Merry Christmas!

It's just past midnight so is now Boxing Day here. In Denver it's 6:30 Christmas morning so there are little kids waking up their parents all over town to see what Santa brought them. I had a day of delightfulness, good food, beauty, laughter, and none of the usual family weirdness that usually goes with having a holiday meal at someone else's house. Or, actually, the weirdness was there, they were all just fantastic at hiding it - I got all the good stories afterwards.

The whole weekend I've been filled with warmth and beneficence and all the good feelings that are supposed to go with the holiday. So, wherever you are, I hope you are feeling it too.

Merry Christmas, and bring on 2007!

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Tonight someone asked me to send him a link to my blog. I had a look at this one and thought, hm, no, don't think so (it's sort of bad form to send one boy a link to a blog where all you talk about is another boy, right? especially if it's a boy he knows?). He might Google me and find it anyway (hi, Ed, if so), but I thought, nah. Too 17-year-old-girl's-diary in here lately.

So I sent him the link to Ellen Watson Part 1 instead. And then went and had a look at that, and found it just as embarassing. All I talked about was trips, food and wine. Was I really that shallow? I didn't seem to have a thought in my head about anything back then. I suppose I was preoccupied with finding work, which can give you a narrow focus. And things were probably already bad with "Witlof" and me, so I was going all dead inside and not getting any support or stimulation or acknowledgment of my mind and thoughts. And it was the cleaned-up Christmas letterish blog that I felt comfortable sending to Mom and Aunts and Uncles and work colleagues, so of course it doesn't go into as much emotion and rawness as I tend to do here. But even so. Was I really that boring?

It is very instructive to look at it now, especially after spending a whole fabulous day with all my favorite people in Sydney, talking about all the big philosophical topics and quite a few of the smaller ones, and feeling feelings and being honest and trying to do things that are of significance. I think I am a much better person now than the one who listed all the wines by name that she drank in the Hunter. I think I am much more living as my true self. I am positive that I am doing much more good in the world. I am so grateful to Philorum, and to these people. I have quite a bit to be thankful for, this Christmas season.

Boys, Boys, Boys

The horoscope has been saying that almost all my planets are in the House of Love. I'm getting attention directed my way again from several sources - including one of the old ones who's recently broken up with his girlfriend. I've been staying up too late waiting for emails and playing with the Mystic Medusa Oracle and trying to figure out what to do - feeling this lust and drive and desperation, but also fear and reluctance and backward-looking pining for What Once Was.

Tonight I had a drink with a former work colleague who is now becoming more of a friend (and a magnificent person she is, too), and she said a very insightful thing about the Polyamorous One. I told her that in contemplating the various possibilities, he's the only one I know I feel the feelings for - I have doubts about all the others. She said that his reticence about his biography might be why I feel that way - since he's a man of mystery it's easy to fill in the gaps myself, and that might be why I'm drawn to him.

I bought him a Christmas present, it's actually a thank-you for running the philosophy group and all it's meant to me this year (it saved my life, actually), and today, after receiving an email from him saying it's been a long time since we had a good philosophical discussion, he hoped we could do it again soon, I asked if we could get together so I could give him this thing, maybe Wednesday evening? I got back the same reply I always get back from him when I invite him to anything outside the formal schedule, "Can't do Wednesday but yeah, maybe, sometime, sounds good, I'll have to see."

I'm sorry, that is high-school, manipulative, he's-just-not-that-into-you, arrogant, rude bullshit. I was about to write an angry email back saying don't play games with me buddy, you're interested or you're not, just tell me, god damn it, but then thought, I'm sure he gets those all the time. Reels women in by hiding so much and being so attentive, but then eludes their grasp and gets from them these outbursts which are just evidence of his power and passion. Probably reels men in that way too! Everyone seems a bit dazzled by him. So instead I just said, see you at the next formal thing, then. And I have decided I will not ever ask for anything more ever again.

Because it's so clear to me tonight - it's suddenly evident that because he holds back all the facts about his life (and self and history and personhood), he is just imaginary. Worse than that - he's a mirror. When he talks to you he just reflects you back to yourself. And I gazed into that mirror and fell madly in love. How embarassing! I feel egotistical (caught out in my egotism) and stupid and ashamed.

I will still give him the present, because I am still grateful for the institution and what it's done for me, but I will not any more swoon over this false philosopher. As god is my witness, I swear that I am going to out and meet a real man, an actual human man, and try to get to know him, and interact with other actual people and not figments of my own imagination.

Damn it.

Shiva energy

This morning I was at the Art Gallery selling tickets to the Goddess exhibition, and although the tills were pretty quiet, there was full-on commotion the whole morning. It was probably compounded by the position of the desk for this show, right under the steps and on the way to the loos, so you see everyone who comes past, for whatever reason.

There was the usual huge busload of tourists who tried to march past the till and into the door, a few times I had to suspend serving the person in front of me to go over and stick a firm arm out and say, "Excuse me!"

There were also lots of young, loud, shabbily dressed people, but none of them were buying tickets. One group in particular was quite boisterous and kept coming up and down the stairs. Three very young lads, probably high school or early Uni, all sort of tall and fit and handsome, but just going off with exuberance. In the end they posed for a group photo under the Goddess sign, saying, "Good times, good times," and said some funny and friendly things to us, but then bounded up the stairs and were off. And I worked it out then - Homebake. A big all-day rock festival, featuring all Australian artists, was happening just across the road in the Domain, and people were coming in to use the loo. That's what brought these young art lovers inside. And their high spirits were probably not the uplifting quality of the works around them, they were probably E'd out of their minds. Harmless, though. But just in case they weren't, we noticed cops going back and forth to the loo all morning as well.

