my careless contagion

The Love of My Life is a lovely book by British author Rosie Walsh. The Brits do some good writing, I must say, though I'm mostly familiar with classic English literature, the kind that makes you want to go for a walk on the heath or throw yourself off a chalk cliff. I wonder how many people who read romance novels realize the idea of romantic love is a relatively new construct. In fact, romance novels did much to popularize it. There is some argument, of course, but historians generally agree marrying for love is a new concept and not a base instinct. Romantic love, as we call it, lasts no longer than 3 years. No wonder so many marriages fail. True, love is just a choice we make, otherwise the Bible wouldn't tell us to love one another or for husbands to love their wives, etc. It's a choice. But, for most, they need the feeling of falling in love first. That chemical bond is necessary. Hormones. Attraction. A woman knows within seconds if she wants to make love to a man. M...

Happy Thanksgiving! It's my favorite holiday. My gift to y'all is this post! I couldn't resist writing about this song. It's been making the rounds. In case you haven't heard it in a while, go ahead and take a listen. It's Your Love by The Outfield, released in 1985. What compelled me to write was the icky feeling one gets when one reads the lyrics, if one is wont to read the lyrics. (That was a weird sentence. I think I'll do it again.) And one must always read the lyrics with 80s songs because there is always wanton weirdness. This one is straight-up gross. Go ahead and check out the lyrics.  Lyrics: Josie's on a vacation far away Come around and talk it over So many things that I want to say You know I like my girls a little bit older I just want to use your love tonight I don't want to lose your love tonight I ain't got many friends left to talk to Nowhere to run when I'm in trouble You know I'd do anything for you Stay the night but ...

What is love? No, not the song by Haddaway. But, really. I want to know what love is. No, not the song by Foreigner. You may ask, "What's love got to do with it?" No, not the song by Tina Turner. Oh, stop, Joshua.  People use the word "love" casually. They talk about how they love their shoes, their favorite shows, and pumpkin spice lattes. Has our concept of love changed? Have we changed?  I like those stories of couples who are married for 60-some years who die within hours of each other. OK, not the dying part, but the rest of it. They spent their lives together and couldn’t exist without each other. But is that love or something else?  What is love? Is it loyalty? (If so, then dogs take the cake.) A feeling in your gut? (Which you may or may not be able to trust.) Cake and a card on your birthday? (All purchasable.) Is there a definition of love?  Love is defined in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 as, "Charity (aka love) suffereth long, and is kind; ch...

Joey, as I recall, actually looked a bit like James Dean. Joey was his name. I know he was Indian (dot, not feather), and I think he lived in Columbus. I had moved in with my girlfriend, Kate, that summer. We got our own place. I remember holding her as she cried because there were dead cockroaches in the cupboards and the fridge smelled like paint (we got it replaced). I said we'd make the place ours. These were little things. The important thing was we were doing it together.  She cheated on me with Joey, a guy she met on IRC, the same place she met me. I took her to the bus stop and picked her up from the bus stop, her mood quite different upon her return. I must have been incredibly stupid to think she was going to just hang out and have dinner with someone. He got her off. She didn't return the favor. That sounds about right for her. I should have kicked her out when she told me what happened, but instead I slept on the floor in the other room, my little bed trample...

You were not the first, sir, and you certainly were not the last. But you were certainly one of the worst.  Her love affair with you was not brief. I don't know when it started, but she did tell me she was in love with you. I told her love is just a choice we make every day. These are things a man should not have to tell his wife. Who knows what she told you, what evils she relayed to you about our relationship. I'm sure I was a bad man and she deserved better, but you only got part of the story, sir. Yes, she deserved better, but so did I. She cheated on me incessantly, and my small attempts to equalize the balance of power were seen as devilish, I'm sure. But who was the bigger devil? I did lash out in anger, but mostly undetectable anger. I meant to hurt her, but in other, less-obvious ways than she did. Maybe you missed all that backstory. Maybe you didn't care. True, I was not a saint. But you two put me to shame. You spent a lot of time at my house, and o...

