The Bow in the Snow

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Okay, I didn't even know there was a video to this tune, which was always one of my favorite Queen tunes. The psycho-sexual subtext of this video makes it particularly amusing these days, since there are the obligatory video babes in it, whereas we know that Freddie Mercury could give a rat's ass about those babes, but the demands of the time required those dancing pretty boys to be off on the margins, instead of right next to Mercury. It would've been far more amusing and subversive had they actually done that, and put the video babes on the fringes, but the times required that to be all under the radar. So, the leather daddy rockabilly vibe of this video is just damned funny, making it a worthwhile addition to the love videos...

Unrequited

So, what does one do if they're in love with someone who doesn't love them equivalently? I don't really have an answer for it. What're the options?

1. Heartbreak, suffer for it
2. Be used and abused, put up with it
3. Wallow in limerence
4. Move on, find someone else

I guess that's it. And, really, the second and third options aren't really options at all; they're just how one can react to an asymmetrical love. But people find themselves in those situations, anyway, which is why I'd even write about it. And it also matters because one can be in a situation where they don't love someone as much as they are, in turn, loved. There could be any number of reasons how this comes about -- maybe Person A has self-esteem issues and is plagued by self-hatred and can't recognize a good love when they see it; or maybe Person A finds insufficient chemistry with Person B to really be moved to that higher love (it's surely the "Let's Just Be Friends" school of love, which is really a soft-pedaling of "You just don't do it for me."

So, if somebody's so fucked up emotionally as to not recognize what a good thing you offer, then lose'em, move on. That's the safest, most logical route to go, if you want to protect your heart. But we know that love is seldom logical, which is why people get into trouble.

If you love someone not as much as they love you, then it's perhaps stickier, because you can recognize the good thing they offer, and still find yourself not transported to those nicer places. I've been on a "courtesy date" or two in my day, where the woman in question most definitely is into me, and I'm not into her, and I'm in the position of not making any sudden movements, lest they be misinterpreted. Because a person can read into whatever they like -- there've been many times when a friend has asked me "What does this mean? Why would they do that?" and I'll offer my opinion on it, and you can see the person reading into it, trying to find the meaning, there. Hope is a wonderful thing, but hope can all too easily become delusion, when love is involved. I remember lovestruck friends mooning over and pining over loves who clearly didn't give two shits about the person in love with them.

If you find you have to justify yourself to someone else, or laundry list your good qualities, or bend over backwards to make someone (fleetingly) happy, odds are you have an asymmetrical relationship, and you're just going to be hurt.

Someone in love with you accepts you fully for who you are, appreciates you completely for who you are, admires you for who you are, treasures any moment they have with you, respects you for who you are. If you're not getting that kind of feedback from someone else, then lose'em, fast, or else you're just going to suffer needlessly and endlessly.

If you're on the receiving end of that kind of asymmetrical love, then it's perhaps harder -- because you might love the person well enough, and genuinely not want to hurt their feelings, and maybe "try" to love them more. But in a Zen kind of cruelty, if you have to "try" to love someone, then you don't love them very much, after all (for whatever reason), and you're in the position of just using that person, or humoring them, which deprives you of the fuller pleasures and agonies of love.

It's like when some of my friends had grimly talked about finding "Mr. Good Enough" because they'd given up on finding "Mr. Right." Of course, those people were themselves rather unsuccessful at ever finding a good relationship (big shock, that), but I found it surprising that "settling" for someone even came into anybody's mix.

Who wants "good enough?" Meatloaf is never going to be steak. Ever. So why tell yourself otherwise? Seems like a recipe for dissatisfaction and woe to me.

The Look of Love

Felt like posting another video/song on the love theme. This is a good one...



I don't think the look of love can be faked. I've seen it a few times in my life.

Losing His Marbles

The boys love playing marbles. Of course, B2 turns marbles into a bit of a rugby match by the time it's done -- he'll get fired up and/or feisty, and marbles go flying around the place. In fact, I told him a couple of times, "It's marbles, not rugby, Buddy." But for a brief, shining moment, the boys will peacefully play marbles, which is cute to watch. I offer a running commentary as we play. B1 pretends (of course) that the marbles are stars and/or planets, complains about "gravity wells" when a shot goes awry.

Freaky Friday

Another Friday. I never say TGIF -- it's right up with "Are we having fun yet?" as one of those incredibly annoying, nearly-empty expressions.

The boys and I are now effectively over the influenza. Grateful for that. Flu never hits me quite as badly as colds do, for some reason. Go figure. My late father claims that his side of the family never caught the flu, that they were always resistant to it, so maybe some of that purported resistance to it was handed down. I don't know.

I woke up over-early, as ever (3:30 a.m. seems tied into my circadian rhythms for the past few months), and I got up and wrote awhile, before re-sleeping, taking another little nap when I got sleepy again, nicked another hour-and-a-half of sleep. Makes a difference, that.

Heard a dad picking his kid up from school the other day --

Dad: "Did you have a good day?"
Kid: "Yeah."
Dad: "A REALLY good day?"
Kid (annoyed): "YEAH."

That amused me. When I pick up B1, I just ask him "How'd your day go? Did you do anything fun?" and he tells me how it went.

