Here we go...

This is just going to be a short little post.

I am probably going to be extremely scarce online the next few days. This weekend is going to be just plain crazy. Saturday my grandparents are coming up from Decatur and my aunt and uncle are coming down from Wisconsin. Unfortunately, my grandparents don't like driving if they think the weather is "bad" (read "any rain, snow, or wind above around 5 mph"), so I might end up having to drive down to Decatur at 7 or so in the morning to pick them up and bring them here. Then I would have to drive them back that evening.

Sunday, my aunt and uncle from Wisconsin are sticking around and my aunt and uncle from Farmer City are coming up. This means my house is going to be overrun with cousins all weekend. Luckily most of them are at least 12 or so now, so the craziness level might be subdued some.

Monday, I will be awoken by my brother at probably 5am or so and then get dragged downstairs to open presents. Luckily that means I will have my Wii from then on. . . so that is another reason for me to be offline.

I might get online some every night just to chat and check e-mails, but I probably won't be online during the day (like I have been) until Wednesday or Thursday.

Merry Christmas to all. . .

Tiny Tim: And God Bless Us, Everyone!

Me: How the hell did you get onto my blog?

Tiny Tim: Christmas miracle?

*George then proceeds to beat the most annoying Christmas character ever with his own crutch.*


MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

Is this even a blog anymore? Or should I just go look for a Publisher?

Ok, before I get into the main body of this post I have to say something about my last post. . . DAMN! I really can be an ass when I feel like it. (and a little voice in my head says, “Yes. Embrace the hatred. Embrace the Dark Side”, or at least it does until I quash it.) I was in a very bad mood when I wrote that post, and it shows. I know I made at least one person mad (and she has already yelled at me about it), but at the time we were talking I didn’t really understand why she was so mad about it. Looking back and reading it now, I realize why. I may have made a few valid points in it, but I was a real jackass about it and didn’t fully explain myself. This whole thing brings to mind a quote:

“Speak when you are angry - and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret.” – Dr. Laurence J. Peter

And oh boy is that quote ever right. Let me fully explain what I was meaning when I wrote that last post, because the way it looks now. . . well it just looks like I am decrying the whole idea of the “Apples” thing, and that is not what was meant by it.

When I first read the apples quote, my first thought was that it figured that women were pawning off all the blame on men. I am not saying that men are blameless. When looked at using generalities, the quote seems extremely valid and without straining myself I can name countless guys who indeed are exactly like the guys illustrated in the quote. I just don’t like the idea that women are held completely blameless in the whole idea. In the role of an apple, the woman has no say in the matters, and is held aloof. When using the apple to represent the woman, we take away any human actions or responsibilities. They are an inanimate object that is just hanging on a tree branch, while guys are the ones who have to make all the decisions and actions. I think perhaps a better metaphor needs to be found, but I can’t think of one at the moment (Oh, great. I can see another post coming).

The whole situation was further complicated earlier this evening when I was talking with my dad. I warn you now that I am going to compare apples and oranges (literally). I grabbed a couple of oranges out of the fridge and tossed him one and he asked me which drawer I got them out of. Apparently there are two different types of oranges in our fridge and he doesn’t like one of them. That got me to thinking. Maybe one of the problems that guys have is that they go after the wrong kind of apple. Maybe we are barking up the wrong tree. Perhaps we should be going after Granny Smith apples, but we have been going for Red Delicious. Hmmmm, more things to think on.

Now on to the original reason for this post.

----------

This part of the post will pertain to another conversation I have been having lately (Seems like half my posts are started this way nowadays). The last post inspired by a conversation was about communication between men and women, and I guess this post is somewhat similar in origin.

The main point of this post came from a question I asked a while back: “Why do women have a hard time believing and accepting it when I guy tells her she is beautiful?”

This question came up while we were talking about her insecurities, which I am not going to get into right now (all I am saying is that I still say she is wrong about them).

Her response to the question was thus:

“The reason we don't think we're beautiful is because society has told us since childhood that we're not. They say the only way we can be beautiful is if we buy these clothes, wear this makeup, and worship these airbrushed celebrities.”

I know that arguing against that kind of thing is like bashing my head against a brick wall, but what can I say, I am an argument masochist. So I tried. I made comments about how, while mass beauty is labeled by society, individuals are eventually the ones responsible for their views on beauty. None of it worked though. Eventually I just gave up on that side of the argument for the moment. Instead I turned to trying to find how a guy can be believed when he is trying to say something of that sort and was given the following response:

"So if a guy wants to tell a girl she's beautiful, he shouldn't start by saying that she is beautiful. That's a very daunting statement. He should start smaller. He should say that she has beautiful eyes, or something. She'll believe it if he compliments a specific feature. Then he can gradually start to go larger and larger until she's comfortable hearing that her complete package is beautiful."

Once again, I knew that trying to argue about this would be the equivalent of banging my head on a brick wall, but I continued. . . to no avail. Eventually I got bored of running in circles (there was a circular brick wall I was running around to keep the head banging up) and decided to post the comments on a Facebook group to get some feedback.

