This morning I was lamenting to my husband that, outside of our cozy little bedroom chats, I don't have a safe space in which to speak. When I try to air my views on Facebook, it seems that there is always someone there to take offense or try to convince me that I'm wrong. And while I have often said that what our society needs right now is more debate, not less, my impulse at the moment is to get some things off my chest, not to form a dialogue with others. Right now I need a place where I can explore my views, because one cannot debate with others until one has a firm idea of how one feels. And then I remembered this blog.
I'm sure that by now no one is reading this thing, but perhaps that makes this the safest space of all, one where I can explore my feelings freely without any fear of being slammed down by others. So I'm going to start writing here again, starting today.
What's really bothering me today is the sense that the world that I grew up in no longer exists. I'm not talking about a simple nostalgia for LP records and typewriters. Those types of material things have always changed and will always change, and our modern alternatives are usually far better, anyway. Likewise, ever since I ended my first year of college and came home for the summer, I've had a feeling that the town I grew up in was going on with life without me, but I think this is entirely normal as well. I always knew that if I wanted to move back there, it would be like catching up on a soap opera one hasn't watched in 10 years; some faces would be the same, some would be different, and different storylines might be at the forefront, but with some effort, it would be possible to catch up and at least understand what was going on at the present and the broad outlines of what had occurred in the past.
This is different, because now my very childhood home is gone. Ok, so it's not literally gone. We still own the house and can still enter it if we choose. I could even bring a sleeping bag and camp out in my old room if I wanted to! But all the contents have been sold off at auction. My yellow piano isn't there anymore, and neither is Buster Brown on top of the kitchen cabinet. Of course I salvaged the most important things to me and have brought them here, where I'm trying to find a way to fit them into my new life. But the whole fabric of that old life has been irreparably damaged.
Again, I guess this is something that happens to most people eventually. (Although not to my husband, who is living in his childhood home surrounded by his parents' things and complains about that too, that he feels the past enveloping him like a shroud and not allowing him to move on.) But I'd always thought that if and when this happened, I'd be able to make a new home for myself if I chose, to find a different farm in North Dakota with trees and grass and a river and live there instead. But now I'm realizing that is never going to happen. As this article in the New York Times made clear, the old North Dakota that I knew is gone and never coming back. Whether the oil boom continues and North Dakota becomes another Texas, with everyone living in McMansions and sporting bling, or it busts and things empty out again, it will never be exactly the way it was when I was a child. It will never be so unsullied again. And that I something that I mourn.
Showing posts with label Vision questing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vision questing. Show all posts
Friday, February 1, 2013
Friday, February 3, 2012
I'm coming out
It's come to my attention that, improbably, there are still a few people out there visiting this neglected corner of the blogosphere. Once I figured that out, I thought that I should probably put some kind of an update here to tell you what's been going on with me since I've been AWOL.
So here goes: I fell in love and moved to West Virginia, leaving the library world behind me in the process. I also acquired a couple of step-children in the deal, one who lives with us full time and one who just visits occasionally. I've had some poems published, most recently in a journal that some people have actually heard of (but probably not you). I should be pretty happy and crowing about all this to the world, and there's only one reason why I've crawled into my shell and hidden instead: I'm not actually married. Hopefully one day my beloved's long, torturous divorce, worthy of a Hollywood celebrity in the 1950's, will wend its way through the court system, but until it does, I am not only living with someone I'm not married to, but living with someone who is, in fact, legally married to someone else. I guess if I was a different kind of person I would shrug it off or take pleasure in the fact that I am a scarlet woman, but instead I have just been hiding, waiting for the situation to improve. I guess I finally got tired of waiting, so here I am, telling the truth at last.
So here goes: I fell in love and moved to West Virginia, leaving the library world behind me in the process. I also acquired a couple of step-children in the deal, one who lives with us full time and one who just visits occasionally. I've had some poems published, most recently in a journal that some people have actually heard of (but probably not you). I should be pretty happy and crowing about all this to the world, and there's only one reason why I've crawled into my shell and hidden instead: I'm not actually married. Hopefully one day my beloved's long, torturous divorce, worthy of a Hollywood celebrity in the 1950's, will wend its way through the court system, but until it does, I am not only living with someone I'm not married to, but living with someone who is, in fact, legally married to someone else. I guess if I was a different kind of person I would shrug it off or take pleasure in the fact that I am a scarlet woman, but instead I have just been hiding, waiting for the situation to improve. I guess I finally got tired of waiting, so here I am, telling the truth at last.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The realness in reality
I'm not sure that I'm qualified to write on reality shows. In fact, I'm sure I'm one of the least qualified people in America to do so, because I have barely watched them at all. Sure, sometimes while flipping through the channels I've caught 5 or 10 minutes of The Biggest Loser or The Amazing Race, but the last reality show I purposely watched was also the first-- the first season of Survivor, way back in 2001.
In this unassuming little summer show were the seeds of every reality show to come-- the forming of alliances, the double-crossing, the bizarre product placements, the pointless but dangerous challenges, and the endless talk. It was all fresh and new, then, and nobody knew what to expect. Whether they knew it or not, those 12 people cast away on a remote island were setting the rules for a whole new genre, and they were doing it innocently and in good faith. (And even when they acted in bad faith, it was done in good faith, in the sense that they were following their own instincts and not some idea they had of how people were supposed to act on a reality show.)
I remember being blown away by Susan's famous "Rats and Snakes" speech during the last tribal council, and what fascinated me at the time was the amount of emotion she showed, yet when I viewed it again right now, what impressed me instead was her sincerity. She really believed that people's actions on the island reflected their personas in real life, and she was entirely willing to judge her fellow competitors on the morality of their behavior. That seems like such an innocent stance to take now.
The state of reality shows right now is much more confusing. Sometimes we, the viewers, want to believe that everything we see on a reality show is really real, that the couples that find true love will live happily ever after and that the people who get hired to work at a company will have long and fulfilling careers there. Yet at other times, when there is conflict involved, we fall back on the notion that it's only a game, that the things that people say and do to hurt each other aren't real, and that they are all just actors going through the motions and trying to make it seem convincing, in the same way that professional wrestlers do. We want to have our cake and eat it too.
Susan's speech is the reason I've never watched another reality show, because I realized that watching real people hurt each other was not my idea of entertainment. I remain devoted to fictionalized worlds that let us explore conflict in a safer way, without ruining the lives of real people. I hope that in time the rest of the world will join me.
In this unassuming little summer show were the seeds of every reality show to come-- the forming of alliances, the double-crossing, the bizarre product placements, the pointless but dangerous challenges, and the endless talk. It was all fresh and new, then, and nobody knew what to expect. Whether they knew it or not, those 12 people cast away on a remote island were setting the rules for a whole new genre, and they were doing it innocently and in good faith. (And even when they acted in bad faith, it was done in good faith, in the sense that they were following their own instincts and not some idea they had of how people were supposed to act on a reality show.)
