| Help me with Big Checkin? |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|12:22 am] |
I started thinking about how to best reflect on the year, and the decade, as I do every year. And every year I am dissatisfied with what's available. Reflection works best when it can build on reflections from the past, year over year, etc. We are changing, slowly, over time, in ways that none of us can really tell from up close.
I mentioned the idea a while ago, and have since started on this "Best of 2009" meme which has been making me feel pretty unsatisfied in the reflection department. I met with Carinna and Michael a couple weeks ago to start coming up with ideas on how to make yearly reflections more fun and more satisfying.
This is the first draft:
http://bigcheckin.com
I'm leaving for Delaware tomorrow morning for a week, so this is as far as I got. It has 15 questions, varying from checkbox selection to adjective listing to inner-circle creating to goal contemplation. The answers are stored in ways that I think will make it easy to create aggregates amongst people, and also in ways that will make it possible to chart your own changes over time.
It's not yet possible to publish your results, but it will save your answers and I promise that results will be made available as soon as possible when I get back.
This is another long-term project. I want to launch something in January that will include charts and graphs and statistics and ways to post your Big Checkin to places people can see it, ways to make some parts private, etc. But while I'm gone (and won't be near a computer) it would help if some people felt interested enough in the idea to post their own thoughts and reflections, it will help me better able to figure out what's interesting and what's not.
So, yeah, there's no report at the end yet. But I'm bringing my sketchbook with me to start thinking about it. Any ideas you have as well on better ways to ask the questions, ways to visualize the answers, etc, would be awesome.
Help? |
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| Best of 2009, #16 - 21) Tea, word, shop, car ride, person, and project |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|11:33 am] |
Tea of the year. I can taste my favorite tea right now. What's yours?
I should have read all the prompts before agreeing to do this I think. What kind of person do these prompts lead us to try to be? Tea? I think it was that curiously strong tea that comes out of my French press. For sure.
Word or phrase. A word that encapsulates your year. "2009 was _____."
My word of the year, determined early on, was "frugality to the max!" I suppose that sort of sums it up for me... an attempt to reign in the unbalanced nature of my life from the previous year. Back to basics, build from the strongest part of the foundation, make a plan for a sustainable and balanced future while still thinking big and taking well-calculated risks.
Shop. Online or offline, where did you spend most of your mad money this year?
Lawyers, landlords, credit cards, and the IRS. I guess the offline shopping world wins again.
Car ride. What did you see? How did it smell? Did you eat anything as you drove there? Who were you with?
Another silly question. I don't have a car. But the scene from the window of a taxi is usually pretty exciting. I also enjoyed the bus ride to Vancouver this summer. My Zipcar errands were more about the destination, and our mini-roadtrip to Orcas was more about the people in the car.
New person. She came into your life and turned it upside down. He went out of his way to provide incredible customer service. Who is your unsung hero of 2009?
I'm very happy to report that my unsung hero of 2009 wasn't a customer service rep. That would be sad. I didn't so much get swept up by any new people this year as grow more solid relationships with the people I already know and love. Kellianne deserves special props for weathering our third year of higher highs and lower lows with me. I feel like I also got to know several of my friends a lot better this year too. You know who you are.
Project. What did you start this year that you're proud of?
Locavore, Enjoymentland, and project Baby Benson. |
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| i slept through the night, i got through to the dawn |
[Dec. 19th, 2009|12:51 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | good/tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | pretty good day- loudon wainwright III | ] |
I'm firmly back into tourist mode and have had a couple of really good days: Perth's small but friendly with it (a girl paid my train fare when I didn't have the right change the other day)- I checked out a club called Connections after my meet up with the train folk on Wedmesday; although I love the fact that London caters for the most specialised of tastes, it's always interesting when a place has only one gay venue because everyone who wants to go out is forced together, although it does tend to lead to a fairly unsophisticated approach to entertainment- in this case bad drag lip-synching and lesbian mud-wrestling.
