Wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend.

It has been an unexpected and inspiring day today.  I woke up feeling heavy-hearted, out of sorts, preparing for another lonesome day, but, like all Sunday mornings, I had my Post Secret to look forward to.  My already sullen mood turned devistated when I read this post card:

for some reason I was instantly crying.  I could feel all the crushing aloneness that this anonymous post card sender felt, and it echoed every sad and lonely moment that was clinging to my heart.  It hasn’t been the first time a post card has touched me, but for some reason it really stuck in my head.  Before getting read for church, I noticed that someone started a Facebook group, “please don’t jump” and even though I’m not much of a facebook group joiner, I decided to join.  There were 300 people in it, and I thought it was a good gesture.

Fast forward to 1pm when I get home from church.  I pop onto the site and see there are 3000 people in the group!  Wow.  The creator, Kimberly Furnell, seemed to have her hands full taking care of a disgusting group of hateful trolls from ebaumsworld.com who were telling the person to jump off the bridge, and other vile and black things.  Even though thousands of people at that point had sent messages of love, those evil messages stuck out and sullied the whole wonderful group.  It made me crazy- so I emailed Kimberly and she made me an administrator of the group so I could go in and remove the messages and block the perpetrators on my own.  I’ve just spent the whole day keeping an eye on the steadily growing group.  We’re more than 15 thousand people strong in less than a day.  The outpouring of love and support is enough to make any person turn back from thoughts of suicide.

I am so inspired.  It is hard sometimes, to remember how good and kind people can be.  All we hear about it seems are the stories about the worst, most evil people in society, destroying people’s lives, hearts, and planet.  It is hard to stay positive.  But the kindness of strangers towards this one lonely person makes me rethink all my negatives and fears.  15 thousand people sent messages of love, invitations to stay in their homes, to visit them all over the world- even though I had to block a few people (who must be even sadder and more pathetically desperate than the sender of the post card) the people who rivaled those people outnumbered them by countless thousands.  I was a part of it.

It felt really good.  It made me feel like I did something that mattered today- that I was doing God’s work and that some day, somewhere, maybe some stranger will know they are loved because of what I did.  Sometimes I forget why I deserve to be loved.  Today, I remember.

My my my Moheagn…

So I suppose I lost the 100 word challenge, if we can define these sorts of things as won or lost- but the reason I didn’t make it was that I arrived home from Mohegan Sun at 4am Sunday morning after our exciting Saturday excursion.  It was one of my favorite memories to date with Jacob.  We just had the best time- it was perfect.  We arrived by 5:30 and went to eat at the buffet, which I always get a kick out of- I just cannot help but enjoy watching people (myself included) pile up ridiculously enormous plates of completely sumptuous food, eat half, and then go up and do it all over again.  They had some delicious meats.  We walked around the casino and gambled away a bit of money, I lost a 20- and then we headed on over to the Arena for the real purpose of our trip- the Rascal Flatts concert.   The seats were actually a LOT better than I thought they were going to be! They were, without question, the most humble, genial, warm group of performers I have ever seen!  They were signing things, giving kisses, telling wonderful stories- at one point they even invited a couple on stage, and the guy proposed to his girlfriend and then they serenaded them with “God Bless the Broken Road” while they had their first dance in front of everyone.  It was magical.  They played all the good songs, had awesome effects, and the best part for me, is they took a minute to thank everyone for buying tickets in these hard economic times.  I don’t know why but it really felt touching and sincere.  It was wonderful.
After the concert we spent almost two hours waiting for Jacob’s chosen blackjack table to open up, but in that time I figured out the ins and outs of the game and really enjoyed watching him play for about an hour or so before I decided to sit down at a neighboring slot machine.  I was joking around about wanting to play the playboy slots and there was a penny slot there that was playboy, so of course I chose it.  I hit the button once- and ended up winning $155.00!  So I cashed out right away and filed it right into my cruise fun!  I watched Jacob some more, got us coffees, and was having an all around blast- around 2am we decided we needed to call it quits so we hopped in the car and drove home- they whole time Pandora played ridiculous Broadway and movie duets and we sang them together so we wouldn’t fall asleep.  It was one of those nights that I try to hold on to as a memory when I am alone for these long stretches of time.. I haven’t seen him since then, you see, and probably won’t until tomorrow night- or maybe even later, who knows? He might be dead- I have no idea.   At least I can remember that huge amount of fun and feel grateful that I get to have good memories with people that I care about.

I’m going to head to bed now- back to the old work routine in the a.m.

World Traveler

What an exciting day today was, I can hardly imagine being able to contain it into one hundred words.  I did work very hard at Suffolk, and was asked to sing The National Anthem at Graduate Commencement this year!  Then, when I got home from coffee with Mimoun, Alexis and I booked a 7 Day Cruise for September!  I am going to be visiting Grand Cayman, Honduras, Belize and Mexico!  I gives me motivation to stay on my diet so that I can celebrate lots of hard work with delicious food and respectable looks in a bathing suit.

"Icicle Icicle where are you going, I have a hiding place when spring marches in…"~TA

Today was one of those wonderful days that I try to bank in my memory for when the times get tough.  It was actually an all day snow storm, and I spent at least 75% of the day with wet and cold feet, but I have, overall, felt a lot worse being outside- it wasn’t too cold overall and at least my pants were not wet- I’d take pretty much any other wet garment over wet pant legs.  YUCK.

So Jacob and I trudged through the morning snow, our usual chipper and annoying-to-passerby selves, and arrived at Arlington Street to find our choir was only 7 people.  We were small, but mighty- and I actually had a lot of fun singing and being there- then we spent the early afternoon ogling shoes at The Tannery and various housewares at Anthropologie before a very cheap but satisfying lunch at The Pourhouse- seriously- two burgers, a mountain of fries, a fried egg, and a beer for only 20$ in BOSTON?  It’s unheard of!  We parted ways and I headed off to meet up with Carrie to see a show at The Lyric which I am reviewing for Boston Theatre Review.  Overall, we both enjoyed it- and I REALLY enjoyed getting to spend time with her in the Prudential afterward, catching up and talking about our 2010 health goals.  She’s an excellent work out partner and friend.  I’m extremely glad to have met her.

I joined Jacob on the couch by 7pm where we rotted our brains and our stomachs with pointless tv and bad chinese food, and I was extremely excited to find a clean and sweet smelling freshly bathed dog.  Lavan is an excellent winter time heater and snuggle buddy, but a pee-scented dog in your bed isn’t the best- so that was a nice surprise.

Overall I was just happy and the stress of this upcoming month just sorted melted away for a few hours.  Boy am I grateful.  I am labeling all of these happy entries with “2010 rocks” so I can just click the tag to remind myself that I do have wonderful, happy days despite all the emo babble that usually fills this journal.