On Taking Myself Out On Dates

I am not the kind of girl that guys are lining up to ask out.

If you are my mother or best friend, you probably scoffed at that statement and feel the need to say something like "Any guy would be lucky to go out with you." Please don't. I'm not being self-depricating and looking for reassurance of my worth as a human being. I'm not bemoaning the fact that my dating life is basically non-existant. At least not this time. No, this time I'm just stating a fact. Guys are not lining up to ask me out, literally or figuratively.

When you have no dating life and your best friends live on the other side of the country, you have two options if you want to go out: repeatedly ask the few friends you do have living near you if they want to go out or just go out by yourself. Since I start to feel annoying and needy if I ask the same four or five people to hang out all the time, I've started to take myself out on dates. I'll go to the movies, or out for coffee, or to a show. I went to see Sarah Polley's Stories We Tell and loved it. I went to Starbucks, got a gingerbread latte (decaf soy, naturally), and wandered through Chapters looking at books. I went to Jian Ghomeshi's book tour stop in Halifax. Yeah, I would have liked someone to discuss the movie with afterward (go see it, it's so good), but it's nice to not have to debate what movie to watch or worry about whether the person you've come with will talk or text during the film. And, sure, coffee and book-browsing aren't the same without my Edmonton bestie with whom I used to do it all the time, but they still make for a pretty enjoyable way to spend a rainy evening. And, yes, I would have liked someone to grab coffee with after the book tour, but I got to laugh with abandon and shift in my seat like nobody's business without worrying about what people thought of me (because, really, I'm never going to see the people I was sitting with again). So, I am slowly starting to love these little dates with myself.

Although, you know, a real date might also be nice.

Creative Deadzone

When I posted today's reading over on She Had Always Wanted Words, I wrote about how I have been in a bit of a creative deadzone lately. It happens every so often. Life just takes over and I find myself filling my time with laundry and grocery shopping and phone calls to the government - not to mention my thesis work and some social activities - and suddenly I just don't have the energy for creativity. It's not a lack of desire. It's more like a physical paralysis. I will sit and think, "I have some time. I should do something creative. Like write. Or paint. Or play piano." But it is as if the message doesn't translate from my brain to my limbs. Or maybe it gets lost, distracted by something shiny along the way. Who knows.

Anyway, the point of this post is not the deadzone itself, but getting out of it. It's been a slow process this time around. An afternoon walking on the beach and hiking in the woods which made me wish I had my camera in hand started it off. Then listening to a lot of Vinyl Cafe podcasts while wrapped in my favourite blankets and drinking peppermint tea. And finally discovering, thanks to said podcasts, the work of Michael Flomen. Stuart tells the story of visiting Michael Flomen's farm and seeing him work. He explains that he was introduced to Michael by a mutual friend who, when recommending Stuart go visit Michael explained, "He takes pictures without a camera...of things we cannot see." And, as Stuart says, "who can pass up something like that?" I certainly couldn't, and subsequently spent a blissful hour exploring some of his astounding images while listening to Katie Melua. And that was it. That was what finally jolted my creative muscles out of their paralysis. It feels good to be back.

Flesh-knowledge

I want to feel what my father felt, Avery repeated, sitting on the edge of the bed on the Nile, what the marmisti know, what the blind man knows when he's on Ramses' knee. What my mother calls 'flesh-knowledge.' It's not enough for your mind to believe in something, your body must believe it too. If I hadn't witnessed  this particular pleasure in my father when I was a child perhaps I wouldn't feel the lack of it. But I do. I can imagine what a chemist feels when he looks in a microscope, how his mind can practically touch what he sees. Or a physicist who can feel an equation tearing molecules apart along the shear, like tearing a handful of bread from a loaf. Or the tension in a meniscus. The closest understanding I have of this is when I look at a building. I feel the consequences of each choice; how the volume works, how the building eats teh space it inhabits, even how it carries its ruins.-- Anne Michaels, The Winter Vault

I love it when authors articulate things for me in such an eloquent way. Because, honestly, despite being someone who adores language and has chosen it as her life's work, sometimes it refuses to do what I want it to or need it to. I love this description of the physicality of any sensation. It's something I know to be true for myself.

Lighting Issues

I've been spending a lot of nights in my office lately. This isn't something I really enjoy doing, because, frankly, I don't like my office. It is tiny. And doesn't have any windows to the outside. It does, however, have a window into the hallway so I often feel like I am sitting in a fishbowl being observed by every person who walks past. The walls are covered in holes and peeling paint to the point where it looks like a crazy person used to live here. The thing that has bothering me lately though: fluorescent lighting. It is too bright and makes a weird buzzing noise. I have never gotten along with it particularly well. There is a floor lamp in my office, and I would love to turn off the overhead light and just use it, but whenever I turn it on, it kind of smells like something is burning, and that just doesn't seem better. Ah well. At least I'm productive here in the evenings/late nights. I suppose I can deal with the lighting issues if I actually get my work done.

Living on a Latte and a Prayer

My hold on sanity is a bit tenuous lately. I'm living on a latte and a prayer.

[In case you aren't a musical theatre dork and therefore the reference is lost on you: the phrase "living on a latte and a prayer" comes from "Just Another Day" in Next to Normal]

Dear Montreal

Dear Montreal,

Thanks for the jazz and the croissants and the crepes.

Thanks for the lights and the graffiti and the old buildings.

Thanks for the countless opportunities to take photos.

Thanks for reminding me of all the reasons I love cities. And all the reasons that I don't.

Thanks for reminding me of my love for French. And for making me determined to become fluent.

Thanks for providing a jumping off point for some new and crazy dreams.

Thanks for providing the space for me to relax all the way into a friendship.

Thanks for allowing me to immerse myself in art in so many forms.

Thanks for leaving me aching and disoriented in my normal life. That sounds bad, but it is actually very, very good.

Hopefully I'll see you again soon.

Bree