Inspiration

Inspiration, or the lack thereof, that's my problem right now. I didn't feel I had any interesting material for yesterday, Music/Movie Monday. Not that there aren't tons of cool bands or movies to write about, I just wasn't feeling the writing part of it.

Today I was harassed by some readers and thought well, I'll go for a surf and then maybe I will get inspired. I was tired of being on the internet and am having issues today with my creative process for logo and website designing anyway. I wriggled myself into my wetsuit, packed my backpack and grabbed my board. I get downstairs and it's pouring, somehow I missed that when I looked out the window at the grey sky above. So I emptied the mailbox and went back upstairs. That was a fruitless exercise. I mean I could have gone surfing anyway, being that I'm gonna get wet in the ocean in any case but somehow driving 45 minutes in the rain wasn't that appealing.

I sprawled out on the sofa and read some of my Outside magazine that has all this great stuff about summertime and still nothing. I decided it was time to move my car and go to the grocery store.

I think I am a little stir crazy and suffering from vitamin D deficiency. My body is refusing to accept that it is spring and it's raining and 50 odd degrees outside. My lower half decided to wear capri pants and flip flops, while my upper half decided to wear a sweatshirt and a rain jacket. It's like my body is trying to will sunshine and warmer weather. Maybe I need to do a sun dance or something in my apartment.

Random Thursdays - Random Ramblings

I wrote the following earlier this week while having a bit of a drama mama moment. I thought it was kind of funny, but not for Work Wednesdays - gotta keep that one positive. However, random ramblings with a touch of insanity are ok for Random Thursdays, so hope this makes you laugh.

Rush, rush, rush to be in a chair by 9am. To do nothing. Send email to my bankers and the other assistants to see if they need help. Nobody to talk to, barely anyone even looks at you when they walk by. Try to plan the day, break it up with a snack, a bathroom break and if I'm lucky a trip to the cafeteria to get some coffee. Can barely wait until lunch and then until 5. I shouldn't complain, I am getting paid to answer two phone calls per hour.

Wow, when people sneeze and I say bless you, they don't say thanks. I think this side people are weird and a bit rude. The silence makes me want to run through the maze of cubicles saying silly things. The big boss is really nice and friendly as is one other guy but the rest of them, wow, they look right through you. The first time I was here it was different. Sat with 3 other assistants who were really nice, had some travel booking projects and had the Figi water crisis. Still slow but not at this level.

I'm going into rigor mortis. I'm comatose. I'm falling asleep reading the news on the internet. I'm supposed to look "alert and willing to take on work", sure when someone walks by I manage to yank myself out of the hypnotized stupor I'm in but they don't even acknowledge me at all. Plus it's cold, I wish I had my hoodie and could put my head down on the desk. That or escape to the sunshine outside. How is it that the office job is sapping me of my will to live? I'm actually wilting here. I need the money but I need to find something more rewarding and challenging to do. I think my work ethic is getting the better of me today.

Work Wednesdays - Paint away...

Today while in a colossal state of boredom, I came across an article that Robert Rauschenberg had died. Rauschenberg was an American artist that came to prominence in the 1950's. While I was reading, I came across the name Mark Tobey and had a bit of a flash back to the days when I was an art student.

About a million years ago I took some summer classes at Rhode Island School of Design, one of the classes I took was abstract painting which was taught by a wonderful professor called John Thornton. In terms of the type of art I like to make, abstract painting is my favorite, so I was very lucky to be able to take this class. The class was held in an old bank building and on the second floor we had some individual loft spaces where we could work. It was amazing.

Anyway, during a critique session of one of my paintings, John suggested I look up a painter by the name of Mark Tobey as he thought I may like his work. Mark Tobey was an interesting painter from Wisconsin, he was born in 1890 and died in 1976 in Switzerland. He was an abstract expressionist painter who delved into the works of Arabian literature and East Asian philosophy. He traveled extensively in his life to places such as France, Italy, Hong Kong and Shanghai. At one stage he even lived in a Zen monastery in Japan to study poetry and calligraphy. His travels influenced his art and his art influenced his travels. His philosophical and spiritual beliefs influenced everything.

