Just testing the waters...

For the past few years I have eschewed the idea of New Years' Resolutions, opting instead for what I refer to as The List. Until my 30th year, the concept was to add as many items to the list as I was years old. I decided that 30 was enough. So there we go... 30 items to be completed at some point during the year - a To Do List of sorts, or if you prefer, a short term Bucket List. And the last item on the List is always Make a List for the next year.

The 2011 List, you might wonder, was as follows:

1. Run the Vancouver Sun Run.

2. Run the Scotia Bank 1/2 Marathon.

3. Boudoir Photos

4. Pay off 1/2 of my Line of Credit.

5. Invest in stocks.

6. Take 15 days vacation.

7. Do the 2nd Annual Mother's Day Weekend.

8. Drink a case of champagne for no special reason at all.

9. Visit the Okanagan.

10. Visit the Farm (yes, that Farm)

11. Visit Cold Lake

12. Renovate the kitchen.

13. Attend a Book Club.

14. Visit Alex's new loft.

15. Visit Wreck Beach.

16. Resubscribe to the Arts Club.

17. Visit the Museum of Anthropology.

18. Learn to use Adobe Photoshop.

19. Take a Photography Class.

20. Find wall appliqués.

21. Go skating at Robson Square.

22. Go horseback riding.

23. Visit the Gulf Islands on the Boat.

24. Telephone Eve.

25. Floss.

26. Organize my storage locker.

27. Visit Seattle.

28. Start boxing again.

29. Hike the Chief.

30. Make a list for 2012.

I can't say that I have ever completed every item on any given list. Things change, things become no longer relevant as the year goes on, sometimes items on the List are replaced with other items, sometimes items are moved over to the next year's list. This year I was not so good with the financial things, and I finally gave up the notion that I will ever be a runner. My hip just does not allow it. But I did go back to training and to boxing and yoga and I tested out Zumba (and loved it) and I am well on my way to being fitter than I ever have been before. I did not hike the Chief, but I did make my way out to Calgary to hike in the Rockies with my good friend Jf. I did have Boudoir Photos taken - an experience that was one of the most liberating, confidence building of my life. The wall appliqués were an error in judgment. That's not going to happen. The kitchen renovation did happen, and it is so beautiful I almost cried when I saw it. I did not call Eve. But I am going to New York in May, and... who knows... there's still a few weeks left in the year. I made it about half way through that case of Champagne. For no special reason. That one was a great idea. It served to remind me that sometimes life itself is worth celebrating.

There are no rules beyond the golden rules of goal setting: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-targeted. Sometimes as simple as read a certain book, or visit a certain place, take a certain class, etc. Sometimes the lists are more about emotional development, other times more about intellectual development. The reason for the List is that I hope to never become complacent. It reminds me that we should keep learning, keep discovering, keep moving forward, and sometimes it reminds me to revisit parts of my life that have fallen, accidentally or intentionally, by the wayside. And it is with this latter thought in mind that I have returned to Commanding Catharsis. It started last week when I reset my password and revisited old posts. Revive the Blog is on the List for 2012.

It is amazing to me that this blog, at one time very important and dear to me, lay dormant for 4 years, but here I am. I don't expect much of myself at first; the reason I wrote this blog in the first place was for introspection and I realize that, sadly, I don't really do much of that any more. It's a way of thinking that is, admittedly, rusty. But here's my first step back. It's good to be back.

I'm sorry, I know I've already endorsed this program once this week...but it keeps suprising me in unexpected ways. I just don't understand how I never knew of it before.
This American Life - Episode 210: Perfect Evidence is about false confessions. I was drawn to it this week because that is the subject of my Advanced Evidence class tonight. People confess to crimes that they did not commit...and whose innocence is supported by irrefutable evidence. People who wind up incarceated for years and years who are, in fact, innocent. This episode is interesting for a number of reasons but around the 39 minute mark one of the subjects - a man who was incarcerated for 15 years for a crime he did not commit - speaks about his belief...no faith... in the justice system. It's so poignant...so honest...with such a lack of anger, bitterness or hostility (three emotions that I anticipated and felt were justified).

I may have more to say on the topic later, after class...but this is it for now.

Something old, something new

I love it when old music makes it's way back into my rotation and I discover new things about it.

