Oh wow throw back Thursday. My first date application I made awhile back. The girl in question said she was very busy and it would take a whole lot for her to have time to go on a date… Do me being me I made her this. I got the date and she is to this day one of my closest friends.
Tag: cute
Being that my cat has figured out what the door buzzer sounds like, it makes package delivery days very dangerous times in my house to have any “lap time”. That being said, I am standing in the shower this morning looking over my latest battle wound covering half my upper abdominal area, and still thinking to myself,
“Man do I FEEL LIKE A BADASS! I AM A PIRATE OR FIGHT DRAGONS!”…
Now I consider myself to have situation awareness, yet I still look at this cut, caused by what can only be described as an act of cowardice from my wuss cat, running from the evil packages, filled with my monthly subscription to some sort of herbal tea, of the FedEx man, while I was probably sitting at the computer having snuggle time with said beast, watching YouTube re-runs of Ellen, and yet I still beat my chest as the shower water explodes outward, grunting as validation.
…we often prioritize our accomplishments over the simple accomplishment of bringing a smile into someone’s life, being there for someone, or unconditionally loving. It is so important in a world that grows up on disneys ideal love and finding that prince or princess that we put a little more effort into our interactions as we would for that promotion or next client. This leads me into why love is not enough.
Every one of my last relationships has ended because “love” was enough for them. “Love” is the beginning of opening up the rest of your life. It lifts the weight of trying to find the unattainable life goal so you can do other things magical with the love, the person you have found, and your life in general.
So why stay in a relationship defined by hopelessness, I am not a hopeless romantic, I am hopeful. Should you be “waiting” for the perfect moment? Is it like where you love your job but don’t know if it is where you want to be till the end, so you stick it out waiting to see what will happen in a few years time that may push you closer, further, or to a similar path? So should you be waiting or should you be fixing, actively, or is the waiting, part of the fixing. There is no black and white to any of this shit. It is what works for you or what pushes your brain to the edge of insanity allowing you to evolve to the place you need to be.
I am probably going to be tossed out of man society by giving up this “well kept secret”. But let me explain the move that for SOME REASON all guys think is the best icebreaker for a first kiss IN THE WORLD. And by ALL guys I include myself.
I call it the Tickle Kiss.
This is the move where you are awkwardly at a standstill with talking or the date has gone well really well and you are both kinda jonzin(yes I said jonzin) for a kiss, but you cannot get up enough courage just to be rico suave and lean in. You say, “Are you ticklish?”(in a very sinister and and before they get a chance to tell you, you begin to prod and poke looking for it. If you are lucky you find it. First you just do it once as a joke and you both smile. The girl is almost guaranteed to look at you back and say, “Don’t do that again” in a playful tone. This is when the guy will immediately go for the move. He will begin to tickle her until she is in uncontrollable spasm. This usually ends up with the guy overpowering the girl and them ending up in very close proximity or with him on top of her on the floor, on a couch, whatever the tickle gods have deemed necessary for him to continue tickling her as she tries to get away. So for the time being lets say it ends up with him over her on a couch and her leaned up against the armrest of one of the far sides of the couch when he stops tickling her.(that is if she hasn’t pee’d herself) Now their eye meet, and they are close to each other, and BAM KISS!
This is like the fallback, goto, default, first kiss move to do for any first date where you just NEED TO but don’t know how.
There are a few exceptions though which makes for a dry evening and the guy usually taking a moral hit, but often guys will ask you the following questions and make some of these statements prior to the first date. Mind you these questions/statements seem innocent enough but they have a deeper meaning than you expected! Are you ticklish? Where are you ticklish? I’ll find out where you are ticklish! I’m gonna jump you and tickle you to death! (aka I am going to jump on top of you tickle you until we are so close, if we don’t kiss it just isn’t meant to be)
And if you are NOT ticklish oh man you have just made the guy go into panic mode! Not only can he not take over an argument or conversation by tickling you, which usually ends up with a kiss to make it better, but he cannot make his first move with the Tickle Kiss.(way to fuck that up ladies!)
