Most Important Word to Common

Image by mp3waxx.com via Flickr

"My journey in love has led me to this place: of loving with my whole heart, of embracing the opportunity to build a life with someone else. I read somewhere that on average people have about sixty thousand words in their vocabulary, but that on most days we use only a fraction of them. As someone who creates with language, I'm fascinated by the shades of meaning and the range of sounds that different words can create. For all the words I may use in an average day, though, the most important word in my vocabulary is love."

Common from the memoir "One Day It'll All Make Sense"

It's Always About The Adventure

Image via WikipediaLaura: "Greg, I am so sorry. I really meant to marry you. I did. And suddenly, I put on that wedding dress and I thought, 'Here I go, my last great adventure.' And then I realized, I was only 22 and I've hardly had any great adventures."

Greg: "You don't think starting a family is an adventure?"

Laura: "Why, sure it is. It's just not-"

Greg: "Paris."

Laura: "You still finish my sentences."

Greg: "And you are still the prettiest girl I have ever laid eyes on."

Laura: "You need to let me go."

Greg: "When I was 15, I read a story in Boy's Life about climbing Kilimanjaro. And it seemed about as far away as the moon. But I mowed lawns all summer so that I could make the trek. Saved almost three hundred dollars. It wasn't enough by a long shot but I put it in the bank and I swore that someday that money would go towards an adventure."

Laura: "And what did you spend it on?"

Greg: "A ring. But that's not the point.If what you are leaving me for is-"

Laura: "Kilimanjaro"

Greg: "Then Bon Voyage, Laura. Safe journey."

- Pan Am television series: Season 1: Episode 2 "We'll Always Have Paris"

Monogamy is a State of Higher Evolution

Image via Wikipedia

Waverly: "I think what he is trying to say is that monogamy isn't natural. The male species is hard-wired for genetic diversity. So, the instinct is to, ya know, fertilize as many eggs as possible - to have sex."

Smash: "Exactly!"

Waverly: "Yeah, but human beings are different. I mean, civilization is based on the repression of instincts. When we act contrary to out instincts, that's when things get interesting. A lot of people would say that monogamy is a state of higher evolution - with the right person."

- Friday Night Lights Season 1: Episode 10 "It's Different for Girls"

Good Repartee

"Here is what Star Helmer, vice president of Harlequin, said about her books:

Good repartee is something that people generally talk about why they like romances, if they’re getting into specifics.  Most people when they’re angry and they’re getting in an argument do not have the witty, precise comebacks.  You usually think about it two days later and say, oh, you know, why didn’t I think of it?"

Joseph Gold. Read For Your Life: Literature as a Life Support System. Fitzhenry and Whiteside: Markham, 1990. pg 298

We Need that Illusion

"No words were more important than the warm tone of that voice as it told me, without speaking, that my grief meant something to him, that my life as a complete stranger meant something to him.

It seemed like so little, but it was everything. In the end, that’s all we ever really need. To face whatever that may be, we need nothing more than the occasional illusion that our life means something to someone who knows nothing about us."

- Monique Proulx. The Heart is an Involuntary Muscle. translated by David Homel and Fred A. Reed. Douglas & McIntyre Ltd, 2003. pg 129

A Heart is Fragile

crystal heart
Originally uploaded by midnightinfinite

"A heart is a fragile thing. That's why we protect them so vigorously, give them away so rarely, and why it means so much when we do. Some hearts are more fragile than others. Purer, somehow. Like crystal in a world of glass, even the way they shatter is beautiful."

- Narrator on Everwood

Happy in Love? Really?

“Love love love. Find me one single person who’s been happy long enough to be worth talking about, happy in love, I mean, that fake nest lined with steel wool they call love. Not very likely. If there is such a person, they must be blind, blinded by their terror of being alone, so blind they can’t see the blood pouring from their gaping wounds."

- Monique Proulx. The Heart is an Involuntary Muscle. translated by David Homel and Fred A. Reed. Douglas & McIntyre Ltd, 2003. pg 73

What a cynical way to look at love. I don't agree with this speaker's quote at all. I truly believe that I can find that kind of love that she seems to think does not exist.

