Retrograde to Romance

Today I had a compelling thought. 

I was watching The Time Traveler's  Wife, and as usual when I watch any love-story film, I was completely immersed. I'm constantly influenced and impacted by love of all kinds; fictitious, real, old, new, unexpected, but most of all, grand. And as I shifted from a beautiful scene to my reality- sending a text in bed- I felt very odd. The idea that I could just send a message with words as boring as "idk the one you wore during Thanksgiving", just seemed awfully wrong to me. 

My mind couldn't grasp how such a banal text could exist in the same world as this intricate whirlwind of love on my screen. 

Now I fully understand that to some, movies are movies. They are sugary cotton candy and none of it will ever be real. 

I also fully understand the gap in generations and society and the huge leap technology has made for humans and I do not condemn that in any way. I love my iphone as much as the next person but gone are the days of raw feeling and telling people things in person. It was just last night when the person right in front of me sent me a message that made my heart jump a little reading it, it made me emotional. It was beautiful and hard to say but that is what is missing. Staying up late waking up for a phone call on a house phone Sixteen Candles-style is what we are missing. Deep conversations with words you've painfully felt for a long time Pride and Prejudice-style is what we are missing. Melodramatic Twilight conversations and hangs from The Notebook are what relationships are missing. Too much Instagram and Facebook and emphasis on the perfect couple picture, capturing everything for the world instead of one-self is what has watered down everything that is love. Humans are what are responsible for feelings and romance.. they are after all, the masterminds that result in such grand stories. If they exist in minds, they exist in the world. Technology has done nothing but cut up and slowed down all raw feelings, through apps like Tinder and Grindr and dating websites, cheating websites, Facebook and Instagram in which we not only judge by appearance, but it puts everything else on hold. Have you ever met someone and not thought of them as attractive but after getting to know them, you develop a liking.. Where's the Tinder button for that? 

So I had a thought that maybe I shouldn't have to text every second, maybe I could hold off for longer. Perhaps not be as drastic as cutting off my phone and connecting a house land line and waiting up all hours, but something as simple as waiting to get a phone call so we could talk about the day would change a little something. Maybe I could get picked up and rush to the driver's door and smile instead of having nothing to talk about because we'd been texting all day. Maybe things would be more magical if we didn't try to make everything so fast and cold and quick. Maybe taking time during those moments which we normally try to speed up are what is secretly hidden, what that mystical movie power is secretly made up of. 

I don't know how long I can go without falling back to our advanced-to-the-world but retrograde-to-romance ways but I'm sure willing to try. 

Like Albert Einstein once said, "If it's not like the movies- that's how it should be."

Wait, no. That might have been Katy Perry. 

A Rose By Any Other Name

At an attempt to keep my private life private on this blog, I've refrained from writing about anything too specific pertaining to my relationship. But a huge milestone is upon my boyfriend and I: 5 years ago we started dating. And yet, as I read that sentence aloud, I find a very troubling problem with the wording.

First of all, my "boyfriend" is not really my "boyfriend". He is a person who I met in high school, who's layers have been shed and coatings have been built. He is the chill factor in us. He is a dreamer, like I am. He is an introvert unlike I am. To himself, unless sought for, unless he is interested in what you have to say. I am very outgoing, he says I speak to other people too much when we are out, I am "too friendly".. He likes quiet places. I like loud places, with chaos and loud music and a swarm of humans. He goes with the flow, almost always my flow. I am a planner.. I do it months ahead, I do lists and itineraries, I take care of tickets and expense planning. He flies with it. He is unsure of many things pertaining to himself, unlike I am. I have a set view on how I should be, a strict view; a modern day, casual, Texan, family-oriented, messy, traveling, yoga-doing, peaceful, giving Carrie Bradshaw. He is very passionate like I am. He has a free heart. He is an artist, I am a writer. I'm very aware of my world on paper, he is very aware of the world around him. He is who i called the other day, tears welling in my sockets, stressed beyond belief about school. He is who dismissively tells me I'm overreacting and not to stress.. And to digress, I need "dismissively". I need "chill-factor". I need the quiet sometimes.
Without him dismissing my stressful call, I would probably drive myself crazy. He knows me and knows that dismissing me is the only way to calm me down. He walks me through the process of calming down and knows the perfect tone to use with me, knows that any crack in his facade could lead to a surge of tears. We both have a mutual understanding that this is what needs to be done. And I appreciate it beyond words.

I am dramatic. Not to belittle my emotions that day, but I'm very poor with emotions. Bad, good.. They wash over anything else. I'm always very white or very black.  I'm seldom gray and when I'm gray, I pick a side. He is very white and black as well, but when it comes to stress, anger and sadness, he's dealt with it better than I have. I'm very manic and he is better at hiding his emotions or back seating them.

