May 29, 1991

December 5, 2016

I am in English class again (another loose leaf transfer). I went to the eye doctor this morning, the eye infection is still there. Got some ointment. It seems pretty good. I won’t put eye drops in but it’s a kind of gel that you put in the eye (gross). Well I’ll see how it feels. Jane is going to break up with her boyfriend. I think that’s good. I don’t like being single when she’s not. Crystal’s grad ceremony tomorrow.

                                      Ugh, I’m so ashamed of how petty and jealous I was about Jane. I was such a terrible friend. I still am actually. I mean I’m not petty and envious anymore but I’m very limited in how many people I can care about at any given time. According to science we all are, and the average person can only handle about five close friendships at a time, but I think my number is one. If I’m hanging out with a specific person then I’m very attentive to them, but out of sight, out of mind.

June 11, 1991

Crystal’s ceremony was nice. I screamed but she didn’t hear. The Sunday next my eye got swollen, went to eye doctor following thursday, got drops, is getting better. I also have to put warm compresses on it (eye, left). Jane dumped Kyle ’cause he was a “mama’s little boy”. I met Luba last Saturday! She is neighbour’s friend. I went over and got her autograph. Nancy Fontaine invited me to the 6th grade reunion on the 15th (Saturday). I’m gonna call Marlène and ask if she can come down for it. I hope I can bring Jane too.

                                       I wasn’t even a fan of Luba’s. I guess I just liked the idea of meeting a celebrity. I have very much gotten over that since then. In fact, meeting Luba was so unremarkable that it may have cured me of celebrity worship.

June 25, 1991

The reunion was pretty boring. I could have lived without going. Marlène didn’t come. I didn’t call her ’cause she had a performance the next day. Jane went to New York. The good thing about all of that was that at the McDonald’s I got a “43” penny in change. Wow.

                                      I collected pennies. I still have the collection, which I keep in a little gum ball machine. Pennies were discontinued in Canada about a year ago so maybe the collection will eventually be worth something… or become and increasingly obsolete paper weight.

It’s Crystal’s prom tomorrow and Mom and Dad’s anniversary (21 years). We are going to eat out and then Mom and Dad are going to Crystal’s prom for 30 minutes while Keith and I lounge around the lounge. (heh, heh).

                                   In Canada, or at least in Montreal, prom is actually called grad ball, and it’s not exactly like what you see on American TV shows. Parents show up for a while to dance with their kids and then the kids do their own thing. My sister’s grad ball was at the Ritz so that’s what I meant by lounge in the lounge. I also ended up making an appearance at my brother’s grad ball but I never went to my own because 1993 was pretty much my peak of depression and self-loathing. It’s interesting that this diary entry is so stark, and point-form, as opposed to an exploration of how I was feeling. I think it’s an indication that the depression was beginning. Good times. 

Plum

November 30, 2016

If you read my post on turquoise, you know colour perception can be subjective and ambiguous. I decided to make turquoise a separate Colour Theory category from both blue and green because of a particular dress I owned that turned out to be divisive in terms of what colour people perceived it to be. The exact same thing has happened with purple and burgundy, so I’ve created a board for plum.

plum-board1

One day, at work, I wore the outfit pictured above. In my mind the main colour displayed was burgundy, but I got called “purple lady” and was accused of dressing like a grape. Interesting, I thought. Then, months later, as I was mentally preparing to write this blog post, I went in to work in an outfit that to my mind was decidedly purple, and another coworker commented that she liked my maroon outfit. Clearly there is a very fine line between purple and burgundy. You could argue that there is a fine line between any two colours that sit next to each other on the spectrum. The word spectrum itself defines a continuum. But I’ve chosen to write an entire post about plum because the line between purple and burgundy seems to be particularly fine. I’m not even sure the word “plum” is the right one to use. Unlike turquoise, there doesn’t seem to be a definitive name for the colour(s) between purple and burgundy. Fuschia and magenta could fall within this range, but they have more of a pink, rather than red influence, so for the purposes of this exercise, plum will have to do.

As I was creating my plum photo collage, I struggled to decide what belonged in the purple camp, what was more maroon, and what plum really meant. What do you think of my choices? Do you think plum even deserves its own category? If plum does, doesn’t indigo? After all, indigo (midway between blue and purple) is an actual colour on the spectrum, so why not give it equal treatment? Well, the answer, for me, is that no one’s ever accused me of wearing blue when I thought I was wearing purple, and vice versa.

plum-board2

Interestingly, as I was scouring my neighbourhood for plum objects I discovered that a lot of foods fall into this colour range. Plums obviously, but also grapes, onions, beets, eggplant, and blueberries when smooshified. So perhaps plum, as a colour, is symbolically indicative of health and vitality, while also conveying depth, and brooding moodiness. It doesn’t really know what it wants to be, and refuses to be pinned down, but is also plentiful in nature. Plum: an enigma, wrapped in a smoothie.