grammarboy's Xanga

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:38:40 GMT

Today is the 25th birthday of someone near and dear to our hearts (and if she isn't yet, make it happen), Addy. I want this to be a great birthday for her, so I would appreciate it if everyone would leave felicitations on her blog.

Addy, I love you, and I'm glad to be a part of your birthday. I'm relieved and excited that I've been able to spend time with you, give you presents, and have other suprises for you despite our distance. I hope that this is the longest and best birthday you've had yet, and I look forward to bringing you increasing joy in years to come.

These are for you.

Don't these just scream at you with happiness and sunshine? I hope that on this joyful day, you feel that way.

Day 5

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Dearest Adelynne,

Today a few important things will happen. Firstly, I will be coming home later; I don't know what time, so I can't tell you whether you would be better off staying up late or getting up early to catch me, but you should probably go with the latter because it never hurts to underestimate the desire of leadership to let me go home. I look forward to seeing you, but before that happens, the second important thing of the day must happen, and that is a shower. I've not showered all week; I've subsisted on wiping myself down with baby wipes, and I need to remedy this situation before having any sort of human interaction. The third important thing, of course, is seeing you and spending time with you. If you'd like to come up with some things to do, that's fine; I won't be able to, or we could just wing it or just talk or whatever you want, so let me know. Oh yeah, and I'm getting paid. I suppose that will actually be happening first and may have already.

I hope that you've enjoyed these little treats I've left to comfort you, sweetheart. I'm glad that future posting gave me the ability to do this for you. If they have been at all successful in making yuor days a little brighter, then they were well worth all my time and effort.

BIRTHDAY IN 2 DAYS
FIFTH MONTHIVERSARY IN 5 DAYS AND COUNTING

The last set of surprises awaits you.

Love,
Nathanael

Hurry up! The sooner you click, the sooner you get surprises!

Day 4

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Dearest Adelynne,

I'll be back tomorrow, baby! I'm sure you must be excited. I know I am. You only have one more day to endure. I was just thinking that it's kind of funny that we talk about me being away. We're always half the globe away from each other, and now a matter of no more than a few miles on my end is making all the difference. It's a bit ironic (in the common usage sense of the term, though not literally). Don't you agree? But soon will come the end of this distance and waiting, and the end of the other distance and waiting will end shortly as well.

The chances of me hearing about leave approval this week are slim but not nonexistent; I'll let you know if I hear anything. Other than that, you can probably count on hearing good news next week. I know you've been waiting so long for those words, and they should be coming soon.

Oh, and sweetheart, just in case your birthday present arrives early, wait to open it. I know that you have the sense to wait even without me telling you, but I'm just making sure because I want to watch you while you open it and see your face. On that note...

BIRTHDAY IN 3 DAYS

I bet you've caught on to the pattern by now. Look below, darling.

Love,
Nathanael

You know the drill.

Day 3

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Dearest Adelynne,

Good evening, sweetheart. I hope that you are well today. I assume that this week is hard for you, but at the same time I'm hoping that it's going by quickly and easily. Of course I want to be missed, but most of all I just want you to be happy.

A few reminders for you: I love you; I'm praying for you; I love you; I miss you; I love you; my heart is yours, and I did I mention that I love you?

Also, as I said yesterday, your birthday is coming up soon, and I'm receptive to any opportunity to celebrate you, so I'm starting an overly enthusiatic countdown as of now.

BIRTHDAY IN 4 DAYS AND COUNTING

Also, in case you haven't guessed yet, I've prepared 3 surprises for you. Click away.

Love,
Nathanael

Clickety click click clicky.

Day 2

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Dearest Adelynne,

I hope that you had a good day at work today. I wish I could be home now to greet you with kisses. Heck, I wish that I could be home at all right now; being out in the field isn't so great. Then again, who knows; maybe I'm having fun. Whether I'm enjoying it or not, I don't know; I'll tell you when I find out. Either way, though, I know it can't compare to the joy of being with you. I love you.

On that note, I'd like to celebrate you, and this is the perfect time to do so. Your birthday is coming up soon, and after that is our fifth monthiversary or five-month-iversary or whatever you'd like to call it. As you know, there's a package on its way to you at this very moment for the former, and I have a few other things planned as well. As for the latter, I know that I'd like to do something special, but I haven't had a chance to plan it yet. If you'd like to make suggestions or gather suggestions, I'm open to them. We can discuss what to do later, and I'll more than likely plan some surprises of my own for you anyway.

