The Delicate Art of Life

I received a post on this blog early this morning that made me take pause. It was from a woman that used to date my late uncle. Apparently, she was searching for him and came across my grandfather's obituary that I had posted last year. She said she had been looking for him for a while, and this was the closest she had come to finding him. I responded to her explaining that my uncle passed away in a car accident 17 years ago, and also explained that he was able to save several lives by being an organ donor. I was glad that I was able to help her get some closure.

Writing her tonight made me think about how short life is and how delicate relationships can be. I have often wondered if I have told everything I need to everyone that I care about... that if I were to die today, if I have said it all. But what never occurred to me, is has everyone else told me everything they need to? Or are there even people out there at all that would care enough about me to search me out 17 years after my death?

I hope that my life will make a difference. It's my job to find out how.

The Art of Friendship

Best friends require one-on-one contact to survive. Telephone calls and getting together are musts for best friends to continue.

In fact, probably the quickest way to end a friendship is to neglect it and sever contact.

Yet it is hard to make time in a busy day and busy life to maintain our friends. But you don't have to have hours to spare to maintain a friendship.

Instead try the following to keep from neglecting your friends:

• Send frequent email. Email is a boon for a quick note.
• Call once a week. Telephone calls do not take long.
• Keep in touch through brief messages left on answering machines.
• Send an occasional card. Funny and/or appropriate cards take minutes to choose and address.
• Exercise together. We all have to exercise. It is more fun with a friend, plus, there is no better place for talking than a walk in the park.
• Clean house together. This is another must do and two makes cleaning fun instead of boring.
• Send pictures. A picture is still worth a thousand words.
• Go to lunch at least once a month. More often would be better.

Follow the advice of Victoria Rayner, author of The Survival Guide for Today's Career Woman:

• Be a good listener; refrain from offering advice or moralizing.
• Respect your friend's point of view. Different personalities can complement each other; it isn't always necessary to see eye to eye.
• Never betray a trust. Trust, when violated, can ruin even the best friendship.
• Support and praise your friends; ignore their failures and imperfections.
• Never resent a friend's success. Instead, strive to admire her achievements.

Flexibility is always important for maintaining friendships. Be understanding when your friend has a last minute change in plans. Learn to accept "I'm sorry to cancel, but we will have another time together Sunday."

When paths begin to separate (you are married; he isn't or you have a baby; she is still childless) at forks in the road of life, that is the most important time of all to stay in touch with friends.

When there is conflict, it must be resolved for friendship to continue. Confrontation is one way to resolve conflict. Talking it out is another.

A cooling-off period is sometimes necessary when conflict has occurred. Once you reinitiate conflict, it may not even be necessary to discuss the conflict.

By Joy Stevens

Poems

I wrote this February 9, 1998. I believe this was for a creative writing exercise in college. At the time, I was happily in a relationship so I don't think I had a muse for this, but was trying to do some play on words and see if I could pull it off. Although a bit cheesy, I kind of like the 4th stanza:

The Four Elements of Love

How I dream to be the mighty wind,
To carry the wings of your love,
To whisk you away to far off places,
And anywhere else I dare dream of.

And Oh, to be the placid water,
That from your cup you sip,
To be brought to your glorious mouth,
Feeling the sticky sweet touch of your lips.

Oh, to be the trembling earth,
That lay beneath your feet,
To be the stable ground you rely on,
To have your trust be mine to keep.

But oh! I beg the Lord above,
To let me be a ravishing fire,
For there is nothing that I’d rather be,
Than your very own burning desire.

This one was written in 1997 for an English project:

A is for Apple

Apples fall
briskly from the
careless tree
drizzling an
enormous amount of
fruit in one
gigantic
heap of
indecision.
Just then, a zestful
kite flies
lightly across the sky into the
mass of branches
now no longer bearing apples. The
odious tree, that
plummeted red gems,
quietly imprisons the kite in
revenge and
secures it in a
teasing,
ultra apathetic and
violent
way. Then-- the anti-
xenial plant releases the
young aerodynamic
zestless aircraft to join the heap of victims below.

I wrote the below poem in 10th grade when my best friend and boyfriend started dating. That was a traumatic year for a 15 year old. Although the poetry is dreadful, I really like the clever use of shapes to describe what happened that year:

Shapes

There were four of us,
Two happy couples,
We were thrilled to see,
Our love in doubles.

