beautiful, funny, sad & true

This entry is a combination of two entries that I combined into one, and I’m re-posting them from my MySpace blog. This happened last summer, by the way.

I was out walking around yesterday, and I overheard two womens’ conversation, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. One said to the other, “I’m such a bitch in a relationship.”

The other person just took that in stride. “Oh, I KNOW. Relationships are SO hard. . .”

I wanted so bad to just turn and ask the first person, “Why?”

What’s the point of being in a relationship if all you’re going to do is make the other person miserable? Or allow them to make YOU miserable? Like the second person said, relationships ARE ‘so hard’, even under the BEST of circumstances. Everybody’s got issues. Yes, even me. har har

But at least I can say that I genuinely want the best for myself and whoever I’m with, and it makes me so sad to hear about people who seem to want nothing more than to leave a trail of destruction and heartbreak behind them.

Remember that you’re with the person you’re with because you LIKE THEM. And they LIKE YOU TOO. Why be together otherwise? Reinforcement of each others’ pathologies? Is that the basis of love? I have to believe it’s more than that, but sometimes I wonder. . .

Genuine deep connections with other people are extremely rare, and it seems to me like so many people don’t appreciate that, and they take the other person for granted.

And who am I to comment on all this? I have plenty of faults of my own, but I’m just sayin’. . . I want a real person to care about me for the Real Me, and I want to care about and connect with the Real Them in return. It seems like such an easy request. . .

and here’s part two:

Upon further reflection and re-reading, I felt the need to say that what I wrote earlier sounds more ‘intense’ than I meant it. I meant all that as a bit of questioning, not as a diatribe, which is how it kinda comes across. :) But that wasn’t my intention, or what I was feeling when I wrote it. More confusion than anything else.

Her phrase had been buzzing around in my head, and you got to witness my thought process, that’s all. LUCKY. :)

But anyway.

Man, is it a beautiful night or what? I wish my building had a roof (meaning one that people could go up onto; it obviously HAS a roof), or at least a fire escape, ’cause it’s the perfect night to sit out and look at the stars.

And for gawd’s sake, if you’re with somebody, appreciate them. Give them a hug or something. Try it now. . .go outside together, look at the stars or the city lights, and just hug for a while.

:)

Here are some pictures from a day trip to Astoria, Oregon just after Thanksgiving. I had played a gig in Seaside, Oregon, the night before, and instead of going back to Portland via the direct route, we (my girlfriend and I) decided to do some more sightseeing instead. We’d both been to Seaside a million times, but for some reason it had been ages since either of us had been to Astoria. Off we went.

Astoria is probably most famous for being used as the location for the movie The Goonies, back in the 80’s. These days, it’s really just a little tourist town. It’s right at the mouth of the Columbia River, where it meets the Pacific Ocean, so the weather is notoriously strange. That, combined with the hills and beautiful colors, makes for some tremendous and seemingly unlimited picture opportunities.

These houses are just about the first things you see when you enter Astoria from the south. They’re not in a particularly nice area of town (in fact, none of Astoria is particularly ‘nice’), but I was struck right away by their matching colors and symmetry.

For this one, we got almost-but-not-quite-all the way to the top of the hill, but we couldn’t see a ‘public’ way up any further, so we drove up a bunch of private roads and driveways. :) Sure glad we did, too, because this picture made it all worthwhile:

Everyone–meet Kelly. Kelly–meet everyone. :)

After a cold, gray, rainy morning of picture taking on the waterfront, we’d just had lunch and coffee, and were feeling good, so we decided to explore the town a little more. The sun started to come out, and the light changed, so we went back down to the waterfront and get pictures of the bridge in this new light. I had already taken a bunch of pictures, when suddenly a double rainbow started to appear. “V. exciting,” as Bridget Jones would say. This one’s really a once-in-a-lifetime shot:

Can’t wait to go back. I like the idea of going to the Washington side of the river and exploring up there, and maybe coming back over the Astoria bridge. Only problem with that is we’d have to come back over the Astoria bridge, which reallyreallyreally freaks me out, ’cause it’s like four miles long. Whether or not I’m up for that will depend on what the weather’s like.

Either way, there will be lots more good opportunities for pictures, and for fun with friends.