Pfft...Just Like That
I guess when it rains it pours. I bought a new scanner today because my old one was making stripes on all the pictures. It's kind of a pain in the ass that USB doesn't work very well in Linux, but I guess you have to make sacrifices when you refuse to bow down to the mainstream. I also bought a UPS because lightning season is coming, and I'm sick of having to run fsck. Now if they would only port ext3fs to the 2.4 kernel... I'm only spouting this technical mumbo-jumbo because I cannot for the life of me remember what I wanted to write. Something about further insights into the importance of family. Oh yeah. I guess it's because spring is in the air and Aimee and Eugene have scheduled an engagement party and it's been nearly six years since I was in a relationship and I'm getting pretty tired of turning to drink and the Internet for solace. (Scary, huh?) But I think I figured out what I want out of love. I'll be the first to admit that the following is nowhere near normal. Ever since I took a theology class in high school...no, even further back than that...ever since I learned about the four different types of love, I guess I've been pondering this. What the hell is love? (Love is blind...God is love...Stevie Wonder is blind...Stevie Wonder is....) Well, according to C.S. Lewis, there are four: amicitia, eros, amor, and caritas. I won't go into details now...maybe I'll do it later (but I doubt it). In any case, lazy bastard that I am, I'm not sure I buy that there are four different kinds. But this is beside the point...what the point is, I have no idea. I'll get there when I get there, I suppose. OK, here we go: what I figured out is this: screw the romantic bullshit. Well, I know you can't really can't, but I figured out what I want from a relationship, at the very least. I want to be able to say the most horrible things to my beloved and have her know that I'm not serious. I want to be able to needle her and make fun of her and just be a plain old ornery bastard when I'm around her. I mean, I should learn to know what painful topics to avoid, and know when she's near her breaking point...it's a give-and-take, of course...but I want to tell her how quickly this world is ending, how shitty it is, how we're all going to die and there's no point in planning for the future...all the while with her knowing that I truly, truly do love her and want to spend the rest of my life with her no matter how ugly life is. And I want her to be able to do the same to me. Well, that's my take on unconditional love. It was demonstrated to me by my brother and my sister, as we are always constantly at each other's throats, and sometimes we seriously plot grave harm against one another, and yet, somehow, people around us mistake this for love. In fact, I do accept it as love, as dysfunctional as it sounds. Even if my brother and my sister don't care. I guess that's what the eldest always ends up believing in the end, true or not. Like I said, family is the only thing that really matters. At least as far as I can see for now. But who knows, one thing you can always count on is change. Another Simpsons postscript: Now that I've finally watched "The Godfather" , it seems like there are allusions to it all the time. In one of today's episodes, Homer played the first few notes of the Godfather Theme on crystal glasses with his head while riding on top of Krusty the Klown as he pedaled on a miniature bicycle. (You just have to watch it...I won't do it justice if I tried to explain.) Now the damn song is in my head and I can't get it out. It is only slightly less annoying than that dance remix of "Con Te Partiro" AKA the theme for the Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. (It's pretty nice, you should try and stay there sometime if you like Vegas.)
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