my strategy isn’t working.
for a while now, i’ve been trying to counter the irresponsibility of my friends and community by organizing more effectively. since the interest shown in my workshops and events was not being translated into support or even attendance, i tried to pin a few people down, to ensure beforehand that, if nothing else, the culmination of my hard work would not be me, bored and frustrated, sitting alone in a room. again. it’s happened so many times, and every one eats that little bit more out of my organizing capacity, my self confidence and my faith in humanity. is all of humanity this enthusiastic but fickle? i don’t know, but i’m finding little around me to suggest anything else.
so after six in a row of these highly anticipated workshops a while ago – some my girlfriend of the time showed up for, which helped with the boredom but not the more serious frustration – i decided to only run things when someone else has decided the date. that way, at least that person could be relied on. but no. i ran my generally very popular rubber and latex workshop at a particular time for my housemate, and she forgot about it. she expected me to remind her. my recent tap workshop got four rsvps but only one showed up to dance, and it wasn’t the friend who had asked me to run it. she had warned me a couple of hours early that she was stuck at work and didn’t know when she’d make it, but that’s the last i’ve heard from her. now the sewing day i organized to catch up with an old friend will hopefully go ahead with at least a few people, but she will be absent, and has sent me several eight am text messages working up to this fact. after a month or two of planning but the date being set less than a week ago. some solutions include postering king st, sending out reminders and charging fees – beforehand. these would possibly all help, but they raise the workload considerably, and they’re all unpalatable tasks for me. i could do it all if i had someone to help, but finding that, while single, is even harder. i need something else.
couple all this with careful management of a friendship with someone i know is only coming to grips with the concept of reliability, and random issues like coffee with a friend cancelled due to migraine – though with a day’s notice no less! – and it’s all a bit much. these problems are natural and absolutely understandable – in isolation. but when the trend nears a hundred percent, there’s something seriously wrong.
i was talking about this with someone recently. we talked of travelers and demanders. i am a traveler – i go to other people, they don’t come to me. i make allowances, i try to organise. i tell people that there will always be another time. i’m afraid that if i don’t, i won’t see the people i want to see, who i consider to be my friends, and i’ll be lonely again. it might be extreme but it’s not entirely untrue, i have been very lonely in my life.
i have always resisted wanting to be a demander. the term i found reflects how i feel about the role, but i can’t see a middle ground, and i’m sick of doing that much traveling. i need to look after myself, i want to be valued for what i myself value.
urk. sore throat – clogged head– runny nose – headache – difficulty breathing – sore nose – red eyes – sneezing – coughing – sore ribs – itchy ears– white– yellow – green – brown – red. not too many possibilities left, so it’s nearly done. no tonsillitis.
at the same time, staying home while everyone else is at some unmissable party or other, i’ve been getting up early and managing to do things! i’ve made sequential plans for wood work projects i haven’t touched in years, glued together the layers for a hat block, sorted out the disintegrating patterns in my sewing machine cover, dared to soak new gloves and old dress and get out stains i never thought would go, played piano, put brush to surface and varnished the escritoire, packed tools and materials in appropriate size boxes, started on a screen printing template, a light box and hat block stand, and put my beloved sewing machine in for fixing and a service. not to mention cooking and cleaning, eating and getting hungry. actually, life is good.
i spent tonight in wollstonecraft, at an old school friend’s housewarming. sally and her boy have bought a stunning unit –walking distance from our old school. it was a pleasant evening, and good to see sally again, but i have caught up with her recently; what was really interesting was seeing ngaire and alex again.
ngaire was always quiet, a bit nervous and uncomfortable, unassuming, trying not to take up space. these days she’s spending her time excavating cambodia, egypt and jordan. she just discovered temples in cambodia as part of her honours thesis. discovered! but her demeanour hasn’t changed much.
when alex walked in I didn’t recognise her. i didn’t expect her, as i’d heard she’s usually in america, and she’s filled out and has long straight hair, both of which are striking changes visually. she didn’t greet me, and when sally asked if she remembered ngaire and me she said of course, and kept right on talking. just like high school.
she did interact with me a little, like a complete stranger. it’s not so far from the truth – i don’t think I’ve seen her once since 1996, and while i knew her fairly well back then, she probably didn’t know me at all.
alex was always compelling. charismatic, the centre of attention. desperate to be so at all times. it seems that hasn’t changed all that much, i couldn’t stop watching her. her conversations were interesting though there was nothing in them.
she reminded me of someone. inflections, gestures, words, posture, at first i thought she must remind me of the old her, but no, there was only a little bit of that in there. then i realised she reminds me of many different people. kat, dez, hexy, kat, tim’s girlfriend… she seems to share mannerisms with most of the larger than life personalities i know. She won’t know these women, but my guess is that they all share cultural heritage, especially from tv, and bits that I thought of as characteristic of one person are actually just attractive snippets that they’ve picked up from a public source.
What i’m not so sure about is why these people are all the larger women i know. i suspect it isn’t just my eyes that make this grouping. i think their expression of confidence is different from that of my confident, charismatic but short statured friends. maybe it’s something about how they interact with me, i have known for a long time that i’m universally ignored when i am the odd one out in a sea of people who don’t come far past my shoulders. this happens more often than i’d like. it’s an interesting question, and a thorny one. it interacts with questions of perception and body image, stereotype and generalisation, and doesn’t fit at all with the simplistic but fundamental concept that people are equal and that appearance does not, should not, matter. this discordance needs to be rectified. an interesting question indeed.
you don’t learn that at school
i went to the doctor today, to see about a lump on my cervix. i was a bit worried – if it was serious i probably shouldn’t have left it three weeks over exams. it turns out it’s fine, it’s very common, not connected to anything, certainly not cancer, nothing to worry about. i was very relieved, both that i’m not going to die and that they hadn’t needed to stick any needles into me, but it was mixed with resentment. we’re supposed to watch out for lumps because they can be dangerous, but we’re lumpy creatures and we don’t know one kind from another. especially when it comes to ‘private’ parts – ironically they’re the ones especially that we have to drag in to be poked at by a professional stranger before we can know what’s going on with our own bodies. in fact, i was not expected to know about cervical lumps because i was not expected to ever have discovered it. how paternalistic! if i had gone in with a spot on my arm that had changed, i would have been able to ask a straightforward question – is it or is it not a melanoma – and get a straightforward answer. here, my simple answer had contradictory overtones – yes it’s good i came to get such a thing checked out, but really i’m being a hypochoncriac and it’s a bit dubious that i found it at all. how exactly was that?
oh, and they assumed i’m straight. that always makes me feel positive.
