Conversation between God and a Bro

Just a thought....this is what a conversation between a man and God might sound like:

God: "Hello, sir.  I am God."
Man: "Oh, hey dude. What's up?"
God: "Umm, me.  I am up.  In the sky.  I live in heaven.  Lookest thou upon me."
Man: "That's cool. So...what are you up to....err, I mean, what are you doing down here, like, on Earth?"
God: "I came to talk to you about life."
Man: "Oh, ok.  So tell me, how can I get to Heaven?"
God: "Well, since thou hast asked, follow me, believe in me, and do as I say."
Man: "Word.  Well, then what should I do? Tell me."
God: "Resist temptation.  Be righteous. Be good."
Man: "Ok.  So you say, resist temptation. Like what?"
God: "Follow the Ten Commandments.  Worship no other God but me, worship no idols, do not take my name in vain, honor your parents, do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not bear false witness against your neighbor, do not covet that which belongs to your neighbor."
Man: "Yeah, I remember those rules.  So as long as I do not cheat on my wife, or eye my neighbors wife, or kill or steal, blah blah blah, I'm good to go, right? You said no adultery, so that just means if I'm faithful when I get married I'm cool, right?"
God: "No, when I said that I meant that thou shalt not have sex before marriage.  And stop with these condoms and birth control that thou hast created.  I created sex in order to continue the race of man.  Do not abuse it."
Man: "Whoa, man, that's fucked up. What do you mean, no sex?  Why?  It feels good, bro.  You should try it."
God: "But you are man.  I have endowed thee with the ability to reason, and to at least ponder what it means to resist temptation."
Man: "So why does is it awesome? Why not make it boring.  That way I won't do it."
God: "Because your forefather, Adam, ate of the fruit of knowledge, which I explicitly told him not to. As a result you must suffer with the task of deciding what is right."
Man: "So knowledge is evil?  Then why did I go to school and waste all that time that I could have been partying?"
God: "Because thou respect thy parents, as I have commanded."
Man: "Umm, I guess, but probably more because I would have been grounded if I didn't."
God: "What is grounded?  You are of Earth, are not all human beings 'grounded'?"
Man: "Yeah...sure, I guess, when you put it that way. So, I guess my real question is, why does everything that feels good condemned? Isn't that kind of mean?"
God: "No, it is my kindness that hast endowed you with the ability to choose what is right and what is wrong.  Whether you do so is up to you. Your soul depends on it."
Man: "Well, then prove to me that I have a soul, and that heaven really exists.  Prove that this is a real conversation."
God: "I can not do that.  Even if I were to tell you the truth, you would require real faith to be admitted to heaven."
Man: "Ok, so should I NOT do?"
God: "Do not commit sin."
Man: "Oh my God, this is getting frustrating."
God: "Thou hast blasphemed.  That is one sin."
Man: "Ok, so let me get this straight, you're going to create all of these things to tempt me, tell me not to do them, and then rub me in my face and expect me to resist?"
God: "Well, when you put it that way, then I suppose so.  Here is a beautiful woman, some alcohol, and an unguarded treasure.  Do not drink, do not have sex, and do not steal."
Man: "Dude!  You're putting it in my face and saying no? That's fucked up."
God: "As you see it.  I told your forebear, Adam, not to eat of the tree of knowledge, yet he did.  And because of this you must suffer."
Man: "But that was thousands of years ago.  What the fuck!"
God: "Do not curse, it is not honorable."
Man: "So basically, you surround me with women, drink, drugs, and a million other temptations, say, 'it's your choice,' then judge me when I die?"
God: "Thou couldst think of it that way, yes. But it is your choice. I've enabled you with free will, after all."
Man: "Fuck this shit.  I'm out, man, I mean, God, whatever.  Peace!"



Not sure where this came from, but it's kind of how I see it.  What I live by?  If it feels good, go for it.  You never know what's going to happen after you croak. Carpe Diem.

Revolving Doors

     Some people just can't be saved, and I have to stop trying.  For the past three years I've been seeing the same man on and off, but I've finally had it.  I have no regrets and I'm trying not to think of the last three years as a waste, but as a learning experience.  It's a natural part of life that people come and go with regularity.  Some leave before we are ready for them to, and others certainly overstay their welcome.
     The beginning, and I mean the first month or so was great.  I fell fast and hard for this person whom I had never expected to be attracted to.  Soon he began playing the come and go game that he would continue to play with me for three years.  I have always known that he did this because he has a lot of emotional issues.  The particulars are not important, nor am I exactly sure of what all of them are.  Whenever he disappeared it was because he was afaid of commitment.  Once or twice in the first year it was because he met someone else, but I understood.  That's not to say it didn't hurt.  But his fears and emotional issues became something that I wanted to fix.
     Something that always attracted me to him was his emotional vulnerability.  At some point it became my mission to heal him.  But I've also done plenty to hurt him and I know that, too.  The first time was when I started sleeping with his best friend.  I did it because I wanted to get a reaction out of him.  I thought that perhaps if he could open up and show me some anger then we would become closer.  When that didn't work, I decided that it was time to move on and try to see other men.
     In the past year I've had two serious relationships and have wound up with him after both of them.  I knew that he cared about me enough to be there for me when I was having problems, and was satisfied with that.  For a long time I was upset that he never complimented me and was afraid to take any steps forward, but more recently I just told myself that that would never happen and I would have to regard his unspoken signs as enough. 
     But over the last year, or maybe more, but feelings for him have not been the same.  Every time he came back, it inflated my ego, not my heart.  I began to realize this about six months ago. At that point I had started dating someone else, but he called me out of the blue and said "I want to make this work."  My reaction startled me.  They were the words I had wanted to hear for years, but I wasn't ready to run back.  I had only been seeing the new boy for about a month, but I knew that it would have been silly to run back to the same old guy who would probably just change his mind again a week later anyways.  Actually, the reason I started dating this new guy was because of the old one.  I had met him about a month and a half before actually going on a date with him, and the reason I went on that first date was because the old one bailed on me the night before. 
     It was my anger that led me to date my most recent boyfriend who also broke my heart.  But this was different, he was everything the old one wasn't.  But, again, when it ended this man was here for me.  Not only was my heart still hurting over the boyfriend, but also I knew that things were different.  When I spent time with him I could only think about my ex, but I figured that was normal.  About a week or two ago when he started playing his usual games with me again I sat down and really thought about how I felt.  I always felt guilty about hurting him and surprised that he always took me back.  Part of me wondered if this was a quality that I should admire him for.
      My time with him was like time spent working on a project.  I had always tried to fix him, but this time I was trying to just accept him.  One day I started to wonder why we always ended up back together, and the thought that maybe we were just meant to be together started to creep into my mind and it wasn't pleasant.  Perhaps it was, I started to think, our shared insecurities that linked us together and that maybe I should just forget about the things that he lacked, and settle for someone who just silently cared. 
     Towards the beginning of this week I started to feel really frustrated again and I told him.  "This is pointless, right?" I asked him.  I expected his usually, "yeah, sorry," sort of response and was shocked when he said that he just wanted to take things slow, but had so much fun with me and wished he had more time.  Although I was actually trying to end it, I was surprised and decided to just remain relaxed about the situation as I had been for some time.  He was really good for the days that followed that.  He tried very hard to get me to come over Thursday night and pointed out to me that he had been trying when I refrained.  He asked me to go out Saturday and I told him that I wasn't sure and may have had plans but that I would let him know as soon as possible. 
     I ended up going to his house around 2:30 am on Friday and he was very sweet.  I told him that my plans for Saturday fell through and asked him if he still wanted to go out as he had asked me.  He said he'd let me know.  Much to my surprise, when I checked back with him later he agreed to take me out for dinner.  We set a time and I started getting ready before it.  Although he never complimented me, I wanted to look extra nice because I had a feeling that maybe since his behavior had started to change, he would actually notice and say something. 
     But as the time for us to go out approached, I told him I was running a little late.  He was out already and drunk.  I asked if he was bailing on me.  I was a little angry, but not that surprised, as this had happened before.  He said he'd be about an hour later, so I waited.  He said he was still drinking and I asked him if he thought that was wise, but he didn't respond, so I said, do whatever you want, just let me know because I'm hungry.   But, he never stopped drinking, and never left where he was.  I texted him after an hour and a half had passed and asked if he had left yet.  I wouldn't have been so angry if he had simply said he didn't want to go out anymore, or if he had said no earlier.  After he didn't respond for a few minutes I said I had had it.  This was the last time he would do this to me. 
      After a little while he actually had the gall to tell me that I was expecting too much.  I had already told him a few days earlier that I wasn't looking for anything and didn't know I felt.  I was not pressuring him at all.  I had even given him a chance to not take me out that night.  I wasn't expecting anything except a piece of cheesecake, which was what I really wanted more than anything.  His comment about taking it slow earlier in the week was still resonating in my memory.  Years ago, this would have upset me because I wanted to be with him, but now it was simply the logic of saying that to somebody after three years that was irritating. 
      We've both put each other through a lot of shit over the last three years, but I felt that this was the first time he was intentionally trying to hurt me.  Life is like a revolving door in that people come and go all the time.  I've intentionally pushed a lot of friends through that door because I felt that had hurt me or disrespected me in one way or another, yet I had let this man remain for three years.  Neither of us is at fault, but the time to push him through that door and then lock it has come.  Any guilt I felt for possibly playing with his heart over the last few weeks ended.  I didn't really know why I was giving this man, who the thought of spending the rest of my life with actually scared and depressed me more than that of being alone, another chance. 
     I was riding the most recent wave of his attention and was beginning to see if I had in fact taught an old dog a new tricked.  It seemed as if I had for a couple of days at least.  But last night was the last straw, and the way out that I had been looking for.  I always cared about him and respected him, even if I had hurt him or he had hurt me in the past.  I have never been so patient or understanding with any single human being and I worked very hard to be as understanding as possible.  Whenever he needed me or wanted to see me, I usually went running.  But it was only at times that were convenient to him.  Nothing was ever done on my terms.  I will no longer live like that.  Last night I lost any remaining shred of sympathy or respect that I had for this person. 
      As I said, I don't regret the last three years because I have grown up a lot.  When I met him I was naive and delicate, but I have learned so many lessons and become so much stronger because of him.  Now is the time to close that chapter in my life and start fresh with what I have learned.  I have to stop worrying about him.  Hopefully he will learn from all this, too, and maybe actually settle down some day, but I have serious doubts.  But, I give up on this project.  It's futile.  The more I try to help him, but more he puts me down.  So, I'll start other projects.  I'll keep writing my book, and hopefully find the strength to finish it.  I certainly know he has given me plenty to write about, and maybe now that there is a clear end in sight, completing it will be easier. 

