thoughts on a Saturday
Apr. 19th, 2003 01:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brightbluegirlAh yes, those slow slow Saturday workdays.
Today I have applied to two more jobs (one in Burnaby BC, one in Toronto ON), played a whole bunch of Klax, and made some tentative dinner plans for Tuesday night.
That's about it.
Oh, and I'm reading Jeanette Winterson's "The Passion". It's well written, although I'm so used to reading sci-fi, fantasy, and mystery novels that I don't quite know how to take this regular old fiction stuff.
Yesterday Andrew came home with $120 burning a hole in his pocket from the work he's been doing. We now have $270 saved towards our trip. Today he's doing some work for that single mother, and I got him some work for my manager's parents (taking down a chain link fence, cutting down and trimming some trees, and then putting the fence back up - they're going to call us), and Sunday he goes back to the housepainting he's been doing. Those folks have already told him they want him to do a bunch of other work as well, once he's finished painting their house.
So he's nice and busy, and I'm... well... at work but not so busy, I'm still firmly on my diet, tonight is our work out night, and we're having spinach and mushroom and sundried tomato and goat cheese calzones for dinner... Yum.
I woke up around 4am this morning and lay awake for at least an hour, being stressed out. It started by thinking about past stressors, oddly enough (old jobs, Alex, that sort of thing), and then moved into "what if I don't get a job? what if crossing back over the border into Canada is tougher? what if..." It passed, though.
I had a dream this morning that freaked me right out. I dreamt that I was pregnant. VERY pregnant. I was in the hospital, in labour, and no-one was with me but nurses and doctors. The child's head crowned. I started to cry, because I knew it was going to be painful, and there was no way to get away from it, and no-one was with me. I already had one child, a girl, but she wasn't there either.
I had a contraction and the nurse put me on a gurney in a busy hallway. I started to cough, and was still crying (these are the same tears I get other times in my dreams, when I'm really afraid and upset and touched to my very core - if I wake up during the dream, I'm crying in real life, and usually my face is in a rictus of terror/upset). The nurse gave me a shot. I came to and I had a child. They'd kept me out for the whole surgery, even though I wanted to be awake for the birth (pain and all). They gave me my child, a boy with a full head of hair.
I started crying again because I missed the birth, and I called my mother, and she was very angry at me because I hadn't told her I was in labour, and waited for her to get there. Even crying, I defended myself and told her the baby crowned and they put me out and I couldn't even ask for her.
Wierd, huh?
On the one hand, regularly reading someone's blog can help you understand them better. You get an idea of their day to day thoughts and emotions, their ideas and activities and reactions to things. I have people on my friends list that I really enjoy reading, and think compassionate and nice thoughts towards, that I might not get along with if we were in the same area on a physical basis.
God knows I've been through situations that have proved THAT.
The funny thing is, I firmly believe that when we have problems getting along with new people on a physical basis, in particular, people that we've known for years in a blog sense, that those problems come from a) cultural differences and b) body language.
Like for example, if someone purses their lips all the time, and it's unconscious, so they don't really know they're doing it. However, I've been raised to think that when someone purses their lips about something, it's because they're uptight or pissed off. So I automatically react accordingly.
As far as cultural differences go, I don't mean "oh, they eat green chilis here and we eat ketchup chips", I mean how we have learned to react to events. For example, if one person has learned that in this circumstance, it is correct to react in that way, but the other person has been raised to think that's rude.
So, we can create entire support networks, and good friends, worthwhile relationships, by a system of blogs. I read your blog, you read my blog. (of course, this assumes that the people entering into the rewebsonship are relatively serious about blogging, and write things about their day, as opposed to ONLY quizzes or articles or lyrics or whatever). Even if, and perhaps even ESPECIALLY if, we never meet.
However, there's the second half of that - that these blogs can keep people apart. In this case, I'm speaking of people with established physical relationships who start blogging. Here, read my blog, and I'll read your blog. Not only do we have the chance of creating problems based on what's written (but I already covered that in my rules entry), but it's also a lot easier to not send personal emails, to not call, to not get together, or even, if you do get together, it's harder to find things to talk about, because, after all, you read it all in their blog.
I believe that friendships that started off on a physical level need to continue in that physical level. I believe that part of the support and relationship in those friendships is from the physical plane ("our auras merge well", "our hormones work well together", "our body language and voice inflection is familiar to each other, which adds to our support and love", whatever), and that some of those relationships are necessary for healthy living.
So it's interesting. I have friends now that I rarely speak to on the phone or email or whatever, because I read their blog and they read mine. Sure, we can't get together because I now live super far away, but... I should try harder. They should try harder. We should make more effort to keep each other closer.
Shouldn't we?
Or should we?
Maybe this case is different, and things change given our proximity to each other, and our friendships are taking a natural different turn because we are so far away. After all, it doesn't make any sense to want to talk to someone every day, see them a lot, and yet not be able to. Maybe that's the reason why long distance capital-R-relationships have a tendency to fail. The need for a physical relationship to stay physical, as discussed above, plus our natural tendency to retreat from relationships with people who are far away.
That's a lot to think about. And it's far off from what I started talking about. So I'll leave it for now. :)
Today I have applied to two more jobs (one in Burnaby BC, one in Toronto ON), played a whole bunch of Klax, and made some tentative dinner plans for Tuesday night.
That's about it.
Oh, and I'm reading Jeanette Winterson's "The Passion". It's well written, although I'm so used to reading sci-fi, fantasy, and mystery novels that I don't quite know how to take this regular old fiction stuff.
