What makes a best friend?

Me and Adina

Recently I was at my mom’s house and, for whatever reason, I felt the need to look through my old yearbooks. It’s so funny to see how many people, some of whom I don’t even remember, signed their names with the abbreviations BFF or LYLAS (Best Friends Forever and Love Ya Like a Sister for those who don’t know). That got me thinking about the idea of a “best friend.”

You go to any elementary school classroom, maybe even preschool classrooms, and you will hear children talking about who their best friend is. Sometimes you will even hear the phrase “bestest best friend.” The concept of a best friend is one that seems to be innate in all children and, what’s more, something that is coveted and longed for. Everyone wants to be someone’s best friend. It is a title, a badge of honor.

Show of hands – how many of you had a “Best Friends” necklace you shared with someone (or whatever the male equivalent was)? You know the ones I am talking about. The ones that split up so one person has “Be Fri” and the other has “st ends.” I know I had a few of those as a kid.

So what is it about a friend that makes them “best” and why do we crave that specific kind of friendship from such an early age?

Over the course of my life I have had a lot of friends. Some have stayed with me for years and some have fallen by the wayside. I have also had a lot of different friends that I have considered my best friend at some time or other. Right now I have two (not including my husband – to me, the friendship of a significant other, no matter how great, is different from the friendship I am talking about).

Coty

Adina has been my friend since middle school, but somewhere towards the end of high school our friendship shifted into best friend territory and has only grown stronger in the 10 years since then. My other best friend is much newer. Coty and I haven’t even known each other for a year, but somehow we just clicked from the get go and neither one of us can imagine a future in which we are not best friends.

With such different histories it is not hard to believe that my relationships with Adina and Coty are very different, but there are a few key factors that are the same. It is these similarities that I believe are what create the difference between a friend, even a really good friend, and a true best friend.

It is okay to be silent as long as you are together. Sometimes you don’t feel like talking, but you don’t want to be alone either. Best friends are okay with this. When you are with a best friend sitting in silence is not awkward or uncomfortable. Both of you know that the silence isn’t from a lack of things to say, but from a need to just be.

You can tell each other anything without fear of judgement. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I do stupid things and sometimes stupid things go through my head. I cannot even begin to explain the comfort I have from the knowledge that I can go to Adina or Coty with anything and they will not judge me for it or love me any less. That is a rare and beautiful thing that should be treated with care and respect.

You can tell each other when one of you is in the wrong. Just as I know that neither Adina nor Coty will judge me for something, I know that if I am in the wrong in a situation they will tell me. This is a quality that only works between best friends. If someone who is not really a best friend tries to do this the other person is likely to get offended and not pay any attention to the censure. But when you know the person telling you that you are wrong is someone who loves you and only wants the best for you, someone you trust enough to know that their motive in telling you is in no way selfish, then you will listen. And only a best friend knows and trusts that they can tell you this kind of thing without fear of losing your love.

You are both confident in the knowledge that the other person loves, trusts, and respects you. This, I believe, is the cornerstone that everything else is built on and why the best friend relationship is so special. It is incredibly difficult to know deep down in your core that someone loves, trusts, and respects you. If you don’t know that, then there will always be that moment before opening up a new part of yourself to someone where you weigh how it will be received and decide whether or not you should show it. The only way that any of the other things I mentioned can is exist is because this does. I know that Adina and Coty love, trust, and respect me and no one could ever convince me otherwise. If I did not have this certain knowledge, I would not be able to confide in them the way that I do or be as honest with them as I am. To me, this knowledge is worth more than anything in the world. It is priceless.

What about you? What do you think the things are that separate a good friend from a best friend? Do you agree with the things that I have listed out? What would you add or take away? Let me know in the comments.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Memorial Day weekend is usually a big weekend at the box office, but this year I don’t really care about any of the movies opening this weekend. Instead, I am counting down the days until next weekend and the release of Snow White and the Huntsman.

This movie looks amazing. Charlize Theron looks absolutely perfect as the evil Queen – beautiful and terrifying. I am a little nervous about  Kristen Stewart playing the role of Snow White, but I have a feeling that even if she sucks I won’t care because of how awesome Theron is going to be (not to mention the eye candy that is Chris Hemsworth).

What do you think? Are you going to make a trip to the theater to see this when it comes out?

The Music of Our Youth

There is a running joke between me and my husband that unless a song has been on Glee I won’t know it. I don’t listen to the radio when I am in the car by myself and my iPod is full of musical soundtracks and a few bands that I know I like. I love music, but I love *my* music. Most of the music played on the radio annoys me not to mention the radio stations themselves.