There was a general consensus on the Facebook group that:

A. Women are (generally) insecure and because they see their flaws they don’t understand how others can think they are beautiful because of the flaws.

B. Because there are a lot of guys who will say things like “You are beautiful” as a way to get into girls’ pants, it is hard for a woman to just accept it (unless she knows the guy well enough to trust that his motivation is pure, in which case she should accept it).

C. No matter how often she is told by people she is beautiful, a woman won’t believe it unless she thinks she is beautiful.

Disheartened by this, I returned to thinking about it myself. How could I reconcile the comments I had gotten from people with my personal beliefs? How could I come up with a concise statement detailing how I felt? The only thing I could think of right off was the old adage “beauty is in the eye of the beholder", but that didn’t really say all that I wanted to say. I couldn’t think of anything else at the moment, so I started looking for a quote to detail how I felt.

I found a few:

I only hope she knows she is beautiful inside and out. If not, maybe she can borrow my eyes for a night.

I have seen sunsets, sunrises, blue oceans, deep seas, lush forests, dense jungles, but nothing - not even these - could compare to the beauty that lies before me.

I'm sitting here thinking about your beauty, but no words come to mind. Then I realize that no words could ever come close to the beauty I see in you.

I don't care what you're wearing, or how much make-up you have on or don't have on; it's just you that makes you so beautiful.

When a guy calls you hot, he's looking at your body. When he says you're pretty, he's looking at your face. But, when a guy tells you that you're beautiful, he's looking at your heart.

The mirror doesn't show what you truly are but what you believe.

I even found one I had written down from Professor Seely:

Beauty has power over us. We can't control it. We can be aware of it and try to reduce the effect, but we can't control it - Mark Seely

Now, those are all great quotes, but none of them really said what I wanted to convey. Eventually I thought up a personal statement that fit what I was thinking at the moment:

Beauty is a personal concept. One man may find beauty in a sunset, and another in a flower. Society may say, “This is what is beautiful, and everything else is ugly”, but I don’t care about what society sees. I care about what I see, and when I look at you I see beauty. - Me

So there you have it folks. That is my statement on Beauty. Beauty is personal. Beauty is individual. Beauty may be roughly defined by society, but it is the individual who actually decides what they find beautiful. So ladies, next time you are called beautiful, don’t think “But I don’t look like (insert Hollywood celeb here)”. Instead, think “Wow, this person finds me beautiful” and take it as a genuine compliment.

Apples to Apples

GEORGE SMASH!!!!

Ok, now that I have that out of my system, I would like to thank whoever came up with the moronic “Girls are like apples” thing. Not only have girls been using it for months now to justify why they are alone when there are plenty of good guys around (It is our fault, not theirs. We are just apparently too scared to climb.), but I have now had a guy send me an e-mail about it.

For those of you who don’t know what I mean by the “Girls are like apples” thing, I have a nice little image of it –
(And for the extremely lazy among us, I will post a text version of it. I personally like the text version better because it doesn’t mess with the spelling of words to fill out the tree form.)

Girls are like apples on trees. The best ones are at the top of the tree. The boys don't want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead, they just get the rotten apples from the ground that aren’t as good, but easy. So the apples at the top think something is wrong with them, when in reality, they're amazing. They just have to wait for the right boy to come along, the one who's brave enough to climb all the way to the top of the tree.

First I am going to talk about what this e-mail I got said, and then I am going to get into my response to the e-mail and then the quote in general.

The e-mail I got said –

“George, I just saw this and realized how true it was. I know that I was scared to ask out my girlfriend, but once I sucked it up and did it I became happier than I have ever been. I think that every guy out there just needs to get the balls to climb up the tree and grab his apple.”

My response was as follows –

“Thank you so much for that. I never knew that was my problem. I just haven’t been trying hard enough. I am too much of a fucking pansy apparently. Just don’t seem to have any balls according to you. I guess all those rejections I got from the ‘best apples’ were just because they thought I hadn't climbed well enough for them.

I understand that you have had a girlfriend for three years, but for the sake of every single guy alive, don’t take all the blame for every relationship problem a girl has ever had and put it on our shoulders. Ok? Thanks."

Now here’s my response to the quote. Sure, women are like apples, and the apples at the top of the tree are beautiful. The thing is, there are some guys who have climbed the tree multiple times in the past. We gather up our courage and struggle up the tree. We use whatever handholds we find - at times having to make our own handholds if we can’t find any – and climb up to the top of the tree. Once we get there, we find the beautiful apple we were climbing for and think we have reached our goal. It is only then we find that apparently we aren’t good enough for that apple and get laughed at and pushed out of the tree. Do any of you have any idea how much that fall hurts – to go from the highest heights and plummet to the ground, seeming to hit every branch of the tree along the way? Well, I can tell you from experience that it isn’t a fun thing.

So ladies, while it is true that there are some guys who aren’t willing to work for the beautiful apples at the top of the tree, you have to take responsibility for your own actions. There are plenty of guys who are willing to do the work and climb as high as they can in the tree, but they aren’t the guys the apples want climbing up. Thus, the apples either ignore them or kick them out of the tree and then resume their lonely vigils; all the while complaining that there aren’t any guys who are brave enough to climb and pick them.

