Saturday by the lake

Dancing in the cloudlessness

A vision of what I thought was

But now realize could never have been

Because

Nothing's perfect like a memory

Dressed up in hope and drenched in regret

Twine your fingers through the blades of grass

While flashes of flesh shine through

Cuts and slits in the skin of the water

And shrieks of excitement try to drown

Out the fear of rejection standing shadow

To every wink and come hither stare.

Leap into this

Beg for the pain

Pine for joy

And live with devastation

Hunger for a drop of something pure.

Just one taste to kill and cure.

Retro future

In some ways I feel like I've always been "older" than my peers or just other folks in general. But in many ways it seems like I may never catch up to the place where even my youngest sister has already reached. It's a strange space to occupy: an old soul still doused with childlike wonderment. I've made it my goal to live my life like I'm already an old woman who's received one wish--to be young again. What would I do if I had already lived my life and was looking back on it?

Always eat dessert, have lots of sex, and floss, regularly.

It's hard to know what I'll regret when it's all said an done. Figuring that by the time I am certifiably "old" my body will have deteriorated to the point of no return leaving me plenty of time to lay around, while my physical being dissolves, to think about all of this. Lord knows I'll be there sooner than I think. I can't believe 2010 is more than half over already. But, what I imagine I'll think back on will be moments of beauty and pain. The exhilaration of my first piano recital, or singing the national anthem at the big high school basketball game. The heady smell of pine trees and gentle rustle of the wind through their needles high above my head while Mike Ozmond was giving me my first kiss. Disappointments and broken hearts. Stitches, bruised ribs, and slight concussions. Watching the sunset glint off the glass fronts of the graves built into the hillsides of Spain while on a bus to Barcelona, and watching airplanes crumple the sides of buildings on TV while getting ready for my first day of massage therapy school. What I can't imagine I'll regret is kissing lots of boys, staying up late on school nights, spending money I didn't really have to go to Hawaii or New York City or make a big deal out of a friend's birthday. I don't know if I'll regret not having kids or not getting married because I don't know that those things aren't still to come.

Expectations are tricky little beasts. For a creative mind, the building up of expectations can be devastating. The ability to create a lavish fantasy future is crushing in it's minutest detail. But is it cowardice to invent an impossible world that's all happy endings and justice for the evil doers? Or is it saintly to mold these ideals into stories for others to glean hope? Heroes that make mistakes are much more real than those who claim invincibility. Having integrity and treating people with respect, taking responsibility over your own actions--how sad that we live in a reality where those are heroic traits and not simply the status quo.

So as I continue to build the story of my life, I'll do my best to be the hero of my own tale. All the while remembering that someday I will come to the end of it. And who doesn't want their life to be like the last book in a series so great it hurts to read the last page because it means the story's over?

Emo-con

Love is not an ocean,

or a card

or a ring.

Love is not a promise,

or a guarantee.

Love is jealousy.

Love is hate.

Love is madness,

an emotion born in the brain that manifests in the heart.

Created to cleave together

beings who would otherwise be

isolated

in the solitary of their own minds.

Emotion so strong it blinds

a mother against the anguishing pain of

birth

Cripples old and young,

weak and strong alike

when it is lost.

And though it is not a possession;

it is precious, priceless, and precarious.

Dating Nirvana

I've been on the fringe of dozens of relationships.

I mean that literally.

Not the verge, not the precipice, but the fringe. I've been a kind of "fly on the wall" for countless friends' relationships. An amateur therapist of sorts for pals: guys, gays, and gals, alike. And it seems to me that the bottom line is this:

Relationships are hard work.

But hard work is rewarding as hell, so saying relationships are hard work shouldn't really deter anyone who doesn't expect life to be handed to them with easy to follow instructions downloadable from iTunes. Then again, with every passing generation we get ever more dependent on the ease of instant gratification. You want to get ahold of someone? They are summonable from virtually anywhere on the planet at the touch of a few buttons on a cell phone.

This world is fast paced, gimme what I want, get it where you can, flaunt it while you got it, because in about the time it takes to minimize a browser window--it's gone.

So how can we be surprised that relationships are not working--not as successful as they seemed to have been a hundred years ago? It used to be standard for people to fall in love over years of penned correspondence, for crissake. Now that tradition has been transformed--or maybe mutated is a better word. Kids are having entire junior high romances via text. A winking emoticon in first period leads to "going out" by lunch. A series of half speak, misinterpreted short hand and electronic squabbling during gym results in the termination of relationship status on facebook by dinner time.