I remember being blown away by Susan's famous "Rats and Snakes" speech during the last tribal council, and what fascinated me at the time was the amount of emotion she showed, yet when I viewed it again right now, what impressed me instead was her sincerity. She really believed that people's actions on the island reflected their personas in real life, and she was entirely willing to judge her fellow competitors on the morality of their behavior. That seems like such an innocent stance to take now.
The state of reality shows right now is much more confusing. Sometimes we, the viewers, want to believe that everything we see on a reality show is really real, that the couples that find true love will live happily ever after and that the people who get hired to work at a company will have long and fulfilling careers there. Yet at other times, when there is conflict involved, we fall back on the notion that it's only a game, that the things that people say and do to hurt each other aren't real, and that they are all just actors going through the motions and trying to make it seem convincing, in the same way that professional wrestlers do. We want to have our cake and eat it too.
Susan's speech is the reason I've never watched another reality show, because I realized that watching real people hurt each other was not my idea of entertainment. I remain devoted to fictionalized worlds that let us explore conflict in a safer way, without ruining the lives of real people. I hope that in time the rest of the world will join me.
Monday, July 12, 2010
In defense of nose-punching
In the same spirit as my earlier posts "In Defense of Stalkers" and "The Lost Art of the Celebrity Crush," in which I argued that our society has become too repressed on the topics of love and attraction, I now bring you "In Defense of Nose-punching." As with the previous post, my intention is not to argue that all conflict is good, but that we as a society have gone too far in covering up the expression of these feelings in their natural and healthy way.
22 years ago, George Bush Sr. promised to make this a "kinder, gentler nation." At the time, this seemed like just empty political rhetoric, but looked back upon now, his words do mark some kind of a watershed in our society. Although I believe his speech was just a signpost of changes already starting to occur and not the instigator of the change, real changes did start to happen in American society with the dawn of the 90's. This is the time when multiculturalism and political correctness became terms that everybody, not just the intellectual elite, was debating. And while the ideas of the extremists never passed into common use, that doesn't mean that these movements haven't had real effect on our society. Ask almost any college-age person today, and they will agree that all people deserve respect, whatever their beliefs, ethnicity or orientation. Look at how the debate over homosexuality has shifted. Twenty years ago we were arguing over whether they had the right to exist, and now we are arguing over whether or not they have the right to get married. These are all good changes.
I think it's good that people are more tolerant of each other when this reflects their true feelings, but the flip side of this is that I also see people papering over their differences and allowing them to fester instead of confronting them. When political correctness came to the fore, how you said something became more important than what you said, and I think this had a chilling effect and made lots of people just stop talking about important things, at least in public with strangers. Instead of potentially offending someone and risking conflict, it became safer just to hole up with a group of people that you already know agree with you. The problem with this is that both sides become more extreme in their views, more convinced that they must be right, and less able to deal with the other side when they eventually do meet.
I have been watching a lot of television from the 80's recently and reflecting how different this world is from the one that I grew up in. It amazes me how much more violent television was, at least in a personal way. People were always punching each other in the nose and having fistfights! Nowadays, television is much more likely to show impersonal violence, with groups of people hiding behind pillars and shooting at each other without even being able to see each other. I think this is a good metaphor for the changes in our society. Instead of coming out into the open and dealing with each other as individuals, we stay in hiding with our groups and take cheap potshots at each other that are unlikely to do any real damage, but also unlikely to solve anything.
I have only scratched the surface of this topic and probably will come back to revisit it over the next few weeks. I want to think about what it really means to be brave and what it really means to be kind and gentle.
22 years ago, George Bush Sr. promised to make this a "kinder, gentler nation." At the time, this seemed like just empty political rhetoric, but looked back upon now, his words do mark some kind of a watershed in our society. Although I believe his speech was just a signpost of changes already starting to occur and not the instigator of the change, real changes did start to happen in American society with the dawn of the 90's. This is the time when multiculturalism and political correctness became terms that everybody, not just the intellectual elite, was debating. And while the ideas of the extremists never passed into common use, that doesn't mean that these movements haven't had real effect on our society. Ask almost any college-age person today, and they will agree that all people deserve respect, whatever their beliefs, ethnicity or orientation. Look at how the debate over homosexuality has shifted. Twenty years ago we were arguing over whether they had the right to exist, and now we are arguing over whether or not they have the right to get married. These are all good changes.
I think it's good that people are more tolerant of each other when this reflects their true feelings, but the flip side of this is that I also see people papering over their differences and allowing them to fester instead of confronting them. When political correctness came to the fore, how you said something became more important than what you said, and I think this had a chilling effect and made lots of people just stop talking about important things, at least in public with strangers. Instead of potentially offending someone and risking conflict, it became safer just to hole up with a group of people that you already know agree with you. The problem with this is that both sides become more extreme in their views, more convinced that they must be right, and less able to deal with the other side when they eventually do meet.
I have been watching a lot of television from the 80's recently and reflecting how different this world is from the one that I grew up in. It amazes me how much more violent television was, at least in a personal way. People were always punching each other in the nose and having fistfights! Nowadays, television is much more likely to show impersonal violence, with groups of people hiding behind pillars and shooting at each other without even being able to see each other. I think this is a good metaphor for the changes in our society. Instead of coming out into the open and dealing with each other as individuals, we stay in hiding with our groups and take cheap potshots at each other that are unlikely to do any real damage, but also unlikely to solve anything.
I have only scratched the surface of this topic and probably will come back to revisit it over the next few weeks. I want to think about what it really means to be brave and what it really means to be kind and gentle.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
In this strange labyrinth
I hate the place that I am in right now. I hate not knowing if I can believe the words that somebody says and the explanation that he gives. It is just crazy enough that it might be true, but I also know full well he could just be buying time by telling me what I want to hear. Thinking about the experiences of other people I know provides me no clarity. I certainly can give you examples of women who were too touchy, who nipped a great thing right in the bud because they were too afraid of being hurt. But on the other hand, I can give you plenty of examples of women who stayed through increasingly ridiculous excuses, and things never got better and in the end they wished they had just left the first time.
Well, if one can combine the words of a Romantic poet and a New Age pop song in one post, I leave you with those two references to ponder.
Well, if one can combine the words of a Romantic poet and a New Age pop song in one post, I leave you with those two references to ponder.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The inside vs. the outside of the cup
I am so riled up right now that I probably shouldn't be allowed to post anything online, but I'll try to be constructive here and express my opinions in a thoughtful matter. I really don't like the way our society is heading, and the way that women's options, especially regarding personal appearance, have closed up in the last 10 years or so. You may not believe this, kiddies, but there was a time when a woman could have short hair and be considered both sexy and not a lesbian. If you don't believe me, look at Janine Turner in "Northern Exposure" or Winona Ryder in "Reality Bites." Ironically, during that time period I always tried to buck the trend and have long hair, but looking back on it, it was nice to have a variety of options available to me, options that I suddenly realize are no longer there, and I can't for the life of me pinpoint at what exact moment they were lost.