What still confuses me, is the GIRLS ALWAYS ACT AS IF THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT JUST HAPPENED. As if they are not onto our little device for kiss timez! We kiss them after the tickle kiss and when we pull away the girl AND the guy say the same thing, “Oh I’m sorry” with a wicked grin on their faces, acting as if they didn’t expect it. And then usually if all is kosher they kiss again. Now I am not saying these are not amazing moments of goodness but it is still fun to think about how it all plays out. I guess sometimes we just NEED to really have those moments of cheese to make the days go by. So bring on some more cheese I say!
You can define love in many ways, from ideals to things you find exciting, to things that bring you comfort, or through endless notes on facebook, but there will always be something missing,
I believe I have a sense of what that is. It may be the string which ties all your thoughts and ideas together, slowly weaving through them, attaching them to one another. Not a mythical string, but a actual experience based string, actually traveling through your life and that of another, together, not through monologues or explanations, but through lunch, or a phone call, or the simple pleasures that come from running your nails along their arm as they rest their head onto your chest. For instance take what I have written about the idea of wanting those thoughtless high school nights back, to me that may actually be the material the string is made of and as you begin to knot that feeling of being 14 again around the ideas you have thought of or pictured in your mind. You begin to feel what it is like to get all the pieces of a very scattered puzzle to come together.
You chase the string like the chase of a relationship as it knits its way through all the different ideas, sometimes even missing and grabbing the ideas of the person you have met.
Sometimes we need to FEEL like we are teenagers again in the very basic sense, where our own age in our minds becomes that of a pubescent adolescent, which honestly, when do we NOT feel that anyway, we don’t age mentally as much as we think we do.. anyway I digress, if we apply that to what we know now and how we have grown, allowing us to actually enjoy the ride, what an awesome ride it can be.
Our own lives and inhibitions we have built up to protect ourselves and those around us from the society we are a part of can stop us from just living in a moment. We want we, we need, we feel blah blah. But whatever happened to just waiting till the next time you SEE the person. It is often missed with the millions of options we have these days to communicate and we fall in love with ideas written on paper, not applied interactions. I mean obviously, chase or no chase, I feel there is something very cool about just knowing the other person may be thinking of you and if not, there is no harm no foul. As a song lyric said the best,
“On my heart remains a trace
All that I seek is this moment
All day in my mind I recreate
If there was a way to get back
This feeling of the chase…”
So what does it mean? I dunno. All I know is it is nice to see some of the ideas I have written down and analyzed in my head making a little more sense, not as a plotted out plan, or as THIS IS HOW IT IS, and more of a left and right turn on a very windy road of intrigue. Cause they are moments I wrote down in my life when my brain thought to write it and not every bit of me, but smaller bits of who I think would be cool to be. But they never really had a shape, more of a giant pile of HOLY SHIT THAT IS A LOT OF “DEFINITE”, if anyone reads it as WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR, because holy shit that must come off as me asking to be married on day 1, when in actuality I am learning they were probably just experiences I was expressing from things I have seen, heard, experienced. It is the road through some of them that is exciting.
We are all unique people in our own way, and it is important to be able to figure out through interaction if we will ever be able to scratch the surface of the other person, because we all hold onto who we are strongly and it is hard to figure out if the other person: A. Will be able to figure you out, and B. Not invade our lives so we or they become more important than everything we have worked on to be the adult we have wanted to be since we were 7 and a “half” years old. So a balance between the childish feeling and the need to actually be an “adult”
So I plan on just driving the road like I did when I first got my license, FOR THE FUN OF IT, with no clear defined destination, racing down streets familiar, not afraid to get a lost every now and again, music blasting, windows open, cigarette blazing
.
Holidays, oh holidays. I always wish I had someone to bring home to Mom and Dad to share with them. I always feel as though it would just be that much more fun to have to decide where and when we will visit the different families and how we will balance the need to be with each other and the need to see our families. Knowing at the end of the day, we will find that solace in each other, regardless of the craziness we are about to embark on through the long car rides during the day, which in turn is time we would spend with each other. The pre-planning which usually means we are committed to each other. Planning anything is advance is usually a no no for non relationships because it gives off the impression of wanting more than what is there. But I guess I just like to think in advance this season more than the rest of the year because I know that due to my broken up family and distance between us I will have to do it with myself so I am used to it. This makes me automatically start to do it with someone I am interested in.