WTF.

Maybe the issue lies in knowing just how many fish there are in the sea. If any one little thing is wrong with whomever you're with--if any fingernail of doubt digs it's way under that paint chip of happiness it doesn't take much prying to break a chunk loose.

But what if that's alright? What if at this point in human evolution we're starting to learn that the best way to raise a family is by non-traditional means, such as, friendly co-parenting. A man and a woman become pregnant, but are not themselves involved romantically--though they still have the utmost respect and appreciation for the other. They enter into a partnership of parenting where each side trades off equal responsibility and share of the child's life and development. The child has two teams of dedicated parental figures guiding, nurturing, and caring for them without animosity or hostility towards one another. Meanwhile, the parents never get overwhelmed with all the child raising responsibilities because there are two different--separate but equal--teams pinch hitting. This leaves the parents time to pursue their own interests, hobbies, careers, romances, etc when they're "on leave" from active parent duty.

I'm sure, like any scenario, this could turn sour in any number of ways--but it's an interesting idea, I think. It fits better with our ever growing selfishness as a society. Our obsession with this idea of "purity" and what's "right". Instead of considering "traditional" the standard for how to live, perhaps we should think of it more in the way we use the term vintage to describe fashion purchased at Abercrombie and Fitch.

Mystery Date

What's wrong with me?

I'm being serious now. What's amiss up in my clock tower? Why am I only interested in men who are not interested in me in return? How is it that I seek these uninterested men out without realizing, and what is it about them that draws me so inexplicably to them?

Yes, yes, I know that it's no uncommon phenomenon that people are attracted to others who are not attracted back. And that this occurs millions of times a day to everyone. That doesn't make my lack of connections any less befuddling. By the age of 29 most people have fallen in love at least once. Most people have had a serious relationship involving living with someone with whom they're romantically ensconced.

Not I, said the fly.

99% of the men I've winked at or emailed on the match have either A) sent me a polite auto response denial B) looked at my profile and not bothered to respond at all C) responded only to flake or D) responded met up once and then disappeared off the face of the earth.

Only one has panned out, and he doesn't want a relationship. We're just working on being friends.

99% of the men who hit on me from the match (or in real life for that matter) are either A) boring morons B) have nothing in common with me C) no intelligent sense of humor or D) my dad's age

Now, I can't believe that I'm so fucking full of myself that I think I'm on some level way above my league. And I'm sick of hearing the "this town is ridiculously superficial" excuse because I'm not a huge ugly fat chic. Plus, I haven't lived in this town my whole life or anything.

There can really only be one logical explanation for this extreme unluckiness in love:

Reincarnation is real, and I was Napoleon in a previous life.

D-DAyTE

Uh oh. Here is comes. The big one. THE Hallmark Holiday event of the year:
VALENTINE'S DAY.

The match.com must be sprucing up it's weekend deals because one of the sidebar headlines on my "home" page said: "It's nearly boyfriend season..."
...

Boyfriend SEASON? This gives a whole new meaning to the term, "manhunt". I suppose this 'season' they are referring to revolves around Valentine's Day. Now I know in this day in age full of forward thinkers and PC pilgrims Valentine's Day is supposedly regarded as a the day to tell EVERYONE you love that you love them. Singles and doubles alike all rejoicing in a day full of love and togetherness yada yada yada...
Bullshit.
Valentine's Day is the day when all those who are coupled can rain down their superiority over those who stand alone. It's their time to look down at us from their towers of partnership silently proclaiming, "Look at us! We found someone to put up with our crazy!" The fear of this 'couples wrath' is very real for some singles out there--men and women. I think that's why the headline "It's nearly boyfriend season..." rang so soundly the alarm bells in my head. Because as the fateful 14th day of February looms closer, the Valentine's Day scramble starts to get more and more frenzied.

In early January the pressure is nearly none. The hype of New Year's Eve debauchery is just dying down, and resolutions are the biggest lies we're telling ourselves. Then all the sudden you look up, and it's the last week of January...Stores are starting to become infected with fake holiday decorations in all shades of red. By the first week of Feburary the commercials on TV have started to pop up. Jewelry ads, candy ads, vacuum cleaner ads...then, crunch time--the week before Valentines Day. Now weekly sitcoms are gearing up for their Valentine's episodes. Sappy romantic "date movies" show up in theaters, practically unannounced. Now the 'red scare' has seeped out onto the very streets. All over town window displays, flyers, and those odd roadside signs that advertise for "Christian Singles in LA" "Jewish mixers" "Gay gatherings" "Speed Dating" etc. with just a phone number underneath, crop up on every corner. And heaven HELP you if you accidently walk by a florist. All to dig the fear of singledom on Valentine's Day deep into your soul. As if being single on Valentine's Day equals eternal solitude.

