heady thoughts for a weekend

stolen from alan creech....


"...love is not a matter of getting what you want. Quite the contrary. The insistence on always having what you want, on always being satisfied, on always being fulfilled, makes love impossible. To love you have to climb out of the cradle, where everything is 'getting,' and grow up to the maturity of giving, without concern for getting anything special in return. Love is not a deal, it is a sacrifice. It is not marketing, it is a form of worship."
Thomas Merton, Love and Living

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Tunes: the pine valley cosmonauts - gallows pole

i can't believe i'm doing this

i've spent the morning scanning the internet, getting information on something i've been adamantly opposed to in the past:

online dating services.

this change of heart came from a l-o-n-g discussion with my good friend kat and a realization that my normal modus operandi has not been helpful.

now i've always considered online dating the last resort - the final step after all other options had run their course. in my head (which is a frightening space indeed), online dating was only a heartbeat away from accepting i would be single for the rest of my life.

these are my issues and not meant to be disparaging toward anyone else.

but after nearly eleven years with nary a relationship, i suppose it's time to admit that i suck at this and that i need to get some help. plus, kat assures me this is the way things are done now and who am i to stand in the way of progress.

one problem though: i've discovered i suck at this, too. spent most of the morning on one site, filling out their probing questionnaire, feeling like i was giving the wrong answer only to get near the end and completely collapse. they wanted Your profile headline (2 characters min., 128 characters max.) and Tell us about yourself and who you're looking for. (200 characters min., 2000 characters max.). and i had no idea what to type/write. none. so i've walked away. maybe something will come to me soon. i sure hope so.

anyway, if any of you out there have more experience with this than i do (which is most everyone) and would like to point me in the right direction, i'd be happy to benefit from your wisdom and experience, good and bad.

back to hitting cyclists with baseball bats (i'm up to 1328.8 now).
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Tunes: grant lee buffalo - side by side

question one

for a person you loved deeply, would you be willing to move to a distant country knowing there would be little chance of seeing your friends or family again?

interesting this is the first question, considering i just watched corpse bride for the first time and it deals a bit with this idea. i'd like to think i would realize the importance of friends and family and feel the sacrifice is too much, even for someone i love deeply. but i've been waiting so long to love deeply and have someone love me in return that i don't doubt i would be packed and ready to go in a heartbeat. i sometimes think i'm cameron from ferris bueller:

Cameron has never been in love - at least, nobody's ever been in love with him. If things don't change for him, he's gonna marry the first girl he lays, and she's gonna treat him like shit, because she will have given him what he has built up in his mind as the end-all, be-all of human existence. She won't respect him, 'cause you can't respect somebody who kisses your ass. It just doesn't work.

ok, maybe not that bad. but i can easily see myself becoming enthralled with someone to the point of being willing to give up everything just to be with them. i mean, i can always make new friends. and we'll be creating a family of our own, right? and this isn't some fling - it's someone i love deeply and who loves me deeply (i assume, anyway) and therefore she is a gift from God and He would not lead me astray. love is forever, right?

the thing that scares me the most about this is, while i joke, i do have a tendency to become (ahem) a bit obsessed. i remember in college, having a long discussion with mike about this, after i abandoned many of my friends in my obsession with stacy. perhaps this is why God has seen fit to keep me out of relationships (or has created me in such away that i stay away from getting involved). He knows once i meet someone i love deeply, they will become the focus of my life, to the exclusion of others. i'd like to think i've matured and grown since those heady college days, but as i've had few relationships since then (like one), i have no way of knowing for sure.

i'm not blaming God for my lack of relationships - i take full responsibility for that. but maybe in His wisdom He's allowed me to function well outside of them, allowing me the opportunity to develop within a community of friends and end up close enough to my family that we can be a part of each other's lives. and while it would be glorious to be deeply in love with one single person, i am thankful for the way my life has been shaped by the deep relationships i've been able to form with others.