I also look at it by a climate thing too. The cold weather, a fireplace, some cheese and wine. Just sitting in warm pajamas and holding each other. Not necessarily alone, maybe my sisters are there chatting with us, or perhaps we are just playing with my family dog. Maybe sneaking off to bed early or watching as others go to sleep around us. But the feeling I get when I am home with the heat on and the lights a certain brightness and the tree sparkling. That feeling is one I want to share.
When things get overwhelming like holidays usually do with family, we can disappear to sneak that cigarette on the porch freezing our asses off together, but that unity of thought where we BOTH need to get away and we want to do it together. That always seems nice to me.
Holidays automatically bring the idea of love to the forefront whether it be there or not, wanted or not. But I don’t think it is about love, I think it is about human interaction. About the feelings that accompany us when we think of spending time with Family or friends, so obviously those we are interested in pop to the front of the list. This can play out for or against new relationships because of the pressures you may feel to HAVE to do any of the above, when I find through talking it out, it can be a much simpler equation that can always equal out to just meaning it is a holiday and working within its confines in needed and not something to even blink twice about, we all feel the stress.
I have always been one of those Italian boys who will introduce someone I meet to my family the day we meet if they are around. I don’t look at “meeting the family” as a big event but part of who I am and part of me I want to share. Although I must say, living a couple thousand miles away definitely does not help with it NOT being a big to do. 
Oh and not to mention the FOOD. I want to share the food my family makes with EVERYONE I care about. Because it is probably some of the best food in the world and everyone should have chance to partake in it!
My Dads side is always a little more laid back on holidays, kind of the more classical cheese and wine feel and my Mom’s side is usually the more classical Italian “pranz”(get together) where the entire family comes, sings, yells, screams, gets to decibels that will break your ear drums, but we are all screaming because it has been a long time since we all sat in the same room and were able to share what was on our mind or reminisce about our great grandfathers mothers fathers etc. I think the stories are amazing, the way that the family was back before my time. The way the interactions were. It was, to me, like something out of an old black and white movie. But the one quality I always valued about my Italian family was the love they shared with each other. It was always people being kind, the men being gentlemen, the ladies slaving over the food with the men eating it as they hit their hands. The kids jumping around or playing in the corner preparing a dance recital or song to sing or playing dress up.
Anyway, all of this is part of who I am, this is what I saw growing up, through home movies or experience, and I always think how nice it would be to have someone that was interested enough in me and I in them that we would want to try to be a part of such a long history of stuff impossible to catch up on. Just trying to be there and not panicking from the loud intense moments or panicking and knowing it is OK.
So for me holidays alone do not make me lonely, just hopeful that I will be able to find someone eventually so they can share that with me while every single family member is around.
I want to know their favorite Christmas book so I can have it waiting to read to them before we go to sleep in the unfamiliar pull out bed in the guest room. I want to bring them down to open presents with me on Christmas and have them smell the coffee and taste the pancakes my dad makes and watch me and my sister be completely goofy once she has had her coffee. I want them to see the similarities between me and my dad(he is basically what I will look like in 30 years), and the many morals and creativity I have gotten from my mother. I want them to also see the talents my family has as they sit around the piano and sing, or sit and talk and joke(I want them to see my Uncle make the most ridiculous jokes), or just understand the love we all have for each other when we sit and watch a movie. The things holidays sometimes force you to do with your Family. I mean watching me and my sister curse to rile up my Mom is fun as hell, and watching us both freak out from random triggers unknown to us and needing to go lay down or get away for a minute.
I suppose holidays force you to see if someone wants to see who YOU are. It forces your significant other to be there and participate in your life. Because in the end family is the most important thing to all of us and I think many of us want to see how they interact with our families in the most extreme situations such as holidays force upon you. Not as a test but just as a way to get to know them and for them to get to know you better. Because honestly meeting them on a random Friday works too, holidays just give it a different atmosphere. There is no hiding who you have been in front of your family.
