[Intrepid Homoludens]

It's amazing how a small change can transform your entire look. I decided that I'm a bit tired of slouchy bootcut jeans, everyone and their grandmother wears them so, since it's a new season anyway, I opted for something new: a much leaner line. Went to Gap after work and got a couple pairs - severely skinny skin tight dark denim jeans, and very narrow stovepipe charcoal flannel trousers. The trick was that I got them in the women's section, men's versions are too wide in the leg for someone small like me. Again (like last time) I found that a size 2 fit me perfectly.

Anyway, I love the new look, harkens back to rockers Patti Smith, Chrissie Hynde, and Blondie, the kind of severe leanness that inspires Hedi Slimane's menswear for Dior Homme (see pic below), Anne Demeulemeester's womenswear, and Raf Simons' menswear. Not everyone can wear this look successfully. It's quite unforgiving. You must be thin to start and have a certain way of carrying yourself (I think of others here who could do this look and the first ones I come up with are Dasilva and Glenn Epic). I've seen young L.A. kids (emos, rockers) do their street version of it, Japanese boys with Sonic the Hedgehog hair, tall gaunt punkers who wear them with mohawks, chains, and combat boots, and the most refined ones interpreted by Dior Homme and European labels like A.P.C. and agnes b. Ironically, I actually used to dress this way back in the mid 90s, though back then it was skinny with a 60s edge. I'm opting for the more tailored but slouched version (military style jacket, denim jacket, turtleneck, v-neck sweaters, skater shoes).

The thing is that I already own many pieces to go with these skinny pants - sweaters, t-shirts, jackets, sneakers, black leather mod boots (if needed for a night out). I've had them all along, but it's ultimately the silhouette, the line, that I wanted to alter, and the most efficient way to do that is through the cut of the pants. w00t, fall is here. It's always nice to spend little but affect your mood a lot.

Feel free to blog about whatever you want in this thread. You're next!

[Squinky]

Dear AG Community Blog,

I think I've forgotten how to have close friends. By "close friends", I mean people with whom you can talk about your feelings, rather than just your thoughts. I haven't had friends like these for a while - the last person I really poured my heart out to was my ex-boyfriend, and we stopped speaking about a year ago.

An old Internet buddy I kind of lost touch with over the last few months IMed me last week, and to my great surprise, we actually managed to have a really good conversation - the kind I used to have all the time with those I termed "close friends". Quite frankly, it shocked me. It brought the comfortable hermit-like existence I'd been living in my head completely out of whack, and now I feel more than a little disoriented.

I used to expect nothing. I used to expect no one to understand me, but now, there's at least one person out there in the world who maybe does, and I don't know how to react to this. I don't know what to expect of such a person; I'm scared to expect too much, because it'll likely result in pain.

But then again, all change, even good change, is stressful. Despite the fear and confusion, I welcome this change. It'll make my life a lot more interesting than it currently is.

And now that I've freaked out the AG community enough with my hopes, fears, and insecurities, I'll shut up now. Goodbye.

Love,
Squinky

[Lee in Limbo]

Hi, Aggie

I'm a bit manic tonight, and can't completely settle down. I've already deleted a few hundred words because I was rambling too much, and it was starting to read like a death row confessional anyway.

I think the thing that's been on my mind lately that I haven't really been able to talk to anybody about, my wife included, is the fact that I've really taken on a lot of responsibility in the last few years. Turned my whole life upside down, in fact. It's a strange situation. I'm the kind of guy who dreams grandiose, utopian, messianic, or just straight up artsy bohemain communal dreams, and then spends years slowly but surely trying to bring them to fruition, with hardly any outward signs of progress. It isn't until years later that I suddenly do two or three things, and whoops, what do you know, I'm a graphic artist, or whoops, how do you like that, I'm a songwriter. This sort of about face stuff has been happening with me for a long time.

I'm a tad biploar. I take medication for it, in fact. Small doses compared to some who use it, but I'm told it's a fairly strong medication; it's classed as an anti-psychotic. There's a cheerful thought, hmmn?

The thing is, back in the days before I started getting therapy, I was a fabulous rollercoaster, up down out and back in again, cycles within cycles, months of intense and wildly unpredictable activity, followed by months of hiding out in my little apartment avoiding people and building my next launching station.

It wasn't until the millenium, when I started dating a woman who was a fair bit better established than me, and got involved with me as I was coming down off another of my fabulous manic sprees, during my first stint as a freelance graphic artist (cartoonist, really; what I called graphic design back then was little more than cartoon drawings with word organized around them. Ghastly stuff. I'm a little better now).

So I got involved with a woman who was a copy editor. She was something else. Very prickly with most people, but warm and tender when you got close enough to her. Mercurial. Intense. Extremely intelligent. Unpredictable. It was a rocky relationship, but I really believed she was the one for me, so I did everything I could to become the man who could keep her happy. I think you can all probably recite the next part yourself without any more hints. Suffice to say, I was wrong.

