Matchmaker

“Matchmaker, matchmaker, you know that I’m still very young… please… take your time?  Up to this minute I misunderstood that I could get stuck for good.” ~ Matchmaker, from the musical Fiddler on the Roof.

I have match-made once in my life that I can think of.  They were two of my friends from different worlds, one massively depressed, and the other a bubbling ray of sunshine.  She liked to help people.  He needed help.  I didn’t expect Andy and Vilmary to become a couple, but they did.  She met him by reading over my shoulder as I cruised Facebook during a college English course.  It was a bad plan.  See, they were really happy for a while, but it was all about sex.  Sexuality.  Sexualism.  Any other word I can stick “sex” into.  I used to want to scream at her for having somewhat lewd conversations with him on the phone and via webcam at three-in-the-freaking-morning while I was trying to sleep.

They are the reason I am hesitant to match-make my friends again.  See, they were really happy and there was a heck of a lot of unresolved sexual tension between them for a while, but now, anything I hear about them is raging red hate.  I hear from her how much of a soulless, heartless pain-in-the-ass he is.  I hear from him what a dumb, manipulative bitch she is.  I never hear anything positive.  I feel like I’ve created this monstrous relationship of negative energy that seeps out of the black lagoon and wants to eat my soul.

Okay, yeah, it may not be all my fault.  I mean, if he cared about living past the age of twenty-five, it would be okay.  If she didn’t decide to mess with his head and piss him off for fun every now and again, it would be okay.  And of course, I’m not psychic, and I couldn’t anticipate these things happening, but nonetheless… I still feel responsible.  Without me, these people would never have met.  And then there wouldn’t be so much hate and angst in their lives.

I have this thing about angst.  I really don’t like it.  It makes me grumpy.  Probably explained why CAPSLOCK!Harry and I don’t get on so well.

Relationships are so hard to determine.  Unless I can very clearly see that this person is no good, I don’t have anything negative to say.  Like Heather and John.  They practices?  Not my thing.  I didn’t much enjoy hearing about all their sexual encounters, and I felt that for a sophomore and senior in high school, they had a heck of a lot of sketchy ones.  But who am I to judge?  I let it be.  At any rate, they were happy.  And Heather?  She doesn’t do happy easily.  So seeing her smile instead of angsty and depressed was a good thing.  I could never have predicted that the relationship would end around three years with massive amounts of  cheating and neglect going on.  Bad stuff.  Bad times.  Big mess.  And that wasn’t my fault.  So I know that relationships go awry even without my help.  But that doesn’t keep me from being hesitant.

See, I love Bryan.  Really, I do.  I mean it when I say “love”.  I know I’m going to be with him, we’ve already begun (half-jokingly) planning our wedding and I have names for the children which he likes.  For anyone who is interested, there will be three children, two girls and a boy because I totally have control over that.  Angela Piper, Tristan Dorian, and Sonora Essylte.  I’ve got that covered.  But seriously, my own relationship is always rocky.  Sometimes I want to punch Bryan in the face just to get him to leave me alone (he can’t bug me if he’s unconscious, ja?).  I love him, but at the same time, I freaking wish he’d leave me alone.  But I know he’s crazy about me, and in the end, three years going in, that’s enough to work through the little things.  I have that much faith in myself, and I have seen him work hard to do the same (though, granted, I’ve had more than one person tell me I should have dumped him a long time ago, for various different reasons).  Our relationship is a little unhealthy and a little dysfunctional, but we shouldn’t believe all that cockamaymee bull crap about happily ever after being perfect and Prince Charming on a silver steed.  My relationship is dysfunctional and unhealthy but it’s also healthy and wonderful and we make a really great team when it matters.  I made the choice to be in that relationship.

I just don’t feel right helping other people with their choices.  I feel pushy.  And responsible.

Relationships can be a nightmare.  Or they can be amazing.  It’s really up to us in the end:  are we going to be selfish and make it all about ourselves?  Or is it going to be for the greater good?

.

Health Report: I’ve eaten 1668 calories today and burned off 908.  That keeps me under my daily allotted – rock and roll!  I even included the ice cream sundae I haven’t eaten yet into that estimate, so I should be golden today.  Working copy center burns a lot of calories.  Making money and burning calories for the win!

.