There were plenty of beauty rules for girls even when I was growing up, but there were on the level of suggestions that you would find printed in magazines once in a while, whereas now the beauty rules are irrefutable truths that all women simultaneously realize somehow. I managed to feel perfectly happy and confident about my eyebrows for 30+ years, and aside from brushing them once in a while, I never thought of them as a body part requiring maintenance. But all of a sudden I'm in violation of the cardinal rule of womanhood, that eyebrows must be waxed at all times. Likewise, the new precept for breasts, which is being stated as if it were a universal truth, is that the nipple must fall exactly halfway between the shoulder and the elbow. Now when watching old movies, I can scarcely pay attention to the plot because I'm so obsessed with looking at the leading lady's boobs and seeing how they measure up. Anyone who thinks that this rule is truly universal and has always been in place has never seen Meryl Streep in "The French Lieutenant's Woman." I don't think she was even wearing a bra at all! And somehow she still managed to win Best Actress!
I guess what I'm trying to say (and I never would have believed it if you'd told me I'd feel this way 10 years ago) is that I'm coming out of the closet as a feminist. Women should have options to be and do whatever they want, and I think we should pay more attention to their thoughts and feelings than we do to the way they look. And if you ever find me getting my eyebrows waxed, I'll eat the wax!
There were plenty of beauty rules for girls even when I was growing up, but there were on the level of suggestions that you would find printed in magazines once in a while, whereas now the beauty rules are irrefutable truths that all women simultaneously realize somehow. I managed to feel perfectly happy and confident about my eyebrows for 30+ years, and aside from brushing them once in a while, I never thought of them as a body part requiring maintenance. But all of a sudden I'm in violation of the cardinal rule of womanhood, that eyebrows must be waxed at all times. Likewise, the new precept for breasts, which is being stated as if it were a universal truth, is that the nipple must fall exactly halfway between the shoulder and the elbow. Now when watching old movies, I can scarcely pay attention to the plot because I'm so obsessed with looking at the leading lady's boobs and seeing how they measure up. Anyone who thinks that this rule is truly universal and has always been in place has never seen Meryl Streep in "The French Lieutenant's Woman." I don't think she was even wearing a bra at all! And somehow she still managed to win Best Actress!
I guess what I'm trying to say (and I never would have believed it if you'd told me I'd feel this way 10 years ago) is that I'm coming out of the closet as a feminist. Women should have options to be and do whatever they want, and I think we should pay more attention to their thoughts and feelings than we do to the way they look. And if you ever find me getting my eyebrows waxed, I'll eat the wax!
Friday, April 24, 2009
I just got back from the Milky Way
I just had my first visit in the dreamworld in 5 years with someone I love very much. Of course, I can't really know if it was real or not, but either way, it was lovely, and it was good to have him back. I guess this is proof that things happen when you least expect it!
By the way, this isn't the only dreamworld encounter I've had lately. I met someone else unexpectedly there while on my recent trip to Minnesota, and that one was very lovely too. If only my real life was full of such wonderful things.
By the way, this isn't the only dreamworld encounter I've had lately. I met someone else unexpectedly there while on my recent trip to Minnesota, and that one was very lovely too. If only my real life was full of such wonderful things.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Two months
So it's been a long time since I said anything substantial here, and it's not that I haven't been thinking about things. It's just that I've felt like I couldn't say anything that I wanted everybody in the world to hear. My life has been full of a lot of secrets lately, some of which I'm still not ready to reveal. But while I was taking a nice brisk (in both senses of the word) walk today on the bike path, I had a thought that I felt was worth exploring here. In two words, it's "two months."
What do I mean by that? Well, I've had a number of significant relationships in my life, and because I'm a loyal person, many of them have gone on in some form or another for years. But to be perfectly honest, the amount of time in which I was actually happy and things were going well has always been the same: 2 months. Take this summer, for instance, when I had my little idyll immortalized in these pages. It was exactly two months long to the day. And of course, last spring I met Aethelred Eldridge and we were so intrigued with each other for, you guessed it, two months, and then things just trailed off. After I graduated from library school, I had a wonderful intimate liaison with someone that lasted exactly two months, until we both found jobs and went back to real life. And just to show you that this trend has gone on for a long time, I was recently reunited with an old old old flame on Facebook. (By which I mean from 5th grade.) Although we knew each other for years after that period, when I look back on it, there were only two months that we were very happy, before all the teasing I got from classmates made me back away.
I'm still not sure if this means something, and if so, what? Is two months all the good I've got in me for anybody? That's a depressing thought. Maybe what it means is that when I meet someone new, instead of hoping that things last forever, I should just try to get the most out of the next two months that I can. If I take that strategy, the next two months could be very interesting indeed!
What do I mean by that? Well, I've had a number of significant relationships in my life, and because I'm a loyal person, many of them have gone on in some form or another for years. But to be perfectly honest, the amount of time in which I was actually happy and things were going well has always been the same: 2 months. Take this summer, for instance, when I had my little idyll immortalized in these pages. It was exactly two months long to the day. And of course, last spring I met Aethelred Eldridge and we were so intrigued with each other for, you guessed it, two months, and then things just trailed off. After I graduated from library school, I had a wonderful intimate liaison with someone that lasted exactly two months, until we both found jobs and went back to real life. And just to show you that this trend has gone on for a long time, I was recently reunited with an old old old flame on Facebook. (By which I mean from 5th grade.) Although we knew each other for years after that period, when I look back on it, there were only two months that we were very happy, before all the teasing I got from classmates made me back away.
I'm still not sure if this means something, and if so, what? Is two months all the good I've got in me for anybody? That's a depressing thought. Maybe what it means is that when I meet someone new, instead of hoping that things last forever, I should just try to get the most out of the next two months that I can. If I take that strategy, the next two months could be very interesting indeed!
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
A listing of my flaws
I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore! It seems that all around me are people who are trying to correct all my faults for my own good. What are these horrible faults that I possess?
- Well, for one thing, I don't have nearly enough possessions. My lifestyle is a horrible affront to the American way of life, and I need to go out and start buying lava lamps and food processors at the earliest convenience. This is only for my own good, you realize, because she who dies with the most stuff wins.
- Also, at times I prefer my own company rather than spending my time with a lot of people. This is a serious flaw! Being alone is dangerous, because it might lead to serious reflection, and we can't have that. It would be better to spend my time surrounded by a posse of people who continually chat about all their stuff. (See above.)
- Speaking of serious reflection, I have also been accused of not filling my time properly. Taking time to think before doing something is passe. Much better to just start working quickly and mindlessly so that everyone can see you doing it and be amazed. If it doesn't turn out, you can always fix your mistakes later, just as fast.
