Friday Musings

Compliments
A good compliment is rare but so very very fulfilling. Last night my boo gave me a compliment that reminded me of why I'm marrying him, not that I needed reminding.

As I sit here 14 hours later basking in the glory of the great compliment, I recall a time in my adolescence when I was forced to go on a Youth Retreat with the teens at my church. Let me start by saying that pretty much since birth, church functions have made me about as comfortable as watching a dog get beat by its owner. At this stage in my life, they serve as reminders of how upon taking my last breath, I shall take my seat in between George Bush and Tommy Lee on the Straight To Hell Express. However, up until about 21 years of age, the reason for my discomfort was different. At the time of the youth retreat, church functions meant one thing: I was going to have to speak about personal things in front of a large group. I couldn't understand why that had to be the case, and I still don't. Usually our youth meetings went as such: the youth pastor would tell us some story from the Bible and would try to relate it to us in a meaningful way...then usually we'd have to go around the room and give some sort of personal reflection. As I sat there waiting for it to be my turn with a scowl on my face, I was usually thinking three things:
How freakin' dumb is this youth pastor.
This is preposterous.
What humorous one-liner can I give to distract the group from the fact that I won't be saying anything real?

I don't know why I continued with that plan of attack - I was usually subsequently begged to say something substantive...to which I would roll my eyes and say something brilliant like, "I don't know." I was the epitome of eloquence even then, it's true.

Going on a youth retreat meant we go to go to St. Simons and stay in a lovely dilapidated cabin on the beach. Much to my indignant 12-year-old self's chagrin, we would have daily meetings of the sort described above. So, as I'm sure I don't have to tell you, it was a RIOT. Anywhore, this brings me to the point of the story - on our final night there, things finally got interesting...mainly because there was some focus on my awesomeness...FINALLY. We sat around this little campfire on the beach and had what the ridiculous but well-meaning youth pastor called an "Affirmations" session. In this particular version of an affirmations session, we were to go around and give compliments to everyone in the circle. My compliments given to others were totally lame, yet somehow tear-filled (what is wrong with me?) And the compliments given by my fellow teens weren't much better - we mainly repeated the compliments given by others. But hey, being told 7 times that I had a lot of spunk turned my world upside down. So my official point is this: let's not be stingy with our compliments - if you have something positive to say, SAY IT. Lately I've been frustrated by people close to me from whom I only seem to hear negative things. I don't believe it's because they don't think positive things, but I do think there's a certain vulnerability involved in complimenting (I refer back to the difficulty I felt during the affirmations sessions). So I say to them - Be strong! Compliment me, damnit! We humans aren't mind readers, and if we aren't reminded that we have likable qualities, we will forget and only focus on the negative ones. Let's remember to be kind, people.

Meanwhile, Denise Richards is currently lighting up my life in a Lifetime "Original" movie. I quote "Original" because they are using the term quite loosely - this 2004 movie is a blatant rip-off of The Wedding Planner - don't act like you don't know it - the one with J-Lo and Matt Mac'. They even go so far as to have her involved in an accident where she hurts her ankle, and Superman, aka Dean Cain, leaps to save her. So, for those interested in knowing what B-list celebs get paid to star in Lifetime movies, their fees combined are apparently less than what it would've cost Lifetime to just friggin' pony up the dough to buy the rights to air the original. You're welcome for the info.