love and disaster

It has been an eventful couple of weeks. So, first I got hit head on by a car riding my scooter. The remarkable thing isn't that someone wasn't paying ATTENTION and made a left right into me, the remarkable thing is that I've been through yet another thing that has killed other people and walked away with a couple of bruises. To date, I've been hit by a car on a scooter, hit by a car on a bicycle, totaled a car hitting a deer, hit another deer in a convertible, totaled another car when someone ran a red light, fallen out of several trees, surfaced after wiping out on a wakeboard and to have the wakeboard come straight down on my head, let's see. . . well, you get the idea. I've never even broken a bone. I think my guardian angel deserves a gold medal, or whatever guardian angels get when they truly rock, like a few years as a human living on a tropical island with Jennifer Lopez. Urgent care put me in a splint for a week for a hand that it turns out wasn't broken. And this is what happens when you go to an online medical school. What I learned, unable to type, is that law school is really fucking boring without Freecell or, in general, the internet.

Now, I don't want to get all 'ooo, brush with death' or whatever, but really, it is how quick we can kick the bucket that gives life meaning, isn't it? I mean, if we lived forever, wouldn't that be boring?

Oh, back to the last couple weeks. I also went to a beautiful wedding last night, especially for straight people, who tend to like these lavish coookie-cutter ho-hums in churches. Can I just say right now: "Bleh"? Anyway, the guy had this gorgeous white suit made in India and the ceremony was well, really cool. Now, back to the meaning theme, I will also say this - besides it's shortness, it's love that gives life meaning. But I don't mean 'marry me' love, though that has it's moments inbetween the laundry and the grocery store; (though hopefully not while driving). I mean something that connects us and makes us real. I just don't think everyone is quite real, sorry; I think you earn it. The more radically in love with the great thing between birth and death you can become, the more real you are. More directly, life can be a pain in the ass; so tell me this - how do you make it worthwhile? If you don't know, try this: shut up, open up, eat up, and wake up. You never know who is going to make that next left turn.

I will make a note on romantic love. To quote a song someone played me yesterday, "a good love is long and boring." Something I have come to appreciate though is that it is mostly right there in front of you, within the boring, that the mystical can be found. It's nothing short of amazing that day after day and year after year someone can get their head out of their own ass and care about someone else. It's right there when I get dressed and go out for ginger ale because my girl's stomach hurts. When she picks up mangos for me because they're my favorite, or is willing to ride the puke ride at the fair with me even though she hates it. When I give up going on the ride because I know it will make her sick. Trust me, that's love, because I LOOOVVVEEE a good fair ride. It's between the fishtank and the coffee beans, the cats and the stupid fights (between us and the cats), right in that spot of stretching ourselves on behalf of someone else. But again, that happens easiest when someone sleeps beside you, but if it happened just a little more between all of us, hey, maybe when that idiot makes that blind left turn, more of us could lie there in the street and say that yes, it was all worthwhile.

Ain't love grand?

And now, a belated Valentine's day address! Last year I bought my girl a ring but made it clear to all of you it had NOTHING to do with some bullshit holiday cooked up by bored marketers out to sell crap. I just happened to be in the mall with $20 I found in the dryer. Ahem. This year I maintain that Valentines' is a cooked up ass holiday but OK, here's the admission at last: I'm a hopeless romantic. Yep. It's true. I secretly want to be all Wuthering Heights and gusty emotions on windy nights and candles and poetry - but good poetry, not that insipid crap that passes for poems most of the time, especially with lesbians. Shit with some imagination and some guts to it. I want to cry "Heathcliff!" toward the castle in the rain, except in my case it would be "Heather!" or something, because, you know, Heathcliff was a guy.

