Secret Plan #1: death by chocolate

Step 1: Go to your local Tucanos in celebration. A last girl's night before your best friend leaves to get married (C-Dot I am going to miss you so, so much) is a perfect occasion.

Step 2: Interrupt everyone's meals with the loud squeaking/scratching noise of your small table being rotated. Now everyone in the restaurant has noticed you. You and your partner in crime can now sit comfortably on the squishy bench side and forsake the wooden chair on the other side of the table that always seems to be in the way of every server and fellow glutton.

Step 3: Gorge. Watch the cute server make a kicked puppy face when you refuse his juicy meats. Feel slightly bad that you are being so selective in the meat you are eating. Hold out for the good stuff!

Step 4: Turn the wooden block to red/stop.

At this point (based on my experiences) one of two things will happen.

Option 1: The large group of grandpa-aged foreign guys at the table next to you will hear you and your friend debating whether to splurge on death by chocolate cake. They will then buy one and send it to your table on their way out.

Option 2 (discovered tonight): You will receive a coupon from a group of teenage boys at a nearby table. Wave to them as they leave.

Get excited about the free dessert you get. Have the cute server point out that there is probably a phone number on it. Laugh really hard and add cluelessness to the list of reasons why you are still single. Flip card over to see this:

"Call for a good time! ###-###-####"

Applaud them for using a pickup line usually reserved for the back of hooker call cards in Vegas.

Step 5: Eat cake!

July 25, 2010

Every so often, if you are very lucky, you meet a person who seems entirely in tune with your core self. Someone who has no blinders about your worth (infinite), your flaws (also infinite), and with whom every new facet of yourself is simply a new leaf of a well-loved tree. With whom there is no shame, no self-degrading, no desperate plea for attention and validation. Someone with whom you can simply be. As a certain red-headed orphan would say "bosom friends".

This is one of those people:


But this post isn't about her. It's about him:


In honor of his Herculean feat of carrying me up three flights of stairs at a dead sprint, let's call him Mex-ules.

Mexules came into our apartment's collective life as the protector. At first, it was taking over home teaching duties and thus foiling an ex-boyfriend's plan to continue stalking wooing one of our own. He then progressed to personal chef, willing stalk-ee, guy beater, couch sleeper, and occasionally, spiritual fount.

Acting in his first capacity, he came over tonight. He gave me the choice of two lessons: forgiveness or optimism. I asked for the second; he misheard and gave me the first. And of course, it turned out to connect to something fresh on my mind.

It has been one of the great struggles in my life to watch people I care about try to function without the most basic aspect of love: forgiveness. True forgiveness means that accepting the other person for all of their potential. You can neither expect them to change, as that implies conditional forgiveness, NOR can you ignore the possibility that they might, as that is damning them unjustly. Repentance is a product of their relationship with God and the stipulation of a change of heart is one that only He can demand. Of us, it is required "to forgive all Men".

I firmly believe this and so was a little jarred when Mexules pointed out that our lack of forgiveness could hinder someone else's progression. We will never be able to make someone change, but we can stop setting them up to fail.

He also pointed out that there are three people that need our forgiveness for us to progress: 1) Others 2) Ourselves 3) God".

I have been blessed with experiences that have allowed me the chance to build a solid relationship with all members of my Heavenly Family. I have been carried by Their love and been saved too completely to feel any bitterness towards Them. Through this, I have learned to love and value myself. And though it stems more from jaded-ness than perfection, I can honestly say I have very little problem forgiving others.

Why? Because stripped of everything else, we have our agency, our power to act. Every minute is an opportunity to choose your reaction. You can choose to wallow in anger against how you want things to be, and punish yourself and others when those ideals aren't met.

Or you can choose to hope: to accept with grace how things are and actively work toward something better.