Yesterday Andrew came home with $120 burning a hole in his pocket from the work he's been doing. We now have $270 saved towards our trip. Today he's doing some work for that single mother, and I got him some work for my manager's parents (taking down a chain link fence, cutting down and trimming some trees, and then putting the fence back up - they're going to call us), and Sunday he goes back to the housepainting he's been doing. Those folks have already told him they want him to do a bunch of other work as well, once he's finished painting their house.
So he's nice and busy, and I'm... well... at work but not so busy, I'm still firmly on my diet, tonight is our work out night, and we're having spinach and mushroom and sundried tomato and goat cheese calzones for dinner... Yum.
I woke up around 4am this morning and lay awake for at least an hour, being stressed out. It started by thinking about past stressors, oddly enough (old jobs, Alex, that sort of thing), and then moved into "what if I don't get a job? what if crossing back over the border into Canada is tougher? what if..." It passed, though.
I had a dream this morning that freaked me right out. I dreamt that I was pregnant. VERY pregnant. I was in the hospital, in labour, and no-one was with me but nurses and doctors. The child's head crowned. I started to cry, because I knew it was going to be painful, and there was no way to get away from it, and no-one was with me. I already had one child, a girl, but she wasn't there either.
I had a contraction and the nurse put me on a gurney in a busy hallway. I started to cough, and was still crying (these are the same tears I get other times in my dreams, when I'm really afraid and upset and touched to my very core - if I wake up during the dream, I'm crying in real life, and usually my face is in a rictus of terror/upset). The nurse gave me a shot. I came to and I had a child. They'd kept me out for the whole surgery, even though I wanted to be awake for the birth (pain and all). They gave me my child, a boy with a full head of hair.
I started crying again because I missed the birth, and I called my mother, and she was very angry at me because I hadn't told her I was in labour, and waited for her to get there. Even crying, I defended myself and told her the baby crowned and they put me out and I couldn't even ask for her.
Wierd, huh?
On the one hand, regularly reading someone's blog can help you understand them better. You get an idea of their day to day thoughts and emotions, their ideas and activities and reactions to things. I have people on my friends list that I really enjoy reading, and think compassionate and nice thoughts towards, that I might not get along with if we were in the same area on a physical basis.
God knows I've been through situations that have proved THAT.
The funny thing is, I firmly believe that when we have problems getting along with new people on a physical basis, in particular, people that we've known for years in a blog sense, that those problems come from a) cultural differences and b) body language.
Like for example, if someone purses their lips all the time, and it's unconscious, so they don't really know they're doing it. However, I've been raised to think that when someone purses their lips about something, it's because they're uptight or pissed off. So I automatically react accordingly.
As far as cultural differences go, I don't mean "oh, they eat green chilis here and we eat ketchup chips", I mean how we have learned to react to events. For example, if one person has learned that in this circumstance, it is correct to react in that way, but the other person has been raised to think that's rude.
So, we can create entire support networks, and good friends, worthwhile relationships, by a system of blogs. I read your blog, you read my blog. (of course, this assumes that the people entering into the rewebsonship are relatively serious about blogging, and write things about their day, as opposed to ONLY quizzes or articles or lyrics or whatever). Even if, and perhaps even ESPECIALLY if, we never meet.
However, there's the second half of that - that these blogs can keep people apart. In this case, I'm speaking of people with established physical relationships who start blogging. Here, read my blog, and I'll read your blog. Not only do we have the chance of creating problems based on what's written (but I already covered that in my rules entry), but it's also a lot easier to not send personal emails, to not call, to not get together, or even, if you do get together, it's harder to find things to talk about, because, after all, you read it all in their blog.
I believe that friendships that started off on a physical level need to continue in that physical level. I believe that part of the support and relationship in those friendships is from the physical plane ("our auras merge well", "our hormones work well together", "our body language and voice inflection is familiar to each other, which adds to our support and love", whatever), and that some of those relationships are necessary for healthy living.
So it's interesting. I have friends now that I rarely speak to on the phone or email or whatever, because I read their blog and they read mine. Sure, we can't get together because I now live super far away, but... I should try harder. They should try harder. We should make more effort to keep each other closer.
Shouldn't we?
Or should we?
Maybe this case is different, and things change given our proximity to each other, and our friendships are taking a natural different turn because we are so far away. After all, it doesn't make any sense to want to talk to someone every day, see them a lot, and yet not be able to. Maybe that's the reason why long distance capital-R-relationships have a tendency to fail. The need for a physical relationship to stay physical, as discussed above, plus our natural tendency to retreat from relationships with people who are far away.
That's a lot to think about. And it's far off from what I started talking about. So I'll leave it for now. :)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-04-20 12:17 am (UTC)But I've definitely had the problem of meeting up with friends who read my blog and then wondering whether I should talk about the things I wrote in there or not...
Indeed.
Date: 2003-04-20 12:42 am (UTC)I do agree with you, though, that it facilitates the lack of physical upkeep of any given relationship, once you fall into the habit of reading about a friend's personal life in their blog. At least partially, there's the feeling of "what do we talk about now?" since - presumably - everything worth talking about was written about first. ~ Youmna
no subject
Date: 2003-04-20 10:33 pm (UTC)There's always email, of course - but I tend to treat email much the same way anyhow.
Then, of course, there's the flip side, that many of my best friends ARE people I met online, or because of connections made online.