Articulations from the Extroverted Introvert

“What do you want? I already gave you a hug didn’t I? …okay, well what do you want to talk about? What’s new with you?”
      “Not much, looking forward to college”
“Oh, you’ll do great in college. I barely made it through high school, but thankfully I joined the Navy. That was a great job. I should have stayed in there longer. I was a Sea Bee, do you know what that is? Well … and there were so many things I did… the golf course in the Philippines … then there was that one time … another cute little story … we carried out the file cabinet and everyone thought it was a casket! … my buddy did … and that lake in Iowa, he helped build the dam… this one guy, we called him Speed…” 
      Smile and nod. Laugh when appropriate. 
“Do you want a drink? I’ll get you one… just drink some of the foam on the top…you’re mom doesn’t have to know everything… don’t you want to know what to look forward to? Have you even tasted it before? Never? Oh you have to at least taste it. If you don’t like it you can just spit it out… come on, take a sip… have some of mine! ”
      Laugh heartily, enjoying this persistent tradition. “Give me four more years and I’ll have one with you.”
“How do you know I’ll be alive that long? I have to be alive for that to happen.”   
      (inward cringe) “Then you better stay alive four more years Grandpa.” (outward smile)
“I can’t even convince my own granddaughter of anything. When I was young…I did so many things…I never would have thought… and now I have this great big family. Twenty grandkids! Have you seen the picture of the twins? Here, look…I get to hold the little ones because they live next door and I’ll get one of them, look into his eyes and he just laughs and laughs… there are so many grandkids… twenty of them right? …there’s so many people in our family … I’ve lived a good life…”
     “I have my senior pictures, would you like one?”
“Of course! Bring ’em out here… I like the one in color … I’ll put it in my wallet and tell the guys I have a new girlfriend…they’ll get jealous… I eat breakfast with them every morning at HyVee, you know, the one in Moline on 23rd St. … the cook almost has my eggs on the table before I’m done paying… I like mornings… Grandma is never awake and I get up early…”
     Mental note to self: Never forget this, remember all of it. From his breath that reeks of beer to his dark colored shirt with little white dots on it. His crew cut hair that is a mixture of white and gray and the tattoos on each arm, remember it. The way he laughs and chuckles at his own stories and the way he moves closer to touch my arm as if making sure I am fully listening, remember it.
“You’re not Catholic are you? I’m sorry… I guess you can choose to be raised a different way… but as long as you believe in God, that’s the most important thing…”
      Sigh. If only you knew how much I love Jesus. I believe with all my heart and am not trying to be rebellious by not going to Mass at the Catholic church with everyone else. 
“Oh look, more cousins! There’s Bret, I drank with him last night… you know the East End Club? … nicest people ever … it’s a club, not a bar… you’ve been there before right? …it’s a real nice place… the people are all so nice…I would love to own a place like that… I’m a shareholder you know… doesn’t do much for me, just a nice dinner with the rest of the shareholders once a year… your cousins, now what are their names? I have so many grandchildren you know… I can’t remember all of them! What’s his name… and hers … and that’s– Kelli right? I just can’t remember it all … I’m getting too old to remember … they have me taking memory pills now … isn’t that horrible? You understand right? I just can’t remember them all…”
    “Yes, I understand. It’s okay, there are tons of grandkids.”
      Except I wish this wasn’t how it has to be.
“Here’s your mom. What’ cha doing Spooky? I’ve got some good company. You’re lovely daughter over here has been educating me. About SEX.”
      Grin and laugh. How funny. That’s probably the furthest from the truth, but I won’t tell them. Oh Grandpa, I love you.     
“I’m going to be right back, but you make sure no one takes my chair because we’re having a good time, right? Okay, watch my chair. You might have to scooch in though, I don’t think this belly of mine will make it through..”  
      Okay Grandpa. I’ll stay here. We are having a good time, but it hurts me to see you this way. I wish you knew my name. At least you know that I am Kelly’s daughter and your granddaughter, but what happens when you forget that and don’t recognize me? I don’t want that day to come. It is inevitable however. All of those war stories, you told me last year. I know you don’t remember that, but please don’t forget anymore. Please? Remember me okay? That picture in your wallet is me. If you ever do forget, just look on the back for my note. To Grandpa with love from your granddaughter Samantha. 
       

I love people. I love watching and observing them go about their everyday lives. I love trying to guess what they may be thinking and feeling.  

If you could give me a super power, I would want to be able to fully understand others.  I’d want to know for sure what they’re thinking. How things make them feel. I don’t only want to know what they are thinking and feeling, but why they feel that way. Isn’t it remarkable how people react differently to the same situation? Each individual forms their own separate opinions about an issue. Sometimes similar, other times polar opposites.

