Monday, February 28, 2011

My Hollywood boyfriend...

Day 11 - Your celebrity crush Day 12 - A picture of something you love Day 13 - A picture of something you hate Day 14 - Picture of someone you could never imagine your life without Day 15 - A picture of something you want to do before you die Day 16 - Someone you would want to switch lives w/ for one day and why Day 17 - Your favorite song Day 18 - Picture of your biggest insecurity Day 19 - A picture of someone you miss Day 20 - A picture of somewhere you'd love to travel Day 21 - A picture of something that makes you happy Day 22 - A picture that confuses you Day 23 - Something you crave for a lot Day 24- A picture of yourself and a family member Day 25 - Picture of yourself and a family member Day 26 - A picture of something that means alot to you. Day 27 - A picture of something your afraid of Day 28 - A picture of you last year and now, how have you changed since then? Day 29 - A picture that can always make you smile Day 30 - Who are you?


THIS one I fully expect to enjoy. Especially since I get to picture surf for a good one of him.  :) Oh yes, I'll be enjoying this shortly.  Now, I do have a man I fully think is hotter than the surface of the sun too, but he's married, so for now, we'll go with my new squeeze because he's on the market. And damn cute.


Day 10 I sidestepped a little, but twice bitten twice shy, right? 
I did it, I just didn't post a picture of someone inparticular.  (For those of you wondering WTF about now, the Day 10 thing was to post a picture of someone you can see yourself marrying or being with in the future. And yeah, it was out of my comfort zone to do that even if I did have someone in mind.)


Ok, to the FILES!
(Enter one irritating fight with Google Chrome which had to be aborted for a visit to Firefox) 


Just the right mix of curly and tall. Sweet, funny, can sing. Can be taken home to Mom, yet is not annoyingly fundie or crazy.  Is really really sexy. And cute. And nerdy. And funny.  And NICE. Genuinely, legitimately nice. At least from any direct interviews I've watched with him and reading his online entries.


I really like this man.


And no, i haven't abandoned Mr. Boreanaz, but like I said, he's occupado and Mr. Levi here isn't. But he could be. Call me?
:P

Sunday, February 27, 2011

It's not cheating!

So I suppose the people who know me best would expect me to cop out of this next "assignment" in the photo blog. And it's true, I'm not one to lay bare that kind of thing in a public forum like this. Though sometimes I think "why not? There's a certain awesome part of being so in love and letting everyone know it".
I guess to me love is intimacy and has a certain aspect of the sacred. And while I don't need it to be secret, I kind of like the idea of just letting it explode when it's ready to.  When I'm ready for it and when whoever it is that I'm readying for is ready for it.  Obviously, if you read a few posts back, you'd know I've been in love my fair share of times thus far.  And in thinking about it just now I can say this....the coolest thing, to me, was not ever the advertising. I think some people go out of their way to advertise how SO IN LOVE they are and how FANTASTIC THEIR FABULOUS LOVER IS. PERFECT LIFE. SEXY HUSBAND.  And ok, cool, good on you if you're really that happy, but sometimes it reads sorta insincere or haughty.  That's not what I'm looking for.

I think the most exciting times, to me, in that respect, were being told out of the blue by strangers that they SAW the love.  Because to me, though sometimes it was jarring...almost always a little jarring, really...it was kind of amazing.  It was so neat to have someone say "you know, I look at you guys, and I just SEE that you love each other".
I guess it's an old writer's mantra: show, don't tell.

Anyway, so...I'm breaking that rule right now, but anything my heart's tied up in right now is mine, and it's not ready to be shown or told.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

project, y'all




I think these are the perfect two for this post. 
The two of them are my best friends. They're the two I can talk to without having to worry about where that information goes. I trust them both in ways I don't trust anyone else outside of my own family.  Both of these people have helped me through incredibly hard times in my life, both have opened up their homes to me and helped me at the moments I needed it most.  They've both encouraged me and showed me so much love, and I couldn't live without either of them. Which sounds cliche and over-sentimental, but honestly.

Bill, he knows the darkest corners. He's talked to me at some of the scariest moments in my life and managed to always let me know there was someone there. And no matter what happened he has never failed to come through. It's funny, I was mentioning two movies I would never watch around other people with him last night (mostly because they strike this place that I don't like striking in the company of others and because I usually can't keep from crying like a total freak) and in writing this I think... you know, I don't consider him other people anymore. There's so many REAL places I've not wanted to share with anyone that I shared with him...movies be damned. 