No Doubt

In an attempt to help me, my husband made me download the Pandora app on my phone. He was very sweet and pointed out that I could create a station based on Wicked or even Glee. I was really excited at first until I realized that I would rather listen to the Wicked album than a bunch of random Broadway songs I may or may not care about. So the app has stayed on my phone, untouched. Until this weekend.

For some reason I really wanted to listen to some of my old CDs from when I was a pre-teen/teen. I still have those CDs, but haven’t put them on my iPod. I was really bummed and lamenting my lack of foresight when it hit me. Pandora! I loaded up the app and followed the trail: genre –>pop–>90′s. What followed was pure magic.

Spice Girls

I seriously haven’t had so much fun listening to music in ages. And what was truly remarkable was that, at the very least, I knew the chorus to EVERY SINGLE SONG that came on. More times than not I knew every single word to the entire song. This was a bit of a shock for me. After spending so many years joking about how I never know the music that gets played on the radio I forgot that there was a time when I did.

This got me thinking. It is a very common gag on TV shows and movies for the children to make fun of their parents for only listening to their *old* music or for the adults to complain about the *noise* that their kids listen to as opposed to the real music from their youth. What is it about those years from about 8-18? Why is it that the pop culture of those years is what sticks with us for the duration of our lives?

N’SYNC

For me, every song I heard held a memory. Sometimes it was nothing more than a general sense of emotion and sometimes it was a very specific memory. Listening to that music took me back to a time when I was young and innocent and still believed that anything I could dream was possible. It reminded me of a time when life – no matter what I may have thought at the time – was fun, carefree, simple.

As I drove along belting out the songs from my childhood and youth I felt all of those things again. I felt carefree. For 30 minutes I forgot about all the things I needed to do, all the obligations I had, all my responsibilities and just enjoyed. At the end of every song I would hold my breath in anticipation and squeal in delight at the next song that played. For the first time in who knows how long I had fun. Pure, simple fun. It was bliss.

What about you? Do you still listen to the music from your youth? What kind of emotions does it create for you? Let me know in the comments.

A Feast for Crows

Over the weekend I finished reading the forth book in George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire. A Feast for Crows was quite different from the other books in the series and if I had not been forewarned to one of those differences I would have been pretty upset. You see, this book only follows half of the characters that we have come to expect to see in each volume. Tyrion, Daenerys, Jon, Bran – none of these characters appear (well, Jon does in one chapter). Instead, this book focuses on the happenings within Westeros.

Once I got used to the idea that several of my favorite characters would not make an appearance I was able to get lost in the characters that were present, and there were several new ones. That was the other big change in this book. Martin took us into two new groups of people, but rather than picking one person to be the window into those groups he switched between about three people in each and named the chapters things like “The Drowned Man” as opposed to the person’s actual name. This didn’t effect the narrative in any way, but was an interesting change none the less. The only thing I will say about this new device was that it took me longer to care about these particular storylines than any of the others because I spent the first several pages of each chapter trying to get anchored into who was narrating.

I was very excited that the female warrior, Brienne, got her own chapters in this book. I have been very intrigued by her character ever since she was introduced in A Clash of Kings and it was nice to finally get some real insight into her head. I was also intrigued when I saw that Cersei had her own chapters in this book. I went into her chapters wondering if I would begin to sympathize with her like I did with Jamie in the previous book (who, as an aside, is now officially one of my favorite characters). Yeah, that did not happen with Cersei. Any shred of sympathy I had for her is now gone. I am glad that we were able to see the inner workings of her mind, but goodness, she is a terrible person. She is the Umbridge of this series for me. *shudders*

This book also saw a lot of growth and change for the two Stark girls. I have always loved Arya and that did not change here. Her story is at this weird crossroads right now, but I am still very invested in her and what she is going to do next. Sansa, on the other hand, is a character that has always annoyed me. I was always able to sympathize with her – the poor girl has been forced to endure some awful stuff – but I had difficulty getting past her silliness. This book changed all that. For the first time, I didn’t cringe every time I had to go inside her head. She is still the same Sansa, but she is more mature. She is growing. I can now see a wealth of potential within her and am excited to see how it develops.

A Feast for Crows is a book that is all about schemes. Unlike the other books, this one had no major battles or world shattering executions. This was very much a transition book. Several key events were set in motion, important information was learned, and carefully laid plans came to fruition for better or worse. But even though this book had less intense action it was no less riveting. As much as I want to know what was going on with the missing characters I am incredibly bummed that I am not going to find out what happens next with these characters when I pick up A Dance with Dragons.

