Some of my favorites on love

Mary Oliver

to live in this world, you must be able to do three things:

to love what is mortal:

to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

Some Things Go Together by Charlotte Zolotow

Pigeons with park

Stars with dark

Sand with sea

and you with me.

... Hats with heads

Pillows with beds

Sky with blue

and me with you.

I Like You by Sandol Stoddard

I like you because

If you find two four-leaf clovers

You give me one

If I find four

I give you two

If we only find three

We keep on looking.

... I like you because if I am mad at you

Then you are mad at me too

It's awful when the other person isn't

They are so nice and hoo-hoo you could

just about punch them in the nose.

... I would go on choosing you

And you would

go on choosing me

Over and over again.

Your Personal Penguin by Sandra Boynton

A penguin pleads his case to a bewildered hippo. (There is also a musical version, sung by Davy Jones from The Monkees.)

I like you a lot.

You're funny and kind.

So let me explain

What I have in mind.

I want to be your personal penguin.

I want to walk right by your side.

I want to be your personal penguin.

I want to travel with you far and wide.

Dory

No. No, you can't... STOP. Please don't go away. Please? No one's ever stuck with me for so long before. And if you leave... if you leave... I just, I remember things better with you. I do, look. P. Sherman, forty-two... forty-two... I remember it, I do. It's there, I know it is, because when I look at you, I can feel it. And-and I look at you, and I... and I'm home. Please... I don't want that to go away. I don't want to forget.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. Please tame me! One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox.

Said the Shotgun to the Head by Saul Williams

Have you ever lost yourself in a kiss? I mean pure psychedelic inebriation. Not just lustful petting but transcendental metamorphosis when you became aware that the greatness of this being was breathing into you. Licking the sides and corners of your mouth, like sealing a thousand fleshy envelopes filled with the essence of your passionate being and then opened by the same mouth and delivered back to you, over and over again – the first kiss of the rest of your life. A kiss that confirms that the universe is aligned, that the world's greatest resource is love, and maybe even that God is a woman. With or without a belief in God, all kisses are metaphors decipherable by allocations of time, circumstance, and understanding

C.S. Lewis

To love at all is to be vulnerable.

Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken.

If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

Ew! Get a room!

As a general rule, I have no problem with PDA. (Public Displays of Affection) I have engaged in it myself, and sometimes I even enjoy observing it. Ew, not like that. Weirdo.

But this week? It's getting on my nerves.

This first example doesn't exactly count as PDA, but it's close enough. A girlfriend of mine recently started dating a new young man. I've met him, and I like him, and I'm happy for both of them. But she could tone down the "I'm in love! I'm in love! I'm in love!" Today, it went something like this "Oh man, I just haven't had any time to myself, since Boyfriend takes so much of my time, but I don't mind because I love him." "He's making me a bookcase for my birthday! I love him!" All that, and I haven't seen her in weeks, because of all the time she's been spending with said boyfriend. Oy!

Last night, I went out with a group of my friends. Turns out two of them are dating, which is news to me, and good news at that. He had his arm around her for much of the evening, and that was fine. That is, until I looked over and he was licking her. Actually licking her. Whether on her cheek or her ear I couldn't tell, but he licked her. In public. Where people could see. Where I could see. She saw me see him, and announced it to him, and I got to actually say to them both "Well now, that was awkward for me."

Tonight, I was at the store and a couple was stumbling through that I could have sworn were surgically attached to each other, much like Richandamy from Zits. I say stumbling through, because they hadn't quite perfected the two arm hug walk.

It's not even spring!

So, couples of the universe! Get a room!

Or find me a guy I can lick in front of my friends because I'm so blissed out I don't even remember they're there.

True Love Waits

A non-LDS bride recently posted on A Practical Wedding about why she waited to have sex until they were married, and her experiences before and after the fact. I wish I could have written that post (and only partly because it would mean that I was married and having sex by now ;) ), but it pretty perfectly sums up our own feelings here at IWS.

Check it out.

Fake it till you make it

Fake it till you make it. That's what they tell you to do when you have no idea what you're doing. Just pretend you do and either you'll eventually figure it out or people will believe you actually know what you're doing. Oddly, it's more the second than the first, which honestly can be kind of scary some times.

