That’ll be $200

Sometimes I think I should go into some sort of advice business. I often find myself asked questions about what I would do if, or what I think about, or how does this make me feel and how do I handle it?

Just today, I again found myself giving relationship advice to an older woman. This happens more often that you’d think, strangely enough, and I’m unclear as to why. I’m not a relationship guru. In fact, I was anti-relationships for quite a long time. I’ve run the gamut on relationship types in a very short period of time and in very few actual relationships. I guess I just know how to pick the guys who will give me the most experience for my time, eh?

What I’m unclear about is why people just ask me for advice on things and, horror of horrors, actually listen to me sometimes. Don’t people know that I have no clue what I’m talking about? I can say, “Leave him” but it took me three-and-a-half years to do just that. I can say, “Tell him how you feel” but I’m not the master at starting those beginning conversations either. The only good I have now is that I can say, “This is how a relationship should be” and tell them to be open, honest, caring, and deeply committed without fear of being hurt if they actually have that type of relationship. I can tell them this about me and I can report what I’ve gone through, what I’ve done, and what worked (or didn’t) for me.

But…how does my experience work through many more years and many more relationships, such as my advisees have had?

My thought is this: Perhaps it’s just good to know that you aren’t the only one feeling that this is the way it should be. That this certain feeling you’re having? Isn’t just you and isn’t insane or a psycho-girlfriend coming out. That your wonderings? Are normal.

But my advice always falls this way: Talk to him about what you’re feeling, too. If you’re in that “should be” relationship, talking can work wonders if you’re both willing to see each other’s point of view. If he’s inconsiderate and brushes your fears and worries aside like they’re nothing and doesn’t even take one second to consider how you really feel about it?

That’s where my advice ends. How important are your feelings to you? After you decide that, you can take it from there.

Okay, so, like, how cool is this, eh?

*winks* No. I won’t really say it like that and I promised myself this blog wouldn’t become a “wedding” or “engaged girl” blog, and I will hold to that to all of you, too.

However, I just had the coolest thing ever happen to me and I’m so very excited that I want to share.

As we all know, due to the fabulous fairy tale written by “anonymous,” our heroine is going to be married.

What no one knew was WHO was going to be doing the actual marrying of the blessed couple. Neal emailed a minister he has been close to in the past and asked him about possibly officiating but the timing wasn’t right. He was open to possibly doing another date, if we would.

I’m partial to this date for several reasons that I won’t go into here. So, creative being that I am, my mind churned in search of an answer. I went to the internet and marriage laws in my state for answers. Nothing specific. Nothing specific. Nothing. Specific. Dangit. What’s a girl to do?

Call her best friend! Yes, that’s it.

I call my friend and ask her if she knows of who is legally allowed to marry in our state. She’s a youth minister, surely she knows, right? Well…not exactly. She wasn’t sure. But, she said jokingly, she had been told by the minister at the church that she could do it, if necessary. Bingo! Exactly the opening I was looking for because, in the recessed sly part of my brain, I was thinking about asking her if she were able to officiate weddings, solemnize the vows. Uh-oh. She wasn’t thinking I would take this seriously, I don’t think, but I had her cornered. *winks*

The deal was this: If I could find out that she would be allowed to, she would do it. Because she loved me so much. And because I had asked her to marry me once, a long time ago. (Neither of us realized that she might one day actually be able to really marry me, if not in that way.) And she had said then that she would, not understanding what she was getting herself into at that time.

I contacted the county clerk and found out, lo and behold, that any person, lay minister or ordained person or whatever, could perform a marriage and have it be legal if the church congregation declared this person had the authority to officiate weddings.

Would her church give her that authority? Could it be done? Really? Hmmmm…

*bated breath*

I received a call tonight that let us know two things: We now have an officiate and we have a exact date. My two best friends will be marrying me on May 27 (in different capacities, of course).

Classic.

I have no words. Of course, if I did, they would be written out in normal English-y type letters. I’m not a fan of netspeak, personally, but…I normally let people do what they will.

This, however, breaks my heart. Just to tiny little pieces. Little, little pieces that cannot be re-pieced together.

I may be dying inside. *sniffs*

The large-y, barge-y spider…

For those of you who know me well enough, you’ll find this odd but I’ve discovered a spider that I actually find quite pretty. And, if spiders around here looked like this (last pic in the bunch. Post rated PG-13 for one use of strong language. *chuckles*) instead of brown or black and strangely large and hairy with pinwheel legs, I might actually think they weren’t so scary.

Unfortunately, here? Our spiders don’t look like that and they freak me out so I attempt to Pledge them to death and freak out when they still run away when I think I’ve stunned them enough to get a shoe and let them out of my sight for five milliseconds. *sighs* Sorry ’bout that, Misty. Next time I’ll just whack it with the Pledge container.