And then, a bit later when I was on the desk by myself, there was all sorts of commotion in the staircase above me. Girls this time. I heard them say, "Yes, you've got it, that's beautiful," and "Release that shiva energy!" A man stopped at the bottom of the stairs and was looking up in amazement, and said, "I just can't believe you can do it." I didn't go up to look because I wanted to guard my tills, but eventually the ladies came down and I saw what was happening. They were three American tourists - really, really American - who were doing yoga poses in front of the signs and taking pictures. The sign in the stairwell had a poem about shiva energy. The one down by us said "Goddess" in big gold letters, so they got that one as well. One woman did a pose where you grab your foot behind you and bring it up equal with your head. Then two of them did handstands (or sort of forearm stands) and touched their feet together above their heads - I had to help spot for that one because they couldn't get their feet to touch. Finally the whole group of three did standing poses and I took some photos. To get the positions just right, one would yell out to the other, "Melt your heart! Melt your heart!" the exact same way that Jane Fonda used to yell out "Feel the burn!" in her aerobics tapes. It was a huge commotion - shoes kicked off in the corner, camera flash going madly, bodies upside down and contorting and tipping everywhere. But they were having such a great time, capturing the memory of their trip, and it was all so much in the spirit of the show that everyone just smiled indulgently and let them go ahead.

So there you go. Live in high spirits (but go easy on the E's). Melt your heart! And release the shiva energy.

still up...

Thursday night now and not much better. Last night I was awake until after 4:00, and didn't get to work until 11. Today I felt the effects of sleep deprivation during the day, and was positively nauseous by about 6pm, but, again, here I am.

I was making some progress toward getting to sleep tonight but then, inner city living being what it is, I heard a loud crash outside (still can't work out what kind of crash it was, not a car sort of sound, more like heavy furniture falling over), and then I heard a man moan, twice, and I remember thinking, well, it's not a distressed moan, it's a drunk moan, but then like two minutes later an ambulance arrived, and then a cop car, and they both parked right outside my window with all their flashing lights on, so no chance of sleeping then.

I wasn't sure of the protocol - should I stay inside because it's none of my business in the big city, or should I go out and talk to the cops and find out what happened, as a concerned neighbor? On Mort St I would have gone out. Well, that's not true, once our next door neighbor there had a heart thing and there were two ambulances parked in the street, and I noticed but didn't go out, and later when he was all better he remarked on how not one person had come out, on the whole street. But here on this street certainly I'm even less inclined - it's a building of twenty-something transients, none of us talk to each other. And there are always yelling, moaning, distressed-sounding people walking down the street from the pub. And they might be dangerous ice addicts, stories of which the media is full. So I stay in. But can't sleep. So I thought I'd come and talk to you.

I did get a bit of work done this week on my Meaning of Life paper, and am zeroing in on a combination of "have as many experiences as possible" and "clarify your values" (the first fit in nicely with the memoir experience last weekend). In that light, here are some experiences I've had during this sleepless week:

• watched part of a Lost Highway about women in country music
• saw the biff at the Walkley awards, which was on tv just exactly as I was reading about it on the SMH online
• stopped two nights after work at that pub for a beer and cheese-and-onion chips (I thought it might be alcohol making me so speedy at bedtime, but tonight had none so that can't be it)
• went to Art After Hours at the Art Gallery and heard a quite insightful talk about the goddess exhibition, with three friends who I'd invited (and who seemed to get on well, all big personalities who can talk underwater), and we saw some contemporary stuff, and finally found the main thing I was looking for, the Landa video and new media awards, which had at least three completely amazing things, and about four competely crap things, but gave us all lots to talk about
• had a very loud and animated but such fun dinner with aforementioned three
• went to the movies with another bunch of friends and while there got invited to a dinner party
• but also ran into someone who I had a very ill advised thing with earlier this year, and given my sleep-deprived state I got the shakes and had to go to the ladies room for a while to compose myself. Still don't know how to comport myself around him - I was the villain, what I did to him was wrong and unforgivable, but then, I think he has undiagnosed Asberger's and can't take a hint and I had to be so mean to him. I can't be the slightest bit nice to him, it doesn't seem like, or risk him coming after me again, or me having to explain myself further.
• had a very lovely psudo-Christmas party with work, where we got sandwiches and went over to the park and played soccer and frisbee (at the same time). So very nice to be outside and just playing. Completely unstructured time - like I said to someone later, hey, I didn't get the Jira, why are we in the park? What account do I bill this time against?
• last night when I was staying up late I was having an online chat with a stranger. Got to talking about philosophy. Don't know where it will lead, if anywhere (no new message tonight). Thing is, philosophy and talking are my main differentiators, but he had all sorts of other things in his profile (oops did I just give away where I met him?) that weren't about that and we never got onto them. The articulation of the feeling that I had in my head today was, every minute of every day lately, I feel like I'm at work. I'd love to feel like I was at home, or just having fun, sometimes. Let go and just be my whole self without censoring or editing or putting on a brave front or dumbing down. And the other thing is, it's great fun having lots of boys to talk about philosophy with, but it would be nice if a boy appreciated me as a woman. The only one who came close (the one leading to the other - long bantering philosophy conversation leading to tender kiss on the cheek goodnight) is married. Patience, child. I'm in no position to seduce anybody, anyway - sleepless week, no exercise since the accident, no groceries, stuff all over everywhere in my house. Body going soft around the edges. I should focus on my own shit, and get it together before I worry too much about the whole boyfriend issue again.

Sorry these messages are so long lately, but it's my blog and I'll ramble if I want to!