"you laugh until you cry, you cry until you laugh"

- Regina Spektor, On The Radio

if i were ever to get a tatoo, "laugh until you cry, cry until you laugh" would be etched down my spine. these are words that i live by. the message in these words is simple: just feel uninhibitedly. allow yourself to laugh uncontrollably until tears peek out from the corners of your eyes. and conversely if you find yourself in a situation that requires a full box of Kleenex and a stream of tears to rush down your face, then please do so. cry until you feel you can't anymore. eventually things get better and genuine laughter comes back to life.

people often hide behind their pride or ego and don't make themselves available or vulnerable to others. be silly. be goofy. look stupid. smile frequently. frown if need be. ask for a shoulder to cry on. tell them the truth. be whatever it is you're feeling at any given time. let it show. i'm not saying this is a pass to be overly eccentric. i'm just saying that personally, i feel the only way to be happy at the end of your life is to be your honest self. allowing yourself to feel the highest highs and the lowest lows gives you perspective, humbles you and gives you some quality of life.

sunny day: a philosophical journal entry

i was going through a travel journal that i keep and found this random entry i'd written three and a half years ago that has absolutely nothing to do with travel. it was pretty interesting to read as it's my very own words from years prior. i don't think there was anything that sparked this entry except that it was a super sunny day out and sometimes on sunny days i can't help but feel especially light and happy. apparently on this day i felt semi-philosophical too. i definitely still feel the same as i did three and a half years ago. there are no highs without lows and the world would be non-functionting without the yin and the yang (which i wrote as "ying and yang." oops!). 

side note: i mention Blockbuster, which is such a thing of the past....

well ain't that the truth!! 

the connectivity of two people

as an adult it's really hard to meet somebody and have an instant chemistry or connection. i'm talking romantically of course. friendships are far easier to make than relationships involving the heart. i am all for the married couples who met when they were young, then learned and grew with each other. and i'm all for those that struggled through hard times together and fought for their relationship so long as in the end there is resolve and all histories remain history. many relationships start off sort of iffy. he's nice so i'll see where it goes. he's funny so his asshollishness is counteracted. he buys me things so the fact that he's a bore isn't a deal breaker. you let things slide because you just do. i see all of these situations and often these people have moved into a life with someone without fully feeling the chemistry.

as someone who is nearly 30, it's become increasingly evident to me that finding true chemistry with someone else is quite the battle, as i do not want to be someone who just let's things slide. this is because the older you become, the more you are in tune with all of the things you want. well, i would hope so anyway. when you were eighteen if a guy was cute, well that was enough wasn't it? when you were twenty-two you just wanted someone who you could have fun with. it didn't matter whether he was ambitious or had a good relationship with his mom. but when you're at my age so many things matter. you're looking for someone who you're attracted to, who shares the same values as you do, who is in line with the type of future you wish to have (be it in work, future family, how you spend your money, etc.), who you can have fun with, who you share a similar humor, who can be your support and who you feel you want to reciprocate for, and who you just have that magic with. i'm not saying that relationships don't take work or include compromise, but those things are sort of a big deal. and finding all of those things in one person seems nearly impossible.

trust me, i've been in the dating field a lot in my life and finding someone who you just click with doesn't come easy. in the past i've dated plenty of people with whom i sort of just thought "ehh..they're pretty cool" to see where it will lead and found that i've never been passionate about those guys. as i have grown into someone who knows pretty much what i deserve, i can't help but reject anything that doesn't captivate me. there's the guy who's super nice, attractive, has a good head on his shoulders, and is boring as f*ck. no thanks. there's the guy who is hilarious, easy to talk to, dresses well and is gentlemanly, but is a little too animated and who's energy level is just one step above acceptable. oh, and then he said "in yo fayce" (yes, the 'y' is there on purpose because he literally pronounced it like that) twice, which is two too many times. nope, i'm good. no thanks. boring and different energy levels are sort of deal breakers and definitely kill any desire to want to get to know someone better in a romantic sense.