It was her and him,
And me and you,
Our square was wonderful,
As it was brand new.

Then her and him split,
Yet we still remained,
The three of us were friends,
In happiness uncontained.

Soon we had a triangle,
I had yet to perceive,
Because you and her,
Began to deceive--me.

The triangle formed a nasty circle,
With fighting, and yelling,
What would happen next,
There was no telling.

So now the circle,
Became a single line,
Connecting two points,
And neither point was mine.

You and her connected,
Ignoring the square,
You acted so happy,
Without so much as a care.

Then she cut the line,
You two had to part,
And all of us involved,
Were back at the start.

Now we're all points,
Just floating around,
None are connected,
No shape can be found.

All I ask,
As if you even care,
Is for me, you, her, and him,
To again just be square.

New Look

I thought I'd change things around a bit and gave my blog a new look, with the help of google's new interfaces. I also like the green theme -- a little more serene than my old blog.

Enjoy!

Don't Have Room For a Compost Heap?

Compost in your kitchen!

Whateva

I was walking Bailey tonight in my 'hood when I found a CD on the ground labeled "Whateva - February 23, 2007". I popped it into my computer and the following tracks were found:

• Wouldn't Get Far -- Kanye West
• That's That Dirty -- Snoop Dogg
• Go Getta -- Young Jeezy
• I Luv It Dirty -- Young Jeezy
• Soul Surv -- Young Jeezy & Akon
• Locked Up Remix Dirty -- Akon
• Don't Matter -- Akon
• This is Why I'm Hot -- MIMS
• Throw Some Ds -- Rich Boy
• Oh Yeah -- Lil' Scrappy
• Money In the Bank -- Lil' Scrappy
• Want You -- Young Lloyd & Lil Wayne
• What Goes Around Comes Around -- Justin Timberlake
• Runaway Love -- Ludacris
• Affirmative Action -- Nas
• You Never Know -- Immortal Technique
• Dance With the Devil -- Immortal Technique

I don't really have anything to say about it, but I may submit the CD to FOUND.

From Dictionary.com...

tic·ky-tack·y
–adjective

1.	shoddy and unimaginatively designed; flimsy and dull: a row of new, ticky-tacky bungalows.

Little Boxes

There's a fairly new show on Showtime called Weeds. The premise of the show is pretty interesting -- it's about a suburban housewife whose husband dies and she's left with no money. In order to keep the lifestyle that her and her children are accustomed to, she decides to become a drug dealer.

The theme song of the show is called "Little Boxes" which describes South Riding and all the other neighborhoods like it perfectly:

Little Boxes

by Malvina Reynolds

Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of tickytacky
Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same
There's a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses all went to the university
Where they were put in boxes and they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and there's lawyers, and business executives
And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course and drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children and the children go to school
And the children go to summer camp and then to the university
Where they are put in boxes and they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business and marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

I often wonder how much longer I am going to be able to continue to live in my "box made of ticky tacky" and still be a unique, functioning member of society.

Religious Persecution A-OK, Gay Bashing? Not so Much...

From the front page of msn.com today:

When a few classmates razzed Rebekah Rice about her Mormon upbringing with questions such as, "Do you have 10 moms?" she shot back: "That's so gay."

After Rice got a warning and a notation in her file, her parents sued, claiming officials at Santa Rosa's Maria Carillo High violated their daughter's First Amendment rights when they disciplined her for uttering a phrase "which enjoys widespread currency in youth culture," according to court documents.

But school officials say they took a strict stand against the put down after two boys were paid to beat up a gay student the year before.

"The district has a statutory duty to protect gay students from harassment," the district's lawyers argued in a legal brief. "In furtherance of this goal, prohibition of the phrase 'That's so gay' ... was a reasonable regulation."

Rice's parents, Elden and Katherine Rice, also claim the public high school employed a double-standard because, they say, administrators never sought to shield Rebekah from teasing based on Mormon stereotypes.

Ok, granted... the suing of the school may have been a little much, and the expression "that's so gay" is not the most PC term in the world, but seriously -- giving a child a warning for saying "that's so gay" but turning a blind eye to the kids that were making fun of her religion?