What's the Protocol?

In the past few weeks, I’ve read (on one of my favorite blogs, Variety is the Spice) and had conversations with multiple people about the proper course of action to take when you don’t like a friend or relative’s boyfriend. (Or girlfriend).

In theory, I want my friends and/or family to tell me if they don’t like who I'm dating. An outside perspective can be good and helpful and may lend insight to the relationship that I’m overlooking.

But when the situation has actually arisen in my life, it has…sucked. It’s no fun thinking you’ve made a big old mistake choosing your beau. And in some cases, I think your pride can keep you from listening to the people who care about you.

Sometimes you’re so blinded by love or lust or longing that you hold onto things that don’t suit you well—and when someone tries to tell you to let them go, it makes you want to hold on tighter.

Then, when you dig your heels in, it’s even more frustrating for the outsider who has identified a glitch in the relationship that you don’t see. They either have to choose to keep stating their opinions and observations OR keep their mouths shut and watch you go through whatever nonsense you’re going to go through.

If they tell you they think your significant other is wrong for you, it can create a maelstrom of resentment. This happened last year with my sister—she kept telling me I shouldn’t be with someone who I couldn’t get along and be happy with. And instead of heeding her advice, it just made me angry. It made me push her away. So what’s a concerned sibling, coworker or gal pal to do???

Do we take the “to each his own” stance? As I’m typing this, there’s a little ticker tape running through my head saying Keep Your Side of the Street Clean… Do we have to just keep quiet and have faith that the involved person will figure out their love’s shortcomings or inherent ickiness eventually? Or do we have a duty to do everything in our power to prevent our loved ones from making mistakes?

What do you all think?

Anyone Speak Science?

So dating Mr. Wonderful is like living in a world of puppies and cotton candy pillows where the only thing to eat is chocolate, cheese, bread and wine. Seriously. I have consumed more cheese and chocolate in the last 4 months than I did probably all of last year. Don’t get me wrong, it’s exquisite and decadent and joyous. But I’m wondering if perhaps there is a scientific transmutation occurring in my body.

If any of you have backgrounds in biochemistry or physiology, maybe you can tell me whether this is possible…

Let’s just say that one night Mr. Wonderful and I go to Whole Foods and buy mini wheels or hunks of Camembert, Petit Basque, Brillat-Savarin, La Tur, Jarlsberg, Brunet, and oh say Smoked Gouda. We eat slice after slice, smear after smear on pieces of raisin bread—washing it all down with a nice bottle of Shiraz. And then we throw in some Dean & Deluca chocolates for dessert, just for good measure. We’re stuffed, but Mr. Wonderful starts to put the moves on me on the couch.

Is it possible that he could get me so hot and bothered, he would curdle the cheese in my stomach and cause it to instantly turn to more cellulite on my butt?

Because that would explain why I’m getting more and more jiggle…

I Spy

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but I think it’s what keeps the Internet alive. We all want our daily fixes of Britney instability, LOST spoilers, Chinese horoscopes, and dating blogs…because…well, we’re curious.

But with social networking sites popping up like dandelions, we’re now able to take our piques of interest to a whole new level. We can now, more easily than ever, do the one thing we all love to do...if only on the rarest of occasions… Snoop on our exes.

Oh come on, you know you’ve done it. Or at least wanted to.

In the past, you had to rely on friends of friends, or chance encounters, or nonchalant “just checking in” emails. But now you can go on Facebook, Linkedin, MySpace, Google and even Match.com to track down those dastardly dudes who used to light up your lips.

I recently had a dream about an ex from 2005. He was younger and gorgeous and all wrong for me. So of course, the chemistry was explosive. We only dated for 3 months—the last of which, he was living in my apartment—but we dropped the L-bomb on each other and I was devastated when he moved to the east coast (even though I knew it was coming all along). After a couple weeks of being away, he decided he “couldn’t do the long distance thing” and about 6 months after that, I pretty much stopped hearing from him altogether.

I’ve thought of him many times since then, and even tried to email him on a few occasions. But I've never received a response. Where could he be? What is he doing? Did he ever wonder what I was doing?

Thanks to the almighty F-book, I now have my super sleuth answer: Shorty McHotPants is (wearing a suit in his profile pic) back on the west coast, going to grad school at Pepperdine. Not everything I hoped to find out, but it’ll do. Curiosity case closed.

Now, if I could just track down the guy from 2004…

Gotta Lotta Love

I know I already wrote about Eckhart Tolle, but the man is like a little German spiritual yoda—and he’s using The Force for good. So I just can’t help but champion his efforts to educate us on "being."

Today a coworker sent me a link to an online interview with Tolle and it completely verified what I’ve always been told about love. You know when you were in college and you’d be complaining about how one of your ears was half an inch higher than the other and your boobs were too small and you couldn’t drive a stick shift and no boy was ever going to love you, and your mom would look up from loading the dishwasher and say, “You can’t be in love with someone else until you learn to love yourself.” And you’d roll your eyes and bury your nose back in your Poli Sci 102 book.

But now, I realize that mom and her dirty Pyrex pan were right!

You do have to truly accept and adore yourself before someone else can (or will). Eckhart talks about how we try to heal our own perceived shortcomings or wounds by covering them with other people. But that will never work. You have to look within for love—not scavenge for it and expect someone else to make YOU feel love for YOURSELF. He says:

“The Spanish language is the most honest in this respect. It uses the same verb, te quiero, for "I love you" and "I want you." To the ego, loving and wanting are the same, whereas true love has no wanting in it, no desire to possess or for your partner to change. The ego singles someone out and makes them special. It uses that person to cover up the constant underlying feeling of discontent, of "not enough," of anger and hate, which are closely related. These are facets of an underlying deep-seated feeling in human beings that is inseparable from the egoic state.”