what i'm getting at is that nowadays i'm not just in search of someone to fill my time with fun and games. i'm in need of someone who not only shares in all of the aforementioned things but who i also have legitimate chemistry with. two people who are on the same vibe on all of those levels have a true connectivity. and that's the only relationship i'll settle for. 

no poker face

the thing with not having a poker face is that you can always tell what my internal reactions are. whether it's something slight like disliking the taste of a food or questioning if what someone said was valid, it shows on my face. if i think something is hysterical, you can tell because my hearty laugh comes out. and if something is moderately funny, a smile and a light "hehe" might arise. there's never a time when i'm not being exactly who i feel i am at any given moment.

it must be my inability to be dishonest that makes this the case. whatever my mood, i am never pretending. i've always been known to be legit. real. honest. and even though sometimes the things that i say seem a tad harsh, it's always my truth. if you know me, you know me no other way. to my knowledge i've never been thought of as fake or overly polite. as an example, my friends know that i don't particularly think newborn babies are cute and i would never look at even my best friend's baby and utter the words "he/she is so cute" because that would be false. i might say "he/she is so tiny  has a lot of hair  looks healthy  has all ten fingers and toes looks to have the potential of cuteness in it's near future," but if the baby isn't indeed cute at that very moment, i'll compliment something that is accurate and of truth. this type of honesty has clearly translated into my facial expressions and/or body language as well.

lately i haven't been my normal self and it's driving me a little crazy. because of this, i've become a bit disengaged. things that i typically might find funny are of less hilarity. nonsensical subjects that come up in conversation usually carry on for lengths of time because why not entertain these subjects purely for the sake of entertainment? but in recent time i find myself not caring to be entertained. i'm waiting for the day when i feel like my normal self and those around me see me again. but don't worry, i know that in due time it's coming.

Timing is everything

Timing is everything. and to me Timing has been a motherf*cking bitch. if you can't tell, i'm a little more than pissed at Timing. she has not been kind to me lately and i'm quite upset at the possibilities that could have been had Timing had her shit together. we haven't been getting along very well and i can't help but put some blame on her.

though to be fair, i have to say that in most aspects of my life Timing has actually been on my side. so i can't 100% be mad at Timing. it just seems she's been moody with me for a few years. plus, it's not actually everything. Timing weighs heavy in some cases but everything is also situational. and if you want to get philosophical, some say Time is an illusion anyway. 

who's to say? at the end of the day (there Time is again) and the journey through life, all things fall into place just the way they were meant to. "if it's not okay, it's not the end," right? right. 

"she's too pretty to be my friend"

sitting and snacking on coconut passion fruit cake (yep, i snack on cake. so what. my internal fat kid never takes a day off.) in the close quarters of Tartine's tables, i overheard the girl at the table next to me say "she's too pretty to be my friend." now, i don't know what context she said this in because while i had somewhat eavesdropped, i wasn't intently listening to the people surrounding me's conversations. but this statement sounded louder than the rest likely because of it's content.

i would like to think that people have friends because they provide the following things: intense bouts of laughter, a back bone of support, a shoulder for crying times, a listening ear for anything you feel the need to say, goofy times, inspiration, advice, playful banter, etc. i've never sought friendship based on whether or not someone was attractive and i would never deny friendship because someone's appearance is less than average. i don't think that the way someone looks has anything to do with whether or not you could make good friends. so long as your personalities get along and you have some things in common to keep interest alive, there's a recipe for a friendship. the saying "you are known by the company you keep" is more based on morals, values and mindset, not about the way you look. though to be fair, often times you see a group of friends and that have similar fashion sense or do their makeup in a similar way. even so, the similarities are based on interest in the same clothing or winged eyeliner, not each person's inherent beauty.

