'tis the season

These thoughts began to cross my mind around Halloween time when I noticed an abundance of inflatable lawn decorations popping up all over the place. There was the traditional pumpkin to go along with my personal favorite which is three ghosts rising out of a cauldron like jack-o-lantern. A new edition this year was Halloween Elmo to go along with the old standbys, Halloween Pooh and Halloween Tigger.

Halloween came and went and then I began to notice inflatable turkeys appearing on lawns. The most popular seems to be the pilgrim turkey or as I fondly refer to it the “turkey in a top hat.”

When did all of this excess decorating become appropriate? Honestly, when I was growing up all my mom did was hang a few cardboard pumpkins in the window. Halloween wasn’t any less special without the presence of a giant balloon on my lawn.

Being festive is great, really it is, but when did decorating for Thanksgiving become customary? How about those giant inflatable bunnies at Easter time? Here in Philadelphia, we love the Eagles so much that we have even found the need to decorate for football season.




At first I thought this was just a regional phenomenon. Surely, people in other parts of the country are far too classy to decorate for the holidays in such fashion. After careful research AKA the Wal-Mart web site, I discovered that in fact people all over the country enjoy these loveable guys.

Now that Christmas time is upon us they are just everywhere!





Even more disturbing is seeing them during the day time when they are in non-action mode. Imagine what is going through the mind of a small child who passes a house with a dead turkey or snowman sitting on the front lawn.





No, frosty isn't dead, he's just resting because night time is when all the fun happens!

great expectations

Wow, did you ever have a thought you just couldn’t express…welcome to my life. Sometimes I find myself stumbling over the words. It’s not that I don’t have them, but rather I have a difficult time getting them from my brain to my mouth or from my brain to the keyboard

 

Every now and then it’s a good practice to give yourself a reality check…to sit back and take an honest look at what is going on in your life.

 

That’s something I did recently and discovered that most of my recent disappointments were due in part to the fact that I had entered situations with expectations; that I engaged with people based on how I thought they should have acted in the situation.

 

I am going to make a better attempt at not doing this.

 

I think that the main reason people get disappointed in relationships, friendships or interactions with people in general is because of unrealistic expectations. We expect people to act a certain way, based on our own perceptions and experiences and when they don’t we become frustrated, disappointed, hurt or angry.

 

And this is random, but I have met so many people who don’t listen me because they are too busy trying to figure out what they are going to say in response. Clearly then, we aren’t interacting on the same level.

 

I find a bit of irony in the title of this blog, “great expectations.” The reason why it has taken me so long to express my thoughts was because of my own expectations, that if I was going to share my feelings with others they had to be of a certain caliber. Well, maybe this time around I haven’t quite hit the mark, but hopefully ya’ll get the idea.

 

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and help them become what they are capable of being.
- Goethe

perception

I’m not particularly sure why I’ve expressed an affinity for social causes lately. 

 

Last week there was this annoying construction project on Broad Street so I decided to take a route I don’t normally travel to get to the triplex. I was stopped at a light when an older woman started yelling at me and walking toward my car. I had no idea what she was saying. The light changed and people began honking for me to go, so I pulled over to the side of the road.

 

As she came closer I noticed that she was struggling to walk with an old cane and that there was some plastic thing sticking out of her arm. She told me that her car broke down and she needed to get to chemotherapy. I asked her where she needed to go, which she apparently mistook for an invitation into my vehicle. I said that I couldn’t take her and handed her some cash. I told her that there was store on the corner where she could buy bus tokens, but to do whatever she needed to do with the money.

 

What is it in me that allowed me to completely trust this woman?

 

Last month my uncle passed away from lymph node cancer. I remember seeing the portal in his arm. This woman had two of them. I couldn’t imagine someone making that up.   

 

I was trying to draw a parallel between this experience and the public outpouring of support for victims of hurricane Katrina.

 

People have no problem donating a dollar to these people in need because their misfortune is the result of a natural disaster. Simply put, it isn’t their fault.

 

Does this mean that they are any more or less in need that the woman I encountered on the street? I suppose it’s all a matter of perception.

 

I drove off in my car, picked up the rent checks and went to Whole Foods to get some lunch, but I couldn’t get the woman off of my mind. It was a warm day so I grabbed an extra bottle of water, hopped in my car and headed back there for her. Sadly, there was a part of me that suspected she would still be there, but she wasn’t…and that made me smile. Even if she was it wouldn’t have mattered much to me. She obviously needed something.

 

 

 

“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

- William Shakespeare

persolvo pretium: my take on existentialism

Looking back on the past few weeks of my life, I find myself asking the question “what the hell was that all about?”

 

I’m sure this wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last time that I have felt this way…experiencing emotions from as high as wanting to sing every love song that came on country radio to as low as wondering if I got in my car and just started driving, if anyone would actually miss me.

 

I am in a perpetual state of trying to make sense of the world. Sometimes I have to force myself not to think, just so I can sleep at night. Being in class two nights a week has really sent my mind into overload.

 

Last week we were talking about Existentialism. Straight out of the dictionary, it is a philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts.

 

I’m not sure if I’m entirely in agreement with the premises of Existentialism, but I’ve been able to put my own spin on it…which may be completely off from anything that it represents, but it’s what I have taken away from it and it’s helpful to me so that’s all that really matters.

 

No doubt that in life, shit will happen.

1) It just gets harder when you ask why.

2) Consequences: you must pay the price for your actions.

