trisected

Tag: nostalgia

  • September Updates

    Life has been busy with parenting and prep for art book fair. There are so many things in my head – I’m thinking about what to prepare, what to do, and I also have things like speaking engagements that I’ve been volunteered for etc,.

    But one key thing that I’ve come to realise is my reliance on art book fair as the moment to produce something for. I know that I have so many other opportunities within a year to make something that sells, and to create just for the fun of it. But I forget, and I think that art book fairs are the only way I can have a zine audience.

    Relying on that institutionalised form of creativity, actually has sucked some creativity away.

    I’ve also gotten heavy back into keyboards again. With all the different keyboard companies dying, it’s really not easy to make sense of what’s worth keeping or selling anymore. I knew when I was getting into this mechanical keyboard hobby, it was something I was really ready to dive deep into, and to stay in the deep end for a long time.

    It’s sad to see big names drop away, and that they’re not able to keep up especially with the range of china brands that can charge cheap and manage manufacturing well.

    I’ve bought stuff from Monokei, because I think it’s the dude’s personal set of things. That’s how dire things have gotten for them. I’ve also bought the last set of Techno Violet swiches from Bolsa. I know they’re the last set because I added a few more, and it showed sold out. So I maxed it to the limit, and it was the last 3 packs. They’re on my Rama board.

    Sigh, Rama, the first of the gang to die. I can’t believe how much they had ahead of everyone, and they still lost it. It was so shit. I shared with my keyboard friends, I still have dreams where I imagine the kate keycaps coming in, but they’re never going to. Ever.

    And because of how shit things were at the end, I have no means of actually replacing parts. It’s really crazy. Some threads have become places where people are sharing the files for printing your own PCB or cases even. But it’s just really hard to see things end this way.

    I think having my baby is really something to focus me down for the future. I am looking forward to life with her growing up, because there’s really so much that she can learn and experience.

    I know it will also be missing the parts that I am currently missing. But I will hold some of these memories down for her, so that she’ll know what came before, and what she can imagine to come after. One day at a time.

  • Hobonichi update + Nostalgia

    Ok, for all my hype about the hobonichi yesterday, as I was setting up my hobonichi, the paper bleeds a lot more than the current one I have in my hands. That kinda sucks, considering how much I was hyping it up. But life goes that way sometimes doesn’t it.

    I was doing a workshop today, with some youth from my church, and they were all of 15 years old. I remember thinking I was definitely on top of the world at 15. I remember having a horrible time too, navigating a lot of teenage angst and awkward social situations. Honestly, a lot more regrets than sucesses, but that’s life.

    I think I said sorry so much throughout my growing up life, or I tried to and got hung up on. I was really in a bad place, and it didn’t get a lot better actually. Maybe only in my mid twenties was when life started to level itself out a bit more.

    Life really runs on trial and error so much of the time, no one really tells you that. Everyone tells you to aim for success, but there’s a crap ton of failure leading up to any form of just passing. Success is really for the 0.0001% of the world. I don’t mean getting money, because there are a lot of people with money, and with moral failure. But to have everything running smooth, that’s a tiny tiny tiny portion of the world.

    Anyway, I’m glad I’m not a 15 year old kid anymore, and I’m happy to move past all that.

    If anyone here reads this, and I pissed you off or made your life horrible at 15, I apologise. I might have said sorry already, but in case I didn’t, I’m sorry, and its my bad.

  • Typing in Bed

    This sounds absolutely ludicrous, but after years, I am finally typing in bed again.

    It’s a thing because when I was much younger, say about 17, 18 years old, I used to love typing in bed, and just spilling my thoughts out. I would write an email newsletter to a range of friends and acquaintances. I would write on LiveJournal, this old blogsite that a lot of us had used back in the day. All these written on my white MacBook, and just rattling away on the built in keyboard.

    It was that where I really enjoyed the idea of typing, and soon after I purchased my Apple Magic Keyboard, so that I could type more and more. I would type from a distance, because I could. And this kept up through my army days as well. I would write on the weekends, and every now and then, just type away on my bed as I thought through things before I slept. It was a really relaxing way to end the day.

    There’s an imagery and scene in my head: view of the street below, with the orange yellow street lights that glowed through the rain trees. The flashes of the zebra crossing, and the cars driving past in sporadic intervals. And then of course, the white glow of the Apple Logo, mirrored against the window glass. Because I would be sitting there typing away, and hoping to make sense of my brain as I put it on an email. Or a post.

    I’m back writing in bed again, after over 10 years.

    Ok, that’s a dramatic statement.

    I’m back writing in bed again, after some time, because I’ve got a keyboard that fits nicely on my lap, and I’m writing on my iPad, as part of WordPress apps that allow it. I couldn’t do this for the past few years, because my white MacBook from my teens, became way too slow. My MacBook Pro from 2014 has also slowed down dramatically, but more because of a faulty battery that I cant deal with so much. And the iMacs that I have cant be carried to bed to type.

    But now, those technical difficulties are put away. More than that, I have a keyboard that is really of such an enjoyable quality, that I am encouraged to type more and more. Thus, this very long post about how I have a new keyboard. The night owl Joel, who loves to write and talk, has been reawakened!

    Stay tuned for a lot more consistent posts… I hope.