when i heard this girl say "she's too pretty to be my friend" it made me feel sort of sad and almost made me pity her. those seven words imply that she thinks cannot have friends who are of a high threshold of attractiveness compared to her own mark on the attractiveness charts. in that very short statement she basically said that all of her other traits and attributes weren't good enough for someone who is overly pretty. maybe she's funny or smart or charismatic or just an all around good person, but no, she's not pretty so she can't make a good friend, right? wrong. poor girl doesn't know her own worth. and how about the friend she was sitting with? if she abides by this i-can-only-have-friends-who-are-the-same-amount-of-attractiveness rule then she clearly thinks her friend is of her same attractiveness level. if that's the case and she's not very confident in her own beauty, isn't she inadvertently saying that her friend, too, doesn't rank that high on the attractive meter, therefore cannot be friends with whoever this said "too pretty" person is?

there are far more important reasons to be someone's friend and none of them have to do with how beautiful someone is. nobody is ever too pretty to be your friend. and if someone ever thinks they're too pretty to be your friend then that just means they're internally ugly.

yays for gays!!

....and everybody who is in support of love with no boundaries! yesterday we got to be a part of an exciting and enormous leap in history. marriage equality is finally in true existence in California and i am ecstatic! at the gym, while watching coverage of the day's events on the news, i found myself smiling at the posters, hugs and community that was broadcast over tv. and when anybody with a pro-Prop 8 opinion came on, my smile quickly turned upside down. i was visibly bipolar in attitude while jogging on the treadmill. at some point i almost clapped and yelled "YEAH!" but held in my excitement (though in retrospect i really shouldn't have held back. guys do it with sports all the live long day so i should have hollered for gay rights). 

you know, marriage equality was inevitable. too many people were willing to fight the fight until change was upon us for it not to eventually happen. it's actually quite embarrassing how long it took California to catch up to twelve other states and the District of Columbia. in situations like this i'm reminded that living and growing up around the SF Bay Area gives you blinders. when Prop 8 initially passed it was shocking (SHOCKING!!!) to say the least. i'd thought California would hands down be on board with equality but it was evident that the rest of CA (except LA) was far more conservative than my upbringing taught me. but yesterday proved that if you keep fighting for what's right, eventually the truth prevails and humanity wins! 

my boyfriend, who is in Beijing, said that the LGBT community in China was celebrating the win as well. yes, it's just one state in a whole 'nother country but it's part of the journey to a glorious future and a big deal for the LGBT community here in the US as well as their supporters over seas and along with their supporters in general. doesn't it just make you feel all warm and toasty inside? yays!

this is a photo from last year that i took of my friend who has been in a relationship for many years and has regarded his partner as his husband regardless of whether it was accepted. and now (if they choose to) he can legally put that ring to good use!

someone has it worse

sometimes i feel bad because my greatest obstacle for the day is when i think i'm pouring ketchup onto my plate but it has separated in the bottle and tomato water has landed there instead (so gross). i then have to wipe it up before it touches any of my food and this is a major annoyance for me. some days (honestly, most days) minor irritations such as this are the only things that have gone wrong. then i hear about someone else's day (honestly, anybody else's day) and they typically have something vastly more strenuous that they've got going on in their lives. be it a mother in-law that they don't get along with, a hard workday that will carry on to tomorrow, miscarriage, or kids who aren't appreciative. someone hates their job but is stuck because they have mouths to feed. or maybe their daily commute to work is so long that they don't have time for their friends. how about people who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and don't know any other way than the one they were born into.

