Friday, September 21, 2012

It's hard to dance with someone that won't dance with you...

This is the time of year when I get all excited and am at the top of my creative game. I write more, I sing more, I laugh more and I just create more delight around me in general. Everyone wants a partner in crime, a yin to their yang and there ain’t nothing wrong with wanting a cool mustachioed Oates to go along with your groovy, blond hair flowing, Hall. That is the way relationships are designed to be. The “better half” is just a misnomer because when both halves are in sync and the music is rockin’ then the connection is a good one that’s built to last. Everyone wants that one person they can unwind with and feel like “yeah, that’s all right” with. Harmony at its best.
But, then there are the duds, the turds, the wet blankets, the fake laughers and the overall poop cloud people who have, “No, I don’t want to,” or “I can’t do that,” playing on a loop inside their head each time you ask them to join in on your reindeer games. What a letdown! The disappointment is palpable and after each, “No, let’s don’t but say we did,” quip you start to feel like jackin’ them in the giblets and leaving them in the dust while you go have fun. (Yes, you can giblet-jack a woman too so don’t bother asking) FUN! Life should be fun. Relationships can’t be all work and no play because after a while you’ll just have a crazy fucker chasing you around with an axe during a long, blizzardy winter jaunt playing caretaker at a deserted hotel. Come on! It’ll be fun you said! Fun like an axe in the head. Lighten up Johnny…or Jilly.

 
Here's Johnny!

Here is the thing, every Halloween for many years, I have always dressed up and really gotten into the role of Ghoul Queen. Because I love it! And, for many of those years, I was with someone who refused to share my childlike glee and attitude that even adults deserved to have fun. It wasn’t their thing and they made sure I knew it and after a while it turned into more than just that one day, it became a realization that every day, we had very little in common. I rectified that by changing up players (for more good cause than just this one example) and finally found a daring soul that was willing to jump into my hobbies and enjoyments and this in turn made me very willing to engage in activities that they enjoyed as well. To find someone agreeable to slapping white, gooey make-up all over their face so they looked “acceptably dead” and then watching them stay in character most of the evening without one complaint made my heart sing! That’s the kind of foreplay that really does wonders for a relationship and helps build positive memories that last.

So, what do you do when the person you’re coupled with doesn’t sing in the same key as you or refuses to sing or play or dance or even have any fun with you at all after a while? Well, I’m sure there are those out there that will say, “Oh, you need to be more flexible and try to understand where they’re coming from,” and “Maybe they are just having a bad day, week, month, year….LIFE.” Yeah, that’s it. I’d say SUCK IT to these people because they aren’t the ones feeling dismissed or devalued. Certainly, allowances can be made for the occasional “bad day” here and there but when a day extends throughout the duration of a relationship and it gets to the point where none of your friends even realize you’re still in a relationship anymore because you two never do anything together then it’s time to regroup, re-evaluate and possibly retreat.

 

 
Create excitement through joint experiences whether they started out as your own or not. Learn about the likes and dislikes that each partner has and make an attempt to join in because reciprocity can be a very rewarding payback. Trust me on this. Build a new experience bank that can be withdrawn from again at a later date when both want to recapture a positive moment of connection and you’ll discover that it’s a beautiful thing when two people can laugh together over shared activities. It’s how we learn and grow and it’s also how we keep from getting axed in the head. And, that isn't how we dream properly now is it?
 

 
© 2012 Laura A. Askew, All Rights Reserved
 
Reminder about stealing the creative work of another: It makes you a douche bag of the worst sort.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

This is my land of reverie...

Let me introduce you to the idea of reverie: Definition of "reverie": to daydream...except I do it in a much more awesome manner and not always during the day. The act of reverie includes short daytime jaunts into the world of fancy but at night, her cousin REM can make things take a different turn. Reoccurring dreams can be confusing, bizarre or even frightening. Let's stick with the day trips darlings shall we?



 


As a form of personal introduction you can call me Reverie and here is a little background:



When I was fourteen, I read Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray numerous times over the course of one summer. The words drew me in, lifted me up, and released me from the straight jacket of DNA dysfunction I experienced while outside of their spell. Six hundred and seventeen pages documenting a world I had never been formally introduced to but had stumbled upon, quite by accident, in the discard box at the local library. I longed to be able to create snapshots with words just as Thackeray had and diligently scrawled my pain and fourteen-year-old desires, such as they were, in dozens of college-rule notebooks. To be the author of my very own “Novel Without A Hero” felt so close to me that I could feel the warm breath of literary success brush my cheek to deposit the words, “It will come true,” in my ear.
 
This is why I write and why I believe in the power of dreams.
 
 
Lovingly yours,
 
Reverie

 © 2012 Laura A. Askew, All Rights Reserved

Reminder about stealing the creative work of another: It makes you a douche bag of the worst sort.