THE HAPPY THREAD

[fanelian]

I am happy today. My friend said she'll go with me to San Francisco if we can get tickets for the Festival on August. I hope we can get tickets, I don't think she wants to go just to "tourist" around.

And a dear friend of mine got a job that's allowing him to ditch the horror-tale which his current job has become - we used to work together, and I escaped that place over a year ago just as it had started becoming a hell-hole.

It's weird, but noticing that I am happy makes me happy.

[sum yun gai]

i'm pretty sure i didn't mention here that i changed jobs about 3 weeks ago. i had been wanting to leave my old job for about a year but i set a high bar for jobs i would apply to so i could move up instead of sideways. also, because i was looking for a house, i couldn't leave my job until that was settled. now that i've been in my house for over 6 months, i don't have to worry about the bank cancelling my application for an unstable work history i am now working at the International Computer Science Institute and it's a surprisingly stress free job despite the fact that i now have more responsibility than my last one.

oh, and i get to ride my motorcycle to work again, and i got to ditch that ugly work car my old job gave me which had the company logo wrap-around sticker plastered all over it

[jvcc]

Grats!

[badplantmommy]

Congratulations on the new job!

[MysticalDescent]

Yesterday my final results for my degree came through and I got a first. I'm now MysticalDescent BSc (Hons). Frankly, it's extraordinary.

[jvcc]

Woo!

[quetzalcoatlus]

I got to come along to see Alice Cooper and Iron Maiden tonight - as in my tickets were bought for me and I got a ride part of the way in (the venue is just a little bit too much out of the way of public transportation). I had a great time. I love my friends.

I also got a pretty good review for my album from a local music mag, and a copy of it's currently framed and hung up at the club I intern at.

Tomorrow my parents are going on a vacation for about a month and not taking me - it sounds odd, but I'm looking forward to house and dog sitting for that time. No wild parties are planned, but this has happened before and I find I like having the place to myself for a while. With more freedom to be loud without disturbing anyone, I hope to find time to make more music.

[jvcc]

My mom saw Alice Cooper when she was young and she said he came out and shook audience members' hands before the concert. He was just reaching for hers when something distracted him, unfortunately. But she still enjoyed the experience.

In other exciting concert news, I'm going to see the Stooges later this year.

[jvcc]

I bought a shirt with the face of Ziggy Stardust on it. It prompts people to initiate the "You remind of the babe" bit from Labyrinth with me. An excellent purchase indeed.

[jvcc]

I have to stop being the only person to post here.

In other exciting concert news, I'm going to see the Stooges later this year.

This happened last night. It was unbelievably amazing. I was really close to the stage at first, but had to move back a bit because people were crushing me (I ended up on the ground twice, once on top of other people with people on top of me, which was a bit scary). My friend I went with got kicked in the face, but he's okay. The Stooges played "Open Up and Bleed," which is possibly my favorite song of theirs. They played between 8-10 songs for an hour and a half show. It went by so quickly.

[IanC]

I have to stop being the only person to post here.

Maybe you should stop being so happy?

BE SAD DAMNIT!

[EsBe]

I filled my cup to the brim with hot tea, then walked it through a messy room and up a flight of stairs, all in the dark, without spilling.

That's about as good as you're getting from me right now.

[sum yun gai]

I have to stop being the only person to post here.

Maybe you should stop being so happy?

BE SAD DAMNIT!

there's rows of dandelions growing all around me, why must i be sad?

[Skimba]

I have to stop being the only person to post here.

Maybe you should stop being so happy?

BE SAD DAMNIT!

there's rows of dandelions growing all around me, why must i be sad?

It's in my head now, thanks to you, again. No complaints though. No complaints.
I am happy it is Friday, even though I have to work tomorrow morning.

[Skimba]

It is Sunday morning! The one day I do not go to work. I am happy and I am going to go to sleep for a bit.

[Zombie Protestor]

So I got up the courage today to ask this girl out, and she said yes! I'd been talking to her for some time, and we had so much in common that I knew I'd kick myself if I didn't. Next week, I'm meeting her and her "babies" (A boa and a tarantula, both of which I like) along with her family and then going out to some undetermined date activity. I'm stoked that my courage paid off.
Anyways, this is her:

[chrismachine]

Definitely attractive. good work!

[Zombie Protestor]

We're going tomorrow to the Fair with my daughter. Should be quite a lot of fun.

