it is firsts

Here is a list of some of the firsts that I have done this year.....

Sang karaoke.
Sang at an open mic night.
Ate sushi, real sushi not the fake stuff.
Rented a car.
Read a book, cover to cover on the beach.
Waxed my legs.
Bought and then subsequently wore a thong.
Grew tomatoes.
Ordered a martini at a bar.
Fell in love.
Had my heartbroken.
Made latkes.
Went on a date with a stranger.
Drank Dom Perignon
Saw a Harry Potter film in theaters.
Ate a beet and liked it.
Learned to play black jack.
Was offered a cigarette.
Ate an oyster and didn't like it.
Drank a gin and tonic.
Drank a whisky and soda, I felt just like Amelia Peabody :-)
Kissed a boy.
Fell in love with blue cheese.
Made fresh pasta.

Hope your year was full of great fun and I hope this next year is better than the last. :-)

it is looking for love, in all the wrong places

I've been listening to the radio a lot lately. Not sure why, the car I am presently driving has a CD player and I have stocked it chock full of Cold Play, Ingrid, Mumford, Imogen, Tim McGraw and the like yet for some reason I've been listening to the DJ's actually paying attention to Usher lyrics and singing along to Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros. These last few weeks I've been on a path of self-discovery. Actually this can be said of my entire year however this past month has felt different. I am struggling with selfishness, forgiveness and forgetting somethings and remembering others. One of the things I am learning about the world is how exactly it views love. During the whole mess with Adam and I, the most painfully obvious bit was that he didn't value, want or maybe appreciate is the right word, my love. As I've been listening to the songs climbing the charts I'm realizing that the world views love differently than I. They use the word to often, too quickly and not with the weight my love actually means. As Usher is pumping out DJ's got us falling in love, I'm thinking of what type of love that is. It most assuredly isn't deep passionate 'til death love. One of my favorite movies is Paris Je t'aime (don't bother with the sequel New York I Love you, it's not worth it). The film consists of several shorts each telling a story of a kind of love, in the city of love. They express love in tolerance, acceptance, trust, passion, family, loss, infatuation. There is a reason each of these words exist but as the DJ's play song after song about one night stands, summer flings, winter rendezvous and passionate affairs all the song lyricists use the same word, L-O-V-E. (Before you go off and say, this is just the age we live in, people just don't know what it is to love anymore, I remember the good old days, stop. These songs and these ideas of shallow love have existed since the beginning of time.) I know I am not alone in the world, viewing love the way I do. I know there are men and women out there who believe that love is more than a psychical attraction, more than a chemical reaction and lasts longer than a day, a month, or a year. I think that is one of the issues I am fighting with myself on right now. I don't want Adam anymore, mainly because he has made it painfully clear he doesn't want me. But how do you stop loving someone? And does that make me a fool either way? If I stop loving him what does that make my love? Fickle, fair weather? But he doesn't love or want me so doesn't that make me a bigger fool to still love him? It is coming on a new year. Last year this time I made a resolution to not live in regrets. To take risks, to take chances, to live. And I have. I have done a lot of that. It was good. It was hard. It has been worth it. Now this coming year I will resolve to learn to let go, and then most important of all how to forgive myself for doing so.

it is PASTA PASTA PASTA!!!

HAHA! Well I hope you all had a ver very merry Christmas. I sure did. It was full of family friends and food. Who can ask for more? Best present was most assuredly the pasta maker and cuisinart from my parents. Oh and the pasta was YUMMY! I cannot wait to try the million recipes I have back logged in my head involving fresh ravioli. YUMMMMY! :-) We cooked for about 4 hours and ate for about 10. We concluded the night sword-fighting on the Wii. It was so much fun and we were so tired when we finally collapsed into very happy slumbers.
Merry Merry Holidays everyone. May this next year bring more joy, more laughter, more happiness and much more peace than ever before. And of course more pasta :-)
Ciao,
Bex

it is a dreaming mind and a hurting heart

So to continue my dream saga of last week, I had a dream about Adam. I don't remember the dream contents much just that we hugged (big hugging theme last week, apparently I've been needing more hugs in my life). In the dream my skin itched with missing his touch. I heard it described really well in a film the other day - electric velvet. But my heart, my heart felt like it was trying to force itself into a puzzle piece that it didn't belong. It shoved and squished itself into his piece but it was so uncomfortable it popped back out and then I pushed him away. I felt like this dream pretty much summed up how I've been feeling lately. I am at war with myself. My physical misses him so much but my head and my heart says we don't fit. I know they are right. I know I'm on the path to healing. I know it will only get better with time. I know all these things but it doesn't mean I don't ache, that my arms don't want to hold him and my head doesn't want to rest on his shoulder.
He's been coming into my little shop quite frequently lately. I told him he could, and it was fine for a bit. But now, it just hurts. I don't know what to do about it. I feel rude when I don't talk to him. But talking to him seems to make it worse. I don't know what to do. Je ne sais pas.

it is an attempt

I've been trying to write this blog for days now. I am not sure I have it all situated in my head to say what I feel needs to be said but I am going to try.

It is almost Christmas. And so Christmas music is playing on half of the radio stations and the stores are over stuffed with plush toys, ribbons and fir trees. In fact as I am sitting here I am in my little shop, alone, I have turned off all the glaring fluorescents and left my 1100 twinkle lights shining with my Christmas play list blaring through my iPod. It is almost magical actually. I love it.

I have had a couple of interesting dreams the last few days. The first was maybe Monday, I had a dream that I hugged six people. There was no connectivity in this dream, just random snippets of scenes in where I would hug so and so and each person/hug was met with a wash of a different emotion. So I set out to hug these people, for two reasons 1) I knew all these people and all but 1 I have hugged before, so it wouldn't be so awkward and 2) because it is a dream that could come true and who doesn't want that. I have hugged 4 of the 6 and what I find interesting is that each emotion that I felt in the dream has touched me in each hug I have so far performed. I am interested to find out about the last two, their emotions in the dream were hard to decipher. The second dream I had this past week that has haunted me a bit was a that a friend of mine asked me why I loved so many things. The first thing that came out of my mouth in the dream was "because God does." This is not an answer I think I would have come up with on my own in my conscious mind so it has left me pondering why I really do love the random things I love and is it simply because God does. If I am going to use that logic I would have to love everything and since it is entirely impossible for me to love every single thing in the world (especially mosquitoes, hairy spiders, little sneaky spiders, serial killers and pedophiles) I've determined this is a faulty reason. So I am on a little path of self-discovery and dream fulfilling this week. I kindo like it. :-)

Tonight I was able to do one of my most favorite Christmas traditions, blasting Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas and dance like a mad woman while closing my little shop. What was most fun about tonight was that two girls joined me :-) Thank you AK and AM for boogie-ing down with me tonight. It was the first time I really felt in the Christmas spirit this year. I needed that overwhelming, crazy, out of control, santa clause is coming to town joy that Christmas is. You have no idea how happy my little heart was to share that moment, you made it a memory I won't forget until I am old and gray and have forgotten my own name :-)

This year has been a great year, a year of first, A LOT of firsts. Some bad, most good. Good or bad I wouldn't not have want to go through them. And tonight as I am sitting in my little shop and my twinkle lights are sparkling and the most wretched rendition of Oh Holy Night is playing over the iPod (I really must go through my Christmas music better next year) I am filled with anticipation of next year. Hopefully it will be full of new firsts and maybe a few repeats.