Try a Little Tenderness

Favorite Things of this Very Moment (12:55 pm CST):

• http://herumwandern.wordpress.com/category/rambling/ (Jordan's new blog)
• Having written a nice thank you to Kim at the coffee shop for being so kind
• The golden autumn sunshine
• Knowing that even though I'm going to walk to work, I won't have to walk home in the dark
• That I haven't had to blow my nose much at all this morning
• iTunes
• Soundtracks from Wes Anderson movies
• The sound of the heater coming on

Well, my angry young friend and I have restored our relationship. I'm not use to people like him, so it's going to be a challenge for me as we go along. On the upside, I think our relationship will grow and we will probably be good friends for many years.

Today I realized I'm rather envious of him in some ways. He's very bold in his faith. He doesn't show any doubt or cynicism. He doesn't hide what he is in any way. He believes what he believes and that's all there is to it.

How does he do that?

I'm not saying that I go around pretending that I'm not a Christian. I've just always been shy. I'm not good about saying anything contradictory. If you abuse the people I love, I will stand up for them. If you trash my beliefs or call me crazy, I won't run. I'll fight for my beliefs when they're threatened, but...

I'm just not very good about speaking up on a day to day basis when I'm not directly asked. This probably needs to change.

On the other hand, he's gotta learn some things too. In his case, he's gotta learn to use tenderness when he speaks to the woman he loves. He's only 19, and he's got time and room to grow. I have faith in his ability to be a real man of her dreams kinda guy, but he's still got a distance to cover before he finds he's there. He keeps upsetting the girl he loves because he's a great deal too blunt about things. He needs to remember she's a woman. She needs to be handled with care. Allowed the freedom to roam and have the feelings she has without him telling her differently. More love in his actions and in definitely in his words.

Like I said, he's got quite a distance to go, but I think that, given the proper encouragement, he'll figure it out.

In the meantime, I'm going to work on using a bit more tact and sweetness when I speak to him and to the other men in my life. We'll see where it gets me.

Versions of the Truth

This morning, for the first time in 3 or 4 days, I felt up to checking my email and catching up on things. Seemed like a fairly cheerful task. Especially as it makes me feel like I really am that much closer to being well.

One particular email stood out to me as interesting, a dear friend of mine who has been struggling with the girl he loves had emailed me. I saved it for last because I figured it would be the one I'd want to spend the most time on, then went ahead and responded to everything else.

Upon opening the email, I almost immediately felt as if I'd been slapped. I guess that makes us even. That's probably how he felt after getting my most recent letter. He'd been championing honesty, and so after a great deal of thought and a long discussion with my incredibly wise mother, I decided to be honest with him. I don't think this girl is ever going to change her mind.

Now, as a lover of romance, fairy tales, and beating the odds...his story is right up my alley, and I feel for him. Being in love with someone for 3 years while being their best friend is a tough position, especially when this person is fairly set in the idea that they never want to get married.

Maybe I'm just becoming too cynical, but I told him what I believed to be true.

Well...he thinks I'm being very unsupportive, and that God has given him this love. Maybe he's right. Mind you, I didn't realize he felt that God had given him a sign, so I don't feel I can be blamed for that.

Eh.

I'm going to try to encourage him, and I'm going to pray that he's right. I'd like to have the faith that he has.

Thoughtful

Favorite Things of This Very Moment (9:59 am CST):

• Ugly Mug Vanilla Coffee (if you'd like to order any Ugly Mug products, let me know. Joel is selling them as a continuing project to raise money for camp.)
• My Spiderman mug that was left at the house by Jeff a million years ago and very much became my own (kinda like the thermos)
• Capt. Benjamin Franklin Pierce (he's...what I want. I love M*A*S*H. Sorry, Nik, I just can't help it...)
• Monogamy & fidelity
• Jay's idea for deer being made of jell-o from now on (I'm hoping for marshmallow myself)
• Cream Cheese Muffin Puffs
• Josh Deane's honesty and storytelling ability

May I make some suggestions? Well, hopefully I'm not being too forward, but I'm going to make suggestions anyway.

Mom and I were talking yesterday, and we discussed our mutual, time-tested belief that when you're miserable or stuck in a rut, what you need to do is help someone else. Few things will pull you out of yourself and your self-pity like helping and focusing on another person for good things.

I realize I am constantly promoting good-fairydom, but how else can a person survive in the cold of this world.

Everyone needs a little cheer. Donate some old clothes, collect some old clothes to donate, or even make some clothes to donate. Make cookies to share with someone (might just help you make friends with your neighbors or co-workers). Ask someone for their opinion on a good book or movie and then actually take their advice (it'll give you a chance to talk to them about something they enjoyed). Buy someone a coloring book and crayons when you know they're having a bad day. Few things in life can't be made a little brighter than a new box of crayons. Volunteer for some kind of service organization: a shelter, the Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, etc. Help out with your church. Just spend time with your siblings. Write a handwritten letter. Mix cd's. Or maybe just give someone a genuine compliment. Do an extra chore.

It's about the little things. The tiny bits of cheer that you can bring to someone's day.

Just something to think about.

