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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I have a headache and I dread having a shower as it takes such effort to condition and comb through the rats nest of my damaged hair...

Extremely interesting. As in "blow your mind" interesting. I'd just never thought of it. Funny that I didn't read that article in the QJE.

So I'm feeling guilty. I'm feeling that I'm not DOING enough with my life. Comme d'habitude.

I know that I've talked about this many, MANY times before, but as I was cleaning this morning I realized that I really need to get on the issue of properly organizing my apartment. (Just as an example of my sloth.)

I don't have enough shelving and there are many boxes still lingering in my bedroom. Actually, honestly, my bedroom is that of someone who just moved in. And even my living room could use some work. I need some additional bookshelves that will fit the space; I still need a sofa to replace one of the armchairs.

I know that I probably shouldn't be so hard on myself, but I'm lazy when it comes to my space. My head is still in student-land, I suppose. And my apartment is sufficiently angular, with low sloping ceilings, that any purchases that I might make would probably be uniquely stuited to the space. Is it a valid excuse to say that I will buy appropriate furniture in two years or so when I am able to purchase a house?

Probably not.

I'm lazy, as I noted above. Or maybe I'm simply non-committal.

Funny thing is that Larry has a very neat, well-decorated apartment--he was incredibly critical of my lack of order and decoration. And yet he has a commitment problem in relationships. Heck, he has massive communication problems that will prevent him from ever being able to settle down.

I must stop writing about Larry. But he enters my thoughts so frequently. And mostly because I'm trying to work out why on the one hand I know that he would bore me to tears as a partner, but that I can't quite forget something so warm and gentle about him and that I've rarely seen.

Silly. And don't worry--I really would never want to be with him again. I would never do it.

So enough of that. So I'm feeling lazy, as though I'm not doing enough. I need to sign up to be a permanent volunteer with either the literacy people or with a seniors' centre. I have so much difficulty deciding between them! And I truly do not have the time to do both. As guilty as I feel for not accomplishing much in my life, I do respect my need to take time to be quiet, reflective and ALONE to regroup. It's just who I am. And it always will be.

Otherwise though I was thinking at the coffee shop yesterday that I need to find a way to make more girlfriends. I hope that my running club will furnish this for me, although I don't really want obsessive compulsive girlfriends who will largely view me as competition. I've been there before and it was not a fun time. It was awful, actually. Speaking with J. about the Vancouver group last weekend I remembered the positive traits of each of those women. Reflecting back though I know that they made me miserable; they were often quite territorial and so cruel.

I've never dealt with competition or cruelty very well. Even as a little girl I would leave the playground and go to play by myself in the grove of trees by the side of the school yard. If possible, I'd slip through the trees to the park on the other side and I'd imagine that I was there flying a kite with my dad, as we'd do on weekends.

In those days the teachers didn't watch kids very closely when they were at play; they didn't need to.

So I guess the question at hand is to what degree should one accept loner behaviour as simply a part of one's personality, and to what degree should one actively, consciously work to fight this tendency? (I know, I know, the answer is to tinker towards an equilibrium at which contentment is enhanced and not diminished--the elusive "optimum.")

I raise this point in part because I miss having girlfriends. I have a half dozen or so, really, and they are scattered all over the globe. Each of these relationships is very deep and enduring. In truth, that's pretty much how I do relationships in general. All of the nice connections, if not deep, fall away. Those with the women at my last job, for example. I liked them very much and indeed I will probably stay in touch with the girl who is finishing up at Oxford. But will they ever be significant in my life again?

Probably not.

But I do have one wonderful girlfriend here in Ottawa: Ava. Our friendship crossed the threshold from pleasant and light to solid and intimate at some point this year. Prior to last September when she was constantly trying to set up lunch with me I thought of her as "Mike's wife." I liked her but found it a bit of work to have a long conversation with her.

I need to remind myself that one needs to put in work; one needs to put in the time to allow the seedling of a friendship to grow. It takes a long time for the interesting bits of a person's character to be revealed. Genius, as they say, is in the minute particulars. :)

So I'm not really making my point. At all. My point is that I was sitting on the patio in the sun at the coffee shop yesterday, reading the paper, and tidbits of conversations were filtering into my awareness. There were a few boring, weakly- conversational couples. There was a pair of girls who were discussing the purchasing of a condo and who had clearly just come from a yoga class.

