{"id":1551,"date":"2013-09-24T06:01:29","date_gmt":"2013-09-24T13:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellejolin.com\/wordpress\/?p=1551"},"modified":"2013-09-24T06:23:07","modified_gmt":"2013-09-24T13:23:07","slug":"how-do-i-love-all-of-yall-let-me-count-the-ways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=1551","title":{"rendered":"How do I love all of y&#8217;all? Let me count the ways"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Love is the opening door<br \/>\nLove is what we came here for<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;L.Duncan\/Love Song<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So, I couldn&#8217;t bring myself to make a list of all of the people I love. Which is for the best. But then I was wondering if maybe I could make a list of the things I love about people I love.<\/p>\n<p>Kindness: How can you love someone who isn&#8217;t kind? I can&#8217;t. Maybe other people can, but I confess I don&#8217;t understand how. Not everyone is kind all the time, but you&#8217;ve got to at least be kind most of the time. &#8220;If you wanna impress me&#8221; as Prince would say. He was talking about not talking dirty though.<\/p>\n<p>Generosity: Almost all of my friends and family are generous with time, caring and often money. I hardly know anyone who is cheap in any\u00a0 way, even though some don&#8217;t have a lot of money they&#8217;re generous in other ways. It does make it hard to split a bill when there is twice as much money on the table as there needs to be and no one will accept any change.<\/p>\n<p>Attention: Not a lot of people really pay attention. Not a lot of people really listen. It&#8217;s sexy as hell. It&#8217;s also a little disconcerting to have someone actually remember what you said, and use it against you on another day. Still sexy, but it definitely keeps you honest! Attention is a rare gift.<\/p>\n<p>Being yourself: I have a few\u00a0 friends who have the gift of always being themselves. They are\u00a0 free spirited, funny as hell and\u00a0 a joy to be around. One of them sometimes has a rough life because he isn&#8217;t willing to behave conventionally, and he owns it. He&#8217;s not the most reliable person around. The others have a more balanced approach to being themselves&#8211;they still manage to have real jobs, and show up places they say they&#8217;ll be. They&#8217;re all great.<\/p>\n<p>Reliability: This one is tricky.\u00a0 I just said I love my friends who are themselves and will not compromise on it. I do. But in my day to day life, people who do what they say and show up when they say they will are important!\u00a0 It&#8217;s hard to trust people who no-show when you count on them. On the other hand, it&#8217;s also important not to have any sticks in your posterior. A lot of us could stand to be more free-spirited. We&#8217;re not going to regret it if we don&#8217;t work as much, I don&#8217;t think.<\/p>\n<p>Spontaneity: If you can be both reliable and spontaneous, I will probably love you. We all need people who can come over on short notice and help us finish a bottle of wine. Or a growler of IPA. Hint. Hint.<\/p>\n<p>Liberal with compliments:\u00a0 I&#8217;m working on doing this more often. I&#8217;ll be brutally honest here\u00a0 and say I love getting compliments. I don&#8217;t care if they&#8217;re on my brains, excellence of reading comprehension, knitting, humor or beauty. Whatever. I&#8217;ll take it.\u00a0 I&#8217;ll try really hard to be gracious about it even. Tell me I have perfect eyebrows. I don&#8217;t\u00a0 care. I&#8217;m a compliment whore.<\/p>\n<p>Oh my gosh, how could I forget smart and funny?!? They&#8217;re the most important of all!<\/p>\n<p>I ran out of room because my friends have so many wonderful traits.<br \/>\nThat&#8217;s a good problem to have, isn&#8217;t it?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>PS I forgot creative! How could I forget creative?<\/p>\n<p>Apparently the correct answer is: not only can I not make a list of all the people I love, but I can also not make a list of why!<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;re a group of people with infinite goodness.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Love is the opening door Love is what we came here for &#8211;L.Duncan\/Love Song &nbsp; So, I couldn&#8217;t bring myself to make a list of all of the people I love. Which is for the best. But then I was wondering if maybe I could make a list of the things I love about &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=1551\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">How do I love all of y&#8217;all? Let me count the ways<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7lr3R-p1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8756,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=8756","url_meta":{"origin":1551,"position":0},"title":"Let&#8217;s just go with the default Merry Christmas, shall we?","author":"Michelle","date":"December 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Through the years We all will be together, If the Fates allow Hang a shining star upon the highest bough. And have yourself A merry little Christmas now. --R. Blane-H. Martin\/Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas As I get into bed and start writing, it's just before midnight on Christmas\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Words&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michellejolin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/IMG_9159.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michellejolin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/IMG_9159.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michellejolin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/IMG_9159.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michellejolin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/IMG_9159.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5211,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=5211","url_meta":{"origin":1551,"position":1},"title":"Living your own life","author":"Michelle","date":"April 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Words&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2877,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=2877","url_meta":{"origin":1551,"position":2},"title":"I&#8217;m positive I&#8217;m a dumbass, OK?","author":"Michelle","date":"December 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been talking to the wall and it's been answering me Oh darling how I miss you I'm just the mere shadow of my former selfishness --Elvis Costello\/Human Hands Oh, don't worry. My selfishness level is at a perfectly normal operating level. Sometimes the walls answer me though, but never\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Words&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6573,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=6573","url_meta":{"origin":1551,"position":3},"title":"Relating online","author":"Michelle","date":"July 31, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Weird note and disclaimer: just after starting to write this, about 3 weeks ago, I talked with one of the people I was writing about for the first time in 14 years or so. He mentioned that he'd tried to read what I've been writing but was having a hard\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Words&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5332,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=5332","url_meta":{"origin":1551,"position":4},"title":"Word diet","author":"Michelle","date":"April 26, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Hello, Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me... Is there anyone at home? --Pink Floyd\/Comfortably Numb The other day on Twitter, I was threatening to go on a word diet. Joking, mostly--not threatening. Threatening would imply some actual intent to follow through. 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That isn't the case in real life though.\u00a0 There are a lot of times when I go out on a date or two with someone and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Words&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}