So John was right - the mix of the Asian style, the spiritual representation in art, and the new techniques did appeal to me. And I forgot all about it.

Tobey said "Let nature take over your work. Get yourself out of your way when you paint." I think this applies not only to painting but to life in general, almost another way to say, go with the flow.

So this week, I want to be a painter. I think it's time to buy some canvas again and bust open my old tool box filled with all my paint and brushes (that I finally brought up from Miami a few months ago).

Photo credit: Mark Tobey "Blue Interior"

Movie Mondays - Sipping Jetstreams

Saturday I went for my usual weekend surf with my friend Jen. A nice swell was hitting Long Beach, but it was cold and the sun wasn't making much of an appearance. After suiting up and psyching up, we got in the water. The size of the waves produced a bit of anxiety but we each managed to catch at least one. The tough part was getting back to the outside, every time I would get past a wave and make some progress the next wave was just behind it and would push me back towards the shore. After battling a while, we decided we had enough for the day.

So not our most successful day.

I went home and decided I needed to watch something to make me think about the good parts about surfing rather the frustrating parts and popped in a dvd I bought a few weeks ago. Sometimes I think I am weird when it comes to books and movies, I may have a book or movie for months and not watch it until I'm somehow in the proper frame of mind. Maybe other people do that too but if they do I'm not aware of it.

Anyway, so this movie - Sipping Jetstreams, is incredible. It is the perfect balance of surfing, travel and music. It is inspirational and visually stunning. An ode to the adventure that is travel and how it becomes part of your life. The movie is shot with different kinds of film stock and has this almost luminescent look to it. Funny enough they cover Bali, Hong Kong and Italy among other places, and being that those are destinations I have been to in the last year it was awesome to see these places in the same light as I have them in my memory. Really beautiful.

In addition to Bali, Hong Kong and Italy - the film is also shot in Morocco, Egypt, Japan, Barbados and Cuba. It made me want to go discover those places too - remarkably even Cuba. I have often been asked if I want to travel to Cuba, being that I am of Cuban parentage on one side - my standard answer is no, that there are lots of other places I would rather travel to before going there. I still want to go to lots of places in this world but after this film, I would add Cuba to the list. (I know - not ok until the Castros are out).

Anyway, check out the movie if you have a chance. It is really incredibly gorgeous and inspiring. Kudos to the filmmaker and photographer who decided to take us on this amazing journey and on that note, I leave you with a quote from their website.

"Travel keeps you young. It does this by simply putting you in situations that make you feel like a child again. Magically lost in a moment of discovery. Beautifully confused. It could be the first time you awaken to the 5:00am call to prayer from the local mosque on Morocco's far Atlantic shore, the first time you feel the weight of the Egyptian sun on your shoulders, the first time you paddle out over the shallow reefs of the Caribbean, or the first time you realize that people living in squalor can achieve happiness as easily as those living in mansions. These are life's opportunities to shed the hustle of modernity, to join the moment, and stop sprinting towards some prefabricated goal. Your heart races. Your metabolism shifts into a lower gear. Everything is new again. You're sipping jetstreams."

AMEN!!!

Reader Feedback

I met up with some friends yesterday and received some interesting feedback.

I was talking to one friend and telling her about having different themed days for the blog but that I have not figured out what to write about on Tuesdays. She suggested food as the subject for Tuesdays, not a bad idea, I thought.

Funny enough, later I was having dinner with another friend who has been a pretty faithful reader and he told me he doesn't care for the new prescribed format. Ok, fair enough.

Here's my question to any readers out there - should I introduce a food Tuesday or should I scrap the new format and go back to a totally random format? Emails, posted comments, phone calls or conversations would be appreciated.