about a month ago a cute little five year old boy came in for a CT scan of his chest to see if his cancer  had spread to his lungs. in a stroller his grandma swiftly pushed him down the hallway towards the examination room making a windy path. full of life and energy, the kid laughed and seemed like he was having the time of his life. once he got into the scanner he was terrified and uncooperative (but you can't blame the little guy, it's a big scary machine). i looked at his prior imaging to see what kind of cancer he had or what he'd already been through. he'd had far more exams done than any five year old should have to endure. it turns out that he had sarcoma (a malignant cancer) in his knee. once we got his scan done, i showed him some images of his chest. kids think it's really cool to see the insides of their bodies (hell, adults think so too! at least this one [points at self] thinks it's pretty damn cool). i pointed some things out to him, "this is your heart! looks it's so big! you must have a lot of love! and these are your lungs..that's how you breathe." then in his cute, high pitched little voice, he said "yeah i saw a picture of my leg before. but they said i have to make my leg smaller." this is how his parents explained to him that they had to amputate his leg up to above the area of the sarcoma. this brought an instant sadness to myself and my coworkers who were fortunate enough to meet this brave little guy. it's really unfair that someone who's just barely starting their life has to go through such a drastic change that will alter his life from that moment on. it's really unfair that his parents have to watch their son take a different road than the one they envisioned for him. one where he'll be seen and treated differently by his peers. not to mention one where they'll have to keep an eye out for a recurrence. it truly broke my heart and i couldn't can't get the thought of him out of my head.

it's humbling to hear other people's concerns, especially if you take the time to recognize what their struggles are compared to what your struggles are. this is not to say that whatever you struggle with has been demoted to nothing, but someone out there has it worse. it might be different, it might be the same. but someone somewhere out there is living with a situation that is comparable or even more detrimental. i think it's important to be aware of other's lives and to know that everybody has something that they're dealing with. on days where ketchup water is my biggest concern, i feel guilty for not having a harder life but this also makes me grateful for the life that i've been given. whatever you're dealing with, someone has it harder. keep that in mind and your life may not seem so terrible. it's all relative to what you make it relative to.

"i love you and i like you"

"i love you and i like you" -Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt (in their wedding vows), Parks and Recreation

you like someone.
you eventually grow to love that someone.
you still love that someone but you've fallen out of like.

in a relationship, the more time you spend with someone increases the probability that you love them. well, i would hope so anyway. if you don't see yourself in a situation where love is in the future, then you should probably get the eff out, right? you slowly learn their ins and outs, you know them better than they know themselves and you care a lot about them. but sometimes people stop caring for them. love lingers, but you don't necessarily like them anymore. does this make sense? i see a lot of people get comfortable in relationships and stay in them because they're scared of change or can't see that they're unhappy. or they love them. sure, you love them. but are you happy? do you even like the person anymore? or do you stick around because you just care about them?

"i love you and i like you" is equivalent of the saying "i love you and i'm in love with you." loving someone is great. but if you're going to spend the rest of your life with that person, being in love with them is just as important. yes, the butterflies might go away but you should still prefer to do/plan activities with that person, be attracted to that person (this doesn't necessarily mean superficially, folks), and that person should continue to stimulate you. whether it's in conversation, humor, or you see something in them that makes you want to be a better you. it could be anything so long as it keeps you in love or in like. and it's pretty f*cking important, i think. so please do yourself a favor and don't settle. i promise you i won't!

with that said, i wish you all luck and i hope that you find someone you can love and can be in love with.

chain of kindness

i got a call from my friend, Kim, today. she told me that she wanted to share an awesome happening that had just occurred. she was at Target and stepped away from her cart for a moment. when she came back she found an envelope in the cart that said "open me." inside there was a gift card for $25 written out "to: You   from: Your Caring Neighbor" and a card that read "Dear Neighbor, We hope this small gift helps brighten your day! Enjoy!"

how fucking awesome is that? *picture me with arms spread out as wide as possible* this awesome!! except it's even more awesome than that. multiply the distance at which my pictured arms are spread by infinity and there you have it. it's infinitely awesome! aaahh how refreshing. a simple act of kindness for no reason other than to make someone else smile! in a world full of pettiness and selfishness, little things like this really help to restore faith in humanity. and what makes this even better is that there's no face to associate the gesture with. the person/people who wanted to spread a little love into the world didn't even need any acknowledgement. i'll bet that from afar they watched Kim open that gift and to see a smile on her face was just enough to make them feel accomplished. it's a win, win. i'm sure that in that moment all parties involved felt a warmth in their hearts.

after Kim got the gift card she felt like she, too, should do something nice for someone. share the kindness, right? pass it along. so that's what she did. she saw a woman with two children in line and figured that they could use the $25 more than she could. Kim explained how she obtained the gift card in the first place and the woman was really grateful for being chosen next in the chain of good deeds. it would be amazing if that woman then did something nice for someone else and then that person did something similar. the chain of goodness would amass many links. but y'know, even if that specific chain stopped at that woman, the story lives on and hopefully it'll inspire more people to just acknowledge others and maybe do something nice for a stranger every so often.