Crazy How Easy It Is To Hurt Someone

“Oh, it wasn’t you,” she frowned. “It was a coincidence. When you were born your father had a…a disappointment. A big disappointment. It broke his spirit just as he was getting going. It’s crazy, crazy how easy it is to hurt a man.”

- Monique Proulx. The Heart is an Involuntary Muscle. translated by David Homel and Fred A. Reed. Douglas & McIntyre Ltd, 2003. pg 355

Why Do I Stay with Her?

Wise words today for anyone who is in an unhealthy relationship. You can change the pronouns so that this passage will work equally well to inspire you if you are a guy (read as written) or a girl (replace 'she' with 'he')

So here is the wisdom, I transcribed from the DVD "The Holiday."

Miles: "Why am I attracted to a person I know isn't good?"

Iris: "I happen to know the answer to this. Because you're hoping you're wrong and every time she does something that tells you she's no good you ignore it. And every time she comes through and surprises you, she wins you over, and you lose the argument with yourself that she's not for you."

Miles: "Exactly. And on top of that, there's the old standby - I can't believe a girl like that would actually be  with a guy like me."

- The Holiday available on DVD

Our Song

"I was riding shotgun with my hair undone in the front seat of his car
He's got a one-hand feel on the steering wheel
The other on my heart
I look around, turn the radio down
He says, "Baby is something wrong?"
I say, "Nothing I was just thinking how we don't have a song."
And he says...

"Our song is the slamming screen door,
sneaking out late, tapping on your window
When we're on the phone and you talk real slow
Cause it's late and your mama don't know
Our song is the way you laugh
The first date 'man, I didn't kiss her, and I should have'
And when I got home ... before I said amen
Asking God if He could play it again"

I was walking up the front porch steps after everything that day
had gone all wrong and been trampled on
and lost and thrown away
Got to the hallway, well on my way to my loving bed
I almost didn't notice all the roses
And the note that said...

Our song is the slamming screen door,
Sneaking out late, tapping on your window
When we're on the phone and you talk real slow
Cause it's late and your mama don't know
Our song is the way you laugh
The first date 'man, I didn't kiss her, and I should have'
And when I got home ... before I said amen
Asking God if He could play it again

I've heard every album, listened to the radio
Waited for something to come along
That was as good as our song...

Cause our song is the slamming screen door
Sneaking out late, tapping on his window
When we're on the phone and he talks real slow
Cause it's late and his mama don't know
Our song is the way he laughs
The first date "man, I didn't kiss him, and I should have"
And when I got home, before I said amen
Asking God if He could play it again

I was riding shotgun with my hair undone
In the front seat of his car
I grabbed a pen and an old napkin
And I... wrote down our song."

- Taylor Swift "Our Song" from the her self-titled album

All Fights Are The Same

"Conflict. It's everywhere you look. It touches everything we do, every relationship we have.

Isn't it funny how at their core all fights are the same - two people yelling, or accusing, or running away. Two people dong anything to avoid telling each other what they really feel.

Just talk when you want to run, reveal when you want to attack. It's so simple, so obvious, and at the same time, so incredibly hard."

- Being Erica. Season 2 Episode 3 "Battle Royale"

I really like this show. If you haven't been watching it, where have you been? Fortunately though, you can watch the episodes for free online to catch up for tonight's episode. Just go to http://www.cbc.ca/beingerica/

Wedding Rings Have a Weird Power

Felicia: "You guys gonna get married or what?"

Phineas: "Living together's the same thing."

Felicia: "Un-uh. I live with a guy once and trust me, it's not even close to being the same thing."

Phineas: "What do you mean, why?"

Felicia: "'Cause, she can just pack up and leave whenever sh*t hits the fan. Talk to married people. That ring, believe it or not, has got this kind of weird power."

- Sopranos Season 5 episode 9

Counting the Days

"So here I go and there you went...again

Just another stupid thing that I done wrong.

Locked up in my head, knocked down, beaten, left for dead

With all those brilliant things I should have said.

I gotta get away, and find something to do

cause everything I hear, everything I see, reminds me of you.

Still counting the days I've been without you 1, 2, 3, 4...

Still counting the days that you've been gone.