- Most seriously, rather than making a lot of plans for the future, I trust in the Lord to provide for me. But why should I trust in somebody I've never even seen? Much better to just start making plans and take the bull by the horns!
Here are my answers to these arguments, taken from the Sermon on the Mount:
- "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
- "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth."
- "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
- "Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
So I guess I should thank all these critics! They have made me much more sure that what I'm doing is just fine and pleasing to the Lord.
Friday, November 14, 2008
A dream of dreams come true
I had a dream last night that was so good, it was scary. First I was with XDPE having lunch, and we told each other how much we loved each other and held hands across the table. Then I was on the school bus, and all the high school boys were flirting with me! I asked people questions about the bus route, which made them think I was crazy, because hadn't I been with them all along? But they said that we had already gone through Manfred, and that I got on the bus every morning at 8:10 and got off every afternoon at 4:10. In other words, this was my classic elementary school bus route.
After I got off, I saw that my father was baling straw. Somehow the sight of that yellow baler going down the road is more "him" to me than anything else. I played for a while in the ditch, which was perfectly shaded even though there are no trees there! Then I went home and to my room, and Spicey was lying on my bed, and we played together. I was carrying her around like a baby, and her ears fanned out like they always did, and then I thought, "Isn't she supposed to be dead?" And then I thought, "Well, she isn't right now, anyway, and that's all that matters." Then I went to the kitchen and my mother was there, and I thought, "Is this real or a dream?" And she started talking about how her new pants accentuated her tummy bulge, and I noticed she was walking around on her own two feet, so I knew it was a dream. She was wearing that yellow sweater vest she always used to wear. I knew what I was supposed to do, and I went over and hugged her, and she was a little bit taller than I am, like she's supposed to be, and she felt solid under my arms, not frail. And I looked out the screen door, and Jillie was lying on the steps with her head in her dish, which was always her favorite position, and there were some cats there, too.
And then my mother went to the living room to talk to my daddy, and I saw that my grandma was cooking something in the kitchen. She was wearing her standard uniform, too, including those blue shoes with all the little holes in them that she used to wear. So I went over to her, but I had to kneel down so I was the same height I used to be when I was 5, and I hugged her too, and I asked her to make me a brown sugar sandwich, and she said she would. And then I went into the living room and they were talking about land bank papers and my sister was there, too, and then I woke up.
So this dream concerns me a little bit, because it was completely wish fulfillment from one end to the other, and it makes me worry that I'm going to die, or something really, really bad is going to happen to me. Why else would God allow me to have so much comfort all on one night? On the other hand, I've always loved that part of Our Town where Emily goes back in time to her 12th birthday, and I've always kind of wondered if I could do that. Maybe this was just proof that I could. (Although I didn't really go back to one particular time, as Grandma was dead long before we got Spicey and Jillie, for instance.) It also proves that XDPE was right. He always said that if I could learn to lucid dream it would be a tremendous comfort, but I didn't believe him. Well, boy, you were right.
After I got off, I saw that my father was baling straw. Somehow the sight of that yellow baler going down the road is more "him" to me than anything else. I played for a while in the ditch, which was perfectly shaded even though there are no trees there! Then I went home and to my room, and Spicey was lying on my bed, and we played together. I was carrying her around like a baby, and her ears fanned out like they always did, and then I thought, "Isn't she supposed to be dead?" And then I thought, "Well, she isn't right now, anyway, and that's all that matters." Then I went to the kitchen and my mother was there, and I thought, "Is this real or a dream?" And she started talking about how her new pants accentuated her tummy bulge, and I noticed she was walking around on her own two feet, so I knew it was a dream. She was wearing that yellow sweater vest she always used to wear. I knew what I was supposed to do, and I went over and hugged her, and she was a little bit taller than I am, like she's supposed to be, and she felt solid under my arms, not frail. And I looked out the screen door, and Jillie was lying on the steps with her head in her dish, which was always her favorite position, and there were some cats there, too.
And then my mother went to the living room to talk to my daddy, and I saw that my grandma was cooking something in the kitchen. She was wearing her standard uniform, too, including those blue shoes with all the little holes in them that she used to wear. So I went over to her, but I had to kneel down so I was the same height I used to be when I was 5, and I hugged her too, and I asked her to make me a brown sugar sandwich, and she said she would. And then I went into the living room and they were talking about land bank papers and my sister was there, too, and then I woke up.
So this dream concerns me a little bit, because it was completely wish fulfillment from one end to the other, and it makes me worry that I'm going to die, or something really, really bad is going to happen to me. Why else would God allow me to have so much comfort all on one night? On the other hand, I've always loved that part of Our Town where Emily goes back in time to her 12th birthday, and I've always kind of wondered if I could do that. Maybe this was just proof that I could. (Although I didn't really go back to one particular time, as Grandma was dead long before we got Spicey and Jillie, for instance.) It also proves that XDPE was right. He always said that if I could learn to lucid dream it would be a tremendous comfort, but I didn't believe him. Well, boy, you were right.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Three little words
So today is a kind of a milestone for me! 8 years ago, someone I love very much who was about to move away sat on a chair in my living room and asked me, "Is there something I need to know?" And I wanted so badly to cross the gap and say that I loved him, but I just couldn't. I thought it would be responsible and "nice" and easier to just stay silent, so I did. And a couple of months later, I regretted it mightily when he invited a different girl to move there with him, and I was left thinking, "That could have been me."
Today, someone I love very much asked me the same exact question in the same exact words, and this time, even though it was very, very hard and I'm still half-convinced that I did the wrong thing, I told him the truth, that I love him. And I have no idea what will happen, and maybe things won't turn out any differently in the end, but what I do know is that he'll always know that I love him now. And that makes all the difference.
Today, someone I love very much asked me the same exact question in the same exact words, and this time, even though it was very, very hard and I'm still half-convinced that I did the wrong thing, I told him the truth, that I love him. And I have no idea what will happen, and maybe things won't turn out any differently in the end, but what I do know is that he'll always know that I love him now. And that makes all the difference.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
An advice column
Because my love life is in such a state of flux these days, I've been reading a lot of relationship articles. And so I finally decided to just write one of my own.
The Top 10 Things that Men Should Know about Women
1. Women are like old-fashioned TV sets with dials. We stay on whatever channel we were on when you were last watching. So if the last thing that happened between us was awkward and weird, our brains will stay in that state forever unless you replace it with a better memory. On the other hand, if the last thing you said was something incredibly wonderful, that memory can carry us for months or years of no contact at all. Seriously.
2. From your point of view, we cry all the time. But that doesn’t mean we’re leaking. And telling us to stop will only make it worse. It’s just something you’re going to have to deal with. And half of the time when we’re crying, it’s because we’re happy anyway.
