rules of engagment?

so how exactly does one proceed from interested stranger to intimate friendship?

rules? strategy? opportunity? luck, looks, likes, love????

the only tip i've ever been given is that they like a challenge. i promise i can be that.

but how to engage the initial interest?

it bothers me that i even ask these questions because i don't want it to be neccesary for me to solicite attention. even with my recently quite blonde hair and my new affinity to bright colors i don't function with the intention of making people notice me.

but i do want him to notice me. to be interested. to pursue.

a little eye contact. a brief introduction. an odd joke. laughter. encounter finished.

it's nothing to go on.

but i feel so pent up about it. so utterly without influence on the situation.

and incredibly impatient.

everybody noticed the tall cowboy when he walked in. at least every single female.
there will be competition.

under my shallow attractions and frustrated impatience. i really am looking for a friend.

i'll shut up. i'll wait.

advice welcome.

make up your madness

"what are your plans for today?" my dad asks me this morning. "not like, today-today," he adds, " but your plans today?
"i don't know." i say. and continue to stare at my cereal.

remember how in school the mulitple choice question tests were always the best? the idea that one of the answers would unquestionably be provided in writing was almost always more comforting than trying to fish one out of the ai-eerhh eh i mean out of your memory.

life is a little bit like that. only the answers are now labeled well beyond D, there is no "all of the above" option and there is more to it; you have to figure out the real question, not just the answer.

that's how i feel. a hundred mulitple choices, each equally valid and enticing.....and i'm still not sure about the question.

when? where? in what order? to what end? for whom?

"3,500 miles away..."

all i know is that i'm not confused at all about how i feel. i just feel it. which isn't exactly normal at all, but i could get used to the idea. especially in retrospect of the emotional roller coaster i have ridden the past two months, along with my tendancy towards feeling quite fickle, this, this i'm just not confused about.

i would look at you because i liked what i saw, that's not new to me. the funny thing was just how often your eyes were already looking for me. what did you see? i wonder. not what it means or what could come of it, strangely i didn't wonder those things. i don't think i will bother to ask those questions tonight.

i feel no need to hide my revelation of opinion on the matter. likewise i feel no need to act upon it either. that's up to you, and i'm okay with that as well.

it's just such a peace to know that simply put i like you. like, without all the misconceptions and inferences that accompany such a statement, just simply like.

it wasn't anything. there isn't 'something'. but it could have been, it could have been the beginning of something.

as always my experiences, opinions and feelings toward such are left to the workings of time.

rather it is in God's hands, the likes of which i am thankfully becoming more and more reassured with, and i will not make anything more of my feelings than what they are.

lofty promises - true, but attainable.

you might forget me, i might forget you. but if i ever meet your eyes again i know i'll remember...and i'll like it.

iPod iBlog iGo

it should be classified as an obsession, but given the fact that it's only lasted a few days i am glad that the fever will pass. what fever is that you wonder? the one that has kept me up till at least 1:30am the last few nights. loading my new iPod. it is a terribly tedious process converting all my existing files and then ripping album after album from their scratched plastic discs onto my now quite congested hard drive, only to wait for them to assimilate in thier shiny white new home. elmer. i named the iPod elmer. i don't know why exactly except that when i went to name it as i was promted by the installation process to do calling it ''julie's iPod'' just wouldn't do at all, and elmer was the obvious alternative. so elmer it is.

elmer and i will be leaving in 8 hrs (yes, i will try to sleep, shower, eat and drive to the airport in that time) for Toronto together. the company during my 12+ expected hours of traveling will be a delight, though it will only put the smallest mark of a thought of a dent in the ''earning it's worth'' required to equal the bucks shelled out for this my newest of technological aquisitions.

well that's enough prose for 1 o'clock in the morning. off to bridesmaid endeavor 2005 #2 - Rhiana (already) Ehara awaits me. so off I go.

toronto via minniapolis, detriot, and buffalo; both greyhound bus and consequent taxi ride not to be forgotten.

iPod, iBlog, iGo.

Goodnight.

not this season

You're just behind me. I swear if I just turn around you'll be there.

My phone is about to ring. You're on your way to meet me right now, I'll only be waiting a few more minutes.

My phone stays silent and still. Eventually I finish my coffee, turn off my laptop and go home, alone. Maybe next time.

I don't really feel impatient, I'm content to wait for you to come at just the right time. This week I just feel on edge, like you just might come up behind me and poke my side. With a quick gasp that would lead immediatly into a blush I would turn around and this feeling of my heart holding its breath would go. Then there would be two coffees and conversation and....

I'm only guessing. Usually I try not to think about you at all. But today you feel too close, no more near to me than your usual absense, but somehow close.

These days I enter a room and instinct has my eyes scanning the room before I realize I have no idea who I'm looking for.

One coffee. Just my laptop, my coffee and me.

What's better than one cup of coffee?

Nothing.

Unless I could stop wishing for two.

Bartender

I love winning! I LOVE winning!" he said laughing loudly over the bar. And he was a man, she knew, who had come to love winning because he always, always, did; except once. Or at least once when it mattered most. For that loss he had found no forgiveness, it was obvious in the tone of his voice that begged someone to defy him. He had a daughter once, from his first marriage. She died when she was three months old. He had told her as much among other details woven into the afternoon’s stories.