Lastly, because today is the second day I've been away, I figure you probably miss me a bit more than the first day, so I've prepared two surprises for you. Click below to see them.

Love,
Nathanael

Click here to see your surprises.

Day 1

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Dearest Adelynne,

I can't imagine what you have been expecting, if anything, since I told you that I would have surprises for you this week, but I hope that this and subsequent entries will make you smile and bring you comfort.

Were I not away, we would be talking on skype right now. You would have just gotten home from work, and I would have just woken up to see you. But I am away; I had to be at work at 5 this morning, so we talked briefly on the phone before I had to go. I hope to be able to talk with you for a few minutes here and there at other points throughout this week, but I can't make any guarantees about that. I can only guarantee that we won't be seeing each other on skype until, at earliest, Friday afternoon.

While you are missing me and thinking of me, I am also missing you and thinking of you. I have your picture with me, as always, and I'm praying for you. If I could be with you now, I would give you all the hugs and kisses you need. Take comfort in knowing that they will be real and yours in time, and always keep in your mind the things I told you to remember; they'll help you through the week. For now, I wish you a joy-filled evening and a restful night of sweet dreams.

Lastly, I have a surprise for you below; just click to see it.

Love,
Nathanael

Click here for your surprise.

A Series of Fortunate Events

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:23:06 GMT

On May 3rd last year I wrote a post that garnered a fair bit of attention; I was and still am proud of that post, not for the attention but for its content; what I didn't know at the time was that it was to be the first impression I would give to my soulmate.

She left me a comment, and we were quick friends. She supported my campaign in Xangan Idol 2, and we enjoyed each other's blogs. After a while, though, we didn't talk much any more. I was busy with my personal life and too many Xanga contacts to handle; she changed her user name a couple of times, and I lost track of her. We reconnected from time to time, and we became friends on facebook as a way to stay connected better after one such time, but we still didn't keep close contact.

May 21st of this year she wrote a short blog called "This is my final goodbye." I just happened to catch it when it popped up in my inbox, and I was concerned because I wasn't sure whether it meant she was leaving Xanga or planning to die; I've seen too many instances of each. I tried to read the post but couldn't because she was on friends lock, and I, apparently, was no longer her friend (she says she doesn't know how that happened, but bygones). Later, I saw that she had updated on facebook, so I was relieved to see that she was okay, and I left her a wall post.

She wanted to talk with me about what had happened, so she tried talking with me on facebook chat, but it wasn't working very well; we kept getting disconnected because facebook's servers are rubbish. Thus we decided to move the conversation to MSN. I quickly realized how much I enjoyed talking with her, but I thought of nothing other than being close friends because she was happy in a long-standing relationship, and we were decidedly not even attracted to each other. In the course of the conversation we shared pictures and jokingly flirted on facebook [note to anyone who saw that: it wasn't at all serious, just the result of our refusals to back down on dares to say outrageous things], but it didn't click in our heads until later that there was actual romantic potential between us.

Then we started talking on skype, and that was when it clicked. It was complicated by the fact that she still loved her boyfriend, and I didn't want to interfere in that, and she didn't want to be that kind of person, either. Nonetheless, I realized that she was everything I had hoped and dreamed of finding in a woman and so much more... from an objective perspective, and her thoughts on me were much the same. I can say for sure that it was objective because I'd known her a long time and never been infatuated, but she met all the criteria on my list - which was more than I had been realistically expecting from anyone - and even exceded them by having such a plethora of other positive qualities. Only after that realization did we start to think there could be something more.

Now we return to the problem at hand; she wasn't single. I never encouraged her to leave him; in fact I insisted upon just the opposite because I know what it's like to be on the other end. It was, of course, unnecessary; she's loyal anyway. The point, as it turned out, was moot, because shortly thereafter the internal problems that had been building up in that relationship came to a head (read: having nothing to do with me), and he left her.
On June 4th, she agreed to be mine and vice versa.