I live alone now, but I had roommates through my undergraduate degree. One thing I miss about roommates is the quirky little things you learn about them: who they are, how they cope with life. And another thing I really miss about having roommates is coming home to the unexpected (occasionally this could be embarrassing...but usually just great). So to combine the two things -a really great roommate tell is music: what they listen to, when they listen to it, what sort of moods correspond with what sort of music. So many days I would come home, and slide the key into the lock, open the door...and what sort of music playing?? And that was my first indication of what to expect. And for the rest of my life I will associate PJ Harvey with a bad day for Eve. If I heard PJ Harvey when I walked in the door, Eve had a bad day...or was angry or irritated about something. You'd think it would be a negative association: PJ Harvey = bad. But no...it just reminds me of Eve. Just like a really great bagel (especially when all-dressed and topped with creamcheese, poor man's lox (aka tomatoes), kosher salt and pepper), the daily crossword puzzle in the newspaper, H2O face moisturizer, red nail polish (or the inability to ever find the "perfect" red nail polish), a certain style of streamlined/quasi-European/impossible to define but easy to spot shoe and stripes (all kinds of stripes) - the list could go on.

I was listening to a PJ Harvey song today, "This Mess We're In" from her album Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. I must have heard this song 100 times, maybe more. I've known the album since it came out in 2000. And for the first time today I noticed that Thom Yorke sings lead vocals on that song, for the first time. It just became so much more multi-dimensional for me.

From the pages of the bizarre but true, a friend of mine told me a story about what happened to him at the end of the night on Saturday. He put me into a cab at about 1:30. Catching a cab is virtually impossible at bar close, so unless I feel like crashing at a friend's house, I generally try and sneak home before things get crazy. Apparently he went back into the bar and had another drink or so, and then around 2 went to get his jacket to go and...it was gone...stolen...along with his keys and his phone. So he and two of our drunk friends search the (now-empty) bar and come up empty handed so he gives the bar his phone number (at this point I interject that it was silly of him to give his phone number given the fact that he didn't have his phone, but I digress) and heads out into the freezing cold night in his short sleeves. At one point one of the friends suggests that maybe they call the phone and so they do. And a homeless guy answers...apparently he found the phone in a dumpster. And so they arrange a (by now) 4AM corner rendez-vous to pick up the phone. And my friend asks him if he saw the keys, which the homeless guy had not but he agrees to lead them to the dumpster in which he found the phone. The dumpster is empty but they attempt to search it by the light of my friend's watch (aka not very much light). And low and behold, if they don't find his keys...what are the odds, huh...the dumpster is completely empty except for his damn keys. Jacket still gone but keys and phone are found. So all's well that (sort of) ends well...albeit in a totally random and pretty much unbelievable way. Again...people suprise me.

Apparently Dr "Bob"'s dad was some kind of spy. He had to take something like 5 buses to work so that people wouldn't follow him and his office was through a secret door in the back of a closet. Why am I not suprised...every story with this guy is crazier than the last!

Things I Learned/Discovered Today

Went to the Tegan & Sara concert last night. They are highschool friends of one of my best friends so we had backstage passes (very exciting, I've never done that before and it made me feel very A-list). They are absolutely lovely people and I am indebted to them for making a siginificant contribution to my last break-up recovery with their song, You Wouldn't Like Me (which, much to my delight, they played in the encore). But I digress. I got into a conversation with Sara about the radio program, This American Life, and I left promising to look up an episode called Act V. Cleaning my apartment was on my to-do list today and so I looked up the program and set to cleaning while listening. This particular episode features a reporter who spends 6 months at a maximum security prison in the States where a theatre director has created a program by which the inmates learn, rehearse and perform Shakespeare's Hamlet in 5 installments for an audience of fellow prisoners, family, and the Arts community which funds the program. To be clear, these are murderers, pedophiles, rapists, you name it, performing a play about murder and revenge. Nutshelling the play: Hamlet's dead father comes to him in a dream and says, "Avenge my death. Your uncle murdered me, married your mother and stole my kingdom and my crown." I cried, I cheered, I was awed, I was horrified, I was shocked. It was an incredible hour of programming that made me consider the penal system, social hierarchy, my own preconceived notions about education and convicts and all sorts of things. I am in love with this program. And then I discovered that iTunes offers This American Life as a free podcast subscription. Yeah!



