Valentine’s Day seems like a good day to do my rant about western ideals of modern love and romance. Consider this little proverb:

“It takes more than love to make a romantic relationship work.”

I don’t know if this is an actual cliche or if it’s one of those things that seems so obvious that it sounded like one the very first time someone realized it. Regardless, it is true because love is innately fantastic and fucking terrible.

You need a gigantic pile of other good stuff to balance it all out, or when the inevitable unpleasantness happens, you fall on your face. It can be one of those poor, bad times most folks’ vows warn them about, or–let’s pretend you have a wonderful, happy, fairy-tale quality life and there are no grey clouds EVER and your love is pure and eternal (which is a load of bunk, but OK)–one of you dies. Surely losing your Disney-style partner will tear out your insides and that is what your love earned you. Love requires mutual vulnerability, which is why where there is extreme happiness there will always be extreme pain.

However, if you have enough other good stuff it is not all doom and gloom. And that is why I wish that for just a short while, we could obsess over what indeed that other stuff essentially is, instead of continuing society’s mind-numbing obsession with love and romance, the knowledge of which doesn’t amount to a pile of beans in the long-term. Falling in love is easy! Romance is everywhere and transient! Anybody can have an affair with most anybody else and that doesn’t mean they should, or that it will last, or, rarest of all, that they’ll be happy.

Life is dripping with frustrating examples, but the kicker is, if we knew what that other stuff was, if we knew what it really takes–and no, the answer isn’t “work,” goddamn the Protestant work ethic–then we could all stop wasting our time and skip to being happy and/or move on.

That is what I’m talking about–being happy.

To have a good, happy relationship, you can’t be obsessed with the notion of romance or else you find yourself neck deep in expectations galore that only set you up for failure and frustration. Our culture beats the idea that we should be over our heads our whole lives, and if you don’t think so, consider personal ads. At this point in time it’s totally normal and acceptable and often suggested to place a personal ad for a romantic partner. But what about personal ads for friends or any other kind of intimate relationship? Go and try it and see what kind of “friends” turn up. I guarantee they’ll want more than just hangouts. You see, even the word “intimate” has been tainted by the OwR! But unromantic intimacy is SO very important and sometimes I feel like I’m taking crazy pills because its value is so infrequently expressed.

I think I take romance’s image so personally because of that 9 year relationship thing that I’m in. You see, people’s ideas about love offend me in the same way that a 1950s child wearing a plastic feather headdress and making “woh-woh-woh” sounds would offend a Native American. It is totally inaccurate, simplistic, and cheap. To claim an understanding with such an apparent total lack of any is insulting no matter the subject.

I am working on figuring out what that necessary other good stuff is and so far I have a three-part hypothesis: to make and keep a romantic relationship alive and healthy, all partners must possess respect, complimentary values, and a balance of power. You also need all those others things that all non-business relationships require, like actually liking each other, being able to converse easily, having a few things in common, and so on. But for an acquaintance or friendship to blossom into perennial romance you need R,CV & P.

Personally, I think respect is the most important factor because that’s the one that enables fire to ignite time after time after time. After all, being in love is not a constant thing. All things that burn exhaust themselves at least for a while, so it’s important to have the ability to fall in love over and over, and more deeply and passionately, throughout the duration of the relationship. To have fire you need the freedom and safety of respect. Freedom to explore yourself and each other and all that life has to offer, and the safety of the knowledge that regardless of how that exploration goes, if you fail or succeed, at the end of the day you’re not going to be looked down upon for it. I believe it is respect that allows the phenomena of adoration, for you can’t think somebody is “just SO amazing!” if you don’t truly marvel at their humanity.

Complimentary values are a bit more pragmatic, but oh so important for carrying out your romance in the world in which we all live. They will allow you to deal (or not deal) with jealousy, prioritize your time and lives, and make sure that everyone in the relationship feels that they matter and life is well spent. If it is very important to one partner to have children and the other never wants children, that’s bad romance joojoo. If one person likes to flirt and thinks jealousy is retarded and another partner thinks jealousy is a legit way of showing that they care, again abandon ship. The whole cat and mouse thing that the OwR teaches us leads many folks into such situations and it’s just not a water in which love can swim for long.

