Protect, Gather, Nest

Yesterday, I was supposed to take my little brother, that I volunteer with, to the Big Brother Big Sister Christmas Party. I was not looking forward to it. I don’t get anxious about attending the volunteer meetings as they are generally structured, either some one speaks to the audience, or we break into smaller groups to talk about particular topics. I was anxious about the Christmas Party, it was 3 hours long and I was not looking forward to the stress of driving to Centennial Park, trying to find a park and then sitting down with a bunch of people (who I know are all lovely) but to me seem like one big group of "new" people.

I texted Lenny and did not get a reply, which is unusual. I texted again an hour later. No reply. I then called an hour before I would need to leave to pick him up. He sounded emotionless on the phone, I recognise this, it is numbness. I asked, "Do you still want to go to the Christmas Party today?". His first answer, "but it is Saturday and we normally go out on Sunday". I reminded him that when I spoke to him last week, that I explained that I would see him on Saturday instead, as the Christmas Party fell on 2 December.

He gave me the most luke warm response, "…yeah, I guess so". I recognise this response instantly. He doesn’t want to go. I say, "Listen mate, we don’t have to go if you don’t want to. We could do something else". He was silent. I suggest that maybe we could go to a movie. He says, "mmm, maybe". I then tell him that if he doesn’t want to do anything today we could cancel. He says, "wait a minute". I hear him conferring with his mum. He comes back to the phone line and says, "Yeah OK". I say, "OK, you want to cancel this week? or OK do you want to go to a movie?" He says, "I want to go to a movie".

In the back of my mind, I wondered if he would dread the party as much as I did. He doesn’t have any friends at school. It would surprise me if he found having to meet new people confronting.

I picked him up and as we walked to the car, I said, "You didn’t want to go to the Christmas Party today?" He said, "Nah, not really". I said, "me either". We both laughed. I said, "Listen mate, let’s make a deal. Let’s promise each other that if we ever don’t feel like doing something that we will just be hones with one another. If we are going to be real friends, we need to feel safe about letting the other person know that we don’t want to do something". He said, "O.K."

We went to the movies and then we walked around the mall. The first time we have gone shopping together at a mall. We talked about what Christmas presents we wanted to buy and have agreed to go shopping next weekend, when he brings the money he has been saving.

"You sometimes see a woman who would have made a Joan of Arc in another century and climate, threshing herself to pieces over all the mean worry of housekeeping".
Rudyard Kipling

I had my first day to myself on a Sunday that I have had in a long time. I had planned to spend the day doing some things for me, like shopping for some food, doing a little bit of work, or taking a walk.

It is 11:18pm and I have not been out of my pyjamas all day. Something came over me, (I get this way when I have my period), I felt compelled to clean and re-arrange my my bedroom. As I went to bed at 4am, I woke up at 10:00am. I showered and ate breakfast and then started to clean and move furniture. I have only finished about 20 minutes ago. Nearly 10 hours. I vacuumed under everything, I dusted inside and outside all of my furniture, I filed papers, I reorganised my wardrobe, bookshelf and chest of drawers.

The furniture was really heavy. To move it, I needed to get down on the ground and lean against a wall and push the furniture with my feet at the base. At one point, I had to push with all of my effort and knocked a table adjacent to me and a 3 kilo hand weight came crashing down on the side of my head, right on my temple. I thought I might black out, or get concussion. It seems to be alright now, it is bruised and raised but I will live 😉 I tried to eat dinner earlier but to move my jaw up and down hurts. God I am a dag.

Perhaps it is a feminine satisfaction only, to have a room that you know that is completely organised, clean and loved. Only when it is this way, can I truly relax and do the things I enjoy doing, without the feeling that something unfinished is hanging over me.