I realize that might not sound like much of a romance, just a bunch of details (some of them admittedly not ideal), but what I've failed to convey up to this point is what it is that I love about her (you can feel free to draw your own conclusions on why she loves me, though I'm sure she's more than willing to tell).

She loves God; she's not afraid to tell anyone so, and she stays active in her church. We read the Bible together and pray together all the time, and it's enjoyable to do so, not one of us pushing the reluctant other.
She loves me completely and without reservations, just as I love her, and she makes sure I feel loved.
She accepts me despite my flaws.
She treats me with respect and kindness.
She's straightforward, frank, honest, and open in discussing everything with me.
She's very supportive and understanding.
She insists on working out any problems we have immediately and not letting them hide and fester.
She doesn't drink, smoke, use drugs, curse, or have any vices.
She's sane.
She cares deeply about other people, and she passionate about helping.
She's financially responsible. She earns a living, has no debt, has savings, and is frugal.
Shs's healthy with no allergies or dieases or defects.
She doesn't have any tattoos or weird piercings or other body modifications.
She speaks five languages and has a passion for learning more.
She's sweet and adorable.
She's very intelligent and a great writer.
She stays well informed on current events.
She loves to read.
She has great taste in movies and music.
This isn't comprehensive; there's nothing about her so far that I don't love, so there's plenty I'm leaving off of here.
Oh yeah, and...
She's gorgeous.

What's a Moral? What's Amoral?

Sun, 31 May 2009 03:19:15 GMT

A friend of mine said yesterday that there are only two kinds of morality: one is a morality dictated by a higher authority, and the other is a lack of higher authority in which moral assertions by anyone are equally invalid. This will deal primarily with the latter.
It makes sense that if there isn't an absolute external morality that anything I come up with is no more right than what that guy over there comes up with. I might decide that wearing the color orange is a moral outrage, and he may say that it's unforgivable not to do so at least three times a week. Perhaps I think it's acceptable to kill people so long as you don't sexually violate them, and he has it the other way around. Someone else says, "I do whatever I please." What's wrong with that and why?
You could easily say that there are some things human nature inherently regards as immoral, but what are those things? Certainly there's dissent on every possible issue, otherwise those things would never have surfaced to be named and considered in the first place. A lot of people in America, for example, would agree that it's wrong to eat cats, but look elsewhere, and it seems as silly as saying it's wrong to eat cheeseburgers, which, incidentally, a number of groups wouldn't approve. Some things are more universal, such as the thought that it's wrong to hunt and eat people, but there are cannibalistic peoples who wouldn't think anything of it. For any immoral thing you can imagine, there's someone who disagrees. This is observable and for the informed ought certainly to lead to moral relativism, which is tantamount to amoralism.
But the idea that those who reject the idea of a higher authority must also accordingly reject the idea of morality altogether is, in practice, untrue. For example, I know several atheists, and I'm fairly certain that most of them would either laugh or be offended if I tried to tell them that because they don't believe in God, they can't believe in the concepts of right and wrong and must therefore be indifferent to all wrongdoing, no matter how depraved. There really are some people like that, but they tend to end up dead, isolated, or locked up in our society. So what is the explanation to account for the disparity between what seems logical and reality?
I have a some thoughts on the matter, and I'll post about them soon, probably later this weekend, but I want to know what you think. What morals do you live by and why?

Is It Fate?

Wed, 27 May 2009 04:29:27 GMT

I've always believed that life is what I make of it by our my choices and that the how and the why are more important than the where and the what. So long as I live with integrity, compassion, and the like, what does it matter whether I live in this place or that place? Aren't there needs to be filled everywhere? What should it matter whether we have this career or that one? What difference does it make if I love this person or that one? can't any two be happy together if they love each other and put forth an effort? There are a lot of details in life that seem to be a matter of personal preference.

Though to a large degree I still believe that, I'm starting to believe more in fate. There are a couple of things that just seem to be my fate, regardless what else I try. I'll show you what I mean anecdotally, so bear with me if this gets long.

