Tag Archives: weekend

Friday, Be My Friend

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I have a different relationship with Friday than most people do. For almost everyone I know and everyone on the internet (judging by the memes), Friday is a day of relief. The break from work is just around the corner. The end is in sight. Whether the day is full of productivity and a push to get lots of things done or mainly goofing off on the internet, in a few hours they all have until Monday morning to live life, doing whatever non-work-related things they want to/can do.

My thoughts on Friday are a little different. Instead of being glad the weekend is here, I think, “It’s Friday already? How did another week pass and I’ve still gotten nothing done? Before long it’ll be the end of the month. Time just keeps passing and nothing ever changes. Why can’t I just have a little time to breathe?” It doesn’t help that there is always some bill looming.

If I had been able to stick to a regular schedule in my work, it might be different. But usually, the weekend comes around and it’s just the same as any other day to me–I have to get as much work done as I can manage. I’m not such a fan of a “regular schedule,” but it would certain help in changing my Fridays. Of course, I also don’t get that sense of dread or just general grumpiness other people experience on Sunday evening, knowing that they have to return to the office the next morning. So it’s a trade-off.

I have to say, though, I don’t really like being the one person wishing everyone else would stop being so happy about Friday nights.

[?] …Things Friday

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Uh oh… WordPress seems to be doing that thing Facebook has done so often–change the appearance of the site without any notice to its users. Supposedly it’s meant to be an improvement, but I hate the new look. I miss the feeds of a few months ago. Of course, after a while I know I’ll get used to it and I won’t even remember what it used to look like. That doesn’t mean I’m not annoyed right now.

The one thing that bothers me MOST is that the “New Post” button up in the corner doesn’t take you to the same new post page that you get to on your dashboard, but rather to some oversimplified page that you have to save as a draft if you’re going to add categories or certain other features before posting. It doesn’t make sense to me. And I hate posting from that page. So I guess I’ll just keep going from the dashboard…

I just keep wondering, why is all the type so huge in the feeds? That’s not necessary. You know browsers have the ability to zoom for people who can’t see well. There is no need to attack the rest of us with enormous fonts.

There was no Halloween story written. I didn’t finish either of the two (actually three) novels I’m currently reading. I didn’t clean my room and the grape tomatoes I have left might not be good anymore.

As you might have seen, I posted about my NaNoWriMo plans, which means that the usual Five Things Friday posts I do here might be pushed aside so I can get my word count done. As these are the only regular posts I make of late, that might mean a very distinct lack of posts this month. Well, you can either forgive me or get off my blog, I guess.

Like just about everyone else I know, my life is not conducive to productivity in the things I actually want to do. Brain-tiring work, long commute, lack of proper home workstation for writing, the ever-growing mess that seems to be my apartment… and, I can’t lie, the abundance of shows and miscellaneous videos available online all converge to form this perfect recipe for laziness, procrastination, or moping. Or all three. While I KNOW that it would be much easier and more helpful to change my attitude than my circumstances, I honestly want to glare ACTUAL daggers at anyone who would say this to me. You, person who says this, are not acknowledging the fact that it’s fucking hard to make that change. Stop talking as if it’s actually simple. You moron.

Pardon me. I get a bit angry sometimes. I should work on that. Or maybe other people could work on having common sense.

Anyway, the point was that I am sick of the layout of my life causing me to continuously run into walls. I’m in a horror-movie corn maze, I reach a dead end, and I turn around only to find that another wall has grown over behind me, leaving me completely enclosed in a small square of open space. I keep having the desires to do productive, creative things, but the timing is ALWAYS, always, always wrong. I am sure this is a construct of my brain (in some cases, at least), subconsciously pushing me to just procrastinate because whatever else I was going to do (like going out to buy a latte) just seems more important. Because I thought of it first.

I’m sick of this week, too. This week should have been over two days ago, in my opinion.

Since I am just completely fed up with the growing pile of ideas that have been thrown on the procrastination heap, I want to try to change my habits and my routines. All attempts so far have proved futile. This is why I said earlier: it’s fucking hard. Bad habits, for whatever reason, are much harder to break than good ones. Probably because most good habits require conscious effort, while bad habits are pretty much about doing what’s easiest and most instantly gratifying. …Thoughts?

I will never stop hating my commute, but I suppose I can try going to bed a little earlier.

 

P.S. If you want to read more from me soon, check out http://norecipelife.wordpress.com/ in the next week or two, as I plan to make a few posts. Here, I’m mostly likely to give brief updates on my progress than anything else. Otherwise, check back in December.

Five Things Friday: October 18, 2013

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After this week, I don’t want to make my brain work right now. So, a short list.

 

Five things in my house that should be self-replenishing.

1) Half and half. Because when I run out, and don’t have anything to put in my coffee in the morning, it makes my life sad.

2) Aluminum foil. It doesn’t run out that often, but when it does, it takes too long for it to be replaced. And how am I supposed to package leftovers and sandwiches without it?

