Difficult friendships and plans of forward motion

Good morning!

Well, that felt like a long work week -- actually I did work 6 days in a row. I think what tires me out is not actually the physical work, it's the mental energy and social interaction required. That stuff is lethal! I'm coming to realize how introverted I am, and I'm not saying that to be different or trendy or special either. It's actually true. I know some people who go out dancing every night, or constantly spend time with friends -- constantly, as in, every day after work. I'm fairly sure I would lose my mind within a week if I tried to do that! That's ok though. I think it sometimes comes with being an artist type, although my mom is the same way and she's not into doing art. Perhaps it's genetic. I'm a genetic hermit.

Also, Happy Canada Day! I'm not doing anything special to celebrate... I'm kind of exhausted from the week I had and I would like to just recharge a bit. Last year we went to the Canada Day parade downtown, but we found it pretty boring, unfortunately. Compared to the St. Patrick's Day parade it was like a bunch of sleepy zombies trudging along half-heartedly trying to be enthusiastic. So this year I'm not bothering. If the Fox was fully recovered I might drag him out to Granville Island (local shopping district of artisans and vendors, one of my favourite places to go), but I think it's more likely that we'll both just lay low today.

Now, on to the news of the moment... speaking of the Fox, he's home from the hospital as of two days ago. Yay! They ended up removing his gallbladder entirely due to the risk of future complications with it. It went well though, and he's recovering nicely from that. Still has the vertigo from the other condition though. I really hope that one decides to go away soon, as he's been suffering from it (and off work) for almost a month now. However, one step at a time... I'm glad his recovery from the surgery is going so well!

My family has been wonderfully supportive the past week; my mom offered to drive all the way out here and pick up the Fox from hospital and deliver him home, as I had to work the day he got released. She then proceeded to do our dishes for us (I knew she would, though I told him to stop her!) and keep him company until I got home from work. I swear, she has not a selfish bone in her body. I feel so lucky so have such a wonderful lady as my mother, and such a great role model. The Fox said that he could see where I got it from, and I was flattered that I could even hold a candle to her levels of selflessness. Seriously -- she spent her Sunday driving, and even picked him up some Boost and jasmine green iced tea to drink during recovery out of her own money, and then proceeded to hang out with him watching FBI shows and having Skyrim cheats explained to her! My mom. Such a wonderful person.

As for myself, I've been over-tired the past week because I not only had to work, but also visited him for a few hours every day at the hospital. I have had very little time to even do the dishes, and didn't leave myself enough time to sleep (easy to do as I get up at 5am most days for work), so I've been stretched thin. But now is my weekend, so I'm going to get some good R&R in. Writing a blog post counts as R&R when I have a lovely cup of tea beside me and I'm listening to Dead Can Dance.

Anyhow, on to the grander scheme of things...

I've had some friend drama recently that I haven't mentioned. I guess I don't really want to write about it that much; I'm afraid I'll say something I'll regret, or start spewing bitterness. But, let's just say that I have a tight circle of close friends, and one of them is a lot harder to get along with than all the others. Recently there was an issue between her and my boyfriend that got blown a bit out of proportion, and I sort of lost it.

In simple terms, she felt that he had been rude in some way and instead of addressing it directly she chose to stew on it for weeks, while making unfavourable comments about him to our other friends and indirectly insulting him in front of me. It was kind of a last-straw situation; I felt like this had been going on for too long, and I felt that she was handling it in the completely wrong way, and I also felt like I was extremely done with this sort of drama because it's absolutely not the first time she has caught on to a grudge and held it like a precious gem. (See, trying not to be bitter here, but it's happening anyway!)

Anyway... sigh. This also isn't the first time she has taken a dislike towards who I choose to have relationships with. She hated my ex upon meeting him, for some reason (still not quite sure why), and when he dumped me I think perhaps she felt like she had been proved right. The thing is, when she first met my Fox, she approved of him right away; it isn't until recently that she's taken up her dislike. I think it even started before the "rudeness" incident, and I really don't know why. So I've been feeling a bit like she obviously doesn't approve of my choices, and that really puts a strain on our friendship.

With my other friends, I know we don't have all the same beliefs, and don't necessarily make the same choices that the others would, but we are able to understand the concept of different choices being right for different people. For example, one mutual friend had been wanting to try dating a certain gentleman acquaintance of hers for a long time, but said gentleman was either clueless or uninterested. We all want her to be happy, of course, so we encouraged her to pursue it if she could. My own opinion was that she should ask him outright in plain terms if he wanted to go on a date, and get a straight answer out of him regarding his level of interest. That's my own tried-and-true method, heh. But she would have none of that. She said she was more traditional, that she would like him to ask her rather than the other way around. And as much as I think that is silly, I respected her decision, because I am not her and she is not me and everyone has their own way of doing things. I understand that she is not comfortable doing the same thing that I would do, and that's absolutely fine and it doesn't impact our friendship in the slightest.