To him I say: goodbye and good luck.

A "Weighty" Topic

     Weight is something I've wanted to talk about for a while.  Like most girls, I get a bit uptight about my weight from time to time.   When I was younger I used to blame it on all those 90's Calving Klein "Obsession" ads with the bone-thin models draped along the beach whispering "Obsession" in a sexy voice.  But honestly, I think it's a bit more than that.
     Most people find it hard to believe, but as a child I was always the fat kid.  I'll never forget back-to-school shopping before my freshman year in high school.  Shopping for jeans was a nightmare.  At that time I was in a woman's size 14.  At my field hockey medical check-up I was 159 pounds, and a bit shorter than I am now.  I used to be called names like "Bubba" and it made life really tough.  When I was really young I used to attempt to diet and would fall for tricks like my baby sitter telling me peanut butter was really healthy (I know better now, at a whopping 180 calories per 2 tablespoon serving).
     Now, in this post I'm simply thinking about the past and not necessarily saying I have a problem, even though there is absolutely a correlation between my weight and my emotions these days.
      I remember the first time I started starving myself.  That was in high school.  One of my favorite lunches used to be macaroni salad with Italian dressing and a roll to put it on.  I guess it was sort of the cool thing to do amongst the people I was friends with at the time.  But there was one difference between me and them: they were thin and I was not.  At one point, sometime in my senior year, I just stopped eating.  By then I had a car and study hall last period and could leave early to go to the gym.  I remember sitting through lunch insisting that I was not hungry and then running to the gym, working out on the elliptical and then heading back for drama practice.  I only did drama because I had a part time job and therefore couldn't play sports.  Perhaps I was more than a snob than I thought I was because I didn't care about going to drama rehearsal sweaty after working out despite the fact that I probably wouldn't have really gone to anywhere else in that condition.
     Nonetheless, I never really got that thin.  At my smallest, I was still a good ten to fifteen pounds heavier than I currently am.  It was simpler then: I was fat and I wanted to be skinny, so I didn't eat and I worked out a lot.  But, alas, I was young and naive.  I didn't know about starvation mode, or how your metabolism worked, so I didn't realize that I was actually inhibiting my weight loss more so than if I had tried other methods.  It was ok, though, because I still got compliments and was able to buy a size four prom dress.
     Then I graduated, met my first boyfriend, and started college in the fall.  Ever since I started dating seriously, food and boys have always been intertwined.  That summer we went on plenty of ice cream dates and to lots of nice dinner.  It didn't help that when I went away to FIT in the fall, I was faced with the most embarrassing gym on any college campus possible (and therefore went only once), plus the discovery of sushi and having what I considered at the time to be the best Chinese food in the Northeast located right near my dorm.  I gained the whole freshman fifteen in one semester.  Because of my boyfriend, I decided to take the second semester off, work, and then transfer to BU in the fall.  BU was amazing and I definitely don't regret going there, but I can't help but feel annoyed now that I made such a life-changing position for a guy, but c'est la vie.
     When I came back, I started working at a tanning salon and taking a ten-week diet class.  There I learned the healthy way to lose weight.  I was doing cardio in the morning, drinking a gallon of water per day, eating five to six small meals each day, and lifting weights in the evening.  I started losing weight and I was happy.  But, after a little while I wasn't happy with the speed at which my weight-loss was progressing.  Soon after that I started taking diet pills and laxatives.  Diet pills seem logical, but I actually didn't like them much because they just made me feel sick and the only cure was food.  But I remembered a girl from high school who modeled (legitimately, and still does) but claimed to spend her volley-ball practices eating Italian subs and not actually doing anything athletic.  How did she do it?  Laxatives: that was the rumor.
     The added bonus to laxatives was the show you could put on.  You could eat like a normal person, if not more, but just take a pill and all those calories would fast-forward through your system and not actually be absorbed.  It's a bit disgusting, but if you figured out the timing, it worked like a charm.
     But the day I got caught by my Mom was terrible.  I remember walking through my front door, seeing my dad in one living room chair and hearing my Mom say, "We need to talk."  I came in and sat near the chair closest to the door.  She took out the bottles of diet pills and laxatives and said, "I found these, what are you doing to yourself?"
     "I just want to be thin!" I wailed.  I burst into tears over the torment I'd felt for months and then eventually promised that I wouldn't do it again.  And I didn't, for a while.  I started at BU in late August and I received more male attention than I ever had in my life.  I attributed it to my weight loss, sort of broke up with my boyfriend (although I continued to see him) and relished in the attention.  BU has a fabulous gym and going there was a social thing so that worked out very well for me for a while.  I still wasn't as thin as I was today, but for a bit I was happy.
     Then, shortly after my first full year at BU, my sort-of boyfriend started seeing his ex-girlfriend from before me.  I was shocked and devastated.  The anxiety I felt overrode my ability to eat and I got down to a new low weight that I hadn't been at before.  Although I was depressed, the emergence of bones in my chest elated me.  Finally, I was beginning to look like some sort of model.  Nothing else mattered.
     But everything was pretty under control at that point.  The following year I had a roommate who definitely developed an eating disorder at some point while we were living together.  She, however, had a very different frame than me; she was really tall and naturally slender.  When she started eating very little and working out excessively, my friends and I definitely noticed.  We shared a room and I remember her bending over one day to pick something off the floor and the sight of her rib cage sticking out through her T-shirt.
     This created very mixed feelings for me.  On the one hand I was sickened and worried, but on the other I was extremely jealous.  I still recall being very perplexed by this mixture of feelings.  Eventually it was passed on to me and I was behaving similarly.  At the end of that year I met my college boyfriend. I was a little bit heavier than I currently am, but I was the lightest I had ever been by that point.  I felt beautiful.  He was beautiful.  And, I felt beautiful for having him.
     But like most guys, he had the ability to eat absurd amounts of food and still maintain a six-pack.  As I accompanied him eating ice cream and whole pans of brownies, I started to gain weight.  It got to the point where I had gained over twenty pounds and couldn't continue as I was.  But he wasn't very supportive.  While he would eat something fried and I would eat a salad, he'd tease me that I was eating rabbit food.
     But that was a rocky relationship.  From that point, the relationship between food and boys started to change.  Initially, I thought that being thin would guarantee boys.  Then I realized that having a boy meant that I would gain weight.  It was simply inevitable.  Guys like to see a girl who can eat.  I learned that early on.  But at that point in my life I still thought guys liked thin girls so I started dieting again.  When we broke up for the first time I was incredibly depressed.   Aside from losing him, I also lost my appetite.  But I loved it.  I was thinner than I had ever been in my life.  When he came back about a month later, his and his family's shock at my weight loss really took hold of my attention.  I maintained that weight for a while, continued working out, but things took a turn for the worse about a year later when we really broke up.
     At that point I was working at Nordstrom.  Being in the fashion industry, I always wanted to look my best.  Because my hours were sporadic, I had plenty of time to go to the gym and work out.  But eventually I broke down and couldn't work there anymore.  I quit suddenly and got a job at the insurance company where my mother worked.  When I started there I was horribly depressed, not only about my breakup but also about leaving what I thought would have been an exciting career for me.
     I finally had a regular schedule and could go to the gym at the same time every day.  I even had a personal trainer, although he would often comment on the fact that although I always improved the way I looked, I could never actually get stronger or lift heavier weights.  That probably had to do with the fact that I wasn't eating.
     I hated that job.  Everyone I worked with enraged me to the point that I had to appetite.  I was also so busy that I'd often skip lunch just to get my work finished with.  I would go home, skip dinner, and drink heavily.  But, I also met a very important person.  I still see him sometimes today, although it's a bit complicated.  I really, really, really liked him.  The impact of this relationship had myriad impacts on me, but in this entry my focus is on weight so I'll only address that.  One thing that he changed for me was my vision of my weight.  As I got thinner and thinner, he became concerned.
     Now, this "relationship," if you could call it that, wasn't exactly ideal.  He would often get the jitters about committing, run away, and leave more and more distraught each time.  As a result, I'd grow more and more anxious and lose more and more weight.  Eventually I decided to leave the country to teach as a means to escape this cycle.  But before I left I got down to a measly 107 pounds.  I am short, but I've always weighed more than I look, and have decent size shoulders and frame for a short girl.  At 107 pounds, nearly every bone was visible and I looked breakable.  But, I loved it!  My friends would tease me for being so skinny, but it produced a different feeling than the teasing I received in high school.  I think one of the highlights of my life at that point was after I visited a friend in LA (shortly before leaving for Thailand) a friend of ours from college literally texted her to tell me to eat a sandwich.  I was so skinny that I had people from across the country telling me to put food in my mouth.  It was a novel feeling.
     Then I went away.  I wasn't happy there either.  Bad luck seemed to follow at every turn.  Making friends was extremely hard.  My only friend was food.  This is typical for a lot of females, but never for me.  When I came back I was about ten pounds heavier.  I saw the guy I mentioned previously shortly after that, and got one of the strangest comments of my life.  He's never been good at giving compliments, but the first thing he told me was how good I looked after I had gained some weight.  Another thing he told me was how worried he had been about me before I went away.
     This was a game changer for me.  I think this was the point where losing weight became a way of getting care and attention, not just attracting men.  I started to think back to time we spent together before I went away.  One day that I particularly remembered was going out to breakfast with him.  I was pulling my usual "I'm not hungry" routine, but he insisted I ate and actually fed me.  I felt loved and adored.  This may have actually reinforced this behavior in a way that he probably could not have foreseen.
      But this is where I stand today.  My weight and my emotional relationships are deeply bound.  Every time I meet someone new and start dating them I eat like I'd never seen food before. Then I gain weight.  Then something goes wrong.  Then I lose weight. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
     After my most current relationship ended about three and a half weeks ago, I lost nearly ten pounds in two weeks.  I simply couldn't eat.  Before that I had been upset about my weight because between vacations and nice dinners I gained nearly twenty pounds.  I was working out before we broke up and lost a bit of it the healthy way, but part of me thinks that losing the extra weight and getting down to the weight I was at when we met helped me cope a little bit.  At this point I think I'm stuck somewhere between being happy to be thin, but also getting thin for attention.  The last time we spoke I told him how much weight I'd lost.  I think a part of me expected him to run back to feed me and restore my health, but he didn't.
     At this point I'm stuck in a weird juxtaposition.  I know that I find thin females to be attractive, but at the same time I have learned that guys don't like girls that are too skinny.  Part of me wants to feel attractive, but the other part of me wants to ward off men entirely so that I can really be single for the first time in years like I've said I would.  But there's also a third part of me.  There's that part that doesn't want to scare my Mom or make her worried about me, and therefore doesn't want to get any thinner.  It's a daily battle, but for me it's more about just looking like some model in a magazine.  It's a deeply emotional thing that I'm trying to work through.  I guess we'll see how it goes.