"Tell her the one about that time you...." his companion would say as she laid a hand on his arm. Without missing a beat, another story of this party or that woman would flow seamlessly with the preceding topic of conversation. So for what seemed like the better part of the overcast afternoon she listened, often laughing for lack of an appropriate response to his tales of less than appropriate behavior. More often though she strove to school her features and control the blushing that so frequently gave away her innocence. He was a shameless flirt and, if not altogether forward, the older man had no qualms about talking of lovemaking and mistress-taking among other things.

Yet they talked of other things too. Travel, culture, family and, breaking nearly every rule a bartender should wisely follow, they even spoke of ethics and religion. She was never shy to plainly state her chosen direction in life and talk about the person who inspired her to do so. Yet regardless of the fact that he knew her beliefs it could only be described as surprise, pity and respect wound together in the man's eyes when she quietly asserted that, despite his heartfelt advice to embrace youth and love with as many as she could or would, she intended to love and be with only one man.

It was humbling, she admitted to herself, to take such an unmoving stance on a subject which she was by far the least educated or experienced among the three conversing. Even believing herself to sound idealistic, something she left behind years ago, and in that likely sounding quite foolish as well, it was without embarrassment that she gave no hint of second guessing herself; that, she did not do. For she truly did believe, even in that humbling moment, that she would find just one.

"I'm so proud of you," he began. "That your religion is so important to you. I think it's just such a great thing. I am not a very religious man, at all. But I think it's great for you."
It was not the first time she had heard him say this, except this time he went on.
"It used to be different for me though. But when my daughter died of leukemia we parted ways and it's been that way ever since. You don't mess with me," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. "You screw with me and that's it!"
With an emphatic slap on the bar he took his wine glass in hand, as if to portray a casual confidence in his statement, and continued.
"God took my daughter away from me which He should NOT have done. Jesus f$%^&*# owes me one!"
He looked away, sipping the chardonnay with none of the heat and emotion in his voice and words affecting his outward appearance.
"Explain to me how God would let a wave come up out of the ocean and kill 200,000 people if he was really out there anyways?"

Immediately the conversation shifted as he, again without pause, joined the conversation that had started nearby. She, however, was still leaning against the counter on her side of the bar speechless, just as she had found herself throughout his entire exposition. Bitterness and grief had hung so heavily to his words that it was not a nervous blush she had worked to conceal but the tears that sprung unbidden to her eyes. Carefully she had been able to keep them from showing as he spoke looking directly at her. He did not want her pity, she knew, and neither were there any words, had she thought of some, that would have reached his ears while he spoke of this long-harbored grudge against God and the injustice done to him. Still taken aback by the open door she had just seen into this man's past, it was the surge of compassion that came with her tears which found resolution in taking this man up on a request he had made earlier. He had commented on her religious beliefs before, but the first time that day he had brought it up was to say, "Next time you talk to Him, tell God I could use some help." After this explanation of their estrangement her answer, though not out loud, was to reply simply, "I will pray for you Jack. I will."

It is not every day you see a piece of a man's soul, even less often the bound and tormented pieces of one who is the picture of success, wealth and freedom. She did that day. She saw the truth that a man who loved winning had tragically lost a daughter, but truly he had chosen his own greatest tragedy and lost so much more.

Quote for today:

Love is like pop rox and coke.
It makes your stomach tickle, and
sometimes hurt, but you always get better.
They never explode you.

- Jean Scott Rockenmacher

rain

All last night I woke up on and off, somewhat frustrated by my lack of restful sleep (par these days), but each time I heard the rythmic drone of rain outside my window. When I woke up this morning the rain was still there. All day it has continued to pour, and now at the end of the day it is still raining and I look forward to whatever measure of sleep I can obtain being accompanied by the steady pace of drops from the eaves and a breeze of cool fresh air.

The consistancy of the rain was comforting as I feel very little of that quality in myself at present. Certain things remain in me which entertain no doubt, while others find me speechlessly humming and hawing to myself, rapidy spinning life itineraries and juggling possibilities, or just getting lost in the jungle of cyber-space trying to find information that will somehow abate whatever my current feverish curiousity may be. In the same breath I can express my satisfaction with the status quo and my desperate desire to be ordinary while in complete contradiction, with no space audible, I will tell you that I am in every way insatiable with the endless possibilities and indiscernable paths my life can and should be taking. Though God is still unchanging and consistant in his offer for peace and relationship I can not lie and say that the God-part of me is not likewise plagued with unpredictable emotional opinions just like the rest of my life.

From inhale to exhale I feel differently about the world, about my role in it and about what decisions I want to make and those that I must. I feel lonley, I feel comfort, I feel distress, I know peace, I want adventure, I am eased by routine, I lack resolve, I am unmovable, I am ... utterly unaquainted with myself in this state of instability.

But I'm glad it rained.

I had coffee with the friend closest to my heart. I got new headlights for my car. I went to the library. I wandered around a book shop. I bought a map of Europe. I bought a book for my brother. I had coffee again. I looked a plane tickets on the internet.

The hurricane is on the inside. Outside is just the steady comfort of falling rain.