soldiers come quickly, i feel the earth beneath my feet

"there are many things worth living for, there are a few things worth dying for, but there is nothing worth killing for."
-tom robbins

sweet

i love metafilter. im not exactly sure what its intended purpose is, but there is this great place on it where people ask questions and other people answer. that is the kind of thing that i love most! and, these people are serious about their answers. you pay to join this thing (but its free to read them) so people arent going to waste their money on giving dumb answers. these people mean business, and their answers are good. people ask questions like "can you help me find the name of the brand of a yellow shoe with a red stripe that was popular in the year 1903?" and then all these other people...answer! its a dream come true, it really is. i love questions and i love answers even more. my favorite section is "human relations." this is the most interesting section. and i just found one of my favorite questions so far. i will summarize it. and maybe add some extra things that i am pretty sure are true and the original poster just did not mention. she probably didnt want it to get too long or something. anyways:

this girl and this boy work together. and they talk sometimes, from cubicle to cubicle, i think. and one time they were with a group of coworkers somewhere (im guessing the water cooler) and they were all making a list of who in the office they would want to be stranded on an island with. and the girl included the boy on her list. and she gave them all jobs on the island, and she said his job would be picking coconuts. because he is tall. and then another time, later, the boy and the girl were talking. and they boy offered the girl some skittles from his candy bowl (sidenote: if you work in an office you HAVE to have a candy bowl. its pretty much the only thing that will make your office life happy) and the girl took some skittles, but only red skittles. and the boy said "only red skittles?" and the girl said "yes, i only like red skittles. i consider myself somewhat of an elitist." this is considered a witty remark. look how impressive she is. and the boy was obviously impressed by her wit, because, what happens next is really great. a few days later, he comes to her cubicle, and he hands her a half of a hollowed out coconut. and it is filled with only red skittles. and he said this: "i didnt realize how hard coconuts are. or how few red skittles come in each bag." and then he asks her out on a date. and she says yes, of course! anyways, the question she needed metafilter to answer for her was what can she buy the boy to match his gift! right now, he is out of state on business, but dont worry, they are keeping in touch by phone.

this is what will probably happen when he gets home: she will have thought of an amazing gift. one person suggested giving him the "other half" of the hollow coconut filled with every color skittle except red. another suggested coconut cream pie, and another suggested a scavenger hunt with a treasure chest! but almost everyone agreed with the person who said "whatever you do, please kiss him. he sounds wonderful." i also agree with that person. anyways, she will take that advice. and then, they will go on a date, and then another date, and another date, and then another date x100. then, they will get married. at their wedding they will probably have little bowls of red skittles on the tables, and it will be somewhere tropical, with coconuts everywhere. isnt that great? im so happy for them.

this thing i have to do

a few years ago in china, joanna and i were wandering around xi'an one night looking for internet service. china at night is pretty and full of light. i dont know if she remembers this, but we went into a mcdonalds and we met a guy and a girl from australia, and they were backpacking through asia. and they invited us to the hostel they were staying at to use their internet. and on the walk back, they told us about backpacking. they didnt know when they were leaving xi'an or where they were going next, and the hostel looked fun. there were some drunk guys, and a girl reading an english-chinese dictionary on a couch. and a sign about free chinese noodle night the next day. and bunk beds. "no switching bunks please," it said. and i remember thinking that some day, i would be back to xi'an and i would stay in that hostel because i want to backpack. and i need someone to go with me. someone that i love, probably. through the last couple of years ive been trying to pin it on people. thats how i determine how much i like someone, actually. "they would be a great backpacker." i feel like im getting warmer. but...

here is something i will do: backpack through asia. i want to go to thailand, india, cambodia, china, japan, and malaysia. i am willing to expand (but not condense) this list.

i do not know when it will happen, but it will.

malaysia...this has been my computer desktop for years

cambodia...ever since emily went ive been reading about pol pot. that terrible man.

thailand...

and my favorite china.....we took this picture there

we are experiencing some heavy turbulence

with nikkis help i can turn everything into a figure of speech, usually a metaphor but we love similes too. and this is what emily says...

"im such a girl.
and he is such a guy.
you know, he doesn't even realize i'm all worked up
everything is always fine in guy land
while girl land has lots of complaining and turbulence.

i feel like im in a really, really pretty dress and perfect make up and my hair is really great, but im sweating like crazy because i just hit my foot on some random corner and i want to cry but that would ruin my make up. and i'm super angry but still want to be a lady..i dont even know why i'm angry.

so i have to stay home in a pretty dress and say 'oh have fun!'

i don't know if that is true, but sometimes, people can only handle part of the package. not the complete one.

we are not telemarketers..." "

today at work i called this guy
and i said is raquel available?
and he said "whos this"
and i told him
and he said "not interested"
and i said "is this raquel?"
(i was sort of being sarcastic because, it was a guy. and obviously he was not raquel. but my point was, you dont get to tell me if shes not interested, cause you are not her)
and he said "no"
and i said "well, is she available?"
and he said "no shes not"
and i said "okay, thank you"
and he said "no shes not"
and i said "okay, thank you"
and he said "no shes not"
and i said "okay, thank you"
and it went on for like 45 seconds.
and finally i just started laughing. and then he started laughing.
and then we talked about how annoying telemarketers are, and i told him i would cancel raquel's request for information.
and he said thanks
and i said no problem
and he said bye

and that conversation put me in a really good mood.

prayer of a retriever-barnacle

“But, I disappear into the person that I love. I am the permeable membrane. If I love you, you can have everything. You can have my time, my devotion, my ass, my money, my family, my dog, my dog’s money, my dog’s time - everything. If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume you for all your debts (in every definition of the word), I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will project upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family. I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else. I do not relay these facts about myself with pride, but this is how it’s always been.

Dear God, I could use a little break from this cycle, to give myself some space to discover what I look like and talk like when I’m not trying to merge with someone. And also, let’s be honest - it might be a generous public service for me to leave intimacy alone for a while. When I scan back on my romantic record, it doesn’t look so good. It’s been one catastrophe after another. How many different types of men can I keep trying to love and continue to fail? Think of it this way - if you’d had ten serious traffic accidents in a row, wouldn’t they eventually have to take your driver’s license away? Wouldn’t you kind of want them to?”

- Eat Pray Love