Thunderstruck

Let's turn up the heat and stir things up a bit:

I think every girl, at least once in her lifetime, looks at a man and just drools.  As we all know, I'm not seeing anyone anymore, so there is no reason not to add another hottie to the hotties list.  For a Saturday night treat, I rented Kenneth Branagh's Thor.  Knowing me as you do, you had to know that Chris Hemsworth was going to make the list.

For all of my gal-pals that need a bit of beefcake in their day, here's the hottie of the day:

There are a lot of really good reasons, outside of his charming good looks, that he's made the list.  Y'all know me!  I never do anything without a plan or a really good reason.  Okay then, let's get on to my reason for posting a new hottie of the day, to open up the topic of tall, hunky men (who can kick butt) that are just one of those things where any girl that's anywhere near sane will just knee-buckle when a man like that walks into a room (especially without his shirt on).

Chris Hemsworth and the two hours I spent watching Thor gave me a really good reason to look at my tastes and choices.  Have you ever noticed that sometimes after a traumatic situation you look at what you just went through and say, "Nuh uh, not doing that again..."  Well, if you haven't, I sure have.  Namely the thought of ever, ever in my life ever looking up on purpose at a man.

After my ex hit the door, being that he was 6'4", I said to myself that even at 5'5", I never wanted to look up at my romantic interests ever again.  I thought eye-level would be good, thinking that a guy that was 5'8" or 5'9" would be okay for me, even as much as 6'1", but not any taller than that.  The thought of dating someone tall after my ex left meant that it would lead to me craning my neck and going through all kinds of unnecessary pains, essentially reliving the emotions of forcing myself to fit with someone I had no business trying to fit with in the first place.  It was effectively like adding cinnamon to a chocolate poundcake.  You can do it, but why would you want to?  Besides, will it work?  Odds are, probably not, but it's a taste thing.  What is good to one person might not be necessarily good to another.  The point is that I never again wanted to be around a man that was really tall.  I wanted to avoid any reminders of my pain and humiliation.

What about the strength thing girls always go ga-ga about?  A girl likes to feel safe, right?  Thor is one thing, he's a fictitious superhero, but it reminded me that a lot of men I've been around have abilities that allow them to kick some serious butt.   I'll admit it, my ex knew 20 martial arts, so after he hit the road I wanted to do the inverse of what I knew and be around someone who could have cared less about being violent.  But, as fate would have it, my world is filled with men who know a bajillion different martial arts while others like guns (but only in a home-protection kind of way).  Look at Ace, KP and RJ, they're all soldiers that have no compunction about using some sort of martial prowess should something threaten their families.   But it brings me back to thinking about how better to feel safe than to hang out with a guy that knows those things?  (It doesn't hurt that I've got some skills on how to immobilize or disarm an attacker, but still, I'd rather a guy take care of those things.  But as begrudgingly as this admission goes, OK, I'll admit it, I like having a bodyguard.  What girl doesn't?)   Is it necessary?  No, but it's nice to have.

Here's the brass tacks:  I know what I like and I know what I don't like in a man I would want to date.  I would like to hit the male trifecta: a mental, physical and spiritual equal.

Some things I like and don't like may be superficial to you, but I tell you what, if I don't like what I'm looking at, why the heck should I be expected to stay with them!  I don't like my men with fur.  A chest full of fur has always turned me off, but knowing that we can't have everything, I've always kind of lived with it.  Here's the secret though, I don't have to put up with it if I don't want to!

Good gods, my ex was a walking fur ball over his entire body but he was going bald!  You know what, he's been out of here for close to three years now and it's only been up to this moment that I just realized I don't have to deal with things like that anymore if I don't want to!  I like my men with bare chests and a full head of hair!  I know the odds of finding a man my age that isn't balding are slim, but I don't have to date a balding guy if I don't want to!  If I have to look at fur on a man's back, he's out of there!  I don't like it, so I most certainly don't have to put up with it unless he's really, really charming and I mean charming on the Samuel L. Jackson scale of Arnold the Pig in Pulp Fiction type of charming.  If they choose to shave their head bald, I'm cool with that, but at least I know it's there and there is always a possibility of them growing it out!  I really would prefer a guy with long hair!  Y'all know that I'm a real sucker for a guy with long hair, so why on Earth can't I have one!