Yesterday I headed down to Fremantle and spent the day pootling around the town: took a tour round the old prison which was nothing special, mooched about the markets, watched Zombieland which was okay but not as fun as it promised, then watched the beautiful and tranquil sunset. It's known for its live music so I headed up to a venue called Mojos which had a fantastic bohemian shabiness to it (worn out sofas, tea lights on tables, toilet walls covered in graffiti . . . you know the sort) and saw a couple of really good bands: King George who had a slight country twang and an incredibly self-possessed and talented lead singer who couldn't have been much over 15, plus Saritah, roots/reggae/soul (Google tells me) who was also very impressive.
Today I went over to Rottnest Island and spent the day cycling from bay to bay, snorkelling or hanging out on the beaches, Quokka spotting or clambering over rocks: beautiful day, absolute bliss despite an hour or so of ineptitude in the middle (bag tangling with bike issues and failing to find lunch,) a successful beach experience at last and better snorkelling than my Thailand attempt too, loads of beautiful pink coral and fish. Also my first significant sun-burn experience so far- I have stripey feet!
Heading off from Perth for a tour of the South Western corner of the country from tomorrow: was planning to make sure I had a Friday Night Out before I go but I may just go to bed . . . |
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| Kinds of people |
[Dec. 16th, 2009|07:09 pm] |
Male, Female, Hermaphrodite
Child, Adult, Young, Middle aged, Over the hill, Old
Mother, Father, Brother, Sister, Aunt, Uncle, Grandfather, Grandmother, Son, Daughter, Pet owner
Wife, Husband, Boyfriend, Girlfriend, Friend, Friend with benefits, Flirt
Gay, Straight, Bisexual, Lesbian, Monogamous, Open
Student, Employee, Boss, Entrepreneur, Unemployed
Ill, Healthy, Fit, Slovenly, Unhealthy, Sporty, Accident-prone, Lucky, Alert, Slow, Calm, Stressed, Focused, Distracted, Energetic, Lazy, Passive, Agressive,
Conservative, Liberal, Republican, Democrat, Independent, Activist
Religious, Spiritual, Agnostic, Atheist, Humanist, Lost soul, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim
Extrovert, Introvert, Intuitive, Sensing, Thinking, Feeling, Perceiving, Judging
Proud, Greedy, Lustful, Angry, Gluttonous, Jealous, Lazy, Sarcastic, Cynical, Cheating, Lying
Sincere, Polite, Trustworthy, Frugal, Industrious, Fair, Moderate, Clean, Chaste, Humble, Loyal
I'm looking for generic kinds of categories that people can put themselves in. Not either/ors, necessarily, but demographic kinds of things that are more about who you think you are than who you really are. Some serious, some silly, etc. Can you think of more categories? Help! |
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| guess the best that i can do now is pretend I've done nothing wrong |
[Dec. 16th, 2009|08:02 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  relaxed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | another travellin' song- bright eyes | ] |
Had a busy but occasionally frustrating last day in Sydney: caught up with a friend in the morning then had a rushed (I was late) picnic in Newtown with another friend for lunch, went to see ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) cryx's impro show in the evening which was really enjoyable, although my rather overly-casual approach to finding out where it was on meant I missed the first half. After that I went back to Blink, with the intention of having at least one proper dance while I was here, which I did but then fell foul of their rather paternalistic law here*, fairly vigorously enforced, that they can ask you to leave a pub or club if they think you're in any way drunk, even if you're not causing any trouble. It was about half two and I's at about the point where I could have quite happily left anyway but the night ending that way left a pretty unpleasant taste in the mouth, especially since I wasn't. It was a useful indicator, however, in the feeling that's been gradually building that I made the right decision not to stay out here: it may seem petty, but going out dancing is one of my few Great Pleasures and, given the opportunities for it come about more rarely than they used to, the prospect of having nights out curtailed at a time not of my choosing because a bouncer thinks he has seen my eyelid droop a quarter of an inch (I'm really not sure what other reason there could have been: I was standing at the side, taking a rest from dancing as a few songs I didn't know had come on) is a fairly significant factor.
Of course, I may just have had bad timing, a few unlucky breaks: i could have come a week earlier and gone to High & Dry, stayed a day more and revisted the Walk Against Warming, seen the Fuji Collective play, a couple of people I'd hoped to see again could have replied to my messages and I could be singing a totally different tune, but to some extent so long as I have an answer, so long as the 'what ifs' are silenced, it doesn't necessarily matter whether it is the right one.