But such is not good advice in all situations. Like the medical profession. You wouldn't want a doctor faking it on your surgery.

There are other times when faking it really isn't a good idea either. Relationships. You don't really want to fake it with relationships.

Now, that doesn't mean being brutally honest with a bad first date. But also don't lead them on unnecessarily. Especially when things start getting serious.

Specifically, let's talk about the physical stuff.

Last night on the NBC show, "Parenthood" they had a side plot about faking good sex. Apparently women who "fake it" are trying to get across the idea that, "I don't want you to feel that I don't appreciate the effort," and "Thank you so much for trying. Please come again soon."

Now, not everyone is a good kisser (we're going to talk about kissing because we believe in being chaste, so no sex before marriage, but this applies to married people too), but "faking it" won't make the situation better. Because while that that might be what a woman thinks she's saying when she "fakes it," the message the man is most likely getting is "I really like what you're doing, please keep doing that." But that won't solve the problem at all. It will just lead to more bad kissing and more faking it.

Instead, we need to make sure the message we are sharing is the message we want to share. So if that means not "faking it" then don't. In the moment might not be such a good time to say "I don't like it when you do that." Maybe instead, just don't respond with anything. Respond only to the things you really like. Whether that's with words or not doesn't matter.

Nobody gets anything right the first time. But faking that they did will only improve the bad. Taking the time to work out the good stuff together is definitely worth it. A kiss should make you feel fluttery. And you can't fake fluttery.

Not giving up!

(I'm a little unfocused because of fatigue and sitting at a desk for the last 9 hours, so bear with me. I also plan to write more extensively about my feelings on this in another blog.)

I recently had a conversation with my dear friend David about his friend (and my former friend), Diane. He said it appears as if Diane has a boyfriend, but he's worried because this boyfriend also appears to be non-LDS. I know in some other faiths, it isn't a big deal to date or marry someone outside your belief system, but for us, it is. We believe that in order to be married eternally, in order to keep all our covenants, we need to marry someone strong in our faith and be sealed in the temple. The covenants you make in the temple are important and sacred, and not to be treated lightly, not even when it comes to romance.

What struck me about David's story is that Diane might be giving up. She might have convinced herself that no good LDS man is going to want her, so she might as well go with the guy who does. Now, if this all works out, that's great...I think. I may no longer be friends with her, but I don't want her to give up her goals and ideals just to be kissed by some guy! I don't want her to give up eternal marriage for a relationship that might not take her there! I want to shake her (and the other women like her) and say "don't you understand that it's not worth it?!"

I know there are times when this all works, when a couple from different backgrounds and faiths can live happily ever after without any pressure to join or leave a religion or confusion about what belief system their children will follow, but it doesn't always happen that way. I don't want her to get married, thinking she can convert someone, spending all her time and energy trying to change the mind of someone who isn't interested, or who is just using her, or who just married her to have sex. I've seen that happen with family and friends--over and over again, it ends in a bitter divorce that causes serious damage to self-esteem and confidence. I don't want that for her. I don't want her to give up.

Look. The only kiss I've had for the last 3 years was a stage kiss with a man 12 years younger than me. So what? It's just kissing. It's not the end of the world.

Quite frankly, kissing (sex, marriage, whatever) is not worth giving up my covenants and giving up on Heavenly Father's promises.

I will not compromise.

It only takes one

Recently we got on the topic of how many first dates we'd been on over the years. We were talking with another guy who said that he often feels like he doesn't want to go out on dates because for the most part he's just spending money on someone else's wife. I pointed out that while that might be true, there's another guy out there spending money on his wife.

HP said that he's probably been on a couple hundred first dates. His roommates and him would invite different girls over ever week for dinner. He says now that he wishes he'd spent more time building friendships than going on countless first dates. My first date count is probably somewhere around 25 is all (why did I not know guys who invited girls over for dinner when I was in college?). And for second dates - 4, and one of those was over three years after the first date. So it really doesn't matter how many guys you've gone out with, because it only takes one.

