Down in the New Up?
The first week of December was apparently the best week of my life so far. It had probably everything going on in my life at its highest point: I found my best roommate ever. My company finally publicized the product that was on tight lips and behind iron curtains for two years. My band was almost arriving on the goal of composing 6 songs. We had the best TV show episode ever made, with Kate's performance and a movie clip I made as well. I also ate like no tomorrow that week, with probably the best meals ever. I fixed my friend Aki's computer, and I got weeks of free Japanese cuisine thereafter. It all concluded with a housewarming party that melted the whole pot together in excitement and also the first and last performance of my band.
It is very difficult to distinguish between what really is responsibility and what is something you were just being taken granted for. First example: For the TV show I was on, three weeks ago, I did a short 1:00 movie for its 'commercial break' as a surprise gift. It was well-received so I did it again. During the third week, Jonathan was already expecting me to hand in the movie on time, which I didn't make since I already run out of clips.
What distinguishes between a hobby and a job is that the former can go wrong if everyone slacks off, while the latter can go very wrong if everyone gets way too serious. When in a group, you see people pushing back and forth between the two.
Second example: I thought I paid the most respect and loyalty during the housewarming party, when I even gave permission to my friend to drive my car with me to save our 'captain' of the band from his cramped leg at the subway station, and then playing a small show, and then having an chat inside my car, and even letting him stay over for the night... No.
He did not pay attention to any of that and was apparently pissed off a week later when I told him that I wanted to work privately for just one day without the band. He called 10 times on Friday, and again 11 times on Saturday, not to mention that he called Friday afternoon during my office hours as if he expected me use my office hours working at home to make music for him. This is of course a no. If I really did that, I was taken for granted.
I did not answer the calls, but the pressure was so intimidating I could have called the police for phone harassment. I remember that I probably had called one of my ex-ex-ex-girlfriend something like 3 or 5 times when we were on the verge of breaking up, and of course, an act of insanity like this is a guaranteed breakup, and you would be classified and condemned as a madman for the years afterwards.
I guess it went down to the conclusion that, for the type of personality like mine, I shouldn't feel afraid to be an ass.
I am a little lost these days, but when I look back years or perhaps just months later, this period would probably be regarded as 'exciting' and 'adventurous'. David Peel mentioned that what distinguishes a rockstar and a bum is a sense of purpose. I definitely know what the meaning of life is, but I am missing on what the meaning of living is about.
But then you can't be paranoid about it, because paranoias always turn out to be true, the same way as superstitions, i.e. something awful will of course happen after something great, you know, otherwise our lives would be steadily going uphill and all of us would eventually can't breathe because we reached the stratosphere.
Now that I am broken away from the restrictions of the old band, I can start showing the songs I wrote up over the last month or so. It turns out that so far the majority favors the songs I wrote rather than the ones others wrote - a testimony to my skills and that I should just start writing songs for myself (something Kate had been encouraging for years), and perhaps a glimpse into a future with people that I would be enjoying to work with.
Bad things aside, I have been learning a lot and enjoying life these days. While the biggest downer is the lack of a band, the biggest up is my new roommate Kinga, who just moved in one day three weeks ago. And perhaps DOWN IS REALLY THE NEW UP, because if not my previous assholic roommate did not abruptly move out, she would have never found me and my apartment.
Oh - YES - it's a she, not he. In fact, I do wonder how I even got a female roommate her late 10's, when the rest of the list was a bunch of designer men at their early 30's. I also accepted and signed deals with those men, or the other girl Gaelle, if not because I was meeting way too many candidate during the weekend before Thanksgiving, and ended up having too tight a schedule as everyone signed their leases before Thanksgiving day. Frustrated and disappointed on Thanksgiving day, I decided to post again on Craigslist, when I received an email Kinga, who was also devastated during the same days.
It was then a Saturday. Written in non-sensical broken sentences and all caps, I was skeptical (if it was even spam or some kiddies who had no experiences in renting) but then I let her come visit since I was in vain. I didn't send out my 'press kit' (detailed description of myself) in the email and rather replied in the same kiddish way pretending not to be intimidating. While bored at my computer the morning before her visit, I typed her name on Google out of curiosity and found out that - stunned - she is a supermodel. I wasn't even skeptical by then, I was cynical, and started asking my friend Don over IM how much of a possibility that the girl coming to visit the apartment was really a supermodel. With a last name like hers, it is highly unlikely she would be another person... and then without a warning she was already arriving at my door - on time.
