quailing

There are times in the course of a life when we explore strange new foods, seek out new friends and new experiences and boldly go where your defense mechanisms refuse you acess. I started talking about this a few posts ago. I began peeling away the layers of those defenses a few paintings ago. During the last few months I've been exploring the world around me and trying to find a voice that has either been relegated to a whisper or shushed in a court of personal opinion. To say that it has been a dismal failure is overstating it. It has been far from successful. At 40, I would have suspected that I would already know who I am and none of these questions would be burning a whole in my brain pan. Since plans A and B didn't work, I am now on to plan C.

Plan C involves looking at the rules that I grew up with and the failures in my interpersonal relationships. Specifically, I am looking for reasons that I have trouble with intimacy. You, dear readers, may have realized that I can talk a lot without saying much. It is not difficult for me wax on and on and on and on about Star Trek, the Wheaton, and all things geek. It is not difficult for me to do a bit of research here and there to come up with a bit of flash and dazzle for a post like the LHC. While I would tell you guys how things shook down when I was a kid and share with you a bit of the pain that has formed me... I don't feel that is true intimacy. True, I am far more honest in the blogosphere than I am in person. Until the whole world lives in the blogosphere ala Matrix that, however, doesn't help me connect in real time.

So I am off on another adventure and I am getting more nervous about my choice by the minute. I imagine this is how I would feel if the mother ship really landed and brought us all home. Plan C could prove my Waterloo or shove me so far down the path of Ascension the rest of this life is going to look like a washed out watercolor painting. I start these things, these grand experiments, with the best of intentions and the highest of hopes. But I am suddenly scared witless and my courage flags. Maybe I should stick to paint and words. Maybe this will make my paint and words more vibrant. I may find through this experiment what holds me together or I may shatter beyond the ability of the Kings horses and men to put me back together. But I am committed to find the answers to my questions... whtever those answers be.

Sitting in a coffee shop and hearing a conversation between two people. Not unusual. But the lady next to me was amazed that two people could have a conversation without having met before. It's a coffee shop. Isn't that what we are supposed to be doing in coffee shops? We make friends in addition to meeting old friends. Um... duh.

new blog

I've just been cruising through the blogosphere and have found 3 new blogs to follow. Two I am following privately on my personal list because I haven't decided if they are 6 degrees of commonality or not. But I may be throwing them your way soon. The one I did add to the blog list next door is Pigtown design. The photos are gorgeous. And if you never get to go anyway outside of cyberspace then it is my pleasure to introduce you to people who will show you the world.
These aren't your average travel brochure pin-ups of common travel destinations. As a matter of fact, the posting that convinced me to share with you the beauty of their work, is about a little place called Chapter Mews. Basically Queen Elizabeth had a building remodeled to accommodate apartments (flats, for non Brit lit readers) in a former governmental building. Akin to the way we re purpose churches and old schools in TC, it is amazing where Brits are willing to house the population. And it is the kind of thing that I like to see when I go somewhere new.
True, the first place I find is the coffee shop with the wifi hook up. And obviously I want to cruise the bookstores and music when I hit a new town. But if I want to know a community, I travel the residential streets and look at the way the community has grown organically instead of the way city planners slop a kind of miracle gro on their main streets to attract the most visitors.
I hope that you will visit that blog and make it one of your favorites.