7 posts tagged “love”

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~...then I did the simplest thing in the world. I leaned down... and kissed him. And the world cracked open.

Now who in the world cannot appreciate a kiss, I ask you. Aside from the kisses we get when we are little kids from our large and overly demonstrative aunties, or our ancient and overly false-teethed grandfathers, a kiss is a treasure to behold and to experience.

One of my vox neighbors was talking about a guy she has gone out with who, though he is everything any woman could and should want, his kisses leave her cold.  Boy can I relate to this! If my toes, fingers and hair do not curl when "he" kisses me then he could be Apollo, Zues, and (insert latest male porn star here) all rolled up into one...he could be as rich as The Donald, and as sweet as sugar, he could be as intelligent as Einstein and as morally upright as Pope Benedict XVI, but if the boy doesn't curl my toes with a kiss then he will not make it into my world - well at least not into my bed, but for some men that seems to be a world to them.

I have always used kissing as a measuring tool.  I can tell just how compatible we will be, both mentally and physically simply by that first lasting- longer- then- a- peck kiss. I have put my theory to lots of testing and it works, for me, anyway.

Through all my trial and errors I have ended up with some strange outcomes, here are just a few of the categories that I have narrowed: 

Macho kissers - you know the ones that feel that more pressure equals more desire? They bruise your lips with their intensity and later ask you what that color of lipstick you are wearing cuz it is pretty dark.
Feather kissers: these guys barely touch your lips with theirs...each time you attempt to move in just a little bit closer to increase contact, they move back until you have acheived hyper extension of your neck. After its all over you wonder if you were ever kissed at all.
Manequin kisser: he is the guy that refuses to move. You are left feeling much like you did when you were 10 years old and secretly practiced your kissing style ( or lack there of) on your stuffed animals or pillow.
Sloppy kisser: this needs no explanation, its the kiss that makes you feel like you just stepped out of the shower and you begin searching for the towels.
Moaner kisser: strange throaty noises emanate from this guy as you kiss him, you end up looking around to see if the cat has caught and is eating the bird.
Open eye kisser: this guy scares the sh*t out of me... the kiss itself is usually nice, passionate and warm. I am getting into the kiss, and in the middle of everything I slyly peek out behind veiled lashes to see him staring, wide eyed, no blinking, just deer- in- the- headlight eyes at me.  Anything good that was previously happening due to his kiss is gone out the window at this point.
The Groper: This one thinks that the touching of lips is a sign that he can begin to molest all other parts of your body.  This is cool in a well-established relationship, but for a first kiss, I don't think so.
The Throat tickler: again no explanation needed.  After this sort of kiss I spend the rest of the night coughing, clearing my throat,  attempting to quelch the tickle that his tongue created on the back of my throat.  I am always tempted to ask this guy if he found what he was looking for.

There are more of course, but these are the ones that come to mind right now.  I would have to be honest and say that the perfect kisser for me probably has a touch of all or most of the above attributes, but they know how to use them and not overpower with them.

I have been pretty lucky when it comes to finding good kissers to form relationships with, and will definitely NOTdate long, let alone marry, someone who doesn't trip my trigger when we kiss.  I have also found that the kiss is a pretty solid indication as to how the love making might go.

Funny thing about kissing, for me anyway.  I feel that the kiss is the most intimate of acts, even more so then intercourse.  Why? I dunno.  "Pretty Woman" comes to mind.  Julia Roberts character refused to kiss her "clients" as that would take the act to a very personal and intimate level. I feel the same way.  I have thought about this on several occasions wondering what it is in my mind that makes kissing much more intimate(?) Personal(?) Then making love. ( I think I will go with the word personal).  I wonder if it has to do with the close proximity of the eyes.  In a truly passionate and loving kiss they eyes are closed for most of the time, but there are times when you open them and you are met with the strikingly open gaze of the person you are kissing.  I think it is at these times that the phrase "eyes are the windows to the soul" really is meant for.  If you are giving your all, not holding anything back and kissing with every bit of honesty that you can muster, then there is a huge vulnerability there and it shows in the eyes. Opening yourself up to that much vulnerability is very risky and when you are within centimeters of someones eyes then it is something that the other person is going to see.  So in essence you are really letting your guard down and opening yourself up to the kind of hurt that many of us spend a good deal of energy avoiding in our lives. Of course this sort of brutal vulnerability can be found in love making too, but we are somewhat distracted with...ummm...other things... in the act of lovemaking.  Your eyes are not so exposed and readable. I know for me, when I kiss someone with whom I am in a sustained relationship with, I do a lot of eye searching, especially during a kiss.  The eyes tell me so much more then words could ever.

