mot tpsy, or tipsy, whatever its cool...

haaaloooooo

i am gonna have the best wedding ever and marriage and life of my whole life!

i think i am living up to a rule from blog awards even though its not a rule.

YOU GUYS are so awesome. ya know. not just the champagne talkin. its true.

im just so real right now.

i was engaged up pirate style and n ow it looks like we gonna get married boat style. old crusty boat. im gonna walk the plank to matrimony yo.

im gonna nuptual! if nupping was a verb that would be an awesome pun .

anyway bye bye.

and...PUBLISH!!! t=yes.

LL im calling this a comeback! ya heard!!!

Okay, so long time no post. Whatever though. Life has been B to the Oring and I don't want to drag you guys into that with me.

I actually did attempt to write 3 updates over the last several weeks but all 3 got deleted in blackberry post button error/intenet failure hell. I post from my blackberry most of the time and I have the same situation as Mitch Hedberg did when he thought of a joke and the pen was too far away so he decided it wasn't that funny. If I start a post and get several paragraphs in, feel all good, and then plink! Its gone! I just kind of leave that to fate, which I don't believe in but much like christian and jewish holidays I will take it if it gets me out of work!!

So, anywhoo. You know you'd do the same. Come on. Yes you would. Don't be judgey.

Judgey McJudger!!!!

if this post doesn't delete itself accidentilly then it will prove that the blog gods want you to continue to see the real me and not my pathetic attempts to be witty, cohesive or in any way a mature or decent writer.

Hmmm...looks like its winning! Oh shit, I'm being superstisious. Oh well.

Judger.

Sea Turtle

So I haven't done any of the things on the "oh my blog" award list yet like I said I would (see previous blog). I think the main reason is because I felt embarrassed that I got confused and thought I was supposed to do them all and made a big stink about it. So silly right? But if I'm being honest (and that's the main reason I'm here, that and to have fun heheh) then I have to admit that that's the reason. Embarrassment has always baffled me. Why do we get so worked up about so many silly little inconsequential incidents? It's something I've always wanted to change or refuse to feel. Sometimes I'd even pretend I didn't feel it but isn't not admitting I'm embarrassed and being embarassed by my own embarrassment even sillier than getting embarrassed in the first place?

When I was 29 years old I was in a horrible relationship with a person who was completely wrong for me. I don't know what kept me there, probably fear and insecurity. While I learned some very valuable lessons from it, it was still a very painful and unhappy time in my life.

A dear friend of mine named Leda, who's like a sister to me, got married that same year. Her wedding was in PR and I attended with MR.Wrong and hoped beyond hope that it would be a good time. Leading up to the whole thing there had already been a lot of uglyness between he and i that told me it may not.

Puerto Rico was amazing as was my friends wedding but things went terrible between my then boyfriend and I. At one point we were all on a snorkeling boat together. I'd never been snorkeling before and I was excited on that beautiful day but then I was very dissapointed to see nothing bu murky empty water everywhere we went. On the flight over I had seen that sea turtles were native to the area and I don't know what makes me do things like this but I basically "faked" that I'd seen one. Everyone was completely unconvinced, especially my then boyfriend who always took any opportunity he could to make me feel stupid or small. In reaction to that I became even more adamant, even as the guys who ran the boat told me how rare it was. I pointed in a fake direction where I had supposedly seen it. Pathetic. And hilarious now but at the time it was just a heartbreaking moment for me. Not because I had told a silly little lie but because I felt so embarrassed and ashamed that I couldn't even come clean. I was so sick of my guy constantly making me feel worthless (and me permitting him to by staying with someone who'd ever treat me that way intentionally or make me that unhappy.) I was ashamed that I couldn't talk to my friends about how unhappy I was and how alone I felt. I was living a lie, to everyone, including myself.

The best part about this story is how it ends (or continues)! About 6 months or so later I started telling people piece by piece. First I told my sister about it. I told her how I couldn't watch Finding Nemo without feeling sick inside and riddled with guilt about my lie. She LOVED it! She said I had pulled a total Candy.She got so much joy from my ridiculous move and even more from my ridiculous guilt over it. She vowed not to tell but she would tease me in cute ways like calling me up and just saying "sea turtle" then hanging up the phone. Once I even thought she was giving my story away to Leda but actually she was delighting in the silly lie further. She told Leda that actually it was not surprising that I hadn't made "that big a deal" about it because our family had an extensive knowledge about sea turtles and quite a lot of experience with them.