Of all the things she 'taught' me during our two year on and off engagement, two things really stuck;

1) make the imagery and prose you write very textured and nuanced, to give it a more authentic feel (she wa salso very critical of fantastical fiction that got the real world details all wrong; hard nosed gal).

and 2) You can't expect to keep a good woman in your life if you don't accept responsibility, get a decent job, and start providing for things that a family needs, whether they are planning on children or not. She taught me to get into the game. She didn't precisely morder me to. She just woudn't stay with me unless I showed signs of pulling myself together and, that included having a good paying job.

(Oh, and thirdly, that More Than This by Roxy Music is a wonderful song)

Myself, I've never been able to stick with anything that didn't have a great deal of meaning in my life. Jobs included. I'm one of those horrid creatures who has to find meaning in everything he does, or eventually I just fade away. I'm actually in a place like that right now. That's why we're talking about this. Funny how I finally get to the point when you least expect it, eh? Old Manic Boy habit.

Anyway, I find myself at a crossroads. I've been hermetical for the last couple of years, trying to consolidate my skills and abilities into a relatively successful formula for getting professional work done on schedule (not one of my great strengths, admittedly).

But somewhere along the way, I've lost my reason. Oh, I have material, concrete reasons, like keeping my wife in Canada with me, and wanting desperately to employ a few of my very talented and even-less-appropriately-employed-than-me friends (what is Kaijugal doing working in a bloody grocery store? She's supposed to be doing movie set and costume design, if not working as an animator or comic book artist. It's criminal). I just kind of want to use that Capricorn brain of mine to make magic, and suddenly everyone is making magic and everyone is happy and I'm content. So yeah, I have my reasons, but those are material reasons. When I say 'meaning', I mean, spiritual and philosophical underpinnings. The meaning behind the act itself, not the motivation. It has to mean something to me, Or I can't do it for very long.

And here I am married to a wonderful woman and working sporadically but turning in monstrous hours when I am working (40 of the last 48 hours were spent working on a tradeshow three panel display banner for a water bottling company; 1 and a half of them were spent sleeping; that sort of schedule is very normal for me in work mode), being paid more in one day than I used to make in a week.

And yet, I am supremely dissatisfied, because the work I'm doing is meaningless to me. Absolutely meaningless. I find meaning in the work, and then I meet the people I'm working for, and the meaing goes right out the window. I've been doing this too long. I can't even sell water without becoming jaded.

And so I find myself getting into new projects in my increasingly rare spare time, looking for something to give me a sense of meaningfulness again. I'm writing new songs for my old band, who got back together this year. I had to set aside my notes for a game I was developing with a German programmer, because we started having differences of opinon about what the project had really been about all that time. I've started writing fiction again, slowly getting back to the novellas I was working on before I started running the print shop last year.

I'm making new friends. Younger and more ambitious and directed and hopeful and downright beautiful than I've been in years. I'm finding that I actually have something to offer them in the way of advice, polish, and even certain of my various talents seem to be coming into use.

And love. I have in my heart a number of people who all mean so much to me, some moreso than others, but all in different ways. Very few truly get to be truly close to me. Some that I feel a certain inexplicable closeness to simply don't see me as anything other than some middle aged Canadian artsy guy who talks too much about his work like it's interesting to other people or something.

But every now and then, I find myself accidentally intersecting with someone who, for no really clear reason, just makes absolute sense to me, and I realize I've met one of my people. As I'm getting older, and not so desperately hungry to find that one special someone, I'm finding the scariest thing is, there really is more than one person out there whom you can feel a stong and abiding and flexible and potent connection to. I think some part of me still thinks there's something to the romantic new age concept of soul mates. But I also find that there are people who will be all of those things to you, and others who also seem to meet you in so many place on some many levels that it just surprises you that it hadn't occurred to you before.

There is so much love in the world. But the most important love of your life will always be yourself. That bit about 'if you can't love yourself, how can you love anyone else'? Truth. You can't give someone a woefully empty vessel and convince them that you've given them true love. You have to fill yourself up with purpose, with a sense of self-worth, with a sense of knowing what it is you are giving this person, sharing with them, inviting them to become a part of.

Find the things in you that are worth loving. It's an ongoing process. I'm still fighting with it, even to this day. Believe me, unless your standards are seriously unrealistic, it never goes to your head. Narcisists aren't simply people who love themselves, but who love themselves above all others, because they don't see true beauty in anything.

Okay, losing my train of thought again. Time to take my meds and get ready for bed. That takes about an hour or so when I'm this wound up.