The balance of power rules over the other two. Each relationship can have totally unique and atraditional power structures but regardless of distribution it needs to even out “in the wash.” For example, let’s look at the much-criticized “traditional” western gender role romantic relationship. The masculine partner wins the bread and uses a stern hand with the children and the feminine partner reigns over the household and is sensitive and all of that. IF both partners honestly respect each other for the role they fill, and their own roles are in line with their values and are emotionally fulfilling, and each has equal power over different things (maybe the M earns the money but F handles all the finances, that sort of thing), they can have a healthy, happy romance together. Where we’ve run into problems galore is that these roles are NOT for most folks, and yet most try them out anyways because they think they’re supposed to.

When there’s an issue with any of these three factors, there will be tension. And where there’s tension there will be arguments, misunderstandings, etc. But if the foundation of respect is strong enough, you bet your booties you can realign the power and reassert the values of the relationship, too.

And you can fall in love all over again. <3<3<3

My sister Kayla was here for 11 days and although I was sick off and on we still had a nice visit. Every day was a cuddlefest! We tried to make her very dark brown-with-some-black-leftover-in-it hair

blonde for summer, and the result is that now we both have anime hair. Hurray!

Heather’s birthday was last Sunday and we went to Senor Moose for a delicious Mexican brunch! I took a few pictures which now live in the Friends section of Photos. Some are before while we waited for a table and then there are a couple after we ate. I guess I got too excited about the food and company to remember to take pictures during the event. But oh well! I am so happy Heather was born! Yay!

I had a silly mishap with one of those push-style motorized scooters where I managed to run into my own leg with the durn thing and now I have a totally badass bruise! It has only gotten better–and by that I most likely mean “grosser”–with time.

Also in the Friends section there’s some pics of a trip we took to Kubota Gardens (at the beginning of the month?). So many fun times!

I had my birthday too and it was a good one for the first time in many years. There aren’t any pictures though because come on, let’s take these things one step at a time. Anyway, now I’m older I guess. The same age as my mom was when I was born, which is a little weird.

Ian and I went and saw Fire On The Mountain last night and hot damn it was good! It wasn’t so much a musical as it was a narrated, in-character, ho-down concert. All the actors played their instruments on the stage, and there was some clogging, and a lot of soul-felt howling, and I teared up like four times (once before they even started–just the sight of these people in their costumes holding their banjos and dulcimers and limberjacks made me SO happy). It made me miss my grandpa and want to dance with him because he’s from that whole coal mining culture in the Appalachians. My great-grandpa was shot in one of the union picket lines! HARDCORE. I seriously wish there was a soundtrack to this because I’d pick it up in the time it takes for your heart to go “lubb!” (that’s right, not even a full heartbeat!!!). We knew a bunch of the songs, too, and felt quite proud. Yay for the theatre!

Heather has been staying with us for a couple weeks while in-between apartments. It’s been pretty low key, and really she hasn’t been around much, so the most exciting houseguest goings-on have been cat related, for she has two of them.

This is Marigold. She is a voracious lover, possibly autistic, and has either cat-pica or an oral fixation.

This is Toast. His hind quarters are fully grown but his front half is still all kitten. He likes looking at things and being a brat.

This is a video of Toast chasing his tail after taking a bath. I guess he didn’t recognize it in its totally-not-fluffy state? I don’t know, but this went on for entirely too long. It’s a gigantic file so be warned! (I’m trying to figure out how to make this smaller and maybe streamable? We’ll see. . .)

I’ve suddenly become interested in foster parenting, which certainly begs that question. It isn’t something I’d do now, or even a couple years from now, but I know we’re going to want children probably in 3 years or so and we won’t be “ready.”

In three years, I plan to have finished my Master’s and be hopping onto the Occupational Therapy career-boat. Ian will still be in school, whether he’ll have his Bachelor’s by then or not, and will drop his working hours to part-time to take his turn as a full-time student. Maybe we will be buying a house. But, since we’re planning for me to become the primary income provider of the household, the very beginning of a career is a crappy time to get pregnant, have a baby, and then breastfeed.

This is why a foster child sounds really nice. The gob’ment gives you a bunch of parenting classes and puts a potty-trained, solid-food-eating, love-needing chillun’ in your home, and then they pay for food, clothes, and health insurance. If it’s terrifying it doesn’t matter because it’s temporary. The loving and caring for a child are the easy parts, what we need to practice are our patience and time budgeting, which fostercare amply provides. It seems to me the ultimate parenting training wheels.