Have you read A Feast for Crows? How did you feel about the narrative changes that Martin made? What about this book did you like? Not like? Let me know in the comments.

Which should win out – luck or hard work?

On Monday night the season finale of Smash aired. We finally got to find out which woman – the talented veteran or the green as grass new girl – would get to play the lead role in the musical that they had been competing for (I won’t spoil what happened).

As you probably know, I host a podcast discussing this show, and the competition between these two women was a hotbed of debate. All of us had a side we wanted to see succeed (my side lost. Sad. ). One argument that kept coming up was whether or not the green girl deserved the role over the equally talented veteran. Should one have to “pay their dues” or does that not matter if you have the “it” factor?

This is a debate that surfaces all over the place. We always hear stories of the band that’s never done a tour getting a huge record deal or the actor who’s first job is a major motion picture or the writer who makes the bestsellers list with his first novel. On the other side of these stories are the bands that are just as talented, have been touring for years and still have no contract; the equally talented actor who has been at it for years and only landed local commercials; the equally talented writer who has spent years writing a library of books and doesn’t even have an agent.

There are also stories, however, where the artist who has put in the years of hard work – in other words, paid her dues – FINALLY lands that record contract, acting role, or book deal that she has been chasing. Both versions of the story make us cheer for very different reasons. But which one is *fair*?

This debate also reaches beyond the arts. Similar things happen in virtually every career field that exists. There are always dues that are said need to be paid and there are always those who defy that right of passage. Is one situation more fair than the other?

I don’t know the answer to these questions. This is just something that I have been thinking a lot about ever since the finale of Smash. I am curious to know your thoughts about this. Do you think that someone who has put in the time should find success ahead of a newbie? What if that newbie has more innate talent, has the “it” factor? Does the answer depend on the specific situation? Is there an answer? Let me know what you think in the comments.

The Greek Gods: The Titans

Phew. After several unexpected delays, I am finally ready to begin a new series of blog posts. I don’t know about you, but I have always been fascinated by Greek mythology. I devour documentaries on Ancient Greece and the gods, I love movies that deal with this material, I read historical fiction novels that take place in this era, and in college I took a class on the subject. With things such the Percy Jackson book series and the movies Immortals and Wrath of the Titans, Greek mythology has once again become a topic of interest within the world of pop culture, so it seemed like a good subject to cover here.

There are way too many interesting gods to include them all this go around – the series would go on for the rest of the year. Instead, I am only going to cover the biggies right now and I will revisit the topic later on to touch on some of the others. Without further ado, let’s dig in!

The Titans

When asked to think about the Greek gods most people will immediately jump to names like Zeus or Hades or Athena. These are all names of gods who are a part of what is known as the Olympian gods. For people who have never really looked into or studied the subject, these are the only group of gods they know. But the Olympian gods were not the first gods of Greek mythology.

Just as with the religions of today, the Ancient Greeks had their own creation story which can be found in Hesiod’s Theogony. According to the story, there was a period of nothingness known as Chaos. From Chaos came the first of the divine beings, including Gaia, who was the Earth. Without a mate Gaia was still able to give birth to Uranus (the Sky), Ourea (the Mountains), and Pontus (the Sea).

After this, Gaia started to mate with Uranus. Uranus must have known how to please her because the two of them got busy. Together they created three cyclopes, three Hecatonchires (this means “hundred hands”), and the twelve Titans.

Uranus was not very fond of the Hecatonchires, so he decided to hide them away inside Gaia (remember, she is the Earth). Gaia was not happy about this. At all. So she went to her other children, the Titans, and asked if any of them would be willing to exact punishment upon their father. Cronus (you may know him better as Kronos) volunteered for the task.

Armed with a sickle, Cronus succeeded in castrating his father. ***As an aside, the results of this castration were so disturbing that they have stuck with me during the seven years that have passed since I took the college course where I studied the Theogony. Uranus’ blood fell on the earth creating the Furies, giants, and nymphs (Meliai) and – the part that REALLY stuck with me – his testicles fell into the sea where the… *stuff* mixed with the sea foam and created the goddess of love, Aphrodite. Yep. That is really what it says. I remember reading that part over several times before I believed it.

Anyway, Cronus married his sister Rhea and the two gave birth to the first six of the Olympian gods: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. Cronus had received a prophecy that said one of his children would end up overthrowing him. Naturally, he didn’t want this to happen. So what did he do? Well, duh! He swallowed his children.