Patty: She swooped in and things have never been the same. Like a vulture of awesome.  Only that's the wrong metaphor. Yeah. Still...she's someone I can absolutely confide in, trust, laugh with, and someone who's ALSO been a constant. We went on our first non family vacation together, we lived together, and we've always been able to find the fun.  She's a pocket full of awesome, as they say.  I'm so grateful to have been able to move with them at the time that I did...it was really an awful time...the divorce thing was happening and I was incredibly mad at the world and sad and confused and kind of lost.  And I got to move in and was made to feel like part of the family. :) I still remember the relief I felt when I went over for dinner at their house and their mom suggested it.  I just NEEDED to get away, and it let me be close enough to not have to change everything.  But honestly? I admire the wit, the strength, the silliness and the smarts of this woman.  She's truly awesome. 

I think that covers today's. :P

Friday, February 25, 2011

Project! I'm on course! I'm gonna keep up! No realli!



 
Both the pictures I thought of for this one were this fuzzball. Having a pet is an amazing thing. Having an alien cat with satellite ears that can unhinge her jaws? Even better.
My first thought when I look at this is..."wow, that's slightly disturbing" ...but then I just marvel at the shape and picture the terrible kitty breath.

Between the big ears, the myriad crazy vocal sounds, the games we play on the staircase and her propensity to get in just enough trouble to be forgiven immediately and no more... I adore her. Such a neat little fuzzball.

I may not have thought I was ready for a new cat when my friend Peter gave her to me, as mine had just passed away, but she was instantly lovable.  She may be a one person cat, but she's kept this one person sane through so, so much. She's been cross country with me and moved plenty of times with me, and she's always there with a cold nose and some cuddles when I need it most.
And crazy disturbing alien mouth.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Three

There were three, so far.

Three people I can honestly say I loved. Different and yet similar. I do love rather easily and deeply, but not without caution or reason. I could tell you a love story about all of the people closest to me, because I love them incredibly deeply, in a different way.

One of them.... he was the first. I didn't plan on it being him, and in fact, the idea was suggested to me.  At the time he was just someone I could talk to and goof off with. It was the first time I really connected with a guy, I guess, and it kind of took me by surprise how quickly the feelings blossomed.  We became a team.  He stood up for me, even when it cost him.  He was noble, despite his best efforts to be something else.  He'd get beyond surface level and in the quiet when it was just the two of us, he'd bare his soul.  He'd swoop in like the white knight for me. When we finally really crossed that barrier between friends and love he quite literally swept me off my feet to do it. I'd told him how I felt and fully expected it to break things apart.  He came over late at night and changed everything.  He told me he loved me at the same time he swept me up in a kiss I thought only happened in the movies.  I felt like my heart would explode, I felt like crying, I felt like it wasn't real, and I felt like flying.  I can still feel little flutters sometimes when I think of that particular moment. We were young and growing up with each other, and we learned.  We were the kind of silly teenage love that'd drive for hours just to be together, that'd run out into fields at night and cover each other in kisses...that held hands as if it'd pain us not to...for a while.

Things changed, life changed, and he felt like he had something to prove, I guess. He's one of the few exes I have that I was hurt by the most and that I really really couldn't stand for quite a while.  We're at unsteady friendship right now. I think the thing that makes it hardest to think of him or talk to him, or even about him, is that I know what he *could* be. He's so caught up in this game of machismo and player mentality...the kind of message men get that they have to be a dick to be somebody or be cool. And I know what his heart is like.  I guess it bugs me that he doesn't just go with what's real most of the time.  And it's hard to be around him when he DOES ditch the exterior, because it reminds me all of the reasons I fell so hard for him to begin with. It's a state of confusion, knowing the real and the fake coexist so easily, but it would never work out.

Another? I never worry about fake with him.  I never worry about anything with him.  This was the kind of love that's like breathing, it just happens.  And instantaneously, without you asking it in. People always talk about sparks flying, but this was like a flash of lightning. It brought to light the dead husk of a relationship I was clinging to and it showed me someone so close to my soul that I was immediately scared of what would happen next.  I shoved this one off, because I knew that love could hurt big time by this time.  But this one? Didn't go away.  And it was so deliciously different. So tender. Here was someone whose heart was his heart, in every situation.  Someone I didn't need to think to trust. Things I didn't believe in I saw full evidence of.  I'd go anywhere for him or with him. I'd do anything. And not in some trite way....in a way I didn't really even understand.  By this time I wasn't naive enough to not see the flaws. I saw them clearly. But what I had with him was so much more important.  The level of intimacy was something I don't know if I've ever gotten near again. There was no dark corner for me that he didn't know about.  Not even a little bit. The biggest scariest things were safe with him, and are safe with him.  No matter what changed or changes, this is a love that never will.  And you know, it's a love I never doubted. I always felt that we loved each other dearly, and maybe it didn't mean the same things all the time, but I would never say I wasn't loved. I think it was the first love that was the kind I'd always been taught about, unconditional. I remember fighting and wanting to make up immediately because it didn't feel right not to be around him.  I remember that that feeling was mutual, and the moment I realized it first.  And this one is hard to write about, because it's a different kind of thing.  It's not anything I moved on from, it's something I very much still feel.  It was never a question of love burning out, and it never will be.  My heart doesn't let this one go, to the point where it causes problems, because I know my heart will always bend to him, and it's power I don't have over me.  I don't like that, especially when I know I need to do my own thing.  It's one thing for love to die, it's one thing to leave someone because you know it's not there. It's another just to leave.