It was brilliant.Carly's response was love and playfulness because Carly LOVES me. And the same would be true of every other person I confessed to right down to my sweet Leda. I never told Mr. Wrong and thankfully we broke up not too long after the incident but I did find my Mr.Right and he laughs at it and loves it as much as everyone else did.

So I guess it made me realize that when people love you they also love the ridiculous things you do to embarrass yourself. It's actually a plus even. And really those are the things that connect us as human beings. Those flaws and silly slips. I believe that those are the only people whose opinions should matter anyway. The people who we love and most importantly those who love us back. That and one's own ability to laugh at themselves and silly things we all do.

P.S: My Beloved and I went snorkeling in St.John last year and I saw 3 sea turtles! And this time I aint lyin. Though I did have to pull him over and show him proof. Heheheh ;)

Doin As I'm told

Yay! Thanks chessa aka rocknrollgourmet.blogspot.com sending me the "oh my blog" a thingalee-do-dad award. I usually just hear crickets over here while I type my diatribes but now I have a lil project and I feel some outside forces going on.

My blog is more like me dancing naked to music in my apt with my big huge window wide open for people to see in ("dancing naked" MIGHT be code for many other shameful activities). But now, in the spirit of science and experimentation I will take on the four tasks given. The next four blogs will show the results.

And now ve vait....

Dowry of a so called Rockstar

I realize that I could lose a lot of street cred here (and maybe I'm delusional for thinking I ever had any) but I am quite the crier. Whilst I am thankful that I am not the girl who cries during sex or cries if I drop my ice cream cone (anymore) or after a bad haircut I am, unfortunately, still pretty weepy for someone who curses and acts as bigmouthed and macho as I often do.

I started thinking about this the other night after watching "Sense and Sensibility" to help me sleep. I love Jane Austen. Mostly for her commentary on the ills of society and how they particularly effect women. Many of these ills still plague us even in our supposedly "progressive" culture. And I think Jane Austen often gets that unfair consideration amongst her fellow female writers as being some kind of Vagina Monolouges bullshit when really she writes as a woman, but not soley of a woman's struggles with society. That said, she does tend to end her books with some sort of marriage or double marriage or ridiculous fairytale of some sort. This is the part that embarrasses me. I actually found myself crying when Mr.Ferrars (aka hugh grant) finally proposed to Miss Dashwood (aka emma thompson) despite my knowing how silly an ending I was watching.

See, I did grow up a girl, and despite my accumulated knowledge of the ups and downs, untold truths and down right horrors of many marriages I still can't help but find it sweet and romantic when love conquers all and two people proudly show their affection to a society who tells us everyday that we may not find true love. Maybe we can find marriage of convienence or as some sort of status symbol but not a true love marriage. Only gay marriage remains romantic and that's because they want so badly to be allowed to marry the one they love, out loud and proud.

I think the main reason I cry over this type of thing is also remembering the sad loss of innocence i experienced when i realized that a loving marriage is not a given. Its like I'm mourning old fantasies.

Life is the good and the bad. Its full of mixed blessings. And we will, some of us, like me, never give up on true love. That doesn't mean life won't have its way with us and work overtime to prove to us that expectations or desires are dangerous and ambitious to have. It tries to humiliate us into submission but the strong will spit in its face even when that means spitting in ones own. one of the problems with all the "progress" we make as a society is that sometimes in the shuffle we lose a sense of satisfaction in simple and sweet things. love and friendships and family get relegated to the bottom rungs when there's money and power or popularity to be pursued. Glory has changed with what we glorify and the old mainstream is slowly becoming the new counter culture thanks to a backlash big enough to make Jim Carrey's head spin. i write that hoping that you remember how audiences turned on him once he got too successful for his own good. he has made a few stinkers lately to boot but we wont count those.

Anyway, I feel that after many years of sitting at its alter i've finally found true love with a man who understands me and loves me in the most natural, beautiful way. So why am i still crying? i guess because despite my unbroken faith i still live in a contemporary society that tells me to leave one foot out the door. A world where longing for romance is unrespectable. Even knowing its unrealistic I'd like to be allowed to long for it openly without getting shite! Longing for a promotion and botox and shoes is fine. Such bullshit! What happened to girls being boy crazy?

Rant and ROAR!!