Kim told me about this immediately after leaving Target because she knew i'd love the story. she also knew i'd write a blog post about it (ha! she was right!) and that it would reach just a few more people.  after hearing about her experience it definitely made me want to do something nice for a stranger. tomorrow i'll start a chain of kindness and hopefully it'll put smiles on faces. maybe you should too! it doesn't have to be monetary. it could be something as simple as making sure an elderly person crosses a busy intersection safely or cracking an appropriate (and hopefully actually funny) joke with a stranger. just a small gesture to make someone else feel good for just a moment in time is worth one small moment of your time, right? share happiness!

light tomorrow with today

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

what is said or done today paves the way for what's to come tomorrow. your actions and words have much more an impact than you may think. significant decisions such as a career change or whether or not you pay your bills on time certainly impact tomorrow and it's following days. but even something as subtle as smiling at a stranger or simply not being an asshole can make a great difference in your mood and the moods of the people surrounding you. and just think if it made you feel good today then if the same or comparable actions/words are repeated tomorrow and ever after, you're probably setting yourself up for some goodness in your life. 

"we wished upon parallel lines"

"i remember the first time we wished upon parallel lines"- FUN!,  All Alright

i love this! but not in the context of the rest of the song's lyrics. i love this isolated. the idea of two people on the same path or wishing for something in synchronization just emotes a feeling of connection or at least a similar thought process. or maybe they are just in the same place or same situation together and have a mutual understanding of what's going on. it doesn't even have to be about something dramatic. you know how when you think something is uproarious and just at that same moment another person thinks it's just as hysterical? you are drawn to that person as you "hahaha" together and it's almost like a hilarity jinx. and when two people's thought's are exactly the same at that precise moment, you're on parallel lines. and i love it.

that good life

don't you love days when nothing especially spectacular happens but you find yourself in the happiest of places? a string of minor excellences occur and you can't help but smile at the ease of today. you know what that is? that's validation that your life is awesome! you're living that good life!

i hope your day was as fulfilling as mine was!

oh, you're about to brag again i see...

you ever encounter those types of people who say things out of the blue just so that you will inquire about something that they feel like bragging about? the other day someone i don't know very well sneaked up behind me and said "man, that car is going to get me in trouble!" to which i responded "oh, whoa. no 'hi?' i have no idea what car you're talking about." he, of course, then went on to tell me about the make and model of his new car and that he got a speeding ticket while driving it. this, you could tell, was a cool story to him. new car. drive fast. law breaking rebel. to tell you the truth, Buddy, it's not that cool. factual, maybe. cool, not so much. now if he wanted to brag about how he helped a beached whale make it's way back into the ocean or about how he is amazed to learn about a new culture he's discovered through travel, then we've got something to talk about.

what bothers me about this type of interaction is that this person and i have never really had a conversation that didn't involve him talking up something about himself. it's not that he's trying to impress me specifically. in fact, i'm pretty certain he knows absolutely nothing about me except that i'm an x-ray tech and a woman, so he could care less about what i think.  he just talks about these things to boost his own ego. but little do you know, Fella, that stuff doesn't really make you cool. what makes someone cool is that you're a decent human being. and confident yet humble. so what if people can buy things. at the end of the day if your only interaction with others is to tell them you've amassed an amalgam of expensive things, then what real relationships have you made with people, hmm?

just an observation. if you think you're one of these people, maybe just add a little dab of "and how are you today" to your conversations to offset the amount at which your interests seem to revolve around only you. at least if you ask someone how they're doing, you might not seem quite as self involved.