Another count that people keep track of is how many people they've kissed. Again, my number on that is very low. HP's number isn't too much higher. But I have known someone who figured that if she could name all of the guys she'd ever kissed, then she wasn't a slut. The fact that she had to have a written list (and it was a page front and back) or she couldn't name all of them was not relevant.

It doesn't matter how long either list is. What matters is that eventually we all get to the end of it.

Kiss De Girl

An interesting little connection occurred to me yesterday while talking to a friend. Somehow, we started discussing musicals and, after a shortened rendition of "Elephant Love Medley", we narrowed it down to Disney musicals. For whatever reason, I decided to share the following story.

It was Valentine's Day, my last semester of college. This young man and I had been seeing a lot of each other for the 2.5 weeks prior, but had to yet to do more than cuddle on the couch and we certainly hadn't discussed the feelings developing between us. He'd surprised me by showing up at work just as we were closing and we'd gone back to his place. We were snuggled on the couch in the living room, which was in the middle of the apartment, his bedroom and his roommate's bedroom were on either side.

While we were deciding that we were definitely dating and were looking forward to seeing where this was going, his roommate suddenly dashed across the living room into my man's bedroom. Within moments, we heard "Kiss The Girl" from The Little Mermaid blasting from the computer speakers. We laughed, but it took the roommate running back and forth to press play three or four times and occasionally yelling "Have you done it yet!?" for us to finally kiss. It was very sweet.

Then, I added this gem:

There was also the time that this guy I was dating in high school and I were playing pool and listening to the soundtrack from Tarzan. "You'll Be in My Heart" had begun shortly before I won the round. The guy then started the song over before coming back to kiss me for the first time. (It was also a rather awkward first kiss, but that's not the point.)

Suddenly, I realized something I'd never realized before. Two of my first kisses were to Disney songs, and while I'm no longer even in contact with either of these guys, the memories still make me smile.

Promises, promises

I knew for a while that the boyfriend was unlikely to tell me he loves me until he was ready to marry me. And while he hasn't asked me anything about marriage yet, the way he talks, it's definitely something in our future.

The night he first told me he loved me, he also asked me to promise him something. He wanted me to promise that things would not go too far physically until the time was right. That's something I can promise without hesitation. And it's a promise I fully intend to keep.

That one small promise makes so many other promises possible.

In the mean time, it's nice to know that he's talking about "when the time is right," not "maybe sometime in the future."

Good weekend

This weekend, I had not one, but two guys "dippin' in my sauce", as someone once called it. It took me by surprise, especially the first. I went to the movies with a group of friends and halfway through the film, the guy I'd driven with offered his hand to hold, something I thought we'd only joked about before the film started. It was nice, the hand holding, even if I'm not sure I'm interested in him.

The latter, though not specifically "a date" was, for all intents and purposes, a date. And it was lovely. I've talked about him before. I was simply enjoying his company and then things took a turn for the physical.

Do I have any idea what's going on with either of them? Negatory. But things do look promising.

The last

With a single phone call this evening I was suddenly doomed to be the old maid in my family.

The youngest sibling is already married and multiplying and replenishing the earth.

This afternoon the other sibling decided to get married as well.

It won't happen immediately of course. They don't know when or where the wedding will be. They need to figure out their schedules (they currently don't live in the same city, which could make things a bit difficult), as well as when all the important people can fly in for it.

But when it does happen, that will leave me all by my lonesome - marriage wise.

I'm at least not alone enough that there won't be anyone to kiss come midnight tonight. And who knows what might happen in 2009.

My dad told me once that in January he didn't think he'd be married by August, and expecting a baby just a few months later. But in February all those many moons ago he proposed to my mom and that got that ball going. So who knows.

Taking it off

Obviously, we here at I Won't Say are girls with standards. There are lot of things, particularly on the physical side of things, that we won't do. Not that we don't want to, because, by golly, we do. However, we've made certain commitments not to, and feel that our lives will be blessed by it.

Still, we can have some fun. In fact, we can have a lot of fun. With our clothes on.

There are, however, some things we can take off. Or, even better, you can take them off for us.

Shoes/socks - Being barefoot is comfortable and sexy, and have you ever had your toes kissed? It's surprisingly fun.

Glasses - They get in the way, and nose smudges are not sexy. If you don't take them off, we will eventually.