I also tend to get very attached to people who fascinate me, especially if they do things I admire. These don't always turn into romantic relationships, but the way I carry on, you'd think otherwise. I have someone who has just recently entered my life like that. I'm doing a fair bit of mugging right now, but underneath it all, it's a sincere appreciation and fascination. As any mother will tell you, such fascinations do not endure forever. But with me, it's a bit different. What starts as a fascination often does become a life long attachment I wind up keeping them very close to me simply because I can't imagine ever wanting to not have them in my life.

Well, I'm not sure if I covered everything that's been on my mind. There does seem to be an inordinately large amount of stuff floating around in my head these days. If I shared it all, we'd be here a while.

But yes, in my life, I've found that I'm capable of enduring great hardships and personal discomfort if it means something to me, and if the people I'm labouring for are important to me. And the people that I allow into my life, not the mumerous acquaintances staring in from outside the glass, but really inside... they don't get there by accident, and a part of them lingers there long after they've left the room for good. Such connections should be handled carefully, and never taken lightly. But they should definitely be enjoyed for what they are, and for all that they are, if possible. Life's pretty short.

Okay, it's time to shut down. Goodnight, Aggie. Hope you're well.

[colpet]

Is a 'blog' just a journal or diary? I've heard about them, but not seen one.

[Giligan]

From what I've heard, its usually where someone writes a diary of sorts, and people come and comment on it.

[SoccerDude28]

Dear AG blog,

I am writing this to share my frustration over a lot of things I find wrong and questionable in this world we live in today.

Why are the gas prices dropping down 42 days before the mid-term elections? Is it okay to manipulate people's votes by manipulating gas prices?

Why are there people who think that their religion is the only truth, and that other people should die just because they don't share their beliefs?

Why are there people who pollute the air we breath by driving FUV's and min-vans to protect themselves and their children (read soccer moms), whereas by doing so, they are screwing up the future of the very same children they are trying to protect.

Why can you try to impeach a president for adultary, but you can't impeach one for killing 3000 American soldiers, 100000+ Iraqis, spying on his own citizens, torturing POW's and breaking the geneva convention, drilling for oil in Alaska, cheating in elections, and hiring incompetent twits in every field of the government.

Why can't people be Neo-greens instead of neo-cons? Recycle, drive small cars, eat healthy food, and just do their very small part in the whole scheme of things.

Why do good games sell 5 copies, and crappy ones sell millions?

And why oh why is Trep so hot?*


* This last comment is a good thing in this world

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Why the f00k can I never get up early enough to go to cafe to do my writing? Seems that I can be up at 7am to be at the train station by 7.55am to commute to work, but on my days off I can't. Bitch.

Today I need to take a jaunt to the post office, gotta send out that short story for submission to the literary quarterly. Actually I should as well submit another one to another quarterly, increase my chances of being selected for publication. Okay, printer, I got another job for ya.

[Dasilva]

Dear AG Community Blog,

Your gay.

Love,
Dasilva.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Dear AG Community Blog,

silvsie's a slutface. And he's gay.

But I'd still fuck him.

xoxo
b.

[Squinky]

Dear AG Community Blog,

Why does everyone hate religious people so much? Surely, saying that anyone who believes in God is stupid and uneducated is just as prejudiced as saying that anyone who doesn't believe in God lacks morals and is surely going to hell, isn't it?

Love,
Squinky

[Squinky]

Dear Dasilva,

What's this about my gay? Have you been snooping in my things again?

Confused and bewildered,
The AG Community Blog

[Giligan]

Dear AG Community Blog:

Why is my supply of basswood always gone?

[Intrepid Homoludens]

My sister just forwarded this to me. Corny, yes, but it's undeniably true. Just get the fuck over yourselves and take it to heart.

As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it's harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You'll fight with your best friend. You'll blame a new love for things an old one did. You'll cry because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back.

Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin.

Reminds me of one my most fave quotes from Albert Camus:

Live to the point of tears.

[bulldog]

wow Trep that is very deep. It makes you think about things, it amkes you want to live for the moment. that was great. I sent it to my sister -n -law. Thanks

[Squinky]

Dear AG Community Blog,

Was Trep directing that "get the fuck over yourselves and take it to heart" specifically at me? I'll admit that he's right, in a sense, but then again, does he really have to be so arrogant about it?

Love,
Squinky

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Dear AG Community Blog,

I'm hoping that people here would take the 'yourselves' part of my entry above as a lighthearted, universal 'yourselves', and not try to be so defensive about it. God knows too of us out there have been this way about ourselves, me included.

xoxo
b.

[Squinky]

Dear AG Community Blog,

Sorry for being defensive. I guess I really should learn to be better about giving people the benefit of the doubt.

Carrying on,
Squinky

[Jelena]

....because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back.

I believe being a little upset every now and then is good too. If I never felt the negative feelings I wouldn't be able to enjoy the positive feelings as much.

[RLacey]

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run...

[Intrepid Homoludens]

...you'd at least be in excellent physical shape.