There are some things I still really like even though throughout all of my failed relationships I never got the right mix of the things I really do enjoy!  I like men who are sweet inside yet rough on the outside and take a while to get through all of the tough to get to the sweet, knowing that when I do finally get through that tough exterior, that sweet part is meant just for me because my heart won it and I earned it.

I enjoy the thought of knowing if some doodah comes and tries to break into the house, my man will dispatch them post-haste!  I like the thought of seeing a tall man in my environment.  I like the thought of getting on my tip-toes to kiss my guy or know that his huge hands will catch me should I fall.  Those are all good things and I've realized that by trying to distance myself from the good qualities that were diminished by bad experiences I'm cutting myself off from the things I really do want!

There is a guy out there just for me who knows to put things back EXACTLY where they found it, that understands that an environment is a shared space, that the toilet seat should always be down, that computer games are a shared experience and that all great gamer couples I know are tank/healer combos...wait, that's profound, I just hit on something there that is at my fundamental core...I need a tank to heal.  That's EXACTLY it!  I need one tough fella who's a little worse for wear that needs my skills and that I can heal up to full.  It gives me reason, purpose and a goal which is what I need all the time.  Ooh!  Big breakthrough there!  He also is a sweets junkie that can handle my need to bake along with all of the good food I make and who understands down to the core of his being what the phrase "nutritional value" really means when it comes to relationships.  Oh, now that's what the doctor ordered!

We all know that we're the sum of our parts and experiences.  What one moment tells you is horrible, the next tells you that same thing isn't so bad.  It's odd what time and healing will do for your spirit once you realize that what you went through, while traumatic, wasn't all that bad and you're better off having gone through it.  It's amazing what a little bit of retrospection can do because it makes evident what you like, don't like and gives you a clear focus to get to what you really want.

I've noticed a few things lately and I'll try to sum it up in a way that is subtle yet still proves the point.

Have you ever been in the kitchen and followed a recipe to the letter and still have the dish turn out horribly?  In fact, so horribly that you had to toss the whole thing out?  I know I have and I've figured out that relationships are no different from each recipe we try to make in our kitchens.  What if, and it's a big IF, when you were cooking, one ingredient out of the many on your recipe list had spoiled or gone rotten and you didn't know it and added it anyway?  Could that be the reason that the dish went so horribly wrong and resulted in it going into the garbage or down the kitchen sink garbage disposal?  Maybe so...  But, how about if you put the ingredients into the dish in the wrong order?  I could go on forever, but I think you get my point:  What if relationships are really like cooking and it's a matter of putting the right ingredients, in the right order, into it combined with the right amount of time to prepare it and allow it to simmer and bubble until it comes out right?

My friend RJ is a great example of this.  Yep, he's been through three wives, yet he still keeps trying.  He unknowingly put spoiled ingredients into his situations without knowing it (then everyone around him still said the dish came out good, even when he screamed at the top of his lungs that it was rotten).  Even through three honest efforts, he just couldn't quite seem to not get rotten ingredients or what he tried to cook in was a dirty pan he thought was clean.  How on Earth was he supposed to get nutritional value from rotten ingredients and dirty cookware?  I honestly feel sorry for the guy because he's tried so hard only to be met with failure.  I keep my fingers crossed for him though.

I've been through one husband, and yet I stand in my kitchen looking at the pots and pans and know in my heart I can get the dish right if I could just get the right ingredients.  My failure came with the caveat that I wasn't properly emotionally prepared for the situation on top of the fact that the oven wasn't properly pre-heated (read: my personal growth needed work).  While the ingredients were in the right general vicinity, they weren't exactly the right ones, after all there is a difference between baking soda and baking powder or olive oil vs. butter.  

