Friday, November 18, 2005 1:46 am  <|>
<233> Lost Thoughts: So I keep starting to write an update, but keep getting distracted during the day.. pesky work, pesky life... keeping me from the online world! It seems like sometimes I just want to write, but end up getting pulled away before I get a chance to post... other times I write a full post offline and then just get distracted right before I post it. Usually I'll get back to it later though and the thoughts will still apply. Well, a little while ago I could have sworn I wrote a post that I didn't get a chance to put up. I named the text doc 'new entry' which by the way, is not a good thing to name a post when you tend to name all of your temporary posts that way, because, well, you are assuming that you will always post it before you use the next one. Well, the other thing most of you probably don't realize is to make my life more confusing, abeit more convienant, is that I use three main computers throughout my day and multiple ones at once. I use my computer at work of course for most of the time I'm there, but at the same time I also connect remotely to my desktop computer at home. Then, when I am at my actual home, I usually go on my laptop on one floor and then also again remotely connect to my desktop computer upstairs. Sometimes I even go on my desktop computer itself!! But this is rare for right now... anyway - so I found this post tonight on my laptop labeled 'new entry' and sure enough it was the lost post! I know you all needed this long and detailed story to be told that I have a missing post to share, but it is better than just posting the thing and you being confused now isn't it? So here it is... fairly outdated now... but for your entertainment I have decided to post it and provide updates where needed. It might be fun, it might not, don't worry... hopefully I won't try it again if I keep myself writing and posting together like I usually do! So... enjoy!

"Different Waves" originally written at 5:07 PM on 9/24/05:

There are so many directions that you can take. At any given moment, this tends to be true, even the times in which you feel like you might be going no where - this is rarely the case. I've found for myself that I always seem to have multiple things going on at once, several directions to go in, a couple different projects I could start or devote more time to, the list goes on... but lately I've been trying to work a lot of this out into some structure that I can at least attempt to follow. Oh and I'm still a workin'!!!

I have my day job - right now consisting of working full time although I'm technically self employed, while keeping myself open to side jobs or a new full time employee job that would take care of issues like paying for my own benefits. This search still continues to some degree, but I still go back and forth as to whether or not my current situation just might be the best one for me for right now. The lack of paid benefits sucks, but if I just made a little more then it would all balance out I think... at least for a little while... Then I have grad school, which I am still glad I took on, though I struggle not to let myself fall behind on it or fail to devote enough time to it although this can be tough when you are working low-residency. This is also still going well. I've been getting great feedback from my mentor and profs. I just need to devote the next two weeks to revising my paper and putting the finishing pieces together to complete my project and I will be all set for this semester. I have Sticky Art, which constantly calls me and bugs me that I can't really move forward with it most of the time in the way I wanted to just yet because I don't seem to have the time to devote to it... but when you know you have something that could really be great this is hard. I have been finding more time to spend on Sticky Art lately... so it's actually been going pretty well... though there is never as much time as I want. Slowly but surely, it continues to move along. I hope to really start pushing forward and promoting it soon. Then I always have a million projects floating around in my head and artwork I want to work out physically that I just can't seem to get myself to sit down long enough in one place to work with. I've been doing more artwork lately too. I made a few new pieces and even tried a few things I never really have before. So it's been good to do things like this. Taking time aside just to sketch or anything like that is really relaxing somehow... even when you have a ton of other things you should also be doing. These are just some of the areas of my life that are buzzing right now. Then don't get me started on personal things - like planning my wedding for one. And we are of course still planning. We went to a tasting for food last night at our site. It was nice to just spend some time there in the space. It was cool to see the place at night too even though everything for us will be during the day. We still have plenty to take care of, but it's nice to feel like things are moving along. None of these things are bad. It's great I have so many options and such, but it's that whole 'paradox of choice' that's going on. I love being busy with lots of different things to occupy my interest. At the same time I'm the kind of person who can sit back and relax just the same, stay in the house all day and still feel good about myself. I don't have to be in constant motion, though I suppose I am constantly whether physically moving or not in one way or another. There are lots of parts to live and I love exploring them all... but what I take on is a lot for any one person. I don't mind though, it keeps things interesting, that's for sure...

Right now I need to devote time to my research paper and my art project for grad. I have done work on both of course, but I really want to throw myself into it even more as soon as I can. We are leaving for England / Scotland this Wednesday. Dan's older sister is getting married in England, then we're going to go up to Scotland for a couple days because my best friend just moved there for this year to go to grad school. Right now there is a lot of moving around and life changing events for the people I'm closest to. My brother just got married last weekend too. Constant changes... but all good for the most part. I wrote more about our trip a couple of posts back... look there if you missed it!!

