since tom went away on friday I’ve been hanging out at home by myself a lot. I’m not used to hanging out in this house by myself – when I was alone in dublin I felt no guilt if I came home, ate toast and scrambled eggs for dinner, and spent the whole evening reading a novel. Now I feel compelled to actually accomplish things and so I’ve spent some of my time doing mundane things like getting the laundry done and buying an ironing board. I’ve also decided that work is taking up altogether too much of my attention and so I’ve spent some time just chilling out and getting work out of my head.

Last night was completely devoted to forgetting work – I walked up to the indie video store in search of “The Name of the Rose” and ended up going home with “Hair – the Musical”. Half a bottle of wine, a lemon cheesecake and most of a bag of cornchips later, I had quite pleasantly lost myself in the land of the flower children. There’s something very endearing about the musical format – every main character gets their chance to shine, the spotlight shines down on them as they dance down the table amidst the debutantes, swinging their long, shiny hair and belting out their song with gusto.

I’ve been planning on doing other things too. I’m trying to prod myself into tackling css again, working on a redesign of the site. And there are work-like things to do as well, which I really don’t want to do but I know I have to. emails to write, issues to sort out. the lawn is a good 8-10inches long, but it never ever dries out this time of year. the roses need to be pruned. I’d really like to just spend some time hanging out with people, being social and friendly and just getting out of the house. I need to start sticking my neck out there and approaching people. making plans.

It struck me today that I am really quite a private person, especially when it comes to my friendships. There is a lot in my life that I keep to myself, or that I share only with tom. and while this suits me fine it does tend to narrow my friendships. thinking back, I tried to identify some incident or trend from my childhood that could have caused this, and all I could think of was my experience of being labelled an outcast by the local mean girls while in elementary school. But this sort of thing has happened to more people than just me, and they get over it and have normal friendships, right?

As I was thinking about my private nature, I realised that this website of mine is a complete paradox. A private person posting their thoughts on the world wide web for everyone who can find it to see. everyone’s a bit of an exhibitionist, I suppose, and maybe those who are more private get more kicks out of it. At the same time, there is a lot that doesn’t find it’s way onto this website as well. This is both sensible self-preservation (i don’t want to go through what dooce went through) and probably the result of some neurotic privacy and control issues as well.

I think I want to change this part of me, I want to be able to open up with people and have the confidence to let some of my faults and spots and irregularities show. nobody has a perfect life, despite hollywood’s best efforts at creating a status quo of perfection in appearance and reputation. And I have a feeling that it’s the imperfections and how we get over them that makes people interesting. it builds character. I just need to learn how to recognise the line and find the right balance. Nobody wants to be a laundry line for all their friend’s dirty socks either.

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