Closure

After last evening, I feel like I'm getting closer to it. I don't want to write about all the reasons why, but my spirits are a little higher this morning as a result. And (gasp!) I feel like I might actually get into the holiday spirit this year! I even wrote up some xmas cards last night.

"To Do" List

A list of things I'd like to accomplish this weekend:

- Conquer my fears, embrace my desires
- buy a new pair of shoes, preferably Dr. Martens to replace my aging pair
- continue to get in touch with my poetic soul
- visit a friend's new house
- explore the whimsical
- buy milk, bread, kitty litter and other necessities
- stay warm
- burn some CDs for a couple of my U.S. friends to send as xmas gifts
- daydream
- buy new acoustic guitar strings
- revel in the dark, rebel in the light
- apologize and submit to love

Emotional train wreck

It's coming through the tunnel. Choo choo.

Dealing with the past

It's been an interesting few days for me. Not that one would be able to tell since anything of interest has been internal: all the activity has happened in my head. I've (finally!) been trying to deal with past events, to better understand them, put them in some context. It's about soul searching, peeling away layers of my recent (and not-so-recent) past and trying to come up with some conclusions. Well, not necessarily conclusions since I don't think I'll ever be privy to the answers I require. (And maybe that's the whole point: we're never given definitive answers because there isn't such a thing. Getting to "a truth" is akin to trying to get close to the sun.) My brain won't allow that type of closure. But I've identified mistakes I've made, and sadly come to the realization that I'll never be able to alter certain moments in my life. There's so much I want to take back; more important, I now realize, given the same circumstances, I'd do things differently. I'd like a "do over," although I know that's impossible. There's so much I regret, and it makes me sad.

In other news, I'm (also finally!) getting to the end of the Gwen MacEwan biography, which I've been reading on and off for a month or so. It's been a fascinating read, but also sad. I came upon two passages tonight that I thought I would share. The first is from a poem she wrote called "It Comes Upon You":

"It comes upon you suddenly that you must wear
The many selves you gathered and regrew
With a kind of pride and poise that falsifies their weight
With cool deceptive ease

Or else cry forever as once before you cried
On a high hill overlooking everything; God
Withdraw my fingers from your hair and break my eyes!"

That last passage pretty much had me in tears (after which the cat came to make sure I was feeling ok!). The second is from a letter she wrote just before she got married for the second time. I wish I would have had access to this sentiment about a year ago:

"It's so difficult to understand the self, and to come to terms with conflicting desires in life. I used to think that personal freedom was important until I realized that freedom is the most frightening thing of all, and perhaps we are only truly free within the confines of a pattern or system..."

I'll repeat: work in progress.

The Kids are Alright

Boy, I feel tempted to buy a last-minute ticket to see The Who tonight in Toronto. I vowed I wouldn't go this year because it was just too damn expensive (decent seats are around $150), but now I'm starting to reconsider... It would be cool to see them play some new material.

Ah, it's too expensive.

The day after

As you might have noticed, I ended up taking yesterday off from posting. It was nice! Although I have to admit I was somewhat tempted to fire up the computer and jot a few thoughts down. Maybe I'm enjoying this venture more than I thought I would. If nothing else, it gets me into the writing rhythm again, even if some of the posts contain less-than-fully-formed ideas and some crappy writing.

I was going to write something about the Liberal leadership convention, which I spent a considerable (ie., too much) time watching yesterday. (Apologies to my American readers who won't give a rat's ass about a Canadian political convention. Feel free to skim these next two paragraphs - you have my permission.) I was caught up in the drama of it all - amazing to watch a political convention where the leadership choice is actually being made in real time. And although I've voted primarily for the NDP in the last few elections, both federal and provincial, I was hoping to see the Liberals pick a good strong candidate since it's going to be the Liberal Party that will stop this country from its right-wing conservative swing. An election, after all, is probably not too far in the future (I predict late spring), so it was important the party to be decisive in picking its new leader.

While I largely like Stephane Dion (the eventual winner - and I actually predicted two months ago that he was the true dark horse), particularly since he represents a true fresh face (not to mention he's been in the party and in the country for, oh, more than five minutes, unlike a couple of the other candidates...), I do worry that he's going to have a difficult time bringing the party together. While he's certainly a smart man and seems to have the respect of everybody in the party, there seems to be a lot of resentment toward him from the party's long-established leading backroom guys. Those are the people he has to win over since the majority ended up backing the two main losers in Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff. Of course I welcome the renewal of the party through some new energy, and while I have a natural disdain for so many of those guys in the back room, those same guys do provide an important role come election time. They're going to be needed because of their experience, so Dion has a find a way to placate them.

My other main impression from the convention: why is this still a party dominated by white men over the age 50? Where are the women? Where's the diversity? It's a sad reflection.

So now that I've spent all that time writing about politics, I seem to have lost my impetus to what I really wanted to write about: the male-female dynamic when it comes to friendships vs. relationships. It's been on a mind quite a bit of late, largely as a reflection to the age-old question, "Why am I single?" Well, maybe that's not the right question since my single status is largely my own making, having left last year a relationship that many objective observers would consider was rather good. (Yes, my continued thoughts on this seems to be a common theme - I'll repeat: I'm a work in progress.) Perhaps a better question is: "Why can't I seem to attract a woman?"

... (This is where I removed stuff.)

I ended up doing an examination of this - namely coming to the conclusion that I have a high "likability" factor but a low "attractibility" factor, and that I seem to have trouble bridging that gap with women I both like and lust over - and realized I felt sheepish and silly putting it online. So I pulled the plug on it. It wasn't a rant by any stretch, but it seemed somewhat pathetic.

Mind at rest

My calendar says December, my blog title says November, yet here I am, posting. Is it because some habits die hard? Or maybe I have real concern for my readers' well-being? (I can picture the conversation in your head: "He's not posting anymore - how am I going to kill that minute that I used to read his blog?")

Actually, I'm posting because I feel like it. I guess that's going to be the tenor my relationship with this blog: if I feel like posting and have something on my mind, I'll fire it up. If not, I'll be quiet. I guess it basically means that anybody that has been visiting on a regular basis must continue to do so. Keep me in your favourites!

I'm writing today because I have some time on my hands: for the first time in quite a while, I'm taking the day off work. And not because I'm getting teeth pulled or braces put on, but simply because I wanted some time away from the workplace. "A mental health day," is what I told my colleague/supervisor. There usually isn't much incentive for me to take time off: being on contract (although they like to use the euphemism "casual employee"), I basically don't get paid for any hours I don't work. But there's also an advantage to that: I can take pretty much any day off I want - the only cost is to myself financially.

I'm taking the day to relax and reflect. It's been a somewhat chaotic few weeks, both at work and outside of it. It's nice to have a day to myself where I don't have to worry about "workplace issues," or doing any chores at home. My priorities today are puttering around the apartment for the rest of the morning, heading to the movies this afternoon, and then ... hmm, not sure yet. Maybe grab a beer or two at a bar and do some reading and writing.

And maybe buying an umbrella to stay dry!