enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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milky, potato-y goodness

I'm having one of those days on which desires to do little things with no discernable source or cause are hitting me. Like make corn chowder. I felt a whim to make corn chowder and so I did. Well I am. It's on the stove.

And I feel like sitting in my living room in my pyjamas all day, listening to Kathleen Edwards.

I mean, I have three things due on Monday and I've decided not to do any of them until Sunday. I'm sticking to my multi-day birthday hiatus from work plan. It feels nice. Deeply satisfying, in fact.

My leg is very stiff today. I am now convinced that in my attempts to smooth out whatever has been constraining it I overstretched my hip flexors. Not a great choice. I really need some epsom salts. I had a hot bath without them and nothing much happened. I should probably return to the floor for some more stretching.

There is something about being free to do nothing that is indescribably delightful. I mean really, really delightful.

I am such a slothful creature.

So a friend of mine sent me the best birthday card ever. There is a picture--clearly from the 70s--of a little girl in a sassy outfit and with a bad haircut who is posing with attitude (as little girls do). It looks quite natural and original. It could have been me but then I pulled out pictures of myself from that time period and sent them to my friend and she said that I looked sweet and happy rather than sassy. But anyhow. It was a cute card and the inside said something about how it's not about the clothes but the attitude...to someone who's always known that.

It made me smile, anyhow. Because I do think that's true. I also don't think that I'm as good at doing this as I'd like to be. In fact, my goal for this year is really to transform my life with my good attitude. I'm always most impressed with those people who wear their goodness, happiness, grace, etc., on the outside. THAT is the person that I want to be. People can figure out later on that I am relatively smart or that I am knowledgeable about some things or that I am talented. I want people to see the warm glow of self-respect and caring and affection on the outside. With that I could be satisfied.

I feel a real revolution going on inside me. I was reading over a slew of documentation for the Canadian Ec0nomics Assoc!ation meetings that are upcoming and I was kind of thinking, "I am so over this." I mean, I see most of this stuff as being trivial rather than daunting anymore. More importantly, I see it as more a part of the past, or, at least for a while, as part of what I must do to make a living. I don't see it as any part of who I am . I like that clean break from all of it. When it loses its mystique it loses all of its power over you.

Aside: Sometimes I wish I lived in the States simply for the shopping. I was trying to order running shoes online today and was having trouble with the site so I called up the company in Baltimore and had a very pleasant conversation with a woman who sold me exactly the shoes that I wanted for exactly half the price that I would have to pay here (even after shipping and Canadian taxes were added to the total). It was lovely. Americans really know how to fill a market niche.

Aside 2: The chowder has been simmering for a while and I am now eating it and it is better than I expected.

So, I was on the phone with C. earlier today and he was telling me about a really interesting evening he had out at the bars in Montreal last night. I knew that something interesting had happened because he sent me an email at 4:45 a.m. to tell me that he had just returned home. Which was unnecessary and obviously demonstrated that he was likely drunk at the time.
But I digress.

In a nutshell: He met a theoretical physicist who was contemplating the meaning of life and how socially unworthy, unsatisfying and unhelpful he feels most of his pursuits have been. I mean, it's the perspective that C. and I have on our own lives in sum, and C. and I are not even post docs in theoretical physics (which seems oh just a tad more impressive than what either C. and I have done...). You get what I mean. Those of us who do not rise to the top automatically tend to sit around thinking not only that nothing that we do will matter in our profession but that--worse--nothing that we do will ever impact any living beings in any socially meaningful way. It's a desperate feeling.

I heard something relevant on the tv last night. It was late at night and I was flipping and I heard a famous photographer interviewed who said that things started to click for him as soon as he stopped taking the photographs that he thought other people wanted to see, and started taking the photographs that he wanted to take.

Everyone says that. Do what you love and it'll all work out. So I love to run and I love to draw. I'm back to square one.

But actually I also love to teach. I especially love to help weak people. My pleasure has always come from helping the very worst students and thereby facilitating a growth in their confidence. That's my thing. I also like to make old people feel less lonely.

I am such a broken record. I sit here writing the same things over and over again and I can hardly stop myself. I guess I think that if I write something often enough it will eventually spring off the page and take control of my limbs. If only it worked that way.

OK. That's it. I have a Happy Birthday phone call coming in from Mars3ille. My friend and I have been having a back and forth email thing for the last few days and he has finally decided to call.

That's the best part about birthdays: the phone calls from all of the places in the world that I would rather be right now :).

And I still have all day tomorrow to wallow in birthday goodness! I must still make my pink cake and watch the BBC Pride and Pr3judice in one fell swoop.

Actually, I am thinking of going to the video store and getting a new movie, rather than mining my rather slim DVD collection. I'm thinking maybe something Audr3y Hepburn. Sabr!na, anyone? Breakfast at T!ffany's?

2:59 p.m. - 2006-05-12

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