I’ve posted this somewhere before but think it must’ve been in someone’s comments somewhere. Let’s go to what Quammen says about the spider in “See No Evil”. (Quammen, by the way, is definitely a man after my own brain.)

All me to confess an invidious personal bias: I don’t trust any animal with more than six legs and more than two eyes. No rational explanation for this, it’s just a cringe reflex from the murkiest subconscious, but there you are. Six and two. I go queasy with terror and disgust whenever confronted with a beast who flouts those magic limits. Six and two. Octopuses are suspect but acceptable. Insects, however bizarre, are fine. Snakes are among my favorite living things–beautiful, sleek, unadorned, binocular. A dizzying wave of repulsion passes over me, on the other hand, at the mere glimpse of a color photograph of a tarantula. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, gack, eight–and then the legs. Am I alone or does anyone else experience this neurosis? Have you ever looked a black widow in the face? Poison isn’t the problem; a rattlesnake has poison, yet a rattlesnake is merely handsome and dangerous. Hideousness is the problem. I know it’s subjective, I know it’s unfair. But a creature with that many legs and eyes, Judas, you just never know what it might be getting ready to do. One on one, it already has you outnumbered.

And Quammen knows what he’s talking about. In “The Face of a Spider,” he attempts to gaze into the mug of a spider.

The face of the spider is unlike anything else a human will ever see. The word “ugly” doesn’t even begin to serve. “Grotesque” and “menacing” are too mild. The only adequate way of communicating the effect of a spiderly countenance is to warn that it is “very different,” and then offer a photograph*. This trick should not be pulled on loved ones just before bedtime or when trying to persuade them to accompany you to the Amazon.

But, here is the point of many things that I always have to remind myself. I don’t like spiders. I abhor them. Am afraid of them like nothing else in this world. Most people fear speaking in front of others. I adore doing so and have no issues with getting up in front of others and talking to them, reading them some poetry, or showing them something new. Others fear death. I don’t fear that physical end either. I fear spiders. I fear arachnids. Ticks don’t hold a fear in as much as a disgust and a wariness of disease. Scorpions, however, hold the same revulsion as a brown recluse.

I become frozen in fear when I see one darting its way across my floor and hiding, curling its legs up over its body, making it hard to find. If I can’t see it, it’s not there, right? Wrong. As I told Misty while I held the Pledge canister tightly in my hand, I’d rather see the thing on the wall and know where it is than wonder when it will jump out at me and eat my entire leg off. (Yes, I think I worded it quite like that, too. *shrugs* What can I say? I hate spiders.)

Quammen, even while holding the same intense fear that I maintain for these vile creatures, has a point as he goes on in the latter-mentioned essay:

I only know that, when I make eye contact with one, I feel a deep physical shudder of revulsion, and of fear, and of fascination; and I am reminded that the human style of face is only one accidental pattern among many, some of the others being quite drastically different. I remember that we aren’t alone. I remember that we are the norm of goodness and comeliness only to ourselves. I wonder about how ugly I look to the spider.

Last week I tried to make eye contact with a tarantula. This was a huge speciman, all hairy and handsomely colored, with a body as big as a hamster and legs the size of Bic pens. I ogled it through a sheet of plate glass. I smiled and winked. But the animal hid its face in distrust.

~~~

So, I think on these things, reading into them what I am supposed to, wondering about our treatment of animals and fear of what is different throughout the animal kingdom. I have a friend who intensely dislikes cats. I know another who fears the snake’s pokey tongue and slit eyes. Still another shudders at a mouse’s twitching nose and whiskers.

What puts fear within us? I know not for some of these things. Some things are learned, are they not? Just as we learn discrimination and hate, we can learn to be afraid of things that have very little business scaring us so terribly. A spider can harm me but I have only been bitten by one in my lifetime. Compared to how many have been in my vicinity, both known and unknown, I find this quite mild. No one I know has been bitten by a snake. And, while I’ve personally had a mouse’s teeth sunk into the fleshy part of my finger while it dangled downward and gravity held its teeth there, I’m not afraid of them. Neither am I afraid of the horsefly, which has bitten me emphatically on one occasion. What causes this other than a bad experience or a learned inheritance of distrust of what our parents don’t like?

Let’s peddle forwards with our wide load and just jump into the pothole I’m skirting, shall we?

Why do we fear people who are different than us? Why do we wonder at their differences and think that they negate our own beliefs and opinions? Does the fact that I don’t believe that spiders are harmless and neat negate the fact that people find them fascinating and beautiful? By no means! It simply means that opinions can differ. That we aren’t the same.

Why? How do we get here? Who we are. Where we’ve come from. What we’ve learned from our environment and the actions of others. What we’ve seen and heard.

Can we look in the faces of those who are different? Or do we look away and just scorn them? Can we deign to believe that someone’s views, however different, may not just be “simply wrong”? Can we grasp that a dissension doesn’t mean our views are of no worth or little value?

Am I throwing out the existence of black and white truths? As I’ve mentioned before, in my mind there are many blacks and many whites that have no fuzzy edges, no greying centers or fading corners. Black and white exist, even today, and I’m not here to debate what issues fall where on the shading scale. I’m here to request the simple act of trying to understand other people and where they are coming from, literally and figuratively.

