Monday, February 7, 2011

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!

Argh

Man, I've got a total headache right now. Not sure if this is just a going-away present from that frickin' flu, or what. I never get headaches. Of course, I knew my brain would have me up bright and early. That's always been the case -- doesn't matter how late I might stay up; I always wake up early.

Awakened

I went to sleep earlier, only to wake up when the Cheeseheads in town cheered the Super Bowl win. My computer was off, my television still incommunicado thanks to Comcast, so I had to turn on the computer again to find out, rather than bother friends by trying to find out for sure who had won.

Now I'm awake, have been for a bit or awhile. Reading my book and brooding. I haven't been sleeping terribly well for the past week, owing to that fucking flu (and if you get it, you'll know just what I'm talking about -- it's not the worst flu I've had, but it just sticks with you and nags and nags and nags and nags). Anyway, it makes it hard to focus and get one's feet under you. I think I'm a day or two away from fully rebounding from it, and hopefully I'll be back to being able to sleep properly again.

(break to get a glass of icewater)

There, I'm back. This week, I plan to query some of my books to other agents, sling out a bunch, just shotgun it, see if I can garner any interest. We'll see.

I'm thinking of adapting some more of my short stories into screenplays. I tend to write fairly cinematically, and while, as ever, the screenplay format daunts me, I'd still like to turn a few of the pieces into them -- especially a few of them that would play very well onscreen. Of course, this is even more of a longshot than anything else, but I have the material, so it's just a matter of adapting it and finding homes for it.

Was thinking about unrequited love today, as perhaps part of my monthly musing about Love(tm). Given that, according to a study, 98% of people experience unrequited love in their lives, that might be a worthy aspect of love to go into, although what a dismal graveyard that place is, yes?

It does, however, introduce a word most people don't likely know (at least by name): limerence -- an intense feeling of attachment toward someone (or, I suppose, something). Limerence can be felt as extreme joy or intense despair, depending on whether it is reciprocated or not. Wikipedia nicely sums it up...

Limerence is characterized by intrusive thinking and pronounced sensitivity to external events that reflect the disposition of the limerent object towards the individual. Basically, it is the state of being completely carried away by unreasoned passion or love, even to the point of addictive-type behavior. Usually, one is inspired with an intense passion or admiration for someone. Limerence can be difficult to understand for those who have never experienced it, and it is thus often dismissed by nonlimerents as ridiculous fantasy or a construct of romantic fiction.

What does a soul do in such a situation? Love stories have two limerent souls finding one another, of course, and that gives one the happy ending, the Hollywood Ending -- but an unrequited love is ultimately a tragedy, and can, alternately, be a horror story (one of my favorite horror movies, "May," has an absolutely cringe-inducing plot in it where the title character, the painfully shy and fucking weird May, falls for Adam, this coolio mechanic in her neighborhood, and May tries hard to make it work with her and Adam, only to have it go terribly wrong -- that part of the story is almost more horrific and squirm-inducing than the rest of the movie, which is actually darkly funny throughout -- good little horror movie, if you like horror movies).

Related to the "levels of love" I was nattering on about earlier is precisely that -- what do you do if you love someone more than they love you? That seems like a recipe for emotional disaster. Of course, SEINFELD parodied it comically with George Costanza obsessing about a woman who clearly didn't like him, was actually repulsed by him -- he said something like "She just hates me so much, it's irresistible." Which, of course, is just the situation George would find himself in. It's funny because it's painful, because George is such a twisted, fucked-up guy, of course, he'd dig that.

Anyway, as a Romantic, I don't like to think about unrequited love, obviously -- true love should win, true love deserves to win, so when it doesn't, or isn't shared, or whether someone's deluded and thinks they knew true love only to find it turning to ashes in their mouth, it's painful to think about. But it exists, for sure, and is definitely a part of the equation, even if it's the dark side of the coin flip. And it's surely part and parcel of the notion of the "Hopeless Romantic" -- and, so, I suppose I should dwell on it a bit. Consider this just a preview; gotta brood on it awhile. Well, it's tomorrow, now, so I guess I'll go to sleep!