My 5 year old slept at my mother's last night and for the first time in a long time, I've just lazed the morning away. It's grey and raining outside, which just makes for better lazing, and I read a sweet romance called True Confessions by Rachel Gibson.
I haven't written about the amazing Neil Gaiman's American Gods, which I read on holiday. Wonderful, weird, haunting book. Well worth exploring.
Off to lunch with the girls and then have 7 people over for dinner. I hate that no one eats red meat anymore as I have the most wonderful morrocan lamb receipe. But will have to concoct something with salmon instead.
Have a good day
Monday, July 22, 2002
realise that I didn't make any comment about the party, which was actually quite delightful. We're just getting better and better at doing them. I have a jumping castle in the back yard, which gets all the wild child energy out of the house. Last year it rained, and it was even better, as they started sliding and slipping on the wet, soapy rubber. This time it was dry and they all bounced along. One parent anxiously asked me if anyone had been hurt, and I said no, but if they were uncomfortable about it, to supervise or stop their child going on. Not going to buy into that.
We had 26 adults and 16 kids. I like it that the parents come. Don't want to have a party just with kids. I like it that the fathers come, don't want to have an afternoon just with the moms. My lure is delicious food, and we've got that down pat too. I bake a bit, make a few chocolate crackles and fairy bread. I also make my patented avocado dip (very easy, get 5 or so ripe avocados, add one hard boiled egg for every avocado used, squash them with a fork, or a potato masher, so it still has texture, and is not too smooth. Add lemon and salt to taste and then a bit of dill or corriander/cilantro and there you have it. Dead easy and always gets raves) and my mother makes a complicated eggplant dip, my mother-in-law makes another complicated dip, and so it looks like a lot of effort has gone in, but really, it's been divided amongst many, and so is easy.
My husband said he talked non stop for 3 hours. Didn't even manage to eat! I ate, but also chatted and actually enjoyed myself. There were one or two people I invite because I have to and managed to spend minimum time with, but everyone else I really like and had a great time. My 5 year old was over joyed. It got a bit anxious at the end, too much sugar and excitement and there were a few tears, but not too many and it was bed time in any case (one of the gifts was broken, not by him, just arrived broken, and he was devestated.)
I have a philosophy on gifts which I can see surprises others and was wondering how weird it really is. I don't let him open all the presents on the day. For one thing, he is so wired that nothing really makes an impact. For another, if you open 10 presents, naturally some are more popular than others, so the less liked ones just fall into a disused heap somewhere. I let him open 3 presents, then take the others (only 7 or so, it's not like he gets 100's of them) and hide them in the cupboard, and then the next rainy or boring or sickly day, we take down one prettily wrapped package and he is genuinely excited. He did ask if he could unwrap more, but I said no, and he seemed to forget about it. He also asked if he could have the left over candy for breakfast and I said no and got more of a struggle about that.
I just think we get so overwhelmed with stuff, that the individual item makes no impact, it's the hoard that counts. I feel like this all the time. The amount of shops in New York, the amount of magazines, the amount of food on a restaurant menu. It's overwhelming. How can I select? I want a few choice items, I want smaller portions. I also really want for me and for my son, to have the capacity to have delayed gratification. I work in drugs and alcohol and really, instant gratificiation is poison. It makes us impatient and it feels impossible to plan and wait and grow. That's why I love reading the bag lady's blog - full of ducks and geese and nature. You can really forget that world exists in New York.
So I want him to be able to see pleasurable things and find that the pleasure extends by waiting for them a bit (might make him a better lover when grows up too!)
My husband has just arrived and needs the computer, so I'll think more about this later...
We had 26 adults and 16 kids. I like it that the parents come. Don't want to have a party just with kids. I like it that the fathers come, don't want to have an afternoon just with the moms. My lure is delicious food, and we've got that down pat too. I bake a bit, make a few chocolate crackles and fairy bread. I also make my patented avocado dip (very easy, get 5 or so ripe avocados, add one hard boiled egg for every avocado used, squash them with a fork, or a potato masher, so it still has texture, and is not too smooth. Add lemon and salt to taste and then a bit of dill or corriander/cilantro and there you have it. Dead easy and always gets raves) and my mother makes a complicated eggplant dip, my mother-in-law makes another complicated dip, and so it looks like a lot of effort has gone in, but really, it's been divided amongst many, and so is easy.
My husband said he talked non stop for 3 hours. Didn't even manage to eat! I ate, but also chatted and actually enjoyed myself. There were one or two people I invite because I have to and managed to spend minimum time with, but everyone else I really like and had a great time. My 5 year old was over joyed. It got a bit anxious at the end, too much sugar and excitement and there were a few tears, but not too many and it was bed time in any case (one of the gifts was broken, not by him, just arrived broken, and he was devestated.)
I have a philosophy on gifts which I can see surprises others and was wondering how weird it really is. I don't let him open all the presents on the day. For one thing, he is so wired that nothing really makes an impact. For another, if you open 10 presents, naturally some are more popular than others, so the less liked ones just fall into a disused heap somewhere. I let him open 3 presents, then take the others (only 7 or so, it's not like he gets 100's of them) and hide them in the cupboard, and then the next rainy or boring or sickly day, we take down one prettily wrapped package and he is genuinely excited. He did ask if he could unwrap more, but I said no, and he seemed to forget about it. He also asked if he could have the left over candy for breakfast and I said no and got more of a struggle about that.
