Falling Sky

It's A Good Life

Nagl is happy!  Here's why!

• Four weeks into the new place and life continues to be a huge fucking improvement on life circa March-August this year.  The importance of a good night's sleep really cannot be overstated, at least for a simple-minded sod like myself who no function well seven hours sleep without.
• Complete strangers continue to buy my artwork!  I won't be retiring from The Agency any time soon, but it's still hugely edifying to exchange pictures I've done for cold hard cash (albeit in a virtual Paypal form) and it's strangely thrilling to think that drawings and paintings I've done are up on the walls of homes on the other side of the world that I'll never see.
• The section of The Agency that I work in is really pretty bally good, as proven by this afternoon's retirement drink-up for a couple of the senior staff.  Three pints!  Zero cost!  Proof that these are good people.  I've had the misfortune in the past of working in sections containing both good people and spiteful nasty fuckers with acidic poison for blood, whose vile machinations would bring great clouds of gloom and depression down on everyone in their vicinity.  Quite why any human being would wish to behave like this makes my brow furrow in deep confusion, yet there seem to be plenty in most workplaces.  The fact there's none in my current section fills me with joy, as does the fact our christmas lunch this year will be held in Iglu.  Back of the net!
• Following the enjoyable and fiscally-responsibly pints this afternoon, I then met the Lass for dinner at our local, the Caley Sample Room.  While she fed on some nice sweet potato/chickpea thingamy, I had a perfectly simple, perfectly delicious beer-battered fish with potato wedges and tartar sauce.  Very tasty, in a nice relaxed venue, with my always-wonderful-to-be-around girlfriend... honestly, I felt the kind of contentedness that usually only comes from being on Skye.  And I didn't notice the barmaid's decolletage at all.
• Last week a nice big box arrived in the post from Dave Bushe in London containing one of the best uses of DVDs in the history of everythingness: the complete series boxset of Homicide: Life On The Street, precursor to The Wire and downright brilliant TV show in its own right that rocked my world back in the 1990's (and it beats the stuffing out of NYPD Blue, so ner!).  Knowing just how hard it was to even find it on the TV schedules back then, it's almost boggling to think I've now got the entire bloody show available to watch, and all within an incredibly spiffy filing-cabinet-style box.  There's over 96 hours of quality telly to be enjoyed all over again here - cheers Dave!
• Talking of artwork as I was earlier, Saturday's life drawing went pretty well with me getting to grips with using water-mixable oil paints.  See, while oil painting is brilliant, it means dealing with pungent toxic spirits for cleaning brushes and paint that takes weeks to dry.  This water-mixable stuff, by contrast, seems to take just a few days to become touch-dry and, as the name hints, can be mixed and washed with water rather than turps.  Anyway, I focused on a colour portrait of the model and came up with this, which ain't so bad.  I'll pop it up for sale in the next few days.
• Quality listening in the last week from Caribou, Super Furry Animals (especially many re-listens of the Ice Hockey Hair EP), Dead Can Dance and a wodge of other good stuff.  One day I'll actually form all these positive impressions into words and share them with the world, but for now we'll just have to go with a grunt of joy.  Hrrrnh!
• Have I mentioned the Wii lately?  I think not, but it's still used pretty much daily in this house (right now the Lass is taking the Big Brain Degree under the tutelage of Professor Lobe, the wisest jellybaby we've ever seen).  I'm hoping to get MySims and Resident Evil 4 in the next few weeks, with hopes firmly set on Metroid Prime: Corruption, Super Mario Galaxy and Wii Fitness in the next few months, but have recently become utterly wrapped up in Paper Mario on the Virtual Console.  It's an incredibly charming game that's also surprisingly engrossing, one of the finest RPGs I've ever played.  And to top it all off, Sin And Punishment next week.  GET IN.
• The Burd.  Continually the bestest thing on Planet Nagl.  And that's a big planet with a lot of awesomeness.

That's enough summarised positivity for now, but it's definitely good to take a step back now and then, gaze upon your current existence and realise that, all in all, it's a bit bloody good.  If in doubt, a few pints help.

It's Good To Be Back (Study in Pastels)

Amongst all the giddy excitement of the new flat, I've neglected to mention that I've started life drawing sessions at Leith again after six months away.  I didn't take the summer term in order to save money, but I missed it far too much and won't go skipping any more terms.  It's also been very reassuring to have sold a few nude pieces over the last year - my gosh, people like them!  I'm not going to eschew other subjects (there's a fair few landscape and botanical studies I've got planned for the next few months) but there'll be new pieces up to see (and to buy, if they're any cop).  There's been one session so far, focusing on relatively short poses (5 mins - 40 mins), which resulted in a few misses and a couple of hits, now available for your purchasing pleasure.  More tomorrow!

Reclining in Soft Pastels, 2007

Soft pastels on textured pastel paper

29 cm x 21.7 cm (11.4" x 8.5")

$70 plus shipping

Back View in Colour, 2007

Soft pastels on textured pastel paper

20.4 cm x 29.3 cm (8" x 11.5")

$70 plus shipping

A Finer Place

WOO!  YAY!  HOOPLA!  JOY!  HUZZAH!  GLEE!  CAKE FOR EVERYONE!  OTHER EXULTATIONS OF GENERAL HAPPINESS, RELIEF AND WELL-BEING!