3) Trader Joe’s Chai. I get one container and probably get 6-8 cups out of it. Since I can’t get to TJ’s too often, when I run out I usually don’t have any for weeks or even months after. What I should do is buy three or four containers at once. That would last a while.

4) Water in the filtered pitcher. It’s not hard to refill, but it’s also not very big, so I have to stick it under the faucet at least twice a day.

5) The good soap. You know how once in a while you find some really nice hand soap on sale, and you buy it, and it smells really good and it’s probably fully organic/vegan/natural/hippie and it makes washing your hands so pleasant, but then you run out and you’re stuck with the slimier, extra-lemony softsoap? I really hate that.

 

Good night.

Five Things Friday: August 16, 2013

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It’s Friday. (Technically it’s Saturday, but since I haven’t gone to bed yet, it’s still Friday.) These are five things. (Technically, it’s fifteen things.)

One

Crazy, half-awake nightmare of a horror-movie spider

Two

Mixed berry applesauce spice muffins

Three

Purchase transactions – two for snacks, one for hair products and toothpaste. Gotta keep those teeth clean. I need whitening toothpaste because I drink so much coffee.

Four

Times when I berated myself for being so scattered in the brain today. I think I got thirty pages of editing done all day (I did some more at home later).

Five

Different ideas for what I might write about this Friday. It’s harder than I originally thought it would be. If I carried around a journal to take notes throughout the week (which I’m sure wouldn’t be such a terrible thing for a writer to do), I could look over it on Friday nights and make up a much more poignant, observations-of-life, thoughtful thing. But I don’t have a journal like that, so I’m always having to come up with things as I go along. It’s hard to feel like anything I think of would be worth writing down.

You try it. Tell me how hard you found it.

Five Things Friday: July 5, 2013

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This is a bit later than I planned, because Friday night happened, as it sometimes does, and I did not end up having time. Then I just totally blanked for a while on anything I could write about. So now I’m just going to wind back some metaphorical clock or other and pretend it’s Friday while I write this.

July 4th edition

One

The first thing was waking up around 9. After waking up much earlier, thinking, “That’s too early,” and going back to sleep.

Two

Sometimes people make you waffles. Waffles are tasty with maple syrup and a giant pile of cut-up fruit on top. And coffee. But most things are tasty with coffee, so why even bother mentioning it?

Three

The movies are an excellent place to go when it’s Hellishly hot outside. They always have air conditioning. I saw Man of Steel. It was entertaining. Since then I have developed an impression of drunk Superman that is very entertaining.

Four

DON’T go to The Gourmet Dumpling in Chinatown on a holiday. Just don’t. But, DO go. They have really tasty food and considering the portions, it’s going to be well worth your money. Unless you hate Chinese food, in which case, I’m sorry about your taste buds.

Five

I should have known that Friday, being the day after a holiday, would not be a productive work day. I should have known. I thought that I could be all focused and just knock out all this work in no time. …Nope. I blame the heat and my need for tons and tons of sleep right now. You know that feeling you get sometimes, when you just want to spend an entire day in bed, napping, maybe reading or watching a movie if you feel too awake, but otherwise not being conscious, and maybe wake up the next day super-rested? That’s what I would have liked to do on Friday.

 

And also, Happy 4th of July. I prefer to express that sentiment AFTER the 4th, when most people are over it. 😉

Five Things Friday – June 28, 2013

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This idea is based on a few posts I’ve seen recently, and is really just a way to get myself to post more, and perhaps get creative juices flowing. It will typically be a list of things… possibly things from that day specifically, or maybe from the previous week. It might just be a recount of events, or it might be five flash fiction pieces! We shall see. I’m theming it for Friday, but probably won’t post until it’s technically Saturday most of the time.

Here we go–

 

  1. Sometimes, the feeling of relief or lightness that occurs when you finish a large project only lasts for a very short time, because you still have so much more to do. It’s not satisfying. That lightness should last at least a day. Or perhaps for the rest of your life, and then it would be The Unbearable Lightness of Being. You should read that book. It was really good.
  2. Right now, it seems that trying to make myself think of five things to write about on this particular Friday evening was a bad idea. However, since I have decided to do it, I am going to do it. That is the only way to get anything done in this life.
  3. Lately I have been stumbling across so many songs that trigger that “repeat 1” obsession. It seems that for me that almost always happens when I just connect with something about the song. It does have something to do with the sound, of course, but going deeper than that, it is not that the story told in the song really describes my life, but that the idea or feeling behind the actual story is something I can relate to. It’s often a mostly emotional thing, and very hard to describe, so even if the lyrics do not apply to me directly, the song in general might as well be about me.
  4. I am still feeling a little strange about vlogging. Despite knowing how hard it is to build up an audience at the beginning, I for some reason really want lots of people to watch and like my videos NOW. Even though I don’t have a real camera and I am using an editing program that is extremely lacking. And I’m awkward and I don’t entirely know why I am putting videos of myself talking in a room on youtube for everyone in the world to watch. But you should go watch them.
  5. I would really prefer to fall asleep listening to rain than to the explosions coming from the video gaming downstairs. I don’t begrudge you your hobbies, but I do not understand why you are so dead set against me sleeping. I NEED sleep. I really, really do. Please stop making the circles under my eyes darker, because sleep deprivation is going to drive me crazy and then, I cannot say what is going to happen…

 

I would really like, in the future, for this list to be more of a meditative, picking out very specific moments or images or thoughts to talk about. Sometimes, you just need a good ramble, though. Ever have one of those weeks/months/years/lives where you just have so much going on that you don’t actually have time to expunge all of the disjointed thoughts darting through your brain? That’s me right now.

