Real Ode To St. Valentine’s Day

I believe in “love,” I really do. All kinds.

I believe in love when I see it in real life or in pictures of senior citizens who’ve obviously been together forever, like this one. You can just see it.

I believe in love of family, of friends, and love of pets, and love of mankind, and just about every kind you can think of that one could describe as normal and healthy and positive. But for this day, I will try to keep to the romantic love ideal.

Romantic love is clearly the best kind. I’ve been fortunate to feel it a couple of times in my near 50 years, and even without having the feeling reciprocated or in at least one case consummated, it is indescribably fabulous. Your world is turned upside-down; when she (in my case) is in the room you can’t even see anyone else. You don’t want to spend any time with anybody else, you don’t want to talk to anyone else, and you surely can’t imagine being lovers with anyone else.

There are four general spheres in which we live our lives: The physical, the emotional, the spiritual, and the intellectual. When all four spheres’ needles are pinned to the max on the dial, it is the most intoxicating pleasure known to human beings. It is, tritely I admit, magic, and I’m truly sorry for those who’ve never been there. Having had a taste, I’m relegated to the lottery-like odds of settling for no less.

The thing is that the combination of being that stimulated on all four fronts is incredibly rare. I’ve seen it perceived as there when not with my own eyes, many, many times. Often what I see are marriages built on not much more than the sandy foundation of the timing of the whole thing, a simple convergence of time, place, lust, affection, and to no small degree the thrill of it all as society perceives it. Gowns and balls and fabulous cakes and parties and hope.

But real life is made up, at least in terms of volume, by the mundane. The grind. The little things, the petty grievances like toothpaste globs in the sink or toilet seats left up, clean dishes misplaced, beloved artifacts being relegated to charity, ancient unfunny jokes or boring stories repeated, handling children in good times and bad, going to work, dealing with all the complications that work and the mundane throw at you. Money problems, fitness issues, sexual stagnation. Others you find attractive, and them finding you attractrive.

The magic part is an illusion, a transitory thing, unless you are one of those very rare couples who’ve experienced the joy of having a mutual needle maxing out in all four spheres of life. The important thing is to understand that it actually happens amidst the swirl and oppressive reality of the mundane.

Love is grand. In any form. But romantic love just doesn’t come along as often as most people think it does. Not in the proper form.

So I offer sincere congratulations to all those who are experiencing Real Romantic Love on St. Valentine’s Day 2009, and know that you need no well wishes. It will work out just fine.

And to the rest, I say, good luck. Yours can be worked out in a good way in almost any circumstances, as long as both/all parties agree to the terms. Love is to some degree a good deal of just plain ol’ “will.” Almost always. And that earns respect too.

I wish you all more happiness than not.

 

FISA Nonsense, The NFL, And The Uninformed Electorate

Read and think.

This is horrifying stuff to those of us fond of our Constitution.  We’re closing in on Police State, and saying that is no longer hyperbole, or close.  The 4th Amendment has been largely a joke ever since the beginning of the other Never Ending War, on Drugs, but still, your Congress’ actions on the FISA bill pretty much renders the 4th to the status of an archaic reminder of a better country.  I say we officially get rid of it.  I hate meaningless symbolism.

Make a phone call to your reps.  It’s pretty easy.