Random Squee: One of my improv students posted this amazing, rocking video from YouTube on his Facebook profile and it makes me giggle.  I’ve watched it twice.

“Nobody Here But Us Trees.”

“Always the innocent are the first victims…. So it has been for ages past, so it is now.” ~ J.K. Rowling in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could hide away from the world, and have it dismiss you?  Have it say, “oh, that’s okay, I guess you’re really not here.”  The title of the blog entry comes from the movie Bunny Picnic.  Another Jim Henson masterpiece, I grew up on that movie.  It was mine and my brother’s Easter movie (though we were firmly reminded that Easter had nothing to do with bunnies, that was the Roman’s bright idea).  Bunny picnic is about a colony of rabbits preparing for the biggest holiday of their year.  You follow the character Bean, a ragamuffin brown rabbit who is always breaking things.  Purposefully, the other rabbits keep sending him somewhere else- they don’t want his help, he’ll break something!  Eventually what ends up happening, is a dog ends up at the Bunny Picnic!  Everyone is terrified of the dog, and they’re all hiding, and he’s going to not only ruin their holiday, but eat them all!  Om, nom, nom!  They need to make the dog go away, so a lot of the rabbits hide in the trees, and when the dog asks if there are rabbits there, Bean and the other tree-ridden rabbits respond “Nobody here but us trees.” and the silly dog believes them.  Wouldn’t it be nice if life was just that simple?

Only the sad fact is, life isn’t that simple.  Everybody wants something of us.  One of my managers usually spends Sunday running around complaining that everyone she talks to wants something from her.  I can’t really argue with her- it’s absolutely true.  We really don’t have our own lives.  It’s funny, the idea of independence is incredibly ironic, because in order to become independent from our families and go out into the world on our own, we have to heap on a bunch of responsibility.  Suddenly we have rent to pay, car payments, insurance payments, groceries, utilities, things like that.  Those are financial commitments, and by the time that we’re done paying off things, we have measly pennies left to ourselves.  And what of time commitments?  Working forty hours a week, if you’re lucky.  If you’re like most people, you have a second job because the first doesn’t pay enough or the hours are inconsistent.  Usually you work between forty and sixty hours a week between the two jobs, just trying to make ends meet.  When you get home, you’re too exhausted for anything.  Or, if you’re like me, you try to pursue your passions in the little free time you have.  Maybe you’re part of community theatre.  Maybe you volunteer somewhere.  One way or the other, your calendar is full.  It’s to the point where spending time with friends is just another time commitment, and there’s no end in sight.  Whatever happened to recess?  Summer vacation?

Childhood is where it’s at.  It was an age of innocence and joy.  Mum and dad fed you and clothed you, and the worst thing you had to worry about was bullies.  Your world was the playground.  When you were on those swings, you pumped as hard as you could until you reached the top and you felt your swing bounce just a little and you knew if you went much higher, you’d flip over and get hurt.  But it was the rush of the wind that made it all worthwhile.  You go through your school work because there was the promise of recess, of weekend, of summer vacation on the other side.  That made it worthwhile.  Elementary and middle school were dream worlds.  Oh yes, I said middle school.

Middle school is what you make of it.  It could be the awkward pimply hormonal stage of life, or it can be magnificent.  You wouldn’t have to pay me to go back and relive my middle school years.  I loved them.

Sixth grade I ended up with what I anticipated was going to be the worst teacher ever, and ended up to be one of my favourite teachers ever.  I ended up with none of my friends in that class, but I was at an age when I had no issues making new friends, and I ended up with Caitlyn, who to this day (goose, ten years later) is still very dear to me.  From her, I gained Jon and Andy.  And others.  In sixth grade, we were the most popular people in school.  I can’t even begin to describe all the memories.  Shutting Jon’s finger in the window (oops, teehee), listening to Andy sing the Beach Boys all the time (he’ll deny that now), signing things to Caitlyn in class one letter at a time (to this day, I still don’t know anything more than letters in Sign Language).  That’s just the tip of the ice berg.  I could honestly keep going forever, and just about sixth grade.

