Thank You (Now Get Out) – 06/22/10

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“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.  If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” ~ Dalai Lama

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So.  I have some good news!  This week was really sunshiney!  The only negatives I have had this week were today: It’s You (who didn’t understand there was nothing on the drive) and Actually, I Don’t Want to Talk to You (who figured he could climb up the ladder and get someone else to create his thing while I waited.  When I left 45 minutes later, he was a happy camper).  But rather than go into detail about their ignorance, I’m going to let the angels sit in the spotlight:

Iguana Man
I was walking down the street on Wednesday and I walked past a man with an iguana or other reptilian creature wrapped around his neck.  It made me giggle.

Miss Jinx
Not to be confused with a Pokemon, Miss Jinx is a character who I am friends with, but see rarely.  She is eccentric but talented and her energy and quirks are really uplifting.  Basically?  She rocks.  I got to spend a little time with her on Thursday.  I learned that she is one of the few humans I know who approves of Hawaiian pizza.  My love for Miss Jinx has grown because of that fact.

Lil’ Miss Gaga
Named for the fact that she idolises Lady Gaga, Lil Miss Gaga is technically one of my students, but she presented me with a music CD on Friday that has been brightening my days ever since.  She introduced me to several new artists as well as reintroducing me to new songs I haven’t heard in ages.  The only down is that I’ve had Ballroom Blitz stuck in my head for days.  But nonetheless, Lil Miss Gaga is also someone who comes off as being in complete control of her life, and I don’t worry around her.

HappyPC
HappyPC is a character who will probably show up a lot.  He’s a bundle of smiles and always, always lifts my spirits when I’m frazzled.  He sure did on Saturday!  Thanks a bunch!

Hey, ‘Sup.
Hey, ‘Sup is one of the people I work with, and whenever he’s not in a bad mood, he’s a lot of fun.  Great personality, and always helpful.  Sunday, he gave me a while into which I could escape, which is always nice at work, when I’m getting overwhelmed.  And the conversation is distracting in a good way; it’s helps me hit reset on his brain.  Hanging out with him on Sunday was tops.  Also, he gets my Captain Courteous award this week, because he always opens doors and lets me pass first, picks up stuff when I drop it (unless I get to it first).  He’s a gentleman in the old-fashioned sense.

Master Chief
Ah, Master Chief.  He came in to look around and say hello in Sunday and he was also a wonderful distraction.  Master Chief is a wonderful human being, though.  He’s a very patient, understanding type of guy, and a great listener.  A pleasure to have as a friend.

Inconceivable!
Inconceivable is an old friend of mine.  In a sense, we’ve been through everything together.  We’ve known each other for about half my life, and I know he’s got my back.  He was one on the ones that went with me to the drive-in Sunday night, and he made me laugh through everything.  I’m so blessed to know him, because he’s just one of those people that I could go a year without seeing, and we’d pick our last conversation up right where we left off.  Seeing him is always a blast.  I get that nagging reminder sometimes that we are moving in different directions with our lives, but it’s coupled with the knowledge that neither of us mind taking a couple steps back and having a good chat.

It’s A Beautiful Day
When doing calls for some of our customers, I try not to be too robotic, and I happened to mention to one customer that it was a beautiful day and I hoped he was at the beach.  He came into the store just to tell me that it made him smile, and he appreciated my perky personality and customer service.  I blushed.  Totally appreciated.

Strawberry Sorbet
Strawberry Sorbet is one of the girls I work with.  I generally get along with her fairly well.  She was particularly nice to me on Monday, maybe she was in a good mood, I don’t know.  But that isn’t what struck me.  What stuck me was that she did a job for a customer who she knows from outside of work, and coming back for the job would be an inconvenience, so she told him she’d bring it to him on her own time in the evening.  He lives about a 40 minute round trip from her.  I thought that was a really nice, selfless thing to do.

Th-th-that’s all folks!  Come around for more next week!  Got anything to add… good, bad, or ugly?  Post it in the comments below!

“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.

That’s What Friends are For!

“Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.” ~ Elanor Roosevelt.

Let’s talk about all the best parts about friends.  Friends are tricky creatures.  They take a little piece of your heart with them whether you want them to or not.  I mean, I fully believe that everyone you meet shapes you just a little bit (if not more) but you also have to give a little piece of yourself to them, too.  I think that may be one of the reasons why I’m more inclined to have a few good friends than a lot of not-so-friendish friends.

This is what I love about my friends:

• Sammy came to hang out with me today even though she’s feeling down.
• Sean is willing to listen to anything and everything without a single complaint.
• Sammy always thinks of me in the little things.  Like, I have two nail-polish covered rocks sitting on one of the footstools in my room.  What am I going to do with them?  God knows!  But I love them, because she thought of me and put so much time in them.  The little one’s name is Steve.  Steve made my day last Tuesday.
• Angela was always there to hit me over the head when I was being dumb.  Did I listen to her?  No.  But she was always there.
• David is always there to take a walk when I want to clear my mind.  He’s the only person I know that silence isn’t awkward with.  In fact, I dreadfully miss walks with him, because it was always brilliant just getting lost in the darkness, walking down the endless Fillmore roads.
• Jon used to give the best hugs in the world.  He’s so much bigger than me, warm, and there was always love in his hugs.
• I can pick up right where I left off with Jon every time I see him.  We’re older, different, but nothing really changes between us.
• About all of them?  I can be me around them.  No masks.  I trust them.  Which terrifies me, but it’s the truth.

These things are just the beginning.  There’s so much to these people around me.  These are the things that come into my head in five minutes.  They’re all beautiful people and I am utterly blessed that they are willing to share their lives with me.

I’m feeling sentimental.  I tell my friends I love them because I mean it.  I love them to pieces, because they’re like brothers and sisters to me.  I don’t know if they love me love, but I would take a bullet in the head for any one of them.  Because I’d rather die for them than live knowing I could have stopped it.  And I am eternally grateful for the happiness they make me feel.  It’s a rare gift.  People generally would prefer to make each other miserable.

Yet another reason why my friends are so great.