My boyfriend is not my "boyfriend" and I say that only because when I tell anyone that he is my boyfriend, I see a picture of sweaty-palmed us walking through halls with bright red lockers in the background. Sweaty-palmed us with no actual real issues other than which color we'd wear to prom or who we had dated prior to each other.

This is why I will never have a label for him. Our relationship goes beyond anything I could ever pick a word for. It's been a high thing, a low thing, a middle thing.. At first not even really a "thing" at all.. Just some "thing." My boyfriend, keeper, lover, best friend. Still, he's never been my Elvis, it's never been a blind love. It's always been exactly what it looks like. We've made mistakes that I don't really consider mistakes and we'll make many more mistakes in the future. I'm counting on it. I never signed up for anything perfect, I thrive in chaos, in learning and in the abstract of humanity. He is the blue I never knew I needed and if he could play the violin, I could name all the American presidents names backwards. He is the rain that ruins your plans. The overcast skies that turn everything completely upside down. The best-ever rainy day, a floor length pink chiffon dress and black suit running into the woods together hand in hand, milky mud below them and a blue fog around them.

I'll always be picky about words because that is the nature of any writer but maybe I could call him my fiancé just because I like the way the "é" sounds creamy. I also like the term Valentine but that's probably just because I'm obsessed with anything that's unorthodox and fascinated with the macabre tale from which the term originated. Maybe I also like the fact that I could use temporary terms for something that isn't defined by time or space. I'm running by my own rules. Maybe I could be his forever fiancé and maybe I'll just call him my blue valentine.

http://thoughtcatalog.com/sarah-cook/2014/08/suicide-is-no-less-of-a-tragedy/

People don't know what it's like to be at a stopped sign and be asked for a sandwich. White privilege runs so deep into our core that it sickens me when people upload or like all these racist posts about "sending people back where they came from." This is where the problem lies. The fact that they haven't been where all these souls have come from. I challenge each and everyone of these outspoken white supremacists not to watch some dramatic documentary or research some cold statistics but to take a trip down south or into any struggling Latin country for that matter and feel the pain first hand when someone is selling apples and asking you if you would possibly have any lunch leftovers to give them or cents to complete a bus trip, then watch in the rear view mirror as they automatically rip through the Twinkie in the plastic wrap you happened to have. I know in my heart that if anyone experienced this first hand it could be enough to shift a couple of views slightly.. Even those that have been set since childhood. And that might be enough.

"There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness."

-Dalai Lama

Untouchables (Ramble Post)

I have a problem and it is as follows: I tend to fall for a book or character and immortalize it. I tend to give the most flawed characters a pedestal upon which anybody in my real life could never even fathom touching. It's a real catch-22 because the reason that they are up on that pedestal is because they are so flawed and classic, yet I make them untouchable. Everything is so mediocre in real life and very few people interest me in the beginning and even fewer keep me interested later. Reading an autobiographical book lately (the first book I have opened and read cover to cover in 7 years) helped me build a bridge and connect the two worlds. It helped me understand a legend behind closed doors, but it wasn't just that one person, it was more than that. It helped break down that wall I had built between the Untouchables and my real life. In real life, people are just people and the most grand, beautiful people have awfully human habits. This is something my tough-as-nails mind could never comprehend until I read this book. In the end, all people are JUST people who breathe, curse, have different up-bringings, have views on both sexes, have dark inner demons, have suicidal thoughts, have dependent personalities, have mind-numbing habits, have different complexes, have opposing issues at hand, have different battles, have different priorities, have skewed priorities, have different outlooks.. All, beautifully. I then realized that legend or fame or poverty or homelessness does not have any effect on the "immortality" that is the human being in the grand scheme of things. As mundane as someone may be, their feelings inside and inner monologue are enough to paint the most beautiful portrait next to all other portraits.  The complexity of all human altogether, makes every human alone a legend.

Glamour

I think that the biggest mistake a girl can make is purchasing something only because it's a trend. Is it for you? Will you look amazing in it? If you were photographed would you ever look back and say "damn I should've worn something different?" I like vintage pieces because I know that in the past, flattering cuts were on all items of clothing. I also like them because I know that nothing looked cheap, no matter how old. Nowadays girls parade with these rainbow colored outfits that make no sense. It's all too much. Everybody is over-thinking it. I think you should try many different styles and I think you should see what works for you and never let it go. I know my mom always told me "Fit over trend." Therefore I stopped liking what "looked pretty" and started looking for what looked pretty on me. 