There is something strong that goes along with being part of the Italian Catholic family. Guilt and Family, oh and food. So while I may not be the definition of this, I like to at least share the parts I love the most about it, and have that hand to hold when I myself start to freak out from the pressures the holidays can bring.
Holidays, oh Holidays… Sometimes I guess I just want to cap them off with that New Year’s kiss, but not just a kiss, but something that you remember and look forward to at midnight. Not because it is different than the other kisses but because it is something deemed special by whatever book we have all been following. And that is one chapter I don’t mind adhering too. Even if it means a little planning is involved to get both our lives in the same place at that one tiny moment in time, I want to have that moment and I want to shuffle around some plans to make it happen.
Why? Because life is moments. And why deny ourselves moments that could be spectacular. And why not try them out even if they fail. Nothing to lose in the end really. We will be better off either way. Either way we find answers.
I guess touching on my last post a little, I know one thing, the chase is great, but eventually it is nice to know you are chasing something that you can give yourself to in a way you don’t just give a friend. And in return they will give it back. I myself realize I can only play for so long before I start to forget who I am because I am playing not being. I love to live in that moment but I need to live in it as me because otherwise I will second guess everything, and while that isn’t bad to work with someone else, I find it is healthy to be able to re-assess your points of view with people as long as they are willing to do it as well. So when the other is playing around or just being a separated version of themselves you are not actually re-assessing for reasons beyond a simple seconds worth of thought from the other person. I guess holidays have a tendency to make you think about a relationship like you do with your family and if you are willing to make the extra effort to do a simple act of opening the door for them or just as much, invest your time. A sort of unconditional love so to say. But more-so just the comfort of the things that don’t stress you as well, like your old room you left after college or the familiar star on the tree.
Holidays boldly try to make those beginning times happen quicker than you may feel comfortable with. So in that sense Holidays are a pain in the ass, but in the same sense, what’s the difference if Holidays help it along or not. I definitely see both sides here, and don’t have the answer as to yay or nay to either. It is finding someone who is open to a little bit of exploration whenever life decided to bring them together with you that is usually the crux. One person cannot make another change or be something other than what they want, I just wish more people could embrace feelings and regardless of past STUFF can live with it and let themselves open up to figuring out yay or nay without too much pulling of the others hair in-between. I know I can give a whole lot of myself to someone, but I have the reverse wall of others sometimes, mine becomes much more solid and impenetrable the longer I feel like their wall is stopping them from just enjoying those moments where they break character, the moments where the smiles are real, the feelings are overwhelming and indescribable, but instead of sucking back the tears of a moment like we do to save face, we just enjoy the release it brings and ride the wave of whatever the fuck it could mean, good or bad, past, present, or future thoughts.
And now that I have rambled my head off, I leave you with the same disclaimer as usual:
So those are my thoughts. Obviously I have a million more and I wonder if I express everything properly the first time, but that is OK I think, because there is time to re-address things and to talk about it, instead of it being chiseled into stone on, THIS IS HOW IT IS. Consider this my journal entry to myself with intent of someone reading it.
Have you ever waited for the phone to ring? Have you ever just waited in general, even if you didn’t know the person more than a conversation or a glance, for the next time you could be in the same place at the same time. Where your brains both focused on each other and the words flowed from inspiration instilled by the other person.
I and any of my ex girlfriends will tell you I will not jump into “girlfriend boyfriend” status fast and I expect to know a whole lot about a person before I can see taking that step. It isn’t that I am afraid of a relationship it is that I am one of those rare few who actually thinks the title of girlfriend or boyfriend is important. And if I am going to take that step of commitment to the other person I want to make sure I am invested.
That is where I think I either hit or miss. I treat the dating in the beginning as a different animal. I look to find out as much as possible when I am talking to someone. I want to know that the person on the other end of the phone or in front of my face is able to give me who they are, unabated without the need for a title to open up. This usually ends up poorly for me, because I find that not many people are willing to build their walls from the ground up. They go in with a castle fully defended ready for battle. So by the time my words and personality shine through their wall breaking into who they are, my walls have built up around me to shelter me from the empty feeling I got back. And then it is nearly impossible for me to be myself anymore because I expect my first impressions to continue.
