today seems like a day of trivialities.

of french pastry and mangoes in bed.
of languishing naps in the afternoon.
of kissed scars and bruised secrets.

and perhaps the silliest thing of all, i got a friendster update in my inbox. the kind you get every two seconds and promptly delete. i think i was last properly on friendster somewhere in 2005 , but it was my cousins birthday and i thought i'd drop him a line.

and while i was in , i did something daft. i changed my profile to state "in a relationship". a pointless excersize, possibly even a curse, now a ticking timebomb over this little love affair of mine. but somehow i wanted to see it in print for a minute. to claim him. to declare us. it's nothing really. a pointless act. a silly impulse. frankly i might just go change it back because it makes me uncomfortable, us being out there in that stupid slightly sad context.

uncomfortable. perhaps just a gesture of proper acceptence i've avoided. friday night we were out with a mutal friend and it was weird. that is to say, i was weird. it's still not right; being out in the world and being the us we have cultivated at home. like i don't fit in my skin. feeling watched and judged. and somehow finding the space for the rest of the world in my vision means i lose focus of him and we fall apart. or i walk away, i'm not sure there's a difference.

it's strange it only happens out with friends. sometimes i think we could have sex in front of strangers and i'd be unphased (rest assured, the v is not wholly dead). but somehow people knowing us before means i have trouble being us now. of marking the change. of performing this role for them. for me. for us. that somehow it's none of their buiness. it shouldn't affect my other relationships. it's so apart from the rest of life.

like i am proving there is still a me outside of this. but who am i proving it to?

it's cruel a little i think, being so seperate out there. like i'm hiding. like it isn't a big deal. like it can wait. mostly that i feel so awkward and distance myself for refuge. like i can turn us off. as if being with him is so segregated from my normal life i am incapable of doing both. it's something we still fight about. this otherness of ours. my lack of concern for us when others are about.

and perhaps today i am just deciding, in a virtual tickbox fashion, i want to be there. to be comfortable enough with me and him to exist together. here and now, no matter what the context.

like i say, a trivial thing.

i am going to implode. the amount of information i have consumed in the last 8 hours is folding in on itself and my brain will shortly collapse into a blackhole, sucking up everything in its path.

that said, my first day was brilliant. well terrifying and so incredibly out of my league i dont even know where to begin. the main phoneline doesnt even ring on my desk (the IT guy says I am too important to field calls from the public) and the secretary asks if I need more tea.

i have a beautiful desk (with french windows looking out on trees) and a fabulous assistant (well, he is only partly mine but is fabulous none the less) and you should see our glorious georgian building with gated elevator and cobbled street! not to mention my perfect tweed pencil skirt and wingtip heels.

the job is already a dream and the life that goes with it is so close I can taste it. last night as i drifted off all i could think was how perfect my life was. well, or how perfect it will be when we have a place of our own and i can walk along the river to my wonderful new job and come home to someone who loves me.

suddenly it all seems to fit.

and i know that's naive. and i know you are sick of my gushing. but i dont remember the last time i was happy. was looking forward to something, not just the end of something. ive always been ready to move. to finish. to go. and now i feel like ive arrived. it might only last for a minute, but i am going to enjoy it damn it. and remember what it felt like to be alive.

i have become a domesticated british octogenarian version of my mother.

so i'll give you the little update:

new years has come and gone. we spent it curled up in bed with champagne and cheesecake. it was a shame they cancelled the fireworks here due to destructive weather, but all in all I think it one of one my best in it's simplicity.

i've left my old job (which i could rant on about, but frankly it's over and i am glad) and begin a new one on monday (which i am not really ready to face with all its lifechanging big step exciting terrifying butterflies of death connotations).

so i'm revelling in a long weekend of limbo

this morning liam and i went for tea and scones at a cafe overlooking the castle...and to see a flat. i am not ready to move in together. but still, the temptation of looking in other peoples homes is overwhelming. i love househunting, especially when i have nothing at stake. so we went for the fun of it and found the picturesque riverside cobblestoned village of turreted flats and windowboxes we may someday move into. (good lord don't tell the gradys.)

tomorrow i think will be a jaunt to a watercolour exhibition and possible the shore, fitting for our drippy gray skies and my fluid lackadaisical moods.

and that my friends, is about all i've got. not thrilling, not even news really. but there you go. i'm here. and it's a little bit random and a little bit odd and usually quite scary and weird, and sometimes just so very perfect. and i am okay with that.

some things

so it's been a while.

