I'm not paranoid because the artsy community is out to get me.
It all started on Tuesday, when I was lacing up shoes and the like to head out to Maria's Vernissage. (btw, Maria, I'm still brimming with pride over how great it was!)
The phone rings.
"Hey, I'm standing in the Fine Arts Building of Concordia, looking at you."
Oh no, I'm going to kill her...
So a roomful of exceedingly strange and airy and foppy and as far as I could tell rather trite people stood around drinking boxed wine, munching sushi, and waving their hands around, and I hid behind my darling princess because once again, I could think of nothing that I wanted to say to them.
Occasionally someone would walk up and ask who was in the painting. They'd figure it out when my skin turned to match the shade of red used to paint my curls onto canvas.
I spent the night flushed, and rather giggly at the oddity that was my surroundings.
The gothies showed up and gave me funny looks when I warned them that just because they might notice a few similarities in a few of the paintings, that girl with the bulbous nose was NOT, I repeat NOT anyone they happenned to know casually.
It didn't help when PeterTheGoth (not the one I work with) announced that he was trying to picture the woman in the painting naked, then jumped in SHOCK that it had been me all along and EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
Okay, it was funny. It was all pretty funny.
Not as funny as LAST night tho...
Wherein I hushed an entire concert hall at Place Des Arts by apparently giggling out of turn during a performance of Mozart's "Casa Van Tutte".
Y'see, Mozart, wrote a comedy.
THAT part was a shocker to me. The music I've loved for ages, and I spent yesteday vibrating with excitement to actually see it performed -- and the performance, at least the symphony's was awe-inspiring.
The actors/singers people, well... Not so much. The girl who played the slut/wench/serving-maid was WAY TOO COOL and played her part with such intensity that you could tell exactly what she meant (without glancing up at the subtitles) from the flick of a wrist or jiggle of her generous bosom.
The cynical old bastard? Yeah, he rocked too.
The two princesses? I dunno, if the characters were MEANT to annoy the living shit out of you, then they did a fine job... But somehow even in a comedy, I think the romance is supposed to show through, no?
They just whined a lot.
So at some point, a particular wiggle or jiggle on the part of Despina's sent air far too quickly out my nose. I giggled and guffawed at the same time, and apparently this was one time that the remainder of the not-quite-as-geriatric-as-last-time audience didn't find quite so funny.
Maybe you're not supposed to laugh until they tell you? I dunno. I felt half-bad for interrupting everyone's headspace like the snoring woman behind me had been doing all evening, but...it was...so funny...
Anyway.
And yet more proof has come in as to HOW SMALL THIS WORLD REALLY IS, it's not just Montreal that has the capacity for freakish coincidences anymore -- there was an e-mail patiently waiting to floor me in my WORK inbox when I returned from today's uber-caffeinated-writing-on-a-whiteboard-let's-schedule-an-hour-but-take-up-all-morning-meeting.
It said "remember me? ;)" in plain text from an address within the company.
I looked at the name. I didn't recognize it as anyone inside the company that I habitually pick on. "Jean-Francois? Well, I know a Jean-Noel, a Patrick-Jean, a Philippe-Jean, hmmm..."
And then I recognize the .sig file.
JEFF!!!
My lab-partner when I was in France. (and occasional plaything)
HOLY CRIPES THAT WAS WEIRD. One of the coolest fellows I met when I was out there, he came back here for his exchange year, but we never got to spend much time together since I was trying to figure out life after Tony, and what with school and work and my sudden knack for avoiding people...
...anyway. He's working for our Information Security Group out near Marseilles. Where I wanna be. He's working with the GLUG people that I've been in contact with lately. He's a "Security Architect"?!?!
Security?!?
I guess I'm not the only person that does a lot of earth-shattering in a year, eh?
In any case, it's WAY FUCKING COOL, but kinda weird, too. Someone I know is now somewhat "in on" my growing infamy here.
I'm suddenly more motivated to get those articles written for the loacl newsletter, and to get off my ass and finish those whitepapers, and to get that demo up and... well...
Looks like I still have my male ego, eh?
And in yesterday's developments? All questions regarding the psyche have flown.
It's back to the fray again, only... I'm up another landing in the great staircase, I guess.
Another piece of serenity, and another reminder that while it seemed so important and so true yesterday, today it's just another instance of my feeble brain trying to summarize the entire field of psychoanalysis in one caffeinated breath.
I should know better, but everytime I do it, I get a step closer to understanding the bits I need to understand most. If they were in any way common to the world, I could write a whitepaper to replace religion!
In the meantime, I guess I'm just reaching out, sometimes.