Skirmishes in the "Battle of the Sexes"

Lately a friend and I have been talking a lot about how men and women communicate. Neither of us can understand the other sex, and no matter how much we try explaining it to one another, confusion reigns supreme as always. Of course, this has gotten me to thinking more and more about the subject. Then, lo and behold, one of my buddies from high school posts on his blog a post about that exact issue. (Love ya Newman.)

*Waits for laughter, snide comments, and such to die down.*

Yes, yes, yes, I said “Love ya” when talking about a guy. Please keep the snickering to a minimum… you know who you are. Now back to the topic at hand.

Over the past couple weeks I have heard from various friends (both male and female) “George! Why are (the opposite sex) so damned confusing?” or “Why can’t guys/girls just say/do what they mean?” The truth is that I have no idea. I would like to think that I am a straightforward and easy to understand guy, but I don’t know. Maybe what I find to be straightforward and honest is confusing to some people. I hope not, but you never know.

In talking with my friend, I came up with a few thoughts and ideas. First, the subject of men and women communicating has been a topic of discussion, argument, and thought for as long as humans have had language, and yet we still don't understand the full complexities of the opposite sex. Funnily enough, I don't know whether it is sad or amazing. I don't think any man has ever fully understood any woman (or vise versa), yet somehow the human race has gone on. Somehow through the confusion of our mixed up and crazy communication patterns, people still find a way to fall in love and live out their lives with people they don't truly understand. I don't know how or why it works the way it does. It is simply amazing what humans are capable of.

Well, I am going to cut this post short because I am oddly tired for some reason tonight. So here are a few quotes I found while thinking about the relationship between “Men and Women” and our communication problems:

“To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.” – Anthony Robbins

“Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's too much fraternizing with the enemy.” – Henry Kissinger

“The woman who appeals to a man's vanity may stimulate him, the woman who appeals to his heart may attract him, but it is the woman who appeals to his imagination who gets him” – Helen Rowland

“And verily, a woman need know but one man well, in order to understand all men; whereas a man may know all women and understand not one of them.” – Helen Rowland (apparently she was one of the few women who actually understood men)

Oh me

*Sigh*

So last night was the Winter Formal, and I let myself get roped into going. It is amazing what Jello Shots, old friends, Jack, and a penchant for masochistic behavior will get you into.

The dance itself was alright, but I spent most of my time gravitating between it and Core XI. It seemed that every time I walked into the ballroom, someone would say, "GEORGE! Come down to Core XI and have a drink with me." . . . I was at the point where I was just like, "More booze sounds good to me."

As you can tell by the above paragraphs, I was pretty far gone most of the night, and I was having a ball doing it. I was walking back and forth between various groups of friends, joking, laughing, dancing (extremely badly, but fully aware of that fact). Things were great and I was loving life.

.... Then I made a fatal mistake. I started talking to people who I shouldn't have and saying things I shouldn't have. I took a walk and ran into the one person I... well I can't say I didn't want to run into this person, because I did, yet at the same time it was the one person I didn't want to interact with last night. I wanted a carefree night where I didn't have to have internal battles every few minutes. I mean, I even managed to mostly avoid this person at the formal... even though I walked past them around three dozen times. Sure enough though, while walking around campus I ran into this person and we talked for a couple minutes, then I went back to my room, and sure enough I started talking to them online.

I have found that I talk far too much when I am inebriated, and unfortunately alcohol is to my internal filter what magma is to ice. So here I am at my computer with my internal filter melted into a little puddle on the floor and I start talking to people. I know for a fact I said more than I probably should have, and of course I realized it every time I said something. I would send a message, and then go "Wow, I can't believe I just said that. Oh well, can't take it back".

So here I sit now, wondering how I got where I am in life and why I feel the way I do, and I don't know how to answer my own questions... although my computer is answering me. Thanks Bob.

Now, some lyrics and quotes to finish off this little rambling post:

"I just want one day to go by where I'm not pretending I'm happy!"

“Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.” - Henry Rollins

“Go out in the world and work like money doesn't matter, Sing as if no one is listening, Love as if you have never been hurt, and Dance as if no one is watching”

“I don't wish to be everything to everyone, but I would like to be something to someone.” - Javan

One day Love met Friendship.

Love asked, "Why do you exist when I already exist?"
Friendship replied, "To put a smile where you've left tears."

"How do you teach your heart it's a crime to fall in love again?"

That was then and this is now
I'm a new man, yeah, I'm a brand new man
And when they carve my stone they'll write these words
"Here lies a man who lived life for all that its worth"

I'm gonna stop lookin' back and start movin' on
Learn how to face my fears
Love with all of my heart, make my mark
I wanna leave something here

Go out on a ledge, with out any net
That's what I'm gonna be about
Yeah I wanna be runnin'
When the sand runs out
-Rascal Flatts "When the Sand Runs Out"