A Favorable Reception

All dressed up, a bubbly drink in hand, the waiter whisks by with a tray of alluring hors douvres, you grab one and make some funny comment as you struggle for a moment with it and your napkin. You resume the fabulously interesting and witty conversation you were having. Candles are lit all over, casting a flattering light on just about everyone. Bouquets of people are scattered in the space, unexpected combinations that seem to be working. A song comes on and you decide to dance, grab one more piece of food for the road, convice a bashful friend to join you. Smiling faces whirling around, you dance for 4 songs straight. Cake is out, you sample the petite fours placed before you, each one sweet and individual, just, like, you. The event is nearly over, you meander towards the exit, decide not to flatten the ambient ebullience with the first goodbye so you hop out the door into the dark young night.

The Reluctant Gift of the Magi

Hair salons always make me uncomfortable. Most people feel pampered and beautiful, but I just cant relax in the mirrored, hot air blowing chaos. I cant browse through magazines with my feet up and act like I deserve this treatment. The stylists are standing up spraying, poufing, teasing, brushing, rocking on their high heels, distracted by the buzz of a coworker—I never know what to say to them.

Even though I know I have important and worthy things going on in my life, it all seems to evaporate when I am faced with a group of people milling about who I know place very very high value on looks and fashion and being stylish. I am low maintence but no one is charmed, they just feel sort of sorry for me I think. And I always seem to overhear a cluster of employees gossiping, sometimes they try to fill me on the info as if I wasnt the next victim.

I have nothing to offer them. I have no fancy bag or coat for them to compliment me on, I have no funky outfits or special knowledge of whats hot now. I have nothing they understand. All I have is a head of hair that desperately needs cutting and payment that I cant really afford to give.

Although, with all that said, I must also say I do feel much better after the haircut, like things are looking up, like change is in the air and like I am slightly invincible. Maybe these hairdressers are on to something.

Scold me Gently

When, if ever, is it okay to correct someone when they use a word incorrectly? Does it benefit a loved one or a coworker to know the truth, or does it embarrass them too much for it to be worth it?

People take word choice very seriously, and people judge others on the way they speak, period. But the type of person who corrects grammar and/or word usage is rarely the type to carry with it enough tenderness so as not to hurt the incorrect person too much. Not sure if the trait of being the type of person who corrects and the type of person who corrects in a condescending way can ever exist separately.

And you may ask yourself why that person is using a word incorrectly in the first place, because he or she is on a secret mission to speak in a way that is beyond their understanding in order to impress people out there.

So, if you are part of the grammatical elite, do you let these incorrect usages just burn up as they leave the atmosphere, or do you catch them on their way out? Should you drag the puppy by the collar over to the poop it left on the carpet and scold it gently? Are you the better person because you know the truth, certainly not, but chances are you might think so.

Fiction Fridays (Late Edition): Waiting

His hand was bruised and other things were too. He had tumbled down a long flight of concrete subway stairs with the exaggerated flailing of a stunt double, but he wasn't. He sat at the bottom of the staircase, a heap of man and suit. Feet were crowded around him as his old head lay on the cold, impossibly hard surface.

In his scrambled mind he thought maybe I should not have had that last manhattan, or maybe I just slipped. There was a flickering darkness out of one eye, and then the other. A moderate flame of awareness existed within him for a few minutes, and then it didnt.

She burned the first batch of perogies but she was keeping a close watch on the second. They were browned just right, so she took them out to drain on the paper towels. As she placed the last perfect perogie down, the phone rang.

Hope and War

Religion can give hope or ignite war. It is such a powerful set of ideas it should be respected for its strength if nothing else.

I love to think about how much a devout person of one religion believes in another religion, probably not very much. Then it becomes clear that it is just an ideology, that can be accepted or rejected. If it were truth, there would be only one.

Although, if religion helps people make sense of this life or understand death or just helps them wake up in the morning, then it is a wonderful thing. It is a marketing strategy for hope.

I am feeling like it is almost too personal to write about on the blog but I have been forced to think about it lately because of our upcoming wedding. War is on the horizon with my family and I can feel the rumble of troops marching towards us...

Art Without Art

The other night we went to see Paul Simon in concert. In between the jokes about our young age but old souls, we listened. We listened to familiar songs written before we were born that still rung true in our reflective and pining young ears.

Poems about struggle and heartache carried on the waves of sound. The tempo is best described as that moment immediately after you blow a candle out, the constant fluttering ribbons of smoke that seem like they will never stop emerging.

I thought about how music may be the most perfect art. Into it goes science, discipline, emotion, sound, touch. It travels from one body to another, or to many. And like a ghost it lives within us whispering messages to ourselves.

The other night, we missed the fuzzy hair and gentle accompanying voice of Art Garfunkle, but it was really a most complete art form anyway.

Joe on YouTube

Click on the title above for a clip of Joe in Venezuela getting a black eye or something. Love the way he jumps up from the mat.