The train to Perth was both an ordeal and a pleasure: we stopped for a couple of hours in a few places- Broken Hill, Adelaide (where I took a whistle-stop bus tour of exceptional dullness) and Cook (Pop.: 5) but the last day across Western Australia was the hardest going, especially since I hadn't slept too much on the first couple of nights. On the other hand it was actually tremendously sociable: there were about a dozen or so UTTAs in our carriage (Under Thirty Travelling Alone; I infiltrate rather than qualify) and a slinky Italian who facilitated interaction and it was really nice eating up the vast expanse of awesome but barely changing scenery chatting to them, plus a couple of confrontations among the other passengers to keep us on our toes.
Wandered around Perth centre, been up to Kings Park and out to Cottesloe beach so far since I've been here: endless stretches of empty whie beaches, beautiful but a bit too windy today, a reunion of train people planned at the pub tonight. My timing has not improved though: self-imposed constraints and lack of overland options mean I may be seeing in the new decade back on the train but we shall see!
*In the interests of balance, there are times when Australia seems far less paternalistic than the UK- one of my many favourite things about Newtown is seeing ramshackle bands set up along King Street in the evening, playing with equal gusto to passers by or no-one at all: if anyone tried that in Camden they'd be moved on in about three minutes flat. |
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| Best of 2009, #13) Change, #14) Rush, #15) Packaging |
[Dec. 15th, 2009|12:44 pm] |
What's the best change you made to the place you live?
We got it ready for selling. This included replacing (though we had no choice about it) the windows, replacing the washer/drier (cause they broke), replacing the garbage disposal and the faucet, replacing the microwave, re-painting the white walls, replacing all 39 kinds of different light bulbs. Replace replace replace. I actually like my place a lot better with all this new stuff, but at the same time I wish someone would be it already.
When did you get your best rush of the year?
I think probably hearing the baby's heartbeat through the doppler at the hospital and being reassured that he/she was okay even though Kellianne was afraid of potentially miscarrying. Yeah definitely that.
Did your headphones come in a sweet case? See a bottle of tea in another country that stood off the shelves?
Stupid question. |
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| Best of 2009, #12) New food |
[Dec. 12th, 2009|01:16 pm] |
What new food are you in love with that you didn't even know existed earlier this year?
I started this year off strong on an Indian food cooking kick. I read a couple books, spent several weekends learning new dishes, and enjoyed some really tasty stuff. And then my kick ended, probably because the super quick early learning curve transitioned into the slower, steadier, not nearly as exciting long curve of true learning. I hit the dip and gave up. I suck.
I need to figure out how to attack that slow long curve of real learning. Kellianne tries to help by giving me tips, but her style of cooking is entirely different from what I need to learn at this point in the process. The intuitive cook can't just say, "put in however much is needed!" because I need to know: how much is however much? The beginner's dilemma.
Luckily, I don't think I'm a bad cook. Just a slow one. And an unmotivated one, most of the time.
Indian food wasn't discovered this year. That's tough... how many foods can be discovered at this point? I love eating so much that I feel like I've tried everything within arm's reach. I guess you could also say that I've grown very fond of a good Turkish or Egyptian lentil soup... that will help me survive winter I think. |
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| Best of 2009, #11) Place |
[Dec. 11th, 2009|07:06 pm] |
The best place. A coffee shop? A pub? A retreat center? A cubicle? A nook?
No brainer: Bedlam Coffee! I had seen the sign a few days previous to my first official visit (I think I was drunk and then I promptly forgot about the fact that it existed until Kellianne and I saw it again on our walk home from dinner somewhere). But from that first visit, I recognized the place for what it is: a neighborhood shop run by creative neighborhood-loving guys. Warm, welcoming, always changing, delicious coffee and toast, etc.
They're involved in making our little corner of Belltown better. They support local businesses, they cover you when you don't have enough cash, they show art, they have free wifi, they're 2 blocks from my house, and more and more there always seems to be a few people that I know just hanging out or working from there.
