Surprises: Sometimes Great, Sometimes Crap

Sometimes surprises happen to you and sometimes you make them happen. I'm a frequent surpriser and a risk-taker so I'm ok with the possibility that my fun surprise for someone could be their un-fun nightmare. 

Though this rarely happens because I'm a stellar listener, I have a weird elephant memory, and I generally reserve surprises for people I know. As a result I'm a damn good surpriser.

I'm also a huge fan of being surprised because it's hard to do. I'm stellar at noticing details (a blessing and a curse) so I often know what's coming. Then I do my "Oh my god, I had no idea!" fake surprise face.

But...BOOM! When all goes right and someone did something just for ME my jaded-New-York-City heart goes pitter patter. 

And when it fails...

Maybe that someone didn't know me very well. Maybe he had different expectations about my reaction or maybe it was just bad timing. 

Either way planning a surprise is a risk, and if you're going to be a risk-taker you need to be ok with failure. You need to be mature enough to manage your own feelings about your botched surprise, take full responsibility, and not blame the surprisee - because, ya know, she had no idea it was coming. 

Making surprises happen is like living in the danger zone - be ready to fall flat on your face. 

*Pic is from the Blogologues show where I nearly peed my pants from laughing.

Not That Complicated 10: City of Unrequited Love

I met Jay the typical New York way: a friend's cousin's wife's friend or some person whose relationship to me is so-complicated-I-don't-even-remember introduced us because we both have blogs about love. Now we're direct friends and I'm glad because he's smart, creative, single (and tall!), sweet, and like CJ and I, looking for love - REAL LOVE. We popped over to his place in March and let the conversation flow from "bad math" dating, apps even I never heard of, to maybe it's time to leave NYC forever. 

Thanks Jay for sharing this graphic that we can all relate to....Don't forget to check out his blogs: Loverbits & Love Hate City.

Nothing is Forever Including T-shirts

House of Cards season 3 is pretty mind blowing (no spoilers, don't fret). One episode featured Tibetan monks practicing the art of sand mandala, which is for healing and purification. Mandalas transmit positive energies to the environment and to the people who view them. Watching the monks work for days on something so beautiful and then be at peace with sweeping it away, reminded me: 

Nothing is forever. 

As I get older I'm more and more comfortable with this concept. Relationships, jobs, apartments, feelings, life on earth - nothing is static. One point in time someone or something made me happy, at another point, unhappy.  

I was dating someone recently and I left a shirt at his place the first time I slept over. Not on purpose, like Rosario Dawson left her pump with Chris Rock in the movie Top Five, but because I actually couldn't find it. There was a giant suitcase in his room that swallowed it up.  

I went home in his threadbare old T-shirt that he said he wanted back, with a smile. Weeks later after a few more dates, a few more sleepovers, he disappeared...along with my shirt. 

I still have his in my bottom drawer because I have a knack for not misplacing things. He still has mine. Maybe. Or he lost it. Or he threw it away. Or he likes to wear women's clothes. Or, as my guy friend joked: he's using it as a pillow case to remember my scent. 

One minute we were laughing in bed, sharing secrets, listening to music, and watching videos while he fed me candy from his recent trip home. Then we weren't.

Nothing is static.

He wasn't "ready for a serious relationship" right now (though I didn't ask). He gets "too intense", he said.

My T-shirt was newish, white and made of linen (immortalized by the above photo in Palm Springs - we will always have that). The shirt was open and flowy and it was mine. White shirts always make me feel pure and free. I liked that guy. I felt relaxed and open around him. I enjoyed getting to know him. 

Nothing is forever. Get a new temporary something.

I replaced the shirt this week. Though not exactly the same material or brand, it is white and new and I feel sexy wearing it. And Almost free.

Almost.