Thoughts, a sad tale and a dash of Shakespeare

I realize that it's been a little while since my last entry...and I have a very good explanation for my absence - I'm a lazy S.O.B. who would rather watch old episodes of "Scrubs" than blog. (For other sad facts about the writer, please visit scotkeithly.blogspot.com and check out the latest post). Also - I don't think I had a single interesting thought during the past couple of weeks...and there's really nothing worse than listening to nonsensical ramblings by those with nothing better to do than rant at the expense of you, the poor, unsuspecting reader (again, see scotkeithly.blogspot.com).

A friend of mine (who, in order to protect myself, will remain nameless) had an interesting experience on Saturday night.

This young lady recently got out of a pretty serious relationship, and has been suffering from the after-shocks of lost love. Luckily, she's a cutie, and the gentlemen (and others) just can't seem to get enough of her...so she hasn't been sitting at home alone on the weekends. She even started moving towards serious with a certain young man. unfortunately, like many of us who have felt the fury of a hot stove...she's afraid of getting burned again, especially with scars that are just now beginning to heal.
So our little friend told semi-serious boy that she wasn't ready for anything REALLY serious...and wanted to date around. He, being a pretty understanding guy, was fine with that as soon as she promised not to kiss any of these others.
But then Saturday night came along (as it tends to do) and with it a smooth young man with a silver tongue and lightning quick texting thumbs. And later on that same evening, our little friend found herself in his sculpted arms.
Unfortunately, chaste reader, we must leave them there...and pick up our tale on the following evening.
Semi-serious boy came to pick up our little friend and spend an enchanting evening by the sea - gazing into each others' eyes and whispering sugar-coated nothings into each others' ears. But the light of the setting sun revealed more than the love in our little friend's eyes...it also revealed a little (actually, quite big) something that the sculpted, silver-tongued young man left behind a few degrees north of her collarbone.
"what's that?" semi-serious asked? and, faithful reader, that was the end of the magic on that fateful evening by the sea.

The next day our little friend lamented her lasciviousness and her loss, but could not (no matter how hard your persistent penman pressed) come up with a reason for her lapse. Instead she bemoaned her semi-beloved's departure and cursed her folly.

When I finally found the fortitude to forego my fit of fun (at our fair little friend's expense), I was reminded of a bit of shakespeare that I had memorized in jr high that seemed particularly fitting under the circumstances. This passage comes from The Rape of Lucrece:

What win I if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.
Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?
Or sells eternity to get a toy?
For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?
Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown,
Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down?

So enough with the olde english and alliteration. In this passage, Billy explains why so many of us are moral. In the end, who would destroy an entire vine in order to eat one grape? It seems like a foolish thing to do. And while it would be overstatement to accuse our little friend of such a gross misdemeanor, in a small way, that's exactly what she did. And it's the same thing so many of us do so often. We allow ourselves to live so much in the moment that we forget that life is made up of such moments. Life is, in fact, a compilation of millions and millions of moments, the vast majority of which mean almost nothing. But every now and then we come across moments that determine who we are. And in those moments, we simply cannot afford to sell eternity...no matter how shiny the toy.