A wise woman named Sophia Loren once said "A woman's dress should be like barbed wire: serve it's purpose without obstructing the view."

I'm not saying I'm a professional stylist but I do understand what makes women look beautiful. And ever so often I make a note in my mind, "Wow she should really wear that color more often." Or "Geez, that style of dress really flatters her." Everyone notices when women look beautiful but very few people notice why. This is a priceless tool my mom taught me and honestly the only thing that it can be called is glamour. 

When you feel like you look the prettiest and don't know exactly why, take note of it. Did you get a tan? Is there a color that makes you pop? Do you look best in tight tops but loose pants? Do you have awesome legs? Does that style of shoes make your legs look awesome-er?

Glamour isn't glitter and trends. Glamour is looking your very best and perplexing people as to why you look a certain way all the time. Glamour is turning down beautiful psychedelic outfits and instead opting for black tops that cut off at my collar bones. Glamour is cutting off my mermaid-length hair to layers that hit my chin to emphasize my facial features.

Glamour is understanding that you can't be a thin-nosed, pale, blue-eyed Megan Fox if you're a tan, big lipped, honey-haired Eva Longoria.. Or that you can't be a make-up less cool, grunge Kristen Stewart if you're  a glam doll, makeup junkie Lady Gaga. 

I can't remember all the times I tried to just follow what "was". Thin eyebrows, shiny lipgloss, straight hair was the norm growing up. 

Women have to learn to play up their attributes. I had to learn that voluminous hair was mine. I had to learn to grow out my eyebrows. I had to learn to play up my eyes and own my lips. My tan was on my side. 

You have all these features on you, don't ignore them. They are your femininity. They are your female superpowers. Use them. Use yours, no one else's.

"Glam culture is ultimately rooted in obsession, and those of us who are truly devoted and loyal to the lifestyle of glamour are masters of its history. Or, to put it more elegantly, we are librarians." -Lady Gaga

    

Thoughtpiece: JFK and Obama VS WWIII

Article: http://m.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2014/0728/Ukraine-crisis-How-far-will-Obama-go-to-get-Russia-to-back-down-video

Documentary: http://youtu.be/r1sPSx24v4w

I've been really into a show called "The Sixties" on CNN which is a 10-piece documentary on several aspects of the era, from tv to music to political stories. 

I've watched five of the episodes and became smitten not only because I already loved the Sixties, and not only because JFK is my favorite president, and not only because I love bell-bottom pants, but because I'm currently living vicariously through this documentary, and understanding the different events that helped shape and shift the United States and other parts of the world for the rest of time. 

I watched the second episode yesterday and today read a short current article about what is going on in Ukraine currently and was so interested in the fact that the stories were so eerily similar even through they are 55 years apart. 

Past: Nikita Kruschev-led Soviet Union is aiding the Cubans with nuclear weapons. JFK's aides show him pictures as he wants to be sure to not repeat a ridicule like the Bay of Pigs.

Currently, in Washington: "The United States has released what it says is photographic evidence of Russia shelling targets in Ukraine from its side of the border, and senior US officials are telling their Russian counterparts the US has proof of the Russian military’s growing involvement in Ukraine."

 Past: JFK treads lightly. He tries as hard as he can to avoid unnecessary actions that could lead to retaliations from the Soviets that could then eventually lead to World War III. He has word of missiles in Cuba but pushes to get cold, hard evidence that it is in fact Kruschev that is aiding Castro and the Communist Cubans with nuclear bombs. JFK gets the cold hard evidence. 

Currently, in Washington: "President Obama has so far limited his response to Russia’s meddling in Ukraine to sanctions targeting Russia’s economy and some individuals in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. More recently, he has also pressed for international inspectors to have access to the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which is in the thick of intense fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists. But moving beyond sanctions against Russia – and encouraging the European Union to go forward with tougher sanctions – to more direct military involvement on the side of the Ukrainian government is still a step Obama is unlikely to take, some foreign-policy analysts say. One overriding reason: The president wants to avoid steps that risk plunging the US into a proxy war with Russia. "

Past: Of course as everyone knows, JFK and Kruschev end up signing the famous nuclear ban treaty along with other leaders of the Western world. 

Currently, in Washington: Obama is not pressed to supply Ukraine with weapons as Russia would in retaliation supply the separatists with even more weapons.      

Some questions:       

 

Does anyone see the bullish bravado in most all Russian leaders?

Will the Soviet's hold on Russian leaders and their history ever fade? 

Will there ever be a president in America that is not afraid to stand up to our long-time enemy? 

Or is it better to tread lightly against people with such opposing and forward way of thinking? 

Is all the WWIII talk really all that plausible or is the media just being it's usual vain self?