A downtown girl

A tradition was started on Sunday night

Board Game Night. It was so much fun that we're deciding to make it a weekly thing, I'm looking forward to the one this Friday. I was excited as well because Oscar got to meet some of my friends, and they all get along! I had game night with Mike, Julie, their son Daron, Oscar of course, me and my best friend Nick and Jeremy (who arrived after this picture was taken)

friends

I brought like 4 games with me, and they had a good stock of games in their home but we didn't stop playing Taboo all night, we played for a good 4 hours or more.

it's taboo

Last night Oscar and I went out for Margarita Monday at Boston's Pizza lol, it's always so much fun to go to the bar's with him since we both love to people watch and guess what people are doing, or their relationships to each other. Plus, no one actually believes we're over 21 at first lol. While we were at the bar though he looked at me and said "You know what an interesting thing is about your friends, they're comfortable in their own skin" and I felt very proud at that moment to have the good friends that I do.

♥

At the bar we also had the number talk, the "how many people have you been with ?" talk. Of course, his was a lot more than mine for a mix of two factors - he's a guy, and he's almost 30 lol. He was glad that he can talk about those kind of things with me knowing that I won't judge him on any level, but he mentioned how it felt like weakness to share with me some of the decisions that he's regretted in his past. It's more the situations, or the way he felt about the girls then the actual weight of the number which isn't that high. After we left the bar we drove back towards my place in downtown and we had a secret rendezvous.
 

Oh, Nick and I talked about why he was being a jerk to me on Sunday, we went to Starbucks and had ourselves some nice white hot cocoa while we plopped our butts into the big comfy chairs, watching the rain/snow fall outside the window. Nick started off by letting me know that he thinks Oscar is a great guy - he treats me well so far, he's funny, and he's easy to talk to. He also made it clear that he's not jealous, but he is hurt - and does feel like my happiness is being put in his face sometimes. He's been my best bud since 9th grade and is just a great guy all around and I appreciate the fact that he can stay objective in situations where emotions can get the best of you because it has eliminated a lot of unnecessary drama in both our lives and allowed our friendship to continually grow.

Why should I ask permission to see my own boyfriend? If I want to stay the night I'm being asked to call his roommate and ok it with him first, if I want to meet at my boyfriends house for dinner, I've got to stay outside and just honk for him. And sleeping over? That's almost out of the question.

It's gonna be this way for a while, at least a month I figure. And I feel just so wrecked over it, things between me and Oscar are moving along and getting more serious every day and seeing him and being with him at his place are an important part of that.

I guess when it comes down to it, I'm not mad at Thomas for telling me to ask him before coming over, and to just take some time away from the place - I'm mad because Thomas thinks that what me and Oscar has is nothing but a fling, or a "whatever you two are doing" instead of something a lot more meaningful.

I found a place where I'm happy, having fun, and interested in the future. I want to see it out, I want to give it all I can and not run away from it. I need this for me.

~

My earliest memories of writing are those of exposure. I used to watch my grandmother write letters, she wrote so elegantly carefully crafting each mark on the paper. Her palm would hold still on the paper while the movements of her fingers made the pen look like it was dancing. She taught me the art of letter writing and spoke to me about the joy that writing and receiving a letter can bring. I still send off hand written surprises to my friends and family and I look forward to seeing something other than bills in my post office box. Perhaps you need to have an affinity with words to truly appreciate them as their own art form and I lucked out in that department.

            As a kid I expressed myself through writing. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of doodling as you think, or as you are listening to someone talk? Well, I doodle too except we are going to call it scribbling. I just jot down sentences that people around me are speaking, or thoughts that otherwise won’t leave my head and sometimes I scribe one word repeatedly as you might a heart, or a star on the page.  

            Throughout my life from child to adult, words have never left my side. My father taught me to read in two ways, by the signs along the roadside and by reading me such classic stories as “Black Beauty”, “Treasure Island”, and my personal favorite (a collection of old fairytales) “East’O the sun West’O the moon”. As my dad and I drove along he would ask me if I knew what the road signs said. Since I was nothing more than a tiny version of a future woman I would say “Yes!” with conviction because of course I knew what it meant. He was clever though and would ask me to prove it, and since I couldn’t quite read things such as “merge left” I would smile big, shrug my shoulders and respond without missing a beat “I dunno!” 

            Before I had reached 5^th grade I was reading college level books on my own. Books and their stories within were invaluable to me, I needed them because they were a form of escapism for me, a means to remove myself from my daily life, which even at a young age was unstable. Reading motivated me and I thought about being a writer, and honestly I still want to be a writer.

