This afternoon, I received the following email from my roommate, Heather C. (not Heather B., who I will be seeing The Lake House with tonight).

Lizabeth!

I will not allow you to be lax and haphazard on your blogging any longer. You must post the answer to this question in time for me to read it before I get home today—or I will no longer be your friend and any further communication will consist of speaking of you in the third person while directing my questions toward Lulu.

Prompt: If you were going to have a relationship with someone stuck in time, two years apart from you, (as in THE LAKE HOUSE) who would you want it to be? If you felt in love with him, what would you do about it? Would you be devoted to him, assuming that you could never meet?

Now, WRITE…

-H

The truth is, I have been a little bit blocked when it comes to blogging lately. I asked Heather to come up with something for me to talk about. Since I’ll be seeing the movie tonight, watch for the post to be edited later in the day.

Two years. Think about that. I would venture to say that there are quite a few men right now that I might find myself attracted to, who are completely undatable. BUT…give them two years. Seriously! That opens up so many more options when you can hope that maybe they have matured beyond the primordial stage they are currently in.

But, if you are going to bank on that, then you have to say that they guy is going to be the one in the “future” while you are in the “past.” This isn’t how it works in the movie. Sandra Bullock’s character is in the “future” and Keanu Reeves is in the “past.” I think this is a major reason she catches him in the beginning. He wants to know what’s going on! And you know guys, some of them are interested in weird stuff like that. So in the film (to me) Sandra Bullock has the upper hand without the hope that the guy (that she doesn’t know so this doesn’t matter) is going to grow and mature and be a respectable human being.

Back to this being like any other relationship. Really. It is. Only they get to enjoy the moments along the way and recollect seeing each other on the street, little shared smiles, and some knowledge that was unexplainable at the time, but in the end it all makes sense. This was the one human being you were meet to be with forever and somehow you got lucky enough to have all of these moments along the way. I can relate to this in a way because of a certain strange feeling that I get sometimes. Now it has become so distinctive that I know exactly what it is when it hits me (and be prepared, you’re going to think I’m crazy). I have had experiences meeting someone, or seeing them pass by the street and getting this very strange feeling about them. Then, sometimes years later, they are in my life in a bigger capacity than to begin with (usually going from being complete strangers to acquaintances or even close friends in some cases). See? I told you that you’d think I was crazy. But seriously.

I treasure moments. Words said, sounds, the feeling of the wind on that particular day, a smell. Most likely with the hope that someday they will mean something more and be worth more to me than face value. And even if they aren’t, at least I have something to write about. Then there are the ones that slip away, that you don’t think account for anything, and somehow, out of nowhere, something in the future sparks them and you recall these times with a person or place and they really do mean that much to you. I think maybe “love at first sight” is what this is (because I’ve never really believed in the text book definition). Maybe, it’s whenever you encounter someone again and begin thinking about all the time you had before and you think that…you loved them all along. And maybe you did.

PS; Heather, I would never want to have a relationship with someone in a different time as me. Bleh. You know I have a hard enough time with ones in the present.

What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones. That’s the book. I read it either my junior or senior year of high school, though the reading level is much lower than that because at that point in my life I was feeling as if I had missed out on lots of children’s literature altogether (also one of the reasons that I took Children’s Literature this semester – I highly recommend it for anyone at OU). When I was a child I went straight from Bill Wallace to Mary Higgins Clark and never looked back. In the 6th grade I tested on a college reading level and I wasn’t reading any of the books on the teacher’s bookshelf. None of the books in the library looked interesting to me. The day I started 7th grade and got to visit the high school library for the first time was one of those days I will never forget.

Back to the subject at hand. I was buying children’s literature so that I could get caught up. At the time I was planning to be an elementary school teacher (if you want to know my major changes at OU, they go something like this: Elementary Education, Language Arts Education, and lastly, English-Writing) and you know, I needed to be prepared. So I picked this book up at the book fair. It is really, really good. I think children around the age of 12 should have this book or one like it as required reading. It’s about all sorts of family troubles that are just on the fringes of the story, because as a young girl, Sophie (the main character) doesn’t know all the details, but the point is that she does know that something is going on.

And then there is Murphy. The one I am posting this about. Murphy is a boy in Sophie’s class. Murphy isn’t the best looking kid, and Sophie knows she would get teased for hanging out with him…there’s more I could say, but I’ll just post the poem. Whether you were a Murphy or you loved one, I think you will understand.

Watching Murphy During Art Class
from What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones

He is so homely,
so downright ugly
that none of the girls
even think about him.

He’s too lowly,
too pitiful
to even bother
making fun of.

So something must be
very wrong with me,
because I want to kiss him.
I want to kiss him real bad,

even though his nose is crooked
and his ears are huge,
even though his hair’s a mess
and his lips are tight and scared.

I want to kiss away
those circles under his eyes
that make him look like
he’s never slept a second in his life.

And those arms of his
seem like they’re just aching
to hold on to someone.
I wish I could let them hold on to me.

When no one was looking,
I’d walk up to him
and say, “Hey, Murph.
Would it be okay if I kissed you?”

And he’d look hurt
because he’d think I was joking
and he’d turn away
to hide his face,

but I’d touch his shoulder and
look at him with gentle misty movie eyes
and say, “Come on. I mean it.
I really want to.”

And he’d look dumbstruck,
and all the gray
would fade out of his eyes
and this light would come into them

and his lips would look like
they were getting ready to smile and then,
before I had a chance to change my mind,
I’d kiss him.

And he’d wrap his skinniness around me
and his arms would be shaking,
and suddenly I’d feel all this love,
all this need pouring into me

right through his lips
into me
and it would feel great,
and I’d close my eyes to feel it better.

(Whoa.
I can’t believe
I’m having this fantasy about Murphy,
when I’m so totally in love with Dylan!)

My current away message on AIM: “it’s the last day of ballroom dance. thank goodness. i’m tired of smelling like onions and cheap cologne.”

(My screename is alliterationliz in case you were wondering.)

I’m not too quick to recommend country music on here, a) because I’m from Oklahoma and there are probably some of you who assume this is my genre of choice, b) because it’s not my genre of choice, and c) because it’s country music and I know how some of my Oklahoma friends feel about that (though I think it’s ridiculous, not all of it is hick music) and they’re from Oklahoma. I can’t imagine what the rest of you might think.

I have to recommend this though. Trisha Yearwood’s latest cd Jasper County, which has been out for a while now, is really, really good. She’s got a great voice and the cd has a variety on it. Nice ballads and a few really peppy tunes. One of my favorites is “Trying to Love You” along with “Georgia Rain” and even though “Georgia Rain” is probably the best song on the cd, almost everyone has heard that so I’m not posting the lyrics to it. Check this music out. You won’t regret it.

Tonight, Heather and I had dinner at T.E.A. Cafe. Delicious. We came back here and started getting all packed up for Our Big TRIP! that we’re leaving for…today at 6 a.m. (I need to go to bed!). Anyway, if you want to pretend like you are going on the big shopping trip to Frisco, TX with us, then you can listen to our playlist and imagine you’re having fun with us, walking all around the mall and Sam Moon and eating at the Blue Mesa Grill and ICE SKATING! Ahem. Enjoy and I will be back Sunday evening.