Despite my wishes, today has been as non-eventful as pretty much every other day in my life. I woke up late, spent a long time cursing my computer, laid in bed staring at the ceiling and attempting to stimulate my imagination, puttered around in the kitchen making stew. After Bear got home from class, we watched "Mad Men" in the living room with Mogmi, the cat, while we ate and I sipped a little red wine.
That was the nicest part of the day so far, I think. Just a scene of quiet contentment. For the first time since I've been living on my own, my apartment feels like home. I love our little kitchen with the window looking out over our porch and into the woods, our living room glowing with color-- the carpet with its wine red and verdant green swirls, the wall hangings of mustard yellow, deep blue, crimson and green, the burgundy curtains, and all of it bathed in rich autumn sunshine, the color of ripened wheat. I try to surround myself with color. Like a palette of memories. I feel more connected to my own self when I'm somewhere beautiful. As opposed to sitting in a closed off room with bare walls. Everything stimulates my imagination.
That's where I am now, by the way. In a windowless, whitewashed room. Ugh, it feels like death! My mind goes as blank as the walls. I'm all alone right now, except for this kid who works with Bear. His name is Arthur, I think. I don't know if it is, but the whole situation feels awkward to me. That's how I always feel when I'm left alone with one of Bear's friends. We know nothing about each other, and yet we have Bear in common, so it feels like we should make small talk.
I hate small talk. It feels so disingenuous. You're both feeling around for some topic you could have a meaningful, or at least interesting, conversation about, but you have to pretend to give a shit about what you're talking about then. Or worse, you aren't even interested at all in having a real conversation, you're just chattering away to fill the gaping silence. Awful. I'm terrible at it. When I meet someone (I know this is terrible) I'm either interested in getting to know them-- in which case I want to jump right into the interesting questions so I can find out the facts I'm dying to know about them... but that's just considered creepy; an invasion of privacy-- or I couldn't care less, and I want to ignore them. Which is really, really mean and awful. But I always feel like I don't have enough energy to deal with talking to a buttload of people. Because I'm so socially awkward it takes a lot of mental effort to make simple conversation. I long for human connection, but I fear the part where you and the other person are just two strangers trying to suss each other out.
Anyway, time at Hendrix has been passing quicker than it usually does, so that's a plus. I did talk a little with some of Bear's co-workers, which, while stressful as all hell, was fun and made things less plodding. They were also hosting an event for Clemson's Board of Trustees or something fancy sounding like that, which meant that they turned the usually barren looking hall outside the meeting rooms into a semi-formal looking area, with black drapes put up to make the space look smaller and plants to fill it out.
All this lifted my mood. It reminded me of when I was a kid and I got to go to a wedding or fundraiser and feel all important while I listened to the adults talk and got to eat the catering off of nice plates. It made the building feel more festive, even if I didn't get to participate. I liked seeing all the professors smiling and drunk in their suits, looking all jovial and serious at once. Scenes like this are comforting to me, though I can't put a finger on why. Maybe because when people get together for an event like this, it's a break from the day to day. A time when you can put aside your daily anxieties. You feel assured that everyone wants to have a good time and no one is going to be stern or angry. It may not be all that fun or interesting, but still, it's a vacation from your real self, even if it only lasts a couple of hours.
I meant to start brainstorming for my National Novel Writing Month project, but I've written so much here, I think I'll save that for another post. I want to try to keep my entries shorter than I have in the past, and have them stick to one central idea. Maybe I'll write another entry later tonight. I guess it depends on how bored I am!
Later,
Eden