Evening chums!  Apologies for the deafening silence around these parts, but we've been keeping off the dial-up until broadband shimmied back into our lives.  Because, yes, oh yes, oh thank chuffing Nora yes, we've moved to the new flat... and it is good.

Move Day itself, nearly three weeks ago, was hard work, but crucially we got pretty much everything shifted in one go rather than the drawn-out week of last time.  I got even more involved than previously, lurching from third floor to ground and back again and paying the achy price for it over the following four days, after which I swore never to live anywhere higher than the first floor of a building ever.  Still, the vast majority of work was done by the excellent Southside Movers, whose speed, effort and sheer hard graft meant that by early afternoon all our stuff was in New Flat.  They did an absolutely stirling job and for a much more reasonable price than the last lot, so a great big glowing Falling Sky recommendation sticker for them.  Thankful grins too to the much-maligned Edinburgh parking attendants who towed away some rich twat's car that hadn't been moved from our reserved section and was blocking the arrival of the removal van, apparently depositing said car in a particularly hard-to-find location - hopefully the fucking Forth.

Unpacking's been a damn sight faster than the last time and I think a certain amount of that is that we're both so genuinely happy to be here - there's not the slightest sense of looking back, except to flick V's.  Twenty days on, almost all of the boxes have been unpacked, with our pictures up on the walls, CDs properly shelved, blooms blooming.  The mood of the move felt noticeably more upbeat and positive - while moving from Dean Village felt almost like being uprooted against our wishes, this move was like a release, freeing ourselves from all that stupid fucking anxiety that The Arsehole Downstairs brought our way.  We couldn't wait to get out of there and into here - could you tell? - which made the move so much more bearable.  It was a thrill to actually close the door on the Old Flat and less than half an hour later step into the New Flat.

You'd think there'd be a danger of us over-hyping the place in our heads before getting in there, giving ourselves impossibly high expectations, but in truth there was only one real expectation we really needed fulfilling - a quiet night's sleep.  And, oh my chums, it delivers.  Both the Lass and I have slept so much better in the last three weeks than we have in months - seriously, I can feel the difference, people at work can see it.  Knowing there's no-one beneath us helps a lot on a psychological level, since there's absolutely ZERO chance of sound from below has made a lot of that bedtime anxiety that was fucking my noggin up vanish into blissful nothingness.  The neighbours to our side have a young sprog and are perfectly quiet after 9pm, while those above us seem to go to bed around 10pm - and in a tenement building like this, I don't think there's anyone who'd even consider having a party going past midnight, let alone 5am.  Every ounce of dread I used to feel when going to bed at the new flat has gone, leaving an almost palpable physical sense of relief.  I knew it'd make a difference but, my god, in retrospect the sleep disruption I got from downstairs was screwing me up even more than I realised.  If it's a regular problem for yourself, seriously, do something about it.

See, we're some way out from the city here, about half an hour's walk, and people here seem to be after as quiet a life as we are.  Everyone's living in tenement flats and seems to appreciate the limitations that brings, but also the benefits - lovely large shared gardens, for one.  There's young families, retired couples, professionals with amusingly tiny dogs that jiggle.  There's a lovely big park literally right outside the flat that's going to be wonderful to watch as the leaves change colour over Autumn.  There's the Union Canal on the other side of the park, one way leading into the city and popular with ducks, the other ending up at the Falkirk Wheel.  There's the local pub, a place we used to cross the city for Sunday brunch, now just a couple of minutes walk away.  I've already got into the habit of going in there every Friday afternoon and having a couple of pints of whatever guest ales they've got on tap that week - and how nice to have a real local pub at last.  There's having the Cineworld just 10 minutes away and on the walk home from work, making the Unlimited card worth getting again after canceling it just a few months back - in the last week I've seen more (non-festival) films than I have in months.

And there's Free Cat, a smug yappy sod of a mog (just look at that face!) who sits on top of our shed, stares indignantly into the main bedroom and demands entry until we relent.  Thus far he wanders around the flat, clearly disgruntled at the newness of everything - though he did enjoy an empty box - and then makes himself feel more at home by yoinking up his tail and squirting a little bit of l'eau de tabby somewhere.  Naturally he is promptly flung out, until the next day when the whole bizarre business happens again.  Still, the time between him coming in and his tail going seriously vertical is getting longer each day and hopefully the time will come when we won't have to shadow him around the flat, water spray in hand.  After all, yappy sod or not, it is genuinely nice to have a moggy around, particularly when he curls up on the cat blanket knitted by the Lass and purrs contentedly.  Ah well, there's always this solution.

So, after The Shire and The Village, welcome to what I'll be calling The Green.  We're going to love living here and you won't have to put up with post after post bemoaning a shit night's sleep, so it's a win-win all round!  I'm really looking forward to 'normal' blogging again, especially going over the mostly-excellent films I've had the pleasure of seeing lately (apart from Transformers, which was fucking weak).  There's new artwork to witter about, my new-found interest in quantum physics and Scots Law, the usual awesome space news stories yanked from elsewhere, how life with the Wii is going (clue: BRILL!!!) and a general all-round good vibe that's been sorely lacking of late.  Sorry that this blog's been a bit of a slog in the last few months, but we'll get things back on track soon enough, just you see.  Moving may have cost hundreds of pounds - hell, there's no 'may' about it! - but it was worth absolutely every penny.  Life just got a whole lot better.