Sure, now I can hear and see most people’s most people’s reactions, but I can never truly know exactly how they feel. Or why they feel that way. The closest I can come to it is to speculate. I will never understand why anyone else comes to conclusions they do, or the thought process behind that conclusion. I can hardly understand why/how I come to conclusions. I will never understand boys and how their thought process operates. I will be able to empathize with girls better, naturally, but even they will never fully make sense to me.

Don’t you ever want to travel into someone else’s thoughts to figure out more about them? To better understand them? Know for sure if they really mean something or are exaggerating just a tad? How they really feel about a situation - not just their fake way of pretending it’s all okay. Doesn’t that intrigue you?

I will never understand it. And as I wonder about all of this, I’m guessing you are wondering why the heck do I care this much and what more specifically do I want to know? You’ll never understand it either.

Song lyrics from Superman (It’s Not Easy)  - Five for Fighting

Exactly a year ago this month, in a notebook that likes to sit under my bed and collect dust, I wrote a short stanza about crying. If you know me well at all you know that I rarely cry. Funerals are my one exception to public crying, otherwise I think it has happened maybe 5 times in front of other people my entire life (and all of those times were within the last two years). The little notebook entry is titled “A Tear and a Half.” Basically, it is about my inability to cry, because so many tears have been wasted that there are none left. Regardless of how upset I am, it is very difficult for me to cry.

Tonight, I saw The Holiday with a group of girls. I thought the movie was very good, with plenty of emotional moments (don’t worry, they all cried). Anyway, one of the characters, Amanda, is also unable to cry. She hasn’t cried since she was 15, which is significant because by that time she’s probably in her late 20’s or early 30’s. Apparently, when she was fifteen her parents got divorced causing her to cry herself to sleep for a very long time but then quit forever. She didn’t really mean to never cry again, she merely put up a wall so to speak that protected her from being terribly attached. A few different times during the movie she screams or fake sobs when she is upset and tries so hard to cry but just can’t. The whole time I am sitting there thinking, No way! Someone else tries that hard to cry but can’t? I’m not the only one? She starts to pretend cry too but still can’t cry! Crazy!

What the heck? Why am I so bad at crying? I don’t really want to be that way. My eyes water all the time really randomly, and I’ve decided it’s probably because my eyes never see any real tears. I found it odd to relate so well to this character. Obviously, movies are written in a way so that you will hopefully relate well to at least one of the characters in some way, but this trait I found somewhat uncommon in a character (and incredibly cheesy all at the same time).

Why is that? My family are all big criers so why aren’t I? If I feel like crying, guess what? I can’t do that. All I can do is scrunch up my face and pace around when I am upset. That’s totally not fair.  It is really hard to not be able to cry. Sometimes I feel as though people don’t really think I am all that upset about things that are horrible and truly upset me.

Song lyrics from Cry from the A Walk to Remember Soundtrack

You know what?

I am very good at wrapping presents. Really I am. It’s rather shocking apparently. Most see me as “more of a bag person.” Nope, if I can find a box it shall be wrapped and very beautifully at that.

I love that about gifts- the fact that they are wrapped. You can accept it knowing that whether or not they spent tons of money, time, and effort on it or very little at all, they still wrapped it. Looking for the perfect brightly colored paper they had you in mind. As each corner was tightly pulled, they thought of you. As the ribbon was neatly placed over their careful wrapping, they smiled knowing those curly silver strands would make your little eyes light up. When they admire their handiwork they think about your happy anticipation of what may be inside the wonderfully wrapped package. The whole 10 minute process is done with much love and care, knowing that very soon you will rip it all up.

Why? Isn’t the part you remember the actual gift itself? Or at least that’s what you thank them for. It’s certainly not necessary to wrap a gift, because they are already doing more than what is required by giving you a gift.  It’s really a waste of time, because in more cases than not- the one who wrapped the gift ends up cleaning the mess you made on the floor with all the paper as you cheerfully run off to occupy your time with something else.

I have come to appreciate this small, seemingly insignificant act. I genuinely enjoy the little things in life.

Merry Christmas

Okay, this is just to prove to you all that I don’t completely want Apple to go out of business, and that the last blog posted was funny but also irrational…mainly due to the immense amount of music they lost of mine. If you haven’t yet, I’d recommend reading it.

