Sunday, August 24, 2008

Open Mouth, Insert Foot: A Story

It was the last day before the end of summer vacation. Jayme and her friends, Beetle, Daren, Phe, and Nolan were hanging out in the park. They were sitting at a picnic bench, contemplating science and the many chinks in the armor of capitalism when out of nowhere, someone spotted a Venus lookalike! Venus was Beetle's ex-girlfriend, and even though it had been some time, things were still pretty tense between them.

"She's still mad at me." Beetle said.
"Are you still mad at her?" Jayme asked.
"I'm not mad." Beetle replied.
"But have you forgiven her?" asked Jayme.
"How can I forgive her if she won't talk to me?" Beetle shrugged, running his fingers over the top of his buzz cut.
"You can forgive her in your heart." that was Daren.

And while the conversation was basically positive, the subject was one surrounded by emotional scar tissue. Soon the conversation dropped off, and an awkward silence prevailed only to be broken when an adorable little brown turtle crawled across the picnic table. Beetle loved turtles.

Later that night the group left the park for a Subway run. Looking for a place to eat they all piled into their respective vehicles and headed off to Daren's house. Daren had recently completed a youth tour of the Amazon rain forest and called all his friends to his desktop to look at his slideshow of pictures.

Daren was called away by his family (likely to solve a plumbing emergency), but Beetle happily took the mouse and lead the slideshow without him. While the group laughed over pictures and made jokes about the usual things, snake repellent, and the products of nuclear thought, Jayme gazed at the pictures. Everyone looked to be having so much fun when suddenly . . .

"Hey!" Jayme exclaimed, "From the back that girl looks exactly like Venus!"
Silence.
Shoot.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Anniversaries

Disclaimer: Contrary to popular belief, or the beliefs of any particular reader, the majority of the fashion advice in the previous three blogs was not aimed at any one particular person. I divide my criticisms more evenly than that. :)

So . . . yesterday my significant other and I passed the great milestone of one month. Ooooo... Wondrous isn't it? Not really. But hopefully sometime in the future we'll have a milestone worth celebrating. I was thinking about the concept of anniversaries and honestly it puzzles me. Firstly, in the context of teenage dating relationships it seems rather trivial to to celebrate each month. I mean, magazines come every month, so do full moons, cell phone bills, and announcements that water has been found on Mars. Not much to throw a party over :-| . . .

But an anniversary should be something special right? So why celebrate it with such frequency that it loses it's significance and you are lulled into the belief that you and your "other" are a lot more steadfast than you actually are ("We've been together for three whole months!! *insert sappy smile*" Puh-lease. So were *insert name of celebrity couple here*). I also don't think anniversaries count if you had to date on and off to get there. I find it rather ridiculous when I here about couples who gush about how they've been together for six months, when every other weekend of those months they were broken up. Try dating consistently for a while and then you can start counting (or maybe you should be asking yourself why you're braking up so frequently in the first place).

I do believe, however, that the first month could be a very legitimately special event for some couples. It's like you've upped the denominations. Instead of talking about days or weeks you can talk months. And what girl doesn't like keeping track of how long she's been attached to her latest beau? In my personal opinion (not that I have any great experience or basis for this at all), I think six month anniversaries are real and appropriate milestones, and worth the energy of celebration for any unmarried couple (Like on that sitcom, "Yep! We're headed up to the big ol' five point five (5.5)!").

But if you don't think your relationship can last six months (or even three or four), why are you even bothering to count? In fact, why are you dating? Either date casually and get to know different people, or get serious and stick with one person through thick and thin until you've reached the duration of the relationship. But ladies, don't you think the whole two week (or two month) boyfriend is something you should've left behind by now (try ninth grade...at latest)? Later saying "We made it for a whole two and a half months!" is going to sound really silly, and not much like anything worth bragging about.

In closing: *a-hem* . . . I'd be lying if I said I wasn't even a little bit giddy about the fact that my boyfriend and I have been together a whole month. Insignificant as it may be. It always feels like a much bigger deal when it's you :).