Confession time.  This I'm sure will make you laugh out loud, but it's so sad even I laugh at it.  Brass tacks are that as a woman, you can't honestly believe that after ten years of needs not being met in your bedroom, to come out of a failed marriage in your prime, and not expect for things to be really and I mean REALLY super hot in the bedroom department when, after all that heartache and disappointment, you finally find that one special guy.  Anything short of scalding hot when you've been that deprived for so long is going to make your expectations extremely high and if parts aren't working and needs aren't being met, you're out of there in one quick hurry because when you date, it's a process.  If you don't like one, you throw it back and try another.  At my age, you don't have the luxury of wasting time in a relationship that doesn't work.  But don't complain to me, tell it to human body chemistry.

Are we all just trying to figure out the exact right combination of ingredients that would make us happy?  When do we know that we've attained just the right mix?

Lately, I've modified my views on a few things.  I realized that I don't want to be alone for the rest of my life.  I'd really like to have a partner, but it's not something that I am going to consciously search for.  I'll be fine alone if I have to be, but what if, just what if, there were someone who held in their heart just the right ingredients that would mix with mine and become a dish filled with nutritional value that would be satisfying and last for a long time?  That's something to think about, isn't it?  Don't you ever look in the mirror and realize that maybe the ingredients you have inside become amplified and more special because of the people you are around?

So right around now, I'm thinking that you're understanding my conundrum, that there were things that I've encountered that I really like, but I'm mortified by the thought of welcoming those traits back into my life because the memory of those good things are tainted by bad experiences.  RJ keeps telling me that I'm giving too much power to people I've dealt with in the past and that, like KP says, I should just build a bridge and get over it, and trust myself enough to enjoy those things without attaching the bad memories to them.  I think he's got a good point.

Why all of this now?  Well, I've known someone for a really long time who just very recently decided to pop out of the woodwork and let me know in no uncertain terms that the sun rises and sets wherever I am.  Good for my ego?  Heavens yes.  Like KP, Raj, Michelle and the rest of my pals, he was there when the world went kaboom and watched me reel from the experience.  From what he says, he just woke up one morning and realized he thought the world of me and given the opportunity would snatch me up in a heartbeat.   What do you do with that knowing that he's really tall, that he's super tough and that he's well-trained in protective arts?  That he's got shades of what I've experienced before but has a completely different take on things that are so similar to mine it's outright frightening on top of the fact that he's a total sweets freak and loves the smell and taste of home-baked goods?  This is someone who I considered a close friend for a long time that I'm just now finding out that there is a lot in common I never dreamed was there!  When you're faced with someone you thought you knew really well that through a lot of time spent together ends up becoming someone brand new but completely familiar, what do you do?    I want to know the answer because it's really scaring me!  I know him really well, but up until very recently I wasn't willing to hear what he was trying to tell me!  This goes back to a while back where I said, "An audience isn't  going to hear what you're trying to say until they are ready for it."  Well, I was an unready audience until I realized I should be listening to what he has to say and oh have I gotten an earful!  Special message to Houston:  We have ignition...43 FTW, playin' TOR mah brothah. L33T codeslinger. Ghostbar haunted. Blackthorne righteous.  Hand-in-glove The Palm's 9.     

Here's the part where you go "Awwwww!"  It contains a spoiler if you haven't seen Thor, so if you've not seen it, you may want to skip this part...

At the end of the film, Thor walks up to Heimdall and says, "Can you see her?"  Heimdall replies, "Yes."  Thor asks, "How is she?" and Heimdall says, "She searches for you."

I think I've read too many romance novels, watched too many movies and held out hope that one day all of the ingredients would come together perfectly.  Oh well, there's lots to do, a semester to conquer, the NSAC to win and so much stuff that if the ingredients are coming together perfectly, I'll be able to have my cake and eat it too at the end of the semester.

One can only hope.

But I do know this, through all of my Myst experiences that have fueled my need to problem solve and look at the world knowing it is one Great Tree of Possibilities, from the fighter's spirit I have inside to the phoenix metaphor that I keep in my back pocket as a self-portrait, there is only one thing that I can never deny.  Hope is something just like me being a wise fool:

It's eternal.

Song of the day time!  Today, from the ending credit's of Thor, the Foo Fighter's "Walk."