A while back Ryan Tow posted a blog about Apple’s cover flow and typed up one of some of his music that contained some of the same words. Tommy Ogden then followed with a Ben Folds cover flow version of his own. Surely, other blogging individuals followed with their own renditions of a cover flow. Mine shall be slightly different; I’ll make one based on the songs from the blog titles. This is then called “Blog Flow” and looks like this: (from beginning to most recent)

1. When I Look to the Sky - Train “When it rains, it pours and opens doors that flood the floors”   *gone*
2. You’re so Vain - Carly Simon “I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee” 
3. You’ve got a Friend - James Taylor “To brighten up even your darkest nights”
4. Living Life - Ben Kweller “The greenest trees you’ll ever see”
5. If I Die - Fairfax “In a song that stretches the sky”
6. Sleep - Riley Armstrong “There’s one thing for certain in life and that’s-today I’m going to eat cereal” 
7.  Dancing with Myself - The Donnas “When there’s nothing to lose and there’s nothing to prove”
8.  Don’t Wake Me Up - The Hush Sound “The light had slipped through the window” *gone*
9.  Me Voy- Julieta Venegas “Me voy que lastima pero adios”
10.  Coffee Bean Cafe - Simeon’s Dream “People crave only caffeine, but I crave the one who is unseen”
11. Ironic - Alanis Morissette “Who would’ve thought…it figures”
12. Popular - Kristen Chenoweth “So let’s start, ’cause you’ve got an awfully long way to go”
13. Out of My League - Stephen Speaks “As the world spins around she laughs, rolls her eyes”
14. This Can’t be Love - Flight 180 “My head is not in the sky”
15. Blah Blah Blah - Rockapella “Honey, the way you talk- you could be a lawyer…or a politician”
16. That Was the Worst Christmas Ever! - Sufjan Stevens “Can you be what you are?”
17. I Play Music - Rosie Thomas “When I was young, I did it my way…and I still do”

 I hate Apple and ipods and itunes right now with an aboslute passion. I hate everything about it and their incredibly intelligent monopoly on music and all industries tied to it. I hate the way the nicely sorted music can disappear in a moment and there is not even an apology, let alone a refund or a helpful e-mail explaining how to salvage what remains. I hate how they overcharge me a ridiculous amount of money for music without even supplying the lyrics to me. I hate that even though I bought the music, or maybe I didn’t buy it from them and simply imported my cd into itunes, they still technically own it. I hate all the licenses they have so cleverly instilled into the music so that even if you try to get it off of itunes you can’t.   I hate their warranties that last a mere year without additional charge, which coincidently seems to be about the same length of time all of their products last. But if you were gullible enough to purchase a longer warranty, it really doesn’t help because within two years whatever product you have from them is practically obsolete. If that happens the store employees will look at you like you have been living under a rock because obviously they “don’t carry that anymore” and there really is not much they can do to fix it, except offer you a ten percent discount on the newest money sucking gadget. I hate how all their new products somehow cost much more yet have less features. (Did anyone else notice a power adapter missing the last time they bought an ipod? Yep, that’s an extra 30 dollars now. Gee, thanks.)  I hate all of the accesories that can be bought separately. Once they know you are buying the ipod and of course all of the music, they immediately press hundreds of other products like speakers, car adapters, cases, headphones, armbands, and other ridiculous junk giving you the impression that without all of that it really doesn’t work the way you want it to, in fact, without all the other stuff there’s really no point to have the ipod you just bought. 

Would somebody please sue Apple?

It’s as though the half-eaten apple symbol of theirs should be more of a warning. Why is the apple not whole and perfect? Or if it is eaten, why only one bite? What happened to the person that ate the one bite? Have we learned nothing from Snow White!? In different translations from the original German story of Snow White, the apple is described as “the most tempting apple you could hope to see.”  and “it was so beautiful to look upon that all who saw it longed for it; but it brought death to any who should eat it.” 

Well kids, sad to say it but- I will be away from the blog for the next few days. Finals are really lame, and unfortunately I am taking all of them. They probably won’t completely destroy my grade point average, but they will however destroy my sleep, Christmas shopping, and social engagements for this week.

Before I go, please answer me this question about scholarships as I have recently been inundated with them. Why is it that being able to write well for a page or two equals success and money as far as scholarships are concerned, when in reality, the ability to write rarely pays well, nor does it necessarily make a person more qualified for a number of occupations in America? I do not understand. Why can’t scholarships interview you like real jobs that pay money or look at a resume of skills and accomplishments? Why must they make you also spend countless hours writing answers to ridiculous prompts such as “How would you use a million dollars in your city?”  or “What’s the biggest problem in the world today?”  

