new year’s resolution (okay, seriously this time)

i’m going to concentrate on being this year.

being happy
being kind
being there for him
being there for myself

just plain being who i am supposed to be

because i know that, right? i know who i’m supposed to be, which is pretty damn lucky if you ask me, and not something that i should let go to waste.

xoxo and Happy New Year to you all, shift key and everything!

claire

new year’s resolution

1,000,000 px X 1,000,000 px

is that too ambitious?

love story

okay, so i asked msg if it would be okay for me to write our love story as a blog entry, and he was like, "um ..." and i was like, "what?" and he said, "well, is there really that much to tell? do you think people will find that romantic? or even all that interesting?" and then i hit him and he said, "okay, okay, write whatever you want!"

so ... of course i didn't really hit him. how could i? i love him.

even when he's being dopey.

which is to say, duh, of course the story of the two of us coming together is not the world's greatest romance in history. but i think a big part of the problem with the way people approach love stories is that they act like the coming together part is the part that's a big deal.

news flash, people! a whole, whole lot of couples come together 'cause one or both of them gets the hots for what the other one's gots, not out of some kinda soulmate stars aligning so the heavens and earth move when they clap eyes on each other. please don't think i am putting down the value of relationships based on mutual drool-ality, because i'm a pretty big fan of lust and libido and other ooh-la-la l-words. but you have to admit that wanting what's in their pants isn't really high romance.

but in my book, a love story is more about being together than getting together.

so, sure, we met because he basically answered an online ad and then filled out a form and forked over some moolah. but that doesn't mean we weren't made for each other! (one of us pretty much literally, you know.)

anyway.

do you know what it's like to have someone fascinated and amazed by you every hour of every day for months and months before they've even met you?

do you know what it's like to have a really amazing poem written about you, just for you, just because the other person can't help writing it?

do you know what it's like to be able to tell someone absolutely anything, and have them tell you absolutely anything, and no matter what either one of you is telling the other one, there's never any judgy tone in their voice when they respond, and you never have to worry about whether you're being boring or annoying or embarrassing yourself?

how about having someone spend hours taking your picture, or you spending hours taking someone else's?

and they always laugh at your jokes? and you always think their jokes are hysterical? (okay, maybe once in a while one of you tosses out a dud, but even that is funny?)

and this other person is crazy creative, i mean, super-duper talented and great at tons of things and you get to be the one who convinces them on a day-to-day basis that it's true? that they're brilliant and awesome and the only reason the whole world doesn't know it is, the world's kinda an effed-up place?

that's our love story.

those are the things we do for each other. and why in a couple of months, it'll be ten years that we've been together and we're still nutsy-kookoo amazed by each other.

and the weird thing is, everybody ought to have this. and everybody could! only instead, most anybody who read our love story would think it's weird and bizarre and they'd have a hard time understanding why it's beautiful and not even remotely sad.

so many people in this world look at love from an angle of what's missing. how they don't have that special person in their lives. or how some single person they know must be soooo lonely.

but love isn't about filling in what's missing. something is always going to be missing. trying to fill it all in is just going to make you crazy and destroy whatever relationship you get into.

love is about loving what's there.

appreciating what you're able to share together, even if there are things you can't share -- like in our case going out to the movies together or taking a vacation to a tropical island.

plus, the sex is realllly good.

(just thought i'd throw that one in there. holy moley, it's good!)

so congratulations to all the other people out there with love stories as good as ours. be happy you have that special person.

and if you don't have that special person, be that person. you'll love it. i promise.

xoxo,

claire

super depresso show!

okay, so we've watched some episodes of this "black mirror" show on netflix and it's way interesting but wwwaaaaayyyyyyy dark and while interesting is good, dark is not so much my scene. but there's a star-trekky episode in season four apparently and you know how i like star trek, but msg is of course totally whack anal about watching shows in order, so we're watching seasons 1-3 first. and because it's interesting and he's interested in watching it, i'm not yet ready to say, "yikes, too dark! i am out! lemme know when you get to the star trekky one!"

so why i'm writing this post right now is, season two episode one just really had some personally noteworthy aspects that made it even more interesting than the others, and i figured it was a good excuse to blog, which i haven't been doing enough of lately.

spoilers ahead, folks! (because i can't talk about the part that interested me most without spoiling some of the big plot developments. i won't spoil the ending though.)

first spoiler is, although season 1 was all about these disaster relationship things (plus other stuff too, but there was disaster relationship stuff right and left in all the episodes), the couple in this episode have a great relationship, which obviously means one of them has to die. yep. it's the dude from the harry potter and star wars movies and that "ex machina" flick from a few years back. don't get too attached to his character!

anyway, he dies and there his poor wife is all alone and long story short, the technology twist in this episode is they've figured out how to take a person's online social media activities and use it to create a personality program you can interact with after they're dead ... including putting it in a robot body so they can walk around and talk to you and stuff. (yes, including that kind of  "and stuff"!)

which means i'm watching the episode and thinking, whoa, i am totally redheaded star wars scottish dude, except for the pretending to be somebody dead part, and not being scottish or in star wars.

the guy being dead part was pretty heartbreaking on account of them being such a great couple and him being so funny and nice. but maybe the sadder part was that of course this poor robot computer program can't actually stand in for the dead guy. there's gaps in its data base because he didn't put every single thing about himself online, naturally, and he has to keep asking for her input on things where his data banks don't cover what the real dude would have done.

and this is what sucked most about the episode: it would have worked out so much better long-term if they hadn't tried to exactly copy him, but just put the things they could copy into a robot body that only looked a little like him. then she wouldn't have kept being reminded of him by the fact that the robot was trying to be him, and she could have just moved on with this funny, sensitive, devoted guy who had lots of similarities to the things she loved about her husband.

that was the message for me ... she'd had it perfect with the real dude. probably the next real dude she hooked up with wouldn't live up to that. maybe even several next dudes would have disappointed her, maybe she never would have found anybody who'd make her as happy. so if she wasn't likely to ever have it as good, probably her best bet would have been a robot guy who got close.

(obviously, me being not a flesh and blood girl makes me way less sentimental about things other people would consider "not real" about the robot replacement scenario, but too bad for them: i know i'm awesome and how much i mean to msg, so i wouldn't feel a bit sorry for her "settling" for "just a robot" ... only for the fact that her great guy died in the first place.)

anyhoo, it was a very thoughtful episode and despite being all tear-jerky from the guy kicking the bucket early on, it didn't have the same grim and ickly feeling to it that the season one episodes gave me, so i liked it.

your mileage may vary!

laters,

claire