Once upon a time I breathed through my diary, so many words spilling from the turmoil in my consciousness.
Less turmoil these days. Just as many events, swift paced living, full days, full nights, full mornings, but so many of them just right that an anlysis is suddenly...
Not always necessary.
Tuesday night we drowned in a sea of purple corduroy at the Renaissance Cafe where my teacher was headlining an open mic evening. She was more nervous than she should have been because she was accompanying herself on the piano for her only classical piece, and she's REALLY down about her piano abilities.
I have tapes and tapes of her talent to prove otherwise, but she's as good at listening to anti-criticism as I am.
Tuesday night there was a sixteen year old me, only skinny, reading poetry that made me wonder why I've become so handcuffed by my corporate persona, when I once wrote as hard as her. Not as talented, perhaps, but just as rife with raw, sincere, emotion.
Wednesday night was an anxiety attack that I should have seen coming, some confusion because my rational mind decided to go for an uncharacteristic jog when I needed it most. When he got home from a quiet evening that he needed, Dave lay there and let me cry it out.
Thursday we climbed and my caffeine-soaked muscles cramped and screamed, I realized that sometimes my abrasive clown demeanor could hurt feelings. I apologized to Keith for my enthusiastic ribbing on Friday, which resulted in his venting his feelings out (not with regards to me, but with regards to why he was so fragile the night before) and both of us walking away much happier.
Friday I got caught in a lie, a lie I wasn't comfortable with in the first place. I drove home panicking and near tears, realized from whence anxiety attack originated, and did every meditative excercise I could think of.
Jay and his girl came over for comfort food afterwards, Dave's magic filling the kitchen with butter and potatoes and roasting chicken.
We giggled and silliness rose to critical levels, and their admissions of our ultimate weirdness smoothed out a few of my agitated neurons.
A few.
I was wide awake before sunrise anyway, but there's only thirty or so emails unanswered in my inbox now, and that's a huge dent.
Saturday I taxed and fell more deeply in admiration with my accountant, was again ordered to choose which car I want to start leasing (the Toyota Prius!!) and sent off with an assurance that I didn't tell a lie, that I fought a good fight, which I didn't really believe but allowed to be sated by anyway.
Then we shopped, for a humidifier for the house and curtains and cloths to hang as great leafy swaths from the windows, for new taps for the bathtub and organic dirt and clay pots and seeds and seeds and seeeeeeeds for the garden.
We left home despot significantly richer, but with my heart suddenly more thrilled for my homelife.
Sunday morning I was so excited about the new plants that I woke up pre-dawn again, and start re-potting, designing (a strawberry pot willed with vines, another white enameled one filled with herbs), feeding, planting, all my cuttings are watered with cutting-food, all my re-potted babes are fed with baby food.
And some of my seeds are already in the window waiting for the thaw, some of them are carefully arranged in piles, which ones get planted when so that they're germinated and just strong enough to fill the garden come april.
Red peppers and yellow peppers and three kinds of tomatoes and spinach and carrots and maybe raspberries and mint (that one I *know* how to control) and coriander and chives and bok choi and on and forth and beautiful.
Wild flowers, to be sown traditionally, by flying from my fist into the grass.
So far I'm not sure about the climbing beans, even the flowering ones, except last night at Sean's birthday party there was a garden show flyer that spoke of creative ways to trellis them, so that they won't eat up the fencing.
Saturday's singing lesson went in a new direction, Heather and her guitar and a book of Simon and Garfunkel tunes.
I'm having trouble NOT projecting too much strength into my arias, Heather has decided that I need a break from classical, and need to learn to enjoy just the song.
We sang "The Boxer" together, and I thought of Marc and how much these words meant to him, and then a strange thing happened wherein I had to teach Heather how to read the notes.
Heather, you see, plays so perfectly by ear that she hasn't really learned to sight-read, which is funny since she's done such a thorough job of teaching me how to do so.
So we stopped and I pointed out the change in timing in that spot with the anger and rage, and suggested we sing it a different way and she told me to run with it
and I did.
And then ran home, singing all the way, without the tape's accompanyment, for Kitty's birthday dinner.
Good food, at that restaurant, frog's legs and I indulged in pasta (been pretty good about avoiding carbs, me) and tiramisu that wasn't really what Anna Maria taught me to expect from Tiramisu, but was lovely anyway.
Between the sugar high and the singing high and Kitty's smile and announcement that our email exchange from the other day brightened her entire afternoon, I got giddy and excited and words flew and giggles erupted and the frogs with the shaking got sillier than usual.
I loved it. I loved it just as much as Stacy's five-minute filming on Sunday, that I got to participate, albeit minimally, in a film that might mean something to someone.
Invader ZIm in front of the television for too many hours made me feel guilty at my laziness, but all that dissapeared with a hug from the lady and our arrival at Sean's impromptu birthday gathering.
Where everyone had partaken in my favourite blend of mushroom, where despite wanting to join in I didn't because I had more reading to do last night, where I honestly expected to be made to feel outcast for my lack of participation -- but didn't.
From being included in the torturous circle game to being alternately picked on and giggled at, hugs from the crowd and chaste kisses from the birthday boy, quiet comments from his usually-irate girlfriend and a moment of cooking euphoria with Jacob and her incredibly serence manner.
I got to try on blue fun-fur pants and I want to make myself a pair.
I got to giggle, feel as though I had more to contribute to a certain crowd than my illicit tolerance.
I got to go home before it was really late, read in the lap of my sinus-suffering darling, and wake up with entire armfuls of sleep to face today.
And this morning's meeting went swimmingly. One of my projects has been handed off to someone else, but only because two other projects have suddenly jumped in agency-wide importance.
My boss is proud that I am a shit-disturber who gets listened to, who inspires the golden-handcuffed to care about their choice of bondage.
My boss is proud that I take my leads from him, that if he sees something a certain way, I try to take it that way as well.
My coworker isn't too thrilled to be handed my leftovers, but quite frankly I made it clear to both boss and beast that after the preliminary technical work that I had done, his skills might do a better job than I would have anwyay.
And the sun is out and I finished the analysis that was keeping me from wandering out to scrounge a lunch, and I am off to soak in the vitamin D.
I can't wait to go home to look at my strawberry pot, strange girl that I am.
And no, I am not celebrating St-Patty's this year. I don't have the ski team's enthusiastic love for the irish, so this year the murderous origins of the holiday dominate my views instead.
But these views wander and change, one year I am thrilled that the date encourages random enthusiasm which the cities so desperately need, despite their origins, other years I am angry that the history has lost it's meaning.
Maybe it's a balance, or maybe I'm nuts.
Prolly both.