      ***This probably isn't something I should have made public, but it felt really good to write about.  Please don't worry about me, I'm okay.  Or at least I'm working on it.

Looking Back

     I haven't written a blog post since last September.  That's pretty sad because, looking back, I had some decent stuff to say at the time.  I've needed this outlet for some time now but just haven't gone for it.  I just reread not only my final post, but most of the posts I had written before I quit about one year ago.
     Originally this was going to be a year in review, but I just realized tomorrow is September 11th, so naturally a date such as this requires one to look back a bit longer.  I can't believe it's now been eleven years since the Twin Towers fell.  That's certainly a day everyone who experienced it will always remember.  Mr. Adams face receiving the news in study hall, the way my teachers tried to keep it from us so as not to alarm us, the notes Meaghan and I passed back in forth in biology about it.
     Until about one second ago when I completed that last paragraph, I was thinking mostly about how little I've changed since my last post, but now I'm wondering how much I've actually changed since that fated day in tenth grade.  How am I doing in twenty-first grade?  That certainly sounds strange.  It feels stranger.  I certainly don't feel like a little girl.  On the contrary, I actually feel quite old.  Not matured, but aged.
     The past couple of weeks have been pretty difficult to endure, but looking back at the last year, it's not really anything new.  Well, it is, and it isn't.  That weird, oxymoronic feeling of being both hopeless and bursting with hope is still here.  My mood has bounded back and forth from excited to depressed, I've laughed hysterically and cried hysterically, I've gone out and I've made myself a hermit.  Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
     Yet, I feel like a little piece of me changes every time I get my heart broken again.  I always think my heart heals, but actually, I just suture the gash with the bandage of another man that usually tears my heart and leaves it in worse condition than the one before.  But somehow, it hurts in a different way each time.  My typical recovery rate improves with each split, but at the cost of what?
     This last one really was different.  But then again, so was the one before that.  In the past year I've had two very unique relationships, both of which have taught me something.  But the lesson I've learned, or am still learning, isn't quite clear.  And the closer I come to decoding it, the farther away from a solution I feel.
     The first relationship I mentioned really can't be clarified here.  It's one of the, if not the, biggest secret of my life (except maybe the time I accidentally got a friend's dorm party busted in college, but I guess that's out now).  I suppose it's really not consequential because it was kind of similar to this past relationship, just less meaningful, and maybe even in a way caused it.
    The key components of both were that in each I was with a man whom I loved very deeply, I felt loved me, and had my heart smashed to pieces.  What differed between the two, however, was the reality of it.  Actually, I'm not sure reality is the right word.  Basically, without getting into it too much, I'll just say that shortly after the end of that first relationship I quickly decided it was all a facade and attempt to use me in some evil way.  Was it? I can never be sure, but desperately, that was the only idea I could think of at the time to explain the pain, so as that it will stay in my mind forever.
     But, either way, it lead to the second relationship, and in a strange way is also coming back to haunt me now, even though it doesn't hurt like it did at the time.  I can't help but think that if my heart hadn't been smashed in early January, my friends wouldn't have dragged me out in late January, and I wouldn't have met Victor.  Actually, I always admired him for even approaching me, being that I was in a horrible mood that night (as I recall) and thought it was both sweet and brave how he carefully weighted his options for speaking to me because he 1) thought I was too attractive for him (not true) and 2)I looked really bitchy.  Those weren't exactly the words he used, but it was the aura I was definitely putting out.
     I really didn't want to meet anybody at that time, but I ended up dancing with him the rest of the night anyways, despite my disinterest, and even desire to flee when I learned that he was younger than me.  This relationship was different right down to the very start.  I waited nearly two full months to actually go on a date with him.  After continuing to text me in new and original ways and asking me to go get ice cream or grab coffee for nearly eight weeks, I finally gave up on my quest to be single and went out with him.  I won't go into the petty details of the beginning, but we certainly did not jump into anything, which was not like me.
     After about two months of dating, but keeping things relatively casual, I went to Israel.  When I came back, Victor told me that he was ready and wanted me to be his girlfriend.  I had realized while I was away that he was the one I really wanted, too.
     I vividly remember the night that we spent with the Bedouins in the middle of the desert.  Aside from my joy at riding a camel, buying these ridiculous woven pants, and pretending to be a snake charmer with the silly wooden flute I picked up in Bethleham, I had another experience that night.  Around midnight, our tour guide lead us out into the desert.  All of us joined hands, and walked quietly behind as we walked a frightening distance in the middle of the dark, dark night.  The sky vaulted above us in a way I had never seen before.  There are not trees in the desert, if you've never been then you can't imagine what that does for the sky.  It's heavenly.
     The next direction we followed was to form a circle, all of us facing outward, and walk twenty or so paces.  That's farther than it sounds.  After this we were to reflect on our lives.  It sounds tacky, but hey, I love tacky, and I love reflecting.  Our guide told us to think about what was really important in our lives at the moment and to push everything else out.  So, I did.  Perched on a rock I had found, lying on my back, and staring into the stars, which were countless in number, I sat. And I thought.  And I thought of him.  At that moment I knew I really loved him, that he really loved me, and that finally I had found a great person in my life.
     And for another three and a half months or so things were beautiful.  He kept me busy, but more importantly I really felt alive for the first time in a while.   Within a week of coming back from Israel we were saying "I love you" and he was talking about our future.  I'll never forget how after the concert he took me to for my birthday he said to me, "I will marry you some day."  He talked about all the children he wanted, how cute I'd be pregnant, and kept hinting at moving in.
     And he wasn't lying.  I know he wasn't.  This is what made him different.  For the first time I had met a guy who genuinely loved me, thought I was beautiful even when I first woke up in the morning, would tell me he thought that, and made me happy.  Every time a relationship ends I find a way to demonize the man I was dating, but this time I can't.  He's kind, and good, and handsome, and sweet, but he doesn't love me anymore.
     He, too, had gotten out of a dramatic relationship a little bit before we met.  But I guess she had a much larger impact on him that my secret beau did on me because he still loves her.  He didn't cheat and he was honest about it.  I have no choice but to respect him, even if the outcome is another tear in my heart.  He really did love me, I believe that even though it's tough, but somehow his love for her just crept back in.
     This hurts, but maybe not as much as the implications of this break-up.  The difference in him was not the only difference in this relationship.  I was different, too.  For the first time I trusted another person wholly and truly.  I was actually really happy and content in a relationship.  I wasn't looking for more.  I didn't want him to have more money or a better job, I felt adequately loved and appreciated, and I was just happily awaiting the future that I thought was so certain.  I never questioned him, doubted him, or disrespected him.  Those all sound like integral parts of a relationship, but despite being in many of them, I had never really had any of those reactions to a man before.
      Now I'm left questioning what more it could possibly take to have a real relationship that will withstand "forever."  If what everyone says is true, and romantic love never lasts, then why do I crave it so much?  I know my mother has a point when she says that the most important part of a relationship is security, but I know that I need emotional security and not just the financial security that she refers to.
     Yes, I realize now that with Victor I probably would have worried about him all the time if he really did become a cop or a firefighter, that his hobbies would probably get in the way eventually, and that one day his looks, as well as affection for me would fade with time, and that I suppose in that sense I might be better off.
      But a bit of me is also thinking back to the relationship I was in before him, too.  That man also claimed to want to marry me and I also shared those feelings.  The desire to get married has always been something deeply set within me, but looking back at my blog posts from over a year ago, I think I was less set on it at that time.  This struck me in a particular way earlier tonight when I read it because I thought that perhaps I had become more realistic with time, not less.  But am I really realistic?


