Saturday, January 15, 2011

Home... confession of a romantic

Welcome to the first youtube assited gluttonforpunishment blog. Please listen to the below link... once, twice, fifteen times... then come back and read on.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb9jY8yAxgs&feature=related

(crediting Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros here...)

"Home... home is where ever I'm with you."

I've been over this concept before. Sometimes I feel a fool for it, but I can't let it go. It's got to do with the somewhat cliche'd idea of "home is where the heart is". I think it's true.

The ex used to talk about home... about me going home... wondering why I wasn't attached to the place I lived. I tried to tell him... home is a flexible thing to me. Home is where my heart craves to be. No this isn't always tied to a man. Sometimes, when I'm over worked, or overwhelmed Home is where my family is, mom, and the annoying sisters and the universality of family. When I'm there for a few days, and they start driving me nuts, Home is the sanctity of my own apartment in the city, where their crazy can't touch me.

And sometime, Home is the place where my love lies. A city, a thought, an island, a moment. Home is the crook of an arm, the light across my face as I press next to that warm body, the moment you realize a connection, the light in his eyes when you share a joke. Home.

And I, once again, am Homeless.

I've often been accused of such travesties as being a "bad traveller" or a "social animal" or even on rare occasions a "homebody". Can you imagine the trama, if these monikers hold true, of being Homeless? Sure, I've got an apartment that is... mine... if not perfect. I have four walls and a set of keys, a parking spot, a mailbox, and a place for all my junk. But do I have a home?

Ten months. Ten months I have lived in this... house. And yet there is nothing on the walls, save paint. Not a picture, not a shelf, not a mirror. I am yet a transient. I've honestly been trying to figure out why I can't seem to ever unpack, hang pictures, and settle in.

Could it be, I have not found my Home?

I am fluid but solid, I will fit myself to my place. But where is my place? Whom? When will I find my Home?


Saturday, January 8, 2011

January Blahs

As the fluffy snowflakes descended upon us today, I felt the claustrophobia closing in. It's January in Canada, and mother nature has locked us in once again. I found it strange that, although I was theoretically willing to go out in my Sorels and furry flappy hat to play in the drifts of white, I was completely unwilling to do it alone. It's moments like those that make you think... "ah, now that would be fun with a strapping young man and a cup of hot chocolate". Alas, I stayed inside trying to ignore the squirrels in my walls, doing my taxes, and marathoning yet another t.v. series.

Now I'm aware that locking myself in my house is counter productive to meeting new and interesting people. The thing is that "interesting" has become my code word for undesirable these days. Even the internet won't throw me anything even remotely worth considering. January is bringing out the weird, the lost, the desperate. My online profiles are garnering messages from truly deluded and occasionally agressive and stubborn people. And old guys... from other cities... seriously. It's like the snow has frozen their logic centres and they're just randomly flinging themselves at profiles hoping some girl out there will be driven stir crazy by winter cabin fever and agree to a date, please god any date, just to get out of the house.

In the past, my tactics have been to hide and ride it out.

Not this year.

Okay, yeah, I've spent seven of the last eight days with my backside magnetically attracted to the couch... but I'm vowing a change. I will go out of the house every day. Maybe on an errand, just a walk, or even to the newly joined gym. (Yes this year I became a cliche and joined a gym in January... it was a really good deal!) Now I don't have any illusions that this methodology will present me with the perfect man. If anything it will prove that January is for hibernation and that only weirdos actually venture outside for anything but work. But the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. So in the spirit of not proving my own insanity, I am willing to try January from a new perspective. I will attempt to be a positive if not entirely productive member of society for the month of January. No more moping, hiding from the weather. Long Johns were invented for a reason... that reason is Canadian winters... and I will embrace the layers, the puffy coat, the furry mittens.

And I will drink warm drinks with Bailey's in when I return to the welcoming embrace of my sofa.

Wish me luck