the unusual shallow deal breaker

everybody has deal breakers when it comes to the opposite sex, right? they can be anything at the discretion of each individual person's needs/wants/likes. for some people it's the amount of money they make, whether or not children are involved, or whether they're divorced. a deal breaker can be that he's an asshole to his mom, or that she's too high maintenance. he's too nerdy. or she's too shy. or maybe he simply types "dat" instead of "that" (guys, do you know how obnoxious you sound at that very moment?). sometimes deal breakers can be nothing more than a shallow observation that turns a person off. maybe he's too short or dresses like he's twelve. maybe her pixie hair cut isn't doing it for you, or she's got a bleached mustache. or how about that Popeye eye. you know...one incredibly small, nearly squinting eye sitting next to a normal sized eye. who knows? to each their own. you all know i can't stand the not-smile-smile.

again, everybody has their deal breaker. but what i want to focus on here is the unusual shallow deal breaker. out of curiosity, i've had conversations with girl friends about what their unusual shallow deal breakers are. some people couldn't figure out an unusual turn-off. they just listed "bad teeth" and "too chubby" but those aren't unusual at all. of the responses i've heard, i have two favorites (mostly because i think they're funny):

1. thick thighs- her reasoning is that wider hips and thighs are a feminine quality. so basically if the circumference of a man's thighs equal more than x-amount (whatever the threshold is, i don't know...that's up to her) then they are considered to be too womanly and it's a massive turn-off.

2. baby nails- she said "short nails" but i quickly turned that into "baby nails." also, not nice hands in general. she didn't specify what exactly qualifies as gross hands to her. or maybe she did, but i decided not to focus on that because "baby nails" was too hysterical an image to take my mind off of at the time. anyhow, she said that if someone's hands weren't up to par, the thought of them touching her freaks her out.

so. wanna know what my unusual shallow deal breaker is? do ya? doooo ya? drumroll please!!!

it's...

permanent deep brow lines- know what i mean? i'm talking about those deep creases that form on a person's forehead over time from always questioning things. they might wonder "who? what? when? where? why?" about who-knows-what and their eyebrows raise, causing the skin at the top of their dome to crinkle into a number of folds. as this action is repeated throughout life, the folds become more permanent and eventually that person doesn't even have to be in a state of wonder for the excessive skin on their forehead to just stay folded. i'll give you the perfect example. click this link to see how Chef Gordon Ramsay's forehead is the ideal image of my unusual shallow deal breaker.

now of course if a person is an amazing being, then these "deal breakers" aren't really deal breakers. they're just for the sake of conversation. quite honestly, if someone is genuine, caring, loyal and the whole shebang, then a wrinkled forehead really isn't going to be the end all. but sometimes it's fun to ponder.

high fives > fake hugs

you ever get that single-armed-side-lean-hug? the one in which Side Hugger ends up squeezing both of your own arms up against yourself and you're left wondering what the hell the point of that was? if you couldn't tell, i'm not so much a fan of that version of the hug. personally, i feel that if you're going to hug someone, you should probably just do it right. face to face, four arms (provided there are four arms, of course. shout out to our Veterans, you're off the hook with this one!) wrapped around torsos, and hey, let's throw in a smile as a requirement too (well, so long as this hug doesn't take place at a funeral, a break up, or some other tragic turn of events). let's rid this half assed version of a hug from existence, hmmm? this, along with the awkwardly-lean-upper-half-of-body-forward-using-both-arms-to-gently-"tap tap tap-"your-back are all a load of crap. they are fake hugs. it's much more gratifying to acknowledge that we're not that great in the Friendship Department and there's no need to share personal space if either party isn't really keen on being close or getting closer. if you and i are not friendly enough to hug it out genuine style, then howsabout we just high five?

*there are exceptions to this of course. an awkward side-lean-hug while both people are in the front seats of a car saying goodbye after having shared dinner or what have you isn't actually awkward because that person is likely your actual friend and they know you mean nothing but love. in that case space restraint is the only issue, not fakeness.