If you got this far in the post, thanks for being patient enough to read that crap. Come back next Friday evening/Saturday morning for five more things.

Wandering

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Hello there blogworld. I haven’t had any good ideas for flashes lately, and I haven’t done any other writing either. So. I feel like talking about things I’ve done recently instead.

I was thinking of titling this post Adventures in Loneliness, but then that seemed depressing.

I’ll start with Friday, since I don’t remember doing anything interesting before that. Friday is, in a normal week, my weekday off, since I’m not employed full time. I made a haircut appointment at a really quirky salon in Porter Square. I was probably overdue for a haircut. I usually am. I headed over a little early. My excuse for getting a pumpkin spice latte was that I wanted change to tip my hairdresser. Fun fact: Panera is yet another place that does it better than Starbucks. I don’t like the Starbucks pumpkin spice. Too sugary.

The person who did my hair was an older guy, who I’m 95% sure was gay (you never know, but he did talk about Ru Paul’s Drag Race). He was nice, and did a good job with my hair. I do not like my hair. It doesn’t cooperate. I wish it was thicker, and shinier, and redder. I want to dye it again soon.

After I got my hair done I had planned to walk around Porter Square a little, then go home. But I was meeting a friend in Harvard Square later on, and going all the way home only to have to make the same trip again later… so I opted to walk around Cambridge for 5 hours instead. First I took Groupon over to Nomad for some discounted merchandise, which is one of my favorite things ever. I got some gemstone earrings to wear with my fancy steampunk necklace, and postcard with vegetable people on it. After Nomad, where everything is cool but too expensive, I walked to Harvard Square, went to Anthropologie and did NOT spend all my money. That’s an accomplishment. There was a guy playing an upright piano on the sidewalk. I didn’t have any bills left for his donation basket and I felt bad.

I walked to Inman Square after that via Central. Inman square is a pretty cool place. I don’t remember seeing anything but restaurants. Walked by a pizza place that smelled so good, I almost stopped there. I was on my way to Bom Cafe (for more discounted stuff), but it turned out it had just closed for the day. Very frustrating. Back to Central, went to Life Alive and had a smoothie for dinner. It was called Eros Alive.

At that point I headed back to Harvard Square. One more stop, couldn’t help myself – went to Newbury Comics, just to browse. Some kid said to his friend “Have you heard of Massive Attack?” just as I was moving on from looking at the Massive Attack cds. I was amused whether it was intentional or not. I ended up buying another David Bowie cd. Wanted Aladdin Sane. Will get it eventually. Walking by Sweet, couldn’t help stepping inside, and then of course HAD to get a pumpkin pie cupcake. I was compelled. After about an hour in The Coop, browsing fiction (I want that Miranda July book – I think that was her name, anyway), I finally went to Peet’s, where I was meeting my friend. Very tired at that point. Walking around for 5 hours is tiring. Especially by yourself.

Saturday was mostly uneventful. I had a talk or something. I can’t remember actually doing anything.

Sunday I went to SOWA open market for their last Sunday of the year. They were holding the Market of the Living Dead. It was the very beginning of Sandy. It started raining a little while I was out. It was kind of cold – my fingers suffered a little. I didn’t really see a lot of living dead. Almost no one was in costume aside from the vendors. I was wearing my skeleton t-shirt, so that was my costume. I tried not to spend much. Got like 6 business cards, should have taken more. The picture below was a nice highlight.

The Zombie Percent

 

Now this post is getting really long. Next day, Monday, was hurricane day. I didn’t try to go to work (and it turns out they weren’t expecting me to). It was very windy and rainy. I considered stepping outside but I wanted to just be cozy indoors. Nature in Boston? :/. I spent a lot of time watching Netflix with headphones so I could hear it. Finally saw Mirror Mirror. Wasn’t overly impressed with the acting, but the cinematography and storytelling were cool. The animation bit in the beginning was pretty awesome. Guessed the twist ending long before they revealed it. I thought I should lay around and read instead, but I felt too tired. Reading’s not lazy enough.

Today was an average Tuesday. Tomorrow is Halloween. As a young-ish person in America I know I’m supposed to get excited about putting on a cool/creative/sexy costume and doing some kind of partying, but I have absolutely no enthusiasm for Halloween. Wish I did.