SIMPLY ELABORATE blog

After a long day on Friday, I went to Vecchio Frak on College for an Italian Meet Up. Now, before you go thinking I participated in some sort of Speed Dating (although, I am planning on attending one of those and blogging about it) event, it wasn’t. Instead, it was a meet up for lovers of the Italian language who wanted to meet other people with a love of Italian. Seeing as how I can manage with my meagre Italian on most days, provided I have my co-conversationalists speak very slowly and I’m allowed ample time to conjugate verbs in my mind before speaking, I wasn’t too worried about holding my own at the meet up.

Unfortunately, my nerves kicked in and I felt largely unprepared for what felt like a big test. Simple words I’ve known my whole life escaped me and I was left sitting there, my mind blank, nervous. However, unlike other Italian outings my heritage finds myself in – where I am called out by old Italian men at my lack of knowledge on the language, despite my father being so heavily involved in the promotion of Italy in general – I was encouraged, assisted and complimented on the fact that I was even there. It definitely created a sense of relief at in my attendance. The feelings didn’t help my lack of knowledge on the language, though. You see, when you’re meeting people for the first time and tell them stories about things that have happened in your life – you use a lot of past tense. Oh the past tense, a lovely new set of verbs, conjugation (or as I like to call them – “word endings”) and irregular verbs that have to be memorized in addition to everything else. Past tense wasn’t a unit I excelled in in my Italian classes. Mostly because I didn’t take Italian classes long enough throughout university to even get to them. Every two words, it felt like, I had to stop and ask what a word meant in Italian and how to conjugate it and then figure out if it was a dialect or proper Italian. Prompting me to hardly remember what the story I was telling was about in the first place.

At around ten, my friend and I left and ended up taking in Hemingways in Yorkville for a drink and ended up sharing life stories – which can seem pretty amazing and crazy when you’re summing them up in five minute intervals. We patrolled the surroundings to judge whether there were cute boys or not (yes and no) and dared each other to create random conversations with the ones who proved to be the most endearing at first glance.

We failed. Mostly, though, because of laziness. Getting into our old age, we were both afraid of sparking conversations with cute boys because my Heineken was making me yawn and her boyfriend kept texting to ask what time she was coming over. It proved to be a different night than most of the ones I’ve had lately – and for that I was grateful.

Grateful to be included in such an evening that didn’t feel adolescent, drama filled or weird. It was random, but randomly planned.

And it was nice.

Is it almost Thursday already? Where has the week flown off to? Summer is coming, I can feel it (despite the odd weather changes that have gone this week) and it’s making me more excited by the minute. The thing that sucks? Weddings that I’m committed to going (and WANT to go to) have me booked on what so far seem to be the best weekends in the city thus far, among the predicament of having a personality and lifestyle that includes wanting to attend every outing that’s possible no matter how much it’ll probably kill me.

For instance, the night of Thursday, May 27th has sequestered itself among three events I want to attend:

1) Strut for a Cure

A night promised to make everybody speak out against Cancer while listening to Dragonette and meeting others in the industry. Plus, the swag bag you get once you leave isn’t bad either. Mostly, it’s just the type of thing I’m loving about living in Toronto. Being able to go to these fundraisers and parties and network my butt off. Problem: I may be dumb, but I scoured that website and could not for the life of me find out when the event starts that Thursday. Normally, it wouldn’t be a problem but for someone attempting to plan “a night of a million stops” it is.

2) Carassauga: Mississauga’s Festival of Culture

Of course it has to be the first night my father’s extracurricular activity, FCAM, actually does something that will interact with the community by promoting the integration of the Molise culture in Canada and I have this prior commitment and urge to attend Strut for a Cure instead. Which leaves me feeling guilty. I did, however, design this snazzy advertisement to be included in Carassauga’s 25th Anniversary special edition commemorative magazine they’ll be handing out at the show. The AD itself was inspired by the work my friend and sometimes partner, Emily Bachor of Whylime Design does at Where Calgary magazine.

She’s made me a big fan of the opacity button:

You may think this is no big deal, not being able to attend the opening ceremonies of the Carassauga weekend, as it’s just that – a weekend event. However, this brings me to the dear old commitment number three.

3) Bridal Shower in Windsor, Ontario

My dear, dear friend is getting married. Yay (it’s a sincere yay). But instead of taking up one of my weekends that consist of me waking up at noon and reading PostSecret all day, I will be sitting at a table with other twentysomething friends becoming misty eyed at the thought of my friend getting her happy beginning and me wondering if I’ll have a date by the time her wedding comes around in August – or if I’ll even want one. Problem: It’s basically an entire weekend of visiting and busyness that I’ll have absolutely no time for …

4) Sex and the City 2 Premiere

Now, I know this may sound crazy, with all the fantastic prior engagements I’ve just listed to end off with my disappointment that I will not be able to watch the continuation of the best show ever made followed by the best movie sequel to a TV series ever made but I am. I am disappointed. Mostly, however, because of spoilers. I won’t be able to take it. In addition to reading PostSecret every Sunday, I have this odd, unnatural habit of checking out TheMovieSpoiler.com to see what happens at the end of the latest blockbusters just released. It sort of reminds me of Billy Crystal’s monologue in When Harry Met Sally about being so dark that he reads the end of novels before he starts in case he dies so he’ll always know how it ends.

Problem: even if I successfully remove myself from being tempted to log on, I know it’ll be all around me. When will the next opportunity come that I can see the movie before I read about what happens in the tabloids? In 2008, when the first movie came out, I had to block my sister from my MSN list because she had gotten home from watching the big premiere (she lives in the United Kingdom and had the pleasure of seeing it a full eight hours before I did) and wanted to gush about how amazing it was. She’s like that.