     I don't know.  If anything, the large number of "but"s and "actually"s in this entry should indicate that.  I guess I'm just as lost as I was one year ago.  But now I've added another two chapters to the crazy book that is my love life.  And I still have the one man around whom I have cared for in a really fucked-up sort of way for years, who I continue to hurt over and over again, leave again and again, and return to again and again.  One thing I can't help but think is that I should not hurt him again.  Another part wonders if he's the one who can offer me the kind of security I need.  And yet a different part of me can't help but wonder how long it will take before I meet the next man that causes me to hurt him, and allow myself to be hurt again.
     Time passes, things change, but others don't.  I've always thought that life was linear; that it was heading in a certain direction.  Now I'm beginning to think it's a cycle.  That implications in that statement are permeable....

Fairy Tales Only Exist in Storybooks

     I'm a hopeless romantic.  I admit it.  Cheesy one-liners, cutesy cards, texts signed with "xoxo" and constant "I miss you"s really make my head spin in a beautiful way.  The last couple years of my life have been filled with men who were really not capable of that kind of stuff at all.  Actually, a hand-full of them weren't even capable of not insulting me on a daily basis.  But that's in the past. Oh well. Good riddance. 

     Now, about a month and a half ago a good friend of mine encouraged me to join an on-line dating site.  I hate the thought of those, but she was persistent so I made a profile.  I hardly filled the thing out at first, but after talking to a bunch of friends who had met their boyfriends/spouses on the internet I figured I'd go back, fill in the details and really give it a shot.  There were a few guys who caught my eye with catchy messages but I continually found something wrong with them and chickened out.  One man, however, really intrigued me.  At first, it was his god-like looks that pulled me in, but after talking for about three weeks and being super cautious, I finally decided to meet him for coffee. In a public place that would be easy to escape in case he was actually a mutant or some kind of weirdo.  But he wasn't.  Coffee turned into a three and a half hour talk about everything from society to movies to God to life and everything in between.  It was difficult to tear myself away to go to the dinner plans I had previously made with friends. 

     We saw each other again the next day.  It started with a romantic afternoon in the park, followed by drinks.  Everything seemed amazing.  The two of us were like children.  He couldn't stop gushing about how crazy he was about me, and I ate it all up. Every word out of his mouth was so sweet I just couldn't help but grin at every moment.  He was so attentive and more importantly, was able to see right through all the fortifications I'd built up around my head and heart.  This continued for a week straight.  We texted constantly when we were apart and saw each other nearly every single day.  He even joked about running away and getting married the third day in.  He almost said the "L word" the second day but I stopped him.  It was all too much, too fast, but it felt like a drug to me.  

     Then came that Friday.  We had a really great night together, made breakfast in the morning, then parted ways to do some things we each had to do.  The night before, he had logged into his online dating account to show me a funny message he received and hadn't logged out.  After hanging out with my friends on Saturday I signed in to see mine but when I logged in his came up.  I was about to log him out when I noticed an outgoing message to another girl.  Not being the type to snoop, I didn't even want to see it, but my fingers got the best of me and I clicked on it.  My heart dropped and I signed out immediately, not wanting to see anything else.  Normally, this wouldn't bother me that much because for the last few months I'd been playing a couple guys at a time and not being the jealous girl I was years ago.  But, just hours before he had asked me to be his girlfriend.  Now, that's fucked up.  

     I collected myself and calmly called him to tell him about what I accidentally saw and he totally flipped but decided to come see me and talk about it anyways.  Being a frantic mess, I started chugging wine and basically passed out as soon as he got there.  This really didn't help anything.  He left kind of angry in the morning and I went home to run some errands and get my mind off of it.  We had quite a heated argument on Sunday and he said he never wanted to hear from me again, after insulting me more brutally than my ex ever had, and he was pretty damned bad.  On Monday I asked if we could see each other and talk it out.  He said it wouldn't be that day because he was busy but maybe the next day. 

     After he flipped out on me on Sunday I got a bit panicky and decided to go to my doctor to get tested for any possible diseases he could have given me.  Now, I know that I tend to get a little over dramatic about that sort of thing, but it occurred to me that maybe if he was actually a psycho, then all the other sweet and seemingly-perfect things about him could have been a lie, as well.  I got a call the next day from my doctor.  All my STD tests were clean, but I did have mono.  I knew I hadn't been feeling that strong or healthy for a couple weeks but had been so love drunk that I totally ignored it.  I texted him to tell him just in case he wasn't feeling well.  He had an interview in town that day and I asked him to come over after and talk like adults.  He declined and said that I was a "low-life piece of shit" and a "sneaky bitch."  

     I was crushed.  Everything had been an accident.  I thought I had done the right thing by being up-front and honest about it. If I really wanted, I could have even spun it around on him and blamed him for not logging out like anyone with common sense. But I didn't.  He called me about two hours later like nothing happened.  I stopped him and said, "Wait, two hours ago you never wanted to hear from me again."  He said that he really liked me still and was willing to give it another shot if we slowed things down.  I reminded him that he was the one who sped it along so quickly and just HAD to see me every single day.  I also told him that his reaction the day before scared me a bit.  I'd never heard someone so angry before.  And trust me, I've pissed off quite a few people in my day.  We left it with him telling me I could call him later if I wanted to and me thinking "pff, yeah right, psycho," but muttering a meek "ok."  

     Not even two more hours passed when I got another phone call.  I answered hesitantly and heard an extremely angry voice on the other end.  "You fucking psycho bitch, you messaged a bunch of girls on my account?!?!?"  I was baffled. I didn't do it.  This is MY blog, he can't read it, so I definitely have no reason to lie here.  I would never ever ever do that sort of thing.  Even when I was young and would look through my ex's facebook that was never my style.  I was more of a call and read the messages they sent out loud sort. But it didn't matter what I said.  He hung up on me and wouldn't stop sending harassing texts.  I suggested he check his outbox, ask these people what had been said, insisted that I had really liked him and therefore wouldn't hit on girls for him, or, on the contrary, if the messages had been negative, wouldn't have done that then told him I had had access to his account.  But logic clearly wasn't going to work on this maniac. 

