fate?

i'm in a new city, with not too many friends. on a rainy saturday night with nobody to keep you company except shrek and his new girlfriend, it is easy to feel lonely.

i escaped the duldrums of my non-airconditioned house to all the wonders a cineplex holds in store. i was melting in the akwardness of being alone in the long line for tickets, swarmed by mobs of clingy, loud and are they old enough to be doing that?! couples. i stood there, by myself, in the evening mist, dreading the moment when I'd have to ask for one ticket from the acned pre-teen who's too young to see R rated movies himself, but old enough to ask you for your ID; a pre-teen who couldn't care less that you're all dressed up and all by yourself, but who somehow you've built up to be so intimidating that you second-guess your ability to speak when that fate-altering moment would come at the window. So, I found refuge at the automated credit-card ticket machine across the hall.

something about the timing, and maybe all the teen spirit in the air lead me to change my decision about which movie i would go see. Instead of cheerign myself up, as i had intended, and going to watch an upbeat comedy about, according to the blurb on Leno, a hairy man who gets his chest waxed, I somehow managed to push the button for a sappy Reese Witherspoon romantic chick flick, which proceeded only to darken my spirits.

is fate real, or is it something hollywood uses to swindle us into buying more $9 movie tickets?

i personally think it's similar to religion in that we humans may be making it up to make ourselves feel better. Reality bites, right? so why not make up some shiznit and live in a world of illusions-- illusions sure are prettier than the real world! that said, i don't mind tricking myself every now and then into believing in fantasies, if it makes me feel happier, even for a little while.

take for instance, star wars. i know that universe doesn't exist, but it makes the movie so much more enjoyable if i allow myself to be fooled for the length of the film.

thus, i must confess i need to believe, not necessarily in fate, but in love. in the idea that i will one day find my prince charming who will be my second half. who will 'complete me.' driving home teary-eyed in the rain, i couldn't help but feel incomplete.

i might not necessarily have a perfect fit out there, but i do think i might need a little support.. a little ying for my yang; a little cream for my coffee; a little icing for my cake... (i apologize for the over-used, and imprecise analogies).

what about you? do you believe in love? in fate?

old friend

mmm.... the joys of getting an unexpected call at 9:30pm from an old friend. a year after our paths parted, he was off to join the marines, and I was off to college. i hadn't heard from him since that heartbreaking letter he sent me detailing the hell he was going through during boot camp.

this past may, in the midst of sending out thank-you letters for graduation presents, i came upon joe's address, hidden away at the bottom of my box of Monet blank cards. I don't remember what i wrote, but i must have left him my cell number, because just as i was feeling lonely on this, my second friday night in a new city, i got a call from joe!!

he's stationed in california-- 3,000 miles was a small hurdle to jump after a few years of unanswered letters.

(i'm still debating if i prefer telephone calls.... letters are so much more romantic... not in the lovey-dovey sense, just in the old fashioned candle-lit sense. its got an enjoyably slow anticipation-building pace. plus, there's something about seeing someone's thoughts written down... seeing how they cross their T's or dot their smiley faces. plus, you can tuck a letter away in a drawer and refind years later to see that the brown hue to the edge of the pages only adds to its matured value.)

his experience in the past few years has been so different to my own. we share the fact that we're the same age and from the same country, but not too much else.

i'm one of those anti-war, bra-burning, hippie-wannabes, born just one little generation too late. listening to his war stories (literally), I felt like Jenny in Forrest Gump.

but at the same time, we were both crunchy hippies at one time, and that's how we met... in the woods of Maine.

( to be continued...)