Lemonysnickett

December 3, 2006

Honesty is an illusion much like reality is. Lucy does the room rearranging thing. She will rearrange the house about every two or three months. I am no longer surprised if I have to leave out for the day Saturday and come home and the couch is on a different wall. The TV is moved to a new location as well. The whole room is not as I left it. I think it makes her feel clean and organized aswell.

mess up it

I feel the same way about my living spaces. An unorganized room or house holds so tightly my attention that I can’t concentrate on any task properly. Neurotic and pedantic, to be sure. I couldn’t imagine it any other way, but it is still hindering…

Cat

good job with the little bro 🙂 I’m skipping an xmas party this week too! *bounce*

Random Dude

December 4, 2006

Ha! I’ve spent since yesterday trying to figure how to get out of a Christmas party this weekend. Haven’t really decided yet either. I think you’re right, that is a feminine satisfaction only. I certainly don’t get satisfaction from it, not that I make the effort very often, lol. I’m still wishing P hadn’t cleaned up J’s disaster zone the other day.

ryn: exactly! I’m not going to be telling anyone in my real life anything about this (though no doubt some will hear) but I don’t need people including my mother, sister, telling me there’s no point, steer clear of him, he’s messed up for life, there’s no point.I don’t need to hear stuff like that right now because I love him and he does love me even if he has an odd way of showing it sometimes!

ryn: also, feels good to know I’m not the only one that’s ever gone through anything like this. 😉

And it’s like the more you try not to listen, the more you hear. From now on, I’m introducing background noise, fulltime background noise. 😀

December 5, 2006

Yeah, you could be right.I mean, I really don’t give a crap either way but there are times when J would almost make me feel guilty for feeling like that.He and I had a big argument over this in the past because he told me I was the one that’s wrong and (when I’d put on a few too many pounds) asked me if I’d be ashamed if I had to take my shirt off at the beach?He couldn’t get his head around the

fact that as long as I am confident in who I am, whether I have a few extra pounds or not, it doesn’t matter.I’d far prefer to be remembered for being a good friend and generally good guy than “oh, he was hawt!”.And you’re right about them probably enforcing this on themselves.It’s just not healthy.

December 6, 2006

Yep, film. It has it’s moments but generally it can be very boring and involves lots of hours waiting around for something to happen. You need a lot of patience to enjoy it I think.I produce mainly now but I did write in the past but once I got out of college it was very difficult to get anything made.

January 12, 2007

Not presumtuous at all given my sporadic writing spurts… heh. Reasons are many and varied. Firstly, for the last couple of year’s I’ve always written something at Christmas and New Year, so I forced myself to write. I had nothing Christmassy, so I wrote about resolutions instead. After that it snowballed, and like I noted earlier, I stumbled upon a whole bunch of old unfinished poems.

While there might be a few more old ideas to finish, I’m trying to think of new writing now, just to prove I can still inspire myself, or be inspired. I dunno, this whole corner of my life is something I’m proud of in a weird way. I’ve loved seeing my writing grow into something… probably not very good on a larger scale, but something I actually like (and I am my own harshest critic).

I dabbled in poetry when I was younger. I cringed the last time I read some of that older stuff, it was pretty horrible. I guess I had my own ideas of what poetry should be back then, and I just wasn’t able to emulate it (well), or wasn’t skilled enough. I think it was all deleted off an old, old computer, but I may still have it somewhere. If I found it today, I’d probably destroy it all 😛

The thing is, I don’t have many life experiences to draw from, so I love it when people identify with my poetry (whether or not they ever pick up on the more subtler messages or contexts, who knows). I’m a rabid observer, writing poetry as if I was doing a case study or something I guess. The feelings must be real to some degree though.

And besides, it’s a new year, what better time to breathe some life into my mostly dormant diary? There are other, sillier reasons which shall remain undisclosed, but bleh 😛 Thanks for reading me, I love reading you. And make sure you tell me what you don’t like about my writing, nomatter how small.

Sorry for the barrage (I’m sure you didn’t want an autobiography). I’m just a very verbose person when I’m asked to explain myself. It’ll either be that, or nothing at all. Weird 😛 Sometimes I feel like I’m answering a question I asked myself when I go off on tangents like that.