That said, I don't live on the moors, I live in a little house in Durham with a cat that's been throwing up a lot and I haven't done my Tax homework. Sigh. Life and literature don't cross that often. The question remains how to be romantic between the out of town flights and sick cats and laundry and mortgage and the coffee table which seems to have some magical ability to collect crap, like some hellish magnet in the middle of the living room. Further, I've never been with anyone stable before and the dramatic fights and makeups just aren't here for that crying at the castle feeling, you know? NOT that the stomachaches were worth it. And as for stability and settling down - well, it has a lot of benefits; but then, you never get that first kiss again - or do you?

This year, I made my girl a CD with multiple levels of themes (yeah, I'm creative like that.) and tried to musically trace the development of our relationship. It wasn't as corny as it sounds. Shutup. In thinking about that process, it has occurred to me that every relationship has lots of mini-relationships within it, and you kind of do get that first kiss again, because things change so much, and people do, too. There was that monumental first kiss, and boy, this one I'll never forget. Then there was that day I realized I might as well quit trying to stay single because she had me hook, line and windy moor. The first time I cried in front of her. The day she moved in. The first time we split a vet bill. Signing the mortgage. The first vacation. The second vacation. The day I realized I have a tan line on my ring finger. The first time I told her I loved her. The time I told her I love her today.

Relationships take work, though, and I wonder if what happens a lot of times is people forgetting to stop and take a fresh look at that face you see every day and remembering why you wanted to see it every day in the first place. It can be hard to see through the fog of tax homework and the table's detritus. Sometimes a new face can offer promises of clean coffee tables and candles in the castle but soon, you know, they all become surrounded by socks on the floor and bills. So I think the trick is to put down the homework and pick up the socks, or not, and break out that first smile when you sneak home for a nooner; to start building new castles. Then, if they're castles made of sand, so much the better, y'all, because when they wash away, you can go kiss your girl in the ocean and build that castle all over again. Happy Valentine's, cause love is grand, socks, tax, coffee tables and all.

The existential question and the hungry fish

My girlfriend got a new job, meaning there's actually some money coming into the house for a change. However, she's out of town all the time and I really miss her. I didn't expect it to get at me so much because I am pretty fond of my space; without it, I get pretty cranky. I'm discovering that when I am busy with school 14 hours a day and then come home to an empty house that it doesn't help my mood much either. This sucks. I also have to remember to feed the fish, which is harder than you would think, because they can't get out of the tank and come get me. The cats, on the other hand, let me know in no uncertain terms when it's time to break out the kitty cereal. I don't know how they get so excited about this same shit out of a 25 pound bag every day but when you wake up with a cat on your chest staring at you, particularly when it's a really old cat who gets gas, you know that the kibble is, in fact, quite important.

So, the million dollar question isn't whether I've fed the fish. Oops, there's one floating. Dammit. And there's a cat on my head. But I think he just wants the fish. But back to the million dollar question - if (when!!) I become a lawyer, do I have to work 70 hours a week, or do people just do that because they're psycho type A workaholics? Am I selling my life and my sanity and ever being in a good mood or hanging out with my girlfriend at a decent hour again? I keep meeting lawyers and asking them how much they work, hoping someone will give me a reasonable answer, but never happens. Don't get me wrong - I'm willing to work hard, I just want to do something other than work with my life. I can see it now: I'm 82 and all crusty in some smelly nursing home hoping somebody who doesn't give a fuck will a. show up and b. not steal my meds and looking back on my life, seeing that I pissed away my youth in bars, was productive for a couple years, went to law school and pissed away the rest of my life in an office, then suddenly not caring if the lazy ass nurse shows up with my meds, because fuck it, somebody should have a good time. Whether or not we only get one life (which makes little sense to me - I mean really, just one shot and that's it? that's cold.) I only get one life as me and am trying to get through the remainder of it with a modicum of happiness. I don't know. Maybe I should get out while I can and go back to being a marginally employed hippie. Or maybe I should just shut up, feed the fishes and go to school. We all make our choices, man, and besides, what else do I have to do today? My girl won't be home for another three days and I'm cranky enough.