ok, your turn. feel free to leave your own answer to the question in the comments section. the more people that play, the more fun we'll all have. really.
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Tunes: asia - daylight

reliving those high school summer nights

brent's gone and i'm currently avoiding mowing my lawn, which looks like a chia pet gone horribly wrong. get there soon enough.

yesterday's KI trip was great. i always have such a glorious time and yet i go so rarely. my excuse? it's a shared experience, not one easily enjoyed by oneself. and i don't know anyone else that has a season pass that doesn't have a normal job. not that i've actually checked this out, of course. we rode all the good stuff at least twice, the best stuff (delirium, vortex and, the best of the best, the beast) at least three. i know i'm getting old because damn was the back of the beast rough. they ought to put chiropractor ads at the end of the ride. but it was a great time complete with a trip to the fx action theater with hannah-barbara - much more enjoyable and nostalgic than spongebob with the song they used to play in the old boat ride (before it became the smurf ride and then whatever nickleodeon nonsense is there now - does it even still exist?). i might have gone the rest of my life forgetting that song. having it back makes me strangely happy. i also enjoyed other KI staples, such as larosas (which always tastes better here - kind of like hot dogs at a ballgame) and funnel cake. and other than a brief thunderstorm that shut down the park (when did they become such pansies? i seem to remember riding rides and coasters in the rain; now they shut them down when there's a watch), it was a beautiful and nostalgia-filled day.

i wonder if some of my recent forays into my past (metal, KI) aren't a subconscious attempt to relive a simpler time, a time filled with great memories. i tend to consider the summer of 1986 one of the best of my life and that was 20 years ago now. as long as i don't end this summer like i did that one, in the hospital with a broken neck).

speaking of broken, i finally figured out what to do with lorelai. she'll be spending some quality time with kevin down at center city collision, probably next week. not going to report it to my insurance agent - repair costs are only a bit over what my deductible would be, so i'd rather pay a little extra and not have my rates jump by 30%. below is a picture of the damage, for those that are curious.



sad.

ok, time to be responsible and mow the lawn. was sure i would sleep well last night after walking around for over nine hours, but i must have jazzed my body up because i slept not at all. so i'm dragging a bit. but i figure if i get done now before what looks like rain, i can sleep the afternoon away. that will be good.
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Tunes: joseph arthur - honey and the moon

lorelai's broke

so we're sitting in claddagh last night, celebrating a successful first weekend. suddenly, one of the staff appears in our little room and there's a bit of confusion. i hear the word car and the word silver. i know immediately i'm screwed. once we finally get everyone quiet enough to hear, he says it's a silver honda. i feel a sense of relief. then he says involved with a silver mazda. *sigh* i knew it. so we spill out into the parking lot and sure enough, there's lorelai, bumper to bumper with dawn's (one of the fairies) silver honda accord. obviously lorelai was feeling a bit neglected and wanted to meet one of the other pretty cars in the parking lot.

i'm not completely sure what happened. the parking brake was engaged when i got back in the car, but there was a slight incline to the parking space, so perhaps i didn't engage it enough. regardless, lorelai has hefty dent in her driver's side rear bumper. luckily, the damage to dawn's car was minor, probably buffable (i hope!). there's at least $500 out the window. may have to rethink my van in a van plans. i'm sure this will all be funny some day - oh, what am i saying, it's funny now, in a painful kind of way. it'll just get funnier later.

brent and i are off to KI today - going to be a hot one, so we're going to wait until after lunch then head off to spend the rest of the day. be good to go, though i won't be able to scream on the coasters, which is half the fun. voice is still shot. did discover that while throat coat does wonders for my singing voice, it does nothing for my speaking voice. hopefully a few days rest will help it get back to where it needs to be.

geesh, glad i wasn't in a serious accident and needed my insurance agent to call me back. though maybe he doesn't come in until 10:00. be nice to stop by on the way to KI, since he's right there. we'll see what happens.

better go be a better host. bye.
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