     All I can say is I feel really bad for the next unsuspecting woman who falls for this guy.  He really is a prince charming when he wants to be.  But it's more like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sort of deal.  I've never seen anyone be so sweet, romantic and perfect than him, then turn so downright hateful and evil.  Sure, it hurt for about a day, but I mean, we only dated for a week so I'm over it.  The fact that I'm also scared shitless doesn't really help either. 

    But the biggest lesson I've learned is this: true love doesn't have to be a Hallmark card every day. It doesn't need constant compliments.  The man I've had a very on-going and complicated off and on relationship with for a very long time was never very good with that stuff (well, not after the first week or so anyways), but, more importantly, after all the shit we've gone through he never said a single unkind word to me.  I always expected too much.  A few days into seeing that monster, this guy asked me to dinner and I declined and told him basically to get lost and that I'd found someone better.  He was clearly crushed and acknowledged that he was taking things too slowly and showed regret for not making me happy.  I soaked it up in some kind of selfish, sadistic glory.  Only now have I realized that maybe taking it easy, not stomping on the gas and going into everything full speed ahead isn't the best idea.  This person always cared.  He may not have showed it verbally, but it was always made known.  I do have mono, so I shouldn't be around people anyways, and I do need a rest from men for a while, but who knows, maybe now I know what to truly appreciate.  Knights in shining armor don't exist, and the more romantic you can be the more psychotic you can be, too.  I'll take a balance for now, thank you. 

Like Catching Falling Stars

"I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion." 

(Kerouac, On the Road, Part 2, Ch.4)


     This quote will always creep back into my mind whenever I really sit back and think about my life.  If I had to choose what I could have on my tombstone, I'd probably go with this.  When left alone to wander, my mind just jumps from topic to topic and from idea to idea like a man trying to catch all the shooting stars in a meteor shower.   The possibilities are endless as far as which direction I could take my life in right now.  
     My interests are so varied, and often flaky, that I eventually am rendered stagnant with thought.  


Here's a short list of things I would love to do:


1. Go back to school.  I think I would sell my soul for the money to afford grad school. The only problem is that anything I would want to study is probably not going to yield much job potential, other than teacher, or maybe professor if I do really well.  For example, I'd kill to know everything about philosophy.  I've been catching myself imagining myself studying Nietzsche in the original German, in Germany. Or studying anthropology and participating in an archaeological dig.  


2. Be in the place in my life I am right now without getting any older.  I love my job.  Passionately.  I love my students. Immensely.  The thought of not being able to go to a job and spend my day with people I love so dearly is terrifying.  But, nonetheless, I am getting older.  My students eventually leave.  My list of people I miss grows longer every month.  And they go on and build amazing lives for themselves.  It's beautiful.  But, when will it get to be too much?  When will I become unable to relate, communicate with students?  I feel like the momentum I've built through the last year or so has to come to a screeching halt eventually.  But it's painful to imagine any other way.  


3. Spend a few months completely isolated.  Preferably in Iceland.  In the wild, with nothing and nobody around but myself and nature.  Now, if you know me, this must sound bizarre.  I am not a nature girl.  But for some reason I'm having some sort of brain/personality pregnancy worthy cravings going on.  Like something is growing in there and making me want to do things I normally wouldn't.  Is it just that I'm 'growing up'?  










I have much more to say...but I seem to be without words...

I'm back

     I haven't written a blog entry in nearly two months.  It's not that I haven't wanted to, it's more than I've been unable to.  My inability is not due to a lack of anything to say.  On the contrary, I have too much to say.  The truth is, however, that I'm afraid to say it.  There are too many people that could potentially be hurt by what's going on in my head.  Additionally, there are too many people who would be more than willing to judge.
     If there's one thing in life I can't stand, it's people who are judgmental.  Everyone's life is unique and different.  I believe in free will.  We've had it from the beginning of time; why do you think Adam chose to eat from the tree of knowledge?  I must admit that I don't always make the best decisions.  However, I am aware of the difference between right and wrong, honesty and dishonesty, etc.  Therefore, when I make what some would say is a "bad" decision, it's usually for some purpose, usually for the sake of experimentation.
     Certain people in my life constantly try to advise me on how to "solve" certain issues in my life.  They usually are offended or upset when I don't follow this advice.  Even when I ask for advice, however, I'm not always doing so with the intention of following it.  Occasionally I just want someone else's opinion.  Sometimes I just want to see how making the "incorrect" choice will affect myself and the person or people involved.  Seeing the way it affects me is part of a mission I've been on for some time now.  That mission is to discover who I truly am.  I know that many times I'm simply too nice.  I seem to have convinced myself that by not being so nice, I can recreate myself and be happier.  This is not only the case.
     Nevertheless, I've been experimenting more and more with different solutions to different life problems.  I wish I could be more specific, but herein lies the problem with a blog: it's too public.  To properly purge my brain of what's happening inside it I would have to get out my old friends, the pen and paper, and keep it all to myself.  Maybe when some time passes I'll be able to say what I want to say at the moment.  It's just a disappointment that time also changes perspective.
     As ambiguous as that was, this is my return to blogging.  Hopefully there will be more to come.

chapter 4

    My reasons for going to Thailand were manifold.  And it wasn't my initial choice, either.  Far from it, actually. I was working a job I hated, had no interest in, and honestly felt was far below me.  I read The Magus by John Fowles at some point in September or October of 2009 and was incredibly inspired.  My ex had left me for a younger, blonder girl about three months prior to this time and I just needed to get out.  Out of the country, out of my funk, out of my life.
     The book is about a man who is unhappy with his life: his boring job, his needy girlfriend, and England in general.  One day he comes across an advertisement for a teaching job in Greece.  He applies and then is accepted.  He leaves dreary England for a remote island on Greece and magical, sexy, mysterious action ensues.  I flew threw the six-hundred-something page book in no time.  "That's exactly what I need," I thought. I did some research, got in touch with a few American women living abroad in Greece, and started my TEFL course.  One woman in particular whom I corresponded with had gone to Greece to teach and wound up marrying a lovely Greek man.  How romantic.  How dreamy.  Exactly what I wanted.
     Soon after completing my course I realized that teaching in Greece, or anywhere in Europe, for that matter, would be nearly impossible.  Due to the unionization of Europe, European countries only want to hire British English teachers.  What luck.  Regardless, I was no longer complacent with my life.  Complacency is a concept that crossed my mind frequently then and still does now.  The word itself is similar to contentment, but different in so many ways.  I was in no way complacent, nor satisfied or content.  Going abroad was a form of escape.
     Soon after realizing Greece would never happen with my American citizenship (believe me, I tried, I was even willing to change my citizenship to Latvian because I have Latvian ancestors, but didn't do so because Latvia was part of Russia when my great grandparent immigrated here and therefore this would be impossible). I applied everywhere I could think of.  The people in Turkey didn't get back to me, nor did anyone in any other European country.
     I saw a job listing for Thailand and immediately thought of the movie, The Beach.  Similar idea to the book.  Well, not really, but sort of.  Leonardo's character goes to Bangkok as a tourist and winds up on a remote Thai island completely apart from the rest of society with likeminded people.  Maybe something interesting and romantic like that would happen to me.
     I spoke with a bunch of people who had been there.  They all loved it.  The cost of living was cheap, there was a lot of fun to be had, and the weather was beautiful.  I made some contacts there, got a job acceptance and was on a plane much faster than I ever expected. The Thai school year starts in May.  There was a point where I thought I may not secure the job I thought I would.  The company I was going through suggested I try South Korea.  I declined this idea because that is such a popular destination for people who do what I do.  I wanted to be different. To make my mark on the world.  I wasn't happy to be just like anyone else. I am me, I am unique.
     But most of all I wanted to get out of this country, stat. Boston had become an eerie and haunting place for me.  Every corner of ever street, whether in the city itself, or in the meager suburbs held a memory of past lovers, friends, and my fleeting youth.  The idea alone alleviated some of the asphyxiating feeling I had had for a while.
     It would also get me away from the building in which I worked. It would get me away from him.  Far, far, away from him.

The Days of My Life: A Melodrama

Sometimes I walk around thinking, "Okay, so where are the cameras? What is going on? Come out, I know you're there!"  My life just isn't normal.  There's way too much drama.  It just doesn't make sense sometimes.

Actually, I'm just going to end this blog right here.  I'm afraid of what I might say.  If my life really is a reality show I should probably stop providing the crew with such great material.  All I need is someone reading the wrong thing and starting another exciting and thrilling episode.

I'm just going to spend some quality time with my good friend, Pinot Noir.

A Sexy Sort of Philosophy

     Before we begin, I'll admit it: I just added "sexy" to the title to get you to read this.