So in the immortal words of Mary Chapin-Carpenter, just shut up and kiss me. :)

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I make no bones about the fact that I don't understand women.  They are an enigma, a puzzle.  Even worse then sodoku's.  I hate sodoku's.  Anything math related I hate.  I think that women must be based in some mathmatical equation.  Not that I hate women per sey.  I just don't really like them.  The only experience I have had with close women friends has always ended in a very heartbreakingly, catty way, so I don't have much good to say on the matter.  I have had closer male friends, who have lasted longer as my friends then any woman, so I stick with what works best.

I don't get women. Even myself I don't get many times.

The latest that I just don't get is just what do women want from men in the dating arena????

Thank the lord that I have remarried and I do not have to deal with dating any longer.

So  I ran across a post somewhere of a woman who is trying to date.  She either has had, or currently has a bio up on nearly every available dating site that one can conceive.  She is reeking of desperation and falls in love with nearly every man who meets her for coffee and seems (key word here) interested. Now lets be honest here, this girl is sweet, seems to have a nice personality - tho I have not met her in person and have no personal knowledge other then what she writes about on her blog.  She has a pretty face (you know where this is heading dont you?) BUT she is terribly overweight.  For myself on the plane of whether I want to interact with some or not, that is not a problem. Weight is incidental for me.  I don't care if you are as thin as a supermodel or overweight to the point that a wall has to be torn down in your house to get you out of it.  BUT (here it comes) most men - I said most not all- DO care. Men are visual - ladies you have to accept this fact. 

In this lady's situation, most of the time the men she meets never contact her again.  They either disappear completely off the face of the internet, or they remain within her virtual reach and just choose to ignore her or they use her and dump her.  Then we all get to read about how men are jerks, how they are rude and dogs and pigs and what is wrong with a little respect and consideration and just tell her, firstly that they are not intersted and then 2ndly tell her why, did she do something, not do something, what?! she demands.

So she starts up a conversation with yet another "mister right" ( even though she has sworn off dating she is still passively lurking the dating sites) he asks her to send a picture, she finally relents and does.  His response was honest, to the point, and leaves no room for doubt. Something along the lines of men are visual and he is no different and he is not interested in her, she is not his type.. blah blah.  Now instead of thanking the guy for his honesty, realizing that this is probably the reason that most (if not all) of the men she falls head over heals for after a brief coffee date reject her, and moving on either to a weight loss program or to her self-proclaimed non-dating status, she bashes him for breaking her heart!

WTH?

Come on, you can't have it both ways.  It might be hard to take, it might not be what you want to hear, but come on give the guy some credit.  He didn't leave her dangling in the air - he laid it out for her to see, as hard as it is to hear she was not his type physically, she didn't hear it, all she heard was that he said something rude to her ( for me I cannot see anything rude in what he said) and that once again men are pigs and dogs and jerks.

Women need to get real and deal with it.  Either you want honesty or you don't!

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(Above picture is of my son and new daughter-in-law from a set of engagement photos I took of them they have sense married and are living happy ever after)

You know sometimes I feel like one of the first pioneers of the online dating scene that has recently picked up speed and is insinuating itself into societies norm.

