Friday, April 24, 2015

ugh and self-portrait

'Ugh' is onomatopoeic and it means 'Damn, I've got a headache again'. Also 'I need to get out more' and 'I'm lonely'. By that last one I don't mean I have no friends, no, my loneliness is more acute. I haven't met anyone for many days, and I'm going insane. 

Sure, I've bumped into some people I know. And I work at a cafe, where obviously I speak and interact with people all the time. But I haven't hung out with anyone. I haven't sat down for a coffee with a friend in almost a week. And I think coffee-time is more vital to me than, like, food. 

Anecdote: You can sort of tell what kind of day I'm having by what socks I'm wearing. On days that I think will be good, I wear nice socks, and on non-eventful days, I wear bad socks. I acknowledge that this may sound a bit crazy. But if I know I'm going to be meeting people and going somewhere, in the morning I would put on socks with argyle patterns, or coloured socks. These are my good socks. The day before yesterday, I faced a problem. 

I had ran out of bad socks. I had six or seven clean pairs of good socks, but no bad ones. And I was going to work. I knew I wasn't doing anything that day, and there would be no reason to wear good socks (Or nice clothes, for that matter! It's not crazy, I swear...). So I had to waste a pair of good socks on a bad day. That's so wrong. I get this little kick in the morning when I'm putting on my good socks, like, 'Yes, today's going to be a good day, I know it!', but it wasn't. I was going to work, and after that, I'd go home again. There was nothing special about that day. They were clearly the wrong socks.

There's a bigger problem, though. About half my socks are good, and the other half are bad socks (Meaning; black, regular socks). At a previous point in my life, I might have had the problem of having only bad socks left to wear on a good day. Now it was the other way around. This was like a wake-up call. My life has become boring, and shitty. 

Or maybe that's just my headache talking. I feel like I've had it for a week now. My neck is tense and I've been sleeping poorly. I think my body is having an averse reaction to stress. In my mind, I don't feel the pressure, but my body is suffering. Evidently, the stress doesn't go to my head, it goes to my neck, locking it up into a tense, headache infusing mess.

I try to do relaxing things, but I just can't loosen up. I took a long bike ride after work today. Bike rides in twilight are awesome, but it didn't help. I went to a quiet and dark pub, and drank one beer. It tasted like heaven, and the pub, which I hadn't been to before, was a really nice place. I wanted to fall asleep there in that plush chair, but that would've been even more crazy than my sock problem. When I finally had finished my one beer and walked out, all that relaxation was washed away. What can I possibly do to relax more and fix this awful headache? In my experience, painkillers like Ibuprofen don't really help much. 

Ugh. There's so much UGH in this entry. 


Anyway, I drew this self portrait the other night.


It's based on reference from a photo I had taken by the window, like I talked about in my last entry. The lighting conditions are nice for taking, well, nice portraits. But I have to admit, it's a little bit on the flat side when it comes to drawing. One might prefer some source of harder light, which would make for more interesting shading.

 I should invest in bigger paper. This is on A5, and as you can see, I didn't really fit. And it's not super practical to draw any smaller, either, even though I do generally prefer small over large when it comes to drawing. You would think that drawing is super relaxing, but here I am, picture finished, but with a head still aching.



... About my socks. I'm not crazy. I swear. It didn't even bother me once I had gone to sleep ._.

4 comments:

  1. If you think you're crazy, you don't even wanna enter my mind, dude...
    That said, I get what you mean XD
    I get the loneliness part to an extent too, though I am introvert enough to have ways of... Coping...
    Most of all though, I get the ugh... Damn that ugh D:<

    Also, the reason I didn't hang out with you that time is because you reminded me of my mother, I'm sorry.
    -It's funnier without the context-

    Some other time?

    Oh, and I just had to comment on this, because that self portrait is really freaking awesome! But I'm not an art critic, so I can't give you any fancy reviews saying something along the lines of "There is a clear lack of chiaroscuro due to the lighting already mentioned, and I find the dichromatism to be dry and frankly quite two dimensional".

    Just kidding, I really do like it :p
    I think it's actually an improvement from what I've seen earlier in some of your work! That, or it's just different. Either way, far better than what most people could ever hope to be able to draw.

    (P.S. You need to tell me what pub you went to; it sounds awesome!?)

    (P.P.S. You do realize that bikerides aren't normally considered to be friendly towards neck problems?)

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  2. I really wasn't referring to anyone in particular, a lot of people have simply been busy the past week. No hard feelings. I've been quite busy myself, and my work hours the past week were such that they kind of overlapped any reasonable hang-out time.

    I went to Bocks bryggeri, over in dragnäsbäck! If you're not familiar with this relatively new place, they make their own beer, as the name would suggest. From what I've heard, it's usually quite crowded, especially in the weekends, and the demographic is varied but perhaps a bit on the middle-aged side. It's roomy and free, but cozy at the same time. The music was really at a background level, which I enjoyed. You really wouldn't have to raise your voice much in order to be heard, which is something I definitely like in that sort of place.

    And I guess you're right, cycling does put your back and neck in a sort of awkward position. But I wouldn't say my neck got any worse from it, either. From time to time, I really enjoy pedaling hard through parts of town yet unexplored. It takes my mind off things.

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  3. Oh yeah!
    I have been to Bocks once. I thought you were referring to it at first, but then you said it was really quiet XD
    You see, I liked the place a lot, but when I was there, it was super crowded, and thus, there was a looot of noise :p
    I need to go there when it's not weekend, as it's probably even more enjoyable then :3

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  4. Yah, 21:00 on a Thursday evening probably isn't the breweries busiest hour. Only a handful of tables were occupied. I can imagine the noise level is quiet different on a saturday night :P

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