And another. Someone who I've walked with and known.  Someone who was on the radar but in the peripheral sometimes.  But consistent. Someone to walk in the rain with or to just be still with.  Someone I've always had lots of laughs with, who I've always had things in common with.  He's a defender.  Of family and friends, even when they don't deserve it.  If I thought my first love was a white knight, it was only because I didn't know well enough that he was.  Someone I struggled with and missed if he wasn't in the peripheral. And then it changed. From peripheral to essential. Gentle and so strong.  For as much as he protects someone that I want to help.  Someone that can freely say he loves me before I can even think it.  Someone that makes me laugh and smile and think.  Challenging. And sure, ups and downs, greys are our color. But consistency is what I love here. Someone I can count on. All the times I back down and think "no, you know what? too much.  It can't be how I think it is" he's the one who comes back in the door.  So much exploring and living to do, I just feel like it's the best meeting of the minds I've come across, you know? Someone who shares the music, the desire to go out and really live, the books and the movies and the absolute absurdity.  Hours and hours in I just wish there were more hours.  This one I'm trying to shut down. I don't mean to do it but I do. So far, it hasn't shut down though.  I don't know what that means, and words on paper (so to speak) seem too real.  If I could turn every word into an hour with him I would, and then some.

And I don't know what brings me to share the three, but there it is.  Loved, love and loving.
What any of it means, I don't know.
I guess we'll see. You learn something from all of it, that much I do know.

Let's just pretend no time has passed. :D

That's what I intend to do here. I'm gonna pick up this project where I left off.
Where is that? one might ask....
And the answer:

Day 07 - A picture of someone/something that has had the biggest impact on you Day 08 - A picture that makes you laugh Day 09 - A picture of the person who has gotten you through the most Day 10 - A picture of someone you see yourself marrying/being with in the future Day 11 - Your celebrity crush Day 12 - A picture of something you love Day 13 - A picture of something you hate Day 14 - Picture of someone you could never imagine your life without Day 15 - A picture of something you want to do before you die Day 16 - Someone you would want to switch lives w/ for one day and why Day 17 - Your favorite song Day 18 - Picture of your biggest insecurity Day 19 - A picture of someone you miss Day 20 - A picture of somewhere you'd love to travel Day 21 - A picture of something that makes you happy Day 22 - A picture that confuses you Day 23 - Something you crave for a lot Day 24- A picture of yourself and a family member Day 25 - Picture of yourself and a family member Day 26 - A picture of something that means alot to you. Day 27 - A picture of something your afraid of Day 28 - A picture of you last year and now, how have you changed since then? Day 29 - A picture that can always make you smile Day 30 - Who are you?


This was a hard one to choose a picture for, or more accurately a person. Still, this one seems to make sense.  Here we have... Pastor Lynn, aka PL, aka Lindy, aka my adopted dad.
That last part is the most important.

We met at a time when I was pretty much as low as I was going to get, adolescence wise.  And his first cementing action into my life was to NOT lecture, NOT preach at me...not say anything at all actually.
I was a suicidal little 13 year old who felt awful about herself and her life, and I was standing in an empty church, and facing a wall.  He came over to where I was standing and asked me how I was doing, and I proceeded to fall to a million pieces.  And you know what he did?  He just opened his arms up and let me cry.  Big bear hug and the peace of mind of knowing someone was there and they cared.  And it made all the difference.

As I got to know him better, I started to find out all the crazy things we had in common. The sense of humor, the music...just the way we think.  I started to see him as family and he accepted me as family.  I still remember the first time I was somewhere and he said "And this is my daughter".  It made sense to me. Here was a person that if I could PICK family, I'd have picked.  And I was lucky enough for him to pick me to be honorary family too.  And it's so much deeper than that.  He protected me in Germany (and a few friends when a strange couple of guys was approaching).  He so happened to be the chaplain and the first on the scene of my big car accident when my parents couldn't get there fast enough.  He showed up at a friend's funeral, at the exact moment I was going to fall apart, yet again. He was there incredibly fast after my brother almost lost his life in a car crash and he again was willing to go to bat for me quite literally in confronting someone I couldn't.

He encouraged me on my way out West and helped me pick up the pieces when I got back.  He fixed my car, and we watched Blackhawks and Cubs games together.

It's due to him that I even know what having a real dad would be like. And it's fantastic.  And since I always, ALWAYS wished I knew? I'd say that's a really big impact.