We Can Work It Out

It's easy to fight with your boyfriend or husband. It's someone you care a lot about and are intimate with, so getting upset to the point of initiating an argument is something that will probably happen on a semi-regular basis, assuming you both are relatively normal human beings. It's not that you don't love each other. Often, passionate love can lead to passionate anger, hurt or disappointment. It is only natural that one would feel the need to express it. And God knows, I do.

The same is true with your family. I would hope that most of us have had a few knock-down, drag-outs with our parents and siblings. Again, I am no stranger to that behavior. And yet, getting into an argument with a good friend is completely different.

You do love your girlfriends. You feel really close to them and share intimate details with them. I know I have some friends that I cannot live without. They are really the people who help me get through the days. They listen to me, make me laugh, and provide a shoulder to cry on. But when a close friend disappoints you to the point where it's really bothering you, it's nearly impossible to express it. I guess it's because we want to believe that those relationships are perfect. We can't stand to have that fight or argument, make each other cry, and risk real damage the way we are willing to with our partners and families. Maybe it's also because we are not legally bound to our friends. We know if things get really messed up between us, that really could be it, and then who would be there to get us through our lives?

Although I will say this. Friendships are rarely perfect, but I'm finding that as I get older, I'm not cultivating friendships with people who I'm not as compatible with any more. I find the people who I let in and maintain those relationships with are folks who, consciously or not, I have chosen very carefully. If someone lets me down and I know that there's not much substance between us, I'm realistic about it, about moving on without that person in my life. I love the friends I have, and I'm confident that there won't be any emotional disasters that completely burn bridges-- the kind of drama I have dealt with many times when I was younger.

I've often heard people talk about getting better as you get older; really relishing the wisdom that comes with age. I'm starting to get that. Certainly, I don't have it all figured out. But I feel smarter about who I choose to let in and trust. I have true friends that I can count on, and I won't risk losing them. I hope that if we do face obstacles, we are able to get through them. That the love we have for each other can overcome all of the mini-dramas we face. I don't know what I'd do without them.

Responsibility

I received a phone call from my 12 year old brother a few weekends ago. He was all excited and eager to tell me what his big idea/project was for this spring….he was going to raise pigs! Pigs?! Where the heck did he get this hair-brained idea?? He told me that one of his buddies raised two pigs last year and that one of the pigs was big enough that he could show it at the fair. The pig won a blue ribbon award and he was able to sell the pig for $800! BroThursday was stoked! He said he was going to do this and he was going to use the money he earned to buy a camcorder. I still couldn’t believe what he was saying…pigs?! I mean, my parents have a few acres of land but we definitely don’t live on a farm. The biggest pet we have ever had was a Jack Russell Terrier – and that is just a small dog! But, somehow my brother had talked my dad into helping him build a small pen in the furthest corner of the backyard – about a 4-5 minute walk from our house. My dad helped him buy the pigs for about $50 each and got him a few weeks worth of feed. BroThursday was pumped and excited to raise these pigs and earn some money for himself. I get a phone call from my Dad about a week later… “Surprise, surprise. BroThursday has already lost interest in the pigs.” After about a week of getting up at 6:00 am to feed them (apparently he complained about having to carry the 45-pound feed pellet bags from the garage to the pen each morning) he said he was done with the pigs! He didn’t care about the money anymore…this was too much work. Unfortunately for BroThursday, he wasn’t going to get off the hook that easy. He had committed to these pigs and my Dad was going to require him to keep that commitment. He had a decision to make. He could give up the pigs, but if he did, he also had to give up his spare time with his friends. BroThursday complained and tried to argue but eventually caved in. He’s been getting up religiously at 6:00 each morning to feed these pigs (who are gaining 5 pounds a day!). From what I understand there has been a lot of grumbling and complaining, but he gets it done. I am sure when it comes time to show these pigs at the fair he won’t be grumbling when he gets a nice payday off these things.

Another funny story. My 13-year old brother (let’s call him BroThursday2 – not to be confused with the BroThursday above) was so excited because he made the “A” basketball team at school. Our small town is centered around sports so this was a huge deal for him. He went to every practice, gave 110%, and continued to work on his skills at home. A few months ago a bunch of his buddies had invited him to go snowboarding with them. BroThursday2’s coach had gotten wind of this and told him not to go. However, BroThursday2, a typical 13-year old boy, decided to go anyways. He was on the slope, fell the wrong way, and broke his left collarbone. His coach was livid that he had gone against the coach’s advice. DadThursday sat down with BroThursday2 and explained to him that when you make a commitment to a team, an organization or any other group, that it is your duty and responsibility to uphold that commitment. He told BroThursday2 that he was still going to be required to show up at every single practice and every single game and sit on the bench to watch the rest of his teammates. He needed to prove to his teammates and his coach that he was still dedicated to the group he had worked so hard to join. My brother religiously went to every practice and every game.

