Aria, the food is like a symphony 6-October-2000

This is a dream restaurant. Beautiful view, great food and I'm sitting there wizzed on codral cold and flu tablets and beer. Can you believe it? I mean they serve us this entrée of incredibly well built babaganoush in a small crisp wafer, a slight hint of a chive garnish. It was the start of a good meal. I'm sitting across from a delightful girl, she has many opinions and a heap of stories.

I'm listening politely drinking the wine gradually slipping into a haze like state where my hearing is fading in and out. I'm really enjoying myself. The main course is served, I have snapper fillet, with a wonderful salt crust. I'm enjoying the taste of the gnocchi which is melting in my mouth like no other gnocchi I have ever had before. And I'm thinking this is great, I don't even have to ask questions and she is talking to me, expounding thought, philosophy and integrating ideas giving me a view of her intellectual framework.

A very interesting girl indeed. One would suspect sometime in the past she might have had too much time on her hands, and indeed she is a sponge for knowledge. I let a few opinions and factual errors (she is talking archaeology) slide (I'm enjoying myself after all). The dessert follows soon after the mains, the ginger and honey soufflé is killer, tinting it with a touch of the hazelnut icecream is enough to blow me away. What a night, what great food, what agreeable conversation.

We wander back towards the city where she hops on a bus, no subtle hint of a hug, or a peck on the cheek. It was good, a fitting end to a pleasing night out, I am happy with myself as I walk home. I wonder how many other single people I can find who would want to join me for a nice meal, to expound their thoughts, to let me into a slice of their life, and to leave me as cleanly and as happy as I am now.

God help me I think I'm growing up.

It's Over! 5-October-2000

We had eaten a nice meal of lamb roast, roast capsicum, zucchini, lightly fried sweet and normal potato mash, a glass of wine, a bottle of beer. It was a nice meal even if I say so myself (I cooked it). I'm sitting there sated and happy smiling like and idiot. Why? Because I was with my ex, but it wasn't like that. She is still deadly sexy, this svelte body like a sinuous stream of muscle poured into a short skirt, suit jacket and stockings. She read part of the new chapter in Morgenstern's The Princess Bride" to me. Its part of the "25th anniversary edition" (but buy it from Flyingpig it's cheaper what with the New Zealand dollar being so bad).

I end up with my head in her lap listening to her voice as I fade in and out of sleep. I keep asking questions like "but Fezzik is the strongest man in the world and he already climbed the cliffs of insanity", two seconds later the book would explain that "you might ask didn't Fezzik already climb the cliffs on insanity? Well when he did that he had a rope." It was pretty funny, I guess I know the story much better than I thought I did.

She does great voices too, especially accents by dint of her training as a phon-a-tician (however you would spell that).

It was a nice night, I gave her a huge friendly hug when I said goodbye to her, and when she left I felt good, about the new friendship, the way things work out sometimes, and about myself. It was redemption for my self esteem. Now with a few more coffees I should be able to face the rest of the world.

Hmmm, I promise 4-October-2000

I'm browsing through the Blake archives as you do, and I come across the Auguries of Innocence. Okay so maybe I should have know where this idea came from, but do you really expect me to remember stuff I learnt years ago?

It is a cool passage though (I cut and paste it here for you slack bastards who can't be bothered following links):

To see a World in a grain of sand,
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.

Actually out of context it looks a little cheesy, might be something to put on a hallmark card eh?

Is it a wank? 4-October-2000

So I'm talking to Paula about the act of creation, not the God thing, a personal act of creation. You know making things, and I am telling her my philosophy about how making something for someone else is an intensely selfish act. It's all about ego gratification. In my case if I make something the act of cutting, sticking and molding some random bits into a thing that pleases me mentally and physically is so internally satisfying that it really doesn't matter how it is received. I do actually give away most things I create. I suppose I have never really made anything for myself, I wonder why that is?

I then start flying off on a tangent, I ponder out loud if artists who work to a brief (like designers) are really more artistic, because they have to bend their skills towards a goal that is imposed from the outside. While "pure" artists just run about doing things they want to do, which seems irresponsible (though very appealing).

I twirl the idea around in my brain, I wonder how much of what I do is affirmation of what others want me to do and how much is what I really want to do. Where is the best balancing point for those things? At what point does one become so consumed in narcissistic navel gazing that one becomes of no value to society? Then I look at what I have written over the past few weeks and realise I seem to be doing alright in the introspective wanking stuff, and perhaps that I should be working on that design facilitation for a client I'm seeing in a couple of hours. Besides, Paula looks bored with this particular ramble, I slink off thoroughly chagrined.

Speed kills 3-October-2000

Quickly quickly ... So many things to complete in such a short period of time. All around me it seems as if relationships are fragmenting, new stages in friendships are developing, there are difficulties in making time for some while others have far too much time on their hands. It is the rupturing of routine and rhythm that is disquieting. The process of gradually connecting parts of ones life to assumptions can so quickly be shattered by the swift nature of changes in the connections between people. It is overwhelming but always exciting to see the evolution of structures both social and internal around oneself. Each person a hub to there own observations, so many perspective's. I've decided that I want to try and map out a block of time that examines relationships between other people and myself, just so I can see how they evolve.

It's over 2-October-2000

I'm watching the most amazing fireworks display I have ever seen, showers of green and gold, ribbons of flame, great gouts of explosive power. I'm huddled in the corner of the balcony of on the 21st floor of a high rise looking out over the harbour. The harbour is filled with the lights of boats, it's like the city has disgorged a whole section of itself and spread across the water like a thick luminescent slick. The flashes from people's cameras all along the shoreline offer a counterpoint to the display going on above. The intense white flashes indicative of people capturing the moment. I'm trying to soak it all in.

Later after the rush, I find myself sitting across from someone, I'm overflowing, going verbal, it's yet another bad habit of mine. Sometimes when I'm nervous around someone who doesn't speak very much, I'll just fill in the gaps with a series of trite observations, sometimes I'll even hijack what little conversation there is, perhaps if only to pretend some sort of real conversation is happening. She is very smart, intimidatingly so, my brain skews off on some strange flight of fancy, wondering how shallow and self indulgent I have become in the past year, perhaps I have always been a surface person with pretensions of depth * smile *.

It was a good night, something to tell my nephews and nieces about one day.

The queue for the train was long and not moving. I made sure that the people with children whose bags I was carrying were all right (they assured me they were, does it make me a bad person for running off?) and I walked home. It's an hour and a half walk in heavy pedestrian traffic. I felt detached, like some strange creature surfing through the drunken sprawling figures. It was like they were standing still crystallised in a matrix of beer fumes and loss. It felt like the city had stopped, it wasn't as fun as opening night, and there was a sense of desperation, a strange need for the people to wring the last vestiges of enjoyment out of the great event. I slammed myself into bed but I'm still finding it hard to sleep.

Pack up your troubles Sunday 1-October-2000

Sometimes you just need to get that creative urge out of you, you know to spit out all that passion, lust, pain and thought. Put it in a box and ship it off. That's what I'm doing today, lets just hope the audience is appreciative.