Life's little questions...

Why are men so much better at air guitar than women?
We get more practice!

Genre

I realise, going through a recently downloaded Hoobastank album, that there is something about this genre that intimately describes the period of my life I spent with David. I dont' really know how that works.

The self-conscious pseudo-rock, somehow striving to remain authentic through the barrage of record contracts, massive stadium shows and airplay on The Edge. Nickelback, Hoobastank, Staind, Audioslave, 3 Doors Down, Finger Eleven... the list goes on. Strange.

Purple Highlighters

Bob Seger is my current kick. I've run out of purple highlighters as well, which means tomorrow there's a trip into town to pick up some more, a nice excuse to stop by G's on my way through town. I feel like we don't see each other anymore, but that's just because we practically lived together during the break.

Today I started thinking about how fast these terms go by, and how soon I will be saying goodbye to these people. The thought of starting over again is somehow ridiculous to me, that once Oxford empties the city will no longer be mine. Do I really want to come back to a ghost town for my DPhil? Do I like this bizarre non-place enough to fill it again? Propagate the strange depths of its lanes and college-lined streets? What would this year have been without the hockey girls, and surely, without them, this place will be empty. These are not things to consider now, tired, with a pile of reading and things to finish. Just write the proposal so you can go to bed. What slips through my cracks when other things take priority?

And my fingers itch to text. Fidget through these twisted words and tense upon the keyboard, straining for the phone. Silence. Dammit hold your tongue. I never could tell myself what to do, but this time, this time I know what is best. I am in control here. Tomorrow is Thursday. First week halfway through. Third Term. Hockey finished. Off the gossip train, with nothing more to find.

Oxford has peaked, hit its zenith and now turns downwards, arcing through rising summer skies and the warm sunshine during my walk of un-shame this morning. And the zen of moving from city to city has worn thin around the edges, and his arm around my waist last night anchored me to the sidewalk, my feet carrying through familiar motion. Do I want him? Or what he means: some sense of stability in this whirlwind. The next week brings visitors from my past, from previous lives in other cities, their colour in my memories washed thin, the haze of time. And in six months Oxford will be just that, memories and words, the smell of kebab vans at night, the deafening chatter of ice rink nets at one thirty in the morning, the yellowed stone down every turning lane, a city of gates and forbidden doorways. Do I know this place? Not a chance. I fell into such a lovely rut that I can't bear to leave it. And perhaps I want to stay, but come December I will think better of it.

This place was empty when I arrived and look what it has become. Could I be so lucky on a second time around?

Stood alone on a mountain top,
Starin’ out at the great divide
I could go east, I could go west,
It was all up to me to decide
Just then I saw a young hawk flyin’
And my soul began to rise
And pretty soon
My heart was singin’

Roll, roll me away,
I’m gonna roll me away tonight
Gotta keep rollin, gotta keep ridin’,
Keep searchin’ till I find what’s right
And as the sunset faded
I spoke to the faintest first starlight
And I said next time
Next time
We’ll get it right

- Roll Me Away, Bob Seger

Comments

"So are you some full couple now?"
"No, not some full couple, jeez."

Huh, even as I said this I wondered what exactly we were. Sure, it hadn't been discussed, but as we said goodbye he smiled, held me close and kissed me. "I've got football tonight, but can I see you tomorrow?" As if the asumption was that barring football, he would see me tonight if he could. And so, unable to broach this topic with him, I consulted my best available sources.

"I don't know what to call him, to be honest, I mean, is he my boyfriend? I don't know."
"Yes, but given that you've seen him three times in the past three days and are seeing him tomorrow and probably Friday, I don't think you would be out of line in calling him your boyfriend."
"Sure, but its too soon to have a boyfriend out of this. This all just happened so fast."
"Nah, I mean, wasn't that fast, ok sure the relationship part was, but the rest of it was pretty even."
"Sure, you're right."

Hmmm, I'm still not so convinced.

"So what, you saw it all, give me the perspective from the outside."
"Well, we talked about it on the way home from the club, the body language, the way he kissed you hello when he arrived... he's clearly smitten with you."

Well, nobody likes to argue with that.

And today its sifting through articles and abstracts, trying to send off an essay I'm unhappy with and finish up enough so I can see him tomorrow night before my week of visitors. I have a mattress to follow up upon and furniture rearrangement to plan. I have articles to read and negotiations to prepare for. But I can't help but wonder if getting off the gossip wagon will make me boring... hopefully not for a while. That's a new criteria to add to the list: helping to keep things as interesting as they would be without him.

Shutting Up

I talk too much. Sometimes I have to forcibly shut my mouth. Those of you who know me will know this, and hopefully find it somehow amusing/appealing/endearing enough to continue to know me. I do try, know this if you know anything, I do try.

