the quote i tend to live by is: i think we live our lives so afraid to be seen as weak that we die perhaps without ever having been seen at all (alan shore—boston legal).

find the first quiz at two thirds hazel.

and now for the second part...

survey snagged from an old issue of real simple

drinks: coca-cola, dr. pepper, iced tea, cranberry juice, lemonade, gatorade, water, chocolate martini, vodka tonic, pinot grigio.

loves: eleanor and park, the fault in our stars, the language of flowers, ncis, ncis: los angeles, the west wing, steel magnolias, dedication, star trek (the one from four years ago), the aggies, the packers, the patriots, london, san diego...

huntsville, utah

chicken spaghetti, peproni rolls, blue bell ice cream. my brothers, gigantic pains in my ass... but every now and then, they'd surprise me with their awesomeness. my parents.

once: i could hope, and it didn't seem foolish to do so.

what i am really good at: writing.

if i could change places with anyone, living or dead, for one day, who would it be? my brother.

the best decision i ever made was: any time i say screw this shit, i'm going home. examples usually are tied to employment that sucked the joy through every single one of my pores. i made myself stick it out until those bastards almost killed my soul. people shat on me so frequently in my youth, and i took it because i thought i had to. i'll take it as an adult, but only for so long.

what was my mother right about? i should've been better to my brother.

what am i most proud of? these poems. this post. these characters.

something on my mind lately is: i want my own place. i want a fat bank account. and i want to see something i wrote in print and selling well. but really... i want independence.

before i die, i'd like to: travel. love. finish something.

roses and ranunculus

i've this friend. she's the sort of girl who'd go for the hundreds of rose petals spread all over everywhere to celebrate an occasion. she's been married for more than a decade. and on the surface, things between she and her husband seemed pretty perfect. both very sociable people... they had a good group of friends, good jobs, good house. then they became fairly concerned with their standing in society, with their possessions. and then it became an imperative that they have children.

and that's when things went downhill.

it's been ugly ever since.

the friend? she's not the same woman she used to be. she's selfish and self-absorbed. and she's angry, because this supposedly perfect world she's constructed isn't so perfect. and i'm not entirely certain she's realized that part of the reason it isn't is because, while she's found good things for herself, she hasn't been good.

now she and her husband argue over who gets what and when. and they're too tired to bother with those children they had to have.

today, i drove into houston to check a popular florist to see about getting some peonies. it's a small shop... used to be in river oaks... now it's in rice village.

it was pretty busy today. of course it was. a dozen men shopping for their spouses. i overheard one gentleman, a handsome man in this thirties, tell one of the associates that he'd used them before, that they'd put together some arrangements for his girlfriend in the past, that he'd been quite pleased with their work.

another gentleman pointed to two arrangements on the table, both very similar, and asked me which one i liked better.

as complicated as my brain likes to make things, at the heart of it, i'm a pretty simple gal. i don't need a lot. if a guy were to buy me flowers, i'd hope he'd veer toward the buckets in the refrigerated cases... the ones holding the batches of a dozen of one kind. i'd hope he'd choose the ranunculus over the roses. something sunny. because it's winter time, and i hate the gray. or, if he felt like really impressing me, maybe he could've called ahead a couple of weeks in advance and found me some peonies. the white ones with the splashes of red. those are my favorite. they're hard to find right now, but from what i understand, it's not impossible. just takes some time. and a little more money. a handful of either of those, and i'd be content.

but the roses and the lilies and the baby's breath and the ferns... cut in a pretty bouquet and arranged just so.... i don't need perfect.

so i told the guy that i wasn't fond of either of'm. that he should have a look at the ranunculus in those cases over there.

another guy showed me a bouquet of white and red roses cut short in a vase, with a topiary above them cut in a heart shape. he asked me what i thought of it. i hated it, actually. made me think of those horribly cheesy weddings... way too over the top. this particular arrangement cost well over a hundred dollars. i told him, i'd rather a guy spent twenty bucks on some posies and took me out to a nice dinner than a hundred plus on something that was gonna die in a week. that it didn't need to be so much.

it doesn't need to be. it just needs to be good. the people need to be good. my parents they've been married for fifty years. they've seen worse; they've buried a son. they're not perfect. they have just enough. they had children because they wanted them. not because society said they should. not because of how having the children would reflect on them. sure, they fight. my father's the most regimented, patriarchal, stubborn man i've ever met. but he's good to my mother. my mother? she's pretty set in her ways, and stubborn, too. but she's good to my father. and their marriage works because they give instead of take. because she doesn't need hundred dollar bouquets.

ranunculus, by the way, symbolizes something like you're radiant with charms. i love that.

seems to me that a strong relationship isn't determined by the size and style of the arrangement.

but i'm just a single gal. what do i know?

and then i get compliments like this:

now that i have this kindle there are a ton of books i have immediate access to and it's super easy for me to find new books and it's also super easy to reject all the ones that are total shit. and i can always tell if i want to gobble up an entire book in one sitting within the first few pages. WHICH IS YOURS.

because i know good people in this world, yall. like shannon. she's pretty nifty.

that's the thing about pain; it demands to be felt.

there's a moment when you've walked away from a story, out of the theater, into the light, to wait in a crowded restroom filled with women of varying colors and shapes and ages. it's loud in this room--the voices, the laughter, the doors opening and closing, the water running, the dryers droning. it's loud. and glaringly bright.

and you wait for the quiet to come. because you kind of need it.

and then it gets there. and it's awful. because there's just the silence. and this piercing buzz of electricity. and you never feel more alone in your life than in that moment. and all you really want is to be back in the story. in the theater where no one can see you. because once the lights go down, no one cares that you're alone. not even you.

the trouble with the silence is it makes you remember. even if you don't want to. especially then. it paralyzes you. so you're there. and it's louder than those voices and the laughter and the doors and the water and the dryers. and you know you should get up. get out. but you just can't. because... holy fuck.

i watched that awkward moment. and it was so good. a very nice blend of romantic and comedy. seriously. it was really good. most times when i go see a romcom, i leave thinking that was cute. and i can shrug off the sappy. but every now and then...

so finally, finally you find the stamina to move. you wash your hands. you dry them. you open the door. you walk out. toward the exit.

past theaters seventeen and sixteen...

seventeen... the day he found me.

sixteen... the day i lost him.

and it doesn't matter how much time passes or how many men i've dated since or how many of those men have managed to capture my interest (which is actually kind of hard to do). it doesn't matter that i know i was supposed to lose him. it doesn't.

it only matters because all i had to do was find the right words. and i couldn't. all i had to do was hear what he said, not what the ghosts of decades past were chanting in my head. and i couldn't.

it only matters because twenty years later, even with all the horrible, HORRIBLE things i've been shown and told in my life... this here knocks me flat:

you'll never get married because you're too ugly and no one wants to wake up next to something that ugly every morning.

there's nothing you can say to a girl that will crush her soul quite so well as that.

nothing.