Had my night class tonight. The class is taught by two boisterous, feisty lawyers. At the end of our weekly 3 hour class they always do a bit that they call Coaches Corner. The premise of this bit is that they will tell us things that they wished they knew as articling students and junior lawyers. Today the topic was: Tasks You Might Be Asked To Do As An Articling Student. And what followed was the laundry list of taking minutes at meetings and picking up drycleaning and ordering booze for the Friday afternoon impromtu parties. And then Dr. "Bob" of previous posts raised his hand and asked the profs what the best way to handle a certain delicate situation. What follows is an approximate recitation of the exchange between them, and an interesting example of what I learn in school.

Dr. Bob - What do you do when you are tasked with taking care of clients?

Prof - Well, that's definitely something that might happen.

Dr. Bob - I mean what do you do when your client is the big Texan who's just finished his big oil deal and now wants to have a good time? Like a really good time?? Like he wants drink, drugs and a hooker?

Prof (with a totally straight face) - Well there are certain ethical obligations that we have, and I would not recommend going out and procuring the drugs or the prostitute yourself. Hmm...but I imagine the big Texan is staying in a hotel? And probably a nice hotel, right? Well, what I would do is take Mr. Oilman back to his hotel, and, with some discretion, take him to the concierge and say, "Mr. Concierge, this is Mr. Oilman. Mr. Oilman is looking for some companionship tonight, do you think that might be something you might be able to help him out with?" Delegation is an important skill to learn...And now it's not your problem any more!

Ah so...lesson learned.

A Lesson Learned, a Mistake Repeated?

After my post on Saturday I went out to "the farm" (the one of past posts; the source of, at times, both great delight and my utter undoing; a location in which I always manage to try something new). This weekend was not to disappoint. New things I tried: 1) laying laminate click flooring, 2) using a table saw, 3) eating pig that had been roasted on a spit (they roasted the whole thing: ears, nose, eyes, feet and all), 4) drinking 50 proof Slovakian plum brandy, 5) kissing a Slovak (the one who provided the aforementioned plum brandy). I blame the last item on my farm-owning friend who has decided that the best way to get me to abandon my plan to move back to Vancouver and stay in Alberta is to marry me off to said Slovak and have me making babies with him before the year is out. She says this out loud, too...to just about anyone who will listen. It's not going to happen, I tell her. But he's pretty cute: tall, blond, sexy accent, handy...he taught me how to use a nail gun this weekend...it's not like I'm torturing myself to play with him a bit.

In what could prove to be a very bad decision, I have accepted an invitation to the fights on Friday night from my ex. He of the farm from last year; he of the still occasional inappropriate text message. I have decided that seeing as his presence in my life is unavoidable, I am determined to make it work...and in order to see that happen, I have begun to deal with his inappropriate comments and innuendo with violence or the threat of violence. He makes a suggestive comment and I slug him one in the gut. It worked this weekend, and by worked I mean it was a mutually agreeable resolution to the problem and by mutually agreeable I mean that I suspect it turns him on, but it makes me feel like my point is being made. We each win in our own ways. Anyways, I've totally digressed. There's a professional boxing event in town on friday and he bought a table and I've never watched professional boxing and so I accepted. The fact that the Slovak is going to be there (because they are friends, how cozy is that?) may or may not have influenced my acceptance of the invitation. For the record, my ex knows of the current situation with the Slovak...he was there this weekend. Also, for the record, I took the gold, slinky, must-be-taped-on, neck-line-down-to-the-navel shirt to the dry cleaner today. I've decided I don't feel like playing fair.

In true when-it-rains-it-pours fashion, the Slovak is not the only man in my life right now. There's also the - wait for it - 20 year old Newfie with the scar on his cheek, the kissable lips, and the amazingly sexy back, artfully covered in tattoos. He's the kind that's not really much for the words, but has this totally smouldering look in his eyes. But, that's right...he's 20. T-w-e-n-t-y. To add a little complication to the matter, I'm going to see Coach from last year on Saturday night. This was my rugby coach from last year that I had a fling with and, well, it's rugby season again...