3. When we’re alone with you and laugh for no apparent reason, it’s not because we think you’re a dork. If we did think you were a dork, our response certainly wouldn’t be laughter, but more like a cold shoulder. We laugh when we’re nervous and excited, so if we’re laughing for no apparent reason, it probably means that we’re nervous and excited to be with you. This is a good thing.
4. We don’t need every encounter with you to be Oscar-worthy. Don’t feel like you have to say something profound or witty or profoundly witty every time that we’re together. All that we really need to know is that we’re still important to you, and you demonstrate that best just by being yourself, not by putting on some show.
5. As a corollary to #4, we don’t need you to keep showing your plumage forever. In the wild, males often do put on a display to attract a female’s attention, but once they’ve got it, they put those pretty tail feathers back into storage for another year. Time you spend preening in front of a girl you’ve already got sitting beside you is time that could be spent on actually building the nest together. And that’s what you really want, right?
6. If a woman isn’t talking to you as much as usual, it means that something is wrong, not that she decided to give you a vacation! What’s wrong may or may not have anything to do with you, but she probably wants you to ask about it in a non-confrontational way. This will win you major brownie points, and you’ll get more if you just let her talk about it and don’t immediately start trying to find a solution.
7. When something is bothering you, it’s nice if you can give us a clue about it. We don’t expect to have a major therapy session with Kleenexes and hugs, but if you can just find some way of filling us in on the broad outlines of it, it would be really helpful and let us know that you’re not mad at us (which is, heaven help us, what we always assume first.) If you can just say something like, “My boss is being a jerk” or “The starter on my pickup is acting up,” you’ll save yourself a whole lot of nagging and wheedling to find out what’s wrong.
8. About nagging and wheedling: it really wouldn’t happen so much if you’d just deal with the issue in the first place. If you think you can wear us down, it’s not going to work, unless we decide to give up on you totally, which you probably don’t really want. So if your answer is “no,” just say it the first time and get it over with. And “I need time to think” is also a response that’s better than stony silence.
9. Your silences always do seem stony to us, unless they occur right after something marvelously wonderful you’ve just said. (See #1.) Remember that women need feedback at all times, and we also need something to look forward to. So if you can say something like, “I’m busy studying for a test on Friday, but I can talk to you a lot that night,” or “I’ll be done with this busy time at work after April 15th,” it lets us know the reason for your silence and will let you actually get a lot more accomplished.
10. What we need to know more than anything, and that covers a multitude of sins, is how you really feel about us. And if you can manage to say it once, afterwards you won’t need to spell it out so completely again. If the words “I love you” scare you, find some other way to say it. Just say it somehow, and I promise we won’t laugh at you.
The Top 10 Things that Men Should Know about Women
1. Women are like old-fashioned TV sets with dials. We stay on whatever channel we were on when you were last watching. So if the last thing that happened between us was awkward and weird, our brains will stay in that state forever unless you replace it with a better memory. On the other hand, if the last thing you said was something incredibly wonderful, that memory can carry us for months or years of no contact at all. Seriously.
2. From your point of view, we cry all the time. But that doesn’t mean we’re leaking. And telling us to stop will only make it worse. It’s just something you’re going to have to deal with. And half of the time when we’re crying, it’s because we’re happy anyway.
3. When we’re alone with you and laugh for no apparent reason, it’s not because we think you’re a dork. If we did think you were a dork, our response certainly wouldn’t be laughter, but more like a cold shoulder. We laugh when we’re nervous and excited, so if we’re laughing for no apparent reason, it probably means that we’re nervous and excited to be with you. This is a good thing.
4. We don’t need every encounter with you to be Oscar-worthy. Don’t feel like you have to say something profound or witty or profoundly witty every time that we’re together. All that we really need to know is that we’re still important to you, and you demonstrate that best just by being yourself, not by putting on some show.
5. As a corollary to #4, we don’t need you to keep showing your plumage forever. In the wild, males often do put on a display to attract a female’s attention, but once they’ve got it, they put those pretty tail feathers back into storage for another year. Time you spend preening in front of a girl you’ve already got sitting beside you is time that could be spent on actually building the nest together. And that’s what you really want, right?
6. If a woman isn’t talking to you as much as usual, it means that something is wrong, not that she decided to give you a vacation! What’s wrong may or may not have anything to do with you, but she probably wants you to ask about it in a non-confrontational way. This will win you major brownie points, and you’ll get more if you just let her talk about it and don’t immediately start trying to find a solution.
7. When something is bothering you, it’s nice if you can give us a clue about it. We don’t expect to have a major therapy session with Kleenexes and hugs, but if you can just find some way of filling us in on the broad outlines of it, it would be really helpful and let us know that you’re not mad at us (which is, heaven help us, what we always assume first.) If you can just say something like, “My boss is being a jerk” or “The starter on my pickup is acting up,” you’ll save yourself a whole lot of nagging and wheedling to find out what’s wrong.
8. About nagging and wheedling: it really wouldn’t happen so much if you’d just deal with the issue in the first place. If you think you can wear us down, it’s not going to work, unless we decide to give up on you totally, which you probably don’t really want. So if your answer is “no,” just say it the first time and get it over with. And “I need time to think” is also a response that’s better than stony silence.
9. Your silences always do seem stony to us, unless they occur right after something marvelously wonderful you’ve just said. (See #1.) Remember that women need feedback at all times, and we also need something to look forward to. So if you can say something like, “I’m busy studying for a test on Friday, but I can talk to you a lot that night,” or “I’ll be done with this busy time at work after April 15th,” it lets us know the reason for your silence and will let you actually get a lot more accomplished.
10. What we need to know more than anything, and that covers a multitude of sins, is how you really feel about us. And if you can manage to say it once, afterwards you won’t need to spell it out so completely again. If the words “I love you” scare you, find some other way to say it. Just say it somehow, and I promise we won’t laugh at you.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
The water is wide
A few weeks ago, one of the points of our sermon at church was "God challenges you in areas where you need the most work." I knew immediately what the preacher was talking about. My big sticking points have always been separation, uncertainty, and risk. And guess what? When I look ahead to this coming year, it seems that its prevailing features are going to be separation, uncertainty, and risk. I don't like this one bit! But if I want to the carrot dangling for me on the other side, I have to cross this chasm. But do I have to like it?
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The change is made
So our topic today is transformative power. Those of us who study literature use this term to describe a character who comes along and changes everything in the story. A good example is the character of Randle Patrick McMurphy in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." He comes to the mental hospital and changes everything for everybody. You know that even after he's gone, nothing will ever go back to the way it was.
This year I've met a lot of people with transformative power. The first of those was Aethelred Eldridge. He came, he did what he needed to do, and he left again, and I'm the better for it. Although I wish I could see him once in a while, I know that I don't need to, and that he's already given me everything that I needed from him. From what I've read, that's the way most people feel about Aethelred.