     But, if you think about it, philosophical thought is a lot like sex.  The process is stimulating if done alone, but always better with a partner.  By that I mean that you can think and think and formulate ideas all day long, but without others, this fun can only go so far.  The best new ideas are created as a synthesis of more than one idea.  From two minds new thoughts can be born.  Your mind can also become contaminated if you are exposed to dangerous ideas, e.g. propaganda, etc.  Hitler convincing the majority of non-Jewish Germans in the '30s and '40s was sort of like giving them all philosophical AIDS.  It spreads and causes destruction as it does so.

     Not a bad analogy, huh? I'm not sure what's wrong with me, but that's actually the second analogy I've pondered concerning AIDS today.  At lunch with Ben I mentioned that I was in such a good mood that I thought it might be a nice idea to go out and hug people, hoping that this happiness would spread via physical contact.  Always critical of my ideas, Ben's response to this was, "it's a good mood, not AIDS."  I said, "You're right, but if a good mood can't be spread through touch, isn't it more similar to AIDS?"  AIDS is only transmitted through sex (or sharing needles, but forget about that for now), and I think that most people would likewise "contract" a good mood from sex.  Just a thought.

     The cause for my good mood is the rapidity with which my brain is working today.  I feel intuitive, creative, original, perceptive, contemplative, and most of all: ALIVE.  There are a few separate ideas that I've come up with since I woke up almost twelve hours ago.  Addressing them could take a while, but I think I have the energy.

     Today was the second or third day in a row in my grammar and structure class that we have spent talking about verbs and verb tenses.  No conversation, no vocabulary that did not come from an exercise involving grammar and making a decision about which verb tense to use.  Language has a whole slew of verb tenses, i.e. simple present, simple past, simple future, present perfect, past perfect, future perfect, present continuous, past continuous, future continuous, all those perfect tenses in the continuous form, and not to mention conditionals and all those other sub-tenses.  As a native speaker, I never thought about all this until I became a teacher.  Not all languages are the same.  This is something I never really realized or thought about because I took Spanish in high school and college and the grammar and tense schemes are very similar to those of English.  Other languages, however, do not have all of these tenses.  Both Korean and Arabic, for example, only have the simple present, past, and future.  Thai and Chinese only have one tense.  This just blows my mind.

     Over the last few days I've been obsessed with the idea of synthesizing linguistics with philosophy and sociology.  Does the way with which we express ourselves linguistically have an effect on the way we perceive our culture and the rest of the world (or God, or others, or the self, or existence or a myriad of other subjects)?  Or do our perspectives on these influence the formation of our languages?  I'd like to learn more about linguistics in order to ask people from various cultures, who speak different languages questions about their perspectives on many things and see if I can find any correlation between the two ideas.

     Another aspect of language that astonishes me is the absence of the word "be" in Arabic.  Several students have told me about this.  Initially I was obsessed with relating this to the difficulties that many of my Arabic students have with the verb "to be."  Since English is such a "be"-reliant language, it's hard for me to even imagine expressing any sort of idea without it.  Today I started to expand on this idea. How, for instance, does one connect the essence of something with the actual thing without "be"?  How does one define anything?  Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, maybe by saying "I am happy," versus "I happy," actually emphasizes the idea of being happy by placing "I" and "happy" directly beside each other. Hmm.

    But nevermind that, how would you perceive the concept of existence without the word "be"?  The definition of existence is the act and/or idea of BEING.  There are some cultural and religious ideas relating to the absence of "be" in Arabic that I want to explore but it's way too much to write at this moment. This might get it's own entry.  My biggest problem in exploring my ideas is formulating the proper question with which to ask them about their views of existence and how they think it effects, or is effected by their language.  I have plenty of people I could ask, after all the Saudi population at my school is increasing steadily, I just don't know how to formulate my question properly without first implanting my ideas in their heads and then possibly skewing their answers to conform to my idea. It's tough.

     I think in order to really understand all this I would need to actually study linguistics in detail.  It's making it's way to the top of my list of things I want to know more about.  There are hundreds of languages throughout the world, and many more that no longer are used but have influenced modern languages.  I want to know about all of them and compare the cultures of the language-speakers with possible patterns within language patterns.  A huge task, but I want to do it.  I guess I've felt greedy for knowledge lately.  It could stem from my impending birthday.  Every year the thought that I am one day closer to death and therefore have fewer hours with which to experience, see, do, learn, and understand.  I want to know about everything, I want to go everywhere, I want to see everything, try everything, but this is simply impossible.  But it never hurts to try.

     It's sounds crazy, but if I won the lottery today, I would do nothing but travel, read, and take classes.  Yes, I just said that, I'd go to school willingly if I had the resources.  I don't think I'd ever stop.  I'm just too curious...about EVERYTHING.  Perhaps I'm setting my goals a little high, but whatever.

     Other thoughts I've had today:

               Origins of our thinking process; thought, story-telling, etc is all expressed in a linear manner (first this happened, then that, then this, then something else; cause - effect - cause - effect, and so on and so forth).  Is it possible to think differently?

               The limitations of understanding that stem from our inherent sense of self, which leads us to perceive our surroundings in one limited, narrow way.  Is it possible to have multiple senses of perception, empathetically, I guess (?) at the same time?


     Any sort of insight or contribution to these ideas would be great.  I love having my ideas challenged or contributed to. Also, any bi- or multi-lingual persons reading this are more than welcome to share their opinions about this linguistic philosophy I've written about.

Masucline Feminine

I'm not really sure what to write about, although I feel like I should write something.  Actually, that's not entirely true.  There are a multitude of subjects that I've been meaning to talk about, primarily in relation to the on-going attempt at chapters in a book which I've been attempting to write.  However, I simply don't feel like addressing some of the things which I intend to write about.  I've reached the point where I intend to talk about the man who broke my heart, not once, not twice, but multiple times.  But, I'm not sure I'm ready to exorcize that demon yet.

I've also been bottling up and stewing on a bunch of things.  These things mainly concern some people I see a lot.  Blogs are a little too public so I won't get into it here.  In fact, I'll probably just continue to let these things brew within my mind until they explode rather violently.

That's sort of what I tend to do: suppress my feelings until they explode in an over-the-top fashion.  Is that a little bit masculine?  I mean, in the old-fashioned sense of the term, at least?  When people stereotype men and women, isn't that a characteristic usually associated with men?  I've been thinking a lot about so-called "masculine" and "feminine" attributes.  It is the year 2011, and men and women are "equal," but I can't help but revert to old-school ideas of how men and women behave.

After talking with a friend of mine who lives miles and countries away last night, I realized that there are certain areas of my life in which I tend to take the male role.  She was talking about a guy she's dating (sort of) who always calls to talk, but usually backs out when date time comes.  Then when they're alone he doesn't try anything.  You know what I mean.  We agreed on the gender of this action and decided that she was definitely wearing the pants, if you will, in this situation.  I've recently found myself in some situations in which I feel the same way.  Again, I probably shouldn't say anything publicly.  Just in case. Who knows who's reading.

Anyways, I studied my Spanish today.  A lot came back easily.  I'm hoping there are a lot of words I'm picking up that are similar to Portuguese.  I need to start perfecting that if I really am going to move to Brazil.  No, not "if," "when." But still.

Well, this blog entry is going nowhere fast.  I should end it here.

What Does My Future Hold?

Sometimes I really hate Facebook.  Not often, but when it serves as a tool to remind me on a semi-regular basis just how single I am, I do.  Almost daily I discover one new acquaintance who has either gotten married or having a child, or both.

This rant or complaint session is not completely in agreement with my standards or life expectations as late.  In fact, you could say they are quite contradictory to my latest future plans. Every now and then I get the travel bug.  It's like an itch I just have to scratch.  I want to travel the world, see everything, go everywhere, learn about different cultures, learn new languages, etc.  How could this be possible without being completely independent?

Yet I can't help but fantasize about doing all this with a partner.  I see the pages of people I've known traveling with their husbands, seeing the world and living. Living.  Together.  How much more romantic could you get?  Today I happened upon some pictures of a girl I knew in college.  She just got married wearing the most gorgeous gown I've ever seen.  Her pre-wedding party was on the Red Sea.  She and her husband had the most beautiful professional photos I've ever seen taken.  I was overflowing with jealousy.

But why should I be jealous?  In fact I've been elated lately with this newfound sense of independence I've developed.  For the first time in my life I've been actually relieved to not be tied down; to not owe anything to anybody.  Yet, part of me still years to find my other half, my soul mate, if you will.  Is that a bit contradictory?  Perhaps I can simply justify it by my Gemini-ness, which I do define to the T.

Maybe not in the near future, but I do want to be married.  I certainly have no clue what my future will hold, but I can't help but fret that it will be experienced entirely alone.  It's a bit terrifying.

