Personal Projects

May 22, 2020 By Phillip Retuta

COVID-19 and Boredom.

Day 66 of self-isolation.

I’ll admit, the past few days have had this weird, somewhat disheartening feeling of stasis. It’s not that I’m feeling depressed, but rather I’m just existing and living each day, going through the motions. However, I don’t feel lost. Unlike some people stuck in quarantine, I know what day it is: “The Masked Singer” and “What We Do in the Shadows” are on Wednesdays (but there are no episodes of “The Simpsons”), “Top Chef” is on Thursdays, “Love It Or List It” tends to run marathons on Saturdays. It’s become a pathetic routine.

Yes, I’m bored as hell — so much so that I’ve been doing work-work on days I’m off the clock, just because I need something to do. Yes, I’m not getting paid or being put back on full-time with the hours I’m putting in, but I’ve run out of projects that I could accomplish with the money that I have. I’ve applied to new jobs just in case work falls through, disastrously (because, admittedly, the scariest thing about this pandemic is the uncertainty of the future). I’m waiting on friends to help me with content for some video ideas, but I’ve learned not to hold my breath. I could cook and bake, but I’m trying to watch what I eat as well as trying to save money during this furlough.

Boredom, I feel, has finally gotten the best of me — and a lot of it stems from a lack of funds. There are so many projects I want to do — shoot film, build something out of wood, finish my garden, bake something new, shoot dog photos — but everything requires money: materials, ingredients, supplies, a dog. I’ve found that I can’t pursue new projects when I have to decide rent and bills are more important than the things that make me happy. With so many survival needs happening at the end of this month (shelter, food, utilities), I’m trying to save every single fucking penny — knowing full well that I don’t have enough to cover everything. I mentioned before that the end of May would be scary, and now it’s the end of May and I feel it. It’s not entirely that financial anxiety, but a feeling of listlessness and un-inspiration.

I’m trying to remedy this by sketching, by rearranging my existing plants, exercising, and by cleaning a whole fucking lot. In between my forced 20-hour work week and while waiting for client approval on work that’s a week earlier than the proposed deadlines, I’ve found myself taking 30 minute to 1 hour naps throughout the day. Being unconscious, I feel, just helps pass the time.

Of course, I feel a sense of loneliness — which I have a love-hate relationship with. I’m enjoying the time to myself, but on the other hand it’d be nice to see somebody. I feel so far-removed, distance-wise, from everybody, and it’d be a pleasure for someone to knock on my door and say hello. Again, this self-isolation wouldn’t be so bad if I had something new to do… and I’d have something new to do if I had a disposable income again.

I’m in no means a religious man, but I’m praying things get back to quasi-normal again sooner than later: to be inspired, to be comfortable financially again, for friends to come over without fear or anxiety. I’m praying that whatever indifference and lethargy that I’m feeling now doesn’t turn into complete dread.

I just need a free, creative thing to do (well, other than writing). Till then, I’ll just keep on smiling and waiting and watching TV.

May 17, 2020 By Phillip Retuta

Keeping Myself Busy During a Pandemic: Sew What?

Feeling like a farmer, with my Flower Decal-ed Sewing Machine from Walmart, circa 2006.

Day 61 of self-isolation.

One of the positives I can say about these stay-at-home orders is that it allows me to work on stuff I’ve put off and been too lazy to accomplish. For instance, there’s a lot of stuff that I need to sew, alter, and repair.

As a resourceful individual who’s clearly more domesticated than your average man, I decided to use the past few days honing my sewing skills. It was very hot in New York the last couple of days, and I decided to wear some shorts — most of which have been old jeans that I cut. I wore a classic pair of black jean shorts when I went outside yesterday, and when I reached into the pocket, I felt a piece of cloth. At first, I thought it was just a piece of Kleenex I forgot to discard (I know, I’m disgusting), but when I pulled it out it was a swatch of black denim. I realized then that I had intended to use this as a patch, my intent to sew it last summer — and lo and behold, as I glanced down to my crotch, there was a gaping hole in the jean shorts.

Last night, I decided to hand sew the patch to cover the hole. Sure, I could have easily sewn the shorts without using the patch (just closing the hole), but I’ve always found that sewn-up tears in pants and denim always reopen. I’m also very uninterested in buying new jean shorts (read: I’m poor). Though there’s a rustic look of frayed denim where the patch is, at least now you can’t see my underwear (or if I’m feeling particularly adventurous, nothing at all).