But on July 9th, a different person with transformative power walked into my library, and not for the first time. In one short month he changed everything, and now that he's out of sight, I can't just sit back and say, "Oh well, that's the way the cookie crumbles." Sometimes the point of somebody with transformative power is that they're supposed to stay.
This year I've met a lot of people with transformative power. The first of those was Aethelred Eldridge. He came, he did what he needed to do, and he left again, and I'm the better for it. Although I wish I could see him once in a while, I know that I don't need to, and that he's already given me everything that I needed from him. From what I've read, that's the way most people feel about Aethelred.
But on July 9th, a different person with transformative power walked into my library, and not for the first time. In one short month he changed everything, and now that he's out of sight, I can't just sit back and say, "Oh well, that's the way the cookie crumbles." Sometimes the point of somebody with transformative power is that they're supposed to stay.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Hello, young lovers
You guys are going to be real surprised when you see the timestamp on this one! I've just woken up from a dream and have to impart all my new found wisdom to you before I go back to sleep. But this post is really more for me than it is for you.
I know that when it comes to romance, I'm the girl who cried wolf. My last few years have given my spectators whiplash as I frantically bounced from possibility to possibility. And I always insist that each person is different and really special and I've never felt this way before. But the truth is, whether you believe it or not, I do have a love of my life, and I haven't seen him for 15 years. I've named a lot of names in this blog, but I still don't feel I can mention his. There's still too much power there even after all this time; the dream I had just told me that.
Ever since I lost him when his family moved away right before senior year, I've had two kinds of dreams about him. In the first kind, I am reunited with him, and I remember that it's all because of one letter that one of us wrote. One letter that confessed everything, and after that there could be no doubt that we were meant to be together for eternity. And now we are together and everything is perfect. That kind of dream always makes me so sad, because the truth is that even though we supposedly had a love to span the ages (and the fact that it hasn't faded after 15 years tells me more and more that that was really true), neither of us lifted one finger to put ourselves back together after we were separated. Although our senior year separation was inevitable, we could have made plans to go to the same college, or even just kept in contact with each other enough so that a future reunion remained possible. But instead we let each other slip away for no good reason, except that we were too young to know a really good thing when we saw it. I know that on my end, everyone was sure that I was too young for it to really be a real thing, and they told me that I would soon forget him. I hoped that they were wrong but was afraid that they were right, and so I acted accordingly, trying (and continually failing) to put him out of my mind and move on with my life.
The other kind of dream always made me very happy. I haven't had one for about 5 years now, and it's looking increasingly unlikely that I ever will again. In this kind of dream, he and I find ourselves alone together in a deserted space. At first it was usually a college dining hall; later it became a corporate boardroom. In any case, amidst the empty tables and chairs, we simply sit and talk for hours, telling each other all the details of our lives since we last met. When I wake up, I can remember none of the details at all, but it gives me a good feeling that lasts all day. What happened 5 years ago is that I suddenly had the thought, which had never occurred to me before, that the dreams were really real, and that he and I needed each other so much that we were granted this ability to periodically commune together as long as we remembered no details in the morning. Of course, once I came to that realization the spell was broken and the dreams stopped.
The dream I had last night was a variation on the first one. I dreamt that I got a Christmas card from his mother that was a sort of booklet with reminiscences of their family's life. It was amazing to see that several of the old family pictures included me. She also gave me his address and several pictures of his family today. So I guess even in the alternate dream world, too much water has gone under the bridge to pretend that we could get back together, but at least I can pretend that we still matter to each other and everyone knows it.
So why all this now? I think the message is clear: letting a good thing slip away can change your life forever, and not for the better. I've already learned that once, and this time I shouldn't let my momentary pride and stubbornness get in the way of my long-term happiness.
I know that when it comes to romance, I'm the girl who cried wolf. My last few years have given my spectators whiplash as I frantically bounced from possibility to possibility. And I always insist that each person is different and really special and I've never felt this way before. But the truth is, whether you believe it or not, I do have a love of my life, and I haven't seen him for 15 years. I've named a lot of names in this blog, but I still don't feel I can mention his. There's still too much power there even after all this time; the dream I had just told me that.
Ever since I lost him when his family moved away right before senior year, I've had two kinds of dreams about him. In the first kind, I am reunited with him, and I remember that it's all because of one letter that one of us wrote. One letter that confessed everything, and after that there could be no doubt that we were meant to be together for eternity. And now we are together and everything is perfect. That kind of dream always makes me so sad, because the truth is that even though we supposedly had a love to span the ages (and the fact that it hasn't faded after 15 years tells me more and more that that was really true), neither of us lifted one finger to put ourselves back together after we were separated. Although our senior year separation was inevitable, we could have made plans to go to the same college, or even just kept in contact with each other enough so that a future reunion remained possible. But instead we let each other slip away for no good reason, except that we were too young to know a really good thing when we saw it. I know that on my end, everyone was sure that I was too young for it to really be a real thing, and they told me that I would soon forget him. I hoped that they were wrong but was afraid that they were right, and so I acted accordingly, trying (and continually failing) to put him out of my mind and move on with my life.
The other kind of dream always made me very happy. I haven't had one for about 5 years now, and it's looking increasingly unlikely that I ever will again. In this kind of dream, he and I find ourselves alone together in a deserted space. At first it was usually a college dining hall; later it became a corporate boardroom. In any case, amidst the empty tables and chairs, we simply sit and talk for hours, telling each other all the details of our lives since we last met. When I wake up, I can remember none of the details at all, but it gives me a good feeling that lasts all day. What happened 5 years ago is that I suddenly had the thought, which had never occurred to me before, that the dreams were really real, and that he and I needed each other so much that we were granted this ability to periodically commune together as long as we remembered no details in the morning. Of course, once I came to that realization the spell was broken and the dreams stopped.
The dream I had last night was a variation on the first one. I dreamt that I got a Christmas card from his mother that was a sort of booklet with reminiscences of their family's life. It was amazing to see that several of the old family pictures included me. She also gave me his address and several pictures of his family today. So I guess even in the alternate dream world, too much water has gone under the bridge to pretend that we could get back together, but at least I can pretend that we still matter to each other and everyone knows it.
So why all this now? I think the message is clear: letting a good thing slip away can change your life forever, and not for the better. I've already learned that once, and this time I shouldn't let my momentary pride and stubbornness get in the way of my long-term happiness.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Sophisticated lady
Those people who know me well know that for some reason being "sophisticated" is very important to me. Certainly I don't want to be sophisticated all the time; I'm a jeans and T-shirt girl at heart. But it's important to me that once in a while I get to dress up all fancy and go to some grand occasion, preferably with place cards and wine glasses. (Never mind that I don't actually drink wine. It's all about the glasses!) That might be why I'm soon planning a 60's dinner party. (More on that later.) That might be why I have a closet full of dresses that aren't actually suitable for wear to either work or church. And that might also be why I spent a wonderful three days at Mohonk Mountain House last summer pretending to be rich. (Gee, I hope I get to back again soon, and this time take someone else with me.)
