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

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

uneventful trip; chocolate orange is still her favourite flavour

Have just returned from Toronto. Am very weary, and also slightly nauseated. I've been feeling nauseated for a couple of days--they said there'd be no side effects from the injection but I'm wondering if something went wrong. I almost had to leave dinner last night.

Anyhow. I just read teranika's entries of the last couple of days and feel badly that I spent an entry slamming Vancouver recently--hope she didn't catch it. Not my intention.

I do hope that I start to feel better soon. I must write two papers in the next day and a half. It never ends.

I'm feeling an incredible urgency to move on to the next stage of my life. I had a weird feeling that I was impersonating the woman that I was supposed to be when I was in Toronto yesterday. I dressed myself up for the party, packed a brief case, and landed at Union Station at about 3:30 p.m. in the afternoon. I checked my hair and makeup in the pink, 1950s-ish facilities there and I had a half- otherworldly, half-nostalgic feeling standing there in that bathroom in the station. I guess it's the memories of being a kid and traversing the city with my grandmother, or of being a teenager on the loose on a shopping trip and trying to be grown up. I remember checking my hair and makeup in bathrooms dotting the city, and of dreaming in the rush hour crowds that one day I would be a classy woman in a sharp suit also bustling about to a seemingly important job in the heart of Toronto. Seems almost certain that I will never play that role.

But I see now through the fantasies and understand that important is in the eye of the beholder and beneath the smooth exteriors of many working women lie harried and miserable women. A brief case and a designer suit does not a happy person make. I guess I need look no further than my time at Foreign Affairs. It's startling how many people get what they thought they wanted and then discover that most jobs don't follow the scripts that we've written in our fantasies: bureacracy and government cubicles dissolve for no one, or at least few. I think I was able to sustain my excitement in being slickly dressed and having lunches with ambassadors and trade reps and the like because I was still young enough to feel certain that I wasn't sufficiently fixed in the job to allow disenchantment to creep in. I thought I could leave and go back; it all seemed to make sense. I guess it does, and I've got to learn that in the end all that matters is that one does what one likes. As they say, then at least one person will be satisfied.

I guess that's about all I have to say. My friend's birthday was great and she seemed to have a wonderful time. As I said, I would have been more joyful about the whole thing had I not felt close to passing out for a portion of the evening. I'm trying not to worry about my health.

It's funny how people change. Most of the people at the party I have known, at least superficially, for twenty years. Almost all of them look better now than they did in their early 20s--more poised, even regal. They're also more pleasant to speak with, which is pleasing and not terribly surprising, since one would hope that experience would improve conversation.

Actually, it's false to say that everyone is more pleasant to speak with. That banking VP about whom I've spoken was there last night and although it's amusing to be hit on by someone for twenty years running, he never fails to ask me exactly the same questions, and express exactly the same opinions that no longer interest me. Come to think of it, on the way home to her house C2 mentioned that every single time said banker has ever driven her home he's made exactly the same complaint about the speed-bumps on her street. We had a good chuckle. I suppose though that we should not be surprised with this, coming from a guy with three houses, a chalet and a cottage, and yet who can't be bothered to replace the metallic wallpaper that has been on the walls of the main bathroom in his house since it was trendy in the 1970s. He also did what he always does--stay at a party just long enough and then move on to the next party. He has apparently been in pursuit of a model to marry and, frankly, at least on the basis of his money I really can't imagine why he hasn't managed to snare anyone in his 50 years.

The birthday cake was incredible--a layered mousse confection in the birthday girl's favourite flavour--chocolate orange. The funniest moment of the party came when all of the guests sent the birthday girl into hysterical, weeping laughter by picking on one of her ticks and donning shower caps for the singing of happy birthday (she never travels without them, and asks people to pick them up in hotels for her when they travel--one among many of her charming quirks). Someone had, in fact, made up an A-Z book, complete with photographs, documenting her peculiarities--wish I'd thought of something to roast her with myself, although I know it is my duty to give such a speech if she ever gets married.

OK. That's really it now. I don't know exactly how I am going to be able to make lemons out of lemonade today, but I suppose I should take some steps to proceed.

5:30 p.m. - 2006-06-17

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

previous - next

other diaries:

stepfordtart
ohell
awittykitty
annanotbob
manfromvenus
smartypants
fifidellabon
hungryghost
hissandtell