredness. |
[Nov. 24th, 2008|11:03 pm] |
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School. Work. Pain. Arm. |
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| Hrm. |
[Nov. 23rd, 2008|10:49 pm] |
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I think I'm overdue for a "My Life in Pictures" post. Coming soon... |
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| Holidays. |
[Nov. 22nd, 2008|09:23 pm] |
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I hate them. I hate people at large. I could never be President. |
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| Specious. |
[Nov. 21st, 2008|08:09 pm] |
I was told today that I should have children because it would make me a nicer person. And because I'll need someone to take care of me Later in Life. These are not valid enough reasons to make me a father against my wishes.
Keep trying..? |
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| Fingers crossed. |
[Nov. 20th, 2008|06:41 pm] |
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Amy's out taking the GRE test to get into grad school. Wish us luck. |
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| Photographer Anime. |
[Nov. 17th, 2008|09:44 pm] |
I'm not entirely certain how often in media that photographers get any fiction written about them. I'm sure there's a giant movie I'm just not thinking of that somebody will point out after I post this, but I can't think of any at the moment.
In Japanese animation, there are a few. I watched two of them over the course of this year. Flag was the first one, and is essentially set in modern times, in a very Iraq-like war setting (the fictional nation of "Uddiyana" fills in for any nation that might be offended). Main character Saeko Shirasu takes an iconic photograph of one of the tribal factions' flag, blowing in the wind as a woman prays behind it. Her outline is visible in the flag, and the photo, as well as the flag itself, become historic. Naturally, rival camps steal the flag, and the UNF (the UN Army, in other words) set up shop to retrieve it. Saeko becomes an embedded journalist for the UNF, and her photographic journey becomes the viewer's.
This anime series is set apart in many ways. The character designs owe less to loud, obnoxious designs that typify the art form (no spiky purple or pink hair and giant eyes), and are a mix of the realistic figure and facial construction, with a bit of decidedly Western cartooning. It's a different look, and one that really works nicely for the show. The storytelling itself is extremely unconventional, in that all of the footage comes from digicams and video recorders, with a bit of plotted narrative sprinkled in to bridge the gaps. It's animation for an older, more patient audience that is receptive to experimental storytelling that isn't overinflated wankery. It's a fantastic-looking and very emotional series.
On the other hand, we have Speed Grapher. This is pretty much the exact opposite of Flag, despite that the main protagonist is also a war photographer. Saiga is a middling-aged guy, sort of a grizzled, down-and-out, chasing-the-buck-but-forgetting-what-it-was-all-about character. Following a story and getting shots, he uncovers a high-society underground sex club. Infiltrating this lair, he exposed to its "goddess", a teenage girl who bestows mutant powers on people by making out with them while in a trance. She kisses Saiga and he develops the power to make anything he photographs explode. She comes out of her trance and it's clear that she's been coerced into mutating people, and Saiga decides on the spot to rescue her. While blowing people up with his camera.
As you can imagine, this is sort of a ridiculous cartoon.
It seemed like a madcap comic-book sort of thing, but honestly just dragged and dragged for 24 episodes. Goofy character designs and blah animation. The "boss fights" were all uninspired, and even the final battle anticlimactic. Usually, with lousier shows, it can be the ending that kills it. Strangely, the very end of the series was more fulfilling than the rest of it. I wanted to like this, but ended up fast-forwarding through the last four episodes to see how it resolved.
Extra credit: Bubblegum Crisis episode 8. Titled "Scoop Chase", this one followed a young newspaper photographer trying to get her first big scoop (hence the title) following the vigilantes called "Knight Sabers" around an '80s cyberpunk future Tokyo. Fun stuff that didn't try to take itself too seriously.
I liked Flag the best.
Next: I have no idea.
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| Center-right? Really? |
[Nov. 15th, 2008|05:50 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  okay | ] |
So in the wake of Obama's victory in the Presidential Election, the punditocracy has come out-- partly in the wake of his early draft pick of Rahm Emanuel to his cabinet, I'm sure--to dictate that Obama had best govern from the center because we're still "a center-right nation." Reeally.
I don't buy it.
When you get right down to it, I think that the turning of the term "liberal" into a four-letter word over the course of the '80s and beyond (and even beforehand, in the Goldwater era) by the right has made the average citizen fear and deride the term, so they choose not to identify that way. But when you get right down to it, most people want less taxes (there you go, righties, you win on that one), subsidized health care, no wars or meddling in foreign affairs outside of humanitarian aid, support reproductive freedom, help with college education, and good basic governmental services. These are all (except for the tax thing) essentially liberal values (call them "progressive values" if you're still afraid of that term), and yet most people that harbor them are afraid to call themselves anything other than "moderate."
All of that Republican right fear-mongering has worked on the mass consciousness. "Mass CON", indeed.
This made me laugh:
Next: Photographer Anime
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| Time Travelers. |
[Nov. 14th, 2008|01:12 pm] |
I had a dentist appointment yesterday at 2:00 PM, and got out of school at 1:00. Given that home, school and the dentist were all roughly twenty-minute drives from one another, it didn't make a great deal of sense to drive home, sit around for a few minutes, and then have to drive out to the dentist. It seemed smarter to consolidate my drive time and just go straight to the dentist's office, and simply walk around a bit and check out downtown Berkley, where my dentist is, and where my paternal grandmother lives. I wasn't close enough or given enough time to drop in unexpectedly on Grandma, so I did the walk-around bit instead.
I ended up at Time Travelers. I was not ready.
Time Travelers is a comic shop. It's accurate to describe it as one of those old-style comic shops you used to see all the time in the '80s and '90s, before the crash of the '90s forced comic shops to modernize and lose their cluttered "curio shop" image. I stepped into Time Travelers, and it was just like stepping into the Dealers' room at a comic convention. I couldn't believe it! First thing I see is the huge wall of Transformers and Japanese import toys (I recognized the Sega Evangelion figures I used to have and a few other goodies). Opposite side is "long box" after "long box" of back-issue comic books. There's a Sci-Fi novel section, role-playing game area, and just all kinds of oddities. Thing I least expected see anywhere but found here: The AnimEigo laserdisc set for Bubblegum Crash (3 discs). I had to look it over and remember my ill-timed LD days. (Foolishly, I bought a Laserdisc player and a smattering of software for it a mere three years before DVD came to prominence. Also foolishly, I kept it in a non-climate-controlled room, where it petered out from the heat and humidity. This was a rough lesson to learn, but I did enjoy watching things like Terminator II, Gunsmith Cats and Moldiver on it.) Pretty funny.
I didn't end up buying anything there, but I could spend hours and a small (or large) fortune in a place like that. Beware, otaku.
Beware.
Next: Center-right? Really?
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