Means of Seeing what the eye brings

It was Robin’s birthday party last night. An old friend of his threw a great celebration at the J.R., with tables of great asian food and an open bar (!). There were two bands and much revelry. i left a little early myself. i guess i just wasn’t “feelin it”. On the walk home i de-briefed myself, and had a little insight into my social condition.

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There was the usual cast of characters. i had some great conversations and laughs with a few local characters. Jim (a retired Shakespeare prefessor) and i exchanged quotes. Ed, the larger-than-life South African engineer filled me in on “the rest of the story”, from where i last saw him one drunken evening. i finally asked Miss Nancy why everyone always refers to her by that moniker. She paused and asked, “Are you pulling my leg?” i really had no idea; and when she realized that the confusion on my face was genuine, she laughed and asked me if i had ever heard of an old TV show called “Romper Room”. Well, the name sounded familiar, but i couldn’t say that i’ve ever seen an episode. Turns out that our Miss Nancy actually is the real Miss Nancy.
With some folks with whom i share some conversational connection, talk is easy. With others, where i don’t have the right comment at hand, it can be like pulling teeth. i catch myself just patiently standing there, not knowing how to make small-talk, seeming more like some sort of lurker than just another party-goer. The feeling was getting too strong, so i left.
Up this morning, i was mulling over these thoughts. i’ve long seen that i’m unusually comfortable “across the counter”. Several folks have noted that i have some sort of special rapport with wait-staff, clerks, and cashiers. i think it’s because i have a reason to be there; i’m a costomer or a patron.
There’s already a sort of relationship-framework in place, with rules and boundaries, which makes it easier for me to loosen up. In a great place like, say, DV8, the environment and characters extend the invitation further. When i meet the same people away from the counter or outside of the coffeeshop, i tend to handle things poorly, unless the other person is an exeptional character themself.
In the end, i suppose my awkwardness makes for less friends, but better ones. Still, i often wonder: who else has the “shifty lurker” or the “manic entertainer” scared off? How often will i be forgotten when the memory of me is too uncomfortable? How often will i be the one causing my own discomfort?

i’ve been hearing this new Green Day song on the radio, and it seemed somehow familiar…

Green Day:

I walk a lonely road
The only one I that have ever known
Don’t know were it goes
But its home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the boulevard of broken dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I’m the only one and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk a…

Whitesnake:

An’ I’m gonna hold on for the rest of my days,
’cos I know what it means
To walk along the lonely street of dreams

An’ here I go again on my own
Goin’ down the only road I’ve ever known,
Like a drifter I was born to walk alone
An’ I’ve made up my mind
I ain’t wasting no more time

But, here I go again,
Here I go again,
Here I go again,
Here I go…

It’s not just me, is it? Even the pacing of the two songs is similar. i can’t have been the only one to notice this.
And for what it’s worth, the Whitesnake kicks ass on the Green Day, at least in this comparison.

The mammoth three-masted gaff schooner Athena showed up in Soper’s Hole sometime yesterday morning, and is still dominating the scenery today. We get these awful “mini-cruise-ship-with-masts” in here a few times a week, which for all their size and apparent glory are a blight in a true sailor’s eyes. Athena, on the other hand… well, sure, she’s got an elevator in one of the masts, but she’s a pretty girl, and a sailor too. The scale of things is overwhelming; i sailed the Dink out yesterday evening to take a look, and found that she was anchored waayyy farther out in the outer harbour than i thought. That, to me, is a sure sign of a well-proportioned boat; it’s really only the antlike folks on deck that give it away.

Heard this great tongue-in-cheek commentary piece on NPR this afternoon. This fellow was proposing that America wage a “War On Weather” in light of the recent winter conditions in the American northeast.
What’s this? In Canada, they call this sort of weather “winter”, and it happens once a year, like clockwork. Maybe that’s why us Canucks are so loopy; the cold is character forming, no?
There’s this evening programme on Canadian public Radio called “Ideas”. A few years back, they broadcast an interesting bit on the connections between northern people, as part of a documentary on an international social forum involving (principaly) delegates from Canada, Russia, Denmark, and the Scandinavian countries. These folks all tended to agree that there where certain characteristics shared by people of northern countries. There was also the feeling that that northern countries tended towards Socialism and social democracy in similar veins.
The reason? The cold. Long winters force people together, and force them to look after one another. There’s something about the ice, the snow, the frozen fingers and toes that differentiates northern peoples from others, and shapes the way their societies have evolved.
i don’t want to get too exclusive; there’s people all over the world who have their character and society shaped by their climate and environment. It’s just curious to see how non-northerners react when they’re faced with an actual winter. In many ways, i’m still reacting to this perpetual Caribbean summer.
Up north, my life seemed to be measured by the seasons. At least by the summers. In my reminiscences, i measure events as “three summers ago”. Likewise, when times where trying, i have measured my progress by the winters. Summers in the bus are sometimes indisticnt, but the three full winters are etched in my mind.
Sure, in the northern USA, they have winter. Still, when the US weatherman talks of “Arctic fronts”, we know where the weather is really coming from…