I met my late husband via a small and, I believe, it might have been the first online dating site called Love at AOL.  I believe LaAOL was later renamed Match.com - or else match.com was already in existance and just acquired LAA. Anyway,

I was an AOL junky back then...and back then the internet was not terribly user friendly, it was much easier to have a springboard onto the internet like AOL and ooooo who remembers Prodigy!? Or Compuserve!!! wow old names.  I loved Prodigy, but it went under so AOL was one of the few left.  This was before the days of highspeed internet, DSL, cable etc.  The sound of those squeeks and whirrrs as my dinosaur (25mb speed) computer connected up to the internet via dial up was music to my ears. Then the sound of "You've Got Mail" in that sweet dulcid male voice was about as close to an orgasm as I was getting those days. Yes just like the movie of the same name...I love Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.

Let me stop and preface here...this was in the mid 90's the internet was not as wide spread as it is today.  Online dating was innocent and in its infancy.  You NEVER admitted to anyone that the dates you were going on were found from trolling online!!  That would have been to admit that you were desperate and unable to find a date the "real" way.  My situation was that I was working hella numerous hours....on the verge of becoming a workaholic and raising 3 kids under the age of 13, so the concept of a social life only existed in my dreams.  I stumbled on Love at AOL and thought I would give it a try.  At the time you paid for your AOL connection, (I remember the day that AOL decided to go with a flat monthly fee as opposed to a minute by minute charge - my bank account visably sighed in relief) so Love was free to use, for everyone.  There was none of this test taking, personality dimensions, and the only rejections handed out might come from one of the two involved in the getting to know each other.

When I first lucked on Love, I think there were maybe 5 guys who were signed up in my area.  Slim pickens at best, but as luck would have it, one of those guys was decent, successful, and had a sense of humour all things I felt were important.  I think I might have gone out at least once with nearly all of those 5 guys and they were all decent people...just no chemistry; that is until Jeff appeared in my life.  It took us nearly 2 months to finally talk on the phone and a few weeks after that to actually meet.  The rest was history, we married in 2002.

The purpose of this post is to share my experience with online dating.  I am sad to see that it has evolved into something much darker then it used to be.  When I started doing it, people were respectful for the most part.  Men were not on there just to get laid, or looking for the next money scheme victim.  Online dating was a useful tool for some, especially for those of us who were not bar flys, and had few friends with available brothers, cousins or friends to set you up with.

Ah the good old days.

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Ok so I am going to cheat again.  Its a special day for me, my 2nd wedding anniversary and I wrote something on my wedding day that I am going to put here. Its long so beware and I thank you for reading it

Thursday, February 16, 2006

If love and the hope of love are not something you want to read about then stop here.

My hope that this will serve as inspiration to any widows/ers who are in the beginnings of this hard dark road of grief, to any who are right smack in the middle of it and wondering if it ever gets better, and to those who see the faint light at the end of the tunnel and might need a little push to get them on to the business of living.

Will it get better.

Apart from the “do you think I am ready to date” question I would hazard a guess that this is THE most asked question that veterans see on the YWBB. Will it get better. Does it get better. Does it stop hurting. All I can say is – yes, but it is not a simple yes answer, is it. You have to choose to let it get better.

During this horrendous, yet magical transformation called grief I think that there comes a time when we, either consciously or subsconciously make a decision to ( to quote one of my favourite movies) “either get busy living or get busy dying” metephorically speaking of course, or is it? I think back to the days weeks and months following that horrible day in Aug 2004. You can ask my children, I made the very solid commitment that I would NEVER, NEVER again fall in love and get married. No one could EVER love me the way I had been loved. No one would ever even come close to the love I shared with this man I just laid in the ground. No one, not one single soul on this earth, could touch me again the way that he did. I said it with such conviction that my children, friends and family must have been well duped. When I announced I was seeing someone the look of shock in their faces was priceless lol

Sometimes the choice to go on “living: is made for us. I think it was in my case. I hadn't even really begun to explore this thing called grief, when someone appeared into my life who made me focus on the “get busy living” part, even though I really didn't want to. For others of us, it is just a natural progression to make the “yes” choice, those are the people I admire the most. The ones, who for whatever reason, whatever lies in their brain chemistry, whatever factors – perhaps enviornmental or perhaps influenced by someone in their past – decide one day that its time to live again. Not live in the literal sense of the word ( or is it?) but live life as it was meant to be lived. Taking chances again – being the best they can be, not in spite of having faced death, but because of it.