Watches/bracelets - Not so fun when they get stuck in your hair.

Hair things - Having someone run their fingers through your hair, even gently pulling it (you guys were on to something in elementary school!), is really, really sexy. So, if our hair is in a ponytail or something, take the elastic out! This is one case where we don't care what you think about our hair, as we have obviously already impressed you.

Earrings - I am, personally, a big fan of the earlobe nibbling, but I understand that it's difficult if my earrings are in the way. So, take them out. (I once had someone take them out with his teeth. Impressive, but not necessary.) As long as you pull the earring out and not down, you aren't going to hurt me.

Jackets - They limit mobility, and if there is kissing (and we're inside), I'm going to be plenty warm.

Obviously, things like shirts, pants, skirts, those things need to stay on. For now. Just about everything else? Fair game!

Tithing (un)Settlement

There are some conversations you can just never really plan for. Today was one of them. And it happened during tithing settlement of all places.

I attend a singles ward. It often feels like the main purpose of church in a singles ward is not to teach the Gospel, or the salvation of souls, but rather to get as many people married as possible. I imagine bishops of singles wards getting together at annual conventions and bragging about how many people from their ward got married that year.

I went to talk to my bishop about tithing. We took care of that, it took all of maybe 30 seconds. Then he asked me how things were going with Kitt. (I usually take bets when I go talk to the bishop about whether Kitt will come up before or after the real reason I'm there, because he always comes up.) And honestly, I'm not sure how they are going. I think they are going okay, but I really don't know what direction they are going in right now. So I tell the bishop I don't know. And he seems surprised. Maybe he and Kitt have talked about things that I haven't heard yet. I don't know.

So then the bishop tries to figure out what is going on that Kitt and I aren't getting married yet. I wonder if bishops in singles wards are kept up nights wondering why their ward members haven't managed to get married yet.

This is where things get real weird, the bishop asks me if things are okay physically, if maybe we have some problem in that area. Awkward! I stumble through some explanation that things are definitely okay in that area, that we are doing just fine there, but that it's not going so "well" that we would have to confess to him about any of it.

Um. Yeesh. Yup. That was weird. Not what I was expecting at all.

The booty call

I got a booty call last night.

Now, remember that based on our shared religious convictions, this was limited to making out. Nothing crazy.

About six months ago, he and I had a random, non-committal encounter based off a Facebook conversation. We hooked up again a few months later. I thought I'd offended him that time, for reasons I won't go into, so I wasn't expecting to hear from him again.

He started off coy by asking what I was up to and if I wanted to see a movie. Considering we've never just hung out, I knew what he was going to get at as soon as I saw that I had a text message from him. When I declined, citing a need to study, he quickly jumped to his point.

Now, I know I said that I usually perceive hand-holding as more committal than kissing, but it still should mean something. Obviously, it hasn't always, but I certainly prefer it when it does. We all have needs and frustrations, but in some ways, it's even more frustrating to just kiss someone I don't have feelings for. It's not as satisfying. Additionally, this guy isn't even particularly good at the kissing.

So I didn't go. I am totally okay with that. I really did have to study and non-satisfying kissings didn't sound terribly appealing last night.

Will I kiss someone I don't care for again, ever? Probably. At some point. Maybe it'll even be this guy. I could give him some pointers. His future kissing partners might thank me.

The appropriateness of the kissing

When one is in a relationship with an other, this is generally the result of a feeling of attraction between one and the other, the relationship frequently indicating that such feelings of attraction are, to a degree, mutual. An aspect of such an attraction is frequently the attraction to the physical manifestation of the other. This often results in a physical expression of such an attraction with such exhibitions as the holding of hands, the kissing, and the making out.

The timing of such exhibitions, in addition to the location of such exhibitions, should always be taken into consideration. While the holding of hands is acceptable in generally all places of a public nature, the kissing, and most especially the making out, should be used with especial discretion in their use where others may be present.

Yet it has been observed, it is with sadness that we report, and with much discomfort at having been the witness of said exhibitions of not only the kissing but also the making out, that such is not always the case.

i.e. Making out on the front steps of the church building after church - INAPPROPRIATE!!

Your time and attention to this important matter has been most graciously appreciated.