My reason for sharing these stories is this. I am sure we all have stories similar to the ones above. I know I could go on and on (well there are ten of us so we probably have more stories than most families!) :) But as I was listening to my brothers complain and groan about how mean and strict my parents are, I realized how grateful I am to my parents that they taught us a huge level of responsibility and commitment at a young age. I was the worst. I complained and thought my parents were the meanest, strictest parents on the block. However, in hindsight, I now understand the reasoning for their behaviors and appreciate the sense of personal pride and responsibility it taught me. In conclusion, my parents were hard on us at times, and still are. However, I appreciate that level of dedication they taught us and hope that I can show that level of commitment to the loved ones around me.

Mother May I Sleep With Danger

Murder, mayhem and the modern woman.  

Even though she almost always falls for the suspiciously perfect boyfriend, knows nothing of his past and yet moves in with him, though eventually catches on to his obsessive outbursts... or feels like she's being watched or followed... or thinks she's being framed for the violent crimes happening around her, even though she's woken at night by the sound of someone breaking her kitchen window... Even though she's having nightmares of having her face burned by the long-haired hit man... or she's feeling weak and thinks the nanny is slipping something into the teacups she keeps bringing to her bedside-- despite all of these things, this woman still finds romance, still has a great career, still has one final, drawn-out death match in the steaming boiler room or in the dark parking garage, and blow after blow, crushes the stalker neighbor, or the jealous friend, or the woman who thinks she's the real daughter of her father--  she always survives and dammit, she always looks great.

I'm talking about the Lifetime Original Movie woman. I've never seen her sweat.  I've never seen caught in-between careers, or unsure of her passions. I've never seen her without makeup. Oh, and she solves crimes and kicks butt.  

She's everything I've always wanted to be.

Don't roll your eyes, Mr. Boyfriend.  Lifetime Original Movies make my lazy Sundays even lazier and juicier and frankly, better.  And sometimes- OK, a lot of the time- all I can think of at the end of a hectic day at work, or a bad hair day, or the long Sunday after too much sleeplessness-- is a bag of corn chips and a so-bad-it's-good, made-for-TV movie.

I love the varying tones- how some of these movies are dark and of bad quality, while some are perky and colorful and silly.  I love how you can almost never identify the city in which the movie takes place, and how the supporting characters all have Canadian accents.  I love-- I LOVE-- the titles (see title of this post. All I can say is, I wish I'd come up with it myself):  Blind Trust, Passion's Web, Abducted: Fugitive for Love.  I want to be a fugitive for love.  What does that even mean?

I love the bad music and the bad dialogue and the way these women lead awesomely clean, neat lives- with manicures and walk-in closets-- all minus the toil (we see her leaving the gym with her towel and little gym outfit, but do we ever actually see her working out?).  

I love how some of them are based on true stories (the one about the first victim of identity theft- the young, beautiful woman with the cute husband, who lost everything because some crazy drug fiend woman wanted her life- that was a good one) and some are so far-fetched, you actually start to wonder if maybe it could happen to you (the one where the obsessed paralegal puts shards of glass in the new wife's pasta alfredo).      

I love how the movies take us from gangster underworld to remote log cabin in the mountains all in one story.  We go from generic fancy Italian restaurant to deserted gas station.  And there's always a big house with lots of scary places through which a very bad, but determined, person could enter and set off the alarm.  

And I love how the bad guy is a terrible marksman and the heroine always gets one, seemingly karma-inspired bull's eye.

And I 

love

Delta Burke.  

I love her pant suits.  I love how she conveys desperation and revenge so well.  I can see it in her eyes... and her one, cocked eyebrow.

I love the lessons learned from these movies: don't be a stripper, don't keep a box in your closet with secret letters, don't fall in love with your dying neighbor's husband, don't fall in love with your stepson; always carry a giant metal object (giant crowbar, giant shard of broken mirror) in the trunk of your car, in addition to the gun, which you will inevitably have to hand over once the bad guy has you right where he wants you; always check your shower for hidden cameras; always have a security guard outside your hospital room; if you're pregnant and you meet a creepy woman in the grocery parking lot, do not go back to her house with her- she's only going to cut you open and steal your baby and pretend it's hers.  If you meet a dreamy guy (a plumber, or a lumberjack, or an ad exec) and you share a night of passion with him (perhaps too soon after meeting him?), he will probably become obsessed with you and make you turn the cans of soup in the same direction so all the labels face forward; or he'll wind up being really perfect until you discover that he killed your husband, your dog and your best friend and your mother and your old boss from the life you had before you moved to the new town.

Gosh, all this drama is exhausting.  But it's all in a days' work.  Modern Lifetime TV movie woman always moves on- she packs up the last cardboard box into her hatchback, looks up to the sky for a moment, pulls her fabulous wrap sweater even tighter around her, smiles knowingly and then drives down the once seemingly quiet, tree-lined street to yet another new town, where she'll undoubtedly find romance and start all over again.  Hopefully she won't be haunted by the past two hours of her life that were filled with unimaginable violence, torture, lies, poison, suspicious glares in the beauty salon, flying accusations, confrontations, dead relatives, dead pets, brushes with unwavering detectives who think they have it all figured out...  Because clearly, those two hours of sheer hell are enough for any woman's lifetime.   

