MetaAnomie

It’s my first day back at work after a long weekend. Can you tell I’m happy?

Well good news all around these days: the princess is in the process of getting over her chickenpox and we found out that the wifey does in fact have immunity (be it because of a previous infection or immunization, we’re not sure). This is of course good because if she didn’t have immunity, she sure as hell would have a nice case of the chickenpox by now, and I’ve heard it can be utter hell for adults.

Just a random thought I have had lately:

You know all the talk on time management, goal setting, and so forth? Granted it looks wonderful on paper and pretty much everyone in the professional world sticks to it as gospel, but the fact is this: every time I write out a to-do list, every time I prioritize all my tasks so that I’m attacking the ones that give me the most for my effort, I look at it and want to fucking cry. It’s so depressing. I mean, I usually can stick with it for a day or so, but after that, I end up just procrastinating rather then working on the “next logical step” that I am so not interested in doing.

Maybe we got it all wrong. In fact, I get the feeling we have it totally wrong. We’re not fucking computers; we have feelings and moods and desires. What’s to say that, for example, I wouldn’t in practice get more done if I did creative work when I was in a creative mood, did some of the more tedious work when I’m tired and don’t really have the energy to think, and attacked the tasks I’m sincerely excited to do right away, giving me the satisfaction and momentum to move on to more daunting tasks later? I’m not saying logical priority should be thrown out of the window per se, but I just get the feeling that we are oversimplifying things, and in doing so, wasting a lot of time and adding a lot of unneeded stress and frustration to our lives.

I get the feeling lately that everything in life has a sort of natural progression to it, and sometimes we’re doing more harm than good by constantly trying to swim upstream. I can’t help but feel that we all would be getting so much more done, and have a lot less stress in our lives if we swam with the waters a bit more and simply guided ourselves in the direction we want to flow given what the river brings our way.

And one more thought: if you think of the best art you have ever seen, the greatest book or movie, the best music, chances are it wasn’t created solely with the bottom line in mind. I’m not saying there wasn’t work or effort involved, but nine times out of ten it’s something that was born out of one’s natural inclination — almost always a product of that person’s life circumstances. I wonder what it would be like if I could apply that same mentality to my work and my life in general every day. If not anything, at the least it would make getting up in the morning a bit more exciting.

We have been watching bits and pieces of “Earth” (the BBC nature documentary) this weekend and I called the princess over when the elephants came on:

Me: “You wanna see zos?”

Note that zo is “elephant” in Japanese, and not only did I inexplicably mix it in with my English, but I even went as far as to make it plural (which you don’t do in Japanese).

Wifey: You didn’t just say what I think you did, did you?
Me: No, no, I said do you want to see those.
Wifey: Really?
Me: No, actually.

And my dad reminded me of the word “scaffold” the day before because I couldn’t remember it in English. I think I have been in this country too long.

On a side note, we finished watching “Cloverfield” tonight and I actually kind of liked the ending. Well, except for the absolute final cut — that was pretty stupid. All in all I have to say I liked the film as a whole though.

The wifey and I watched “Colverfield” last night. Not all of it though; the wifey got down right nauseous about halfway through so we had to give it up. For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, it’s filmed like it was done through a camcorder, which might have been fine if the person holding it wouldn’t have swung the thing around like an asshole throughout the entire length of the film. It probably didn’t help too much that we have a huge HDTV and we were watching it in the dark either though. I felt a little nauseous myself by the time we cut it off.

Anyway, my impression so far:

The combination of CG and the way it was taken is really novel and makes for a pretty freaky atmosphere. The effects are amazing as well. I know something similar was done in “The Blair Witch Project” but adding heavy CG in the mix is pretty new, and I tend to give movies a pretty big handful of respect on the novelty front.

The negative: the characters really piss me the hell off. Watching the lead having a dramatic silent moment, ignoring everyone talking to him, only to run off all of a sudden without saying anything is a bit silly and cliche. Having this happen like 60 fucking times is just down right irritating. I kept silently wishing that the next time he ran off he would immediately get hit by a bus.

Anyway, I’ll probably finish the rest of it sometime this week SO DON’T TELL ME THE ENDING BEFORE THEN. Especially if the climax is in fact the lead getting hit by a bus.

I’ve always enjoyed making digital prints but I’m horrifically jealous of people who can sketch and paint. I tried a bunch when I was young but never got too far. Shit I can’t even sign my name legibly. And I don’t quite remember exactly how a cursive “S” goes anymore so I just make a funny looking squiggle.

I have always wanted to print one of these out on canvas, just because I haven’t ever done it before. I never do though because I always reach a point in my thought progression that says: “Well, what are you going to do with it once you print it out?” I don’t really have an answer for that, so they just kind of sit there on my hard drive. Digital stuff is funny like that: It doesn’t feel real, like it exists only in some imaginary dimension. Being digital must feel rather lonely. I guess maybe that’s why so many people like to print out their digital photos, even if all they are going to do with them is stick them in a album somewhere and close them up in a closet. You don’t need to look at them; you just need to know they’re there.

I made this about a month ago:

Made some fried chicken and fried okra for lunch today:

It came out rather good surprisingly. We also did some other stuff I think, like diaper purchasing, returning movies, shopping, etc. After lunch we took the princess out to the soccer grounds near our home to run around a bit:

She stole the wifey’s phone and ran around in circles with it for a good 30 mins or so.

Ok, this is the opposite of what I always say but I actually got TOO much done today: woke up, did some company work, went to a sale, came home and wrote two blog entries, did some Internet research on recipes, went out to the lot and did our Jichinsai, greeted all our new neighbors and passed them some gifts, went back home again for the princesses’ nap, went out to rent some movies and went two three different supermarkets trying to find buttermilk (which we ultimately didn’t find — doesn’t seem to be a regular item here), came back home and gave up on the chicken due to the lack of buttermilk but made the nachos pictured above, watched a little of “Earth,” put Anna to sleep, researched a replacement for buttermilk on the Internet (mix 1 tbsp of lemon juice in for every 250 ml of milk and let stand for 5-10 mins), and finished reading “Life, the Universe and Everything,” by Douglas Adams. And I’m writing yet another blog entry.

Whew.

Today feels more like a week to me than a day right now, which is ironic considering that’s the exact amount of time that I have been in a piss-poor mood getting nothing done, bringing balance to the world in a way that is just extremely, extremely retarded.

And dammit if I’m not going to make come Cajun chicken tomorrow.

This afternoon, we got the weeds cut off the lot and went out to do our Jichinsai (Ground Breaking Ceremony). In short, the Jichinsai involves asking for permission from the god of the land to let you build on it and move in so he doesn’t get pissed off and destroy it or something. Normally this involves hiring a kannushi (Shinto Priest) but we are running a bit short on cash and decided to do it ourselves. It’s actually a pretty common practice to do it yourself these days though. Basically, you just go from corner to corner dropping rice, salt, and sake, do so once again in the middle, and clap your hands together in prayer. The wifey’s dad suggested bringing enough sake to get the god good and drunk so that he wouldn’t care so much if we fucked it up. Good advice.

The princess was doing remarkably well during the day, relatively in good spirits and whatnot, but she felt like utter crap tonight. She kept waking up sounding utterly pitiful. I think she is finally down for the count though. She has been laying down for about 10 minuets without crying yet so that’s a good sign.

Tomorrow is yet another work day and it is probably most likely going to be a busy one. Got rehearsal in the evening as always. Got a lot of talking and planning to do. Anyhow, I think it’s about time I try to get a little sleep.