Open . . . a poem for Gracie

Ever have one of those friends that is very concerned about how others perceive them? Not in a clingy way, but just wanting to know your opinion about things? Gracie is one of my friends. She's sweet, intelligent, fiercely witty, and pretty. She just broke off a 2 year relationship that was heading for the alter, and has quickly gotten involved with someone else. I know, I know, the first thought is REBOUND . . . but my challenge to that is -- so what?!

Who cares if she's rebounding . . . because she just might find that she's absolutely crazy about him. He's VERY smitten with her, and treats her like a princess. She worries that she is like another person we know and tease about her relationship. I tell her not to worry, and just enjoy what she has. If it ends, well, we'll be there to pick her up. I just want her to enjoy the chance she has to be loved by someone.

“Open”

Open your eyes to this chance of yours

to celebrate one of life’s lil’ adventures.

For someone to give themselves to you,

so completely, so utterly selfless and true,

My dear, don’t run away, but towards life.

My sweet, sweet friend, open your eyes.

~

Open your arms to the emotion and passion

enjoy all of it’s worth, even if it’s not lasting.

Maybe it’s too intense; maybe it’s too sudden,

so what if it’s too serious, so what if it’s abrupt?

Submit to your desires, to his charms,

My sweet, sweet friend, open your arms.

~

Open your mind to all the possibilities

that the path you’re on is leading you swiftly.

We’ll catch you if you trip, hold you if you fall.

Your fears, your hesitation, abandon them all.

Allow yourself to become intertwined,

My sweet, sweet friend, open your mind.

~

Open your heart to what is yet to be

to the happiness, to the pain, to the experience

No one said it would be perfect, or kind –

but without the risk, alone you would pine.

Love is asking you to play your part,

so my sweet, sweet friend, open your heart.

National Random Weird People Day

Wow, sometimes it's better if you just stay in your bed and pull the cover over your heads! I mean, people were just bizarre today! Here's how the day started . . . I awoke and worked on a really cool project for work. I'll talk about that in another blog. Then, I called Jani and we made plans to go to lunch.

So far so good . . . no big whoop. We go to Panera Bread (love it!) and the guy at the register is a little flighty, but no big deal. He has to chase me down because he gave me the wrong credit card receipt (gave me his for his register), but other than that all was good. Jani and I were spottin' the hotties (there was a whole soccer team of men aged 25 to 30 there . . . man they have some nice butts!).

I'm in need of supplies for the project I'm working on, so we go to Hobby Lobby. I'm looking for stencils and fabric paint. We are in the fabric section and can't find anything. So, we ask a nice looking lady where the fabric paint is. Without even making eye contact, she just kind of shouts out "It's in Wearable Art." Hmmmmm . . . now that's odd. I've never heard of wearable ART, and we have a HUGE Hobby Lobby, so I have no idea where that is. I must have missed the "You Are Here" map located at the front door, so I kindly ask her where that is. She sighs real big and says in the middle back of the store. Hmmmm . . . must be a bad day, no big deal. We find what we need and then head out to check out.

While in line, our friend Gracie texts us from work, wanting Sonic drinks. Sounds good to us too, so we ask for the drink order and then boogie to Sonic. We get to the drive thru, having just paid over $10 for 5 rather large drinks (side note -- try the Apple Cherry Slush . . . OMG!) and the young girl starts trying to just hand these drinks to me. Now, I don't know about your cars, but mine isn't designed to hold 5 44 oz containers. So, I ask her if she has a drink carrier. She looks at me like I just spoke to her in Mandarin and slams the window. Then, about 5 mintues later, she opens the window back up and almost drops the drink carrier trying to hand it to me. Hmmmmmm . . . must be having a bad day, oh well.

So, Jani and I deliver the yummy beverages to Gracie and her colleagues at work, and then we head back to the main shopping area to finish up. No major issues at either store we went too, as we just purchased a few navy t-shirts (related to the project for work) and some toothpaste. Things seem uneventful, and we head back to Jani's to watch TV, me work on my project, and to wait for Gracie to get off of work.

We visit for awhile, and then Gracie is tired and has to leave (she works Sat, Sun & Mon days now -- still adjusting from the night schedule she was on) to get some sleep. Now, she had brought Selwyn over (her pup) to play with Jani's pup. As she was leaving, Jani's neighbor was leaving -- and Selwyn ran into this guy's front door. Now, Selwyn was on a leash, and barely stepped in the house, but he made some rude comments to her. However, it wasn't about Selwyn, but Jani's dog Romeo and how mean he is. Romeo is NOT mean (he's the little white furball I'm cuddling with in the pic in my profile). And why make an unwarranted stab at someone you don't even know. Okay, now we're starting to feel that some people are just bitchy today.