*just in case anybody is nosy, this post isn't really based on any one person specific interaction, it's just an observation. 

i just want to truly care about somebody

i just want to truly care about somebody. no holds barred. and i want the same back. it's that simple.

except that it's not really that simple.

i can't just place my care on just anybody. and in the same regard, i wouldn't wish for caringness (not an actual word but just go with it mmmkay?)  from just somebody. it'd have to be the right person. it's too bad i hold myself in such high regards. it'd be easy to fulfill the first line of this blog entry if i just didn't give a damn about who i care about, but i reserve my offerings for those deserving of it. i can't carelessly care. if that were the case then nothing holds importance.

i suppose puzzle pieces aren't meant to just be hammered together. that would be too simple.

"we accept the love we think we deserve"

no truer words have ever been said.

i most recently heard these words in the movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower (which was really good, by the way. i highly recommend it. judging by the trailer only, you might think it's just a coming of age story but it's much more than that. just trust me!). but it's not the first time i've heard this. i remember hearing that quote years ago and it always stuck with me.

your own self esteem is the most valuable thing you own. too often people fall into relationships that are volatile and remain in them for as long as they think they can't do better. but underneath it all, they "can't do better" because they don't think they're worthy of greater things. if you think highly of yourself, you wouldn't let anybody walk all over you, right? so in love, if you know you're the equivalent of rainbows and unicorns, you should really only be with someone who also thinks you're amazing and treats you so. oh, and i assume that person will be top-notch-awesome themselves, because you wouldn't settle for anything less. i mean it's just a matter of respect and reciprocation.

so. am i awesome/amazing? i so am! cocky, i know. sorry i'm not sorry that i know my own worth!

it's the little things....

you know what girls i love? it's the little things. thoughtful things. i'm never looking for diamond earrings or a $90 bouquet of flowers. i don't care if you can spend a ton of money on me. i can take care of myself thank you very much! and while yes, i appreciate reservations to a nice restaurant (we all know how much i love food!), sometimes most of the time it's the little things that matter the most. whether it's from a significant other, a family member, or friends. it's the thoughtfulness that is remembered, never the item itself.

you know who's really good at the little things? it's Marjie. yep, the same person who got me that "awesome" necklace for no reason at all. and you know how she gave it to me? she sent it in the mail, which made it even more awesome because how often do you get actual mail nowadays that don't involve me handing over a check to a utilities company. 

recently we went to dinner and she said she had a surprise for me. again, it's the little things. it's knowing that i love all things mint. as she wandered World Market, she saw mint KitKats and picked them up for me because she's thoughtful like that. when she pulled them out of her purse i was elated! little did she know i've been searching high and low for mint KitKats. see, years ago they started making them during the Christmas season and about three years ago they just disappeared from shelves with no major announcement and i was so upset. yep, you can be upset over discontinued candies. i checked, and it's totally normal. anyhow, i was so SO happy to have them again! and quite honestly, that's probably one of the sweeter (no pun intended) gestures that i've been met with recently. it may seem like such a small gift but the thought is greatly appreciated.

thanks, Marj! you know me so well! love you lots! 

ummm i will most certainly be savoring every last bite!

kiss your Apocalypse for the last, last time

"kiss your Apocalypse for the last, last time"- Eve 6,  Anytime 

is that not the most clever lyric line ever in time? i love play on words in music. kiss your Apocalips. so much said in just a few words. the idea of kissing someone's lips is generally symbolic of love or at least a likeness for someone, but to put emphasis on someone's lips equating to a great disaster after maybe a volatile or straining relationship of some sort can be pretty accurate too. think about a relationship where two people aren't right for each other. they fight endlessly. they lose consideration. they aren't friends anymore. but just the slightest kiss sometimes brings them right back into it. anyway, the point of this post was more so about the cleverity (yes, i realize this isn't an actual word, but it sounds right. so get off my back, please!) of the lyrics than the meaning behind it.