kate’s adventure

this morning we shaved my father’s hair off. it’s not that short, but it’s a different shape.

he’s booked in to the royal north shore hospital for three weeks, from tomorrow.

why do i bother breathing around here? rant warning…

living with a piano again, i recently felt the urge to play. i’ve been revisiting lots of strange things, reading, like throwing a broomstick around, listening to six hours of rachmaninov-grieg-tchaikovsky-beethoven-mahler-chopin-brahms. running around the block. of course the last isn’t revisiting anything, it’s something i’ve never done before in my life.

all these things i’ve been doing when i have the place to myself, but i decided that i don’t need to be secretive. after all, these are my parents, they’ve known me all my life, i don’t have to explain myself to them, right?

so i played, and one day i didn’t stop when they came home. all was well, i got strangely worded compliments but that’s not too bad, i’m quite pleased myself that i have managed to recall a fair bit of what i learnt thirteen years ago, when i was allowed to take piano lessons for a year. before they were stopped, with the excuse that i was actually spending too much time practicing, and neglecting my schoolwork. of course, my schoolwork had been neglected for a good decade before that…

then the next day came. it’s always bad when my father has spent time thinking. i was summoned to listen to him expound whatever was on his mind, and this time it was music. he likes to encourage me into ever more education, and often offers to pay for such things. i was suprised to find he considers music lessons to fit in that category, and he would be prepared to help me pay for them, whatever that may mean.

it’s a nice thought as i’d love to be musical, though really, my time is shorter than my money. so i played nice, and got into a discussion about learning music, how it’s a luxury, and what instrument i would learn if i was going to.

so far so good. i can deal with him suggesting i go to a music shop and get them to recommend an instrument for me. i’m unlikely to do it though, as i really don’t have time to follow through. i already have too many things in my life that i don’t have time for.

later though, i am again tempted to regret treating my parents like actual human beings. again. i am criticised for living on the smell of an oily rag. i am criticised for ever having let my parents give me anything, even as i am being pressed to accept something else. something this unnecessary, no less. it seems that i should both accept their largess and take up a new time consuming hobby, while simultaneously working more and making more money so i don’t have to take them up on their offers, yet have enough money of my own to spend on everything that they consider a priority. is there any way i can win? if i refuse, i’m ungrateful and if i take it up, i’m dependent and they will bring their generosity up every time they feel like having a whinge. about anything. unfortunately, the question of moving out is subject to the same consequences – if i stay, as i’m obliged to at the moment, i can’t possibly help enough to be considered worthy, but if i leave and support myself again, i’ll be ungrateful and refusing to live at the standard they want to see. no wonder i’ve been hibernating, trying to deal with this and my life is all a bit much. but now i’ve let my life slip, and i really do need to get back to it…

so it seems i’m back to the blog. i’ve already angsted about the meaning of writing to the imaginary public, but it seems i’m enjoying doing it, putting my stories in order and collecting them in a nice format. but now i have an accessible version of my narrative, that i am able to delete but am very unlikely to, how does that affect the real, conscious version of me?

i remember at the beginning of my latest relationship, reading my new girlfriend’s blog. i wanted to know more about her, and went back throught the archives, meeting different versions of meela, getting a feel for who she was, or at least how she presented herself, through time. i like people’s stories, and i was glad to hear hers.
i found her an engaging writer, but it wasn’t actually me she was engaging with. most of what i read, when she wrote it she hadn’t even known me. knowing the facts of her life is not the same as listening to her tell me about herself. and when she did tell me stories, many of them i already knew. if they sounded the same as the version i’d read, the narration was just as impersonal as the blog, but if they were too different, i didn’t know what to think. torn between her own sincere opinion, and prior gossip, also from her, and presumably just as sincere.

for myself, i’m not too worried about my story changing. part of the attraction of the blog is to be able to monitor that kind of thing, and have a record of how things seemed at the time, once time has done its work on memory. but the intimacy of revealing our stories and opinions with someone we want to really really understand us is something that can’t be approximated. i hope a future partner never reads this until i’ve already told them every story i’ve written here.

as for others, maybe i can draw another line in the sand of what actually makes a close friend: a good friend is one with whom you take the trouble to exchange your stories personally, rather than just reading eachother’s blogs.

north sydney girls’ is having a reunion. one of the people i’d actually like to see is still on the can’t-be-found list. another is dead. a third is in germany. still i’m going to go, mostly because i’m curious. it’s a month and a half away, on october 21, at a bowls club, where it seems we’ll actually be bowling. in north sydney. i’m certainly a little apprehensive, i don’t know if i’ll recognise many people, and from what i’ve heard, the baby count will be higher than i’m prepared for. even more than that, many people seem to be attached to big recognisable companies, probably in jobs with important sounding titles but boring descriptions. meaningless jobs. Good Jobs. it was a selective school, on the north shore. girls can do anything. but what do you really want?

what will i be expected to tell people? i’m certainly not in a big fancy well paid career with a phd, a house, a husband and a kid. i expect some people will be, and despite that sounding like my idea of hell, i’ll probably have to justify my life, fill up uncomfortable pauses and talk too much about myself to explain to people who had never realised that the choices i’ve made are available – let alone worthwhile. i’ll also probably have to lie; it will come down to ‘but that’s good/ok if you’re happy’. am i happy?

maybe it won’t be too intimidating. after all, there probably won’t be so many people there – they’ll all be at the second reunion, in london!

delicious roast veggie and garlic smells are wafting up from the kitchen below my room. it’s been going on all day, thanks to manic dumpstering and cooking for the flare convergence. it’s been very difficult to concentrate on shear stress and the efficiency of bolted joints, but i’m getting somewhere, thanks largely to ella fitzgerald and not many people being online.

four years since someone last told me they love me, and since i used the word myself.

until today.

it’s very beautiful, and only the slightest bit terrifying.

yesterday i had two classes, an interview where my prospective boss didn’t show up, opening up bike club because the person who was meant to didn’t show up, a badly organised meeting which was very friendly but didn’t really make my life easier as i had hoped, the first poly meeting, which i had been looking forward to but noone turned up to except the three of us, a six hour discussion, which was not quite as honest as i thought, with my partner’s partner when the middle link went home, then some nice three way trauma to top it off.

i’m not imagining it, my life really is a problem.

from too much trust comes disappointment. from too much disappointment comes, eventually, lack of trust. but trust is necessary for life, so too much trust and lack of trust exist simultaneously. confusing.

my posters were falling off my walls, my buttons were falling off and my life was falling apart. i’ve stuck some of the posters back up, sewn some of the buttons back on and pulled some of my life back together again. it’s not perfect, but it’s going in the right direction again.