I just think we get so overwhelmed with stuff, that the individual item makes no impact, it's the hoard that counts. I feel like this all the time. The amount of shops in New York, the amount of magazines, the amount of food on a restaurant menu. It's overwhelming. How can I select? I want a few choice items, I want smaller portions. I also really want for me and for my son, to have the capacity to have delayed gratification. I work in drugs and alcohol and really, instant gratificiation is poison. It makes us impatient and it feels impossible to plan and wait and grow. That's why I love reading the bag lady's blog - full of ducks and geese and nature. You can really forget that world exists in New York.
So I want him to be able to see pleasurable things and find that the pleasure extends by waiting for them a bit (might make him a better lover when grows up too!)
My husband has just arrived and needs the computer, so I'll think more about this later...
I feel like I've lost my audience, and that saddens me. This dependence on a sense of being heard, of mattering.
I've had loads of people to talk to here, and increasingly I am real with them, saying that New York is hard, and how definite I am that we will leave at the end of the year. And yet... I am also so used to being alone that all this real talk is exhausting, and I long for some quiet time.
I'm more comfortable here than I was when I first arrived. And quite dreading returning to New York, even though I love the loft and miss it. I've missed my routine, but I worry that it is in that perculiar way of eccentrics who have become so used to their coping mechanisms that they no longer can deal with out them, even if they are no longer necessary. What I mean is, if I have joined the internet, started blogging, in a way to stave off lonliness, in a way to give myself a real voice, how could I miss it when I am with people and being (sort of) real. I've found a way of expressing myself here, a way of communicating, and yet... it could be that there is no one here to listen, that I am not communicating at all. So I tie myself up in knots.
Have you ever read a Greek philosopher called Salon? I'd never heard of him, and he had some pithy quote about how the law was like a spiders web, catching the small and poor and trapping them, while the bigger and more powerful managed to pull their way free. And he wrote this in the 6th centure before Christ! So in 1500 years we've evolved precisely how much... So I was saying this to my mother, who nodded sagely and said, oh, yes, Salon. She'd read about him at school. I did first year philosophy at university and still hadn't heard of him. So I'm going to look him up on in the internet, learn some more, but still, thinking about knowledge and what it means and who can access it. I told her how I think the internet is actually the purest form of democracy that we have found. Of course you have to be literate, and access a computer, but other than that, you don't need anything else. You don't have to please Murdoch or the publisher or fear the wrath of the readers. You can just get up and say whatever you want. But who listens, and who knows about it. Is your voice just echoing hollowly or are you impacting on others? Sometimes we walk down streets and totally change people's lives and never know about it. That's something I love about Robert Altman films, he shows the intricate threads that we can weave in our life, opening a door here, preventing a collision there. Our very physical presence changing the chemistry of the room in some indefinable way and history is changed.
So here I am, surrounded by people who love me, lonely no more. And being real with them, or more real than I have been for some time. Not feeling that weird plasticy thing I used to, where I would go out and have a totally false conversation and then just want to go home and kill myself, or at least rather stay home and read a good romance, which is all about people finding soul mates, than go out and talk to people who were not and never would be on my wave length. And yet, I still miss this, and I'm not sure if I am talking to anyone at all. But I'm real here, and you might be too. So welcome to my reality.
I've had loads of people to talk to here, and increasingly I am real with them, saying that New York is hard, and how definite I am that we will leave at the end of the year. And yet... I am also so used to being alone that all this real talk is exhausting, and I long for some quiet time.
I'm more comfortable here than I was when I first arrived. And quite dreading returning to New York, even though I love the loft and miss it. I've missed my routine, but I worry that it is in that perculiar way of eccentrics who have become so used to their coping mechanisms that they no longer can deal with out them, even if they are no longer necessary. What I mean is, if I have joined the internet, started blogging, in a way to stave off lonliness, in a way to give myself a real voice, how could I miss it when I am with people and being (sort of) real. I've found a way of expressing myself here, a way of communicating, and yet... it could be that there is no one here to listen, that I am not communicating at all. So I tie myself up in knots.
Have you ever read a Greek philosopher called Salon? I'd never heard of him, and he had some pithy quote about how the law was like a spiders web, catching the small and poor and trapping them, while the bigger and more powerful managed to pull their way free. And he wrote this in the 6th centure before Christ! So in 1500 years we've evolved precisely how much... So I was saying this to my mother, who nodded sagely and said, oh, yes, Salon. She'd read about him at school. I did first year philosophy at university and still hadn't heard of him. So I'm going to look him up on in the internet, learn some more, but still, thinking about knowledge and what it means and who can access it. I told her how I think the internet is actually the purest form of democracy that we have found. Of course you have to be literate, and access a computer, but other than that, you don't need anything else. You don't have to please Murdoch or the publisher or fear the wrath of the readers. You can just get up and say whatever you want. But who listens, and who knows about it. Is your voice just echoing hollowly or are you impacting on others? Sometimes we walk down streets and totally change people's lives and never know about it. That's something I love about Robert Altman films, he shows the intricate threads that we can weave in our life, opening a door here, preventing a collision there. Our very physical presence changing the chemistry of the room in some indefinable way and history is changed.
So here I am, surrounded by people who love me, lonely no more. And being real with them, or more real than I have been for some time. Not feeling that weird plasticy thing I used to, where I would go out and have a totally false conversation and then just want to go home and kill myself, or at least rather stay home and read a good romance, which is all about people finding soul mates, than go out and talk to people who were not and never would be on my wave length. And yet, I still miss this, and I'm not sure if I am talking to anyone at all. But I'm real here, and you might be too. So welcome to my reality.
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