So what do you guys think?

Random Thursdays - Great Stuff

This morning I made the drive from Brooklyn to the Bronx for a press conference for Project B.R.I.E.F.

A few weeks ago I learned about a group called Project B.R.I.E.F., actually what happened is that a friend of mine works there and asked me if I'd like to design their website. I took the project on and drove up to the Jacobi Medical Center to meet with their team and learn a bit about what they do.

Project B.R.I.E.F is an incredible concept. A few years ago a doctor by the name of Dr. Jason Leider, as the Director of Adult HIV Services, noticed that the majority of his patients were developing full blown AIDS within one year of HIV diagnosis. At the same time Dr. Yvette Calderon, Director of Urgent Care, knew that many of her patients used the ER for their primary care needs and these patients did not have a lot of access to health education. Together Drs. Leider and Calderon came up with an innovative system that offers HIV testing to EVERY patient that comes into the emergency room. Amazingly 85% of the patients opt to take the test and so far Project B.R.I.E.F. has tested over 11,000 people.

If you have ever been in an ER, you know it is a chaotic place. Can you imagine any hospital fitting HIV testing into their day to day routine, for every patient?

Well, Project B.R.I.E.F. definitely uncomplicates the process. Patients come in, and with the use of computer tablets, fill out a questionnaire and watch a few videos about testing and prevention. A counselor is there to answer any questions and guide them through the process. The test is actually an oral swab called a Rapid Oral Test, with results available in 20 minutes. It is all in all a simple procedure and what is so fantastic about it, is that this process is quick and very private.

What an amazing idea, brought to life and actually changing the lives of people. The sooner people know their status, the sooner they can get adequate care and hopefully maintain a good quality of life.

For me, as I am sure for many others, I didn't realize what a prevalent problem HIV and AIDS still is. I'm not sure why we forget, there is still a lot of attention on it but if you are not seeing how it affects communities and individuals first hand, somehow it seems to disappear into the background.

Thanks to Project B.R.I.E.F. for increasing my awareness and letting me be a tiny part of such a great thing.

Work Wednesdays - The slash/slash/slash job

I didn't post yesterday. I suppose I wasn't sure what to write about and I was actually quite busy, not an excuse though. So today I've been struggling to come up with an idea about what to write about and I check my mailbox. Guess what's there? My Outside Magazine and on the cover it says "The 50 Best Jobs". Ironic, isn't it?

This led me to pull out my old life saving issue of Outside Magazine and an old notebook where I wrote about different things I want to do. Yesterday I met up with some friends I used to work with, got a lovely email from a friend I met in Bali, talked on the phone with my sister (who is my friend - not everyone can say that about their siblings, you know) and went surfing with another friend. I had such a great day.

So today I will write an ode to my current job, the slash/slash/slash job. Allow me elaborate. My current state of affairs is that I have a variety of jobs, I temp, I design, I dog sit and I research. Although I miss the security of a regular paycheck, being that I still get regular bills, I absolutely LOVE the flexibility that I have.

Sometimes I get anxious about the money factor and sometimes shit happens that ends up costing me a lot of money, such as the week of vehicular trauma - however ALL of that is outweighed by the freedom I have. Specifically now I have more time to see people I care about, spend time catching up with them and being a part of their lives. In addition to connecting, I make time for important things like being creative, doing yoga, going surfing and working on my own business ventures.

Whilst this goes against the grain of every social rule we have been indoctrinated with, is running yourself ragged for a regular paycheck really worth it? For me it's not. Yes, granted, I am extremely fortunate, I don't have to financially support anyone but me. Maybe one day that will change, maybe one day I will tire of the lack of consistency and "security" but for now this fits. So today I thank God for my slash/slash/slash random jobs.

PS When I went to the art function on Earth Day, I had a fortune cookie and it said the following: "The voyage of discovery is not in the seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust" I just thought that was so lovely, I had to share.