The only photo I could find of the overalls in 2018, with my beloved Nico blocking the bagginess.

Another sewing project that I put off were these overalls I used in a Halloween costume in 2018. They were originally bought as a matching piece with Nico’s award-winning costume at the Fort Green Halloween Pup Parade. However, I knew I wanted to somehow use this more than that one time. The problem was that the pants were baggy as fuck, as if I was wearing JNCO’s made for the working class. I wanted to style it up a little bit and slim them down, possibly wearing them while working in my garden or even in public.

Now that we’ve all quarantined ourselves, I’ve found the time to adjust the bagginess. Using a pair of my slim-fit Levi’s, I outlined and cut off the inner-sides of the overalls, up to the crotch. I stitched them back up using my trusty sewing machine from 2006, and after wearing the finished alteration, I proceeded to parade around my apartment and backyard. With these new, semi-skinny overalls, I looked like a hipster hillbilly, but I’m okay with that.

May 16, 2020 By Phillip Retuta

Composting.

Day 60 of self-isolation.

Over the years, I’ve spent so much money and time buying soil at the hardware store. I’m also constantly removing Japanese Knot-Weed and other various evasive weeds from my backyard that I’d just leave in a fire pit. The pile is so high right now, I decided I should start composting.

Since I’ve been cooking and making coffee a lot at home, I figured I should use the leftovers (egg shells, veggie cuttings, and coffee grounds) as fuel for the compost — in addition to the weed and grass cuttings. The other day, I went to the hardware store to get a large storage bin, in which I drilled way too many holes into, and today my friend gave me a bunch of worms.

I tossed them all together, plus some of the soil and roots from dead plants and wood shavings you’d use for small pet cages, so here’s hoping I have some great fertilizer in the next month or so. My next manly-man project will be creating a wood casing for the compost bin, and integrate it so the container matches with my backyard garden.

May 9, 2020 By Phillip Retuta

Keeping Myself Busy During A Pandemic: Making Dog Videos.

Day 53 of self-isolation.

Living by yourself during a pandemic and being furloughed can prove to be mentally and emotionally taxing, but I’ve found ways to combat cabin fever and subdue any feelings of anxiety.

I’ve been making stuff.

Whenever I’m down or feeling alone, I’ve tapped into my creativity to relieve any sense of boredom or desolation. The action of making something and producing a piece of art brings me joy, and it let’s me escape from the fact that there’s no one to talk to or hang out with. That’s always been the case even before the pandemic, but during these times it feels more germane. I’ve been cooking and baking a lot, trying to create my own recipes and sharing the photos. I’ve been gardening so that I have herbs and vegetables for these recipes, and when society reopens I have a nice backyard space I can host people in. Of course, both of these hobbies are dependent on whether or not I want to gain more weight or — in the case of gardening — relies if the weather is suitable, so I’ve turned to an old hobby: making dog videos.

Sure, it’s been a year since Nico passed, but I have a lot of footage I’ve taken over the years, leading up to her death. Life thereafter and work became so busy (not to mention allowing myself a time to grieve), so the ideas I had only remained ideas. Fortunately, with all the free-time forced onto me and the lingering sense of boredom, I’ve picked up these projects again. Making videos and generating beautiful or funny things have kept me sane, giving me something to do during those waking hours of idleness and silence. They also make me cherish the time and the memories I had with Nico. What’s better, it’s been cheap: I have the footage, I have the skills, and I have the software, so I haven’t spent anything to create new movies (well, I did buy some tracing paper from Amazon, but that’s for an animation I’ll be making later).

So here are some videos I’ve been working on for Nico’s still active Instagram page. I haven’t released all of them yet (I’m staggering them, week by week), so I guess you can call these exclusives.

I truly want to make more videos (and take pet photos again), but considering that I’m furloughed (ie, money is tight) and our socially-distanced circumstances, I can’t adopt a dog right now. I promised myself that I would give myself a year after Nico passed when I’d open my heart and my home to another pet, but then COVID-19 happened, my paycheck getting reduced in half happened. So I’ve been asking friends with pets and friends themselves to submit videos to me: dogs and cats just sitting in front of the camera, maybe some bark, some humans doing a little bit of acting or light stunt work. Just to keep myself preoccupied and sane, I have to keep creating more content. I feel if I stop, I think I’ll fall back into my own head again, overcome by loneliness, boredom, and financial anxiety. If you want to help, read and fill out this Google Spreadsheet (it’s essentially a call sheet for pet and human talent), and then email/text me some videos.