And as I grow older and think more about change, personal change, and try to decide what about myself is worth agonizing over, I keep coming back to my incessant talking.

Over the past half decade I have come to terms with various parts of myself that I once wished would change. From superficial to super-secret, I came to that moment where I would smile, hug that little personality-deformity close to my intimately self-aware breast and tell it that it was ok just the way it was. Validating as this procedure is, it can walk a knife edge between self-acceptance and gratuitous inability to change. Let me elaborate.

There is, of course, no joy in changing constantly. Whether you change to please society, please your parents, your lover, your friends, yourself. It is very difficult to be a happy, self-confident human being if you are always looking at yourself from a fix-it perspective. So you decide that life is too short and that you are ok being 150 lbs, insecure, sometimes emotionally needy, occasionally sharp-tongued and hopelessly awkward with men who intimidate you for no good reason. All this and more, becomes more than ok, it becomes a little piece of self that I cling to like a liferaft. This is me! All these little things that I once wished away! My enjoyment of Star Trek, my obsession with child-like wonder, the tiny habits that we hope one day will be loved by someone else because they make us who we are.

Back to the talking. Of course when I start to get involved with someone it is inevitable. Joking, and always in good fun, I can't help but hear that little comment about me always talking talking talking that I stop to wonder if I should try to shut up. And so I do, but its not who I am, and invariably it comes back around to me, talking talking talking. This time around though, I seem to have found someone who reciprocates, at least more than certain individuals in the past, and perhaps that means that I will actually learn to shut up for a while, because someone else will be filling the space between silences.

The point of all this came up last night when I joked that giving head was difficult for me because it meant I couldnt' run my mouth off. I got a laugh at this one, and silently smiled inside, holding my chattiness close and then closing my mouth, asking him questions, and letting him talk talk talk.

Home sweet home

I'm back, back in Oxford, back in gossip, back in friends, back in schoolwork, and it feels fan-tastic.

It was great to get away, escape, pull a little 'out of sight, out of mind' on my life here, but alas, nothing good (or bad) lasts forever, and so here I am, 9am, SSL, cubicle, running one sentence in my introduction over and over in my mind until it sounds just right. I have failed on my last few attempts, so a break was in order. Break to write. Oh how much is there to say?

G was right, I am far too pessimistic sometimes, but we all try to protect ourselves. Much as I'd convinced myself that he wasn't replying out of dislike, that voice inside my head somehow knew what was meant to happen. Keeping in the bad-crazies (or even some of the good ones) is all I'm worried about right now.

Its almost as if there is nothing to say about this, it seems to work through itself carelessly. For the first time I think I feel 'zen' about a man, that he is as interested as I am. And sure, sometimes I think how little I care, and other times I wonder if I'm in this too far, but mostly it just rides along nicely, and I think about how much fun we have and how much I want to see him tonight, and how it would be ok if I didn't see him for a while. Only not.

I have too many houseguests expected in the next few weeks to take this easy, since I won't be able to spend four hours curled up in his arms, nursing a hangover, when I have friends in town. Although I'm totally looking forward to my visitors.

So what do I want right now? Ideally, today I will finish my paper (looking likely) and get a good start on some things for my dissertation (a little less likely, but possible). Then I will go home and perhaps go to the gym (unlikely) followed by hockey-initiation for the man. We'll see how it all goes.

100th Post

I suppose its something to celebrate, and although I've fallen short of last year's word count by a significant amount, I'm still going. Its Sunday afternoon and in ten hours I'm overnight bussing to an airport where we'll catch a few hours of sleep before winging south. Spain is my next stop, I must say its hard to be excited about in an emotional sense. Mentally I am looking forward to it.

I missed him then on Friday, and slowly my self-assurance faded away into pessimism. By the time night fell I was sure I had read things all wrong. Down to G's for dinner and discussion, we ended up through two bottles of wine and down familiar steps to underground madness. Turned into quite the fabulous night, with two hilarious running jokes coming out of it. Transcribed here for my own posterity:

Guy - Do you live here?
G - Yes. I live on this couch. This is my bedroom.
Guy - Um... Really?
G - Yes, you are in my bedroom. Please get out.

