I Love This Coffee Mug - A Song About Love in the Dunes (And Why It's SUPPOSED To Be Exciting to Fall In Love) (And Why It's Important to Daydream)

"Everyone knows you have to wait at LEAST two weeks before you tell someone you love them!" I declared to an audience a few weeks ago at the Apalachicola Ice Company. 

"Two weeks!?" someone contested. 

"At LEAST two weeks -- but not more than three!"

It was kind of a joke... but kind of serious. 

 
Falling in love should be exciting. Starting a new relationship should be exciting. But for so many people, it's this weird, stressful, who-can-care-less game that is anything but exciting.

Perhaps I'm in no position to speculate on that, since I've never played that game before. For me, falling in love has always been something I do with abandon. Maybe my way is wrong and other way is better. But I'm inclined to believe that my way is better, because it feels so explosively amazing.

Or, as I wrote in one of my most recent Eva Via originals, I Love This Coffee Mug,

You’ll say I’m going crazy
You’ll say my head’s in the sky
You’ll say my mind is hazy
I say he make me fly


My face hurts from the smiling
I can’t stop dancing around
Besotting and beguiling
A feeling so profound

​

Honestly, if it didn't feel this way... why would I want to pursue it? 

Yet so many people have internalized this idea about mind games. They're afraid of coming across as "too available" or "too desperate. The thing is, though, It's Not That Girls Don't Like Guys Who Are "Desperate" or "Too Available." It's That You Ignored Her Boundaries. When it's reciprocated, you're not going to "come off as too available." You're going to come off as mutually interested in someone you've connected with. 

For me, it would be weird if I met someone and we totally hit it off and he didn't text me before I even got home to tell me what a wonderful time he had.

That happened recently. I met a guy. Actually, I dragged a guy up on stage with me because someone told me he was a legendary guitar player and I wanted him to throw down a couple of solos while I played my original, The Worse Part Is Knowing You Exist, which I wrote for​ the solos.

We'd never met before, but there was this INSTANT, AMAZING connection between us. His solos were legit, and he stayed on stage with me for the rest of my set. Every time I looked at him, there was this beautiful twinkle in his eyes, and I was like, "He GETS it!" 

After the show, we spent an hour talking and laughing in the moonlight.

I wanted to see him again, so I wrote my number on his hand. Just that small touch was electrifying. SO electrifying, I went home and wrote a song about it. 

 
​But here's the thing. 

I knew the moment I got home that he was married, because he hadn't texted me yet. 

It stopped me from being interested (see also: ​Women Aren't "More Into" Married Men. We're STILL Just Being Friendly), but it didn't stop me from expressing my creativity. 

Turns out, though, he wasn't married. He was just worried about what people would think if he texted me too soon.

I don't think that's very attractive. 

It's really, really unattractive for a guy to worry so much what other people think. It's, like, the least manly thing you can possibly do. 

But not only that. I just kind of feel like, if it's not exciting at the beginning, will it ever be exciting? 

Again, I could be wrong, and obviously different things work for different people. But for me, I can't imagine wanting to spend time with someone I was lukewarm about, or who seemed lukewarm about me. My time is way too valuable, and there are so many better things I could be doing than "getting to know" someone I was meh about. I know this guy who's trying "mega dating" right now, which basically means he's trying to go on as many first dates as possible with women he meets online so he seems less available and feels like a big man and spends less time with the women he likes enough to see again.

It sounds... so empty. Like, expensive, lacking in connection, and not fun at all (why not just apply for a bunch of jobs? It'd basically be the same thing). If I had a great first date with someone, but didn't see him again for three weeks because he was playing some weird little game he read about on the internet, I doubt I'd still be thinking about him in three weeks. Lacking a sense of reciprocity, I'd simply move on.

Because, again, if it's not exciting in the beginning, I'm not sure it will ever be. 

But going back to my song. 

Two takeaways I had about it.

One: one reason I love it is because I feel like only I could have written this. For me, as an artist, that's important. If someone else could have written this song, then I don't want to write it. This song is silly and energetic, like me, and it talks about some really cool sand dune ecology and conveys a message that I think is really important. 

Two: I'm a full-time RVer on a mission to see the country's best surfing and mountain biking spots. As such, I spend a ton of time on my bike, and a ton of time at the beach.

Image: @TheHappyTalent on Instagram

I also spend a lot of time towing. 

I used to listen to tons of audiobooks (I absolutely love music, which is why I hardly ever listen to it). I still do. Listening to historical fiction and nonfiction books about the places I'm going helps me deeply immerse myself in the place and the experience (not to mention the incredible repartee I've had with the costumed actors at living history museums). I read Bourbon Empire: The Past and Future of America's Whiskey while I was in Kentucky. I read If It Rains and The Four Winds -- and, most informatively and shockingly, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI -- in Oklahoma. I read Where The Crawdads Sing in the Outer Banks. I read Middlesex when I was in Michigan and Hillbilly Elegy in Ohio.

It is amazing to consume so much content and constantly be learning more about the world as I explore it...

But ever since a conversation I had at the Antique Anchors Tractor Show back in Cedar Falls, Iowa, I've been making time to turn off the audiobooks....

And just think. Daydream. Create. 

By allowing myself to "be bored," as some writers call it, I've had epiphanies and ideas. I've written half a 10-minute standup routine in my mind. And I've composed at least five songs, including I Love This Coffee Mug, A Lifetime in a Day, Love on a Lift, and Man Who's Allergic to My Dog.

So. For all of you who want to create, but sometimes struggle to come up with inspiration or ideas, let me just remind you that if you get stuck... sometimes, you just need to let yourself daydream or "be bored."