It's been so blisteringly cold lately, we've all hunkered down pretty much. February in Chicago is one of the worst months. I'm sure lots of places wrestle with bad weather then, but here, it just gets so damned cold. I remember my folks visiting me in February (years ago), and me warning them about it -- I still remember their faces when they came out of their hotel and got blasted in the face with icy wind. Their expressions were comical. Sorry, Ma! It's frickin' COLD! They'd talk about that for years, and we'd laugh about it.

If it's not too bad, I'll run some errands today.

You've Got to Hide Your Love Away

This is one of my favorite Beatles' tunes, one that comes to me unbidden at times (along with "All My Life"). Paired with this odd, very 60s video, it's kind of amusing. The prim, uptight, man-faced English Mod babe in pink sitting with them, what's that all about? Anyway, I add that one to my list of love-themed (or at least titled) songs...

Productive

I was productive yesterday, cranked out around 3000 words, and am well on my way to reaching that minimum today.

It was staggeringly cold yesterday; supposedly the coldest day in the city this winter season. It felt it, for sure. That kind of cold that just freezes your face.

I was thinking about the weather the other day, and when I said how no weather really affects me, I will qualify that -- the Blizzard of '11 had one feature that did get to me: the nonstop howling winds. Now, maybe it was because I was battling a fever at the time, but that ~16 hours of winds took a toll on me. I love wind as much as the next guy, but the howling of those winds just didn't stop. It was ceaseless. And that got to me. I could not be anyplace where the wind howled constantly like that. Maybe it's part of being an audiophile, but while an hour or two of that kind of wind is interesting, stack hour upon hour of that kind of wind and it begins to really wear on you. I can't articulate why, precisely.

It's kind of like listening to too much Wagner -- I can enjoy Wagner in small doses, but an extended listen to his work wears down my ear. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but Wagner tires me out. He's the only classic composer who can do that to me, and somehow, those ceaseless howling winds made me think of Wagner...

Lohengrin, Prelude to Act III

It's funny, because I like Wagner fine in measured amounts, but the prospect of sitting through an entire opera of his would have me jumping off the balcony. The human ear can only take so much. Or this human's ear can only take so much, anyway.

The Flying Dutchman

I had to put another dose in there, since a mere 8 minutes of Wagner isn't enough to really get at the sonic assault he represents. Again, I'm not a music theorist or sound technician, so I am unsure why it gets to me, but my pet theory is that the midrange is overrepresented in his works, and it just kind of bludgeons the listener into aural submission. Shock and awe, Baby!

Disco

Hmm. I'm minding my own business, trying to read an article on the Web, and this "Do It with Disco" sidebar ad from American Apparel keeps distracting me...

In fact, I'm distracted again, just seeing this. Mmmm. Wait, what the hell was I even talking about? Who am I? Where am I? Mmmm....

Happy 80th Birthday, James Dean

Death was likely his greatest career move.

I wonder if James Franco has kind of coattail-ridden on James Dean's ghost, the way that, say, Daniel Craig did with Steve McQueen, or Tom Cruise did with Montgomery Clift? In terms of actors who perhaps superficially resemble those earlier icons and therefore profit from it.

Marbles

My apartment is full of marbles. We've made a kick-ass marble run throughout the place, but misfires have marbles all over the place. I've had the boys clean them up, but there are still marbles about. B2 calls'em "Marballs" -- I love that. You can see the kid logic at work in it. B2 is funny -- he's very adept at language; he notices rhymes and delights in them, and joins in. He's done this for quite awhile. I made up a kind of rhyming game between us where I'll rhyme something, and he has to come up with something to match it, and he does. There are other examples of his linguistic prowess, but they're eluding me at the moment. It makes me smile, though -- he's gotten my facility with language. He's also a natural actor. Love that.

Everybody's nearly better after our weeklong bout with the flu. Just a few trace congested coughs, going away in steps. That's good. Good fucking riddance to that.

Weatherman

I find that I never complain about the weather. Ever. I like all weather. Weather is fun. Good weather's fun, bad weather is fun. I love storms. I love clear skies. I love cloudy skies. I love windy days. I love still days. Everything. I love it all.

I think about it sometimes because people will complain about the weather, but what's the point of complaining about the weather? It simply is. I love it. It forces one to look at one's environment and react to it, prepare for it. Good thing. If one had perfect weather every day, that'd be boring.

Not saying that I dance out in rainstorms or anything, but I don't complain if I get caught in them, and if they're particularly strong, I dig'em. It's all good.

I just roll with things.

Going off the rails

I got B1 a Skyrail marble run set back in Christmas of 2009, which he enjoyed for awhile, but hasn't played with for a long time. Anyway, he started playing with it again over the weekend, and it's cute, especially since B2 is now old enough to be able to play with it, too. So, they're busy crafting their own marble runs, and I hear B2 saying "Okay, let's test it!" Loving that. They had me make them a loop in the rail, and have crafted a track that lets it work. It's nice to see them working together, instead of the usual brotherly scrapping! And I just enjoy seeing new life for the toy, and how much fun they're having with it, launching marbles and ball bearings down their tracks. B1 also made one into a ring and had marbles going down both sides, said "Look, it's a supercollider!" I loved that!