Looking for a new home for my pictures, scribbles and stories. Can sometimes be found loitering on Twitter: twitter.com/eatmypixel
I’m in bed before it gets dark
But I lie for hours wide awake,
The body no longer has the will to function
When the heart continues to ache.
How can I get you out of my head ?
When you’re always on my mind,
If I try to think of something else
Your name is all I find.
I used to be sensitive
I could communicate how I felt inside,
But when you walked out of my life
That part of me simply died.
He sat on his bed alone with his back against the wall listening to
Al Green, comforted by nothing but the shadow across him that the dimmed lights failed to penetrate.
As if reading his mind Al Green began to sing “How can you mend a broken heart?” His head dropped, helping the tears escape his eyes; He’d given up wiping them now. Nobody told him about this kind of pain, where everything else in the world no longer mattered. He no longer cared about anything. Even breathing was too much of an effort.
In his hand he held a picture of her. For an instant he smiled to himself. She always hated the picture as it caught her off guard, but he loved it. It captured her for who she really was. The picture was of both of them, cuddled on a sofa at some bar or club, on a night that he couldn’t remember. He was obviously drunk as he had his tie tied around his head like Rambo.
Another tear added to the stream making its way down his neck and onto his chest. He thought if only he could tell himself in the photo how important she was to him, then he would never have let her go from his embrace.
He tenderly rubbed his thumb over her face in the photo. He never understood why she hated having her photo taken. To him she was perfection, her brown eyes so soft, so caring.
She had a smile that regardless of how you felt would make you smile too. Thinking about it he realised that he hadn’t seen it in such a long time. How did things end up like this? What did he do wrong? What could he have done to make things better? He honestly did not know.
One minute everything was fine, he would wake up in the middle of the night and have her head buried in his chest, sleeping with not a care in the world. The next he was practically having a relationship with a mobile phone. She was always busy, something always came up. He missed her so much.
If only he had an explanation for why they were not together. Would he feel better had he cheated on her? At least he would know why she rejected him, and not spend sleepless nights contemplating if it was something he did, how he looked, or was it his personality?
Another warm tear trickled down his cheek and landed on the photo. He carefully wiped it away with his thumb, brought the photo up to his mouth and gently kissed it.
He tenderly put the photo under his pillow where it would be safe, and began to write down his feelings in poetry, trapping his emotions line by line.
I missed the Mg.Social challenge but came up with a goal based feature that I think could have some promise and decided to make a Coil post about it.
Coil has such an amazing community behind it which can be seen in Coil, Cinnamon, gFam, Mg.Social and also on Twitter through the sharing of posts, positive feedback and support.
One thing that has been proven is the benefit of community and groups in weight loss and achieving weight loss goals.
I thought we could implement a system that really uses XRP Tipping to create incentive, encouragement and accountability. All secret ingredients for successful weight loss.
The challenge starts with a User’s declaration. I will lose 10kg by 1st of September. The declaration has a 1 week supporting round where people then contribute towards the User’s goal. The tips are then collected and then will be distributed at different milestones in the weight loss challenge.
After the supporting round the User then begins their challenge and shares the progress in the Coil ecosystem. Blogging their weight loss journey on Coil, submitting their daily gFam selfie on how shit or great they feel. The community offers words of support and encouragement on Mg.Social. The User posts the video of their 20k sunset cycle on Cinnamon. The weigh-in is also submitted as record on one, or all of these platforms.
The community can continue to support the challenge through tips and select designated milestones which the User will receive them. Eg Right now, at 50% or at the very end of the challenge.
Like in The Hunger Games, the Coil community can be there to help the User succeed. AussieNinja blogs that he strained his hip flexors. I give him 50XRP towards Tigerbalm to help him get back on track.
At the end of the challenge the User either succeeds or fails.
If they succeed then the User gets the remaining pot ! Congratulations you are amazing. Srdan will buy you a beer in XRP!
If they fail then Patty B will give you a hug and the remaining uncollected tips will either go towards a communal “unsuccessful weight loss pot” which will then be re-distributed towards other User’s challenges, or if defined in the declaration, it can go towards an unfavourable cause. Eg If I don’t loose 10kg by 1st September then all remaining tips will go towards organisations in favour of illegal fox hunting.
**Incentive
**
I want to loose weight. If I do I will live a healthier life and receive an XRP treasure chest at the end. If I don’t more foxes will be ripped apart by the hounds.
**Encouragement
**
The coil community giving likes, upvotes, tips to help you achieve your goals.
**Accountability
**
I have said I will do this publicly. People have shown their support for me and I don’t want to let them down.