            I began writing my own stories in elementary school and thinking back I received a lot of nice feedback. Sure my teachers encouraged my creativity and allowed me to break method to branch out where I was strongest but if I was to go back and read all the comments on all the papers left by the teachers I wouldn’t be able to tell who they had thought was a good writer from who they thought needed some improvement. The popular comment in those times was a crudely drawn rocket ship with a “Good Job!” blasting from the tail end. The message that I got was that no one ever did a particularly bad job then.

            That all changed in middle school. Suddenly grammar was the most important and rules were not meant to be broken. I was asked to either put all my great characters and ideas into a predetermined layout or just not use them. I decided against my better judgment because I felt so constricted and afraid to challenge the authority in the classroom and I began to take the passion out of my writing which sadly, left a lot of my papers boring – though correct by grading standards.

            My head was filled with so much information on the rules of writing very quickly and I choose to be a rebel and forget most of it by the end of the next period, I used enough of the rules to keep my teachers happy. I was stubborn kid and I thought “I’m not going to let this teacher who doesn’t understand me wreck and destroy my individuality.”

            So by the time I got into high-school where you’re asked to pump out 2-3 written pages about subjects that both you and the teacher know you won’t use later and probably don’t give a crap about, that are going to be looked at as just another paper sliding across the desk – I was positive that my work did not reach my teacher on a personal level. I thought of the desk at those times as a conveyor belt because our teachers never had the time to give us in depth feedback. The feedback felt as distant and empty as the old “Good Job” rockets from years before because you’d be reading something like “Indent your paragraphs here”, “This reads like a rough draft” or even when it was good it was still impersonal, “Good thought process” – wouldn’t any thought process at all be a good thing?

            I began to realize that if I wanted any meaningful feedback I would have to take the initiative. I started to talk to my instructors after class, or emailing them things I had written, especially the “non academic” stories since I valued their opinion on my “real” writing. I used to see teachers as the enemy simply because they asked me to write the same way as my classmates which I felt took away from my individuality. Now I see them differently, I see them as coaches – their advice isn’t law, it’s just advice. I’m free to take it or deny it, and I respect them for it.

I’m ever zealous to have my ideas read and my thoughts noted. I thrive on conversational energy which the “standard” comments never gave me. Truly, any feedback received is seen as a positive by me because my work has been acknowledged. The negative effect which is disappointment comes when I take out the paper, flip through it and see page after page of nothing said because it was an A paper and nothing needed to be “corrected”.  Had I connected with the reader, did they understand where I was coming from? I wanted to know.

Here we are in college now and everything has changed. I’m among my peers, who’ve been through the same thing that I have and know that sometimes, you really want someone to read your paper and then talk with you about it. Students also generally have more time to spend critiquing my paper and encourage me to try out new ways of writing. And those peers who aren’t on the same page with me? I can accept that. If you don’t like my essay, that’s great – I’d love to sit down and have a good debate over it.

Today I’m not afraid to stick up for my writing and ask the questions I want answered. I call myself a writer now, which gives me a great deal of voice in the matter. I am an equal to those that I used to take direction from.

If my life was a movie...

The characters in this act are Oscar, Andrew, Thomas and myself.

Things have been steadily moving forward with Oscar, while things with Andrew are as crazy as ever. On Sunday I took Thomas and Oscar out to Alligator Soul (A local Cajun restaurant)

Thomas, me, and Oscar outside of Aligator Soul

On the way home Andrew called me. He wanted me to come over.
    He resorted to bribing me with 200$ if I did (and no, he didn't give a damn if we slept together or not) but come on, that's just silly to try and do that. Of course I'm not going to take that offer.
He's been giving me a lot of gifts (drawings, photos, flowers) lately, the other day he gave me roses and a card.
    He says that he's lonely without me, that he doesn't know how to move forwards, or any direction for that matter. He's also been reading all the things I've written him throughout the years and he says that he finally understands where I was coming from all the times where he had left me for another woman and I was left to deal with it by myself. According to him, I'm stronger than he is. Well, I keep telling him that I cannot be the solution to the problem of me being absent from his daily life. I can't play both roles.

Most people in my life say that Andrew is unhealthy, and unstable. I've told him (because I really do have to make it clear) that I cannot save him anymore.