*scene fades to black and fades back in with a haze and dramatic harp music*

When I was a sophomore in high school, I took a geometry class that left a lasting impression on me. I sat with a wonderful group of people, and throughout the year we all became good friends. Our teacher did a great job, and I always caught on immediately to the lessons, so then I'd spend my work time in class on helping the people around me when they had questions. It was a great arrangement for everyone. The following year, I took Algebra II with the same teacher, and I ended up with some of the same group of friends from Geometry. It was the same great experience. Senior year, when it came time to apply to college, I didn't really know what I wanted, but I thought I'd like to be a math teacher. I applied to the same school as some of my teachers had attended, but unfortunately I wasn't accepted because I wasn't in the top half of my class (a story for another time). My plans didn't really change after that; I was just going to start out in community college and finish the same, but complications came after a year of that. Namely, I had no money, no job, no place to live, etc. So I joined the Army. Over the last four years, I've changed my mind a hundred times about what I should do "when I grow up," but I've never really had any solid idea.
A few days ago, I was talking with a friend, and I realized what I should do. You can probably guess, but I want to be a math teacher. I've been tutoring friends in math for some time, so it makes sense, but there's a lot more to it than that now. I've been trying so hard to think of a job I could do where I could make a difference in people's lives, and I never saw being a math teacher that way until I came up with the conclusion independently of all that past. I want to do something that puts me in a position to help people who suffer in silence through mental disorders, eating disorders, addictions, cutting, and all those things that most people wouldn't notice or want to deal with. I'm not a professional or anything, just someone who notices and cares, and that's kind of the point. If I were to try to be a clinical psychologist or some such thing, I would feel compromised because I think it would effectively prevent me from helping people. I know how these things work; you go in and lie to the shrink, so you can get the hell out of there. I'd rather that people know that I try to help because I care about them and not because it's my job to do so. And I'd just say, "Screw getting a job; I'm going to just help people," but I need to eat, and besides that I want to be able to help friends financially when they need it. This is what led me to the thought that I should be a teacher. I'd be in a position to help without it actually being my job, and I'd make an honest living.

The other thing that's led me to believe in the possibility that some things could be fated by God's will or our inherent natures or whatever else is women. As I expressed in my last post, I just keep thinking it's right, and I just keep being wrong. Now I'm not so sure about my supposition that I can love whomever and have it work out because "Love is all you need." Maybe there are certain people with whom I'm not intended to be. Or maybe I was intended to be with them, and I've learned what I was supposed to, grown, and been left to the next step. Or maybe I'm intended to be with someone in particular, and I just haven't been with her yet, so fate pushes everyone else out of the way for what is to come. Or maybe I'm intended to be single forever. I really don't know a thing. But I know that things sure don't go the way I choose them.

What do you think of the ideas of fate and free will? Is it one, the other, or something in between?

Who will stay, and how do I know?

Mon, 25 May 2009 02:54:09 GMT

John Green* maintains that regarding relationships, there are two kinds of people: dumpees and dumpers. It may be an oversimplification of the issues, but there are certainly some merits to his ideas. You may say that this doesn't apply to you because you've been on both ends of breakups before, but we all fall on a bell curve, and everyone has a tendency one way or the other.
In examining my history, it's easy to see that I'm in the far reaches of dumpeedom on that curve. If you take into account only final ends to relationships, my record is 3 times dumped to no times dumping. I know that seems like a small sampling for drawing conclusions, but believe me that it's not a hasty conclusion. Infidelity counts as dumping regardless of the cheater's desire (or lack thereof) to remain in the relationship, and temporary breakups that end in reconciliation also count for something. If you factor those in, my record is more than I can count or care to remember to 0. It's a clear pattern.
Now, the point of this isn't to whine that poor poor Nate has been mistreated or whatever. My point is that I don't exhibit the traits of a dumpee. I mean, sure, I have plenty of faults, but I'm not exactly someone who deserves to be dumped consistently.

And here's my problem: I don't know what to do better. I'm loyal, I love with all of my self, and I treat people with utmost respect, so I don't think there's a way I can love someone more than I have. I don't want to keep throwing my heart out there only to see the same result. And I'm careful; I don't get into relationships casually; I'm in it for the long run. I get to know them first, let them know me, warn them of all my downfalls, make my intentions clear, and everything. I always think, "This one will last," but I'm wrong. So how do I know?

*This is a link to a video in which he talks about it briefly, but his novel An Abundance of Katherines (which I recommend, along with any of his books) discusses it more in depth.