Then the day comes. Those who have vehemently sworn their indifference to the day and all it stands for are usually hit the hardest. While those who have been scouring their 'little black palm pilots' for anyone AN-E-ONE, find themselves not so bothered by the idea of having a date with a hot bath, a joint, and a box of self-bought chocolates (at least you'll get the ones you REALLY like). Then everyone goes to bed and when we all wake up it's the 15th. It's all over. Maybe you'll have a day of suffering through recounts of other people's romantic tristes, fights, sexings, and/or trips to the hospital but other than that, the day of reckoning has passed. Boyfriend season has closed.

EluciDATE

Today I found myself in a most foreign environment: le Sports Bar.

A little joint in the valley (yes, I know, a harrowing experience in and of itself) called "The Draft". We stopped by this place for a beer and nosh after moving my friend from the sanctity of the westside to the armpit of Los Angeles. Upon entering this cafeteria of carousal, I was immediately drawn to the stereotypicality of the guy/girl couples populating the place. Girlfriends dressed in 'baby tees' of their team of choice. Usually matching colored shoes or miscellaneous accessories accompanied their faux jersey. Wearing jeans that were too tight, or skirts that were too short with curled up or purposely straightened hair. They were clustered together in girl support teams while their men folk were running amok. Dressed in oversized jerseys of their favorite players or well WELL worn t-shirts/sweatshirts drenched in logos. The guys were stationed in homoerotic viewing pods where slapping hands, arms, chests, asses etc were acceptable because of the shared enthusiasm over their team's victories.

Now, I'm not saying watching sports on TV is stupid. Lot's of people are crazygonuts over different sporting events all over the world. It brings cities together, countries even. But there's just something about watching sports that divides the sexes. There are countless women who get into football/baseball/basketball/soccer what have you just as adamantly as any man--but it's rare to have a group of men and women really celebrating their team together. At super bowl parties--women are still in the kitchen, men at the grill. At the sports bars, women group together and find other things to talk about in and around the sporting action. Men spend the majority of their time engrossed in the action or talking about the game or other games/players/plays during commercials or timeouts. And this sports bar, The Draft, was no exception.

So I'm sitting in this crowded hole-in-the-wall drinking a dollar draft of Bud Light out of a plastic cup, trying to beat down the PTSD of my days as a cocktail waitress at Chili's during March Madness, when a commercial for Jared's Jewelry comes on during a break. The piece of junk jewlery they were advertising was as tacky and terrible as they come. Some kind of charm bracelet nightmare with little silver bobbles interspersed with letter blocks and colored beads. "$99.99" special or something along those lines. I shook my head wondering who the hell would buy that for their wife/girlfriend/mother. Then there was a commercial about used cars and another about the show coming on after the game. After those was a commercial for Kay Jeweler. This time for a gaudy necklace with a silver looped diamond mess. It was received by a mom looking all surprised and taken aback by the thoughtfulness of the husband, when really it was the kids that orchestrated the whole debacle. (Thanks for nothin, Peanut gallery) Again, I found myself thinking, "Who BUYS that crap? Do chics really fall for those gags?" Just as that thought bubble was popping, a commercial for Edible Arrangements came on talking about how sending chocolates was a thing of the past--and like a ton a bricks it hit me: VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE 2010.

Like in a dream, I slowly lowered my Dixie cup of light beer. All at once I was blinded by the refracted light from the rhinestoned necklaces, bedazzled Laker's baby t's, bling rings, and costume jewelry all around me. Those terrible charm bracelets were hanging off numerous wrists, heart shaped yellow gold pendants with tiny diamond chips dangled from necks in every corner of the room. I was sitting in a cesspool of the target demographic for Valentine's Day crappy pap. I marveled at how well it all seemed to work together. How "normal" this was for this group of people. It made sense, it was practically cut and dry. And for whatever reason, a strange calm fell over me knowing that the majority of these gals will love getting that chintzy jewelry for the worst Hallmark holiday on the calendar, and that the men who give it to them will fully expect a blow job and a beer for it.