Another number added

To another year, that except for the Presidential primaries and election (!), flashed by at lightening speed.

Not such a great year for the bottom line, stress points escalating as much as the Dow Jones plunged. Housing screwed up from years and years of business and banking greed (plus, let's be honest...surreal elitist tendencies of a credit obsessed public)...future generations paying for the mistakes of an older generation who were paying already for the enabling of an even older generation.

Kids grow older, magic dims, hearts ache, bones creak, wrinkles~ damn them~ erode in spite of moisturizers! Even though 50 may be the old 40 and 40 maybe the old 30, etc etc etc. We cannot stop time! (vitamins, diet conscious food manufacturers, jeans, great new styles, and the free spirited maturing of defiant hippie souls has sure helped :) ) But we age. We ALLL age.

AND YET...here we face the (shamelessly stolen phrase) audacity of HOPE. So many of us have tightened our belts before and pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps, but we did so, for the most part, without much assistance from an administration that ...just went wretchedly out of control over the last decade. Now we have a chance for genuine change. Be you right left or firmly in the middle...the chance for intelligent change is just around the calendar corner. We can participate in a remarkable shift.

An economy that is foully dashed can recover with concentrated and educated rehabilitation.
Global hatred CAN be tempered with civil, emboldened stands towards peaceful coexistance.
Wrinkles WILL be lessened with new and improved magic creams (!) And laugh lines around the most knowing and experienced eyes will be highly appreciated and appealing. (hey, we boomers have the NUMBERS behind our members, now. don't mess with us!)

SO while there is utter frustration and some despair, fear and resignation, there is ALWAYS that eternal cycle of life, the upswing of HOPE and the audacity of the every day woman and man to grasp it in their fist and refuse to buckle.

People just have that ability at heart.
New hope, new opportunity, new experiences, new year.


s.k.gray

Fresh beginnings with vintage friends.
Soulful promises cut some slack.
Oh! Status quo, some hearts don't bend.
Bittersweet memories with untied ends.
Moving forward, a few glances back.
Tearing apart, yet seeking amends.

Resolutions to what?
Change the obvious?
Oblivious to change?
Successful failure?
Fulfillments feigned?
Quotidian dreams
So it seems.

Hopeful hyperbole dousing fears
Own bootstraps firmly tugged.
Brave new world, drying tears.
Positively shifting gears.
Self healing needs luxuriously hugged.
As magic midnite minute nears.

Ah, Chance, another New Year.

skg

A bit about Alpaca

LOLLIE SHOPPING: Interview of the Month: Fashion, Style and Shopping! Ran into this cool lady on Twitter and enjoyed reading her new interview of the month!

On a serious note...

after being disappointed repeatedly, one of the simplest forms of emotional self-preservation is to lower expectations and push on. Keep faith in yourself, keep an eternal spotlight of hope in a corner of your heart, and keep finding small joys in every day. But let go of the destructive emotional pain that can be indelibly attached to having certain expectations. Push onward.

Life is always changing.
Be kind to yourself while dealing with that.

Time for some crystal beauties!

Do Romantic Comedies Spoil our Love Life?

http://buzzsugar.com/2618520

Well, I'm diving in today, because , of course, I have an opinion about this! lol. And as uusal, I will answer my own thoughts and question my own answers.

Short answer, NO, they don't. They make you smile, and hope, and wipe away a few nostalgic tears, and quite often GUT laugh.

But short answers are no fun on a blog. (grin)

So, here goes. Romantic comedies are no more guiding lights in relationships than superheroes or slash/gore/maim/beat the hell of out everyone movies are guiding lights for anger management. They are sometimes, a welcomed suspension of belief that remind us that life CAN be fun in the romance department and we should never stop hoping because..and here comes a deep thought...HOPE is good. Feel-good movies are made to ...MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD. If they do both, and throw in some gut laughs or even inward chuckles...come on...how can this screw up your love life unless your love life was already screwed as you were walking into the theater?

I'm sure professionals hear all kinds of excuses, finger pointing and wildly desperate fantasies when a relationship sours. But balance and building inner strength have more to do with the *cure* than cutting out Romantic Comedies.

I saw the first Superman on cable the other night and this brings together two of the genres I mentioned up above. First of all, I got a very warm smile on my face seeing a young Christopher Reeves. It made me happy and sad at the same time in regards to the charming Mr. Reeves.( though his real life was anything but a feel good plot, he and his wife had one of the most amazing relationships I have ever witnessed via media voyeurism.)

With tremendous wit and yes, even a bit of realism in the form of Margot Kidder's delightfully contemporary Lois Lane, it beautifully tackled the far-out concept of a Superman who, when push came to shove, made the world go BACKWARD to save the woman he loved! ....sighhhhh .(And he really could FLY. He actually looked like he was FLYING. To those of us who are hovering around mid-century in age, that was an AMAZING screen moment.)

Did I expect the man in my life to sprout a red cape and tights and put a curly-que in his hair while saving cats out of trees, catching bank robbers and repairing earthquakes all in one evening? Obviously no. But it did make me think of all the little, mortal things that were very Everyman about him that brought a warm glow to the romantic innards of my heart. And though I could never BE Lois Lane, I embraced her feisty spirit and then the knee buckling hormonal OMG of seeing a man of steel who believed in truth, justice and the American way. (the old American way!...which is another blog topic entirely)

I HAVE had John Cusack *boombox* moments in my life. I will never forget them, ever, though the people involved have often slipped out of my steady stream of life. Never, ever forget them :)

The only persons who spoil any love life, are the ones involved in it. And I take exception to the word "spoil" because it doesn't account for growth, change and other outside influences. Being that humanity is flawed, we will always deal with changes of heart and mind. Life is never a two and a half hour capsule...and it doesn't come with a perky soundtrack, but that shouldn't stop you from enjoying some very lovely two hour moments and music IN a life.

And though I am quite cynical at times, pure and not so pure romantic comedy lifts me up and helps me hold onto dreams ~which gets me through the complexities of reality. (but come to think of it...isn't laughter real?)

Some of my favorite *see again anytime* movies are in that Genre. Pretty Woman, Somethings Gotta Give, Love Actually, Music and Lyrics and the quite overlooked but delicious A Good Year.

No, we need more Romantic Comedies. Good ones. Well, come to think of it, even sappy ones can make you feel good, so, yeah...all of em!

That's my story and I am sticking to it!

Peace.