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Sunday, November 27, 2005
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it ain't easy being red.
Well, the wallet lives.
Ann (a lovely-sounding old woman) found it, rather emptied out, several blocks up from where I live, in an area of town where I'm not sure I've spent much time.
In a puddle.
Soaking wet.
Unable to divine my phone number from the selection of papers left within, she instead looked up the landlord's name for the building in which I live -- my address was written on the back of one of the business cards left in the fold of the leather.
She called my landlord, my landlord left a message for me with my roommate... and I called her up.
She had taken the poor sodden thing to the RCMP station. Thank you, Ann -- that was above and beyond.
So off I went to see a Mountie about a thing -- clad in skirt and flip-flops in 32 F/0 C weather -- only to discover that my wallet had been admitted into evidence. They'd had been unable to figure out beyond a shadow of a doubt where I lived (I hadn't received the message yet) or if I was even alive.
Sigh.
The evidence cabinet is only opened during certain hours. I was not there during those hours.
Wacky Mounties.
I shall have to call them tomorrow, shake the tree a bit, and see if I can't get poor Red out of the pokey. I have yet to see what remains in the wallet -- hopefully they left some of my ID. I know for a fact that the more tangible valuables are gone.
Double sigh. A little frustrating. Perhaps I should be thankful for closure, though.
And it's not the first time I've been jingling pennies until payday. Or... a lack of pennies.
On a less odd note, we made pizza tonight and put up our artificial apartment Christmas tree. It got a bit giddy at times, to be honest.
We listened to John Denver and the Muppets sing holiday tunes (you can't miss Beaker on the Twelve Days of Christmas), hung red apples from the boughs, giggled at ornaments from ex-boyfriends, and tried desperately to even out the lights in the branches.
We're a silly crew if we're left to our own devices.
All in all, I'm blessed to have friends to sip cider with by the glow of the tree, a warm bed to curl up in with a little white laptop, and a blog to write on where I can babble about lost wallets without anyone telling me I'm lame.
You might think it, but you keep it to yourselves.
(And bless you for that.)
I can figure out the rest as I go, I suppose. But for now, I have an early morning and a full day of work ahead. Not to mention a fun trip to the police station to bail out the Crimson Wonder.
Wheee!
11:56:37 PM 
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knowing me, knowing you.
I have a friend who utters the phrase, "you know?" at the end of almost everything he says.
I'm not sure why he says it -- perhaps he needs affirmation, perhaps he's stalling while he thinks of his next point, perhaps he wants me to commiserate, perhaps it's just a verbal tic -- but sometimes those words give me pause.
I think all of us go through life with an unspoken, "you know?" somewhere in our psyche, whether we verbalize it like he does, or we keep it to ourselves.
The search for community is such a fundamentally human thing; even people who are frustrated and angered by society and social mores tend to seek out other people who feel the same way.
When people have no wish to engage in interaction or community, we often end up labeling them as dysfunctional: "antisocial", "shy", "loner", etc. We assume people should want to connect, and if they don't, we label them as abnormal.
Whether that's right or wrong -- and I tend to think it's unfair on a number of levels -- it says a lot about us that we place such a high premium on connection.
We want to understand and be understood. We want to know and be known. We want to love and be loved.
I want to know that someone sees what hurts me. I want to know that someone laughs at the stupid jokes I tell. I want to know that someone else has gone through what I'm going through, and I want to know how they got through it.
I want to believe that someone can read my words and grasp a little of what I feel. I want to know that what I say touches them somehow. And in response, I want to comprehend their actions, their words, their ideas, their hopes.
I want to know.
It's hard to say how I ended up blogging and reading blogs -- I mean, I know how I ended up here, but why did I stay? Why did I write the things I wrote? Why did anyone stop by?
What about my words made people want to connect with me? And why do some people develop a bond with me in this venue, while others just slide on by as if I don't exist?
When I think about the blogs I read every day and the people that seem to stop here more often than not, I think that's what we actually share -- the "you know?"
We can pretend to be cavalier, we can write about utter nonsense, we can claim not to give a flying fig if anyone reads our latest post on whatever it is that we've committed to the cyberpage. And that might be mostly true; you don't have to be hung up on your blog traffic to long for connection.
But most of us still love to see that little number change in the comments box, because it means that someone actually took the time to respond with a laugh, a kind word, an incredulous word, or even a nasty word.
I love the simple two-word responses, the silly responses, the thoughtful responses -- hell, I even like the ones that confuse me to no end. I like that someone heard the "you know?", and tried to see if they actually did, well... know.
It's just a little thing, but it speaks of something much larger.
I said I was thankful for all my American blogfriends on US Thanksgiving, and I am, truly -- not just the Americans, but all of you. I love to read your stories and know your lives and take part in a small portion of your daily world. I love the way you become examples of trust, transparency, and vulnerability to me. I'm often startled by the things you say that I believe I'd have no courage to express. Amazing things. Rich things. Heartbreaking things. True things. I fall in love with the way you reveal yourselves on a daily basis.
I love that I could sit around at a party with a good portion of you and feel as natural and at ease as I do when I read your writing and go "ahhh! yeah!"
I never would have expected this kind of community, but it's beautiful.
I hope to continue to raise the bar for myself in my writing so that coming to Blogcabin is worthwhile. I hope to push myself towards the right kind of openness that allows me to share parts of who I am without feeling helplessly exposed.
I don't always give it much premeditated thought, this blog -- I just write whatever comes into my head and walk away. But it's when I see how people have taken my words and turned them into beautiful, meaningful things (and responded in kind) that I realize how marvelous an experience it all really is. You invest in me and in one another, and it's so humbling that you take the time to try and engage at all.
There are things that I will probably never share here, but I'm also pretty shocked by the stuff that seems quite natural to say. Blogging is a crazy, crazy thing.
So thanks. Thanks for hearing that upswing at the end of my sentence that betrays my interest. I feel so honoured that so many of you have elected to be real, kind, and incredibly bright with me. I am often overwhelmed by the generosity you show, even when there is little return on your investment.
I appreciate who you are. And I can't get enough of you.
It's just so freakin' cool.
You know?
1:05:41 AM
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© Copyright
2006
Meg Fowler.
Last update:
3/4/06; 2:30:21 PM. |
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