Day one, was no fun.

Day two, I hated you.

By day three I wish you'd come right back to me.

Day four, five and six, well I guess you just don't give a shit.

Day seven, this is hell. this is hell.

I gotta get away, and find something to do.

But everything I hear, everything I see, reminds me of you.

Still counting the days I've been without you 1, 2, 3, 4...

Still counting the days that you've been gone.

Still counting the days since you left me. 1,2,3,4...

Still counting the days since you've been gone.

A thousand things I wanna say to you, but it's too late now.

A thousand things I wanna say...

A thousand things I wanna say to you, but its too late now.

A thousand things I wanna say...

Still counting the days I've been without you.

Still counting the days that you've been gone.

Still counting the days I've been without you 1, 2, 3, 4...

Still counting the days that you've been gone.

Gone...

Gone...

Gone...

Gone..."

- Goldfinger "Counting the Days" from the album Stomping Ground

So Many Ways to Connect to People

"There are so many different ways to be connected to people. There are the people you feel this unspoken connection to, even though there's not even a word for it. There's the people who you've known forever who know you in this way that other people can't because they've seen you change. They've let you change."

- Angela on an episode of My So-Called Life

Dead End Countdown

"Exiled and pushed away, lost in time
Always I’ll be this bitter person
who’s stuck right here, disillusioned.
Don’t stand by
If you don’t like what you see.
So once satisfied,
No I won’t take what you said to me

Give me some time, give me some reason
Make up your mind, cool off the fever.
Drama must die, so give me some way
To salvage this life,
Finally it’s over

You oughta stay away, till you see
What runs through me
Unless you get this game,
The only one I wanna blame

My promise is cold, you’ve never been told
There’s nothing to hide, I never did lie
There’s no way to win
When love is in vain
I won’t take what you said to me

Give me some time, give me some reason
Make up your mind, cool off the fever.
Drama must die, so give me some way
To salvage this life
Finally it’s over.

Dead end countdown (4x)

I know we’re stuck inside a dead end countdown,
With no communication.
Straight down, we’re drowning in the respiration.
We’re lost beneath the surface.

Give me some time, give me some reason
Make up your mind, cool off the fever
Drama must die, so give me some way
To salvage this life
Finally it’s over.

Give me some time, give me some reason
I know we’re stuck inside
Give me some time, give me some reason
Now we’re stuck inside

Dead end countdown (4x)"

- The New Cities "Dead End Countdown" from the album "Lost in City Lights"

If you like this song and video please check out the interview I did with the band a few weeks ago and download the podcast for free.

Make sure to subscribe to The Chase March Show podcast. I will be bringing you more in-depth interviews and great music once a month.

Worse than Losing

"The only thing worse than losing the love of your life is having her find the love of hers."

- Matt from the television series Eli Stone

Draw a Circle Around Yourself

"A good man draws a circle around himself and cares for those within - his woman, his children.

Other men, draw larger circle and bring with them their brothers and sisters.

But some men have a greater destiny.  They must draw around themselves a circle that includes many, many more.  Your father was one of those men.  

You must decide for yourself whether you are as well."

- 10,000 BC movie

Don't Give Up Access to Essential Info!

"People who do not read and do not demand a wide range of material to read, especially fiction, give up access to essential information about their world, about their relation to it and to themselves, and about how others think and feel."

- Joseph Gold. Read For Your Life: Literature as a Life Support System. pg 255

It Takes Years to Train a Man

“Women tended to get married before they knew themselves, before they’d made contact with their inviolate selves. Another fact: it takes ages, years and years, to train a man to be even moderately sensitive and to equip him with the expertise to carry out ordinary household tasks. By the time all the information has been dispensed and processed, the trainer is worn out.”

Jane Hamilton. Disobedience. Anchor Books. 2000. pg 75.

Two Stories Become One

"Marriage can be a great opportunity to produce such changes. But all too often it is designed to reinforce existing problems. Marriage requires the adaptation of two stories to each other. A rigid story that will not be changed will try to impose itself on the spouse’s story."

- Joseph Gold. Read For Your Life: Literature as a Life Support System. Fitzhenry and Whiteside: Markham, 1990. pg 214