  

Green Beer

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I used to really love St. Patrick’s Day. Some of my fondest memories from graduate school involve drinking miller highlife with green food coloring, or mojitos, or margaritas, or any other green alcoholic beverage we could come up with, and watching the Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament. I spent the entire day camped in front of the television, laughing and enjoying the company of friends. In college, as in graduate school, St. Patrick’s Day tended to fall during our two-week-long spring break. Though my college celebrations involved slightly less food coloring, there was, nevertheless, plenty to celebrate about not having to go to class for two weeks straight. Yes, St. Patrick’s Day was a reminder that I was young, carefree, and able to go on a day-long bender without any real repercussions—after all, I had Irish ancestry—that gave me an excuse, right?

Oh to turn back the clock to those days. In my mind, unless it falls on a Friday or Saturday, St. Patrick’s Day is one of those holidays that loses it’s charm upon graduation. Rather than a festive occasion heralded in with green beer and leprechaun decorations, St. Patrick’s day to the working adult means having to stand in front of your closet and decide whether to be cheesy and wear a green twin-set to the office, or to ignore the day entirely but for enjoying a green-frosted sugar cookie from the plate someone left in the kitchen.

As I sat down to come up with a topic for this week’s “free” blog, I couldn’t help but chuckle at just how many holidays lose a bit of their charm when forced to work. It got me thinking—when was the last time you attended a Columbus Day parade? Did you dress up in costume on Halloween? Or did you pass out Valentines to co-workers, or have an easter-egg hunt in the office supply closet? Nope. None of that.

Maybe it’s a sign that my newly-minted professional self still hasn’t quite adjusted. Or maybe it’s just that I’m so distracted this week that I wanted any excuse possible to have a day off to celebrate. Regardless of the reason, St. Patrick’s Day seems under-appreciated and under-celebrated this year. And I find it depressing. Sure, I could try to be really adventurous and suggest that the office adopt a green-high-life happy hour policy to ring in the day, but something tells me such a proposal wouldn’t be particularly welcomed in my white-collar job. I guess I’ll just have to adopt a policy of only really celebrating St. Patrick’s Day every seven years or so. Or maybe I’ll just buy a six pack of Guinness on my way home an enjoy a single stout and some bangers and mash. Cheers!

Dear South Carolina

Dear South Carolina –

You suck. You’re my neighbor to the south, and in theory we should be buddies, but the more I get to know you, the more I really don’t want people to associate us. Unfortunately we both have “Carolina in our names.” I had the honor of living in your greatest city for three months a few years ago, and it was downright wonderful. Beautiful palms trees, stylish old houses, miles and miles of shopping, and some of the best food this side of the Mississippi. One of my favorite home furnishings stores is there (Nancy Koltes), as is one of my favorite restaurants (Basil), and my favorite park (JI), but that isn’t enough to make up for all the terribleness that you, and your capital city, display. And to think I spend a good part of 2008 trying to find a job in your uber-conservative, crazy state. Thank you Lord Jesus for unanswered prayers (right Garth?!).

My general displeasure has been building up for awhile, but it came to a head last week when I read the following article on the WP website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR2009031104388.html

Read it. It probably won’t cause you to seethe like it did me, but still…..

While I’m not entirely sure the stimulus plan is going to have a discernible effect on the economy, I think not taking the money is the worst idea. Governor Sanford isn’t going to have too much luck playing hardball with the new President, and the only people who are going to get hurt in his political power play are the good people of South Carolina. The teachers, police officers, fast food workers, and apartment leasing agents are the ones who will suffer. Someone needs to tell him it’s too early to start running for President.

Do you all remember seeing the little girl sitting with Michelle Obama at the State of the Union address? The one who wrote the inspiring letter to the President asking him to include money in the stimulus plan for school improvements? She goes to a school in South Carolina that has a condemned auditorium, a gymnasium that leaks, and a campus full of trailers. Well if her governor has his way, her school still won’t get a dime.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/13/school.stimulus/index.html

The ordeal going on south of here also has a few heartwarming stories. Like that of Cheryl Davis, the caseworker who gave over a thousand dollars in her own money to a lady in need. It also makes those of us a little further north feel good about what we’re doing here. We received our first stimulus check last week and its going to go to remodeling our health center, putting people to work like carpenters, architects, and plumbers in the meantime, but will also put doctors, nurses, and CNAs to work in the long-term. And if you pay close attention to the NYT article, there’s a part that’s especially close to my heart. It tells the story of the woman who borrowed a car to go to the Department of Social Services to wait two and a half hours to try to get an appointment to see a Food Stamp worker. Well I happen to know someone who works at the Department of Social Services in North Carolina and the day the article came out, the wait time to see, no appointment needed, one of their Food Stamp workers was 9.46 minutes.

So to those of you who live down below……come on up!