What I learned from Wanda

I would venture to say that it’s the catholic guilt instilled in me which is compelling me to share this story:

 

I took the train to New York last Friday. The train was packed and I was forced to share a seat. I sat down next to a woman and soon after she asked me for a piece of gum. I handed it to her and proceeded to pull out an article I needed to read for class. After three sentences she began talking to me. She had literally just gotten out of the hospital and was carrying bags of clothes back to her home in Plainfield. All I could think was damn, I picked the wrong seat. She would not shut up, going on and on about her life, her family, her illness.

 

Every time I thought we were finished and I resumed reading she started in again. Then I thought a little bit about the content of the article I was trying to read, about the history of therapeutic recreation, which began by and large in hospitals. I took this as a sign. I put my book away and started to ask her questions. She showed me the art projects she had completed during her hospital stay, offered me her magazine, gave me her phone number and told me to call her some time.

 

I shared my story this evening during class. The professor responded by telling me that I probably learned more from that encounter than from reading the article. I think he is right.

 

It’s pretty damn cool that my interaction with this woman got me some bonus points in class, but that is above and beyond what I took away from the experience.

 

This might sound a little strange, but when I am walking down the street and a homeless person asks me for spare change I try to see God in that person. I try to see someone who is a brother or a sister to someone because that person probably has a family. That person is a daughter or a son to someone. I try to see the good in all people and the value of human life. And to be honest with you, I felt a little bit ashamed that initially I was very annoyed by this woman speaking to me.

 

I don’t mean to get all religious or spiritual on ya’ll, but it is a part of who I am and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

a social experiment

I had this entry marked as private for a while because I was trying to fine tune some of my words...and then I decided that the way in which I was saying it didn't matter so much as what I was saying.

At the end of August I decided to conduct a week long "social experiment."  The idea came one Saturday evening after sushi and maybe a little too much sake. As my friend chiefy says "It goes down easy."

I was curious to see if my profile picture had an impact on page views, blog views, comments, messages and friend requests.

I took a picture of my abs (yes, that was really my stomach) and left it as my main profile picture for a week. On the first day alone I had 150 page views. Normally, I get between 10 and 15 per day. 

There were noticeable increases in blog views, friend requests and messages received. Initially, men sent more messages and friend requests, but it started to even out by the end of the week. Also, I don't think the men paid much attention to the fact that I am a lesbian, but that's a topic we can reserve for another blog entry.

So what does all of this mean? First and foremost I have way too much free time on my hands. I knew the picture would have some sort of impact, but not to the extent that it did. I wonder what this says about people.

The thing that I think about the most is this...I have had some important and some not so important ideas conveyed in my blogs. By posting a picture of this nature, my thoughts were received by a larger audience. Whether or not it was a group able to appreciate it is up for debate, but the fact of the matter is that my body is what lead people to explore my mind....and that just fascinates me.

And so the social experiment part two begins...I wonder how many of you are reading this.

random thoughts

There are these random advertisements all over the internet that ask you to "pick which one is snoop dog" or "pick which one is jennifer aniston" in order for you to "win" a free iPod. I gave it a try and...it doesn't really matter if you choose the correct photo or not.

This morning I was driving behind a fairly nice Volkswagen convertible, which was plastered with stickers from every place imaginable and for every cause known to human kind. If anyone who happens to read this has a similar vehicle could you please explain this phenomenon to me because I am utterly baffled.

Which brings to mind something else I will never understand. You have a nice car and you want to put a bumper sticker on it...perhaps you wish to proclaim the fact that your child is an honor student...how are you not going to take the time to put it on straight. It is the only sticker on your car and it's crooked. I just don't get it.

Finally...my health insurance company keeps sending me checks for small, random sums of money. Part of me wants to call and ask why, but I'm afaid that if I do they'll stop sending them.

questions for the woman at the gym

There are ten treadmills at the gym. I was the only person running. Why did you feel the need to get on the treadmill right next to me?

I could not breathe. Why did you you bathe in freesia body lotion prior to your work out?

I find camel toe to be utterly repulsive. Why did you wear those spandex shorts?

I was having a good run. Why did you turn the treadmill speed up to 10.0 and attempt to sprint?

You stomp your feet and kick your ass when you run. I am glad that your work out lasted only five minutes.

you know you think about too

i was making it a point to NOT post a blog unless i had something truly insighful to say, but i suppose that's all relative...i mean, i know that most of us have had this experience at some point in our lives...we walk into a stall in a public restroom, only to find that someone has taken a big shit in the toilet and negelected to flush it.

what would possess someone to do such a thing? i imagine two scenarios...one, the culprit is for some sick reason proud of his or her handiwork and is leaving it for the next user to admire...two, they are afraid that their load is too much for the septic system to handle. flushing the toilet will create an overflow, resulting in an embarassing situation.

either way, i just don't get it...one of the many mysteries of life i suppose

putting things into perspective

Last week I had the opportunity to take a class called Adventure Recreation Programming, which met every day from 9 to 5. I will concede to the fact that is the closest I will ever come to knowing what it's like to have a real job.The course couldn't have come at a better time in my life. I have been struggling with some issues and it really helped me put things into perspective.

I had a conversation with the owner of the camp where my classmates and I were partaking in a ropes course. He noticed the cross tattoo on my ankle and asked me what it represented. I explained to him that I was particularly close with my grandmother, who died when I was a sophomore in high school. She was really sick near the end of her life, but always found the strength to keep fighting. No matter how much she was hurting, she always tried to smile.

The cross reminds me that we all have our crosses in life to bear.

Right now, my uncle is in the hospital dying of cancer. The pain that he is enduring, the pain that my grandmother felt is beyond my realm of comprehension. So, the next time that I find myself complaining about the fact that my job doesn't pay enough or that it took an extra long time to get home from work because traffic was horrendous, I will think of them, I will think of the millions of other people who are so much worse off than myself and realize that my life is pretty damn good.