sábado, 23 de enero de 2010

This week the topic on my mind has been dating. After having just become FBO (FaceBook Official) this past week, I've honestly been unable to stop thinking about what all of this means, these youthful relationships and the losing and finding of dreams and passion and the sharing of life that is so necessary, be it among friends or "just friends" or girlfriend/boyfriends or long-term, extended Valentines. I don't know if opposite or similar attracts the most, or what the X-Factor is that attracts two people and makes checklists and desired qualities less than irrelevant. I do know that this has been a time of deep thinking, and I have learned several things that I think are important lessons for everyone.

1) You know those pink and white frosted and sprinkled animal cookies? No matter how good it sounds, do not buy a big bag of them and try and eat it in one night. Does this relate to dating? Absolutely. Does this relate to friendship? Definitely. Don't let someone you care about hurt themselves this way. It will make you feel like your insides are made out of pink and white frosting and little sprinkles have replaced your bloodcells and your skeleton is a tasty little cookie underneath it all and it makes you feel worse than watching Super Size Me after having just eaten a Mickey D's combo. And then you feel even more depressed because, somehow, in some sick and twisted part of your brain you still want some more...and those cookies are so very delicious...

2) Daniel once couldn't say "Massachusetts" for an entire day. He was seven but I still think it's funny.

3) There are no rules. Everyone, however, seems to have some advice on the subject of dating. There is good and bad advice and very, very bad advice. Honestly, though, no one really knows and I think we all know we don't really know, and even when someone thinks they know one should take this as a red flag because one DEFINITELY has no idea if one thinks it all understandable.

4) Despite the fact that there are no rules, you will break all of them. Even when you think you're doing something awesome, your girl will reveal to you later that you had it all wrong. And all there is left to do is bewilderedly accept that you will never understand.

There's a lot more to say but in the interest of protecting identities, aliases, date ideas and the like, I'll have to end this one off by saying:

5) When one is ice skating with one's date, it is SERIOUSLY not a good idea for both of you to close your eyes at the same time and skate down the whole side of the rink. You will run over someone and it will probably be a high schooler or a small boy whose mom will shriek and think about knocking you over. And cutting you.

That is all.

martes, 5 de enero de 2010

A Cold January

It has been quite cold in recent memory here in Dallas. I'm not used to it. I'm already prone to getting sucked into a comfortable seat/couch/bed and this cold weather makes it near impossible to get up and do menial annoyances like, say, going to the bathroom, and eating. It better get warm before classes start. The news said something about how it would be in the Teens*F, or below. I heard them say the world would be temporarily out of order and no matter how many quarters I put in the heater it would sit there and mock me and I should probably stay inside.

I think I'm going to get a haircut today. It scares me. Is that weird? Probably. I also have a dentist appointment. The haircut scares me much worse. Always has.

I don't think any of us have it figured out, when it comes to what we want to do with our lives (in the sense of dreams/aspirations/secret identities we'll someday use for defending truth and justice), or relationships and what love between people means. It seems normal to me to be thinking about this, a year out from graduating, but I don't think it stops, even once I get out of this safe little university-walled pinball machine. Maybe it'll always be a search, an in-motion journey. I just want to find something that excites me to wake up and do each morning.

If life is about extremes I feel like I've been bouncing from distant point to distant point. The extremes are obviously not two dimensional; this is polygonal and it's a seriously weird 3-D polygon. What are those called? I don't know. Anyway, the 3-D polygon isn't an easy one like a cube or a pyramid or one that's simple for thinking about or explaining. It's a shape that resembles an amazing fruit I found about two weeks ago. The picture is below. I'll leave a pause for a moment of complete befuddlement.


Yes! That is a fruit! How crazy is this? Just when you think you have life and all the deep questions figured out, you run across something like this! A Buddha Hand! It does resemble Buddha's Hand, or a citrus-y octopus, or the tentacle faced Davey Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean, as shown by this pic I found:


So, as I'm sure you have realized, with a satisfied, determined, and thoughtful nod to yourself, the Buddha Hand represents life. Sometimes we get lost in those twisted arms and get that citrus juice in our eyes and it stings. Sometimes the arm is like an old dry orange and tastes like dirt. But sometimes, we get a bite when it's just right, and the whole world is good.

I hope, in this season of re-evaluating our lives, that as we make resolutions about what we'd like to see change, and look forward as this brave new year begins, we can see this revelation and realize that sometimes, life is a strange, exotic, gross, tentacled, foreign, unsearchable, confusing, all-grays-and-"I don't know" 's-and-maybes, yellow fruit-beast. Under that gnarled but soft and smooth skin, however, maybe we'll find the simple sweet fulfillment, the Love for which we all search.

(Note: the Buddha's Hand is obviously not a good example for life comparisons, and is somewhat limited in its extend-ability to life and love and all those meaningful things. Mostly it is just a really cool fruit that needed to be shared. Thank you.)