Today while reading serenely in the warm air on my balcony I watched a pregnant neighbor watering her lawn.  I had never seen her before, but she looked about to burst.  Wearing a heather grey maxi-dress which only accentuated her ready-to-burst belly, she spoke jovially with another neighbor across the street.  I imagined what I would look like pregnant.  As someone who has always had a few hangups about my weight, it was strange to find myself thinking this.  A thought that once would have nauseated me was now, suddenly, intriguing me.  I imagined myself pregnant with twins, a handsome foreign husband by my side visiting my current job telling my boss about all the adventures my husband and I had gone on, the places we'd seen, the things I had done with my career, and even imagining which possible country my wedding and the conception of my children had occurred in.

Yes, I've daydreamed about my future before.  Yes, it often includes a husband.  But rarely does pregnancy ever factor in.  Usually the thought repulses me.  Today, however, it did not.  Perhaps it's the fact that my twenty-fifth birthday is now looming an all-too-close two weeks away.  Maybe my biological clock, as it were, is just ticking.  Who knows. Who possibly can know?  I suppose only time will tell, and hopefully, this mood, too will pass.

chapter 3

     A little over six hours later my plane made its connection in London.  I made sure to locate where I was to board the plane to Bangkok.  Then I found a place to sit, have a snack and attempt to connect to the internet and check in with my parents.  This effort being unsuccessful, either because there was no free wi-fi, or because I was too technologically incompetent to figure it out.  Regardless, I found a set of computers at which I could take a moment to send my mom a quick email to let her know I had made it successfully to London and was ready to continue my journey to Bangkok.
     Some time passed and I was finally able board that plane.  I sat anxiously in the boarding area where others waiting to take their seats on the same plane sat.  The gate was located in a small corner area of the airport at the end of several winding corridors. My excitement was palpable.  I tried to remain patient, switching back and forth between trying to read my book, glancing at my watch, and studying the others waiting for the flight.
     What was there story?  It was a mixture of other Westerners and Thais.  I did not realize until much later that many of these people were also from Australia; the plane would pause in Thailand and then continue on to Australia.
     After what seemed to be an eternity I boarded the plane and took my seat on the giant craft. I was seated on the right hand side, sandwiched between two other people. I tried my best to make myself comfortable for the more than fourteen hour flight.  I hadn't slept at all on the flight to London despite the fact that I had hardly slept the night before.  I took some sleeping pills and hoped for the best, but my excitement and the nervous exhilaration of my journey got the best of me.  Those hours combined with the difference in time zone brought me from Tuesday morning in Boston to mid-morning on Thursday in Bangkok.  I changed my watch, as well as the time on my iPod accordingly mid-flight.  
     I staggered off the plane, leaving behind those who were continuing to Australia.  After entering the gigantic Bangkok airport I began to look for the place where I would claim my luggage.  First I had to go through security. Before the checkpoint I stopped at the money exchange counter and changed the few hundred dollars I had removed from the bank in Boston into Thai Baht.  There was a line at the security checkpoint and I stood impatiently amongst the others waiting to enter the country.
     When my turn came I was unsure what to do.  The man first gestured for me to come forward, then told me with his hands to stand back as I started to come forward.  He sorted through a few papers in front of him and then motioned me forward again.  I approached, holding both my passport and my plane tickets, just in case.  I handed the papers to him.  He tossed the tickets back at me then began flipping through my passport.  He studied the non-Immigrant B visa I had acquired back in Boston.  It would be good for ninety days once I entered the country.  Although I was planning to be there for approximately ten months, my boss ensured me that a more permanent work visa would be acquired for me before these ninety days were over.  The man at the desk signed and stamped my passport, handed it back to me, and I was then on my way to claim my bags.
     I almost always feel nervous at baggage claim.  This time I was particularly nervous due to the length of my flight and the fact that I had to connect in another country first.  Also, one of my bags had been too heavy and I was nervous that that would be an issue.  Finally I saw my two gigantic bags bearing just about every possession I owned come around the baggage belt.  With all my strength I grabbed each belt and yanked it off, nearly pulling myself to the ground while doing so.  It didn't help that at that time I had hardly any strength left and probably did not weigh that much more than either bag.  I located a cart on which I could put my two enormous suitcases and carry-on, then began my search for Mr. Vee -- the man whom I was told by the agency who had found me the job would pick me up at the airport.  I waited for quite a while in the pick-up area watching person after person be claimed by their loved ones or drivers with signs.  There was no sign of him.
     Beginning to get nervous, I extracted the paper on which I had written the phone numbers of Phil and Claire, the couple who had arranged the job for me, and called them from a pay phone after studying the unfamiliar change in my hands. Claire picked up the phone.  I identified myself, told her I had arrived but could not find Mr. Vee.  Seeming quite perturbed, she dialed his cell, then told me where to look, what he was wearing, and in which direction to head.
     I hung up the phone and began heading toward the 7-11 she said he was also heading towards. 7-11s, I would soon learn, are almost, if not more, numerous in Thailand than in America. Finally, there he was.  He held no sign, but clearly spotted me from a mile away.  I couldn't have been hard to miss.  A small petite American girl all alone, wide-eyed, lost looking, and carrying enough baggage for a medium-sized family.  He greeted me with wonderful English and took my cases.
     He led me toward the exit to the parking lot where his taxi was waiting.  As we opened the doors leading outside the heat hit me.  It was like walking into a sauna.
     "How do you like the heat?" Vee asked me.
     "I absolutely love it!" I responded. After a very long winter in Boston, I did truly love it at the time. It was uncomfortable, but certainly a relief.  I couldn't help but anticipate all the time I would spend in the sun, getting as dark as humanly possible.  Overcome with excitement, I thought to myself, "I made it, I'm here."
     We found the car and after he finished loading the heavy suitcases in the trunk I began to get into the car.  On the wrong side.  Of all the minor details I'd read about Thailand, it seemed to have escaped me that, like England, Thais drive on left side of the road.  He laughed as I foolishly tried to get into the drivers seat and asked, "Oh, you're driving, are you?"  I chuckled, excused myself and walked around the car and got in on the correct side of the car.
     Vee was a really nice guy, as I would find out is true of just about all Thais.  The ride to the hotel I would be staying at that first night was a long one and included a pit stop at a gas station.  On the way he offered me some fresh fruit he had just picked up in mass quantities at the market.  I wasn't very hungry. My stomach had been tied in knots for days.  But, in order to be polite I took one of the small, pink fruit, which had long, green spikes on its exterior.  I had no idea what it was.  After coaching me for several minutes on how to pronounce the name in Thai I still could not master it.  Nor could I open it.  Cheerily astonished at my naivety, Vee took the fruit from my hand and masterfully tore open the rind of the fruit and handed it to me to open.  The fruit inside was white and juicy.  I ate several more on the long ride to the hotel.
     I was astonished at how huge Bangkok was.  It seemed like we drove forever, passing multi-laned highways, all equipped with toll-booths, down massive main streets with bicyclists, motor-taxies and tuk-tuks whirling past us in the dense smog.  Palm trees, people, food stands, markets, restaurants, and stores abounded.
     We reached the hotel and unloaded my bags.  To the right was a dining room.  To the left was a seating area.  The check-in desk was in the middle.  I checked in and my bags and shortly after Phil and Claire met me to say hello and give me a copy of Lonely Planet's guide to Thailand.  I was elated. I gave them the Boston souvenirs I had bought them in the airport.  We made arrangements to meet in a couple hours after I had showered and freshened up.
     I made my way to my room and set up my laptop.  After calling my parents on Skype, assuring them that I was alright and telling them how beautiful the country was, I settled in and took a shower.  The room was clean, but due to my own paranoia about unfamiliar showers, I wore my flip-flops anyway.  I also dodged the tiny little ants inside.  These ants, I would later learn, were just a small part of living in Thailand that I would have to get used to.
    After that refreshing shower I began to get dressed and put on my make-up, which was a futile effort, being that I would sweat most of it off later anyways.  As I waited for the arrival of Phil and Claire I began to reflect on the past few months and what had influenced me to come here in the first place.

Morality, Charles Manson, and God: the All-Knowing, All-Seeing A-Hole?

     I've been obsessively reading Helter Skelter this past week and it's gotten me thinking a lot about morality.  Charles Manson was a nobody who was in and out of jail his whole life, yet by 1969 he had the world on its knees.  Following the murders of Sharon Tate and four others, all of Los Angeles, and most of the world for that fact, was engulfed in fear and paranoia.  He did not actually perpetrate any of these murders himself, but convinced several young girls to carry out his whims for him. Before I started reading I always thought to myself, "How is this possible?"  I'm only about halfway through but, basically it was a concoction of sex appeal, "far out" philosophy mixed with really convincing theological theories, and psychological tricks.  He would take young girls who were trying to conform with the hippie culture of the time (this, in and of itself is actually quite an ironic statement), weren't the most attractive girls and convinced them that he was basically Jesus.  And more than that, that he thought they were beautiful.

