Why We Work

For Valentine’s Day, Bonnie wrote a post  about why she and her husband work (for a link-up I missed. sad face.). I’ve been thinking about it since I read her post, and the idea of writing the same regarding my relationship has been brewing in my mind.

Last night I had a wonderful evening with my fiancee full of a great dinner, pre-marital counseling, and ugly-laughing at hilarious Youtube videos. Driving home, I felt especially grateful for my relationship and decided to finally write this post when I got home.

Why we work

We work because we’re individuals. We have out own friends, jobs, schedules, and tastes. We each have our own worlds, and we like it that way.

We work because our relationship is “should-free.” We know each other’s insecurities, strengths, weaknesses, an bad habits – and we love each other all the more for them. I don’t have to make dinner every single night, and he doesn’t mind getting Chinese takeout.

We work because we know it’s not always fun to be in a relationship, and we don’t take that personally. Sometimes one of us is having a really crummy day and in a funk and there’s just nothing the other can do to make it immediately better. And that’s okay.

We work because we don’t take other things personally. We don’t text each other compulsively all day everyday – and we know that’s not reflective of the quality of our relationship. I don’t think I’ve ever been in his Facebook profile picture (or that he’s ever had his relationship status on his profile) and that doesn’t mean anything’s wrong. Sometimes one of us just doesn’t feel like cuddling. And we know that’s not the end of our relationship.

We work because we ugly laugh. The kind of laughing where your mouth is just totally, unflatteringly wide open, your head is thrown back, you’re kinda crying, and you can’t even speak. This happens at least once on the daily. We thrive off of being goofy together, and that does miracles for our relationship.

We work because he’s bad at reading minds, and I’m bad at being subtle. Seriously, I just say whatever I need, want, or think. Which many people think is a fault (and it can be), but it’s a godsend for our relationship because what Luke really needs is for me to be upfront and never try that “hint-dropping” thing and hope he reads my mind. That system doesn’t work for either of us. He doesn’t end up getting it, and I’m too impatient to try and wait for him to.

We work because we’re not trying to impress each other.  It can be one of those days where I haven’t showered, am not wearing makeup, and am wearing sweats and he adores me and makes me feel just as special as any other day. I can make an accidentally crappy dinner and it’s no big deal.

We work because we both know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we’re on each other’s team, unconditionally. “You and me against the world.”

And, most importantly, we work because we both agree that if one of our children ever weirdly ends up with some kind of super power we would come alongside them and help them learn about and control it instead of hiding them away (see: obligatory pop culture reference to Frozen).

Land Ahead

The anchors of our hearts brought us through the daunting billows of tumultuous times,
where we now have torn down,
brick by chain
and chain
by
link
the imprisoning hesitations of diving into each other’s very souls.
Your words, like waves, wash over me and recede,
leaving a feeling of profound okayness,
an overwhelming rightness
on the shores of my spirit.
my chaotic habits and anxious inhibitions
drown
and sink
amongst the shipwrecks,
tangle in the seaweed,
and in time become forgotten in the
sand.

All this way
no compass on board,
yet I see land ahead.
And when our toes  meet the shore
and our lungs secure the sky of the world
we won’t have a clue where we are.

Exhaling all that we have within us,
we will rest in the peace
that it doesn’t matter.

Warning: My rambling leads to cannibalism. Not the act of it, just the discussion topic. So far.

I’m totally in one of those moods where I can ramble really effectively and just from one topic to another topic to another. And what the fudge, exactly, does “ranmble effectively” even mean? What’s the goal of rambling? Is there a point?  Some one should run for senator and campeign all about how they should be elected because they can ramble really well and would rock the house down during filibusters (because this is the only scenario I can think of where rambling has a purpose).  And a senator who can rock the House down while rambling is even more impressive because the House is a whole other part of Congress! 

Anyway, what I meant is that I’m in this mood and I kind of like it because it’s like I get to explore my brain and just see where it goes (which can be very dangerous rewarding, I assure you.)

And my friend, Danike, wrote this post and in it, she mentioned about how she didn’t have any peanut butter to go with her jellyed bread and I responded and it makes me kind of worried proud that I was able to ramble this long about possibly the most unimportant point in her post.

My response:

I’ll be your peanut butter! ….Metaphorically, of course. I don’t know how I feel about being covered in bread covered in jelly.  I don’t think I like that very much. And I can’t imagine it’d taste all that great. And I’m getting a little weirded out imagining what I’d look (or taste) like with jelly and bread.  I do know that I wouldn’t taste as good with it as peanut butter. I wasn’t made from peanuts. I was made from human.  And God.  He was a part of it, too.  But I guess if you’re into the whole human-jelly thing, then hit me up.  We might (totally NEVER) work something out. But if you are one of those people who are into human jelly, what part of the human is the jelly from?  Not like I really want to know, but my curiosity always killed all my cats. If it’s made out of organs or goo or something that can be removed from a person and they can still live, is it still canibalism?  But I imagine if you make human-jelly out of the parts of humans that are extraneous, it wouldn’t be as good. But if you made it out of hearts, then wouldn’t that just be poetic?  And because of how poetic it is, people would be all, “dude, if I eat this heart jelly, will I fall in love?” and they’ll think they’re kidding but they’ll all secretly hope that they will and then they will because of the Placebo Effect. But the problem will be that they’ll fall in love without the guaruntee that they’ll have some one to fall in love with. I mean, in love with them back. That would suck if you ate the jelly hoping for a lover and you fell in love with your pet donkey or something like that guy in a Midsummer Night’s Dream. Only he was made INTO a donkey and then had a fairy queen fall in love with him. And she got toally rejected! Poor thing. Apparently, that wasn’t flower juice Puck used, it was heart jelly.  Maybe the donkey man just needed some heart jelly, too. Maybe every one needs heart jelly!  Everyone would “fall in love” with everyone!

I just found out the key to world peace.

Tchyah.

I’m as big as….

 

I’M AS BIG AS… The yeti? A giant panda sitting down? An average supermodel? The longest recoreded moustache? A blue whale’s heart?

This 6.5 feet high wall mounted height chart has been beautifully researched, designed and produced. Reaches the parts other height charts can’t reach!

($9.99 at Perpetual Kid)

I think this looks like one of the coolest things ever. I’m definitely getting this to go in my dorm room at college. 

 

 

 

 

 

Everything is easier in theory.

In English, we just finished reading Beloved by Toni Morrison (phenominal book). In it, there is a stream-of-consciousness section.  Every week, we have to do two journal entries: One assigned, one that we choose. Today, we wrote our own streams-of-consciousness for our assigned journal entry. 

After I got through the initial I’m-writing-with-a-blue-green-pen-because-my-purple-one-won’t-work-right thoughts, I ended up on one core idea. Because it’s in stream-of-consciousness, the grammar and punctuation are not correct.  That’s how it’s supposed to be. Here’s that part of my writing – right off the paper:

 

 

I love people. The hardest thing about people is when you have to hurt them. How do you comprimise your not wanting to hurt them with your I need to hurt them? How do you take not hurting them and the amuont you need to and take the average? When you have to tell some one something but it hurts or when you have to do something but it hurts. How has the human race lived through life? I mean, how have people not just decided to stop living? and i don’t mean suicide, I’d never, ever do that. I mean going numb or deciding other people are too much to deal with? Do things end up worth everything it takes, eventually? Everything is so much easier in theory. You say oh, I’d do this in situation X, but wwhen situation x actually happens, it starts looking and feeling like the quadratic equation. Is there a math problem that you can use to figure out what to do? Plug in the result you want for Y, plug in who your action and decision will effect for X and Z, plug in the outcome you absolutely DO NOT want as Q, plug your heart into the equation and solve it. Or would that mathmatic equation take the worth and purpose out of life? Take the trial and error and learning out of life? If we had a math problem to make our choices for us, would we stop thinking? stop feeling? stop valuing other people and start viewing them as mere variables?

 

 

 

Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”

 

This is a phenominal book.  Albeit very confusing the first read. Beloved is one of those books that you have to read the first time through utterly confused and lost, then the necessary second time through, you think, “Why on earth did this make absolutely no sense before?”  The third read is even better.

Beloved requires a lot of speculation and attention. It’s not a bedtime story. It does contain some adult themes, but that’s only natural – it’s a story about slavery.

“When slavery has torn apart one’s heritage, when the past is more real than the present, when the rage of a dead baby can literally rock a house, then the traditional novel is no longer an adequate instrument. And so Pulitzer Prize-winner Beloved is written in bits and images, smashed like a mirror on the floor and left for the reader to put together. In a novel that is hypnotic, beautiful, and elusive, Toni Morrison portrays the lives of Sethe, an escaped slave and mother, and those around her. There is Sixo, who “stopped speaking English because there was no future in it,” and …. Baby Suggs, who makes her living with her heart because slavery “had busted her legs, back, head, eyes, hands, kidneys, womb and tongue;” and Paul D, a man with a rusted metal box for a heart and a presence that allows women to cry. At the center is Sethe, whose story makes us think and think again about what we mean when we say we love our children or freedom. The stories circle, swim dreamily to the surface, and are suddenly clear and horrifying. Because of the extraordinary, experimental style as well as the intensity of the subject matter, what we learn from them touches at a level deeper than understanding.”  (http://www.luminarium.org/contemporary/tonimorrison/beloved.htm)

The Stream-of-consciousness section is even more baffling than te rest of the book. But if you read it with the Middle Passage in mind, it helps a lot. 

I highly reccomend this book. If any of you read it and have questions (which I know you WILL), I’ll be happy to help you understand it! Email me at shutterbug926 [at] gmail [dot] com. I love this book. I adore it.  I wrote ALL over my copy, highlighted, speculations in the margins, everything.  =]