Saturday, March 28, 2009

the institution of marriage

I'm married...everyone knows that. But what everyone might not know is I don't actually believe in the institution of marriage. I lived with my husband for a very long time unmarried and we eventually fell into marriage simply to make financial and ownership opportunities easier.

I have currently gone through a rash of friends who have had or are having issues with their significant others and it only solidifies what I think about marriage. Or maybe just how I view the way most people think marriage should go.

I think marriage is pushed on us as this end all, be all of partnerships and/or companionships. This is the person that your world revolves around, the person that is the everything you need. I don't think this is realistic at all. And I think the marriages that fail (what are we up to like 50% now?) are the ones that think this is true.

I think the marriages that do work are the ones where you realize you HAVE to foster other relationships throughout your life. There is no way one person can be everything you need for this one life time.

I am one of the very lucky whose husband has allowed me to foster relationships with a group of friends that mean the world to me. He lets me wander out to happy hours, not come home at night, chat with other boys, share things with others what I don't with him and let others make me happy.

There are different parts of me...different parts of my life that need different people and I'm allowed to find people who fill the holes, niches, parts of my soul, parts of my brain, parts of me that I can't get from one person.

You're gonna need more than one person to get through this life...I think I'm one of the lucky who has found the bunch I need.

everything is the ballet

I used to dance.

Ballet, modern, jazz...i danced. I don't anymore. I got busy, I got old, I forgot.

I went to a ballet performance last night...the first one in a very long time. I had abandoned the entire art form for quite some time for unknown reasons. I know I love dance (don't get me started on So You Think You Can Dance) but I had forgotten just how much I miss it.

I'm sitting there last night and the lights go down and the curtain goes up on this lone male dancer with his back to us. And he reaches his arm out, rotates a wrist and plies. I see every muscle in his body react and I felt it in every essence of me. My body ached because it remembered...I remember. The power I had, the control, the passion, the ability to exist on a stage for 40 minutes and feel nothing but you. The lights, the music, the breath, being part of a performance...part of the production.

I don't suspect I will ever feel that way about anything ever again.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

day 16

If I hadn't had to enact my driving responsibilities at 7:45 on my day off, I would have missed this sunrise, a huge group of white birds all taking flight at one time out of some farmer's field and one of the K-10 hawks looking for breakfast.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

no hope

A 9 year old girl ex-communicated from the catholic church because she had an abortion as the result of rape. Ten dead in Alabama. A gunned down pastor at a Sunday morning service. Five human heads found in ice chests. A fight club set up at a school for the mentally disabled.

It's days like this that I don't want to leave the house.

I have lost hope for humanity.

Monday, March 9, 2009

my past






favorite 5 of the week

1. Monday night yoga.

2. Realizing two co-workers have actually become good friends.

3. An unexpected Friday night conversation across 2000 miles (in case you hadn't gathered...I like the unexpected).

4. Grilling out and a fire while watching the storm come in on a Saturday night.

5. Watchmen (one of the most violent movies I've seen...and I'm a Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction kinda girl).

saving the planet one beer bottle at a time

I live in a town that does not offer curb side recycling (just one of many reasons I think I was born into the wrong part of the country) and until just recently didn't have much space to set up digs for my own recycling efforts. But after finally accepting the fact that I will never actually be able to park in my own garage, I figured why not use the space left for some good. I bought some tubs, laid out some organizational rules and started recycling. So now every two weeks when we visit the grocery store, we drag our recycling along. I now only make about one bag of actual trash a week.

The really cool thing about it though is driving up to the recycling center on Saturday and seeing it so packed I have to park across the street to get in the place. There are families with toddlers carrying their own little sacks of trash, teenagers who probably head up a recycling effort at a school somewhere, old guys who don't know the difference between chip board and cardboard (but they are figuring it out), single guys with trunks full of nothing but beer bottles and old couples who can barely hobble up to the windows.

And while I can be ashamed that I just started this myself, it makes me feel good that each week the recycling center gets a little bit busier as a few more people start to care.

favorite 5 of the week

1. KU beating Oklahoma...even if it was painful to watch.

2. Dinner, drinks and a Cirque show on a Wednesday night.

3. A day of unexpecteds.

4. Ladies' Night.

5. Dancing on a Saturday night.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

glimmers of hope

In times like these its easy to lose sight of the good in people. Its sad and quiet and scary. But recently I witnessed a couple of instances of the good in people and it makes me makes it a little easier to breathe.

I went to a performance down at the Music Hall with my mother and aunt the other night. We pulled into the parking garage and went to pay for our parking only to be told the car in front of us had already paid for our parking.

My little sister went to buy some vodka and beer on her birthday and the guy behind the counter wished her a happy birthday and didn't charge her for anything.