I recently spent a whole afternoon catatonic on the couch, staring blankly at old episodes of CSI and scrolling mindlessly through Pinterest. Fully tuned-out and dropped-out. No brain noise at all. The afternoon then segued into drinking vodka-orange-and-pineapple with my housemate in the backyard, while our partners barbecued some stuff and we talked about UFOs, weird people we knew, and the environment. I think that afternoon on the couch marks the official peak of my burn-out and collapse into kind-of desperately directionless watching/scrolling/drinking and denial of all the – constructive – things I was supposed to be doing.
So, I’ve been a bit quiet on here lately, mainly due to the kind-of burn-out experience. But I’m still here, and this is a bit of what I’ve been doing (list adapted from Meet me at Mike’s)…
Making: Plans. Always.
Cooking: Pear and parmesan salad, anything vaguely
Mexican
Drinking: Alternating between whiskey+dry and tea
Reading: Recently, Tom Robbins's Fierce Invalids Home from Hot
Climates and Tim Winton's The
Turning, and just started Jonathon
Franzen's Freedom
Wanting: This and this from Spell, Optical
Intrusion jeans from Evil
Twin, and this from Rejoice the Hands.
Listening: To Pandora -- Lynyrd Skynyrd and Led Zeppelin
stations
Wasting: Beautiful days and evenings, by sitting inside
working on sketches.
Wishing: I didn't have to live in a city with no
immediately viable options for swimming in natural bodies of water.
Enjoying: Waking up at 5am to chip away at to-do lists – mornings
are my peak action time.
Growing: A lettuce garden and some mint. I’m really pleased that Humble hasn’t dug them up.
Growing: A lettuce garden and some mint. I’m really pleased that Humble hasn’t dug them up.
Watching: Documentaries on Pink Floyd and giant squid –
not in the same one, unfortunately – CSI marathons and the highlights of the NRL
finals.
Waiting: For a chance to escape and hit the road
Following: The constant stream of inspiration and
motivation that comes out of the online creative community.
Collecting: Biological specimens to press in sketchbooks, inspiration
from natural sculptures and oddities to add to drawings.
Wondering: What I should do next.
Loving: My partner. And my dog, the Princess Weenie
Mutt. And scones.
Missing: My family and my home. A lot.
Hoping: That our rented house doesn’t sell. Or if it does, that we find a way cooler place to live, where we can still have fires and puppy parties.
Hoping: That our rented house doesn’t sell. Or if it does, that we find a way cooler place to live, where we can still have fires and puppy parties.
Marvelling: At spring in Melbourne, and how this city's
awful/crazy weather makes you incredibly grateful for a day of solid sunshine.
Needing: More time
Smelling: Stolen jasmine flowers, toasting sourdough
Wearing: Black jeans and Harley boots (always),
boyfriend’s black shirt that I bleach-dyed and screen-printed, and loads of
silver and turquoise. Usually also some bright green and yellow hand-knitted
house socks my housemate’s mum gave me.
Noticing: The ebb-and-flow of creative drive and burn-out,
tolerance and rage, triumph and defeat. And that women, especially and
sometimes inexplicably, can be very mean to one another.
Knowing: Way more about Adobe Illustrator than I did last
week.
Thinking: About buying big canvases and starting some
paintings.
Giggling: At Humble's attempts to be brave/sneaky/a human
Feeling: Cautiously optimistic
Feeling: Cautiously optimistic