i know. i got distracted.

and this morning i woke and instead of jumping into the fray of uncertainty, i refused to get out of bed until i'd actively thought through some shit and now i feel better. on this list, with no concern for importance are the following:

- i hate my job
- ergo, i will look for a new one
- i miss school
- therefore, i will pursue the long awaited return to academia. for real.
- (i can't wait)
- i am glad i revamped my fall wardrobe in california with pencil skirts and lace. It's a nice look with tweed.
- i miss home. in a big way. like maybe i won't stay here forever way.
- i kind of have begun a relationship which simultaneously freaks me out, makes me retarded and has the potential to take over my life (in the best and worst senses)
- i am coming to realize i adore him. (not only because he says he will move to boston with me to do my phd.)
- jane eyre part two is airing tonight. things like this make life worth living.
- cheese platters are a new found source of happiness. it's good i am growing out of my food phobias. i ate an olive this weekend, to an aghast liam who lauded my bravery. i ignored the condescention, but welcomed the congratulatory kiss.
- i am coming home for christmas even if it means quitting my job. i'd like to hope by chrismtas i wont be working there anyway.
- i miss my siblings more after i see them.
- i need hobbies. my sanity cant take the silent meaningless tranquility of retail
- i am ready to settle down. not like barefoot with babies or anything (though can it be far off?) but, like, get a job I want to have. for a long time. invest in real estate. buy china. have a life i made, not just floating around. and it really wouldn't hurt if that life had an upper middle class income with a partner, a brownstone, and possibly a volvo.

i am entirely zen. or as close as anyone in a week long stretch of insomniatic bleeding can be i guess.

there is a clarity in the incredibly ludicrous. when you have to distance yourself from the decent into madness for lack of other options. when suddenly you breathe in, blink or otherwise change nothing at all and in that moment see how superfulous its all been. and just laugh.

its a good feeling, this free fall.

and it allows me a minute of quiet - a moment of absolute thoughtlessness.

when you dive in a freezing cold pool and the shock of it overwhelms. when nothing exists but the cold, that's one thing. but when you resurface to the balmy air and suddenly your skin feels alive again, you feel connected. when there is nothing but the whisper of life over every inch of you and there is nothing else but that warmth.

the salisbury steak of life

i am tired a lot.

but only just recently have a hit a level of fatigue that negates all other life.

i am tired of pretend. of everyday taxing. of anticipated monotony.

i don't want this pseudo-life. with will-they-wont-they relationships, and mediocre careers. cute work outfits and wild work nights-out. the routine of disappointment, distraction, and denial.

ready made life packets now available in your grocers fridge. it's so easy, so mouthwatering and tempting. so cheap and lo-carb. promising you can be sated in minutes, the e-numbers veiling the lifelong regrets that will follow.


i have a week off starting tomorrow.

a week on my own. no holiday. no flatmates. just an empty canvas. and i want to come out the other end sure of something.

it might take a spirit guide in the woods goddammit, but i am not going back to that.

i am unwilling to settle.

vie melodien

in the dappled sunlight of my gold coifed room (perhaps we have finally out run the porn dungeon title), i was moved to music this afternoon, and picked up my violin.

an instrument (and object) with which i have had one of the most tumultuous relationships of my entire life, leading to our five year estrangement. a separation i felt compelled to reconcile these last few weeks.

as i opened the ridiculous case, still tattered from tiny locker jams, the complete familiarity and yet entire foreignness of it was overwhelming. it was all there - the massive sponge stain, the fancy import rosin that'd been a christmas gift, the spare Dominant strings in their hideously retro packaging, the suzuki books covered with garish stickers.

i won't pretend i was ever a prodigy. by the beginning of high school i'd given up practicing all together and within two years was relegated to the back of the orchestra with the stoners and dropouts (where a whole different piece of my education began). but even in the later years, in fleeting moments, it was perfect.

the right tune, the right note even, and i could just soar. it was a voice opening in me. an unanswered truth.

sometimes, just for a minute, when playing something breathtaking, i felt whole.

and perhaps it was the fleetness of these moments that pushed me away. my lessons were chunks of prescribed classics chosen for their modal shifts. our orchestral pieces were heavy on cello melody because everyone knew they were the only halfway decent section, and mostly 40 minutes too long for anyone with ears.

and i was uninspired. the one thing it promised seemed to be forever beyond my ability and not even a concern for my teachers.

so i left it. a nostalgic relic, a closed possibility. a dream.