I've been failing to write as much as I'd like. Or just failing to post... I don't even know how many people read this thing right now considering I don't get to updating it all too much. I keep wanting that to change, but like anything else, it's hard to find the time lately. Work takes a big chuck out of it I guess. It used to be this free time filler that I had, mostly when I was still in high school way back when, then throughout college though often distracted by class, friends, and then health, I still managed to find some time to devote to it. Now what happens is always in spurts. I find a way to get inspired to come back to this interent world that I love so much, that guides and drives a lot of what I do personally and in my work. But it's hard to stick with when paying the bills and other such things call. I feel like it's all coming back to stay for me right now though - I started things like this grad program to help ensure that. Some rules to keep myself on track. It is still true for the most part. I really am keeping myself going in a pretty positive forward motion I think... it's just that there is a lot of places for that forward motion to go right now. I do still like writing here. Sometimes I find the time to do so from work, but there it's hard to really get out what I want to say and think clearly since I'm constantly seeing if there is actual work that needs tending to and such. Yes, I really do make sure work comes first when I'm there and possibly doing other things like posting which aren't related... it's just sometimes there is nothing there to do and so I might as well fill the time.

Oh and I didn't mention yet that I officially registered my own company a few weeks ago. Metatative LLC is now official and is technically allowed to start conducting business on October 15th. I'm going to run Sticky Art as a project under this... and yes I did apparently feel I needed one more thing to keep me busy... This should tuck into the rest of what I do though hopefully... now I just need a good law person and/or accountant. I am resisting the urge to take care of everything myself because really when it comes to the financial and tax side of business I have no idea what I am doing. Let me stick to the running of the business and making of the work and we'll all be happier. As a matter of fact, I'm going for a consultation with an accounting firm tomorrow morning to see if they are the ones for me to work with for all this business stuff. I spent a bit of my night trying to find my official documents only to find I put them in my important papers bin when I figured while looking that they might be anywhere but. I guess I should have more faith in myself for keeping the important things organized, but you know how it is when you move important things to 'safe' places... they are at the very least usually one of the very last places you later think to look.

I attended Semi-Permanent NYC 2005 two weekends ago and I had a great time. It was a two day conference (I went up and back to NY both days via the Chinatown bus because it was still cheaper than staying in a hotel) I have a few friends there that would have let me crash, but I didn't want to ask them ahead of time and by the time they offered (and they all did actually) it was a little too close to make use of it. That was no problem though. Good to know I have places to stay there for other times I go. New York is a weird thing to me. I'm beginning to get more familiar with it and many people I know are slowly moving there if they haven't already and are trying to pursue their art and design work. It is a happening place for it, but my heart is in Philly and there are just aspects to NY that I'm not quite ready to embrace and I'm fairly sure I never will be. What hits me hardest though is that I keep finding opportunities for myself there to pursue a lot of what I love and maybe actually be successful with it too. NY seems oversaturated with things sometimes, but others it is this place where everything happens first and by the time it comes out of the city that never sleeps it's old news if you haven't been keeping up. I still don't think I'm ever going to find ourselves moving there though. If we move from the city, it'll be for a house in a quiet part of some town nearby. We crave that - we'd even move to a farm (provided for me that it had excellent power and internet access of course). Ahh... someday! ;) I still haven't gotten myself back up to NYC lately... though I had hoped to go a couple weeks ago to visit a studio of a company I'm really interested and see the show at the Jonathan Levine Gallery (Tim Biskup is one of my favorite artists) but I just couldn't find the time between everything else. Hopefully I'll get back up there soon though for a visit.

So anyway, at the conference I saw some great inspiring accounts of people who started their own companies and/or were doing their own thing that they loved and being successful at it - oh and having a lot of fun in the process. That's all any of us want and it seems so easy and so completely hard at the same time. You just sort of have to work towards it though and see what happens. They say if you want it bad enough you'll make it happen. I want to believe I have the power to do that for myself. I try to believe it. But I just get so distracted by life sometimes. There is always something getting near me or trying to stand in the way, at least for a while, that keeps me moving forward but with the feeling of being held back at the same time - if any of that makes any sense. I still have this feeling sometimes... there is nothing you can really do but work through it though. Life is always going to have its ups and downs, you just deal with it all as it comes...

I sometimes find the most inspiring things - texts, projects, groups, people... that I try to keep around in my head to continue to inspire me. I try to interact with some as much as possible to keep me going. Sometimes this works and other times it feels like the other pulls of life just keep getting in the way. But I have to keep trying, I have to keep riding those waves, because they are what brought me here in the first place and if I'm not willing to stay on top of them, they'll just pull me under and carry me out to sea. And on that note, we end this fun little thing called post an old entry because you forgot about it awhile ago because you still want to share what you had to say at the time.

What is really happening tonight now, back to real time, is I'm sitting here when I should be sleeping. Dan hooked up the Nintendo 64 to distract us from our usual playing of GameCube, specifically Mario Baseball (thanks for letting us borrow it Concetta you rock!). So he's playing that now because he's addicted and it's been a long time since we broke out this game (and of course it is one of the best of all time!!). So we'll probably go to bed soon, as we should be sleeping now.... but hey, tomorrow is Friday. I don't really have to be THAT awake at work, now do I?

To be honest, it was kind of interesting to go back through a semi-old post and see what's changed since then. I suppose in general not a whole lot has, but at the same time plenty has too. I do sometimes go back and read old posts, but you never really get to share your comments on those matters after the fact, unless of course I choose to bring back up a topic or something, but even then it's different from that original moment. Anyway, this has been good to do I think. But I will still do my best to post everything in real time so that we don't have this issue again. Uh oh, Dan just lost, that means he's going to keep playing until he starts doing better... I guess he's out of practice... boy we need to go to bed!! Until next time!