In Vino Veritas: Turning Points

[One of those into-and-almost-done-a-bottle-of-wine postings. Bear with me here.]
So, Mission: Get a Life is underway.
Making friends, for me? Not very hard. Not if I am myself. If I’m relaxed, content, sociable, people warm to me quickly and easily. And why not? I’m a good person. Better yet, I’m funny. I even make the aesthete’s basic requirement of being “smart” in the broad yet defined “non-Wikipedia” kind of way.
Bonus: I’m brutally frank. This makes me unpredictable. I still regularly shock my best friends of 15+ years, because I’m unflinchingly honest — always. Fortunately, I’m often (definitely not always) tactful, so it’s a little more easily swallowed. Even my employer calls me “honest to a fault”, but she laughs when saying it, and I notice coworkers will actively eavesdrop when I speak, so it can’t be that offensive. Yet.
Pardon me. I’m having that rare day where I really, really like myself, so please don’t think I’m arrogant or conceited, because I’m usually excessively peppered with self-consciousness. I just hide it well.
Today, though. I’m having a nice day. I’ve felt better than I have in a long time. I found out I made a mistake earlier this week and thought I was $500 poorer than I am (a lot of $ to me) this week until tonight. Hey, tonight I even got noticed at Granville Island Public Market by, I’m pretty sure, Neil Osborne of 54-40. I’ve always loved his lyrics and music, so that was pretty nice. I enjoyed the moment , but then wandered off and picked some lemons. Suddenly I decided I should order Spicy Peanut from the Noodle Box and get myself some wine for an at-one-with-my-PMS night, in a not-resenting-it-in-the-least kind of way.
Somewhere along the way today, I realized I’ve lost nearly 30% of my bodyweight. Where I once could pinch 2″ of fat on my face, now there’s less than 1/2 an inch. My new haircut makes my face look more chiselled than I remember it looking in my lifetime. But, keep in mind, I don’t wanna be a skinny girl. Ixnay the kinnyssay. Icky-poo. No, me keep the worthy-of-grabbing ass avec le “cheeks”, thankyoukindly.
A little tighter and firmer though? Yeah. A little. Just not too much. đŸ™‚
I mean, I was ogled by a rockstar tonight. Go, me.
There was a time I would walk through that market and feel utterly invisible. I-n-v-i-s-i-b-l-e. No one should ever feel invisible. It’s not right. But I did.
Now I don’t.
And I’m so proud of myself. I deserve to be.
I was such a 54-40 fan-girl from 17-25. I thought Neil Osborne was so hot then. Now I’m 35 and I like younger guys. HA! I bought lemons! And I’m cracking up as I type this. Life is good tonight.
However: I have no life. I’ve had no life for a long time. And now that’s done. Now, my personality comes out effectively immediately, and I get the life I deserve. I am a handful. I’m funny, smart, honest, personable, engaging, disarming, challenging, yet obliging. And I know it. Yet here I sit at home on a Friday night. Tonight, as it happens, on purpose, since I have plans the next 2 days and thought I had a date with cramps (fail), but symbolically, y’know? Work with me here.
Mini-digression. Back to it: It’s difficult to switch out of safety mode sometimes. I’ve been in anti-social mode for years because life decided I made a suitable dumping ground.
Now I realize maybe the dumping is organic and easily assimilated. For years, I opted for victim mode. Now I’m a warrior chick. You should be so lucky as to hear me roar.
WHATEVER I may be, I am not uncertain about my personality. I am NOT liked by everybody. In fact, some (maybe even more than that) dislike me, and sometimes intensely. I can be anything BUT some people’s cup of tea.
But the people who like me, they like me.
The trouble is, I haven’t been allowing them to do that very often in recent years.
The last time I really made friends was when I lived in the Yukon at 21. I’m 35 now. When I left the Yukon, every one of my friends cried. It’s the last time I forged such bonds. I returned for the Wrong relationship. I became the Wrong girl. I was fuelled by depression, my choices weren’t always wise. Then I started making friends and having a life again in college, when I returned for kicks to Learn For The Sake Of It. but then Mom got sick and died. And everything changed. I withdrew.
But from 17-21, as popular as Fuck. Seriously. In college, I was 18 and ran the campaign of a guy running for Women’s Liaison (all the feminist followers of mine just balked) for student body government. He won. Then he resigned and gave his seat to the woman best qualified for the job after getting on province-wide TV talking up women’s issues on behalf of his campaign — and college campaigns never make the news. How do ya like me now?
I’ve been there. I’ve done it. I know I have it. I’ve just walked away from it. We all make choices. Survival is tough. When you have one obstacle, you stand and fight. But as they pile up, your options change and lessen. Eventually, you do what you need to do to just get by. I did what I had to do.
But now I have the handy knowledge that I’m invincible.
Go, me.
Hey, this is really good wine. I should buy Tempranillos more often. Go, me.
The trouble in Vancouver is, this is a difficult town to meet people in. Somehow, everyone’s already into their cliques before you show up. I’ve lived here my lifetime and feel perenially late to the party.
Also, I have the (mis)/fortune of having worked for the same company for the better part of the last nine years. And they’ve never had more than 14 people, and aside from those there now? Only another 10, for a total of 20, have worked there in my 9 years, aside from an endless parade of temps I’d never even ask the name of before day 4, because there’s no point
And then I joined Twitter. I don’t really understand it, myself. I would never follow my tweet stream. I say WAY too much. I can’t follow busy streams. I follow 250. It overwhelms me. But for some crazy-ass reason, I have more than 1,000 followers. I’m in Vancouver’s top 30. I’m also in the top 5,000, the 99.8 percentile, of 1.6 million ranked in the world. Cool. Enablers, says me. I keep on blathering. I cannot afford therapy. I have not been able to afford to have a social life. Twitter has served well. And nearly 1,100 followers? That’s just wacky shit. Cool!
So now I figure I’ll try going out to some of the Twitter-related social events (“#tweetup”s) and meet people who like me at my bluntest, most socially-unacceptable self. Because how high can their standards be? [smirk]
I’d rather speak freely. And I’ll do so with people who are associated with Twitter, ‘cos if they’re not into it, no skin off my ass, right? And I seem to have enough folk who get a real kick out of me. So, hey.
But, actually, meeting folk does to an extent unnerve me. I may rapid-fire tweet, but at least I still have backspace. In reality, life may not be so forgiving to my impulses.
Yet I’m going there. God help my politically incorrect ass.
I yam who I yam. Like me or lump me. Que sera sera. Insert another quarter if you wish you hear another selection. [click]

1 thought on “In Vino Veritas: Turning Points

  1. alana

    thanks, you made me laugh out loud….
    and i hear ya on the no life thing, but you’re too…YOU to not have one for much longer.

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