I ran downstairs to open the main door. Somebody (later found out to be my landlord) let her in, she was waiting at the staircase, and so I bumped into her without a warning again. She was wearing perfume and she looked exactly like the 'woman' in the picture on the Internet - but in casual clothes. I was panicking but I also pretended that I did not know she is a supermodel and treated her like a normal visitor. I repeated the same routine of showing my apartment: showing her the room, opening the big window and mesmerizing her in the views of Manhattan, taking her the living room, then finally sitting down at the dining table face-to-face for a conversation.
Conversations. The conversation was unusually long - usually I would chat with the visitor for 10 minutes or so, and some wouldn't even talk much perhaps they were scared by my purple hair. In fact, the chat never ended, and is still going on now. We just chatted for hours straight, talking about our jobs and stuff. I pretended I was not surprised when I heard she humbly stated that "she does some modeling jobs", and I was pretty sincere in the way that I accepted her as a roommate due to her character and personality, not her looks. She was ecstatic when I let her move in.
She moved in the night of the same day. We drove to Home Depot to let her witness 'the greatness of America', then to Ikea for her mattress and furniture. We had a fun time shopping, we had our first dinner together at the Ikea restaurant, and we sang along to songs on the way home. She turned out to be also a friend of Placebo. (Thank God, no, I mean, Erin, for introducing Mr. Molko to me back in the day.) We repeated the same track "Taste In Men" a million times for the week or two afterwards in our living room.
Despite her kiddy email writings and the stereotypical empty-headed image of a model, she is actually the hyperliterate and she read all the time. All the time. She does not watch TV. Never. (Except when she was forced to watch a short clip of Family Guy when Stewie shot Brian to death.) Since I don't feel lonely at home anymore, I also did not watch much TV either.
Her friends were pretty cool as well. We met her friend Nick, a photographer from London, and we spent a day together as he photographed her life in our new apartment. (We had a lot of fun at the security cameras in SEA restaurant, too.) Another friend of hers Ikelina, also a supermodel, came over a gave us a purple My Little Pony. I also met her sister and parents through Skype last Friday. Their parents were pleased that she was finally able to find a stable place to live, and I am glad to be a provider of her security.
My roommate made this slideshow, it was good times:
It is very difficult to distinguish between what really is responsibility and what is something you were just being taken granted for. First example: For the TV show I was on, three weeks ago, I did a short 1:00 movie for its 'commercial break' as a surprise gift. It was well-received so I did it again. During the third week, Jonathan was already expecting me to hand in the movie on time, which I didn't make since I already run out of clips.
What distinguishes between a hobby and a job is that the former can go wrong if everyone slacks off, while the latter can go very wrong if everyone gets way too serious. When in a group, you see people pushing back and forth between the two.
Second example: I thought I paid the most respect and loyalty during the housewarming party, when I even gave permission to my friend to drive my car with me to save our 'captain' of the band from his cramped leg at the subway station, and then playing a small show, and then having an chat inside my car, and even letting him stay over for the night... No.
He did not pay attention to any of that and was apparently pissed off a week later when I told him that I wanted to work privately for just one day without the band. He called 10 times on Friday, and again 11 times on Saturday, not to mention that he called Friday afternoon during my office hours as if he expected me use my office hours working at home to make music for him. This is of course a no. If I really did that, I was taken for granted.
I did not answer the calls, but the pressure was so intimidating I could have called the police for phone harassment. I remember that I probably had called one of my ex-ex-ex-girlfriend something like 3 or 5 times when we were on the verge of breaking up, and of course, an act of insanity like this is a guaranteed breakup, and you would be classified and condemned as a madman for the years afterwards.
I guess it went down to the conclusion that, for the type of personality like mine, I shouldn't feel afraid to be an ass.
I am a little lost these days, but when I look back years or perhaps just months later, this period would probably be regarded as 'exciting' and 'adventurous'. David Peel mentioned that what distinguishes a rockstar and a bum is a sense of purpose. I definitely know what the meaning of life is, but I am missing on what the meaning of living is about.