And, my guide to getting rid of sleazy men who won't stop touching you on the dance floor, no matter what you say or how evil you look.
Guy - *attempts some come on*
C - I don't think that my boyfriend would appreciate me dancing with another guy
Guy - *continues to attempt come on, doesn't get a hint*
C - Um... go away
Guy - *somehow thinks this means 'please touch me' and does so*
C - *convinced this man is slow in the head* Don't touch me. If you want to lose something this is a good way to go.
Guy - *backs off but forgets twenty minutes later after attempting to pick us up in the toilets, and returns to touch some more*
C - Ok Muffin. What part of 'Fuck Right Off' do you not understand?! I will literally break your shit OFF if you ever touch me again.
Guy - *turns to his friend as if to say, 'what's up with that girl? Jeez' and continues to dance like an idiot, watching G and I to see if we're lesbians and if we were going to make out, because of course that's the ONLY reason to explain why we didn't want to kiss him or his nasty friend*
We didn't.

Surprising about all this was how, despite regular use of the 'my boyfriend' line to discourage unwanted suitors, it was the mouthing of that word that got my mind racing. I actually wanted it to be true, and after his vague comments discouraging me from picking up any Spanish men, I wondered if perhaps that was where things were going.

And since then I've vacillated, between security and insecurity, nonchalant and neurotic. After my early night was interrupted by a long(ish) text message signed with a kiss, I couldn't help myself when the big smile crept across my face. Right now I can't wait to see him again, and luckily for me I get to spend the interim fortnight in the sunshine!

Adios!

Getting down to the wire

Word Count rounded out at 3900 and I exhaled, pushed the no-longer-straight hair out of my eyes and rolled backwards over this substandard desk chair. The light outside tricked me, it was after six. My back hurt.

Certain, as usual, that I had birthed an essay-child that was part devil-spawn and part of last night's vaguely recollected dream, I closed Microsoft Word and EndNote, both pirated, and distracted myself through the facebook and quiet strains of Wheat Kings and Bobcaygeon. I contemplated fixing my id3 tags and setting up itunes again. Busywork for the anal and easily distracted. Shook off exhaustion, having been awoken from my hour-long snooze-button-pressing ritual by a handyman coming to measure Elizabeth's curtains. She would be happy to hear it was done.

Looked back over my day. My night. I closed my eyes and allowed my neuroses to wash over me, for the first time I could separate them from reality, those misguided goings-on of my overactive inner world. And so I entertained them, built them up from small rivulets of insecurity into torrents of self-doubt, and let them run through my mind unhindered. Yes I had seen him again, of course. Now second-guessing, I stand firm by the sense I had when he left last night, a subtle feeling of security, awash with contentment, certainty and the smile he left on my lips. Playing words back through my mind and over sound waves, vibrating up from my shivering throat and down again through tiny bones. For all my cynicism and bitter posturing, I did feel like my luck was finally changing, and knew it was his luck as well. The latter being the only sign that I was still, somewhere behind the smitten hope, myself.

My mind more acute, the inner voices persistent and closely heeded. I tried to disengage from the sensation of warmth that had seeped into my body over the previous hours, that left my hands shaking from more than hunger. I stepped softly, gently, back into my own skin and lay down alone. But as I wrapped myself around pillows and wandered towards sleep, I placed my hand across his chest and sighed.

First Dates

It was warmer than I'd expected last night. Spent the evening distracted from my surprising nervousness by episodes of bad teen drama and fortified by a strong drink, my hands stopped shaking long enough to perfectly straighten my hair. Dressed slowly. Choose everything carefully, meticulous to keep me from thinking about the night. Playing Saturday over in my head. I exhaled and locked the door behind me.

Down the road and I could see him through the window, head bent, reading. His presence surprised me, despite my best efforts I was two minutes late at most. He had told me that he was always late and I smiled. Stood, an awkward hug, and left to get me a drink. I sat down and steadied myself.

The night went well, relatively smooth, and while not the best first date I've ever had, it was a far cry from the worst. A few lulls in conversation, as one could expect between relative strangers who spent almost twelve hours in bed together on the weekend. This seems the story of my life... flashback to some time last week, coming out of the library and running into my erstwhile one-night-shared-stand, awkwardly talking to him because we both felt we should talk, even though we had nothing to say to each other and nothing shared really except my moment of self-destruction and a certain someone. Anyways. The point is that I thought it was all going well, until he muttered what every potential lover/girlfriend/insert-relationship-term-here hates to hear: "I need to talk to you."

So back to my house where we sat in separate chairs and talked. He opened badly, "I don't want a relationship." Flashback to January, sitting on separate chairs with McGill and hearing the same phrase. The voice in my head piped up through my mouth, "so do you mean 'I don't want a relationship' or 'I don't want a relationship with you." His answer wasn't clarifying the situation, 2nd mistake, and I chose not to pursue it. See how it went. So we chatted out the details, which boiled down to his discomfort and conflicting desires: to be 'good' in every sense - sorry sweetie, after Saturday, that one's off the table. And you didn't want to pretend it never happened. I told him as long as he was honest. Honestly, he'd had a good time and wanted to see me again before he left town, but probably couldn't stay at mine. I cut the bullshit (hats off to Krista) and leveled with him. I understood completely, but wouldn't mind if he stayed for a little while. He said he really wanted to... the voice in my head reminded me, what man turns this down? But we didn't, and it was my responsible reminding at that.