[jvcc]

I talked with one of the members of my thesis committee today and he said that my proposal is the best he's ever seen, including dissertation proposals. He's also going to write a letter of recommendation for me when I apply at my university for a PhD. Super, super psyched.

[jvcc]

I had what I would term a profound experience at school today.

When leaving the building where I teach my 9 am class, I realized that it was sunny and relatively warm (mid- to upper-thirties), so I decided to take a walk to my university's art museum. I hadn't been in a while. Once there I found the exhibits to be interesting, but the other patrons not so much. They were clearly required to be there to fulfill a requirement for some undergraduate art class. Their comments on the artwork were either flippant or insipid.

"Your aesthetic reactions aren't more valid than theirs," I tried to tell myself. Then I began to muse upon art as individual experience vs. art as a communal experience. Even though I was ready to admit that my style of art-viewing was inferior, it didn't prevent me from avoiding the sections where the undergrads were clustered.

The entire exhibit was devoted to art which addressed the dichotomies of Heaven and Hell or virtue and vice. I had tried to get into a multimedia piece which, from behind the wall that partitioned it off from the rest of the museum, looked like rapidly flashing lights. But some undergrads were inside saying that you need to take drugs before viewing it, so I circled back around the museum to look at it once they were gone.

Eventually I did make it back. The piece was a series of images that are meant to represent Dante's Divine Comedy. The artist had painted over found or blank film, and the end result was a series of apparently random images splattered with intermingling colors. The film had four sections: two set in hell, one in purgatory, and one in heaven.

I wasn't sure how to react at first. I sat patiently enough through hell, but it wasn't until purgatory that my attention was grabbed. In some of the images, behind the color, there would be a door. It only occasionally flashed on the screen. I kept straining to see the door or find the door amongst the chaos and disorder, but it would only appear randomly.
"This is what purgatory feels like," I thought, "This is recreating the experience for me. I'm searching for meaning, but I'm trapped in this liminal zone where everything is beyond my control."

"What do you think of it?" a booming voice asked.
I looked up and a man was standing next to the low bench I was sitting on. He was tall, but not absurdly so, bordering on stocky, and in his mid to late thirties.
"Parts of it are compelling," I answered, "But it is a bit excessive."

The man proceeded to engage me in an intellectual conversation concerning the piece, which I had not expected from a stranger. I generally don't expect to be approached by strangers. He was obviously very knowledgeable about it, and I gathered that he worked there.

I shared with him my thoughts about the artwork recreating the experience of purgatory, and he said that despite its apparent inaccessibility (because of its experimental nature, I inferred) the piece is actually more accessible than some of the other pieces in the exhibit because it has relevance to people who don't come from a religious background. More things were said, but these stand out in my memory now.

Before our conversation could wind down I looked at my watch and said I had to get to a class. I didn't, but I wanted to preserve the feeling of that moment more than I wanted to tell the truth. It left such an impression on me because it was the sort of communal experience that I relish, but so rarely get to enjoy. It didn't feel like a real life encounter. I tried--and failed--to recreate it using colored pencils when I finally got to my office.

It was perfect because someone else saw in me a sympathetic nature or intellect and took the initiative to converse with me. And because it was an unexpected and unconventional encounter there was no awkwardness on my part. It left me in a good mood for a long time afterward--a bizarre, energized sort of mood.

When I tried to explain all this to my friend, she asked, "Did you get his number?" She profoundly missed the point. This encounter was significant because it was transient. It got me into a theoretical and sentimental state of mind, and only the former of those two is common for me. More than anything else, it was interesting, and I hope that my attempt to render it in prose have been more successful than my attempt to render it in my sketchbook.

[Skimba]

Jebus...TL:DR...yet!

[jvcc]

Eh, it's probably not worth it. It's just me being strange.

[chrismachine]

It is definitely strange that you would feel so disconnected from people in general that an encounter like this would be so impactful you tried to draw it (I assume in order to keep it or relive it). Either that or you just appreciate such an encounter more than I do, which is quite possible. Either way I was a bit puzzled by your thought process at times while reading that.

[jvcc]

Hah. You take a very dim view of artistic inspiration. Not that the "art" the encounter inspired was of any merit.

I don't feel disconnected, just awkward. And simple things do often awe me.

[chrismachine]

Not sure dim would sum it up (see what I did there?) but I figured that those were the two most likely scenarios. I suppose it is equally likely you just felt like drawing after going to an art exibit and having a touching experience, you're right.