One lesson in taste

I cannibalized this article from the Nomadlife homepage.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/food/eat_drink/2008/09/25/jennifer_mclagan/print.html

This woman speaks the truth.

Sometimes always, sometimes never

I received this message from a fortune cookie today.

"Someone in your life is in need of a letter from you."

First of all, I think it's incredibly ironic that I'm blogging about letters, since they've all but been replaced by internet media.

That aside, I can't help but wonder if this is implying that there is someone in my life that I need to reach out to. I feel like it's saying that I've been too superficial in my interactions.


I need to stop right there or else I'll launch into another diatribe on the merits of the lost art of letter writing.

Vexing sense of futility

Watching someone for whom you care suffer is difficult.

But knowing that there is nothing you can do to ease their pain is agony beyond comprehension.


Postscript: Wow, talk about a premonition. Seven hours after the original posting, it actually happened. Before careful what you wish for, especially when the collateral damage extends beyond yourself.

A serial vantage point

I passed this sight on the interstate in my car, and it nearly ran me off the road. Isn't that a gorgeous view?

I don't know what it is about pictures like these, but if I stare at them long enough, inevitably I feel wanderlust creep into my veins.

Life, death, and renewal

It's a strange realization to know that someone can be the cause of so much of your life's agitation.

When you first realize that the attraction exists, usually you might wave it off as a silly crush, or even just passing admiration. But as time passes you realize it goes much deeper than you originally thought. Your gazes linger just a little bit longer, you smile just a little bit warmer, you go out of your way to be just a little bit kinder. You do things that you would never do for anyone else, you go places you would never go normally because they're waiting for you there. Ultimately you're faced with the prospect that you've become a blubbering idiot. And you couldn't be any happier.

But this is where life becomes something less than a sappy movie with a happy ending. Circumstances prevent the two of you from ever coming together, and you know it. It's one of those absolute truths that cannot be fought. And woe to those who think they can convince their heart otherwise. Once it has made its choice, it cannot be swayed.

So what do you do? Your heart has been anchored to an unreachable shore. All you can do is flee in the other direction, and hope that distance, a bit like absence, will not make the heart grow fonder. And sometimes, as luck would have it, it works. But the joke's on you because it only works if you maintain that distance. And if you keep relying on running away as a defense mechanism, where will that leave you after you've chased your demons across the globe? And what about the rest of your life? It's virtually impossible to transplant your job, your family, your friends. Your secret heartache isn't the only thing you would abandon.

So you're stuck.

Your love life, your ultimate happiness is suspended in purgatory while there. While you accept your fate as being simply "just a friend", you nevertheless feel you are a prisoner of your own emotions. Your only chance is to risk everything and escape, a prospect that becomes more and more appealing with each passing day as you come to the further realization that life moves on, whether or not you're ready for it.




So what do you do?