Which I have to say are usually not too off, not in a pretentious way, but in the idea that people usually show their true colors with those walls up, because when you break them down, it just means they are down for you, not the people around them, as well as they have broken down the “relationship walls” so who is to say if they are acting differently to you than a friend or family member. I mean why do we even build “walls” in the first place? What is so scary about being hurt by someone not working out on a relationship level? Shouldn’t we be running head long into these situations so we can have as many as possible to find what we want as quickly as possible. For a cultural need of love it is amazing how many boundaries we put up from letting us get there.
I think of love as a starting point, not the end. When you find love and maybe even marriage you are free of this stigma placed upon you at birth. You FOUND the holy grail, now you have a whole lot more to look forward to with this everlasting life without the need to squander the earth for love. So what will YOU do with eternity.
But I am off topic. What is it that causes that feeling in our stomach when we have an interaction with someone that feels right? What makes us pace back and forth, whether we admit it or not, or whether our life is busy enough to let it be more than a thought here or there? I think we all get it. I think we also have a tendency to try to make it go away so we don’t seem desperate or anxious. We all want to be “Cool”. But isn’t it cool to know that someone else is intriguing to you and you them. Shouldn’t we share those moments?
It reminds me of how I meet people I have dated or how I ask someone to the next step of a relationship. It has always been something very memorable. Not because I MUST have it as a special moment but because I am inspired to think about the time ahead of us as important and want to be able to perhaps one day look back on it and remember. A Polaroid in time. Something you flip through a scrap book when you are older and just you know the feeling it held for you. I don’t want to tell my kids, me and mommy met at a bar, and I was doing jello shots off her curves… I want it to be special to me and her. So I listen, I absorb, and trust me, we all have something that means something to us, as menial as it may be that makes for that perfect moment.
It is like the idea of digital cameras these days. They are so easily accessible that we often carry them and do not use them. Back in the days of my parents, to take a video it was a big ToDo, lights, microphones, heavy equipment and expensive film. So when Grandpa or dad busted out the camera as much as you may object you did it anyway because it was special.
And god those videos have emotion and raw truth to them. Because no one said, PUT THAT AWAY, or if they did it was shrugged off as funny.
I want to find someone in my life that agrees with the idea that a camera should be passed from hand to hand snapping times of life together. Not just a way to grab a point smile click shot, but a mini photo shoot in the middle of the street on the way to work. Where both people on each end of the camera can look back later and see who THEY were.
I want to be able to riffle through a box of old Polaroids with someone and show my kids how old I really am 
And I am off topic again.
I enjoy those moments when I sit antsy waiting for the next encounter where I can talk to someone that made an impression. I don’t expect anything more than a conversation. I guess I want to say I break the mold of “OMG I need to be with you, that is why I have butterflies until our next talk”. I just want to be able to share with someone who seems to be able to understand my musings and theirs inspire mine to keep going.
It seems to me that showing interest in someone or admitting to the feeling of butterflies defies your true intentions. It is as if you just gave the person an arrow for the bow they had strung. And dagnammit(yes I said that) they are gonna fire quickly. Why would they fire? Because you have just given them the advantage. They now control the situation because either they can agree they enjoy the time with you and even the playing field or shoot it as fast as possible to quell all odds of the dice roll when meeting someone. Just because I am interested in someone doesn’t mean we are good for each other. I base that first feeling on just that a feeling, an impression, an aura of their person. That doesn’t mean I know ANYTHING about them. But it does mean I want to find out. I want to be able to have that open conversation over and over where each time when we stop talking I feel more nervous stomach feelings, because it is working out. To get to the point where I would pursue someone, I need to at least have them open up and spend time with me and I with them. All I can say in the beginning is, wow you make me feel good. And that is good enough for me. But why should I hide it in a cat and mouse game? I won’t and I will dig my grave with many people this way, but I will not give up on the idea that eventually someone will be interested in kissing at the beginning of a date just to see if that chemistry is there instead of spending too much time of a small life guessing. At the same time there needs to be a balance rope of those moments and where you wait for the phone to ring.
