The Triumvirate takes on New Years

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

(image from http://www.timessquarenyc.org)

I suppose I should have posted this before it was January 1st in more than half the world, but I didn't think about it. Have a safe night and best of luck in the new year.

Liza takes on long distance relationships...of sorts.

Long time, no blog, my loves. Sorry about that. Graduate school and the holidays have been eating my life. Luckily Ms. Waters hasn't let this go completely to crap. :)

First of all I should explain that by "of sorts" I am referring to the fact that the long distance of this relationship is temporary. Winter break has forced one of us (me) back across the big Atlantic Ocean for a month.

Secondly I haven't had a chance to introduce a "new" character in the Liza Meadows story. He's not new, per se, being that we have been friends since my first week in the UK, but he has recently been upgraded in status. We started "seeing" each other a little less than 3 weeks before I left for home. Le Boy, as he shall be referred to-- he's French-- is now somewhat officially my boyfriend, as he has decided to use this term and I haven't felt the need to run away from it. 

I didn't think it would be so hard to be away from someone I had only been seeing for about 2.5 weeks. Then I realised that, for at least the last 1.5 months, we have seen each other every single day. It was weird for me not to see him, and skype didn't wholly solve this issue. However, my real problem is the way it's affecting him. He's a lot more upset by our separation. I absolutely miss him, and all the time, but he is legitimately saddened by the situation. I'm not sure how to handle this because I've never had a guy actually act like he was so into me. I feel bad when my response to his emotions (not that he's being crazy emotional or overly-sentimental-- don't think that's he's crying on skype or something) is a smile or something stupid. I've apparently not been overly-receptive to him a few times on skype. He said I seem annoyed that he wants to talk so much, but I don't mean to because I am more certainly not annoyed by him.

He's also missing certain activities involving the two of us-- if you get my drift-- and I don't feel comfortable remedying this via the internet. I've never been able to be sexy on the internet. I'm not entirely sure I can be sexy in person, but he seems to think so. I'm just not good at it online. I could just say "Listen, that's not going to happen. Stop trying." but I don't want to shut him down when we have almost 3 weeks until we see each other. Then again I'm not sure I'll be able to teach myself how to be good at this before those 3 weeks are up. It's a lose-lose situation. 

I just don't know how people do the long distance thing for real. It's been 2 weeks and if this was for more than a month, I would have already called it quits. It's just too hard.

Robyn Takes On Christmas

So obviously we missed Hanukkah this year, and I apologize. Is it just me or was it crazy early this year? Although it is several weeks late, I still would like to venture to say Happy Hanukkah. I would also love to share some Christmas cheer and humor with you. I'm a bit of a jokester so when my Dad sent me and email full of hilarious Christmas cartoons, I thought I'd share some of my favorites with you.

Christmas is one of my favorite holidays. Not because of gifts, that is the last on the list if it even makes it on the list at all (although I love when I get the perfect gift for someone I love!). Christmas Eve is my favorite part of the holiday because my family and I have the tradition of attending a Moravian Lovefeast. Most people probably have no idea what a Lovefeast is, let alone have even heard of the Moravian Church. The Moravian Church originated from Germany and many settled all around America but the largest concentration near me is in Winston-Salem, NC. Every year, on Christmas Eve, they celebrate a Lovefeast where we sing our favorite carols and share a feast together of a bun and coffee served to us by the Dieners in the church. After the feast, once the cups have been taken up, is one of my favorite traditions. The lights in the sanctuary are turned down low and the doors to the hall open up where Dieners, holding hundreds of blazing candles, carry them out into the congregation and pass candles to everyone there. A few weeks prior to the Lovefeast, the church makes the candles from beeswax and the wick is different from most candles. It has been created so that it makes a loop from the base of the candle and so there are two wicks at the tip top of the candle. The significance is that the candle light burns, creating a bond between the two wicks as a never ending loop-and such is Jesus's love for us. As the Moravian lyrics from the song "Morning Star"--"In me shine, Jesus mine." Morning Star is my favorite song because a child from the church sings and the congregation responds. It is such a beautiful song and it is a perfect ending to a beautiful service.

Candlelight Service at a Moravian Church

I love spending time with the family as well...although the extended family is sometimes entirely more than I can handle. But everyone has their family problems and issues, and Christmas is just another time of the year where it is a bit more prevalent than most. Christmas may not be celebrated by all but it is a holiday in the United States whether you like it or not. Plus, sometimes it is nice to have a few days to huddle under some warm blankets and hibernate when the weather is cold outside!

Now, on to the humorous cartoons! I love something funny to laugh at, as I'm sure everyone else does. These were my favorites from the Christmas email. Enjoy and have a very wonderful and Merry Christmas!!

Robyn Takes On Celebrities...

Okay, I am not literally taking on celebrities but I am taking on fame in general. Any time a person gets any teensy bit of fame, they go bonkers and think that the sun rises and sets on them. Obviously not everyone goes over-the-top crazy, but then again how can they help it. They have people following them around all the time taking photographs and are stopped for their autographs or gawked while they walk down the street. And then there are the celebrities who every move, every breath, every moment is captured and watched with scrutinizing detail. It's like the creepy Police song about the stalker watching every breath you take. Honestly I don't give two craps about what some celebrity ate for breakfast or where they hung out last night. Yes, I like looking at the photos of all the pretty people made up at the red carpet events because I wish I constantly had reasons to dress up and look gorgeous like they do. But that's where I draw the line-let private life remain private. Which is why, when I saw this on yahoo's rotation of news stories, I laughed: Digital Death Campaign. The campaign is for a good cause-to raise money for AIDS in Africa-but it is humorous. The premise is, if enough money does not get raised, the celebrities that are participating in the campaign will die a "digital death", so they will no longer tweet, facebook, etc. So...honestly, I wouldn't give money to this particular AIDS campaign for the simple fact that I don't see what is wrong with them not ever posting their private lives again. I mean some celebrities update their statuses hourly, as if someone out there is constantly watching and cares what they do every moment. Especially considering the fact that they complain how the paparazzi constantly dogs them-if you put it out there you are essentially giving the public exactly what you claim you do not want them to know.
I, of course, have a humorous story to follow this up with. I work at a small restaurant in the town I go to college at. I work a couple times a week and we're small enough that there's usually only two or three servers working at a time. Well today an actress from a television show walked in and ate lunch there. I seated her but my coworker served her. I knew who she was, or at least I vaguely remembered her from the show. I mentioned that she was an actress to my coworker after she left and he was like..."No she wasn't...was she?" He had NO IDEA-he had never seen the show before, let alone a commercial for it. Then he followed it up with..."No wonder she acted the way she did." He left her table alone for the most part because he felt she was stuck up and didn't want anyone to bother her. Then he flirted with the older women at the nearby tables and was super friendly to everyone else. He said she must have realized a while in that he had no clue who she was so she pulled a stunner-she pulled her script out. Wow, so you weren't getting enough attention you had to go out of your way so that you make sure that he knows it. He didn't even realize it was a script until she left and I told him who she was but we had a nice laugh about it. If you wanted attention, the restaurant we work at was definitely not the place to come to. Of my coworkers, I was the only one who recognized her and the restaurant usually draws in an older crowd so none of the guests gave her a second look. But who am I to judge? Maybe she really did choose our place because she knew she would probably not be bothered. I'm just glad I wasn't her waitress-I'm too stressed right now with upcoming exams and other stuff to worry about uppity celebrities.