Seventh grade was just as good.  Some crazy person put all of us in the same homeroom (thanks Ms. Cass and Mrs. Gitchell!!!!) and I couldn’t’ve been happier.  There were always the lonely moments (I still have a grudge against my parents for letting me go to neither Nature’s Classroom nor Sergeant Camp, but I understand now that we really just couldn’t afford it).  But there was also yard-stick battles before school started, and Groovy!  The Musical, and all the little moments.  Superrally was fun, even with our vagabond group of friends.  In seventh grade I went to see the Attack of the Clones primere at 2am, and went to school for testing the next day (I’m stubborn).  I remember walking into the classroom and Jon looking up from his test and mouthing “how was it?”.  Teehee.  And of course the marriage project.  Oh, that may have been eighth grade.  Either way, it was funny.

In eighth grade someone remedied our sixth grade teachers’ kindness and put the four of us in different homerooms.  There was orienteering, which is probably the highlight of eighth grade for me.  The looming prospect of high school.  High school changes the innocent things.  I’d still rather redo high school than be in college, but nonetheless… it made everything separate.  Everyone put up walls.  We didn’t like each other- we tolerated each other.  It could have been the beginning of the end.  If we let it.  I think that I let it.

One of the rules of high school is that you start over.  It’s a bad rule.  It should be changed.  Friends in high school are sewn together by deceit and desperation.  In middle school and high school, it’s because of commonalities and genuine interest.  After you graduate high school, you laugh and reminisce about your middle school friends, but you kindly avoid and secretly dislike your high school friends.  At least, that was the case with me.  Of the few friends I made in high school, I tolerate them.  I don’t dislike all of them, but they all feel awkward.  Like a shirt that’s just a little bit too tight.  I’m much more inclined to want to reconnect with my middle school friends.

Then again, I’ve always been one to hold on to the past.  I like my concept of innocence.  I like freedom of mind and heart.  If I could get it back, I would, but the funny thing about innocence is that it’s exclusive to children.  I can be silly all I want, watch Disney movies, hang out with people younger than me.  Those things are fun and I enjoy doing them, but they won’t give me innocence back.

Too High or Too Low, There is No In-Between.

“O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!” ~ William Shakespeare, Othello.

Thanks ever so to the weather, I have Billy Joel’s “I Go to Extremes” stuck in my head.  It’s about 90 degrees today.  Oh yeah.  Remember how it was snowing the other day?  Not so much anymore.

Holy cow.  I just looked up “I Go to Extremes” on YouTube so I could put up the link to the video for people unfamiliar with the song, and sha-zam!  The video I found is from a concert four years ago.  Can I just say, Billy Joel is still amazing.  Him, him I’d go see in concert.  I’m not a concert person, but if it’s not a crazy moshing rock concert, I’d be fun.  I’d like to see him.  There was a tour last year-ish with him and Elton John- now that would have been an amazing show!

I’m listening to my Billy Joel station now on Pandora and it makes me happy.  The first song that came up is a song called “Captain Jack”.  I don’t know why, maybe it’s the chorus, but this song reminds me of Captain Morgan, the rum.  I think it may be the chorus:  “Captain Jack will get you high tonight/and take you to your special island/Captain Jack will get ya by tonight/just a little push and you’ll be smilin’.”  (I was just told it was Jack Daniels.  I knew it was booze.)  At any rate, it inspires me to talk about a friend of mine, and it sort of explains why I am so violently against alcohol.  Violently was a bad word.  But I am adamantly against it.

I’ve seen a lot of bad things happen because of alcohol.  Both my parents had alcohol affect their childhoods because alcoholism runs in my family- both sides.  My high school best friend is still haunted by her mother’s alcoholism.  Another high school friend lost her father in a drunk driving accident.  Same story with one of my students, except in her case it was her brother.  My boyfriend has severe alcoholism on his mother’s side of the family.  And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  But what’s really sealed it for me, is Andy.

I’ve known Andy well since we were both in sixth grade.  He’s a good kid, bright, funny, got a great tenor voice, talented in music and electronics like crazy.  Never had a lesson in his life.  Builds computers, could be a one man band.  I think everyone knows somebody a little bit like him.  I don’t know when it started.  We had poor contact in high school.  He got into marijuana and was dating this girl, who died, and he ended up with a drama llama chick.  President of the Drama Club, Lil Miss Perfect.  She screwed him up, too.  Somewhere in that four years, he started drinking.  He was still doing drugs, too.  Became an insomniac.  My most vivid high school memory of him and the one that pisses me off the most was the day he told me his father got a restraining order against him.  I never asked why, but that was the climax of his and his father’s many disagreements.  His life was anything but perfect.