So we'll see. I have a feeling that I'm feeling I shouldn't get my hopes up, but perhaps that's just my inner cynic finally kicking in (nods to DPG, perhaps I can guard myself after all, it just took years of emotional beatings). I have hopes. He's sweet and quite funny, and noticed the way I held my beer like a child... which in and of itself is a reason to see him again.

On a side note, had a totally bizarre dream that involved the apocalypse, my brother, and stealing walkie talkies from stores before the shit really hit the fan (shit in the context of the end of the world being roaming gangs of toughs out to steal our canned goods)... also something about hiding from someone and driving off into the night. I had an overactive subconscious.

Thoughts

I know, I know, so don't say it. I should be working. But briefly.

I read epics about the world going to hell in a handbasket, about the impending apocalypse, about doom and gloom. About people who have no way out.

I talk to myself when writing, when trying to organize thoughts in my own head. A recent gem: "Damn you Myers, I'm sure this is all repeated verbatim in the other two, so I can just split them up, waste of time, damn repetitive bastard."

I went upstairs to put my laundry in the drier. Checked the label to see if it should be dried. Made in Bangladesh.

I came back down and stared at the photocopied pages, the words on my screen. Fifteen million people? Its just a number. They are real people, maybe one of them made the shirt that I've just hung on my windowsill to dry in the sunshine half a world away.

Lost Weekend

So I spent all day Friday writing. Real responsible of me. About a quarter through this thing, and hoping to be another quarter through by tonight. So far its not going as quickly or smoothly as I would have liked, but any minute now things should pick up. After I'm finished posting of course.

Friday night I had the distinct pleasure of moonlighting (literally, the ice was at midnight) for the Vikings, giving a little D support in what proved to be a bit of a scrappy game. Only the no-nonsense reffing kept things calm, and by the end of the game the jackass who had tried to fight me in the first period managed to apologize. That's great buddy, next time lay off the testosteronies... I think they thought I was a boy or something. Rather than going home when things wrapped up, we retired to a Cowley basement to catch the Canucks game. Alas, NASN had scheduled baseball instead (and I ask you, what kind of person can actually stay awake at 4am to watch baseball?!) so we smoked and popped in the Mighty Ducks. Needless to say, it was a late night, and I dragged my slightly stoned ass home through the quietest streets I had ever seen in this city, birdsong following my footsteps, and fell into bed just past six.

Slept until eleven then decided it wasn't enough, and slept a little more. Which meant there would be no essay work done on Saturday, especially since I had to be out of the house at three or so. Oops.

And off into the sunshine, spring having finally arrived. Even as I write this I wish I was outside, the sun is dappling my keyboard and the papers strewn around me. This restless desire to wander in springtime is mitigated by my knowledge that I have nowhere to wander. This is not home, there is no beach, no forest, no beautiful green neighborhoods, no gentle wind with a hint of the ocean. All winter, Vancouver was a rainy afterthought, but now that the weather here has brightened, I am all too aware of what I'm missing. The pictures on my wall taunt me.

Saturday evening of making single-service friends and wishing for things I didn't have, Saturday night coming out through the rain long enough for us to migrate around the puddles. By the time we'd left the bar, my enthusiasm and verve had slipped, six hours drinking had made me shifty and melancholy, the strangers I knew for moments were strangers again. So I begged off through his kind words and encouragement, thinking how I was a month too late, and berating myself for not acting on things when I'd had the chance. It was his birthday after all. Walked lonesome off of Cornmarket to find G and some solace.

I know she is reading now, and my words are distracted. This post is strangely lengthy as well, I apologize. Regardless, she amped me up with absinthe and held me up as we moved back out into the Night. I have no idea how I found these friends in such a short time here. Forced back, and I don't even recall how it happened, I had ruled him out after too many drinks and miscommunication. Reflecting, I wonder if he had been thinking of it since that night when he walked me home and I had told him off. As DPG would later point out, there's nothing like calling a guy an arrogant cock to make him interested.

Even the next morning, his sober words repeated the same desires, and as he opened the door to lead me down the stairs, his hand stretched backwards, open, palm upwards. Surprised at the gesture, I gave in, and held on so gingerly to something that I hadn't possessed since JJ had left me in Montreal. That smile is still on my lips, that kiss, and even if it ended there, it was worth it. And upon reflection, this is why I keep going back, because it is always worth it.