So in comes Oscar and Thomas. Thomas - a coworker of mine has a roommate, that roommate is Oscar. Oscar is 29 years old and is a Valentine's day baby. I always give him crap for his age lol, whenever he tells me a story where his age at the time is included for example, "I was 20" I'll say something like "Oh yea? I was like 10" lol
    I'm becoming more and more comfortable with the idea of being really happy, and not running scared. (Think of me as the runaway bride if you must..) Well so, back to the story- Us three had a bit of drama at the beginning of the month, because for Oscar and I - our attraction was indescribable, natural and something we had to venture into.  Thomas, being the ever more rational minded didn't feel that way and felt that he was getting the short end of the stick. See, Thomas used to like me but I need to clarify that, quite a long time before I ever met Oscar, we had worked out that I felt no attraction to Thomas and we were just going to be friends. Apparently, Thomas still held a flame and was pretty fumed at Oscar for blowing it out.

You really would have had to been there to understand the way things were playing out. It seemed as though Oscar and I (with our Thomas and Andrew drama) were not going to have a smooth path.

Turns out life threw us the perfect pitch. I stayed most of thanksgiving weekend at Thomas and Oscar's and in fact, us three went out to breakfast along with the aforementioned dinner. And you know what, I think I'm falling terribly for him.

I met his mother this weekend :]

Oscar has said I am in love with you. To him, a future for us is inevitable.
    The only thing that I'm really frightened of at this point is that when I feel as strongly about him as he does me, he will have become tired of me. He swears that I'm just being silly.

My life has been filled with so much laughter within so many tragic moments.

Happiness will always elude those who seek it. Happiness will find you.

Which person from your past, who you've lost touch with, do you wonder about the most? 
Submitted by ancora impara.

That, would be my little brother.

He's 4 years younger, and about to turn 18 in Dec... we were in the system, he was adopted out and I was asked not to contact him - - - until he's 18, which is counting down... maybe I'll get lucky and find him.

I wonder a lot about him... I really do. I miss you bro.

him

Hello ?
Hi...
What's up ?
Umm... I've forgotten what I called for.
I don't think we should talk anymore.
Oh ? Ok.
I want you to stick with this..
You want me to stick to your plan ?
heh heh, well I think it's best, I can't give you what you need...
Ok.
you asked for a year, you've got a year.
- - -
Ok.
You have no idea how much it means to me you can say that, I know how hard it is letting go.
Yea...
I respect you more for that, than I have for anything else during the years.
I don't know how I won't talk to you...
- - -
We'll talk soon alright ?
Ok.
Love you.
Love you too.
Bye...
Bye...

It's honest. It's to the point, and believe it or not you're doing someone a longterm favor and being compassionate when you avoid white lies. Want to bang the hot girl next door ? Tell her ! Absolutely hate where your girlfriend takes you for coffee ? Then start dragging her to a new coffee shop.

your time can be better spent

A  lot of apprehension has been felt about the radical honesty movement, verbalized in such ways as "Dangerous, but interesting, idea.", "I think it's a hard thing to do when you're the only one doing it because everyone will think that you're being an ass. But in reality, it is better..." and "if you're going to be that honest you'd better also do some work on yourself to make yourself less of a cynical, perverse, selfish fuck, otherwise you're probably not going to make the world a better place." (fyi, those are quoted from members of stumble).

You could see that people fear being honest, and I suspect it's not because they're afraid of the action of hurting others, they are nervous of the result. What if they get punched, or they lose a friend, or even lose their job ? I understand the fear and though we'd like it to, honesty doesn't fit into all situations at all times.

(Here I go off on a tangent about the workplace, so either skip it, or read through it lol) Bosses by nature dislike honesty. They bit, clawed and scrambled their way to middle management by lying, deceiving and clubbing others out of the way. Of course you're going to feel intimidated.  If your boss is a friend,  even a trusted colleague you're in better water than most with this honesty gig. I don't have such luck, my boss is a witch who doesn't listen, believes she has more power than she's got, insists that we do her job for her and puts our jobs at risk everyday. She kept having "meetings" with me where she accused me of not giving 110% in caring about my job. I finally threw a punch back, I requested a meeting with her, interrupted her while knocking my fist on the table and said "Listen,  wait hold on,  I don't think you are hearing me. I do care about this team and this job ..." it went on, and we're on a level understanding now and I'm not afraid to speak my mind with her. Honesty always has a place when your integrity is challenged. (now back on track..)

Honesty is a still a virtue. Lies hurt and damage, the truth only bruises pride momentarily (now, what's more beneficial in the long term?) If someone says something out of honesty, and earnest concern that wounds your ego, get over it.

because some people won't like you

Perhaps something more passive will protect that sheltered view.

Show us a book that scared you as a child.

The Scary Stories Series by Alvin Schwartz

It's really sad that he passed on in 1992, he was a frightful genius and his stories can still give me the heebie geebies. His words, accompanied with artwork by Stephen Gammel was a awesome mix of the creepy, the ghoulish, the disgusting, and the humorous.

scary stories