“When the ego singles something out and says "I love" this or that, it's an unconscious attempt to cover up or remove the deep-seated feelings that always accompany the ego: the discontent, the unhappiness, the sense of insufficiency that is so familiar. For a little while, the illusion actually works. Then inevitably, at some point, the person you singled out, or made special in your eyes, fails to function as a cover up for your pain, hate, discontent or unhappiness which all have their origin in that sense of insufficiency and incompleteness. Then, out comes the feeling that was covered up, and it gets projected onto the person that had been singled out and made special—who you thought would ultimately "save you." Suddenly love turns to hate. The ego doesn't realize that the hatred is a projection of the universal pain that you feel inside. The ego believes that this person is causing the pain. It doesn't realize that the pain is the universal feeling of not being connected with the deeper level of your being—not being at one with yourself.”

Brilliant, right? You can read the full article at http://eckharttolle.com/interviews_75.

Times, They Aren’t a’Changing

This past weekend, I brought home a cardboard under-the-bed box from my parents’ house. On the outside, it just looks like a swollen, splitting, aged, sweater receptacle. But the inside is a veritable treasure chest of junior high and high school memorabilia.

In addition to approximately 568 notes from girlfriends, it contains a stack of Spartan and Falcon newspapers, dried crumbly carnations, a navy and powder blue pom-pom, a Kevin Costner “Robinhood” action figure, a Seventeen magazine prom issue from 1994, my 7th-8th grade diary, my faded graduation cap, and every birthday card I received from age 14 to age 18.

Given that the box is on its last legs, I decided to sort through it and relocate the good stuff to a Rubbermaid tub. So, the past few evenings have been spent reading notes, cards and letters, separating the wheat from the chaff.

What I’ve discovered, is that things haven’t changed much since I
was 16.

I’m still close friends with the same girls I knew then. And our conversations are relatively similar to what they used to be...
“Ohmygosh Marty is so cute, I want to attack him.”
“Ryan is being such a jerk today, I want to punch him.”
“I really like your top, where’d you get it?”
“Do you want to go to the mall with me this weekend?”
“This last hour is dragging, I can’t wait for the bell to ring.”

Yep, pretty much the same. Sure, the crushes’ names have been changed to boyfriends’ and husbands’ names. And the communication isn’t on lined notebook paper—now it’s just online. But so many of the interactions mirror those of our teenage years.

Makes me wonder if we’ll ever really grow up. Maybe not. And maybe that’s for the best.

For another great post on this topic, read Anita Stylist’s blog.

Easter Highlight Reel

Just want to quickly acknowledge some of my favorite moments from Easter...

• Watching my cousin's 18-month old son eat jelly beans off the grass and then drool pink spit down his neck and onto his white collared shirt.

• Taking credit for making my cousin's husband show up to our family dinner in a ruffled mint green 70's tuxedo.

• Picking out herbs at the Hollywood farmer's market with Mr. Wonderful then helping him plant them in the new flower beds we leveled in his backyard on Saturday.

• Holding my precious 5-month old niece after she cried in her Easter dress and was allowed to strip down to a onesie and socks.

• Holding my little peanut 2-week old second cousin.

• Having to ask my mom what her mystery dessert was...it looked like a mound of melting vanilla ice cream with sliced strawberries on top.

• Watching my 9-year old niece try to tickle Mr. Wonderful while giving him a "back rub" after dinner.

• Coming out of the bathroom in the morning to discover that the Easter bunny had stopped by and left me a little lavender basket full of dark chocolate goodies and a book on house-buying. Every time I think Mr. Wonderful can't get any cuter, he goes and proves me wrong...

Labelmakers

Four weeks ago, I jumped on the Oprah book bandwagon. Yessirree, I’ve been reading Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth in hopes of improving myself…and saving the world, of course.

The writing is pretty deep and heady (as are the online Q&A broadcasts), but the principles Tolle introduces, and questions he raises, are fascinating.

One area I found particularly interesting was about how we define ourselves. Humans are masters at labeling—from the moment we learn to speak, we begin giving names to objects and people. As we get older, those labels often become more detailed…and harsh. My mother-in-law is a [NUTJOB]. My ex-boyfriend is a [DOUCHEBAG]. My car is a [HUNK OF JUNK].

Even benign labels can pigeonhole people into certain roles. She’s a [MOTHER] she’s supposed to be nurturing. He’s a [PHD STUDENT] he’s smarter than the average person. I’m a [WRITER] it’s my job to talk a lot.

That last one, the “I” definition, is the most dangerous. By allowing our labels to define who we are, we run the risk of losing other parts of ourselves. Same goes for how we view the labels others press upon us. If we believe we are only what people tell us we are, we’re no better than human hermit crabs (ah, yet another label)—surrounding ourselves with borrowed shells.

But we don’t have to be nurses, wives, wine connoisseurs, sisters, scrapbookers or ball busters. We can just be. We can just be who we feel like on the inside.

Once we redefine ourselves as who and what we are that can’t be named, maybe it’ll get easier to stop applying naming conventions to others.

And maybe, just maybe that will give all of us the opportunity to be something more than we are today.