**End result
**
Less cushion for the pushin’
Gifts from the Grave
https://www.cinnamon.video/watch?v=342118344742143375
I remember introducing Kickstarter to my Dad. I saw the Light Phone, it was a minimalistic phone that was supposed to help you live in the moment without those distractions of Emails, Facebook, Whatsapp etc. A bare basic phone, something I felt my parents could use. There were no bells and whistles for them to get confused with, just a “dial a number” phone. So I gave him the link and that was the last I spoke to my Dad about Kickstarter. Unbeknownst to me he started to find quite a few products.
After my Dad died, sorting through his affairs I found a number of Kickstarter projects that he had backed that had still not be fulfilled, and sure enough the Light Phone came through and it made me both smile and cry. When you loose someone you love, you scavenge around for things that help you remind you of them, belongings, writing, pictures, anything to cling to for fear of forgetting them and truly loosing them forever.
The slow trickle of Kickstarter products where like a crutch, it helped me to bear the weight of reality until I was ready to face it for myself again, the truth that my father was gone. These were things that when he was alive he saw promise in, something he found interesting or exciting and so when they came through to me I felt like I saw the world through his eyes, if only for a few minutes.
Dad backed a product called Dopple it was a watch like device that sends a little pulse vibration on the inside of your wrist, like a lub dub of a heart beat and the experience is similar to listening to music. If you listen to slower beats you feel more relaxed and calm, when you listen to something faster it keeps you more alert and pumped. When the Dopple came through I began to see these products as almost gifts from the grave.
When Dad was alive if I was stressed or had problems that had the potential to overwhelm me, I would call him, someone to talk to, a different point of view. He would calm me down, make everything feel like it was going to be alright. Now these phone calls can no longer happen, but when I need that voice on the end of the line, I can put on the Dopple and set it to a slow and calming pace, a heartbeat, that can help remind me of those conversations and give me the sense that he is closer than ever.
The last project to be fulfilled was the one that really knocked me off my feet. Now before I discovered that he backed these projects, in those first hard few months after he passed, I would find comfort in looking up at the moon. In my darkest of times it was the light. I began to associate the moon with my Father as a beautiful but silence presence that forever watched over me, but something that I always took for granted. How many times do we look up at the moon and just look at it ? We don’t.
So you can somewhat imagine how I felt when I discovered that he backed a moon watch! The Bovarro Lunar Series. The watch has a little mini moon on it, something that I can wear on my wrist and always look to, regardless of if its day or night. I think I just sat there for a while. The watch itself was a perfect, last gift. You can’t be on crutches forever and at some point I needed to truly acknowledge that he was gone. Now I am almost there but not quite. The watch serves as a nice reminder that time is very much limited. When I hear the ticking of the watch I am reminded that you can never know when your time is up, and so you should be spending the time, doing the things that you love, with the people and family whose company that you cherish.
As for the memories of my Dad that the Kickstarter projects rekindled every time one would come through, when they eventually stopped I began to realise that they were not memories of him. They were memories that I was creating which in turn made me realise that I am reminded of my father because I am myself a reminder of the man that he was.
It just took a while and a few Kickstarter projects to realise something that I already knew.
Below is the story behind the story
Exploring gFam territory
I dipped my toes into the gFam world today.
I crept around the house making sure nobody was looking and uncovered the hiding place to my Ledger. Stan Taylor's cover of Let's stay together pulsated across the room.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuWYxVdk5P8&list=RDkuWYxVdk5P8&start_radio=1
I blew the Hodl dust of it's surface, the sunlight from the window exposing the particles hanging in the air waiting for me to put it back so that it can settle again.
The Sketchbook Series: Snapshots of a Single Father Pt 3
Previously in the series…
⇦ The Sketchbook Project Series: Snapshots of a Single Father Pt 2
It’s amazing how many toys you can accumulate over a period of time.
I was looking at pictures of my flat two years ago before my son moved in with me.. so minimalist, so clean. Marie Kondo would be proud. Now on the best of days it looks like the children’s toys section of a charity shop.
**How did it get like this ?
**
I think part of it.. (okay lets be serious now he is 4 years old and has no money and doesn’t go shopping) so.. all of it stems from me. Growing up I was always the kid who didn’t have the latest toy. I remember one point in my life where all the other kids had the Power Rangers morphing toys, futuristic looking vehicles that all combined together to make a MegaZoid.
I had a toy dinosaur where you squeezed his leg and is mouth opened and closed. Yup..
“Anyone else want to play?”
“What else does he do?”
***“Well you can pretend he roars when you open his mouth by making the noise with your own mouth”
***
I know.. first world problems.
My parents didn’t have the luxury of toys when they were kids and so I think they didn’t see the necessity of me having them either. To put it in into context my mum is from a rural part of the Philippines.. you were lucky if you could find a Beetle that you could tie a string to for entertainment.
So now that I have one of my own I find me putting myself in his shoes and thinking, I wish I had that when I was little.
It adds up.
It doesn’t become fully apparent until you have one of those child tornadoes, where the rule of “tidy up before you get another toy out” falls on deaf ears and in the aftermath your flat resembles some sort of snow globe that has been violently shaken, but instead of snow and glitter, toys have come to settle and rest on any and all flat surfaces.