Weird that I chose a coffee shop as my favorite place of 2009. If it were a bar, I'd choose Bathtub Gin, a few blocks away, of course. If it were a restaurant... hmm... probably Tavolata. I guess I'm really into my little 3 block radius this year, which isn't too surprising. Go Belltown! |
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| Is this thing off? |
[Dec. 12th, 2009|02:26 am] |
Long absence, and some confusion. I don't entirely know what this is, at this point. Im not wholly sure what I, this username, this entity, this series of statements and responses is. Which is all very first world problems, of course. Possibly it's not a useful line of thought. I sort of have a sense of what I do with this self, but said self is confused in its objectives, maybe, or just confused in its methods.
I'm having a bit of a day, I think, is the short answer. Especially if you're not someone I regularly interact with, feel free to leave a screened comment - give me, in a sense more literal than usual, what for, or wherefore. |
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| we know better don't we, we know all about the mess |
[Dec. 11th, 2009|04:38 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | uncertain | ] |
| [ | music |
| | happy endings- pulp | ] |
Two last things about Thailand I forgot to mention: the Walking Markets in Chaing Mai were amazing, they have them in the evening at the weekend and fill up street after street with stalls, enough to make Camden look like it's not really trying; also I had really nice night out at a place called Bangkok Bar when I was back in the capital- despite being in the heart of the backpacker district it was a bar with a 95% Thai clientele and some really good bands playing: although the Thai bands doing covers of US/UK indie-rock classics in the more tourist-orientated bars were fun it was nice to see some music that was maybe more representative of local styles and tastes.
I've been back in Sydney for about ten days which has been kinda odd: awesome to see people and to be reminded of all the little quirks of Aussie culture I'd forgotten (Double decker trains! Travel tens! The bizarre obsession with drag! Schooners! Berala!) but to begin with I felt a bit aimless: I think it was the shift from having quite definite plans to Do Things and See Things in my previous stops to not feeling the need to explore as I'd lived here, also going from having full days and occasionally aimless evenings to busy evenings catching up with friends and emptier days when they're all at work, good for doing stuff like uploading photos and planning the rest of my trip but not so exciting in and of itself. There have been other factors too: I'm staying in my friend Rozzy's flat while she's away, which is bliss in terms of having space to myself and being able to stay in one place for more than a few nights, but it's out in the suburbs of North Sydney, away from my familiar Newtown bubble and making how-to-get-home more of a limiting factor. My couple of attempts at Big Nights Out over the weekend got kinda curtailed too, in ways that should have been good I guess, but actually I think I'd have rather stayed out. My newish iPod's irrevocably broken too, with particularly poor timing.
Having said all that there have been some awesome things too: more pancakes than I will ever eat in my life again, mooching around old haunts, reacquainting myslef with the world of sci-fi shows and card games, picking up the street press and seeing something that looks like a cool way to spend the evening and going along, cycling to Manly- even if I chose the dreariest day since I've been here to go to the beach, and of course catching up with people. The lure of Sydney is that it offers a glimpsed possibility of a life I've always wanted, an alternative scene that seems so much more accessible and personal than London has ever done, but there are complications to my participation in it and I don't know whether, left to my own devices, I would truly be any more capable of becoming a part of it than I have been back home.
I'll be back here next month but as of tomorrow I'll be spending three days on a train until I reach Perth at the other end of the country: being a cheapskate I've only booked a seat, not a berth, so it could be fun! |
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| Best of 2009, #10) Album |
[Dec. 10th, 2009|06:47 pm] |
What's rocking your world?
According to last.fm, I listened to Phoenix the most in the last 12 months. Yeah, who didn't. I love them. I guess they rocked my world. Here's my top 20 based on listening frequency:
- Phoenix
- Architecture in Helsinki
- Bon Iver
- R.E.M. (really?)
- Animal Collective
- Hot Chip
- Fleet Foxes
- Of Montreal
- TV on the Radio
- Metric
- Peter Bjorn and John
- Cloud Cult
- David Byrne and Brian Eno
- Air
- Radiohead
- St Vincent
- Freelance Whales
- Franz Ferdinand
- Stars
- Neko Case
Surprised to see Freelance Whales up there since we just saw them live last month. I guess we've been sort of obsessed with them. And Fanfarlo, which is down on number 31. Right now, they're definitely rocking me out. As for earlier in the year, I'd say Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes, or Animal Collective.
