Winter Blues

Calvin & Hobbes has always been my favourite comic strip, particularly due to Bill Watterson's somewhat dreamy wit. This quote of his in particular has always stuck with me:

“I like these cold, gray winter days. Days like these let you savor a bad mood.”

What is it about winter? It makes endings seem so feasible and sings of the promise of warmth to come and new beginnings. As dreary as it gets you, it allows for some serious introspection as you spend mellow days in with cups of warm cocoa and know that the worst has come and will soon pass. It encourages you to be a hermit and allow things to decay with one resonating catch phrase, death and decay is the natural way of life.

So I am learning to accept. Allowing old dreams to die and holding on to hopes of the summer to come with complete new beginnings. The old has lost its bearing.

Marriage Mayhem

I am currently reading Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex. The book covers a range of themes - gender being the most obvious as the title suggests. The plot basically revolves around the story of a 'single gene through time', the gene of a hermaphrodite Cal/Callie. As Eugenides switches between the female and male P.O.V. - masterfully at that - he also narrates the saga of a Greek family and as all family sagas go, the book takes on this sort of biblical quality and you probably can relate it to anything under the sun.

A quote that struck me today was about marriage, a definite female stance no doubt:

'Milton came home every night; he didn't drink or womanize but, preoccupied with business worries, he began to leave a little more of himself at the diner each day, so that the man who returned to us seemed less and less present, a kind of robot who carved turkeys and filmed holidays but who wasn't really there a all.'

It seems to me these days that in any long term relationship - marriage, de facto, whatever - more so than accompaniment, relationships lead to alienation. The book talks of a certain relief when you finally decide to spend your life with someone, not because you have someone to share your life with but more so because you finally got one of the big decisions in life out of the way and finally can move on to other things. Cynical maybe, but it is rather true.

A 'deep, profound bond' is rather absent in most postmodern relationships, bar the honeymoon phase. Yes you maybe have someone to talk to about the most mundane things and you never have to eat a meal alone and all that, but a lot of the talks are two way monologues and actions are temporary come-together as you still pursue very different paths in life. And that's the catch - not many people are willing to give up their personal aspirations and when these take prominence over the people in your life, how is a 'deep, profound bond' ever to be formed?

I never really understood how people took years to get out of a bad relationship or marriage but I think it's finally hitting me. Because in a long term relationship, although you feel completely alienated on the inside its still hard to adjust to the tangible loneliness of everyday singledom - so we revel in the relief of finding someone, knowing our beds won't be lonely at night even if it doesn't cure lonely hearts. Thats the definition of 'presence' these days - literal without any metaphysical aspect to it.

Whats worse - we're so used to it that asking anything more from our relationships is asking too much. Our husbands/boyfriends/life partners don't cheat, don't hit, are not complete scumbags - so thats good enough. Perhaps, I shouldn't generalize and say we/our, I suppose I/mine is more appropriate.

THE ACT OF BLOGGING

I am currently writing an essay on the act of blogging. There are a million blogs out there, many of them completely self-referential (including mine) and others that really do provide food for thought. Blogging, however, has become increasingly banal.

Remember a time when we used to read blogs and be amazed at how much we learn't about the blogger and all the new things that they experienced. Now, however, with social networking sites, instant messaging and entire biographies mapped out through the virtual world: this act of knowing someone or their view of things has become so commonplace that the act of blogging is increasingly seen as 'ordinary' rather that something that commands our 'awe.'

So where is blogging heading: a downward spiral into oblivion or is still a case and point for citizen journalism?

Hmmm

Looks like someone out there just wished me well. Like that Wen guy, I s'pose, we are the masters of our own destiny.

I NEED SOME GOOD LUCK

I need an internship. No one wants to reply. If they reply, it's bad news. And everything else is piling up, I just need somethings to go my way. AHHHH!
I want a lucky penny so I can go home.

Bitchiness

I say bitchy things and people call me bitchy, but does that make me a 'Bitch'? I always differentiate between bitchiness and 'Bitch (es)': Bitches have bad intentions at heart and act on them and bitchiness is just the darker side in all of us, you express it yet but you never truly act on it - not all that much anyways. But if that definitions holds true, I don't know why I feel so offended at being called bitchy.

Topic of the Day: Baking and Blogging

I never blog. No one reads this blog. Why?
I say it's because of the lack of time - on my part and everyone elses.

Yet there's this chick Victoria - an unknown person who isin my net comm class and someone I've personally fallen in love with mainly due to this blog - who seems to have time to not only blog but bake as well. So here's my plan for a complete life makeover:

- Blog more
- Become interesting so I have more to blog about
- Read more
- Learn how to bake and knit and be a baking/blogging/knitting/intellectual superstar

Friends with money

Caught Jennifer Aniston's and Joan Cusack's "Friends with Money" on Saturday... it proved to be a subject of some serious-contemplation. Basically the narrative revolves around a foursome of girlfriends that have been best buds since the ancient years, but now on the brink of middle-age find their lives completely divergent.
Olivia (Aniston) is a single, weed-loving maid who's attracted to jerks. Franny (Cusack) has struck it rich with a seemingly perfect marriage and thinks having money gives her the right to criticise her friends' choices. Christine (a surprisingly good looking Catherine Keener)is a to-be divorcee and my personal favourite: Jane (a brilliante performace by Frances McDormand) is a depressed, successful fashion designer married to an awesome guy who could-be gay and is pissed-off at the entire 'freaking world and refuses to wash her hair.
The movie on the overall was quirky with its lack of a definitive plot and had none of the problem-resolution hollywood drama. But it seriously got me thinking. Just like Franny wonders if she met the girls now would they all have still been friends, it got me wondering about how our lives are all about to change and take us down such different paths.
In university, under our parents thumbs, we all lead such similar lives but in a matter of years all this will be the distant past. As age takes its toll, children pop out, husbands drill in and life does it normal hoo-ha, will we be able to maintain these friendships we built over so many many years? Or like the girls, will the love exist but resentment seed beneath at certain peeople's successes and our personal failures? Or will it all just fade away into a distant childhood memory?
Sometimes I seriously wish I could just freeze time but then again I equally anticipate what is to come.. Ambivalence, almbivalence, ambivalence.