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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Some minor lows and highs

I should write something. I haven't been writing anything!

Things are sort of falling into place.

Oh not at work, rest assured. Such a miracle is still awaited. I've had a better attitude towards it this week, however, so that is a start.

And not with boys, of course, either. I've given up on that one. I'm focusing on the fact that it is nice to be independent.

I did a long run with my new training partner again tonight. That woman is solidly crazy! But it's so good for me - she had me out by 6 and home by 8 and boy do I feel like a million bucks.

I'm stunned by how quickly my body responds to training. Already all of that precious weight gain that I had made to look more womanly is practically gone. I can see my six pack again and my upper back is all muscly. When I stand on my tiptoes I look like a ballet dancer. Oh well. I tried the weight gain thing. My body just has a switch and it's back to faerie. :) To balance it out I figured why not go the whole hog and do some push ups when I got in. So I pushed and then stretched for a half an hour.

So the nice thing about the training is that it is so much fun! We ran up to the arboretum and I convinced my running partner to run with me through the snow. We plowed through and then she was a sport when I told her that I usually run up the big hill to look at the view of the city. So we ran through the snow and up the big hill, and then through the orchards in the snow-light - over to the locks and across and back down the canal. It was soooo nice!

I have this weird, weird, feeling that things are falling into place for a reason - that I'm supposed to run again.

I don't usually think like that but today I am that way. I'm not sure what is happening.

Now don't take the following as me patting myself on the back, but I've been receiving nice compliments lately. Tonight, for example, Amanda said when she was running behind me in the snow, "You're so light on your feet. It's like you're flying."

And in French class yesterday my Monday teacher came in at one point to get a book from my Wednesday teacher. The Monday teacher said about the other guy and I, "They are good students. They work hard."

And then my Wednesday teacher said, "Her French is very good, no?"

!!!

The other teacher had told me this on Monday, and he repeated what he said then: "She speaks very well but she is not sure. She does not have confidence in herself."

Truer words were never spoken.

I've never before been told that I speak French well! I've always felt that my accent is crap. It is true though that it has really been flowing lately. I do not have a particular aptitude for languages, to be perfectly honest. It's nice to hear. My landlord of course says all the time that I am speaking well, but I know he has his eye on other things and so I pay no heed to him.

OK. So those are the small things. Here is the doozy...

I went out with Alex, the poet scientist, on Tuesday night. We had emailed each other about the food bank on Monday and at that time I'd said casually that we should have a drink sometime as we occasionally do. He suggested that we do so at my favourite pub, on Tuesday night.

And here comes the bad part.

At one point he had this weird look on his face and I thought I'd said something weird and...

He came out with, "Sometimes I look at you and think you are the prettiest woman I have ever seen."

UGH.

UGH.

ARGH.

I do not like men who flirt with me when they have a girlfriend.

He didn't say it in a flirtatious way but it should not have been said. It is not good. I want to forget about it. I do not want to make it as though I am trying to make him want to be with me and not her. I want it to stop.

Once I had quickly deflected that remark we were having a rip-roaring good time again. We were talking about poetry and music and I was making him laugh by my reading of some of H0wl. And then we chatted about my annoyance with myself over the fact that I cannot read Spanish and that I think that translations of Spanish into English often just don't seem right. I feel as though the books should be read in the original Spanish. I mostly feel the same way about French books, only not always.

Detour: Speaking of French books, I think I need to buy myself a book of V3rlaine. I haven't stopped thinking about it since my landlord read me a poem about the morning dew, on Sunday.

Leave it to me to fall in raptures with dew. :)

I think that that might be all of the self-congratulation that I can stomach for tonight. I need to be disciplined for a rare change and eat well and prepare to sleep amply for work.

My pink dress still has not arrived. I feel so glowingly interested in inviting colour into every inch of my being in the future that I want to buy a yellow dress and a blue dress and a dress with butterflies.

I was wearing my favourite dress on Tuesday night. It is green. It is a wrap dress that fits me perfectly. It always makes me feel so alive. It is a dangerous dress though. I should have known this. I wear it conservatively with tights and a camisole underneath but still - I look kick-ass nice in that dress. I had rushed from work to the bar without even thinking. From now on I wear jeans and t-shirt with that dude.

Sigh. So that is all. I am hungry. And I am tired. But it's an OK tired. I'm a little worried about work as I haven't been very productive this week, but I'm going to try not to beat myself up.

Oh! I forgot to mention that C. cooked me dinner on Monday and that we skated up the canal to the B@nk street bridge, under which they have placed a display of reproductions of paintings from the National P0rtrait Gallery that the government has delayed opening. (Long story.) This is one of my particular annoyances with the current government. (For political reasons they are pretty much aiming to give the gallery to some Western city that no one ever visits, like Saskatoon. So maybe that was a short story.)

You know, the pictures were very interesting. To my mind they told the story of exactly WHY the gallery should remain in the capital. There are few better ways to tell the history of a country than through stories of the people who did things within it. Most Canadians cannot even name the first Prime Minister. I heard on the radio the other day that a woman in Massachusetts has a card up on ebay that was signed by our first Prime Minister, and that to that point had attracted a bid of only $45.

Oh Canada. Someone paid $2000 for the Montreal snowbank that that other guy had put up for sale. Of course, that ultimately ended up being for charity. :)

So the thing is that there were interesting people documented in this small public exhibit - writers, journalists, prime ministers, ladies of the colonial gentry.

Probably the most interesting one was one of a painting in a series that is believed to be one of the first series to have been painted of North American indians and from life.

I pointed out to C. to look at that painting and then to look at the ones of the European landed gentry couple from the same period that were stuck on the wall beside it. He still couldn't see the difference. DUH! The indian had a head the size of a pea and the Europeans had giant melon heads.

Lots and lots to learn about the distortions of history and "culture" from the portraits, I say. And the best place for them is in Ottawa where the infrastructure to properly maintain, restore and display them exists. Not to mention the tourists - both international and school tour groups who come here on the inevitable high school trip to learn about how badly we are governed...I think I'm going to have to write to the old muffinhead's minotaur of culture to..no avail.

And then we skated back home down the canal and the wind was against us and poor C. the rather novice skater was sort of complaining and struggling. It was good for him, though. :) I'm going to make a rugged Canadian lumberdude out of him yet. I do love my C. friend so much.

OK. I'll go now. Oh no, no I won't. Another, embarrassing thing happened today: Some guy from my old department called up to offer me a job. Someone had written to a guy I used to work with and asked if he knew anyone who is a good programmer and could handle a massive project to allocate projected moneies under federal-provincial agreements and who could do such and such else. And the guy had told the guy, "I know a girl who is super smart and who is a brilliant writer, too. She might not be ready to leave Line Dance, though."

I couldn't believe it. Unfortunately, I had to turn the job down. It just would be crazy making to leave this job so soon. It wouldn't be fair to my boss and it would just be wrong. I must give it the good old suffer for another 10 months at least. It's just the way things are. My desire was bleeding through the phone for that job though. It would have been at a higher salary, too. But what I'm taking from this is this: There will be a way out when the time comes.

10:26 p.m. - 2008-02-07

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