I don't think there's anything wrong with pretending to be sophisticated that way, as long as it doesn't make you abandon your principles or go into debt. But there's another way I've been attempting to be sophisticated that isn't working out so well, and I'm realizing I might have to give it up. I've been trying to be sophisticated in my love life, which for me translates to being the kind of person who can have someone beloved breeze into town, show him a good time while he's here, and then have him ride out into the sunset with nary a passing thought.
I don't know where I got the idea that that kind of behavior is sophisticated. I think it's probably from TV, which always delights in giving our hero or heroine a love interest for an episode or two and then ripping them away again. How many different girls did Captain Kirk meet along the way, and he never shed a tear from them after they were gone? And then of course there are the shows that grant the main character a recurring love interest who shows up once or twice a season, but otherwise doesn't factor into things at all.
The reason I'm pondering all this is because I've hit upon this situation in my real life. Someone very dear to me has just blown into town and is scheduled to blow out again at the end of the summer. I've been trying really, really hard to be sophisticated about this, and it's slowly driving me insane. I can't just turn it on and off like that, and maybe it's time I stopped trying.
Of course, that begs the question: if I'm not going to be sophisticated, what am I going to be? That's something that I haven't figured out yet, but I certainly hope the answer doesn't become "melodramatic." I've heard I can be pretty good at that one too, but it takes a lot out of you!
I don't think there's anything wrong with pretending to be sophisticated that way, as long as it doesn't make you abandon your principles or go into debt. But there's another way I've been attempting to be sophisticated that isn't working out so well, and I'm realizing I might have to give it up. I've been trying to be sophisticated in my love life, which for me translates to being the kind of person who can have someone beloved breeze into town, show him a good time while he's here, and then have him ride out into the sunset with nary a passing thought.
I don't know where I got the idea that that kind of behavior is sophisticated. I think it's probably from TV, which always delights in giving our hero or heroine a love interest for an episode or two and then ripping them away again. How many different girls did Captain Kirk meet along the way, and he never shed a tear from them after they were gone? And then of course there are the shows that grant the main character a recurring love interest who shows up once or twice a season, but otherwise doesn't factor into things at all.
The reason I'm pondering all this is because I've hit upon this situation in my real life. Someone very dear to me has just blown into town and is scheduled to blow out again at the end of the summer. I've been trying really, really hard to be sophisticated about this, and it's slowly driving me insane. I can't just turn it on and off like that, and maybe it's time I stopped trying.
Of course, that begs the question: if I'm not going to be sophisticated, what am I going to be? That's something that I haven't figured out yet, but I certainly hope the answer doesn't become "melodramatic." I've heard I can be pretty good at that one too, but it takes a lot out of you!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Incense and peppermints
I hope you don't take this the wrong way ("I swear I'm clean, officer!") but I've been in an altered state of consciousness the past few days, and I really don't know why. I've had a hard time sleeping, but when I do my perception of time has been greatly altered from normal. For instance, I can go to sleep, dream a long and complicated dream, wake up, and find that it's exactly 3 minutes later. This has made my nights seem approximately 18 years long. I'm not sure if it's cause or effect, then, that during the days I feel tired, dreamy, and not really here. I just wish I knew how to make it stop.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Venus and Mars
I know I haven't been very cerebral here the last few weeks, but I've been so busy that I haven't had a chance to think about much of anything. But now I'm trying to avoid writing a paper, so the thoughts about everything else in the world are flowing! And there's something I've been piecing together in my mind for a while, but I hadn't really made the connections until just now.
Men and women fall in love differently. Obviously, their different physiologies and hormonal complements make this true, but I don't mean just that. I mean that if you ask a typical couple to describe how they knew that they were in love, you'll probably hear variations on these stories (which I have just fabricated in my head).
Woman: Well, people had been mentioning Joe Blow to me for a while, and everyone seemed to think very highly of him. And then I met him, and I didn't think very much of him at first, but over time I learned what a hard worker he is, and how much he loved his dog Smooshie, and then I saw the way he treated his mother like a queen, and I knew he was the man for me.
Man: There I was, minding my own business at the reference desk, when I looked up and beheld the most beautiful pair of blue eyes I'd ever seen. I was too stupid to realize it at the time, but from that moment everything changed for me and there was no going back. And believe me, I tried.
I've listened to stories like this all my life, and I've just now noticed the difference. Generally speaking, for a woman, falling in love is a decision she makes once she amasses enough positive evidence of a man's worthiness. On the other hand, falling in love is something that happens to a man, and he can never adequately explain why or how, only that it changed him forever. Which do you think is more romantic? And which would you rather do?
Men and women fall in love differently. Obviously, their different physiologies and hormonal complements make this true, but I don't mean just that. I mean that if you ask a typical couple to describe how they knew that they were in love, you'll probably hear variations on these stories (which I have just fabricated in my head).
Woman: Well, people had been mentioning Joe Blow to me for a while, and everyone seemed to think very highly of him. And then I met him, and I didn't think very much of him at first, but over time I learned what a hard worker he is, and how much he loved his dog Smooshie, and then I saw the way he treated his mother like a queen, and I knew he was the man for me.
Man: There I was, minding my own business at the reference desk, when I looked up and beheld the most beautiful pair of blue eyes I'd ever seen. I was too stupid to realize it at the time, but from that moment everything changed for me and there was no going back. And believe me, I tried.
I've listened to stories like this all my life, and I've just now noticed the difference. Generally speaking, for a woman, falling in love is a decision she makes once she amasses enough positive evidence of a man's worthiness. On the other hand, falling in love is something that happens to a man, and he can never adequately explain why or how, only that it changed him forever. Which do you think is more romantic? And which would you rather do?
Saturday, April 5, 2008
My life as a novel
What I haven't told many people is that I'm facing two significant medical appointments this week. Since I'm a pretty optimistic person, I don't usually talk about such things ahead of time, but instead wait until I find out everything is fine so that I can tell everybody, "Everything was fine. There was no need to worry you." But yesterday, while sitting in the Baker Center ballroom in the closing session of the Baker Peace Conference (which totally made me wish I'd become a historian), I realized that this time the back of my mind thinks something will go wrong. Why? Because I feel especially happy and fulfilled.
Ever since I was a little girl, I've liked to pretend that my life was a book, and this has often influenced my actions. For instance, I've been known to think things like, "Well, I could just give in and write to him now, but it would be so much more romantic if I wait five years, and then we can be reunited much more joyfully." (The basic plot of the movie Serendipity, by the way.) And I often try to read events around me to predict what will happen the same way I would if I was reading a book, as if God was nothing more than a hack writer pounding on a manual Underwood up above the clouds. So in this case, I clearly see the foreshadowing. I have recently received many accolades at work (including wrapping up a project I've been working on since Day One), and I have had many promising developments in my personal life. If this was happening in a movie, you know that the next thing to happen is for me to find out that I have cancer or get hit by a bus or be stabbed walking home from work.
