nehal

isms20081209: so i like myself more than i like you

i’ve been accused of being a social recluse these last couple of months. what can i say? i happen to enjoy my own company. i like spending time with me. i’m fun. i have way more fun chilling by myself than putting on five layers of clothes, getting soaked to the kneecaps with a combination of snow and rain, freezing in temperatures nobody should be made to go through, to hang out for five hours somewhere surrounded by a bunch of drunken hipsters all wearing american apparel and those glasses everybody made fun of you for wearing back in the 80s.

i like my apartment. it’s awesome. and warm. and it has good vibes. and heating. it also has my library, my laptop, my bass, and a trunk of diy projects that i keep meaning to complete. i’m always busy at home, and never bored.

and i don’t think i’m being anti-social. my flat has a social life of its own, that hardly involves me. it’s rare that a day passes by without people stopping over randomly, whether for a quick coffee and a chat or to spend the night. i love having people over,  but my tropical ass is not leaving this house without a good enough reason.

isms20081204

last week, i received an invitation in the mail. to the ten-year reunion for my graduating class from university college london. a whole decade since i left with a degree and an overwhelming sense of now-what?.

obligatory severely condensed wrap-up: a second bachelor degree, a masters degree, almost four certificates. london, khartoum, denver, pittsburgh, vancouver, regina, moose jaw, calgary, edmonton, ottawa, montreal, east lansing, winnipeg, boulder, toronto, havana, geneva. from science to journalism to environmental communications with a sprinkling of project management, graphic design, social work, and urban planning. published in anthologies, magazines, websites, and self-published a chapbook. art shows, under- and over- ground. found and lost friends (RIP). found and lost cars (scrap heap). found and lost cats. found and lost love (no regrets, carpe diem, right meems?). grew up. befriended my slow cooker, snowboarded, learned spanish, bought a  bass. titled “writer”, “poet”, “journalist”, “promoter”, “consultant”, “teacher”, “tanti”, “multidisciplinary artist”, “maneater” (hall and oates, holla!)… self-indulgence bores me, i’m done.

i’m a lot happier today than i have been for the past ten years. i love my home. i’m surrounded by good people. music keeps me going. i’ve not befriended my depression, but at least i’m trying to find ways to carry a lamp with me into the darkness.

and i figured out that i’m part-shark. if i don’t move i’m dead in the water.

isms20081028: night’s mares

i’ve been seriously weirded out though by these dreams i have. they’re incredibly twisted, violent in a depraved sense, just simply horrible. it’s a specific type of dream, every once in a while i have dreams like that, but recently it’s been pretty regular. as a rule, i don’t usually remember my dreams, but every time i have one of these dreams, i remember it. it’s gone from once or twice a year to three times in one night. i’m concerned about this.

the first time i had one of these dreams that i can remember, i was four and a half. that’s how intense they are, i don’t remember much from being four, but i remember this dream. there were horses, cobwebs and the disney character goofy. it was the night my mother was in the hospital giving birth to my sister. april 19 or 20 1984.

what’s worse than the content of these dreams is the emotional intensity of them. i’m starting to dread falling asleep, afraid of waking up in the grip of panic, anxiety, fear. emotions so intense, they manifest physically, fists clenched so tightly my nails leave marks on my palms that last for half a day. muscle cramps in my calves from imaginary chases. back pain from the tension of hiding in small spaces for hours. sometimes, the violence is so horrible the need to throw up is what wakes me up. i wouldn’t be surprised if i was dealing with ptsd from witnessing brutal and traumatic events in my dreams.

the most recent dream happened two nights ago. a man was shot in front of me. blood and bone splattering on to a wall. chunks of brain matter. not some nicely cleaned up movie version of death, but pretty realistic. a really nice guy in my dream too. he was shot by an individual (man? creature?) who looked like an alive version of an anime character in three.d, with all the physical traits but in flesh and blood. something or someone impossible. maybe my mind’s way of making sure i know this isn’t real.

i’ve been trying to find out what the significance of these dreams are. interpretive literature isn’t shedding any light, just telling me that death signifies an end. thanks. there’s nothing anywhere that can break down what homicidal live versions of animated characters could possibly signify. or madwomen at tufnell park station in london. or alligators on seesaws.

online forums are of no help either. people who post about having these dreams are told to get professional help. get their sick minds sorted out. there’s one article that briefly mentions emotionally intense violent dreams being associated with depression (bing!), but i haven’t found anything yet to expand on that. at this point i don’t care what causes these dreams.

i just want to make them stop. i’m two steps away from self-induced insomnia as a solution. and y’all know how much i (usually) love sleep.

isms20081020: mondays

i could do without mondays. they don’t do anything for me. it’s not only the dread of the work week, although that definitely is part of it. but if the workweek started on tuesday even, i’d be fine. i could just really do without mondays.

it’s possibly a cultural thing. the fact that weeks begin on mondays is an artificial construct, and i reject it. when i lived in the middle east, the first day of the week was saturday, weekends began on wednesday evenings. that’s more like my flow.

anyway, i digress. the whole point of this post was not to hate on mondays. i’m actually having a really good day. i knew it was a good day when i spilled coffee on my top and my response wasn’t “%$#@ing great”, but rather “thank god i’m wearing a dark shirt”. anyone who knows me knows that response is really out of character.

maybe it’s because i got enough sleep this morning. maybe it’s because the weekend was really productive. maybe it’s because i had a really intense and uncomfortable conversation last night that helped clarify some really big things. maybe it’s because i woke up early enough to pick up groceries, return dvds before they were overdue, and drop off my drycleaning. or maybe it’s just because.

my phone’s been blowing up this morning. but the highlight of the strange pre-10am phonecalls was some really good news. i spoke to a friend of mine overseas who told me she’s expecting her first child. this is a woman i love so much, i would die for her. and now she’s going to have a baby. nothing tops that, not today anyway.

isms20081015

tons of stuff to do before tomorrow, but i’m not going to whinge about it. because i am very obviously and consciously procrastinating. oh well, it means i’ve been productive in other aspects of my life.

had a lot on my mind lately. trying to sort things out, prioritise, figure out who i am right now and who i want to be when i grow up. a lot of questions have been thrown my way, and while i’m not trying to figure out the answers right now, i need to get them out. clear out a little headspace, put them somewhere where i can come back to them later. when i have some time (on a side note - that’s something i need to reclaim. time. sad but true).

