“Everyone” is an artist..”

click on the picture…

ok, first off “intimacy’ may not be the right word. but forgive me, its ten to to one, so i may not be quite as saavy with words as i’m used to/known for. I’ve been spending a lot of time… ok MOST of my time of late, considering/contemplating/discussing the ins and outs of digital communication. tonight i interviewed another friend for my film, and i was feeling very tired from all this doing and talking i’ve been getting up to. i got home pretty certain that for once i was going straight to bed. then i turned on my computer literally just to charge up the ipod, then i ended up on email, got distracted by facebook and was just about to sign it all off when i realised i had two messages.

i should maybe also tell you that the glut of my facebook traffic is from work related friends. its ironic, but despite the fact i technically spend more time with these people then anywone else, there is a lot of connecting/chatting/ social coordinating that happens for us via facebook. we’ve become a closer knit group in the last year. maybe because we’ve been galvanised by the number of people who have left. its never quite been what i wanted to do “when i grew up’ but over the last half year or so i’ve really grown to like most of who i work with and feel quite close to many of them. we don’t socialise so much outside of work, particularly on weekends, but we all really like eachother so perhaps thats why facebook has become quite a useful and used tool. its like a way to socialise outside of work without actually giving up the time commitment to meet outside of work.

so it wasn’t unsual to get a long message addressed to a silly facebook message one of us had sent ages ago. and it was a very funny message, from a coworker i really quite like. but within the first paragraph this coworker revealed the reason he hadn’t been at work recently was because he’d had a stroke. said stroke was stress related and therefore work related. it was a major thing to impart, and in my groggy post interview late night at home state i wasn’t tottally prepared to take it in.

one of the questions i’ve been asking in my interviews with people is why certain digital mediums are used and for what purpose. when/why do you poke, text, wall comment, email, call? ANd in this case to have this message, not even as an email, but as a facebook email, it adds a shred of the casual to an otherwise heavy disclosure (aided by the great humour and dry sarcasm of the writer) and it was a group message which lessend the weight as well. but still i’m sitting here and its affecting me. because it was important for him to tell us, and he chose this virtual kind of coffee lounge area to tell us. and we are those that he doesn’ t know so well to call, and it would be too heavy to write a formal email to us at our work addresses. but sites like these give a forum to get it out. and i know he won’t be working with the company anymore. but like all who have left before him (bar one) i know he is likely to stay on facebook, solely for the purpose of being connected to us, our group specifically.

and like the co-worker who left a month ago, who i regularly chat with on gchat every day, making us feel like he’s still in the same office with me, he will stay in the loop in a way that previously he would have drfited. and thats something i havn’t really considered until now. the power of these sites being a tool to keep a group connected. i dont’ truck with group so much, i’m more a one on one kind of girl. but right now i’m thinking about this, this moment, this message, this period in the company i work for, and i’m more than a little touched. and very very humbled.

the world of dating, relating, connecting is a weird and wonderful
place, but tonight i had an experience that had nothing to do with a
date or hooking up that felt similarly set up/charged. my flatmates are
moving to greener horizons (namely their own place, fair enough really
as they are a married couple) so i’ve been engaged in the odd task of
trying to find someone i barely know tha i can live with (all my own
friends are settled into their own places or seriously settled with
their partners). I have kind of found someone who fits the bill, and am
meeting her soon to discuss. but meanwhile the latina half of the pair
i live with had gone into full on matchmaker mode.

before i
knew it i was informed of a dinner party taking place at the flat. on a
night i already had plans for. in fairness to my flatmate she did give
me a few days warning, but the diary tends to fill up quickly.. at any
rate i came back from seeing my friend, a little tipsy, a little
frustrated at my extended journey home, having watched multiple busses
pass in the wake of the tube strike.

the strangers sat at my
dining table were a nice lot, and as i sat at the seat left at the head
of the table, i took a cursory peripheral look at the prospective
flatmate i was being set up with, making sure that my focus appeared
mainly on filling my wine glass and lighting my ciggarette. meanewhile
the prospective flatmate (a very attractive girl i will add, maybe
dangerously so) shyly looked forward at her empty corona bottle and
made little circles with it on the table.

the others chatted
loudly about where they all worked. my other flatmate and i tried our
best to catch up. occasionally my "matchmaker" flatmate gave me details
about her friend to ally myself with her "she loves to party" " she
loves brick lane" "she lived in america for a while" "she loves the
flat" to which her friend would glance at me with her blazing green
eyes and maybe or maybe not say a few words.

it was very
surreal. the point of the occasion was for me and this girl to get to
know eachother and guess whether we could live together, but the others
at the table spoke to much for there to be any room for either of us to
get in a word edgewise. and i was tired, but as a constant host i tried
my best to get something out of the girl, or at least share looks with
her in conversation to make he feel more comfortable.

more
than anything it felt like we had been brought together by the two
other couples at the table for some kind of arranged marriage set up.
and neither of us seemed very capable of talking to the other. suddenly
it was last train time, and they all got up to leave. the girl said
nice to meet you, and i responded courteously the same, but i couldn’t
help feeling that after a couple hours of sitting next to her i had
little sense of her at all.

i suggested we all go for a drink,
her and i and my flatmate. and she again smiled shyly and nodded. they
left, my flatmate was desperate to know what i thought of her friend. i
felt pressured, i managed something very hippy-esque like i felt she
had "good energy" as there wasn’t much else i could say. this appeared
to be a good answer and was met with a big grin. i explained to my
flatmate that i did kind of already have someone else in mind to move
in, which appeared not to be the right answer, even though she knew
this already. she looked serious and said, yes yes but you know you
have to keep your options open.

funny that, as i’m pretty sure had i said " when can she move in" she wouldn’t have cared to much about my "options"..

but i guess couples always seem to want to hook people up in one way or another no?

i’m more a lady of words, than images. but i came across the following and had to post it. it very simply expresses my state of play currently, and not without charm and cuteness.

click on the picture for full screen image madness.

*** if you really like the design you should buy it from the designer!