Monday Ennui

Hello again. It's the Monday morning report, thought I'd start off with an interesting verse from a Simon and Garfunkel song I had the pleasure of remembering recently.

Hello darkness, my old friend,
Ive come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.

It's been a silent weekend for me. By way of explanation I suppose I should point out that I'm not normally a loud and vivacious person, I'm more of a calm, quiet introvert. This weekend I fulfilled that role pretty well, and as a result I've bred a few questions - What's wrong with staying silent? I'm a silent person by nature, I suppose. Leave me alone, and I'm quite a quiet person. I rather like it that way. I suppose it's because for me, silence is comfortable. Like an old blanket that drapes across you. It doesn't demand anything of me, and yet it gives nothing, either. There is often so much noise in our surroundings that we're not given the time to think for the need to listen to what is going on. Instead, I have chosen to ignore the sound and focus on silence. Ignore the rush of what I'm supposed to hear and focus on what I should be hearing. Sometimes, it can be wonderful, and at other times miserably claustrophobic.

I mention all this because I had the (mis?)fortune of attending The Word On The Street festival, a literary festival held in and originating from Toronto every September. A wonderful melange of publishers, writers, seminars, and non-profit groups, WOTS is a great place to spend a Sunday, and maybe $50. Not to mention, it's a wonderful way to greet and pet lots and lots... and LOTS of dogs :).
The mood was unfortunately spoiled by one of my friends. N is a dear friend of mine. We've been friends since university, and know each other quite well. Unfortunately, I also know that she does not have an off switch when talking about her own personal issues. As wonderful, enthusiastic and, well, loud as she is, she treats me as though I'm her gay best friend, when none of that three-word epithet applies. Trapped for an afternoon, listening to a woman who recently broke off her engagement is neither my idea of a good time nor an act conducive to maintaining my mental health. While she pottered on about jobs, personal life, her recent and dramatic history, and several other events I can not name, remember, nor gather any significant emotion for other than apathy, my responses degenerated from lengthy, probing, intelligent questions, to sentences designed to show some agreement as well as my own opinion, to half-sentences, single words, and then phonemic grunts.
My grandmother has a wonderful piece of advice when dealing with people whose only mission in life is to have an audience listen to their problems: Take a Tylenol™ beforehand.
So my question to you, faithful readers, is how you would have dealt with the situation. Would you have stayed with her for the afternoon? Would you have listened and offered advice? Would you be okay with doing what I did?

I ditched her.

That's right, I ditched her. While listening to a terminally bore-ass seminar on some sort of magazine publishing, I wandered off to another seminar tent, assuming she could see me. Lo and behold I looked around, and she was not there. I went back to the space where the previous seminar had been held, and saw nothing. So I had ditched her with her help. Let it be stated for the record, however, that I did not ditch her immediately. Upon entering the space where WOTS was being held, I made a point of introducing the intersection of two streets, and stating that we would meet there if separated - Of course, I went back to this intersection, stayed for a quarter of an hour, and didn't see her. So, I left and went on my own merry way, enjoying not only my freedom, but my blessed silence!

And that, of course, will be where I end my blog, with a soupçon of flair!