     Now, I admit, I've always been kind of an idiot when it comes to men.  While reading last night, I put myself in the position of one of these girls and thought really hard.  It occurred to me that had I been living in LA in the late '60s, I probably would have ended up joining the Manson Family.

Wait -- WHAT?

Yes, that was my first reaction to myself. This sounds like an utterly psychotic statement, and maybe it is, but I simply could not refute it.  I'm easily manipulated, have low confidence, am easily intrigued by any sort of philosophical conversation (or any man that shows any interest in any sort of philosophy whatsoever; in fact I once fell head over heels for a guy simply because he had a book by Nietzsche on his bookshelf), and I sort of think he was attractive at the time.  Yes, I know, don't vomit, but I must say I'm a sucker for skinny guys with curly hair. And attention, and musicians (he was a mediocre guitar player and song writer, but I guess I'm one of those stupid girls who falls for any guy holding a guitar).  He would have had me cutting up people left and right also.

     I'll tell you exactly what it was about Manson's philosophy that really turned me on, so to speak.  He preached to his followers or "Family members" that morality was basically a sham created by the establishment or "the man." Essentially, there was no concept of right or wrong because every action happens for a reason, everything is natural, all lives are equal (i.e. stepping on a blade of grass is equivalent, or equally meaningless as killing a human being).  Therefore, there would be no consequences for your actions, and as long as you believed that Manson was a messenger from God and did as he said, everything would be just peachy-keen.

     Now, it's not all that rare for me to ponder the idea of morality, particularly from a religious perspective.  Although both my parents are Jewish, I was not raised with any particular faith.  Yes, we celebrated Hannukah and I had a rough idea of the story behind this holiday, but to me it was no more than an excuse to receive presents for eight consecutive days at some point in December when the rest of my friends got to sing Christmas carols, decorate a tree, and be visited by Santa.  But as I've gotten older,  I have begun to think about the psychology behind religion and morality and God.  All religions have a more or less stringent set of rules that its followers must follow.  Most of these rules, however, seem, at least to me, to contradict a large percentage of the instincts with which mankind has been naturally imbued.  For example, everybody has the urge to have sex, yet both Catholicism and Islam do not condone sex before marriage.  Some people even go so far as to say that God does not want men and women to have sex unless it is for the purpose of having babies, and let's face it: nobody wants eight hundred kids running around, so this doesn't exactly seem fair to me.

     Think about it: we are all born with genitalia.  Those genitalia have sensations.  Good sensations.  Sex supplies a natural high.  It literally releases endorphins in your brain.  Alcohol and drugs are both man-made creations and therefore I can understand a religion not condoning heroin or LSD or crystal meth.  Wine and marijuana both come from the earth, however, so for me, these are a bit different, but that's not the point.  My point is that it just seems cruel to create things and then tell us it's wrong to use or do them.  Just like Adam and Eve were tempted with that delicious apple from the tree of knowledge, modern day human beings are tempted by sex, drugs, alcohol, drinking, partying, or even other small things that are specific only to certain religions, like eating pork, for example.  It's like dangling a carrot in front of a bunnies nose and expecting it not to run after it.

     I was talking about this with my roommate on the car ride home from work today.  We drove by a pile of clothing or garbage or something.  It sort of looked as if it was the remnants of a person who had simply disappeared, leaving the earth behind.  This caused my roommate to say, "that looks like someone who got Raptured."  It was funny because it's something that everybody has been talking about lately.  Supposedly, last Saturday, all those souls who believed in God, did all the right things, didn't do any of the wrong things, etc. would be zapped off the earth and sent directly to heaven while all us heathens were left behind to suffer the impending Apocolypse.  Well, Saturday has come and gone, and as far as I'm aware of, nobody disappeared.  Supposedly the man who decided on this date had determined it through a strict mathematical study of the Bible.  He and his followers believe that the date of the Rapture can be determined by studying the use of numbers in the Bible, determining the correct mathematical formulae to apply to them and then being able to actually do this math.  Only hours before the supposed arrival time of the Rapture, he called it off, saying that he had calculated incorrectly and the actual date would be November 21st or something like that.

     My roommate and I were debating the idea that this was even possible.  Ben made an excellent point: why can't we say that it is possible just as easily as we can say it's impossible?  I agreed.  In fact, this is sort of how I view the existence of God at all, as well.  Then he asked me why, in my opinion, God would create such an intricate system to tell us our expiration date?  Why would he make it so difficult?

     I replied, "Because God just likes to fuck with us."

    After a slight moment of hesitation my roommate asked why I would say something like that, or think it for that matter. I told him my theory about how God must be cruel in order to create things just to tempt us, then tell us they're off limits. I made an analogy that I had never thought of before, but that I think is quite apt.  "Maybe God doesn't have cable."  Ben was dumbfounded. I began to clarify.  If Genesis is correct, and God really did create the entire earth and all the people, animals and plants on it, then wouldn't he want to make things a little more interesting?  If you're an omniscient being who can see, hear and know everything that happens on this world you have created, wouldn't you want something interesting to watch and listen to?  I think God actually created reality TV, but it came long before the Real World or Big Brother.  It was called "mankind."  If people walked around following all the rules, wouldn't it be rather boring for God to watch? Why give us instincts, personalities, and emotions if not to watch and see what we do with them? If nobody ever did anything naughty, everything would be really boring.  Just because God is God, it doesn't necessarily mean that he's required to be kind, or on the contrary, that he's not allowed to have a sense of humor.  Actually, I think in order to be God, you'd have to have a sense of humor. I mean, seriously.  Have you ever seen a platypus?
    
     All of this is stuff I think about on a semi-regular basis.  It's almost enough to make you crazy.  That must be why I make awkward choices, or why I would probably have joined the Manson Family if I were alive and in the right place at the right time.  My overall sense of morality is based on a mixture of "do what you think is natural," and "treat others as you would want to be treated." In other words, if your actions don't hurt anybody, then what's the big deal?  If something is natural or instinctual then how could it possibly be that bad? I guess one assuring fact is that it would never feel natural or desirable for me to kill somebody.  Maybe I'm not completely tapped, but I guess that's a subjective idea, too.

Don't judge a book by it's cover

     Today I went with my father to run an errand in Central Square.  It was close to noon and being as I didn't have work today, I hadn't eaten breakfast and decided to go to Au Bon Pain to get a coffee and bagel while I waited.  He took a bit longer than I expected and I was left waiting outside the building he had entered to pick up some tape transcripts and had plenty of time for people watching. 
     I went out last night and was really in no physical condition to be judging people by their appearance.  I had about fifteen minutes to throw on some clothes and put a few things together, brush my teeth, etc. before leaving the house.  My hair remained in its usual morning-craziness, I had thrown on my over-sized black Juicy pants, some flip flops and my sorority sweatshirt, and worst of all no bra.  My makeup was smeared all over my face because I didn't have time to thoroughly wash it off, and honestly hadn't been in any condition to wash it off before going to bed last night.  People probably thought I was some kind of crazy person and I wouldn't blame them. 
     As I was people watching, I noticed a homeless man in a wheelchair.  He was holding a cup hoping for someone to toss in some coins.  I'm sure he wasn't expecting this woman to stop and talk to him for a solid ten minutes.  From the spot under a tree where I was standing, I watched their entire conversation.  She didn't really look like the sort of woman who would stop and have a genuine conversation with anybody, let alone a bum on the sidewalk.  Yes, I'm absolutely making judgements based solely on appearance.  She had cheaply dyed bleach-blonde hair (with roots), tacky tight black sweatpants, was smoking some strange sort of cigarette and looked like the sort that I would normally stereotype as "white trash." 
     She must not have had a very busy day ahead of her because she stood talking and laughing with this man for quite some time. I couldn't hear their conversation, but I know I was probably staring, as I'm prone to doing. As she said goodbye, I heard her say to him, "have a great day, you're a very nice man!"  She started walking in my direction and the man looked pleased that somebody actually noticed him and took the time out of their day to talk to him.  Most people probably just avoid eye contact and quickly pass by.  I hate to admit it, but this is what I usually would do in this situation.  She threw me a bright-eyed smile as she walked by and despite my hesitancy to interact with strangers that I tend to have not long after I've woken up, I couldn't help but grin back. 
     I was utterly impressed with her actions.  After walking by me she stopped to talk to yet another bum.  I watched her flip her bleached hair as she spoke and thought to myself, "hmm...I would never have expected someone like this to behave this way."  Then I started to wonder about myself.  What do strangers think about me when I walk by?  I'd be willing to guess that they assume I'm a snobby, stuck-up bitch.  I'm really not (most of the time), but I know that when I think to myself, which I almost always do, my face contorts accordingly and usually winds up looking like a sourpuss. I can't help it. 
     People constantly surprise me.  They're almost never what you'd expect them to be.  I should probably stop judging people by how they seem to be on the outside.