and as i lifted it to my shoulder today, i thought perhaps i should have left it there. to rot in my parents closet.

i am absolutely rubbish. clunky. out of tune. slow. airy. childish.

the hickey on my neck of which i was so secretly proud is long gone, the grooves in my bowfingers filled back in. we no longer fit, my violin and i.

we are like reunited lovers, trying to find where we were. how we were. limbs akimbo. bodies out of joint.

and of course we can't. i am not the same size or shape or player i once was. we'll have to begin again, finding our voice, seeking the sweet spots. retuning ourselves.

it hurts a little the songs i scrape through now are dated in mr. dewey's sharp masculine scrawl '02/25/94'. that i can hear the strength behind notes that come out as whispers makes me wince.

but oh, the promise of that power. that expression is what brought me back. that it's still there, this voiceless singing and challenging flight. the possibility of momentary transcendence.

if i am patient, we can, once again make music.

the best kinds of days are one ones where you wake up the morning after refreshed with grass in your hair and plenty to think about.

liam called it a roller coaster, but then i suppose anyone would after 10 hours in my company. i do a lot of gear changing.

i scare me sometimes and it's really really nice to just be with someone who doesn't mind.

friendom

i'm doing it again. and i am going to stop it this time. i have to.

my whole life i follow a pattern. a curse. a lie. i vividly remember the first time it happened. i was 5.

i meet man/boy. i am amused/charmed/interested but immediately know it is platonic. the first impression of the asexual.

what was a random acquaintence becomes a friend. someone outside my mess. a breath of fresh air.

a friend becomes closer. people joke about how much time is spent together and we both ignore the insuations and laugh with the flippant comments of friends. but its nice to have that even.

somewhere in the joking things get awkward, and we get over it (it usally takes me awhile to not feel scrutinized and you not to feel judged). we maybe even take a step back to assess and readjust to this post-weirdness phase.

and a little part of me is always disappointed.

not that it didn't become love. not that i didn't suddenly wake up and realize this was forever (and equally important, that i want to jump their bones). but that it's the beginning of the end.

that the culitvated intimacy i have so enjoyed isn't going to be enough for you soon.

i can't deny it wasn't like dating without the date. it was all the good bits and none of the mess. it was the niceness and honesty.

and somehow soon it will be wrong of me to want that.

one day, or perhaps phased over weeks, you'll realize you'd rather have someone you can fuck. and i'll slowly fade into the background as nice girls fill my slot for your time and your chat and your lost moments - with the added attaction of sex.

i don't blame them. it's how it works. i wasn't the one (i didn't want to be, but it somehow stings all the same). its okay though. you'll be happier in love. i probably will someday too.

but i really wish there was a man i could be friends with (and not resent it like a girlfriend when he leaves me).

there is no ever after for friends.

revelations from the sickbed

i called in sick to work, something i have never done before.

and i am not, as this may lead you to believe, at death's door. i am not even (strictly speaking) ill.

but for the better part of three days i have been disgusting.

remarkably inconsistent at work and with friends, clumsy to the point of dangerous, depressed, severely cramped, and an insomniac.

at 8am, walking through the sunshine, dizzy, slightly feverish, and on the verge of tears i decided enough was enough. i needed a day where i didnt pretend it was all peachy. i didnt ignore every alarm in my system going off and risk certain death by scissors if allowed near screaming children.

after a nap, some doritos and a morning of absolute silence to sort myself out (from bed and between massive pms groaning of course) i have come to realize some significant things have fallen under the carpet of late it is detracting from my lifestlye enjoyment quotient. they are as follows.

1. i no longer write. six months without my frantic scribbling and two without my journals (of the daily update and emotionally significant kind) have left me bottled, pent, charged, and without recourse to emotional support. it is unnatural.
2. i have not had an original thought or intellectual conversation (and no, post-modern media debates dont count. in shop full of phds without employment it's like breathing). i need stimulus. i need input. i need meaning.
3. and i need a partner. a dependable someone i know will be around. for these types of conversations for mystery science theatre or the opera. i want to stop splintering friends by event and emotional moment and having someones i can handle being me with, whatever that entails.

(4. being left to my own devices can be volatile.)

so i am twenty minutes away from my first business trip.

i have 100 pounds of petty cash, a flight in my name - and other than the passport panic of this afternoon, am quite looking forward to a weekend in london and then a few days in cambridge to myself.

leave it to me to splurge and turn an afternoon meeting into a fullblown mini-break weekend.

but still. i hope the weather is nice. i'd like to bike along the Cam.

sometimes i wonder who's life i am living.

confessions of an intimate and ridiculous nature

i have two confessions.

