I have had the most marvellous birthday weekend.
My birthdays tend to be hit or miss. This year, I�ve discovered a solution: plan things all through the weekend so everyone gets a chance to see me at least once, and I get to do all sorts of stuff I find enjoyable. Why haven�t I thought of this before?
Friday night was spent dining on gazpacho and home-made oatmeal whole wheat bread with good friends. Saturday we had a handful of people over to read A Midsummer Night�s Dream, which, to my delight, was such a success that as soon as we ended, someone asked, �Can we do another one?�. Saturday I also saw three films I�d never seen before: Zeffirelli�s Romeo and Juliet (and Olivia was indeed divine!); Moulin Rouge (which was absolutely spectacular, but then I love the theatre, and this was a synthesis of theatrical spectacle and cutting-edge film); and The Matrix (yes, I worked at a science-fiction bookstore when it came out, and became so turned off by every customer coming in and raving about it that I didn�t see it in theatres, and was never really in the mood to watch it when we got it on DVD). Sunday I shopped, and with some birthday money acquired an elegantly stunning linen and brocade dress in black and purple for practically nothing, and a pair of leather arm bracers to serve as arm guards with my husband�s birthday present, a 35 # bow. And then, Monday night we did the cider and baked Brie thing at Hurley�s, where people gave me a group present: the music stand that was the subject of much comment here over a month ago: a fold-out music stand that can hold (as I discovered when I got home) five sheets of music. I�ll never have to turn pages again! Coming home, I found one last present had been left for me: a hardbound double volume set of the complete Sherlock Holmes stories, which I�d been seeking without much luck.
I haven�t had so much fun in ages! I should have a birthday every month!
Actually, I think I�m just relaxing enough to enjoy life again. It�s awfully nice not to be wound up, and to be able to sit back and appreciate friends, art, and literature again. I�m rediscovering how much I love art and culture, how hungrily I reach for intellectual exercise now that I have the room to do so. I�m rediscovering my analytical skills as well (I am shocked to see how much they have truly devalued, so I�m exercising them and bringing them back up to scratch!), mainly through rants on the state of culture here (you lucky readers, you), and, um, well, that book of alternative religion that MLG told me to write last summer over lunch one day. I deliberately didn�t sit down at the computer all weekend; I just wanted to live, instead of writing or thinking about living.
I�m also preparing to visit my parents for a week, taking the train up to Toronto tomorrow for a week of quiet and my mother�s home-cooked meals, so if I appear unreachable, that�s the reason why. Genteel teas; a visit to the ROM; lots of napping and reading and writing, with less distractions � bliss!