"The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth." - William Shakespeare

For Jordan - Semptember 2009:

1. Hey Jealousy - The Gin Blossoms
2. Don't Ask Me Why - Billy Joel
3. I Try - Macy Gray
4. My Love - Lykke Li
5. Shooting Shark - Blue Oyster Cult
6. Whipping Boy - Train
7. In Love Without You - Brandon Clark
8. Finding Me - Vertical Horizon
9. I Want to Be the Boy - The White Stripes
10. Good Love is on the Way - John Mayer
11. Your Way - Jamie Cullum
12. Call Me on Your Way Back Home - Ryan Adams
13. You've Got Her in Your Pocket - The White Stripes
14. Zebraskin - Dredg
15. I Want You So Bad - Heart
16. I Wanna Be a Kennedey - Kill Hannah
17. Careless - Ella Fitzgerald
18. Forever Young - So They Say
19. Cold Desert - Kings of Leon

I've been thinking a lot about being in love with people who are never going to actually going to love you back. This sucks a lot. Unrequited love...

Anyway...that cd is a mix made for a friend who is in that situation. Sometimes the person you think is truly perfect and wonderful and beautiful and fantastic and brilliant and hilarious...but maybe they aren't. How often do we lie to ourselves?

I want to be the exception. To be the girl that throws off one guys life and existence.

Jordan shouldn't have to take a backseat to anyone. Nikky shouldn't and neither should I.

Just a thought.

The Plan

Favorite things of this very moment (9:10 am CST):

• Hearing from Nikky last night, so I know she's not dead
• Sunshine warming my toes and being so golden and glorious that you wish you could pour it into a cup and drink it all in
• Contemplating the things that I've recently tried for the first time
• Wondering what good deeds I will manage to accomplish this week
• A&W Cream Soda
• Phil Keaggy's "Acoustic Sketches" album

Last night, Nikky and I formed an elaborate plan to deal with the traumatic loves we have had for years. All we need now is the money and to find ways around the Geneva Convention laws...

You see, what could be more brilliant than stranding the people that have truly crushed and maimed your heart on a tiny, sandy desert island somewhere in the south Pacific surrounded by rabid sharks and no communication with the outside world. There would be a speaker system that would play one song on continuous loop for a full month. One month would be a scratched, skipping version of the Jonas Brothers' "Lovebug," another would be "Honky Tonk Badonk a Donk" (however that's actually spelled), and maybe something by the Backstreet Boys or Kenny Chesney's "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" at other times. We'd give them Crisco mislabeled as sunscreen. All the preprocessed food we'd drop for them would be wrapped in pictures of David Bowie's pants from "The Labyrinth." All their blankets and other forms of shelter would also feature that lovely photo. We'd leave them a guitar with the G and B chords missing, a defective camera, and a biting hamster for entertainment. We might even let a group of angry weasels live with them on the island.

Yes.

Just a Poem I Wish I Had Written

To a Stranger
by Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)
Passing stranger! you do not know
How longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking,
Or she I was seeking
(It comes to me as a dream)

I have somewhere surely
Lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other,
Fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,

You grew up with me,
Were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become
not yours only nor left my body mine only,

You give me the pleasure of your eyes,
face, flesh as we pass,
You take of my beard, breast, hands,
in return,

I am not to speak to you,
I am to think of you
when I sit alone or wake at night, alone
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

Keeps on Keeping on

Favorite Things of This Very Moment (9:56 am CST):

• The picture of my sidewalk chalk elephant
• Knowing I've committed my first good deed of the day by rescuing Jack (the one-eyed pirate Momma kitty) from the large orange tabby down the road (Jack and her little one are now hanging out in the safety of our backyard)
• Registering to win pointless prizes at go.rrstar.com/winstuff...There was something in the list of prizes I want, but I sincerely don't remember what it is...ha
• The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg, it gives me hope
• Remembering on waking up that my dream had been about spending time with a very alive, very cheerful, very much himself - Zuni
• Crossing things off of my to-do list
• Getting things moving along for Kayla and Terrence's wedding present
• Glorious golden sunshine

I realized that after making my last big speech about trying new things that I never kept anyone updated on the new things I was trying, so I guess I'll have to attempt to do about job about that. On that note, I wanted to mention a couple of first for me over the past weekend.

I ate prickly pears. I bought some of the prickly pears (fruit of the cactus..ha.) at Valli Produce in Rockford about a week and a half ago, and I ate them this past Friday. The purple one was the weirdest color and when I was cutting it up to eat it, the juice was an unreal purple/pink color that I'd only seen in markers prior to then. Completely bizarre. They were alright. Nothing super exciting, so I probably won't buy them again, but it was interesting to try.

Also, I saw armadillos outside of a zoo. At least 7 of them (probably more). Sadly, they were all dead on the side of the interstate in Missouri. My Uncle Jon says that armadillos are probably born dead because that's the only way anyone ever seems to see them. I was super disappointed that we never go a chance to see a live one. You can't really enjoy a picture of a dead armadillo...so yeah...

This past weekend I took a road trip down for my Grandma Thomas' 90th birthday party with David and his girlfriend, Kelsey. That was another first. I've never traveled anywhere with Kelsey and it's definitely the first time we've ever taken anyone's significant other with us to a family function. I think Kelsey had fun, even if she did seem a little overwhelmed. It was a great way to get to know her better though. We got to talk a lot. She and I stayed with my cousin, Lacey on Saturday night so it was just us a lot of the time. She really did handle all of it very well. I also actually saw Kelsey acting silly for the first time possibly ever. On the way home we stopped at Arby's for dinner and the 3 of us were making fun of the cheesy music they had playing, she actually sang along in an incredibly ridiculous over-acting type manner. It was hilarious.

Which reminds me, I tried bronco berry sauce at Arby's. Another first. A weird one. It's alright, but it would be better with chicken strips and not jalapeno poppers.

I'm sure there will be more new things tried in the weeks to come. I just figure the more open I am to new things big and small the more interesting life will be. I don't want to ever die wondering.

Life moves.