What else can I say? I really hope I'm wrong, but the writerly part of me thinks the narrative will be so much more exciting if I'm right!
Ever since I was a little girl, I've liked to pretend that my life was a book, and this has often influenced my actions. For instance, I've been known to think things like, "Well, I could just give in and write to him now, but it would be so much more romantic if I wait five years, and then we can be reunited much more joyfully." (The basic plot of the movie Serendipity, by the way.) And I often try to read events around me to predict what will happen the same way I would if I was reading a book, as if God was nothing more than a hack writer pounding on a manual Underwood up above the clouds. So in this case, I clearly see the foreshadowing. I have recently received many accolades at work (including wrapping up a project I've been working on since Day One), and I have had many promising developments in my personal life. If this was happening in a movie, you know that the next thing to happen is for me to find out that I have cancer or get hit by a bus or be stabbed walking home from work.
What else can I say? I really hope I'm wrong, but the writerly part of me thinks the narrative will be so much more exciting if I'm right!
Saturday, March 29, 2008
In defense of stalkers
Having led off with a provocative title like that, I suppose I need to establish my position right away, so let me start by revealing that I have actually had a stalker. Without going into all the gory details (which might be the makings of another post somewhere down the line), let me say that while it was a harrowing semester of my life and one that I would not like to repeat, obviously it all turned out all right in the end. He broke off pursuit all by himself and I did not, as the Lifetime movie of the week would have you believe inevitably occurs, end up bound and gagged in an airless garret with walls papered with pictures of myself in various states of undress. Obviously, as my experience demonstrates, there are mentally unbalanced individuals who are real stalkers, who I define as people who insist upon pursuing someone even in the face of overwhelming evidence that their advances are not welcome. Those people deserve punishment and/or psychiatric help, and they are not the subject of this post.
Rather, I'm talking about the watered-down idea of the stalker that has arisen in our popular culture in the last ten years or so. Basically what it boils down to is that a "stalker" is anyone who shows what may appear to be an excess of interest in another person. This idea is what makes a red-blooded American male blush and look over his shoulder before saying in a low, sheepish voice to the object of his affections, "I hope it doesn't make me sound like a stalker to ask what part of town you live in" or "Would it make me a stalker if I admit I've read your blog?"
Basically, I think what we've lost here is a sense that the information-gathering stage of courtship is important. In the old days, this was all much simpler, because you probably would have known that person your whole life, or at least known of them. You could ask your mother or your grandma to tell you everything about that family and she would do so. And there were other sources of information as well. I remember being thrilled when I found an old church directory that contained a picture of my first-grade boyfriend, Chad Keller, as a baby. It wasn't just knowing that he was an adorable baby (although he certainly was!) that thrilled me, but it also gave me a sense of continuity. Even though he and I had only been around for 6 years, our families had known each other for a long time, and that gave me a positive, optimistic feeling that we two would know each other for a long time to come. (And indeed, while we didn't end up getting married as I romantically hoped, I do still know exactly where he lives with his wife and children, and my mother still regularly tells me all the goings-on in his family.)
These days, it's less likely that the person you fall in love with will be someone you've known your whole life, but that doesn't mean you don't deserve to know something about them before you pop the question. Of course, the two of you could sit down together with a checklist of 649 questions about each other, but that doesn't sound like a lot of fun. It is probably better in the long run to get what you can from other sources, such as mutual friends, Facebook, and even the ever-popular Google. And do you honestly think that the other person isn't also Googling you even as we speak?
The catch here, though, is that it is unseemly to actually let on what you've learned about someone else through these means. While it might give you a slight advantage to know they were on the cross-country team in high school, by no means is it kosher to say to them, "So, I see you were on the cross-country team back in high school. Nice shorts, by the way, and orange and black really do look good on you!" I know a guileless young man who actually committed this sin and lost the trust of his lady love forever. However, I would say that it should be only common sense and tact to know not to do this. Besides, what good is it to get extra intelligence if you're only going to tip your hand and let the other side know you've got it?
My point here is that we shouldn't let the slight threat of real stalkers dissuade us from trying to get to know people as fully as possible. Take it from one who knows: there really is a world of difference between having someone call you and hang up 20 times a day and having someone look at your blog once in a while. I don't like the former, but the latter is just fine with me!
Rather, I'm talking about the watered-down idea of the stalker that has arisen in our popular culture in the last ten years or so. Basically what it boils down to is that a "stalker" is anyone who shows what may appear to be an excess of interest in another person. This idea is what makes a red-blooded American male blush and look over his shoulder before saying in a low, sheepish voice to the object of his affections, "I hope it doesn't make me sound like a stalker to ask what part of town you live in" or "Would it make me a stalker if I admit I've read your blog?"
Basically, I think what we've lost here is a sense that the information-gathering stage of courtship is important. In the old days, this was all much simpler, because you probably would have known that person your whole life, or at least known of them. You could ask your mother or your grandma to tell you everything about that family and she would do so. And there were other sources of information as well. I remember being thrilled when I found an old church directory that contained a picture of my first-grade boyfriend, Chad Keller, as a baby. It wasn't just knowing that he was an adorable baby (although he certainly was!) that thrilled me, but it also gave me a sense of continuity. Even though he and I had only been around for 6 years, our families had known each other for a long time, and that gave me a positive, optimistic feeling that we two would know each other for a long time to come. (And indeed, while we didn't end up getting married as I romantically hoped, I do still know exactly where he lives with his wife and children, and my mother still regularly tells me all the goings-on in his family.)
These days, it's less likely that the person you fall in love with will be someone you've known your whole life, but that doesn't mean you don't deserve to know something about them before you pop the question. Of course, the two of you could sit down together with a checklist of 649 questions about each other, but that doesn't sound like a lot of fun. It is probably better in the long run to get what you can from other sources, such as mutual friends, Facebook, and even the ever-popular Google. And do you honestly think that the other person isn't also Googling you even as we speak?
The catch here, though, is that it is unseemly to actually let on what you've learned about someone else through these means. While it might give you a slight advantage to know they were on the cross-country team in high school, by no means is it kosher to say to them, "So, I see you were on the cross-country team back in high school. Nice shorts, by the way, and orange and black really do look good on you!" I know a guileless young man who actually committed this sin and lost the trust of his lady love forever. However, I would say that it should be only common sense and tact to know not to do this. Besides, what good is it to get extra intelligence if you're only going to tip your hand and let the other side know you've got it?
My point here is that we shouldn't let the slight threat of real stalkers dissuade us from trying to get to know people as fully as possible. Take it from one who knows: there really is a world of difference between having someone call you and hang up 20 times a day and having someone look at your blog once in a while. I don't like the former, but the latter is just fine with me!
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