And there was a pair of women whose conversation gradually caught my attention. They were bright and witty and pleasant-seeming. They were the kinds of girls whom I'd love to know. Seems they were lawyers of a kind, though I'd forgive them that. :) If I'd had more courage I would have asked to join them. But I didn't.

So if the men in this town are wishy-washy--and I've heard repeatedly from colleagues that bright, interesting and single women far exceed males in the same category in this town--the women might not be. I need to figure out how to become acquainted with some of these women. :)

When I lived in Canberra on a passing whim I joined a flim society at the National Archives. It was fabulous--such a great mix of people with respect to ages and interests.

I need to find the equivalent in Ottawa. I have a strong feeling that the running crew will be great but not a "friends" group. I simply do not want my life to be ruled by running, riding, racing, and talking about the foregoing.

About the poetry/readings group again I'm not sure. I found the people a bit too predictable. Nice but predictably boxed in by one philosophy. Example: When the reading writer of the day approached Alex and I and he modestly explained that he likes to write poetry but that he's really a scientist by day...the conversation that ensued was extremely frustrating. For some reason, the people couldn't understand--make the leap to think it possible--that one of the things that he likes about science IS its creativity.

He had to repeat the point a few times, although he was too polite to push it when the blank stares persisted.

I knew exactly what he meant. When I'm trying to figure out a new way to approach a problem in economics I rely heavily on my willingness to explore and make seemingly ridiculous connections between things. I'm no genius, but I've always liked that line about genius (Einstein?) that says that most people follow the same path up a mountain as others and try to take the path a little bit further (totally valid), but that geniuses will mount a different mountain and attempt to shine a light on the summit of the other from this different vantage point.

Whether or not true, I don't see the harm in the expression. It's rather poetic.

But poetry in itself is ultimately significantly ordered and mechanical. Sure, good poetry transcends order with something magical. But I don't see how creativity and regularization are mutually exclusive.

I'm babbling nosensically. Blame it on the unnourished effort that I expended on cleaning my apartment this morning, after Cindy called to wake me at 8:47 a.m. (She KNOWS that I stay up late on Saturdays and that I like to sleep in and yet she must always selfishly wake me up...)

Sigh.

I watched a peculiar movie last night: Ging3r and Cinammon. It was a trifle about an Italian woman who goes on vacation with her 14 year-old neice who (the latter) desperately wants to lose her virginity. The movie was fluffily amusing at best, but I give the movie points for the most surprising reunion of lovers: in a non-musical they broke into song and did a dance routine on a bus.

I must plan such a thing in the event that Larry and I ever reconcile.

Or not. :)

Honestly, if Larry and I were ever to reconcile, the world will have reached such a fever pitch of unreality that I would expect all of the other clients of Starb-cks--for it would have to take place there, given his habits--to break into song and dance. With props.

I think that today I'll read Proust. I don't know why; it's just what I feel like doing.

Today I miss my friend Kat in Australia acutely. She's an artist. A sculptor, in fact. When S and I broke up I would retreat for the occasional weekend in her Paddington studio. We first met in London. She has a beautiful soul. We used to swap books--I'd ship favourites overseas to her.

Life gets busy and distances seem to grow, sadly.

Were she here, I know she'd just go ahead and shave my head for me. :) Ava'd like to do the same but she is too timid. ;)

My new driver's licence arrived today and I do, indeed, have a picture that reveals a helmet of red hair. Ugh. :)

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but our DL's are stupid. The back of my license still lists my height when I was 16. I'm now more than two inches taller.

Another thing about girlfriends. It's funny how girlfriends just *get* what you're thinking. One of the things that Cindy called about is a piece in the weekend globe about the places around Paris in which R3noir did some of his early landscape pieces (and that now are more urban and not wooded, idyllic places). (There's an exhibition of Renoir's landscapes starting at the Nat Gall3ry in a week.) She knew that having read that yesterday I needed to be reminded that I need to take the time to do art. She wanted my take. In truth, I'd read the piece and had a long, long pang of desire--and wondering if I'm doing what I should be--to live in Europe and do the art that I've always wanted to do...Funny, that.

I enjoyed this on Ytube yesterday.

10:56 a.m. - 2007-06-03

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