~~~

Trying to understand my fear of spiders. Hm. That’s hard to do. I don’t know what started it. Neither of my parents are scared of them. My sister isn’t. I don’t know where it came from even myself. I try to understand it. Most understandably for many, that path of attempted discovery swerves each time I encounter the fearsome face of this creature. I am working on it, not willing to hold a spider in my hand but willing to work on the attempt to not freeze in fear, breath accelerating and blood flooding my body with heat, whenever I know one is about.

Even though I’ve not discovered its root, either through lack of memory or denial of reason, I can still continue working on overcoming it. I didn’t stand on the couch with my eyes fixed on the spot where the creature was this time. I stepped down, opening myself to perceived allowance of attack. I made the creature show itself. I forced it into my view before taking action. I looked at it. I thought about it.

In the end, with the spider, I ended up attemting to dispose of it, knowing I wouldn’t sleep without dreams of its striped back and long, hairy legs all night. But I had looked at it. I had examined my fear. I had thought it through.

And it’s still here, loose, running free.

But I haven’t dreamt of it in fear. Not once.

___
* Do not click this link if you are getting ready for bed or you would like to visit the Amazon with me at any time in the future. That said, scroll down for two views of different spider faces on the righthand side. See? (And tell me how nice I am for not really linking to a huge picture of a spider face that will totally freak you out. I gave you time to get ready by allowing a scroll-down. And you all owe me for making me look at pictures of spiders while I searched for this for you, my beloved readers. Someone owes me a trip to the Amazon. Perhaps you can all pool your resources for doing this for you.)

I should have known better.

Dang. Due to the increasing number of people who have taken it upon themselves to do the following, I feel obliged to post this as well. (Argh. I hate being a stickler for things like this but I’m not going to call someone’s boyfriend “schmoopy” when that’s their pet name for him or their girlfriend “sweetie-pie-sugar-cakes” when that’s a special nickname either.)

For my friends (AKA A ROYAL DECREE):

Anyone who takes it upon themselves to begin calling me Queen or any variation of that name thereof should be prepared to be met with stony silence from me until an appropriate other name is chosen. Only one person is allowed to call me that. And, I believe (and correct me if I’m wrong, my dear) that the aforementioned nickname for the male ruler of this relationship is for me alone as well. There are reasons this fairy tale is set between a Queen and a Rajah and, no, I’m not telling why. If you already know, *shows squelching motion with fingers*

Thanks and good day, sir! *winks*

Because we said so; that’s why.

As I’ve already mentioned to my parents and the like: The upcoming nuptials, as everyone seems content to call them, will be a very small affair. The decisions of what will take place during the ceremony, who will be involved, and what traditions we maintain, adapt, or refuse are ours alone.

Now, I will be more than happy to share with people some of the details of what we’ve chosen and what we’ve done away with but I will not be badgered into giving details on how we came about those decisions or why we didn’t do this or the other.

Remember this, my dearest and beloved friends: Just because my opinion is different doesn’t make it wrong. Just because our wedding is different in any way from yours or the way we got to the engagement is, too, doesn’t make it wrong either. And, because Neal and I are both content with each other and the way things have happened, we don’t feel the need to explain the reasoning for each decision (or even most of them).

Do not take offense if I query you right back instead of giving you an answer or just giving you my own thoughts or Neal’s. We are a unique couple (duh) and will do this in the way that is right for the both of us, through discussion with each other and compromise when necessary and through absolutely knowing each other so well that we can decipher what is important for each.

And, again, to use a silly example: Just because you wanted your dog to be the ring bearer and your cat to be the flower girl doesn’t mean that I want my pet in it. This doesn’t make your way wrong or my way right. It means that it wasn’t the way for us or the decision that we made.

Understand, please, when I don’t jump at the chance to defend myself or Neal or the decisions that we’ve made. I’ve had enough of doing that with the engagement ring issue and I’m not about to do it for every decision I make.

My answer will indubitably be: No comment. (Or, perhaps, why should we? If you can ask why we’re not, I reserve the right to ask why we should. And I need something more than: “Well, that’s the way it’s always been done” to make your argument fly.)

Thank you for understanding.

A modern fairy tale, incomplete without villains and treachery

Settle in. Snuggle up. Let me tell you a story, if you will.