All in all, I think I may just be whining about unnecessary things. But I can’t help it – I want to do it ALL!!!!

Which, in case you don’t know me personally, is exactly what I’ll end up doing.

The office renovation is complete. Well, the parts of it that needed outside hired help and payment upfront are. I walked around the office this morning and was pleasantly surprised at just how amazing a few days of hard work can change a place. I mean, check out these floors!

Tomorrow’s day will be filled with movement and cleaning and rearranging – all careful not to harm the new floors and freshly painted Koi Pond walls. I’ve been researching Ikea for different curtain/blind options that I feel will greatly depict the feeling of Simply Elaborate but haven’t had any luck as of yet (is it bad that I truly enjoy the multicoloured shower curtain?)

The work is piling up behind me, and new prospects are going on my to-do list with each passing day and I’m left wondering whether it is a smart idea for me to look into hiring someone to continue the Simply Elaborate business process. With each day I find another reason as to why I think it’s a fabulous way to go. I read once that the number one mistake that entrepreneurs make is that they do everything themselves and therefore either burn out or something isn’t done 100%. I’m starting to agree and I don’t like it because I don’t like doing things at anything less than 100% and although I’m not feeling burnt out, I can only assume it’s on the horizon.

There are a lot of changes that are going on in my life that are happening soon. For one, I’m going to be a Torontonian this summer. I decided to take up a friend on an opportunity to sublet a room in a duplex downtown and I’m quite excited about it. The move can’t come at a better time nor worse time in my life but when is anything perfect timing in my life?

With summer on it’s way, finally, I’m excited and yet already feeling it fly by quicker than expected and wanted. There’s one thing I’m excited about it – being single, being surrounded by friends and family, and having fun.

Who can’t get excited about that?

I promised someone I would continue working on my latest blog post tonight and post it. But I left my laptop at work, forgetting the document was started, opened and not saved on that computer and not the one at home. So then I started writing another post, same topic, from scratch and I hate it. Sitting in front of my computer in my sister’s old childhood room that has now doubled as my home office as of late unable to muster enough creativity to write something.

I used to be a night writer. Didn’t matter what the topic, as soon as sunset hit I could make these fingers type like nobody’s business about nothing in particular (although topics usually varied from school, the opposite sex, friendships and work among others) and everything in between.

Now, I feel as though I’m out of practice, out of habit and completely drained emotionally out of fear that I’m not pleasing enough people, not enough people care to even be pleased or that nothing’s ever good enough for me to share anymore. It’s a realization that I come to every time I sit down, ready to write. I think it comes from the fact that I sometimes creep over to my old writings and re-read the words that poured out of me, the feelings that overwhelmed me and judge my past self.

I find now, that the words free-flow out of me in the mornings, when the sun is shining and the world seems to be my oyster – a brand new beginning every day. Not that I’ve been so eager to get up early and type away in the mornings, but still. My life has changed me into somewhat of a morning person; if I can just find that motivation every day to get up early I’d be set. It was there for a while and somehow it faded (I’m sure the lure of website designing 24/7 had something to do with it) but it’s creeped back up with the presence of a new office location and a resounding sense of relaxation following my trip to Mexico last week.

So I’m sure the writing will eventually become more habitual, frequent and (let’s hope) more inspiring in the near future.

Next stop, gym.

I’m trying to figure out a lot about my life right now, while simultaneously just trying to live in the moment and accept it as it comes. Do you know how hard that is to do when you’ve diagnosed yourself as a Type A personality with a hint of Attention Deficit Disorder combined with this overwhelming desire to somehow make up for the last two years of my life being spent in oblivion?

I feel like the days are flying by and somehow at the end of them, I am getting things accomplished and yet I don’t seem to find any satisfaction in any of it – and then, of course, I start to wonder why. My Type A personality tells me I’m not doing enough, every moment spent in “down time” is precious time wasted that I could have been producing something, creating something else and thinking about doing even more. The realist in me tries to take a step back, relax and realize that while going out for Thai dinner with a friend, it’s completely okay that I’ve left my BlackBerry in the car. Completely okay.

What am I addicted to, I wonder. What is so important about receiving an email as soon as it arrives in my inbox at 8 pm? It’s not like I can really do much at that time until I get to a computer. I mean, I can – but it’ll usually involve an apologetic process to whomever I’m with about how it’s work and I can’t let it go. When the truth is, I can let it go, I just choose not to because I think I feel a certain sense of importance at the fact that I’m needed in a work capacity after regular business hours. How insane. Who even cares? If they care, the person/people I’m with, it’ll be that I’m being rude, not important! I know this, yet I check the message anyway.

I need a balance. And I wonder why this balance doesn’t come naturally to me. My birthday is October 1st – smack dab in the middle of the Libra, the astrological sign of balance. So why can’t I concentrate on doing one thing at a time? Loving one thing at a time? Experiencing one thing at a time? Can I control my life enough to create that? Is that something one can do – I can do?

I’m so addicted to being in the know. I need to be in the know. With news – local, national and world – with whatever social media site I’m viewing, technology, bestsellers, movies, music, sports and people. I’m left to wonder, am I tapping into my old high school self? The one who felt a constant need to fit in and therefore “love” everything so I always had something to talk about with a new face. I’m excited for knowledge, learning and education – but every day, with every piece of knowledge – I wonder where the hell it all goes!

Or … is it a reason for a lack of total productivity and procrastination?