I refuse, absolutely 100% refuse to let anyone make me feel bad about myself any longer. Not on my watch. See, here's my problem: I'm a sweet person. Countless people who've known me have paid me this so called compliment but here's the warning I have to issue:

yes, I am sweet. I am loving and I value love above all things. I will go to great lengths to nuture and bring peace to the people I love. I will profess my love and wear my heart on my sleeve. I will hug and kiss my friends and loved ones and give them an open ear and all the understanding I have. I work hard, very hard, to be a good person and be open to others points of view...BUT do not think for one minute that if you take my sweetness for granted or put me down or treat me as an underling or carelessy that I will stand idly by.

I can be overly giving of myself, I get it from my mother, but I also have some of my father in me. I have a stubborn need to feel appreciated and respected. I have degraded myself in the past but surviving those experiences has only served to make me stronger and more uncompromising in my need for reciprocity or at the very least tolerance. It bothers me that I sometimes allow people to make me feel bad when deep down, despite my many imperfections, I know I am a good soul. And I know the souls of my loved ones are good too. That's why I know that this is my job more than anyone elses. It's my job to remember not to try to live up to anyones expectations of me but my own. I have nothing to prove to anyone but myself. And in a weird way that means embracing my limitations as I try to work through them and continue towards my own betterment. I want to be the best person I can be. I want to be forgiving of others and myself.

I am a complex and contradictory person in many ways and i know i am far from perfect. Sweet people can get trampled. Despite that I'm gonna stay sweet and I refuse to let anything turn me into a bitch on wheels BUT for my own protection I will need to stuff flowers in my ears against the criticisms others have of me. Those who might, even if it's without malice, inadvertently make me doubt myself. Love you all but (covering ears) la la la la la la la!

With love,

C

Ghandi was The Bee's Knees!

India. Into:

I've just returned from India. My first trip abroad, using my first ever passport. It was an incredible and overwhelming experience which I am even now still absorbing and making heads or "tales" of.
I told myself that when I finally did travel I'd like to really go somewhere. With the encouragement and well traveled enthusiasm of my sweet man I was supported in this endeavor and it happened.
India, from what little I saw of it, seems to be a place of juxtapositions. It's a place where beauty and filth collide and get tangled up in eachother. You can find yourself feeling awe and nausea from moment to moment.

It seems like it would be very hard, as an outsider and an american, to truly feel like a part of the Indian culture. Many of the people there are struggling in ways we will never know. That's not to say that people there don't seem happy or lively, au contriar, but they definately see us westerners as a financial opportunity in a place of few. While I can't hold it against anyone, it did dissapoint me to find it so difficult to bond with anyone aside from the wealthier Indians. Two weeks is such a short time, I'm sure more time and familiarity would help but I still found it evident that there would have to be a great deal of skeptism in the initial mix of mixings, before a genuine freindship based on friendship alone could be achieved. And I say that on both sides because I'm sure there is a great deal of exploitation that arises when westerners come to India and see the people as a fetish or a curiosity or worse:an opporunity to seem interesting in the mingling, rather than our fellow brothers and sisters.

For me the trip to India was a chance to feel new vibrations. I felt and remembered a lot of things I haven't conjured up for years if at all. It made me feel very helpless but also very introspective to have so little control over my environment.

On our last night before leaving Jaipur for Goa, a place to regroup, we sat on the steps at the largest movie theater there and watched the crowd. We had some time to kill before our train. I looked into the circus and noticed a man parked out front with his son. His son looked about 4 or 5 and was lying down in a stroller and wrapped in a blanket. The father was feeding him water and alternately both were begging to anyone who passed by. In between passers by they would rest and wait. This struck a huge nerve in me. We had seen lots of beggers everywhere in India. Many much more destitue and heartbreaking than these two. They were not the dirtiest nor the most poverty stricken people I'd seen. Yet for me this conjured up a very personal memory that I must have buried deep. I remembered being about 4 years old myself. My sister and I were in a double stroller.it was around dusk and getting darker as my mother pushed us beyond the enterance to the trailer park and out into the night. I noticed her putting her hand out. The desperation in her as she asked complete strangers she passed for a little money or food to feed us with. She and my father had seperated at the time and though it didn't last, things at that time were very uncertain. It connected me to the man and his little boy in a way I've never experienced before, this flashback. I felt less alien in that moment than any I experienced in India. I cried, and though I couldn't give anything to the two, for fear of encouraging begging to possibly corrupt degrees, in my heart I gave the two my deepest feelings of empathy and wishes for easier days.

I appreciate my good fortune and am very grateful to have overcome some of my more struggling days. I wish it were this easy for everyone. Love to all.

Namaste