Look Like a Lush, Talk Like A Tease

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." ... You must do the thing you think you cannot do."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

I’ve been living in Chicago for just under a month now. There have been plenty of times where I have felt like sitting down and writing. To work through my emotions, to fill a boredom, to expand creativity. I wanted to share my wisdom of the moment with all of you, but alas it certainly appeared that whenever I felt like writing for you I was out of an element that would allow my to leave my thoughts for your pondering. There were moments that I did go so far as to hand write in my journals. Now many feel that handwriting is a dying art, and it is. I HATE it. If you had to stare at my penmanship that long, you would too. Typing is so much neater, and easier to fix. I was almost to the point that I would have enjoyed a typewriter. (Actually, I frequently prefer typewriters to word processors. Your mistakes are never gone without some amount of evidence.) Hopefully soon, I will be in possession of a shiny new macbook. Then I am sure you will be hearing from me much more.

Now the reason I cannot grace you with my wisdom of yore, is because my opinions are quickly shifting. For a while I was caught up on a song lyric from The Maine that had me thinking for a while at how many misconceptions there are between genders.

“Girls do what they want, boys do what they can.” – ‘Girls Do What They Want’ - The Maine

This idea has also been reinforced to me by more than one of the male gender of our species telling me that girls have it so easy. I am assuming I missed that day in “How to be a girl” school. You know, they day they taught us that you can apparently flirt your way to anything you want because you have boobies. Even the way you supposedly don’t even need to flirt, just be there and I have heard I am supposed to have it so much easier than any guy in there. Now this has also been reinforced by the fact that one of my closest friends here has been on a mission to flirt her way to a discount in a comic book store. Now I don’t doubt that she will be near successful in this endeavor, and maybe I’ll just need to watch closely and pick up some pointers. I don’t know what it is that I must be doing wrong, because every time I’ve walked into a bar, a store, a club, a party, anywhere, I have needed to go way out of my comfort zone to even get people to talk to me. And, unlike a very small percentage of girls I know, I cannot walk into a bar and walk out with a phone number and a potential date. So, unless I am doing something wrong and my observations are entirely off, I think it is this small percentage of sirens giving everyone the wrong impression on how hard it is to put yourself out there.

My advice to all of you, don’t be afraid to approach someone, the worst they can do is reject you before they know you, and in that case are they worth getting to know anyway? I truly believe that so many times, we are all too afraid to approach, so sometimes it is facing those fears and stepping out there you never know what might happen.

And here I was not going discuss this with you all. I guess it was still much more on my mind than I realized. Now onto a point I was intending to make today.

Something I have noticed lately is how much attitude can make a difference. Now only my attitude is in my grasp. I can dictate how I feel, and that is it. If you are going to be in a bad mood, there is little I can do to change that if you don’t want it changed. But I do think that there is a communicable property of a smile. And I bet there is evidence somewhere to proving that even making the effort to smile actually does make you feel better. So I am issuing a challenge. Smile at strangers. Now do so with discretion. Not that everyone doesn’t deserve a smile; it is just the interpretation that might be problematic. Don’t go smiling at the shady looking folk lurking at night. Don’t be afraid to smile at the people you are passing on the street, or the ones waiting for the train with you. It will make them feel better, and in response, you’ll feel better. It’s crazy how that works. Who knows, you may even be the highlight of their day.

See if you can’t make three people smile today, and make it five tomorrow. You’ll feel better, they’ll feel better, and maybe it will spread even farther.

Song of the moment: No News Is Good News - New Found Glory [lyrics]
[I really get the feel from this song that sometimes, in a world and society that is flooding us with everything that is turning out wrong in the world, we should take the time to step away and live our own lives, because ultimately, that is all we can do if we want anything to happen.]