In creating this I hope to document the toys that he played with at the time. If he ever comes across this sketchbook when he is older, I hope I bring back some fond memories of the toys he once played with and long forgot.
As for how we progress. My boy is now of the age where he is starting to understand the concept of charity and we are slowly dropping things off for “other children to enjoy” now that he has finished playing with them.
As for me.. I’m still learning how to stop myself from the “it's just a little toy” reasoning and keeping my wallet shut. Perhaps I should see how he takes to playing with a beetle on a string.
⇦ The Little Yellow Envelope – Introduction
⇦ The Sketchbook Project Series: Snapshots of a Single Father Pt 1
⇦ The Sketchbook Project Series: Snapshots of a Single Father Pt 2
When Jarrett came to he was laid across a double sofa in his coach’s office, his head resting on his own bag. His coach sat beside him reading a newspaper. Noticing Jarrett stirring he put the paper down, moved over to his table and switched the kettle on. “Fancy a cupper” he asked Jarrett, who was now sitting up rummaging through his bag. “No thanks” Jarrett replied as he struggled to stretch a hoody over his aching body.
As the steam rose from the boiling water being poured into a tea cup, the coach, with his back to Jarrett, let out a modest laugh, “You almost had him.” A fake chuckle escaped Jarrett’s lips as he said aloud, “He was strong.” Jarrett’s eyes suddenly glazed over as he contemplated what had actually happened. The coach now noisily stirring his tea responded “we’ll go over some of the mistakes you made at training tomorrow…” There was no answer. When the coach turned around Jarrett had gone.
The cold night rain somewhat eased the discomfort of his swollen face. He lightly jogged across the road on his way to Queens Park Station. Upon entering, he was blinded by the station’s bright lights. Jarrett instinctively shut his eyes which only resulted in pain from the swelling. He wondered how bad his face looked, and briskly walked to the end carriage hoping no one else would be there.
As he neared the end of the platform he heard the slamming of a door which connected the two carriages. Through the window he could see the back of someone’s head who was sitting down. Standing at the interconnecting doors was a young man wearing black with his hood up. Jarrett continued to walk to the very end of the carriage and got onto the train and took a seat.
He tried to look at his swollen face in the reflection in front of him.
It wasn’t that bad.
##
Startled, Chinedu spun around, his hands still down by his side. Before he could open his mouth to protest Jarrett threw a right uppercut to his jaw slamming his mouth shut. He followed it with a series of hooks to the sides of his head, each punch thrown with bad intentions. Chinedu blindly threw an overhand right which connected with Jarrett’s face, forcing him back.
Jarrett no longer cared about being hit anymore and dashed forward to unload another series of punches to Chinedu’s head. Take a hit to give one. His immaculate form was now whittled down to that of a brute, making no attempt to defend himself and just looking to cave Chindedu’s face in.
Chinedu still in shock could only respond with a few desperate punches which landed, but had no effect on Jarrett who kept coming back, coming forward, swarming him with punches. Jarrett felt unstoppable. Every time Chinedu hit him, physically forcing him back, Jarrett made double the effort to get back in Chinedu’s face and hit him again and again.
Those watching the fight began to get excited, shouting support for Jarrett, urging him to “knock him out.” He continued to pummel Chinedu forcing him to try and clinch. Jarrett violently pushed him away, throwing him back against the corner which rattled the ropes on either side. He followed with a hard punch to Chinedu’s stomach which forced the wind out of him, resulting in a forceful exhale.
With this show of weakness Jarrett tried to capitalise, letting loose a flurry of uppercuts to Chinedu’s body, forcing him to lean back against the corner for support. Chinedu threw a right straight to Jarrett’s head, which brutally shook it, but seemed to have no effect.
Jarrett continued to alternate strikes to the head and body, finding he could now pick his shots and still land them with venom. Chinedu instinctively counteracted the huge uppercut he took to his ribs with a right hook to Jarrett’s head.
Chinedu gritted his teeth letting out a painful groan. His face grimaced, and his eyes shut. He brought his hands to his left ribs which sent an agonising shockwave to his brain. They were broken. He then waved his hands signalling he had had enough; he wanted to stop the fight.
##
Chinedu stared at an incapacitated Jarrett lying flat on his back looking up at the ceiling. He smiled as the coach gave the count…he laughed to himself. He could feel from the weight of the punch that he had hit him hard, every ounce of momentum transferred from his fist into Jarrett’s head, violently shaking his brain.
He casually leaned his back against the neutral corner and rested his arms against the top ropes. Smugly, he looked around the gym, expecting to see fear and awe in everyone else’s eyes. A small crowd had gathered around the ring, but their eyes were fixed on Jarrett. Chinedu looked back to see Jarrett rolling on his side.
##
