Tales of a Suburban Summer

Thank goodness it is only a few more weeks. I am going to be sad to leave my family (since I see them so little as it is) but being back in the suburbs is almost more than I can bear. First off, there are no coffee shops (Cafe Ambrosia how I long for thee...) and I have no car so I must stay at home all day and clean, do laundry, cook, and (more often than not) catch up on the several novels I have yet to read. Every day is one step closer to becoming Julia Child, although at least she was a spy.

I figured out another problem with my writing habits. Whenever I want to write something, I don't have anything to write in or with. Then when I sit down to write I can never figure out how to express what it is I want to say. I decided I would spend a few tonight working on a draft of my story for the advanced creative fiction class I want to get into next fall, but instead I am sitting here rearranging my blog and typing utter nonsense. I think that if someone wanted to they could use this as a casebook example of my entire life.

Today while I was asphyxiating in my suburban monotony, I started to read Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I was first tempted to read the novel after seeing Serendipity a couple of years ago but never got around to it, until now. There are two major beefs I have with this novel. First of all, it is nearly a 400 page book and it has only 5 chapters. I really hate books with long chapters because you never feel like you can just set it down. So I have to trudge through 75 pages in one sitting which is a total nightmare if you are borderline-ADHD like me. Secondly, I don't understand why Marquez makes Florentino look like a saint for his almost psychotic infatuation with Fermina. If I was her, I would have freaked out and married a doctor too.

Which brings me to a new thought I have concerning dating and relationships in general. Is it really a good idea to show people how much you feel up front? My brother and I were discussing this today and he was saying how he hates when girls play hard to get because then he never knows if they like him or are just stringing him along. But I hate it when a guy lets me know that he is interested too quickly because it is so much more exciting when you don't know. I mean eventually I would want to know but not at first, not at the beginning. And I certainly wouldn't want him to sit outside my window serenading me with a waltz he had composed on the violin titled, "The Crowned Goddess". Woah. Talk about wearing your heart on your sleeve.

The basic underpinning to this is, as much as I like watching "chick flicks"or reading about people falling in love, open displays of affection and love are awkward for me. Sometimes I feel fake when I tell someone "I love you". Not always, but sometimes. I feel like my other actions, such as spending time with that person or engaging in meaningful conversations should be enough to show that I do really care about them without all the physical formalities or me actually expressing "I love you". I never felt that I needed other people to say these things to me because I could tell enough from their body language and their actions if what they said really matched what they were feeling. It's the simplest way to know if someone cares. If they love you, they will call you to see how you are doing. They will drop everything if you come into the room just to talk. When you look like you are having a bad day they will say something to cheer you up or ask you to do something to divert your attention. Oftentimes in our society we just say "I love you" because it is so much easier and less time-consuming than showing it, which, sadly, really lowers the face value of those three words.