love
I guess it wouldn't quite be Valentine's without late-night, ill-advised, confessional chat conversations with former loves, would it? ...oh, just me? Ah well. Happy Valentine's Day, theotherjay; and happy Valentine's, everyone else out there who is dear to my heart.
It wouldn't be Valentine's, either, if I didn't share my usual quotations and thoughts. Nearly every year, now, I think:
Excerpted from this Post to the Host from 2004, which I read and internalized at the age of seventeen, and have thought about every year since.
Romance is just an operatic form of friendship, a conversation between two people that keeps rolling on. There are all sorts of ways that two people can fall into that, but I don't think you should be looking for a fall: I think you should go about enjoying your life to the fullest, which is what we should all do, live joyfully and cut our losses, dump as much baggage as we can, give up regrets, take long walks, get our hearts pounding, seek out the people who make us unaccountably happy and steer clear of self-pity and-well, you know what I mean. This all applies to me as much as to you. You could find a disastrous marriage tomorrow if you wanted that, but you don't. What you want is to be brave and funny and good, so do we all, and tomorrow, my dear, is a new day.
- Garrison Keillor
And, on a more lighthearted note, who can forget Zoidberg's speech on love?
"As the candy hearts poured into the fiery quasar, a wondrous thing happened, why not. They vaporised into a mystical love radiation that spread across the universe, destroying many, many planets, including two gangster planets and a cowboy world. But one planet was at exactly the right distance to see the romantic rays, but not be destroyed by them: Earth. So all over the world, couples stood together in joy. And me, Zoidberg! And no one could have been happier unless it would have also been Valentine's Day. What? It was? Hooray!"
Hooray! I send my love to you all, regardless of distance, circumstance, and what might have been. I'll write about my thoughts on romance one of these days; it's approaching treatise-length, but I've learned a lot, you see. And really, if that's all I ever get--the learning, I mean, and a few true friends--I think I'll be content.
I do still reach toward that ineffable brilliance, however, and that startling beauty which is the only truth, and truth which is the only beauty, apologies to Keats. And I try to be good, and true, and worthy.
It wouldn't be Valentine's, either, if I didn't share my usual quotations and thoughts. Nearly every year, now, I think:
Excerpted from this Post to the Host from 2004, which I read and internalized at the age of seventeen, and have thought about every year since.
Romance is just an operatic form of friendship, a conversation between two people that keeps rolling on. There are all sorts of ways that two people can fall into that, but I don't think you should be looking for a fall: I think you should go about enjoying your life to the fullest, which is what we should all do, live joyfully and cut our losses, dump as much baggage as we can, give up regrets, take long walks, get our hearts pounding, seek out the people who make us unaccountably happy and steer clear of self-pity and-well, you know what I mean. This all applies to me as much as to you. You could find a disastrous marriage tomorrow if you wanted that, but you don't. What you want is to be brave and funny and good, so do we all, and tomorrow, my dear, is a new day.
- Garrison Keillor
And, on a more lighthearted note, who can forget Zoidberg's speech on love?
"As the candy hearts poured into the fiery quasar, a wondrous thing happened, why not. They vaporised into a mystical love radiation that spread across the universe, destroying many, many planets, including two gangster planets and a cowboy world. But one planet was at exactly the right distance to see the romantic rays, but not be destroyed by them: Earth. So all over the world, couples stood together in joy. And me, Zoidberg! And no one could have been happier unless it would have also been Valentine's Day. What? It was? Hooray!"
Hooray! I send my love to you all, regardless of distance, circumstance, and what might have been. I'll write about my thoughts on romance one of these days; it's approaching treatise-length, but I've learned a lot, you see. And really, if that's all I ever get--the learning, I mean, and a few true friends--I think I'll be content.
I do still reach toward that ineffable brilliance, however, and that startling beauty which is the only truth, and truth which is the only beauty, apologies to Keats. And I try to be good, and true, and worthy.