And what of the lesson learned? One of my closest friends is going through a rough time with her boyfriend right now. Between me and those who read this, I think he is no where near good enough for her. I think he is a user and a cheater and a loser in general. She has helped him turn his life around in innumerable ways - not the least of which includes sinking thousands of dollars into fixing his house (not improving it, mind you, but things like paying off outstanding bills to the gas, phone and water company so they will resume service) and fixing his life (things like paying off his criminal AND family lawyers who a) helped him avoid conviction on criminal offences, and b) helped him deal with the totally crazy mother of his child who intentionally got pregnant while telling him she was on the pill. This woman is the most despicable, vile creature I have ever come across in my life. My opinion of her is formed almost entirely (I've only met her once for about 5 minutes) on the negligent and unfit way in which she parents her son which begins with the fact that her son has symptoms of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and degenerates from there.) This situation does not get better...I could go on for hours about the "virtues" which are this guy. But here's the problem: she sees potential in him and up until recently, I saw what she saw. I truly did. And then I came into a series of pieces of information that indicated he was cheating on her. And I believe the information to be true. After all that she has done for him... I firmly believe that if it wasn't for my friend he would be or would soon be incarcerated - this was the way his life was headed. After all she has done for him, he cheats on her. I am beside myself with anger and spite and vengefulness, on behalf of my friend. But the thing is that I remembered prior incidents with two of my friends and I remembered that this is her life and not mine. And my role is to be the friend and not the judge.

With deference to the lesson learned back in undergrad, I told her what I knew. Circumstantial, whatever, I told her what I knew. To do otherwise would have been a betrayal. But with deference to the lesson learned a few years ago, I gave her the information without judgment. I held my tongue about what I thought of him. To do otherwise would have alienated her. To do either of those things at a time when she needs a trustworthy confidant would have made me a bad friend. Because she is going to do what she is going to do. And she is going to believe what she is going to believe. And she is going to forgive what she is going to forgive. And one of two things is going to happen: they are going to stay together forever or she is going to get up the courage to leave him. And in either of those situations, the knowledge that I loathe him is not going to help her. Had I expressed my opinion, and then had she chosen to stay with him (which is a decision she would have made regardless of what I thought) my disapproval would have cut off the lines of communication between us. And she did decide to stay with him in this circumstance. But she needs me to stand by her, not in judgment of her...that is my role right now.

Atonement

One of the hardest things about getting back into blogging is introspection. I know I have these inward thoughts about the world but I've gotten out of the habit of noting them for future writing topics. So I sit down to write and all that comes to mind is, "Dear diary, this morning I had bran flakes for breakfast." Bleh.

Was out last night with some friends and committed a cardinal sin against one of my best friends. Blame it on the alchohol or my current pattern of recklessness or whatever but I remember doing it...even if no one else does. I spilled the beans; I spread the gossip; I told the secrets. I did it; I knew I was doing it; I was unable to refrain. Fortunately, after discretely poking around for information from the individual privy to my outburst, he has no recollection of this at all and so I am fairly certain there will be no reprocussions and the secret remains safe.

But this is troubling to me for several reasons. I admit that I like the gossip. I like to be the one in the know. I like to have more information that I can use however I like and I admit that this makes me a pretty good manipulator. However, I also am fiercely loyal to my friends. I love them like family and (at the risk of sounding dramatic) I would rather cut off my arm than betray a confidence. So what happened last night? Part of me thinks that even though my indiscretion was caught by the safety net of a vague statement, a loud bar, and a glaze of alcohol, I should confess my sin nevertheless. Does the consequence or lack of consequence change the fact that I betrayed my friend?? Wasn't my intention the most troublesome part?

I have been increasingly upset with this friend over the last few weeks. We haven't fought, this person hasn't done anything to me per se. But it's little things that I've overheard...things I have observed things that are making me wonder if this is the person I know and love. I think I'm frustrated because I don't feel entitled to bring this up. It really doesn't have anything to do with me. But I'm disappointed nevertheless. As irrational as this sounds, it sort of feels like betrayal. I suspect that my sin last night was an irrational strike at my friend. Totally ineffective and unfair because this person doesn't even know that I'm upset. And I think that regardless of the outcome of last night, the fact that I even went there necessitates a conversation.