The Week of Intensity

"When I`m hungry, I eat. When I'm thirsty, I drink. When I feel like saying something, I say it."
~ Madonna

Beause my friends and I determine my life and who I am through facebook quizzes....

Diane and Tom came over last night. After we had droven around for awhile, we made it back to my house to have a move night, when they brought up a facebook quiz they had took that was creepily accurate. I took the quiz... and got the following results...

My birthday is October 31st, by the way...

James completed the quiz "What does the week you were born say about you?"
with the result The Week of Intensity – Scorpio 1 October 26 - November 2.

You have a demanding personality with an attention to detail and great powers of concentration for any given task. You can be discriminating and judgmental. Getting the job done is important to you. You have a two sided personality one sunny and one dark, the sunny side has a seductive charm that melts the hardest hearts and the dark side is destructive and can inflict serious damage. You often project your emotions onto others and never back down from confrontation. It is difficult for you to forgive, but is impossible for you to forget. You do not tolerate criticism well. You value quality over quantity. You have a wonderful sense of humor and can keep those around you laughing.

Strengths: Truthful – Discerning – Single Minded
Weaknesses: Hurtful – Stern – Self Destructive .

This is disgustingly accurate.
Real blog post coming soon. Hopefully.
I just had so share.

Would you rather...

"It's not hard to make decisions when you know what you're values are."
~ Roy Disney

So, this morning I downloaded an application on my iPhone. It's a variation of those silly "Would You Rather" books called What Would You Choose. For those who live under a giant boulder, the books ask you a question and gives you a choice between two ridiculous answers. One of my favorites from a few years back was: "Would you rather have sex with the Scarecrow or the Tin Man?" Classy.

Anywho, the iPhone edition has special categories that'll only ask you specific questions concerning those categories. I felt how perfect for this blog, if I posted some of my answers for the love category. I dunno, it might be fun...

Ok, let's dive in...

Would you rather be...

1) be forgotten or be hatefully remembered

I don't know what this is doing in the 'love' category. I guess in a post-relationships sense... I think this could also be appropriote in the 'life events' category if you think about it on a bigger scale.

In the musical, Assassins (we're performing selections from it in the Cabaret, so it's on my mind...) there is a powerful moment when the group of Assassins is trying to coerce Lee Harvey Oswald into shooting at JFK. In that moment, they are pleading, using every tactic to bring about this inevitable tragedy.

Oswald retorts: "People will hate me."
To which the assassins respond, "They will hate you with a passion... imagine, people feeling passionate about Lee Harvey Oswald..."

For someone who has been ignored his entire life, that moment makes the world click for him. He will be a part of history, and despite the negativety that comes with this heinous act, he does it. Why? Because its better to be hatefully remembered, than to never have made an effect on the world. It's better to have people think about you... even in the worst way, than to be completely forgotten.

I do not support Lee Harvey Oswald or assassinations... I just was being a theatre dork and making a musical theatre reference. I'm not a creep, I promise.

Now to bring it back to something postive... I would rather my exboyfriends remember me, whether its hatefully or not, because that means I had an effect on them. They've learned something and grown from it. That's all I want in life. To help people learn, whether its because I did something wrong, or whatever, as long as their is evolution... as long as there is change... I have done something right. So go on and hate me, exes... at least I had an effect on you...

2) find true life-long love or get 10 million dollars

Cynical, bitter James says 10 million dollars. Romantic, cheesy James says true life-long love. James, in general says... I want both.

3) marry your first love but have to divorce or never be able to marry but love anyone

I would rather spend my life with in love than have to divorce the person I care about most in the world. I never want to have a divorce... I want the man I marry to be The One, the one who will be with my for the rest of my life. Those vows actually mean something to me... Sickness, health, for better, for worse... cherish for the rest of my life. Sometimes divorce is inevitable... but maybe that's why we shouldn't settle for anything less that what we feel is extraordinary... then maybe marriage would last and divorce wouldn't be such a widely available option.

And for the second half, while I think marriage is fantastic and something I want... I would rather have love than marriage. I would rather spend the rest of my mornings waking up next to the person I love than have a stupid paper tell me how I feel.

But thank goodness I don't really have to make this choice, cuzzzz I wanna get married and love who ever the heck I want :)

4) be with someone you don't love forever or never have the one person you can't get over

I hate this question. This question imbodies my greatest fears of missing out on my true love and never being able to have them and settling for someone that I don't love.

Pass.

5) have no heart at all or have a broken heart that never heals

Have not heart at all. I'd rather be cold and cut off than mope all the time. Diane and I lately have this joke where we give up all our feelings and become completely indifferent to the world. That way we don't make stupid mistakes when we follow our heart instead of doing what we know is right.

Then again, having a broken heart... imagine all the fantastic art, plays, and emotions that could come from that...

No, give me indifference. A lot less stress...


So that's me... what would you choose?

It's about time

(Notice: Here's a little game to play. I have riddled this blog post with cliches and puns about time... how many can you spot?? It's like I Spy... with puns... I hope you have a good time! Does that one count?)

