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

I have devised a simple three-step plan to capture Ian’s heart, should I happen to die and ladies wished to come a-courtin’:

• First, laugh at his jokes. If you think he’s funny he will like you. CHECK.

• Then, be real smart in a pragmatic yet intuitive fashion. This will impress him and he will respect you. CHECK!

• Lastly, be totally bonkers. Ian goes gaga over crazies and this will be the clincher that will inspire his love. CHECK. . .mate!?

Weekend anniversary trip! Yay!

Now we look like superheroes! We have rad powers of Bowie and friendship.

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.

There’s a lot of songs that carry the theme, ‘I’m SO over you I’m interested in dating other people.’ Most have a “HA! In your FACE!” attitude like Nancy Sinatra’s awesome refrain

When the sun goes down and the moon comes up I’m gonna go out and prowl..Oh ya! Don’t come lookin’ for your pussy cat, cause I won’t be here no how! Whoa! How does that grab you darlin’?”

while others are sweet and respectful like Melanie’s lament

When I finish my laundry and air out my head Gonna look for another long-haired man to help me make my bed You know that I’ll miss you, but, strangely I’m glad Gonna make it without you And that’s what’s so sad.”

Obviously music is reflecting real life in this case, as I’m sure you can call to mind a dozen instances in your real life, movies, books and whatever, where a caring friend has told an ex-coupled person something along the lines of, “why don’t you get back out there already?” or offered to set them up with someone they believe to be a suitable mate. This is to the point that it seems like “moving on” is actually considered the same thing as moving onto other romantic partners. Or maybe it’s just the secret to achieving that resolution. Whatever. Here is the query I wanted to get to in, admittedly, a ridiculously roundabout way: how does one tell they are sufficiently “over” an ex without the addition of a new relationship? Consider anyone you know who remained single (for at least a relatively long while) after a break-up. At what point did you, as only a secondhand observer, consider that person to have successfully dealt with whatever healing was necessary from that relationship? If the ex-partner of that person re-entered the dating world before them how would that effect your perception of who-got-the-rottener-deal?

Weird, eh? But do you know what is le crap!? Can you think of many songs about breaking up/getting over somebody/moving on that don’t at least hint or threat other/new dudes and ladies? There’s plenty along the lines of “you’re such a dick/bitch” and “wow that was messed up, thanks” but try to find one that says, “I sure am glad to be free from all our coupled crap and be reunited with the joys of being on my own.” Maybe there are like two out there, which is by no means enough to instill me with any confidence in our society’s outlook on romance. The rarity of such songs mirrors the rarity of our personal strength.

Which reminds me of another thing!

. . .

OK, that’s where I meant to link to a whole tangential rant about The Obsession with Romance, but after beginning said post I was quickly distracted and haven’t returned to the right mindset to finish. So there’s another thing to add to the To Write List.

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!

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)?

I am so tired of only living at night.

. . .

If Ian and I were not already married, and if we chose to do the whole “first dance” bidness rather than a “first bounce” at our wedding, I think I would want to dance to “Papa Was A Rodeo” by The Magnetic Fields. It just may be the most romantic song I’ve ever heard, regardless of containing such lyrics as “Never stuck around long enough for a one night stand” and “I see that kiss-me pucker forming but maybe you should plug it with a beer.” It’s so perfectly imperfect and unassuming.

Bonus Stephen Merrit Tangent: the new Gothic Archies album is out. I suggest you at least listen to “Scream And Run Away!”

Inspired by Heather’s comic creations of herself, me, and Ian, I searched for our corresponding flesh-and-blood spirit animals. Perhaps I have found some?

Now there’s a bear whose easy-goin’ style rivals Ian’s

Actually that was yesterday.

More tantalizing photos are available here

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.

“Yeah, you guys look really tough with your skirts.” –Ian

“Dude, these are action skirts!” –Heather