Around 10 pm I realize the stencils I got from Hobby Lobby don't have numbers in them. BIG problem. And being the impatient must have instant gratification person I am, we head to the only place open that carries them . . . Wally World (I just cringe at the thought. The store is soooo dirty!) WOW the crazies were out in full force, and we couldn't believe it. First, as we're walking down an aisle looking for the crafts section of the store, this man neither Jani or I recognize stops us and says "Hey guys!" Now, we work in a rather large facility, so we wonder if we know him from work. But we really don't. I try to play it off by just saying hi, but my brain wasn't working and my facial expression shows I have no freaking clue who this random person is that just stopped us. He was the guy that took my money @ Panera Bread! How bizarre!!! I've never been stopped by someone like that, and he totally acted like he knew us! Weird . . . starting to wish I was back home.

Then, we find the stencils and while there in that aisle, there's a guy with a huge push broom cleaning. Now, that's something you RARELY see at a Wal-Mart, so I am mildly impressed. However, that feeling quickly disappated when he just stopped sweeping and walked off, leaving a rather large pile of dirl right next to us. WTF??? Why would you do that?? Customers don't want to see that in a place where they might purchase food!!

Now, on our way out, we see the most bizarre thing ever! I'm so mad that I didn't use my phone and take a picture. But there is a 40+ year old woman wearing the same outfit Britney Spears wore in her very first video. And kids . . . she didn't need to be wearing that . . . at ALL! It was really distrubing to see . . . we basically ran for the register to check out and get the hell outta there.

So, we go back to Jani's to finish my project and watch movies (I brought over Finding Nemo, Beauty & the Beast, and The Lion King . . . all favs). Jani begins working on her photo albums and me on the project, while the movies play in the background. About 1 ish, my cell rings. No one EVER calls me that late so I immediately run for my phone. I'm worried b/c it's a ring tone that is set for just general calls. I answer it and someone yells back "Hey Joe! Where you at??" I have NO idea who's on the line . . . none. I ask who it is and they basically set the phone down for a sec and then hang up. Bizarre . . . well, I'm a bit concerned that a random person has my number, so Jani offers to call to see who it is. OMG it's someone that works for me . . . and they were out on the town! They drunk dialed me!!!! Hilarious!!!! I love the people that work for me, they are sooo much fun -- so we laugh and I send a funny text back.

Bottom line . . . today was full of random people and events. Two words . . BE -- ZAR! Hugz!

The Best $7

Okay, so I'm going to stereo type myself here for a minute. I'm by no means a fem guy . . . but I do have a good idea for color, fashion, and the like. So, I encouraged one of my gals to take advantage of her straight girl gay man relationship this weekend. One of my girl pals shared with me that her family was criticizing her makeup choices. She felt very self conscious. Well, I asked . . . who was harping on it? She said primarily her brother. I asked if he was gay, and she said no. I looked straight at her and said that he was telling you what he likes to see on a woman, not what was good for her. She thought for a moment, and agreed that I was right. He does tend to like tan women who make themselves up.

Now ~ this woman has a beautiful, classic look about her. She has long, dark brown hair (almost black), fair skin, dark eyes (very mysterious) . . . basically, she has a lot to work with already. We looked through some pictures, and well, let's just say her family is a bit make-up happy. The women in her pictures tended to paint it on. And they did the number one no-no with makeup -- they tried to match clothing!!!! Ugh!!! I told her that in all reality -- her family had no clue.

So . . . with spending a total of $7, her self confidence is back where it belongs and she feels beautiful. She was making excellent choices for pretty much everything -- following the appropriate guidelines of wearing it to accent your skin tones and features, NOT her clothing. The only aspect she was unsure of was eye shadow. So, I gave her a quick lesson . . . with her features we didn't want to draw attention away from her eyes themselves by using too much color, but rather just brighten them with an iridescent look. (Think shimmer, not body glitter!) So, we found the perfect combination. It had a very nice smoky color (for her eye lids only) and an iridescent top color, and when we went out last night, well, she looked good.

The cool thing about this story and how it went down was that the eye shadow looked good on her, but that's not why she looked hot. Self confidence and being comfortable in who you are is hot, sexy even. She exuded that -- she felt better about herself and about how she looked because we (another girl pal of mine) reinforced her belief on how she looked and that she didn't need to change anything about herself. It worked ~ and was able to hook a guy she'd been interested in. I'm such a fan of building people up and not tearing them down.

The best $7 she had spent in a long time.