But then you can't be paranoid about it, because paranoias always turn out to be true, the same way as superstitions, i.e. something awful will of course happen after something great, you know, otherwise our lives would be steadily going uphill and all of us would eventually can't breathe because we reached the stratosphere.
Now that I am broken away from the restrictions of the old band, I can start showing the songs I wrote up over the last month or so. It turns out that so far the majority favors the songs I wrote rather than the ones others wrote - a testimony to my skills and that I should just start writing songs for myself (something Kate had been encouraging for years), and perhaps a glimpse into a future with people that I would be enjoying to work with.
Bad things aside, I have been learning a lot and enjoying life these days. While the biggest downer is the lack of a band, the biggest up is my new roommate Kinga, who just moved in one day three weeks ago. And perhaps DOWN IS REALLY THE NEW UP, because if not my previous assholic roommate did not abruptly move out, she would have never found me and my apartment.
Oh - YES - it's a she, not he. In fact, I do wonder how I even got a female roommate her late 10's, when the rest of the list was a bunch of designer men at their early 30's. I also accepted and signed deals with those men, or the other girl Gaelle, if not because I was meeting way too many candidate during the weekend before Thanksgiving, and ended up having too tight a schedule as everyone signed their leases before Thanksgiving day. Frustrated and disappointed on Thanksgiving day, I decided to post again on Craigslist, when I received an email Kinga, who was also devastated during the same days.
It was then a Saturday. Written in non-sensical broken sentences and all caps, I was skeptical (if it was even spam or some kiddies who had no experiences in renting) but then I let her come visit since I was in vain. I didn't send out my 'press kit' (detailed description of myself) in the email and rather replied in the same kiddish way pretending not to be intimidating. While bored at my computer the morning before her visit, I typed her name on Google out of curiosity and found out that - stunned - she is a supermodel. I wasn't even skeptical by then, I was cynical, and started asking my friend Don over IM how much of a possibility that the girl coming to visit the apartment was really a supermodel. With a last name like hers, it is highly unlikely she would be another person... and then without a warning she was already arriving at my door - on time.
I ran downstairs to open the main door. Somebody (later found out to be my landlord) let her in, she was waiting at the staircase, and so I bumped into her without a warning again. She was wearing perfume and she looked exactly like the 'woman' in the picture on the Internet - but in casual clothes. I was panicking but I also pretended that I did not know she is a supermodel and treated her like a normal visitor. I repeated the same routine of showing my apartment: showing her the room, opening the big window and mesmerizing her in the views of Manhattan, taking her the living room, then finally sitting down at the dining table face-to-face for a conversation.
Conversations. The conversation was unusually long - usually I would chat with the visitor for 10 minutes or so, and some wouldn't even talk much perhaps they were scared by my purple hair. In fact, the chat never ended, and is still going on now. We just chatted for hours straight, talking about our jobs and stuff. I pretended I was not surprised when I heard she humbly stated that "she does some modeling jobs", and I was pretty sincere in the way that I accepted her as a roommate due to her character and personality, not her looks. She was ecstatic when I let her move in.
She moved in the night of the same day. We drove to Home Depot to let her witness 'the greatness of America', then to Ikea for her mattress and furniture. We had a fun time shopping, we had our first dinner together at the Ikea restaurant, and we sang along to songs on the way home. She turned out to be also a friend of Placebo. (Thank God, no, I mean, Erin, for introducing Mr. Molko to me back in the day.) We repeated the same track "Taste In Men" a million times for the week or two afterwards in our living room.
Despite her kiddy email writings and the stereotypical empty-headed image of a model, she is actually the hyperliterate and she read all the time. All the time. She does not watch TV. Never. (Except when she was forced to watch a short clip of Family Guy when Stewie shot Brian to death.) Since I don't feel lonely at home anymore, I also did not watch much TV either.
Her friends were pretty cool as well. We met her friend Nick, a photographer from London, and we spent a day together as he photographed her life in our new apartment. (We had a lot of fun at the security cameras in SEA restaurant, too.) Another friend of hers Ikelina, also a supermodel, came over a gave us a purple My Little Pony. I also met her sister and parents through Skype last Friday. Their parents were pleased that she was finally able to find a stable place to live, and I am glad to be a provider of her security.
My roommate made this slideshow, it was good times: