one of the interesting things i've learned reading this Rats book is that rats are thigmophilic (i may be misspelling that), which means they like to touch things and they rely heavily on touch to identify and negotiate their world. i was remembering this today as i watched the performers of the chinese theater workshop painting on their stage make-up at the natural history museum. i'd stopped by after brunch with Lan and her friend Ichiro to see what new exhibits they have and discovered they were having a special festival on mythic creatures. (They also have one on frogs, which I'm so looking forward to checking out this friday.) watching the face-painting, though, my skin recalled the sensation of cool paint gliding off the bristles of paint brushes, which got me thinking, once again, about my own thigmophilic lifestyle, with my ceramics and my polished wood and love of warm stones and dewey grass, and then wondering whether most people also are as keyed into touch as i am or whether it's more often a taken-for-granted sense. the attention we as a society (or collection of societies) pay to touch as it is used to enhance sexual interactions could be an argument for either side. on the one hand it points to how much of an impact it can have on us; on the other, it pitches touch into a rarefied context and in doing so diminishes it's significance in non-sexual experience. that's all i got on that. i went to see the chinese opera exposition after that and was distracted from my musings on touch.
the mini-opera performance was pretty sweet too though. it was a scene from the Journey to the West where Monkey King steals peaches from a banquet and heaven and then fights Dragon King. I was disappointed there wasn't more singing, but entertained by the acrobatics. i'll be looking into this art form more now. and i may buy some face paints - fun fun. i would so love to have a face painting party, but let's be honest, who would come?
other than that the weekend's been pretty good. I was bummed friday because i either hadn't heard back from friends i'd reached out too or had heard back from them that they were out of town or otherwise unavailable - so i was all resolved to enjoy my solitude - by sheer force of will if necessary - when one did call back and invited me to party thrown by some vassar graduates. this is not to say that i was not, in actuality, enjoying my solitude. i'd been reminded earlier in the week that part of why i've become more susceptible to concerns about whether the people i've met and attempted to befriend recently actually like me is because i've shifted to far into trying to be social at the expense of the things that make me interesting to myself. and really, how can i, with my concerns over maintaining a realistic perspective and realistic expectations about life, convincingly represent my interests as interesting if i haven't actually been pursuing them. it's like linguistics. can i say i'm fascinated by linguistics when at this point it manifests itself in nothing more than wordplay? i don't know. better to dig out my notes and refresh my memory.
oh, right, so the point of that. i had actually been enjoying my evening. i'd gone to a gallery talk on drawings from austria and germany at the morgan library and museum then sat in the atrium cafe, drinking a beer and nibbling a mushroom croutin, listening to the string ensemble and attempting to sketch one of the players. realizing quickly that i should stick with practicing on things that don't move, i switched to my own shoe but with nearly equal results. then i wandered out into the breezy evening to plop myself in a park somewhere and study the new art book i'd bought on japanese homes and await more information on the possible party. i'd just exited with my phone rang and thus the timbre of the evening shifted.
the only mildly negative happening of the weekend were an errant comment about passive aggressive intentions and the discovery that someone who had claimed not to have a key to my apartment, then not to know where it was, and had in other ways blown off my requests for its return, then used it to retrieve something from my apartment. i don't really care to go into the details of this unpleasantness. but it has put me in a frame of mind today to be less hopeful - no more pessimistic - in regards to my recent (by which I mean the last few years) efforts to reach out and befriend people. it sucks, but it'll pass.
on the plus side, i have a tentative plans to play pool with a guy from work next week. yay for pool and yes, yay for new interesting people.
i also saw scoop and sherrybaby last night with AHo. the former was awful; the latter...nearly exceptional. so i'm saving it for a post of it's own once i've digested my reactions to it.
oh and finally, on an amusing note, i was somewhat hyper yesterday while getting the movies and ingredients for dinner last night. i kept making 'we' comments and i realized it wasn't so much a royal we usage as a energy-overflow 'we,' kinda like my enthusiasm was too much for one person and so it needed to implicate more actors. all in a casual playful way. otherwise, you know, i'd be a crazy person.
I not sure if an overly hyperactive we makes you less of a crazy person.
Posted by: Aho | Wednesday, 27 June 2007 at 13:45