Contrariwise, with the friend I originally mentioned, it's like she can only understand one way of doing things, and anything else is a dumb choice in her eyes. I could cite several examples, but to illustrate, she has a peculiar dislike of white-framed sunglasses, which I discovered when I bought some and wore them in front of her. I thought it was hilarious that she hated them so much for no reason other than their colour (they're just sunglasses), so I made sure to wear them as much as possible. That was all in good fun, but... then I realized that she extends this philosophy to everything in her life. Once she decides that something is bad/wrong in some way, it's bad/wrong forever and nothing will change her mind. You can see how it's hard to maintain a friendship like that, especially when I disagree with many of her views. "Her good opinion, once lost, is lost forever."

I have been friends with this friend for a long time, and I don't want to destroy our friendship, but when she casually said, "Men with long hair are lazy," a little something snapped in my brain. (Of course, the Fox has longer hair than any woman I know.) I told her that is a ridiculous opinion and demanded a reasonable explanation for why she held this view, and when she couldn't back up her claim with even a shred of reason I just got even angrier. Women with long hair aren't lazy, apparently, but men with long hair are automatically so? I felt like she was deliberately insulting my boyfriend in a sideways manner. I told her that if she had a problem with him she should address it directly instead of doing all this snarky nonsense at me.

Got even angrier when her "apology" was peppered with reasons why she was still right in the first place. I pointed that out too. I think we've worked things out for now, but apparently it's still bothering me, as I just wrote 6 paragraphs about the whole thing. I'm sort of afraid to post this, even though I haven't really made this blog public to friends and family... our little friendship circle is so tight that it would only make things incredibly awkward if her and I were to have a real falling-out. It's a struggle sometimes to deal with these sorts of things though, especially when they repeat themselves. I don't like drama in my friend circle! We've all been friends for too long to let anything ruin that, but... yeah, I guess I just felt like ranting a bit about it. How do you deal with people like this?

On to other subjects, readers, this is getting too intense for a nice relaxing morning!

I've accomplished a few important things on my short-term goals list, which is good. Got that illustration done for the family songbook, got my tarot cards read (now to practice doing it myself!), completed my application for college and got on the waiting list. Not bad!

Now, friends, there's something I need to confess. I have some things to work on as far as my procrastination/laziness/motivation goes.

I may be addicted to Facebook, first of all. Every day when I come home from work (or even in the morning before work) I pretty much get on there and start scrolling through my news feed. I don't feel satisfied until I've "caught up" with everything new since the last time I checked. I'm pretty sure that's an addiction, right? Ugh. I know it's not a particularly productive thing to do, nor is it particularly educational or mind-expanding. I have been watching a co-worker of mine (also an artist) post her art almost daily, and wondering why I can't seem to make that much art, too.

The answer is that I could, if I stopped doing other silly things (Facebook, for example, and just all the mindless internet browsing that I am so partial to) and started actually doing more art instead. I've started to wonder if I should stop using Facebook, but I don't want to really do that, as it's the only way I keep in touch with some of my friends and family. For a while, I managed to stop the news feed addiction, and I only checked my notifications (which is when someone comments on a post directly related to me, or mentions me in a comment, or sends me a message, etc). I think I'd like to try that again. It cut down on the time I wasted on the site while still allowing the useful parts to be useful.

I do acknowledge that I have procrastination issues, but I am also thinking that some of the problem is my stunted inspiration. Yes, I have been more inspired to draw lately than I have been in the past couple years, but it's still not quite back to where I'd like it to be. I'm using my artistic co-worker as a role model here; she seems to be able to sit down and have the images pour out of her. I used to be more like that, constantly drawing, but now when I feel like I want to do art, my thought process usually goes like this...

-Hmm, if I'm going to do art I need to work on that piece I promised to do for so-and-so, or I should make something that I can give as a birthday gift...
-Urgh, don't really feel like working on that at the moment, maybe I'll just draw for myself instead...
-If I'm going to draw for myself I should make sure it's something I can upload to my art sites, so it should be something related to scientific illustration (side note: I focused on this subject for a while but I want to start expanding again)...
-Meh, don't really want to do that either... maybe I'll just surf the internet for inspiration...

And that's when the time passes, as I'm looking at other people's art wistfully and wondering why I don't have a gallery filled with lovely drawings of dragons and fairies and why I don't have a collection of work that I can show off.

Perhaps what I need to do is sit down and make a written list of subjects or pieces that I'd like to work on. If I put the work into planning a series of paintings it might actually get done.

And that right there is why writing in this blog doesn't count as "mindless internet wandering." Sometimes I come up with good ideas to overcome obstacles when I'm writing about what I think the obstacles are and where they come from.

Maybe I'll do a bit of planning right now. Do a little inspiration-hunting and make notes. I really want to start completing series of works that I can start flogging on Etsy or at craft fairs. I know I have the skill, now it's just getting the ideas down... and attracting that muse again.

Perhaps getting dressed at some point today is also in order...