beautiful, funny, sad & true

I came across this this morning, too, and thought it was beautiful. It was in one of those ‘bulletins’ that doesn’t tend to stick around for very long, so I wanted to capture it and share it here.

When we view our fellow human beings, we should look as we do at rose bushes. All have flowers and thorns. Some are strong rooted, some weak. Disease weakens some, while others are healthy. The environment from which each bush grows helps shape its life, but none is all flowers, and none is all thorns. Love helps us to understand the function of the thorns and to appreciate the blooms.

Please understand my thorns.

I know, I know. I could so easily tie it in with the 80’s Röck thing if I were to just say the simple phrase, “Every rose has its thorn (yeah, it does),” but that would trivialize and ruin such a beautiful sentiment, and I would never dream of doing that.

The NumberOneThing I expect from my friends is honesty. If we don’t have honesty, then to put it simply, I’m not interested in being friends.

If we’ve HAD honesty in the past, but circumstances have changed enough that it’s too difficult or not something that’s of interest to you, that makes me really sad, because I’ve already come to expect honesty from you. When you can’t (or won’t) step up and provide it now, then I’m really disappointed.

It doesn’t have to be that way. If we’ve had honesty in the past, and then lost it for a while, but then you come back around and show effort–no matter how little it is, or how difficult it may feel for a while–then that’s what close friendships are built upon, and ours can be rebuilt too. I’ve been lucky enough to experience that a few times now.

But if you’re not interested, you’re not interested. If my friendship isn’t going to be reciprocated, I’m going to put my energy to more constructive use, where it will be appreciated and reciprocated.

Tonight I played my first gig with an Irish-style band called the Fenbi International Superstars. Hilarious and fun, and the main songwriter is Mike, the former bassist for the Young Immortals. We had the packed house singing and dancing like crazy.

And it was a good thing that the show was so much fun, too, because a surprise situation happened that really pissed me off. Again. Not as much as when it happened last time, but still. . .ouch.

Well, I made it through the rough patch.

I don’t know why it hit me so hard, but there was a combination of factors that led to that little meltdown. Add a few sad dreams–I’ve had a few brutal ones lately–and a liberal dose of exhaustion, and that makes a perfect recipe for depressive episode.

I walked to work three days this week. It’s about a half-hour walk each way, so I get a pretty decent amount of exercise when I do that, and it’s a great way to wake up, too.

Luckily, my dreams have also been more normal. Well, okay; normal for me. The one last night involved a friend of mine who was selling a brand new BMW (but it looked more like a swoopier, sportier SmartCar) to a guy he met online. My friend needed me to go over with him to help drive it over. The guy lived in a town that was perched on the edge of a cliff that overlooked the ocean, like Big Sur or something, so we drove through a curvy, mountainous road, and through an old mining area with a water slide (I don’t know, it was a dream!). When we arrived at his house, I saw that he had a drum set, but it wasn’t like any that I’d ever seen before, so I was trying to figure out if I could jump back there and play it while the guy was testing out the car. There, you see? Completely normal dream.

Tonight is RockShowGirl’s birthday, the third of the three Capricorn girls I know. I could barely keep my eyes open at work, so I’d love to take a nap before heading downtown, but I don’t know if I’ll actually do it.

My friend Maddy has been raving about a book called The Unhooked Generation for weeks now, and I finally made it to the library today. Coincidentally enough, it turned out that today was the perfect day to go, because there was a woman working there who seems to be exactly my type, who I’d very much like to ask out when I go back. I normally wouldn’t share that here, but I did for the simple reason that I’m a little bit shy, and I’m more likely to do it if I’ve told someone about it.

I also checked out some DVD’s; Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and Mondovino, an excellent documentary which I’ve actually seen before. It’s about the wine industry, and it compares the ‘new’ practices of the industry–led by American companies, naturally–with the more traditional, mostly European ones. It runs the gamut from the super-ultra-mega-producers like Robert Mondavi to a tiny French vineyard run by a single octegenarian gentleman, and everything in between. Alyssa and I saw the movie about a year ago, and I think you can probably imagine which we preferred, and found ourselves rooting for.

Tomorrow night is a Susie Blue gig, and although I’ve played accordion or keyboards with her for two years now, this will be the first time I play cello with her, and I’m very much looking forward to it. Our rehearsals have felt great.

The rest of the weekend is wide open. Here’s to some wide openness!

Starting tomorrow, one of my New Year’s resolutions is coming true.

It’s the private one, so don’t expect me to elaborate too much, but I will say that it’s a big one, and that it’s something I’ve done before, and that it changed my life dramatically. Now if I could only get the puddle of water off the floor of my car, I’d be very happy indeed.

I never did shake off that dream yesterday. I came home, watched “Boogie Nights”, and then called my brother’s wife. Both of their kids were asleep, so we were able to talk for about an hour, which was really nice. We haven’t had that kind of luxury for quite a while.

When I did finally go to sleep, I had another dream–too short to warrant an entire entry of its own–in which BoringFish and I were together, and we decided to get married. (“Not right now, but–y’know–in the future.“) Isn’t that funny? Two dreams about the same person, two nights in a row.

This afternoon was rehearsal with Susie Blue and GuitaristJason. I played accordion and cello. We have a few shows coming up in January and February–at great venues like the Doug Fir and Mississippi Studios–and it’s been ages since we played together. Sounded great and felt great, and I’m really excited for this round of gigs.

Tonight is SSF’s birthday party. A bunch of us are going to get sushi at her favorite sushi restaurant, Kappaya, and then we’re going bowling. It promises to be a blast.

I’ll keep you posted as some of the other resolutions are met. Right now, though, I’d better ‘motor’ (remember the movie Heathers?) if I’m gonna make it to the sushi place on time.