I loved what my stepmother once said, where when I find the person I am meant to be with, it will be explosive, because after all this thought and all these ideas, if the other person has had half these thoughts too, the conversation should be freakin’ fireworks.
We do not need to assume everything about a person’s intentions if we are just living to share. There is no reason to be afraid of a conversation, because it may lead to happiness and if it doesn’t work out the way of “love” then we had a great conversation and that conversation helped to build us as people.
We are all so important to one another. The people we come across, the music we listen to, the moments we have, they are forever. As much as we may push forward to further careers, or to just enhance our daily lives with shit not boring, at the end of the day, the people around us are the real important part. They are what help us to be who we are, because we have something else to base our existence on. A movie I just watched said “The bravest people are those who are not afraid to stay still”.
This is a new idea to me. I am one of those people who wishes for the simpler life but knows I would need something to give me that monumental feeling of completeness in my mind to be able to stop pushing forward to enjoy that kind of life.
To go out into the woods and camp out on the hood of a car or sit in the sweltering heat with a person that makes me feel good that the sweat and the bugs are not a bother but a feeling. Side by side, staring blankly upward, but there together. No topic too small or big. I guess to find someone that understands when to be silent and when to chat nonstop would be nice. When to just BE in the moment and when to search for it.
I often reference Alabama type shit for those “moments” because I find they are the most relatable through pop culture or movies but I am a city boy at heart and I find the romance in a city to be truly amazing. The sidewalks, the graffiti, the random tree here or there, the parks, the busy streets filled with people, the food at 4 am. These all are places I picture adventures as well.
How I will find it, life still hasn’t told me. So it should be a fun ride.
Oh and the next person to say “FML”, I’m going to send you anthrax.
I think the most important feature for someone to fall in love with is the other persons face. I don’t say this because of beauty, but because of the way her smile makes you smile, the way her eyes sparkle just for you. That special sparkle that lets you into, them, as a person. Or even as simple as the way their nose crinkles or the lines in their jaw.
In a world where love is defined as a multitude of cultural differences, choices in life, eating habits, and stress levels, the face never changes. The face never lies.
In 100 years if you can picture staring at that person next to you and seeing their beauty through your eyes, you have found love.
Of course, the challenge is finding that beauty you need with a person you are compatible with. But life will change us every day. I am not the same person I was when I was young, nor am I the same person I was yesterday, and while some may consider a marriage in which every ten years you re-evaluate if you fit, I see a mixture.
Someone’s appearance isn’t everything. You can gain and lose weight as quickly as the blink of an eye. Your can cut or grow your hair. Your style fits you when you need it. However, there is an essence in the face, that shows the way a person is. You can see the core of someone’s morals through their face. I have recently draw upon the idea that some of the most successful relationships I have ever seen were when the couple had similar physical traits, mostly in their faces or expressions.
It is kind of like an owner and their dog, just not in a weird beastial way
Perhaps it is the idea that behind all of our self doubt and self consciousness, we are beautiful to ourselves. If we didn’t have some semblance of this, doubts and all, I don’t think we would make it from day to day. So perhaps in a very basic sort of way, we see that one thing we have no control over; the beauty in ourselves through our own eyes and we find that in our perfect match. And perhaps that same thing that controls that part of our subconscious is a part of what makes our minds run the way they do and hard codes us with the choices we will make, and the paths we decide to travel. If we go after those who grab us not for the makeup and eyeliner, but the pure, simplistic, animalistic, unabated beauty, we may find love for the rest of our lives.
It is hard to say beauty is within, when our first impressions are usually without. So why not go with that first gut reaction, because if you make sacrifices to your own feelings, you may end up in love with the idea of love itself and not the person next to you.
Who knows, maybe the simple way you can stare into their eyes, is actually a mental pheromone which shows you a similar path you are both going to journey down, a compatibility unseen until you jump in. That simple sparkle may act as a light to guide the way, for both of you.