• how do i assign value? to things, people, memories? how do i figure out what and who is important to me and for what reasons?
• what are my politics? and are they truly mine, or were they just acquired along the way?
• what calibrates my moral compass? it’s easy to figure out right and wrong most of the time, but what’s my decision process for the shady areas?
• what do i want to achieve?
• what are my guiding principles? and how are they/should they be manifesting?
• how healthy am i? ok, so i know the answer to this one, and the question really is: how can i make myself healthier physically, mentally, spiritually?

typing them down, they seem like such vague and abstract and lofty questions. i doubt i’ll be able to answer them.

i’m feeling really disassociated from self these days. too much blockage. and the shadow of an oncoming depression is hanging around. sometimes, i don’t pay attention to where my mind is going and i walk in it for a few steps before i catch myself. but before i end up in that darkness (or before it overpowers me), i need to clear my headspace. i need to be able to figure out my defences.

isms20080909: minute

i haven’t updated my blog in months. i have piles and piles of scrap pieces of paper with amazing ideas and outlines. i’ve been planning a website refresh for a minute. a collaborative pop art piece on environmental issues. an exploratory art exhibition. two books of edited works. three short stories. a poetry chapbook. two grant applications and a proposal. two remix culture online projects. a film script. a curated exhibition. a couple of trips. a fairytale. phd applications. plus an entrance exam.

i had felt frozen by everything just piling on top of me. a cluttered mountain of stuff. but i started purging the physical, and with each useless item i throw out, more time magically appears to plan and implement.

i’m removing myself from my social sphere. i can feel it. i’m slacking off at returning phonecalls, sending last minute texts cancelling on plans. i’ve stopped updating this site ten times a day, my twitter feed on the hour, and responding to fb messages. i’m turning selfish, but not really.

i need to take this space more than i need wasted time. there’s a rash on my fingertips from the itch to create and everyday, i vomit stories.

i’ve stopped thinking of new ideas. i’ve finished labelling my files and organising my workspace. i’m just filling up the tank, and soon, very soon, i’m taking off.

isms20080827: learning to love you more

“Locate a small child. Shoot a video about his or her life. The video can be as simple or complex as you want. It can be done all in camera or heavily edited. Make titles and credits even if they are just shot off of a piece of paper. Please limit the length of your movie to five minutes.”

learning to love you more is an interactive art project (participatory website) by miranda july and harrell fletcher. the idea’s beautiful, it’s all about love, and learning, and appreciating. reminiscent of a yoko ono project, the website launched six years ago with the aim of “guiding people towards their own experience.” i like july’s work, but that last sentence personally disturbed me. not in terms of what the artists were trying to do (love!), but the idea that people (over 5,000 of them) needed to be guided toward their own experience. i hope i never end up with someone who can’t find their own experience. i hope i never become someone like that.

isms20080819

i’m on this freestyle thought flow.

now that the moon’s not on some crazy power trip, i feel the world returning to normal. except, apparently, normal isn’t something that applies to me (according to my sister, and several other people).

things are weird right now. not in a bad way, but i’m feeling unsettled. suspicious, even.

working through some personal ish, like: is it really fair of me to expect people to adhere to the same values i do? i wouldn’t accept it from them. word is bond.

music’s getting interesting again. seems like artists are on another level, trying to outdo each other in a weirder-than-thou way. i’m feeling more and more entertained.

relationships get more complicated with age. and i thought high school was melodramatic.

too much stuff everywhere - in my home, in my head, in my writing. trying to find some way to make everything stay in one place so i can deal with it.

cleanse. purge. bullshit, unnecessary stuff. i need to feel unfettered.

i’m digging this unknown future stuff. gets me all revved up. predictability = mediocrity. avoid at all costs. life’s one helluva rollercoaster ride.

not really feeling the smell of packaged boiled eggs.

feelings getting caught. unnecessary complications. more ish to snip away.

unexpected propositions could potentially be beautiful works of art.

“summer of the unexpected”. at least the serendipity factor’s gone down. i think.

autumn chill began this morning. or maybe it’s just cold and i’m just such a pessimist i’ve killed the season.

need to find new addictions. new passions. new obsessive thoughts to take over my life completely and distract me from the unknown.

shit. i also need to go write some sort of constrained poetic form. deadline beckons.

peace out.

isms20080813: hateration

front cover of the national post today: chinese introduce new sport: deception. i hate to be the one to let the np editors know, but trickery, manipulation, illusion and false presentations were not invented by the chinese, and unfortunately they don’t have a monopoly on lies either. a competition on who’s the best deceiver of them all might turn out interesting.

not condoning the actions of the olympic committee (hello flawed perceptions of beauty? all the other ish going on?), but the hateration in that headline was unnecessary and cheap. not that i expected better from the np anyway.