Is this awesome
(Y/N)?

So usually I take a whole bucket of photos when I go on vacation or have guests, and this past month has seen plenty of both, but I just wasn’t into picture-taking this time. Therefore, I’m going to smoosh the few that I have from our family reunion excursion to Spokane, our annual Christmas voyage to Reno, and Kayla’s week and a half New Year’s stay with us here at the Seattle homestead onto one page. This one.

My dad was appointed Family Photographer by my aunt for the Spokane shindig and he’s posted the results: Anderson Clan Getogether and Whathaveyou.

It containts such gems as

and

I don’t find the concept of voting or my ability to vote exciting or comforting. Rather, voting only makes me angry.

I shouldn’t have to slosh through the rain to fill in a bubble that says we shouldn’t give huge pay outs TO property owners who want to break the law. I shouldn’t have to request that we NOT take away millions of dollars from education and give it to our wealthiest citizens. I don’t see why I have to OK every hmm and haw about paying for infrastructure repair, maintenance, and transportation expansion because it ISN’T FUCKING OPTIONAL. And lastly, how is allowing adult entertainers to make money a public issue? I DON’T CARE.

But I also don’t trust everyone else to not be retarded, so I vote anyways.

Funny but similarly cynical side note: the page with Ian’s name on it (and however many other voters whose last names come before Albert) was lost, so he had to fill out a provisional ballot. So ha ha! to Ian for being too much of a hippie for The Man to want him to vote.

And so I return.

My step-dad is dead, my mom a widow, my sister without a father. My step-brother is thoroughly brainwashed by the Army and can speak of nothing non-military. My grandpa continues to get skinnier and weaker. Nevada is looking wonderfully green after an unusually wet winter, but is full of bleakness and confusion via its inhabitants. Everything is torn.

Mexicans who work at American-centric resorts do not like to speak Spanish. My aunt-in-law is now married to a very nice fellow and mostly everyone on that side is jubilantly happy (although this is not necessarily related to the wedding). The verde salsa of the Guerrero state of Mexico is THE BEST EVER. I learned that I very much want a small pool and that I can like fresh strawberry daiquiris. In unsurprising news, people do not like things that are different than they expect or what they are accustomed. But, regarding Mexico, I am optimistic.

What is one word to describe the outcome of my past couple of weeks? OVERWHELMED.

I’m going to Reno today and I don’t know when I’ll get back. C’est la vie mauvais.

Since I work for a religiously based non-profit organization, they send everyone weekly reflections and things-to-think-about-on-holidays-and-events via e-mail. Sometimes they’re pretty interesting and sometimes they’re pretty lame.

Today’s was a quote by some quote-guy about how encouragement is the most important gift you can give to somebody and if people were encouraged more we’d have more “great minds” in the Einstein-Gandhi-Mother Theresa vein. This seems like an almost too simple and obvious solution to the world’s problems, but maybe it’s not. With encouragement people would push themselves more creatively and our arts and sciences would progress more freely and blah blah blah, but I think the biggest advantage would be that all those encouraged people would, as a side effect of the given encouragement and resulting tryings, probably feel better about themselves in general.

Imagine a world full of people with hearty self-esteems, and I don’t mean people who are cocky and narcissistic, but honest to goodness secure people. People who wouldn’t feel so easily threatened and would be less likely to engage in agression, people who wouldn’t be mean to those with lesser abilities than their own just to make themselves feel superior, people in whom jealousy and pettiness would have no purpose and therefore little existence. However, at second glance the problem of how to actually make the biggest impact with encouragement is clarified. My parents were always very supportive in that you-can-do-anything-you-put-your -mind-to sort of way, but I still ended up with poor ideas of myself and slumped through several years of depression.

This encouragement, then, seems to need to be rather specific. Perhaps if they had said, “I think you should do X because you’d be great at X-ing and I look forward to the results” instead of “of course you can do X, you’re so talented!” I’d have fallen into the well-adjusted category (sooner?).

And so I’d like to make a Call to Action! Woo! We must make a point to recognize other’s specific strengths and encourage them to develop and augment those strengths into skill and achievement, while offering our help along the way. Anyway, seeking out virtues in others is always a good exercise in humility and therefore worth some non-self-centered time.

I want to be a cowboy.

I’m afraid of becoming a desperado.

Also, the miscellany section has been busy.