Rhea was not too happy with this arrangement, so she went to mom and dad for help. When it was time for her to give birth to Zeus, Gaia sent her to Crete and gave Cronus a large stone to swallow instead of the child. Zeus was able to grow up in secret. When Zeus was grown, Gaia somehow tricked Cronus into regurgitating his other five children who then joined Zeus in war against the Titans.

The war went on for ten years. It was not until Zeus released the Hecatonchires that his side was able to win the upper hand (I’m sure there is a pun in there somewhere involving the hundred hands) and send Cronus and the other Titans into Tartarus, thus entering in the age of the Olympian gods.

I hope that you enjoyed learning the tale of the Titans and will check back for the stories of the three brothers, and I don’t mean the ones from Harry Potter.

What did you think? How does this story of the Titans measure up with what you know from things in pop culture? Let me know in the comments.

MASH-UP: Fairy Tales, Body Image, and More

Hey, hey, hey! It’s been a while since I gave you guys a mash-up of some awesome blog links, but don’t worry, I’ve got some really fantastic ones for you today. Check em out:

QUICK GIGGLE: Josh Groban sings Kanye West Tweets by Myndi Shafer: This may be the funniest video I have ever seen. Freaking hilarious!

Is There a Hulk Inside You? by Lisa Hall-Wilson: LOVE this post! Lisa takes a look at the Hulk as portrayed in The Avengers and the anger that rages inside of him, and relates it to real life. She also poses some very thought-provoking questions.

What’s the Point of Fairy Tales? by Marcy Kennedy: Does The Tales of Beedle the Bard meet the criteria of what makes a good fairy tale? Marcy takes a look at this question and you may be surprised at what she has to say.

Side-sleeping women celebrate ~ long awaited bust support by Natalie Hartford: This hilarious post looks at a product that is supposed to help support the top breast for women who sleep on their sides. Seriously. This is a real thing.

Body Image: Exploring Myths and Walking the Walk by August McLaughlin: This is a great post that looks at the very important issue of body image. August debunks 5 commonly held myths and gives 12 different things that can help you improve your body image. This is a post for women AND men.

Redefining Failure

Failure. To many people, including me, that is a very dirty word. We don’t like to fail. Failing is bad. We look on failure as a negative reflection of ourselves. When we fail we are somehow lesser, unworthy. This is something that I have been struggling a lot with lately. Every time I set a goal and fail to complete it I look at myself as a failure. The problem with this is, when I feel like a failure, then I expect to fail again in the future, and as I fulfill this self-fulfilling prophecy I grow more and more depressed with myself for failing and eventually stop trying all together. This is a vicious cycle.

The past two weeks or so have been especially bad because I got sick. I got absolutely nothing done. I failed. Trying to pick the pieces back up and get motivated to reset my goals, keep going and try again in this new week is harrrrrrrd. What if I fail again? What if I still don’t get everything I want done? Then I will be even more behind and I will never be able to catch up! Do you see the problem with this thinking?

I recently had a conversation with someone about the way we define failure. For me, whether or not I am a failure is attached to an outcome. If I accomplish ‘A,’ then I have found success, if I do not, then I have failed. Looking back over my life I was able to see that I have always defined failure in this way. If I got less than an A or B in school I had failed, if I got less than a Superior rating on my solo I had failed, if I did not keep a clean house I had failed…the list goes on and on.

For most of my life this definition of failure was not much of an issue. School came easy for me, I have always done pretty well at my jobs – I did okay with an outcome based definition of failure. But somewhere along the way things changed. I got married and placed expectations on myself as a wife – like keeping a clean house and cooking – that I was NOT good at. Then I decided to start writing and I set goals for when I would get things done, but as I have mentioned before I am a professional procrastinator and these self-imposed deadlines continue to pass me by unfulfilled. In other words, I keep failing.

Then the person I was talking to said something revolutionary: Why don’t you come up with a different definition of failure? Instead of defining failure by the successful completion of a task, define it by whether or not you try at all. By looking at it this way, if I pick up all the dirty dishes, but don’t have time to get the dusting done, I have still succeeded because I tried and did what I could. If I set a goal to write 3000 words, but am only able to write 1000 that’s okay, I still succeeded because I took the time to write something. If I had not even tried because I knew I wouldn’t have time to get it all done, that would have been the failure.

This is an interesting idea. It goes completely against my way of thinking about things for myself. I don’t have to think twice about giving similar advice or words of encouragement to a friend, but for me? Nope. I don’t give myself that luxury. And I’m not sure why. Growing up, my mother was never one to emphasize the outcome. She always told me and my sister that as long as she saw us trying our hardest it didn’t matter what grade we got in school, even if it was an F. So I am not really sure how that message got reversed in my own thought patterns, but it did.