In a land far, far away (more commonly known today as “The Vastness of Internet Space”) at a time long, long ago (approximately two years by common Earth measurement), a Queen was checking her daily newsprints (today, also called “blogs”) when she became quite bored. (This was before the days of her own regular blogging and that irregular blogging of some of her friends, before she had amassed a large quantity of blogs to check daily along with her regular and semi-regular non-print graphic novellas [known today as "webcomics"], before she had even realized the full potential of what she could find, read, and see within this interestingly vast land of hers.)

So. What is a Queen to do? She clicked hyperspaced wormholes into other dimensions, since magic of this type was common in her land. (We today call these “links”.) One of these other-dimensioned wormholes led her to the post of a Rajah who was debating his singlehood, for, as you know, Rajah’s usually have large harems. This Rajah, however, was different. He was not looking for many women to fill his palace. He was discussing finding one and wondered if he were just too picky. After all, there were many women within his own vast land. Why could he not content himself with one of these? Was he as Sir Jerry of the Seinfeld, who often complained in the Rajah’s ear of his own women’s proclivity for eating peas incorrectly or having the most unwomanly of hands?

The Queen did not think this was the case, as she often thought that she was just not to be wed and told the Rajah this. This was odd for her, for she did not often speak to strange peoples from other lands (especially those from the frigid Northlands). She felt compelled, however, to do so. So they started an oddly comfortable conversation about potential pickiness and awaiting the possible person they were to be with.

Now, before you get scared and try to hide your eyes, let me tell you that there is no great villain outside of the Queen and Rajah themselves. No awful, misguided suitor who would attempt to steal the Queen away and no evil sorceress who would use potions to ensure the affections of the Rajah for her own. We won’t have to worry about those, so listen unfettered by fear or cowardice.

The Queen and Rajah began a friendship that was strong, trusting, and loyal from the beginning. Oddly enough, as the Queen was as untrusting as the next royal ruler who had to worry about potential invasions, which means she basically didn’t trust any male who might attempt to usurp her throne and throw her in a dungeon. She knew, without aid or counsel from her most trusted advisor and wizard of the land, that this Rajah could be trusted. He was not trying to increase his harem or landholdings. In fact, he was quite content without more land and with searching for one Ranee (which is, of course, what a Rajah’s wife is called).

For a year, they conversed, met, and became good friends. The Rajah scuffed his feet and hedged, hemming and hawing back and forth in his own mind. Finally, one day, they were speaking and he finally asked the Queen what she thought about possibly becoming his single thought for the future. She debated this (all of one millisecond) and decided that she would. They began to “date,” as I believe it is called nowadays.

Things went beautifully, from the tiffs to the cuddles, they were happy and worked things through. They both realized that this was a perfect arrangement but for one thing: She was in her land and he was in his. They needed a way to destroy the distance between them. They tried spending weeks together, within her land or his, but this did not seem right. The Rajah and the Queen began to discuss their future in more concrete terms and less in a “potential, maybe it could be us” way. They realized that this was right, that they were what the commoners called in their fables and fairytales “meant to be.”

The Rajah came to visit the Queen within her land. As they were crossing the Bridge of Serenity, which crossed the Babbling Brook of Autumn (as an aside, yet again, I believe that these days they just call it the Stone Bridge over Fall Creek), where they had walked and listened to the talking waters many times. They walked along the Brook and then returned to the Bridge to cross, returning to their awaiting carriage (a grape, magically turned into the most lovely of carriages). The Rajah had the Queen close her eyes. She did so, turning around as well, for the Queen was a sly one and also knew her own self so very well that she knew her eyes would inadvertently pop open of their own volition if she did not also turn around. She heard rustling behind her and slight scuffing now and again. She wondered what the Rajah was doing. He pulled her backwards and positioned her on the bridge where he wanted her. He then told her to look.

Before her very eyes, she realized the great magic the Rajah held. He had brought the beach where they had very first walked and had laid it out before her on the bridge! (This is the beach of the Lake that is called Surpassing.) She was amazed to also note that the Rajah was on one knee in front of her. (He held no engagement ring for her, for reasons most of you know. If you don’t, let me tell you here so you aren’t confused later: Our Queen already had all the riches of the world, you realize, and the Rajah knew of the worthlessness of such baubles in her eyes, knowing also that she did not particularly like the sparkling of those chiseled rocks called diamonds, as they blinded her when she was driving with the carriage uncovered. He did hold in his hand her ring of pure hope and love, which he had asked her to take off and hand to him before calling forth the beach.)

To make a fairly long story short: The Rajah asked. The Queen said yes. And they will live forever after, not always happy, but at least joyful in the knowledge that their friendship had grown and the previous two years of getting to know one another and building trust and love would never end.

Alas, our story must here, as the future is thus far still unknown.

*narrator curtsies and leaves the stage*

(This is how I told most of my friends and some of my family about this happening. I realize how odd I am. Let’s go with it, eh?)

Protected:

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password: