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.

The Regular

I know I'm at Just Us too much (or, perhaps, just enough) because...

The baristas know my drink order. Including the ones who have been there less than 3 months.

I have no problem just working without buying a coffee if I bought a coffee to go earlier in the day. Similarly, I have no problem buying one coffee and then staying for several hours.

When it isn't busy, one of the baristas will bring my drink to my table rather than just call it out.

I am willing to leave all of my stuff, including my computer and camera, unattended while I run home to get something I forgot.


Oh the perils of having a fantastic coffee shop nearby...

Taste of Summer

It has basically been summer here the last couple of days. Today I got my latte iced and it was delightful.

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]

Coffee and Oranges

Sunday Morning
Wallace Stevens

I

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

II

Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measures destined for her soul.

III

Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.
He moved among us, as a muttering king
Magnificent, would move among his hinds,
Until our blood, commingling, virginal,
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star.
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

IV

She says, "I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?"
There is not any haunt of prophesy,
Nor any old chimera of the grave,
Neither the golden underground, nor isle
Melodious, where spirits gat them home,
Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm
Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured
As April's green endures; or will endure
Like her remembrance of awakened birds,
Or her desire for June and evening, tipped
By the consummation of the swallow's wings.

V

She says, "But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss."
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths,
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness,
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

VI

Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set the pear upon those river banks
Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?
Alas, that they should wear our colors there,
The silken weavings of our afternoons,
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning bosom we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

VII

Supple and turbulent, a ring of men
Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn
Their boisterous devotion to the sun,
Not as a god, but as a god might be,
Naked among them, like a savage source.
Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,
Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,
The windy lake wherein their lord delights,
The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,
That choir among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

VIII

She hears, upon that water without sound,
A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirts lingering
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay."
We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sing,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

Context

It seems strange that only a few weeks ago I was spending my days drinking coffee and reading while basking in the sun. There's still coffee. And reading. And sun. It just doesn't seem nearly as enjoyable. It's funny what a little change in context will do.

Craving Comfort

I've been craving comfort lately. The past few days have taken a toll on my psyche. All I want to do now is drink a latte, read a book (for fun!), curl up in a blanket in front of a fireplace and sleep. Sadly I can't have lattes, the only reading I will be doing between now and Easter will be for school and I don't have a fireplace. So, I am going to go to sleep. And I just won't think about the fact that I have to drag myself out of bed again tomorrow.

This is Lee's hot chocolate from a stop we made on choir tour. It was actually pretty delightful just hanging out in a coffee shop for a while. I seriously love just sitting in coffee shops reading or chatting with friends. I also wouldn't mind doing that right now. If only there was time for things like that.

The Love of Coffee Shops

I love a good coffee shop. The music that walks the line between jazzy and hipster, the smell of coffee, the din of conversation punctuated by loud exclamations of delight or disdain, the overheard relationship drama, the variety of people, the random comments from people about my massive stacks of books on [insert appropriate paper topic here]...there is simply a vibe that a good coffee shop gives off that I can't explain but still adore. If you ask me what I would like to do I will likely answer that I would like to go sit in a coffee shop and talk. This is something I do with my closest friends as often as possible. I have a dear friend who is married and she and her husband have a standing coffee date on the weekends. I think this is delightful. As a student I have another level of appreciation for the coffee shop: they are also excellent places for me to hang out and do homework. This is particularly true if it is somewhere that I am unlikely to run into anyone I know. The downside with this setup is that inevitably I have to get up to use the bathroom at some point. This leaves me with two options. Option one: pack up all of my stuff and take it with me to the bathroom. Option two: leave my stuff at the table and ask someone nearby to watch it for me. The problem with option one is that I have a lot of stuff, so packing it up is not a simple process, and I don't want to lose my table (actual spread-out-and-study space is at a premium in coffee shops near the University). The problem with option two is that I have to figure out which of the random people in the coffee shop to trust with my things. This is the dilemma I was confronted with while working on my paper in Starbucks this afternoon/evening. I have come to the conclusion that coffee shop studying works much better with the buddy system in place. If there are two of you, then you will always have someone to watch your stuff while you run to the bathroom. This makes life much simpler.


This picture is from a couple years ago. My dear roommate, who I refer to as Gabby on the blog, came home with me for Thanksgiving and so naturally we went to Starbucks and chatted it up. Can you believe that before I took her to a Starbucks she had never been to one? Yeesh.

Coffee and Cigarettes

Coffee and Cigarettes

Michelle Featherstone

I gave up coffee and cigarettes

I hate to say it hasn't helped me yet

I thought my problems would just dissipate

And all my pain would be in yesterday

I poured my booze all down the kitchen drain

And watched my bad habits get flushed away

I thought that that would keep my head on straight

And all my pain would be in yesterday

But it's true

I'm still blue

But I finally know what to do

I must quit

I must quit you

I thought that if I didn't go out and play

The sadness would get bored and go away

I thought that if I didn't go astray

That all my pain would be in yesterday

But it's true

I'm still blue

But I finally know what to do

I must quit

I must quit you

I sold my guitar and my piano

I thought that it was these that kept me low

I thought if only I could try and change

That all my pain would be in yesterday

But it's true

I'm still blue

But I finally know what to do

I must quit

I must quit you

I must quit

I must quit you

I just discovered Michelle Featherstone's album Fallen Down last week and I am in love with her melancholy, beautifully written and sung songs. This song in particular is just incredible. I've had a long and exhausting week which has left me in a rather low state of mind. Or rather, it has left me bouncing between the extremes of laughing my head off and bawling my eyes out. (Isn't it odd how both of those phrases involve bodily injury?) Anyway, this song just suited my mood and a conversation I was having with my best friend. Not that I need to quit my best friend. That would just be silly. It's just interesting how desperately I hang on to bad habits or relationships that cause nothing but drama and injury to my heart. I guess it's just that I would rather be dealing with familiar pain than risk unknown difficulties. I tend to be that person though who hangs on to things way longer than I should, way longer than I need to, and way longer than is healthy. I don't mean this to be a huge "my life is a disaster" post, because it certainly isn't. Just saying that there are some things in my life I might be better off without. Quitting is hard though.

I took this picture in Toronto a year and half ago or so. I adore it and have been waiting for the right moment to post it. When this song came on on my itunes tonight this was the exact picture I thought of and I knew that I had my blog post for tonight.

Empty

I handed in my last final this morning, so I am officially done for another year! Woohoo! I move out of the apartment tomorrow afternoon so I'm at the tail end of the packing process and my room is currently strangely empty. My desk had my computer, my bamboo, and a pile of makeup on it. If you have ever seen my desk on a normal day then you know that this is pretty remarkable. There's nothing on my shelves, the furniture I brought with me is gone, there is nothing on my walls (except my calander, which I just noticed I forgot to pack). I dislike sitting in empty rooms like this. In order to document the strange sense of emptiness that is currently in my room, I figured a picture of an empty coffee cup was appropriate. This is from the same coffee shop/internet cafe in Banff that we stopped at during choir tour my first year as this photo from a few weeks ago. That is exactly how my room is right now, just the residue of life left in it. It is very strange.