There’s a lot going on in my head right now. Too much, possibly. I’m listening to the radio and there’s a “doctor” explaining how, sometimes, when you’re thinking of someone, they’ll ring you. He’s saying how it’s a telepathic phenomenon common among family and close friends. Apparently he’s just been given a mega-huge research grant to study this further.

Cancer! Cure cancer, you self-indulgent fool! Nobody gives a damn about how sometimes you are about to ring your bank to apologize for being overdrawn – again! – and as you reach for the phone, the bank rings you and the unrelenting robot on the other end chews you out. Sure it’s a bit of an “ooh” moment but the guy from the bank hardly counts as family or a close friend and, again: Cancer. Alzheimer’s. Cancer. Get to it.

And….Jersey Girl. The song by Bruce Springsteen. I’m convinced it’s totally about me. I can’t tell you how I know this, but I do. Love it. Love Bruce. I think it’s ok for me to have happy thoughts about him now. The age gap has evened out enough. Yes it has, yes it has, yes it has.

I have canoe-like feet. If you’ve ever tried to salsa dance with me, you know what I’m talking about. Sorry about that. This means that the closest I ever get to the near-orgasmic deliciousness of a pretty shoe is in pictures. Or on the feet of spitefully young and skinny clubbers on rainy nights out. Long story short, I don’t remember where I got this image from. If it’s yours, don’t sue. Firstly because financially, it really won’t be worth your while and secondly, because if you ask me to, I’ll take it down. *Kiss Sound*

And now onto something completely unrelated. I often think about boundaries. I am very inhibited. I’m a rules person. Boundaries are me. I am boundaries. So I often wonder about the person I would be if I completely let go of everything I had been taught about how to behave. About what is enough and what is too much. What’d happen if I just surrendered to my first impulses? Or to my strongest urges, whatever they were. Who would I be? A murderer? A nymphomaniac? A rabid gourmand? Or would I be one of these people. Disconnected, numb and insulated from humanity. Finding succor and strength in numbers.

Oh man. Those people…

Shiny new shoes, cheesecake, smoldering Irishmen.
Shiny new shoes, cheesecake, smoldering Irishmen.
Shiny new shoes ,cheesecake, smoldering Irishmen.

Don’t say I didn’t put it out there, Universe.

Our apartment is quite possibly being burgled as I type this. Why do I think that? Because I sounds like someone is trying to jimmy the door open. It happens quite a lot around these parts because the floors and apartment doors are not clearly marked and you can get off on the wrong floor and spend quite a bit of time trying to manipulate your key into the wrong lock and getting very flustered and annoyed when the key jams, and possibly breaks, in the lock. Before you realize that this is not where you live and the abuse you’ve been hurling at the wood paneled door is completely misdirected. And of course by “you”, I mean “I”.

What have I seen so far? Well, in 5 short days, 2009 has not done much to reveal herself to me. But I have seen a lot of optimism. I’ve seen people talk about diets they want to go on, trips they plan to take, relationships they want to extricate themselves from, lovers they plan to seduce, jobs they want get and causes thy want to promote.

What is it about a fresh, 365-day cycle that makes ambitions seem more achievable? I’m terrible at goal-setting. Because I am petrified of failure. What better way to avoid failing to reach a goal than to avoid articulating it in the first place? Which is not the same as not setting the goal. I’m talking about using vague language like: “I don’t want to stand still in 2009” or “I want to be happy this year.”. Yeah.

People do that a lot. Vagueness and obscurity are comfortable. Like a massive quilt that you can snuggle under at any time to remain insulated from the cold reality of unfulfilled potential. People tell themselves, “Well, I never said outright that that was what I wanted to do, so the fact that I haven’t managed to do it is not a big deal.” The semantics of regret. People should stop doing that this year. And by “people” I mean “I”.

I have always thought that you have to be something of an attention-craving, self-indulgent div to have a blog. And so here I am. Blogging. But not so much about me and how I feel – feelings! – but about things I see. Because that is what I do. I’m an observer. I like to observe. If there is a fray, you’ll likely find me at the edge of it. Not in the thick of it – where I could get hurt. Bits of me getting scarred or broken is no good, really.

What did I see today? Not a whole lot. But yesterday I saw incredible kindness and disarming warmth. We spent Christmas with people who we had never met until we turned up at their house – long story – but left feeling like we had shared something very significant and long-lasting. Julie, whose last name I still don’t even know, made it so that being away from home wasn’t excruciating this year.

I also saw today that the difference between the haves and have-nots is not just material. It’s in our heads. And it owns us. Whichever side of the spectrum we fall on.