I try really hard not to condemn people for using alcohol.  It’s a hot topic- believe me, I’m well aware.  My boyfriend totally loves it.  He’s not an alcoholic, and he’s respectful of me in that he makes an effort not to drink around me.  We disagree about it all the time.  As far as I’m concerned, there’s no good in alcohol.  It’s not healthy, it tastes no better than soda or juice or any other beverage option.  It’s addictive.  He argues that red wine is good for you in small doses.  And that alcohol can be used so that it’s not destructive.  Yes.  I know.  I also know that my roommate lost eher virginity to a guy who she doesn’t even really like because of alcohol recently, and I have a friend who drowns his sorrows in it, instead of healing.  And her, instead of falling in love.  It’s no more emotionally healthy than it is physically healthy.  I say all this because I don’t want to sound like the closed-minded person who’s going to preach anti-alcohol.  This is just my experience with it.

Andy turned twenty-one last February.  Let me tell you about his drinking habits on January 31, 2010, the day before his twenty-first birthday.  He usually drank a bottle of Captain Morgan in three days.  Tops.  Sometimes sooner.  In January, it was usually not mixed with anything.  Just straight up Captain.  In December, November, before that, he was a little better.  Captain and Coke.  Orange Bacardi and Mountain Dew (which is, by the way, the closest I get to enjoying alcohol.  But it’s still not very good).  Since he’s turned twenty-one, his drinking habits have not improved.  If anything, they’ve gotten worse.  He just recently got back from Spain and he says he remembers only about half of his trip.  He was there a month.  He doesn’t intend to live until he’s thirty-five.  He doesn’t want help.  He doesn’t care.  He has, at least, stopped doing cocaine and everything more harmful than marijuana…  but… I still get to stand back and watch him waste away.

Do you know why it hurts so much?  It hurts, because I remember chasing him around fields, wearing his Sergei Samsonov jersey, listening to him in chorus, and all the other days of innocence.  It hurts because I’ve seen how much muchness he has inside of him, but he locks it away and swims in booze instead.  He could be a million things, but he’s not, because he’d rather die slowly in a haze.  He knows he needs rehab.  He doesn’t care.  He’d just rather die.

So.  Pardon me if I see you drinking and I seem a little distant.  Chances are I’m thinking about my old friend and wondering what to wear to his imminent funeral.  Hoping that someday he’ll understand that he’s the only person who thinks it’s a good idea he dies.  That believe or not, people care about it, and if he’d stop thinking about swallowing a bottle for just a minute, if he’d listen to us instead of pushing away harder and harder… maybe we could beat this monster.  …  But the first step to recovery is recognition and desire to heal.  He has no desire.  So if you’re sitting there at that counter, swirling an olive around in your martini, don’t mind me if I ask you, do you really need that?  It’s because I refuse to watch any more of my friends die.  Just for alcohol.

I turn twenty-one in October.  You won’t see me in a bar.

.

Weather Report:  It’s supposed to be crazy hot like this again tomorrow, but I hear it’s supposed to cool down for Tuesday.  That’s good.  Sean and I are hanging out and walking around Tuesday and it would be a bummer if I was miserable the whole time.  Either way, I’m bringing a bottle of water.  It looks and feels like a thunderstorm outside.  Not the brink of a thunderstorm, but definitely a thunderstorm soon.  Not today.  Tomorrow or Tuesday would be nice.  Tuesday.  So I can enjoy it.

.

Health Report: Bryan bought me Taco Bell today and I couldn’t finish it.  Crazy unhealthy, yes, I know, but my body is starting to help me limit my portions.  I think that’s going to help loads.  I probably sweat off a few ounces today, too!

.

.

Social Life: I got over myself and invited Bryan over last night, because I knew he wanted to come.  Sat down and made him watch Hidalgo, which he liked.  He wanted to snuggle, though, which wasn’t really on my agenda.  Meef.  Tuesday with Sean, Friday again with Bryan.  Something with Sammy may get squeezed in somewhere, but nothing definite this week, since it’s a busy week for her.