My Best Friend is back....

My BFF has returned from his vacation. I know he was only gone a short time. I knew that he was coming back. I know that he and I spoke a couple of times while he was away. It doesn't matter. I missed him and I am super glad he is back in town. I feel better, safer, more supported and more loved when he is in town, even if he and I haven't talked in a few days. He is a big piece of my safety net and I feel more secure when he is around.

Dracula Opera

"Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is an underrated movie.  It is on TV right now and I love it.  One of my favorite scenes is Peter (Jason Segel) singing pieces of hit puppet rock opera about Dracula.

Love

Love.  There are a lot of things that I want to say about love right now and yet I am also not entirely sure what I want to say about love. 

I looked up love on Wikipedia.  (have you stopped laughing? )  I know that Wikipedia is not the best source of information in the world but in a pinch, it will do.  I just wanted to read what someone else said about love.  The very beginning of the entry is a definition.  And of course, with something like love, the definition isn't actually a real definition at all.  It is complicated and complex but was what I needed to read. 

In English, love refers to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from pleasure ("I loved that meal") to interpersonal attraction ("I love my partner"). "Love" may refer specifically to the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love, to the sexual love of eros, to the emotional closeness of familial love, to the platonic love that defines friendship,or to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love, or to a concept of love that encompasses all of those feelings. This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, compared to other emotional states.

That's just it, isn't it.  Who the hell knows what love is?  How the hell do we know?  

I love lots of people.  I love my friends.  I love the staff I work with at SLTP.  I love my family. All of these "loves" are different.  There is more than enough room in my life and my heart for all of those kinds of love.  

What I am struggling with is the idea of romantic love?  Or that love that kind of fills you up? The love that you read about in books and stories.  Is that real love?  

I think in the thinking about the idea of "going for it", the concept of love overwhelms me.  I want to be in a relationship.  I want to have a partner.  I just don't have lots of good role models of healthy relationships.  I don't know if I trust the feelings.  Love may be the most terrifying cliff - the precipice that would require real courage to jump off of...  Is it always worth it? 

 

Jacked-up Straw & Iron Man's House

Today I had lunch with one of the great student's that I get to wok with.  We were sitting in the restaurant enjoying each others' company.  The waiter delivered our beverages.  He order a water.  I ordered a water and a lemonade.  Molly's, the restaurant we were at, has wonderful bendy straws.   I opened my straws and noticed something strange.  My straw was jacked up.  The straw-making machine did not do its job and did not trim the end properly.  While the straw didn't allow for drinking, it did create laughter.

 

 

 

 

Jacked-up Straw

Right now I am watching Iron Man on television.  I want his house.  I want it now.  I want to live in this amazing house perched on the edge of a cliff with endless windows that look out on the ocean and other beautiful things.   Curved walls, big fireplace, endless windows...just what I want. 

Song Obsession of the Week: 50 Ways to Say Goodbye

As I parked the car at the Aquatic Center a song came on the radio.  I was intrigued by the sound and the lyrics.  I didn't know the name or the artist.  Then I heard it again and again.  It got stuck in my head.  Finally on the drive down to Connecticut yesterday I heard it on the Top 40 Countdown with Ryan Seacrest.  There it was 50 Ways to Say Goodbye by Train.  I downloaded it immediately and have listened to it about 500 times.  I just saw the video for the first time.  David Hasselhoff, lions, the mention of Yom Kippur, a crappy purple scion.....what's not to love.

Happy Birthday Annalisse!

 Tomorrow, August 20th, is my niece's birthday.  She is going to be 7 years old.   I think she is the most beautiful, intelligent and just amazing young girl I have the pleasure to know.  I am very blessed that I live close enough that I can drive down to my mom's house for the birthday party.

Her birthday party was held at this place called Bounce U.  It is basically a giant indoor bouncy house.  There are bouncy obstacle courses and bouncy slides and a whole myriad of bouncy items.  The kids had a really great time.  It was kind of strange to be at a kids party without a kid of my own but at the same time I didn't have to take care of any kids.  There are plenty of perks to not having kids.

A Slideshow is worth a thousand words...

When I returned to work after my vacation there were plenty of people that told me that I hadn't had a "real vacation".  In many ways, I certainly did not have the traditional vacation - but, as I have said before, it was exactly what I needed.  These slideshows tell the whole story so clearly.