I know, nothing too surprising. But this is all great music. And lest you think I'm a bit of a mainstream sell-out listener, I refer you to this silly rant by Dave Eggers from back in 2000.
And yeah, I'm really excited to see Phoenix live in January. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 10th, 2009|05:10 pm] |
I'm just posting to say that I'm not posting. It would be a reasonable assumption that, having created a nascent friendslist, I was now scribbling like fury through a series of carefully delineated filters ('Sex' 'Politics' 'Real Life Friends' 'Unreal Unliving Friends' 'Actually interesting stuff'). But I haven't. Making a (slightly arbitrary) list was an experiment to see if it would encourage me to post more, but it didn't.
I am generally hale and happy, and still reading other people's journals, and wish you well at this thrillingly dark (in the Northern Hemisphere) time. |
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| Best of 2009, #9) Challenge |
[Dec. 9th, 2009|03:38 pm] |
Something that really made you grow this year. That made you go to your edge and then some. What made it the best challenge of the year for you?
This had to have been the closing of McLeod Residence, and the settling of all the bills, leases, creditors, partners, hopes, visions, etc. Kellianne and I started the year having drained all of our money from 2 years of McLeod operations and of course our wedding and honeymoon. Maybe drained isn't the right word, since in reality we were about $100,000 in debt on credit cards and equity loans, not counting the $3,660/month lease (with 3 years remaining), the $10,000 in unpaid taxes, the equipment lease, etc, etc, etc. Needless to say, I was definitely feeling a bit stretched to the edge and worried about my future.
It's probably the most worried I've ever been about anything. I don't know how to explain it sufficiently. It was like being in a huge pit, while sinking quickly at the same time. Nobody could help me because I had gotten myself into it, and nobody really has $100,000 lying around to help. Plus the economy had just tanked and leasing out our space to someone else seemed impossible. Plus we had some ideas about re-opening in a new space or doing the work required at our current space but nobody could really commit to it and in the meantime I was having to account for the rent that was due. Then overdue.
To Kellianne and all my friends who put up with the crazed look in my eyes and listened to me voice my fears, or helped me maintain somewhat regular interactions with people while the whole thing unfolded in its own weird time, THANK YOU.
My strategy was to simply take it a day at a time. Let bills go unpaid, try to negotiate with people who could help, get enough sleep, try to stay calm, think about options, stay optimistic, look for opportunities that come up, etc. The world would not fall apart, I hoped. I hoped that by remaining as calm as possible (sometimes not very calm at all) and making the right decisions at any given time, that things would slowly improve.
And they did. I hired a lawyer and got out of the lease with a reasonable buyout. I negotiated with the IRS and with creditors bringing down the amount owed. I let some things go to creditors if they refused to negotiate and depending on the amount and how much they cared, some of them eventually came around and others didn't. I didn't take my own debt personally, and just saw it as a number that needed to be changed slowly over time.
Kellianne and I cut our monthly spending by about 40% over the next few months, and keep trying to get it down to 50% but it just hasn't happened yet.
Luckily, also around that time I also came up with this idea for an iPhone app. And, with its success, I've been able to pay back almost half of the total debt accrued with McLeod. The remaining debt has been moved to low interest loans and is somewhat manageable, assuming I can continue to make money with other work-like things.
This challenge taught me that money is money, it comes and goes, but it doesn't define me or my ability to live a decent life. It's just a thing with no flavor. Of course, we could always use more of that flavorless goo. |
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| more testing testing |
[Dec. 9th, 2009|02:11 pm] |
created at MOO.COM
This is should be a static badge with pictures of not my real business cards on it. |
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| testing a thing again |
[Dec. 9th, 2009|02:10 pm] |
created at MOO.COM
Today, posting on my livejournal is work! This is should be a flash badge with picture of my business cards (NOT MY REAL BUSINESS CARDS) on it. |
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