These are the people who are my hero's, my inspirations. The truly courageous among us.

You know who you are. Some I have outright told that you are an inspiration to me, some I have yet to tell, and in my own time I will...I am a procrastinator, one silly personal trait that for some reason I just have a horrible time changing.

My soon-to-be husband is one of these people who I admire. For some goodness-only-knows reason he sees something in me, something that makes him want to live out the rest of his days with me. I wonder what that could be. I don't see it. Suppose I never will, but I am blessed that he sees it.

Mike has been there for me in every way possible for a mortal man to be there for a woman, and in someways that even mortal men cannot be. Mike has helped me through my past, and embrace my future.

I often think that there are not sufficient words in the english language to express some of my feelings for Mike, and this is one of those times. Sometimes we just sit and stare at each other for want of the right words, and they do not come. It's the stares, what hides deep down in our eyes at these moments that gives me hope for each and everyone of us here. I know that what I am about to say will ring on many deaf ears, but keep the hope in your heart. Hope is a powerful thing...short of love, maybe the most powerful. I have seen the hope of my future in the eyes of another and he as given that to me. I know that it will happen to each one of you who makes the choice to say yes. It might take someone 1 month to make this realization, som one year, some 3 years, but soon it will be your turn too.

Now it gets mushy so turn away if you are squimish

Mike and I have been together for well over a year...we met at the infamous Las Vegas widowbago in November of 2004. I was just two months widowed and he was 4 months. He seemed to be much further along then I was though, more then the 2 months that chronologically separated us. I fought this relationship with Mike at ever turn in the beginning. The guilt, OMG the guilt of it!! I can't begin to tell you... well maybe I can, some of you do know about this guilt thing we impose on ourselves when we first begin a new relationship. Anyway, this man knew what he wanted and it seemed to be me. He never gave up..I think I threw every possible brick wall up I could and this amazing man just scaled them effortlessly. I was racked with guilt, I was eaten up with the insecurities that so many of us feel in the first relationship after being widowed. He patiently dealt with it all as it came. I wrote in my generic Christmas card to friends and family that the Christmas of 2004 and subsequently Jan of 2005 was probably my deepest despair. When I finally picked myself up and dusted myself off, I turned around and realized that Mike was still standing there, with that gentle sweet smile of his, and I was home.

He moved to Arizona to be with me in April 2005 and we have been sickeningly happy ever sense. I have not regretted any of my decisions in regards to Mike, not once.

Now we are to be married in just a few short hours. Am I nervous. No. I am relieved and comfortable and happy, beyond my wildest dreams. Mike and I are not spring chickens. Well he is sort of, I will be 47 soon and he 41. There will be no children in our future. I have my own, he has none and seems not to regret that choice that he and Gail made not to procreate. I like to say that we are beginning the “Indian summer” of our lives together. Not quite young enough to enjoy the spring and summer, yet not quite old enough to start the autumn or winter of our “youth”. That time when the children are gone, or nearly gone and we look forward to living out the rest of our lives together. Retirement, grandchildren ( for me and by marriage for him) on the not so distant horizon. I have Never looked so forward to a time in my life as I do now, I say that now with as much if not more conviction now then when I uttered the words I WILL NOT FALL IN LOVE AGAIN at Jeff's grave
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He will be my last for me. Don't ask me how I know this, I just feel it right to that very deep,white, hot core of my being. Either I will die first, or he will die and I will live out my life with the amazing memories we have made to sustain me. That will be the choice I make at the time if I am left here on earth alone again. But I will be happy, I have lived a full life and been married a few times during the journey. Mike is the culmination, the absolute pinnacle of all the happiness, love, security and “wholeness” that I have ever felt in my life.

Please think good thoughts for us, and for yourselves as 6.00pm tonight draws down on us . It will be the beginning of my ending in a way, the last half of my life and the start of an amazing life fulfilled

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Widowhood.  My mind is full of it lately. I will be widowed 4 years in August and roughly two years ago started to live, and love again.  With time, over the last two years I have succeeded in minimizing the role that widowhood plays in my life and have gotten on to other things.  Now all of a sudden I am back to reliving it all again.