I know that if I can change my way of thinking to adopt this different definition of failure that it would actually help with the outcomes I currently struggle so much with. I know that this change in thinking will not happen overnight, but I am going to try. I am going to be more conscious of the way I view failure and whether that view serves to motivate me or shackle me. No matter how long it takes, I already know that I am not a failure at it because I am making the choice to take the risk and try. That is success.

How do you define failure? Does your outlook on success and failure motivate or shackle you? Do you get caught in the vicious cycle of self-fulfilling prophecy? Let me know in the comments.

The Call to Assemble is Finally Out

If you have been following my blog, then you know how I have been looking forward to release of The Avengers. It finally opened this weekend to record breaking numbers and I got to see it on Saturday. My response? GAHHH…OH MY GOD….SOOOO AMAZING!!!!!! I had very high expectations for this film and it surpassed them all.

One of the biggest surprises for me was how funny this movie was. It was freaking hilarious. I was expecting snarky one-liners from Tony Stark/Iron Man based on his earlier movies, but he was not the only one delivering the humor, not by a long shot. All of them were funny. They had my entire theater cracking up throughout. Well, except for one time. I don’t know if the rest of the theater didn’t hear the joke, didn’t think it was funny, or are unfamiliar with The Lord of the Rings and didn’t get it, but Stark makes a joke where he refers to Hawkeye as Legolas. I was the only one in the theater to laugh. Loudly. My husband just looked at me and shook his head.

As I anticipated, getting to see the various heroes interact with each other was fascinating. I have to say, each and every one of the actors did an incredible job. They bickered and bantered with each other, but when the  time came to act they were able to pull it together and do what needed to be done. I loved the dynamic between Captain America and Tony Stark. They did a really good job showing the friction between the two characters when they first came together and their gradual shift to respect for each other. I was also pleasantly surprised by the depth of development that was given to Hawkeye and Black Widow. I did not think that there would be time to develop much of a connection with these two, but I ended up caring about them and their relationship with each other.

I think the stand out performance, for me at least, came from Bruce Banner/Hulk. Mark Ruffalo was perfect as this character. He was able to infuse him with humanity and strength while still keeping the reserved scientist in tact. Whether he was in the scene as Banner or Hulk, this character demanded your attention. I am very curious to see if the magic Ruffalo brought to this character would transfer over to a Hulk film or if the reason the character worked so much better here was because the weight of the film did not rest solely on his very large shoulders.

Speaking of Ruffalo, this seems like a good time to talk to the ladies. Any men reading this feel free to jump to the next paragraph if you do not want to read a bunch of gushing. Oh my yum! The amount of gorgeous male in this movie was astounding. No matter what your personal type is there was a guy in this film to match it. I have never seen so many beautiful, muscular arms in one place. Whenever Thor, Captain America, and Hawkeye were together I had to wipe the drool from my face due to those arms. Then of course, there were all the tight pants and, well, tights. For me though, nothing beats the dreaminess of Robert Downey, Jr. and Mark Ruffalo. They are the two least buff of the group, but holy cow are they still nice to look at (and I prefer the less buff type anyway). I have never been so angry at strategically placed rubble as I was in that one scene with Ruffalo. If you have seen the movie, you know exactly what I am talking about.

Alright, the gush fest is over. Don’t worry men, there were plenty of exciting action sequences to make up for all the female drool. The special effects and CGI in this movie were incredible. I saw it in 3D on the giant XD screen and it looked out of this world. Everything looked real. The fights were all choreographed really well with none of them feeling the same. There were tons of explosions and all kinds of other cool effects. It was definitely quite the rush.

So what’s the bottom line? Go see this movie! I fully intend on seeing it at least one more time in the theater and I will most certainly be purchasing it when it goes on sale. The rest of the comic book movies coming out this summer have some very large shoes to fill.

Have you been able to see The Avengers yet? What did you think about it? Did you want that rubble to move, too? If you haven’t seen it, do you plan to? Let me know in the comments.

Can You Guess That Theme Song? – Answers

Two weeks ago I posted a vlog where I challenged you to a game. I sang a snippet of the theme song for 5 of my favorite childhood cartoons and asked you to guess the cartoon. Today I am going to give you the answers. In case you missed the video or need a refresher you can find it here.

1. Gummi Bears

2. Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers

3. Care Bears

4. The Wuzzles

5. Ducktales

And just for kicks and giggles:

So…how did you do? How many did you get correct? Did you watch any of these shows as a kid or have children of your own who watched them? These are just a few of the cartoons I loved in my childhood. What are some others that you enjoyed?