The Making of..."Tristesse" and "Please Love Responsibly"

Hi.
Well I'm pretty under the weather for this week's entry. I've noticed that ever since I was a kid, I'd become a lot more sensitive and emotional when being sick. Maybe it's the fever or the feeling of helplessness. I shouldn't be admitting this, but when I was like 8 years old, I rented the 80's movie called "Labyrinth". (That's not the sad part) By the end of the film, I was crying. Now I don't remember the plot too well, and I'm sure it had at least a couple of touching scenes, but why the hell was 8 year-old me crying about besides being a wuss? Well, later that night I developed one of the worst fevers I've had to date. It was awful. But I remember feeling relieved as to why I was so sad over seemingly nothing. I've always been a terrible sick patient. I was then. I was when I broke my ankle. I was when I got a stomach virus in Pittsburgh in 2007. I was last year in Anaheim on the last day of my trip when the sun got the best of me. And I am now.

Today I feel a bit more emotional because of feeling sick. It's probably throat related. Luckily, sensitivity has led to good writing from experience. So we begin with...Tristesse?!?! Have I gone French? This is the French word for melancholy. And the way I ended up liking this word for a title was because I was searching the official definition of triste, which means sad in Spanish. And tristesse came up first. Maybe it's because I've hung around with my Brother for so long who adores the French culture, but I thought it would fancy up the whole theme and give it a unique feel. Plus it doesn't hurt that it rhymes with a lot of words. So I haven't even started this piece but I have a good idea of where I want to take it: This song will serve as a swan-song....ha. Seriously, I want to take the idea of saying goodbye to someone you still deeply care for, include all the conflicting emotions that the memories present you with, and display that in a very sad and melancholy way. Honestly, the goal is to make it as heartbreaking as possible, using words that may not hammer a specific idea home, but to make it a little more interpretive. I've written poems like this before, but this will be the most shattering. We'll see...That's why the next couple of days would be a great time to get started on it.

The next one I wanted to touch on I have already finished. "Please Love Responsibly" is not much more uplifting. But I wouldn't call it sad. I think it presents a jaded point of view on modern dating. Although we're all victims to this new approach of speed dating, or dating that sort of feels like speed dating, I think most adults our age are sick and tired of this approach. I start out the poem with the word disingenuous and I probably could've ended it right there. I mean, we do have more ways of communicating than ever before, yet we say less and less. Despite the fact that I love technology and that I'm generally shy, there is something to be said about meeting someone in a 'traditional' format. And even when we do still meet in that way, it just seems like there are too many distractions to truly enjoy that person's company. I will continue to fall victim to these ideas. I'll meet a woman through the internet again one day. I'll look at my phone when having a good conversation. I'll spend too much energy on social networking sites. It's hard to escape. But for one night, I just said enough and shared my frustration with our short attention spans for each other. You shouldn't treat other people's feelings the same way you make a wish list on Amazon. These are people's feelings you have to keep in mind. We're individuals and if we're looking for a meaningful attraction, whether that's emotional or just lust, we have to be more responsible with how we treat one another. That goes for me and a lot of others. It's hard because these technologies are new and we're still learning how to juggle them in our actual lives. But it's some food for thought. It deals with all that.

Ugh.. Just took a shot of Robitussin. Terrible. Happily it's the first shot I've had of anything in quite a while. Hope everyone else stays away from the germs.

Thanks.