Rather then fight it, or try to reason it all out, analyze it, and dispose of it that way, I will just keep going with it and writing down my thoughts on the various sub categories it brings to mind.

Always. Besides being a very definite and defining word, it is a movie. An older movie.  Not older in the sense of movies like Gone with the Wind or Citizen Kane, but more like Urban Cowboy, or Terms of Endearment...movies making their way into classics.  Well like many other movies that are on their way to being or already are classics, I had never seen this one.  I finally watched it the other day.  I came away with a very large question, one that I think deserves some sort of analysis and answer. 

I am not a Richard Dryfus fan, I think he is the epitome of the over acting actor.  He seems to attempt to compensate for lack of personality by going over the top in his acting abilities and he is no different in this movie, but I was compelled by the story line and so suffered through the ham works of Richard.  It is a movie about a widow.  Well I don't think she is a widow in the defining sense of the word, I don't think that she and Richard ever were married - but they had a relationship and he was killed. So I was hooked.

Show me a widow who can resist a movie based on widowhood and I will show you a fraud.  Most of the time we watch the widowhood based movies to be able to sit with arms folded slowly shaking our heads and proclaiming that YEP, Hollywood got that one wrong too!  But this one is a bit different.  As I said there is a question that it provoked in my mind and I wonder if more of us widows should not explore it.

In the movie there is a scene where Richard is lamenting how he misses the woman he loved, should have told her he loved her more and all the while watching while she dances with another man, showing some signs of life - crawling out of the deep dark hole of widowhood to live again.  He doesn't want her too.  He can't bare to watch as she kisses the new man.  Soon his boss ( for lack of a better word) appears, by his boss I mean the head angel or whatever she is and she counsels him on what he is going through to help him to deal with it.  Anyway, the head angel says that until the dead signifcant other releases the one left behind, that she will not be able to move on, to find new love and life.  Until the deceased removes him/herself from their loves heart then the one remaining on earth will go on grieving and pining for the deceased. 

So what if that is the way it is, what if it has nothing to do with us left on earth and OUR ability to let go of our spouse/significant other? What if we grieve until they ALLOW us to move on??? Just what if....

Now of course this little theory doesn't hold water if you don't believe in the after life, or that there is something more after death - that our deceased loved are with us in the after life, that they can see and hear and affect us to some extent.

I have had too many signs from my father and then from Jeff after he died that I do believe they are around us, so that is not a problem for me.  What I do have a problem with is that if this theory is true and our length of grieving depends on how long it takes for our spouses to LET us move on, well then I wonder just how much Jeff loved me as my grieving time was pretty short and sweet compared to many.

Still, I like this theory, in fact I prefer it to most others that are out there.

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FINALLY!!!!

Sheesh, I never realized just how busy I am!  This proved it to me.

One of my sons best friends got married over the T-Giving weekend and they asked me to be their photog.  Great! I love doing weddings - well when I am not having to deal with bridezilla hehe.  So I Just last night, finished the post processing of the photos.  I am sure that Steven and his lovely bride (especially the bride) are wondering if I fell of the earth.

Anyway it was a lovely wedding and, as with all weddings that I do, it gives me a chance to spread my wings as a photographer.  I was a bit limited in what I could do as the bride did not seem comfortable in letting me take some pictures as she was changing...but all brides are different.  Its just that that particular setting gives me a chance to get some great candids and personal shots that the bride and her bridesmaids all seem to really enjoy.

It did give me the opportunity to spend a bit more time with the groom and his groomsmen and these boys I have known since they were about 10 years old...so we had fun with some pictures.  I will post them above.

Just a few more days of vacation left and then school starts up again.  I had a few things I wanted to get in order before school starts - concerning the new show we are developing, and I have done NOTHING. UGH.  I have committing to one more year instructing this group and I am glad, I am getting too old for this HAH.