"They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."

~ Andy Warhol

Let's take some time... and talk about it.

Yep, let's talk about time.

There are hundreds of stupid time cliches that riddle through our lives. It's all in the timing - time heals all wounds - it's a matter of time - all the time in the world - etc etc. I could on forever. I think time is a really interesting thing, I mean it has to be, there's a huge magazine named after it... and the real question that has been plaguing my mind for the past few months, how does time play into a relationship and love? What are the affects that time has on a relationship?

And I couldn't help but wonder what do we do with our time? When it comes to love and relationships, if our time is of the essence, how can we possibly slow down and take our time?

There are a few things that have stirred on my current tryst with time.

First off, let's start of with me being bitter and cynical. I find myself more and more cynical as the days go by. I think it's that High School Self thing again. Being home, I'm slowly starting to retreat in my High School Self's disbelief in love and the concept that I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life. I didn't realize how obsessed I am with love until I got home and started remembering a time before I fell into it.

Anyway, the thing that really started me off on my bitter binge, there is a gay couple in St. Louis that I go to school with (or at least this year at some point in time I went with) who met last November. One of them goes to school in St. Louis while the other originated in Spain and was studying abroad in the Lou. Well, the inevitable happened and the one boy returned to Spain while the other did his time in St. Louis.... they should have fallen apart, right?

No, they didn't. They just celebrated they're seven month anniversary. Are you kidding me? How is this possible? Oh, and did I mention they're moving in together now?

Now, what gets me most bitter about this how situation is that my last two serious relationships, both involved a little bit of distance... well one involved a little distance and the other involved six hours of distance and neither really worked out. And by never worked out, I mean they're both really complicated and off-the-wall relationships now.

At first I blamed my boys... they were immature and couldn't handle such a serious time commitment. Then, I convinced myself at first that maybe I just wasn't a long distance kind of guy. I need quality time in a relationship, I need to spend lots of time together, I have to have a sufficient amount of couple time and not just on the phone... And eventually my personal defeat festered in to a full blown cynicism. I had resigned myself that long distance relationships never work out, it's not possible. Long distance relationships are like creating an imaginary friend that you fantasize about sleeping with and talk every once in awhile...

And then this stupid couple's life appears in my facebook feed and my severe case of cynicism evolves into a fatal case of bitterness. Which, of course, is followed by me going to check my e-mail and on the Yahoo mainpage is an article about how it is healthy for at some point in time a couple does a little bit of long distance... it's good for them..

Pardon my language but,

Are you fucking kidding me?

How can I not even make a six hour long distance relationship work when this couple is an ocean apart from each other? How can this stupid article tell me that having distance is good for a couple when that's the thing that ruined everything in my last relationship?

Both of these previous relationship dives into distance, both said during our break ups that the timing was bad. We pined over the fact that we should have met and gotten together some time from now, when we were ready to be together and handle a big time long relationship. Then the timing would have worked out.

If time apart doesn't tear a couple apart but instead makes for a better time... what's wrong with me? Why can't I make this relationship that means the world to me work instead of it being a complicated mess?

Wow, I'm being needy, ridiculous, and dramatic... what's new...

Maybe, I need to stop placing the blame (and stop taking it out on this poor couple that I've honestly talked to the members of twice in my life) and start figuring this thing out.

So, if timing was the problem, should I just wait it out? I mean, I know whenever this boy is ready to commit, I know the relationship is going to be fantastic... but...

In Cabaret rehearsal, we've talked a lot about wasting time. People coming late to rehearsal, which sends our rehearsal schedule off, which sometimes causes actors to wait around and do nothing. By waiting around... Am I wasting my time?

I'm not the kind of guy who waits around for someone. I have to find something to occupy my time whether it be theatre, a relationship... something to keep my busy. I don't function well when I have nothing to do.

So I find something to pass my time while I wait for my upcoming relationship, or waiting for an old relationship to come back... and it's fun for the time being, but never as good as the real thing. And I guess that's where the wasting time comes into. But then the stupid idea that 'true love waits' comes ringing into my ears. While true love waits, time waits for no man, and thus you have to move on with you're life. Or find something to do while you wait for your life to move on. Or someone to do. Or a hobby not boy related.

I got cast in an upcoming production of The Producers as a dancer. That'll keep me busy for the rest of the summer. Keep my mind of being bitter, and cursing successful couples, while I twiddle my toes and wait....

And then you get a text from that someone. And you have a fun conversation. And everything is okay. It reminds you that maybe... you can make a relationship work out, love is real, and that it's just a matter for time and patience. I'm not the boys in that couple. I'm my own person who needs different things. But when all the time has passed, you remember how worth it the whole thing will be. Time stands still... and for a short time, you smile and forget the cynicism, the bitterness, the jealousy... and remember you have love. There is someone who loves you. And it makes it okay.

I'm ready to go back to St. Louis. I want to hurry up, because once I get there... I'll have all the time in the world to fall in love. But right now... it's not the time and place.

Maybe it won't take so long... Time flies after all....