Watch me not get any of these scholarships. I might laugh a bit. Then cry over all the lost time and effort that has gone into them.

As I was reading a book titled True Love a few months ago, I came across this story that at the time I thought, hmm that’s kinda weird. Of course now, my how the times have changed.

The book is a non-fiction book that I came across by accident when I was at the library searching for material to use for my research paper. It was so plain and simple, which is a trait that I love about almost anything. Apparently, the author sat in a coffee shop in Seattle with a sign that said something along the lines of “Tell me your true story about love and I’ll buy you coffee and make you famous.” Needless to say, large numbers of people took him up on his offer, and he compiled all of those stories into this book. It contains all sorts of stories. Some examples are: A woman who ended up marrying her mom’s high school sweetheart. A man who loved another woman from afar and wished to one day be with her, but because she had a boyfriend he waited paciently, and later heard that she married that boyfriend. At a wedding of a different couple, the minister read a note written by the bride when they were in second grade telling the groom that she loved him and if he didn’t love her back she’d cry and want to die.

The story that I found myself thinking is really silly is one about a woman that said she found love every morning with a smile and a cup of coffee. Her favorite love story consisted of going to get her morning coffee at a local coffee shop and being treated kindly by the friendly guy that served it to her. That was basically the entire story. It was not like some of the other ones that eventually led to them “falling in love” and later getting married. It stopped at that.

So, recently I have found my own little “coffee guy” to brighten my day, so to speak. It is really nothing and I don’t even know his name, however when I go to the bank there he is. He knows me by name as I approach the counter to cash or deposit my checks and we chat about dozens of little things before I leave to go about the rest of my day as he goes about his. It will never become anything more than that. Nevertheless, I look forward to going to the bank now, and I can’t help but think that he might look forward to those short moments as well.

 I have decided that if you are reading this then you owe me a minimum of $10.95 as soon as possible. Yes, I do accept personal checks and cash…sorry, no credit cards at this time.

If you have ever been a 5th grade girl you would know what I am refering to when I mention the book series by Marissa Moss about a girl named Amelia.  If you can’t remember, this should jog your memory a bit. 

Amelia is a girl that writes all about her life as a middle school student and loves to use funny phrases, draw all over her notebook, and share intriguing thoughts that are on her mind. The books hardly have any major plot line, in fact the biggest appeal is the random stories and pictures mixed into Amelia’s journals that can contain anything from a full diagram of the latest inedible piece of food from the cafeteria, to her deepest secrets (who she likes-  duh). 

Yes, and as I think back to those fun books I have realized that essentially- I am providing the same services. Sure, a few differences, but let’s be honest here. Look at it this way:

Samantha is a girl that writes all about her life as a high school student and loves to use funny phrases, write all over her notebook, and share intriguing thoughts that are on her mind. The blog hardly has any major plot line, in fact the biggest appeal is the random stories and pictures mixed into Samantha’s blog entries that can contain anything from a full tribute to her watch after its death, to her goofy dreams and hopes (to get her lip pierced-  duh).

Paperback edition $10.95         Hardback edition  $19.95

Pay up.

Okay, someone explain it to me… why do I look so stinkin’ young? Today at the insurance company I heard the whole “You aren’t a senior yet, are you? You look too young to–”
    “Yes, I’m a senior!”

I cut her off before she embarrassed herself any more. Really though, someone tell me what I need to do to make myself at least look my age, if not a year or two older. It’s annoying to constantly hear how young you must be. This is not an unusual occurance. Just last week a guy asked if I was a freshman or a sophomore in high school.  I’m also pretty tired of hearing the ever so common NOT comforting phrase that follows: ”Well, don’t worry, when you’re 80 you’ll love it, because you will look 60 instead!” HAH! Good one. Really helps me now, 63 years prior to that time when I will relish looking younger.

Earlier today, before going to the insurance office, I was joking with my friends about this recent reality of mine. I asked questions like, what’s it going to be like if say, one day I get married. Will people look at me and think “Gosh, she should at least go to college first” regardless of my real age? Or what if after I get married, I get pregnant…will people just assume I am another unwed teen mother? See, there are some unpleasant repercussions to looking younger.

What is it about me that makes me look so young? Is it the fact that I don’t wear make-up? Wear boring clothes? Have an elementary haircut? Am incredibly “innocent”? Don’t go tanning (ever) ? Have big cheeks? Am super short? Giggle too often?

Okay, okay… all of those are true but seriously! Just because I wear clothes from freshman year or am unable to reach the top shelf due to my height, does really make me look that much younger?

I’m open to advice.