1 - i believe i may yet be able to count myself normal. i (you may say finally) desire intimacy.

an everyday assurance (for as fleetingly as i can probably maintain it) of making someone pancakes and waking up in the quietude of security. of ups and downs, but the same ride til the end.

i crave togetherness.



2 - perhaps the following is a factor in that confession, though i find it less significant than that implies.

today i slept with one of my friends.

shocker i know. he was drunk, i was tired, and after we went to the movies and had pizza.

he was, of course, the one everybody thought i already had shagged and secretly thinks i will probably end up with - like if this was a rob reiner film. but life just isnt like that, and after sex we don't suddenly realize we are entirely different people.

we are both a-emotional and libidinous, what more did we need than pizza? i said i took advantage of him, and he apologized for getting out of hand. we laughed. a lot. we hi-fived when we parted ways in the end, to mark the occasion.

and quite honestly i am entirely apathethic about the act itself. but it also got me thinking, in that dozing post-coital way, that i really do love the afterglow cuddle part. the part i am always so hasty to be out the door before. the part that i fear will swallow me.

and perhaps serendipitously, having that calm intimacy with someone who already knew me, kind of bridged the gap for me. answered the unasked. my point i guess is that simple act of closeness between people who know each other was really nice. better than i thought (and to be honest, better than the sex).

of course not nice enough i'm going to ever believe in platonic napping with said partner again, but nice enough i'd be willing to really truly give it a go with someone i fancy. that just maybe i am not the fridgid bitch i play on tv.

and sadly, that is a major step for me.



so there you go. you have to fuck someone to find out you don't want them. in fact, you may find out you kind of want to stop fucking altogether and consider using phrases like "making love" and "laughing together" (an ancient african euphemism i rather enjoy) from one accidental tryst with a platonic partner.

lesson of the day: to know thyself, fuck thy friends.

only in my world can this be a legitimate train of thought. le sigh.

new year, same v

it's an hour until new year.

all day i have been considering what this means and for the first time asking myself if i care.

and i have come to the conclusion, no i really really don't.

the last week i spent with the family and rejuvinating my soul (as only slurpees, fallow farmland, and tivo can) and last night was a college reunion of mass proportions (tequila, pool, and over priced bottles of miller light - and there's nothing like cheetos at the travelodge to round out an evening).

i don't need anymore nostalgia or reminding me what is good and what matters. if you're doing it right, that's everyday, not an end of year celebration.

so i've been watching a marathon dvd session on shelly duvall's faerie tale theatre, a formative piece of my childhood, and glad to not be out in the quiet desperation and forced revelry this day usually entails.

probably other people really enjoy it. i hope so. i can't imagine bothering every year unless it actually was a grand night out. but when 2 of the last three years ended in massive tears and a hangover, i'd rather just take my dog for a walk, thanks just the same.

and no, this isn't sour grapes. i figure i'm lucky things are so good i can appreciate it all without a holiday excuse. i don't need new year to celebrate.

so tonight being ice cream and xbox golf with my dad is okay by me. better than okay. i can't think of a better way to ring in the new year.

...well, unless of course i was getting hot dirty sex, but i've got the rest of the year for that. today can be for the simpler pleasures.

so happy new year. enjoy it anyway you see fit.

social resurrection

tis the season to be outrageous.

so in case jennie, my social publicist, has not told everyone i know, yes i am back in the game.


as i was endearingly dressed as lucy from narnia saturday morning (full on pleated skirt, plaited hair, mary janes, mink coat, dagger and vial of holy water - good lord i can make a costume) for the holiday shoppers, a certain scot appeared in my shop wondering if i was free for lunch, as we had tentatively arranged.

de-lucy-ed and sans mink, i am whisked away to a cafe (well within sight of my colleagues, some of whom i know to have a crush on him). and it was surprisingly good. my faith in the dating system (i guess it counts since he paid and i glowed after) is renewed.

of course the fact we can talk about the merits of the mtv mentality, the meaning of fandom and the death of book alongside the glory of peter parker, gay catholicism and theoretical sex with a goat in the span of an hour doesn't so much validate the idea a date can be sane than it reaffirms my utter dorkdom (but geek chicks are hot, or so i heard).

but fuck it.

i had a nice time, he emailed first, and i have caved and bought the magazine he is in (may it never be said i don't fall into petty girl-dom despite my best efforts).