It's a long-running joke. What do women want? Not even they know because women — all of them — are a mystery. A big, beautiful mystery.  It's no secret I have very little experience with women. I have experience with one woman . She was really my first serious girlfriend. I basically moved in with her the night I met her. Okay, we talked for about eight months on the phone and over the internet. But, really, I showed up and that was it.  So my first real relationship was full-on, all the way, live. And within a year, it was essentially over. She cheated on me shortly after we moved into an apartment after living in her mom's house for several months. I saw that infidelity as a test, like, she wants to see how much I love her. But, really, she was just an asshole because the testing never actually stopped. She abused my love until I no longer loved her. And that allowed me to engage in a lot of behavior (some self-destructive, some destructive to our relationship) I w...

  Love has been likened to many things. How many songs have been penned with love in mind? Too many to count. I didn't know what this song was truly about until I fell in love with a certain woman while I was separated. For me, Ring of Fire finally makes sense.  There are many versions of this song. I've chosen to post a cover by Social Distortion (1990). Of course, no one can argue with the power of the original (1952, 1963) by June Carter and Johnny Cash. There is some disagreement about who wrote this song, but most agree it was June Carter and Merle Kilgore. The popular explanation is that the song is about June Carter and Johnny Cash's love affair. I think that's an acceptable story. Cash's first wife said Johnny wrote it while hopped up on pills about a certain female body part, but, hey, let's keep this as clean as possible. In any case, June and Johnny had a long marriage, affair or no affair, and regardless o...

Suspicious minds by Elvis Presley has always been one of my favorite songs. This song was released in 1969, way before I was born. In fact, I've never known a world with Elvis Presley, as he died about a month before I was born.  The fact that I can listen to this song so many years after its release tells me it has a universal and timeless appeal. Unfortunately, the theme of the song is suspicion, which is a poison to any relationship.   As I enter the great fray of singlehood, I'm faced with the realization that any woman I'm with in the future will have someone else in her heart. It could be a past lover or lovers or someone they wish they would have been with instead of me, some of them very real and some of them in the realm of fantasy. Even a girl in her 20s is bound to have someone else in her heart, someone who she keeps warm there without ever saying as much.  Our hearts are deceitful, even to us. We think we know what's in them, but we often don'...

As with any loss or setback, I was afforded a moment to stop and look back and assess what my life had become. I was unhappy in the wake of my girlfriend's cheating, of course, but I was also unhappy with myself. I had wagered on a girl and had lost. My heart knew I had chosen the wrong girl. For the next 20 years, I grieved that fact. As I sit here today, I am still grieving.  It would be the better part of two decades before I understood what happened with Cindy, the girl I thought I'd be with. I would see clearly my mistakes and missteps. And, most stunningly, I would see the gem of a girl I knew tarnished by her own relationship. It's hard to say who I grieved for the most when I realized I could have saved her from all of that. Graduation day (featured on the Beautiful Girls soundtrack) is about a girl I should have been with. It's hard not to recognize the day we graduated as the day that separated us. I honestly thought we'd be together. When I was sl...

There are some songs I avoid. When I hear one on the radio it's no big deal, as I just flip to the next station. When I'm in a store and hear it come on, then I have to grit my teeth and wait it out. Some associations are hardwired into me. I have a relationship with music that is hard to explain. For Chris Isaak's Forever Blue, it's even more complicated. This album defines how I felt when I was cheated on the first time by my ex. In fact, after everything went down, I wrapped myself up in this music, and for all intents and purposes, died. As the years went on and her behavior remained the same, I found myself changing in ways I never imagined. I was murdering myself just to stay with her.  Baby did a bad bad thing by Chris Isaak will forever remind me of my then girlfriend and now ex-wife's dirty deeds. Chris Isaak was my friend after Kate cheated on me and kicked me out of the bed and onto the floor in the next room. I sat in my green thrift store chair a...

I remember kneeling by your chair as you broke down and told me what you'd done. It was almost 20 years ago, but I remember you braiding your curly hair in an anxiety-ridden state like it was yesterday. You weren't like this when I dropped you off at the bus station a few days before. Something happened in Cleveland that you didn't want to talk about. I sat and listened. You cheated on me with a boy you met on internet relay chat. His name was Joey. I knew him; he was Indian, very good looking in your estimation, I'm sure. His sister cooked you all dinner. There were other details. And then I wished I didn't know them. And then I wished you hadn't done it.  My strongest reaction as a young male with no other clear coping mechanism was to make love to you. I wanted you back. I wanted to claim you as mine again. I wanted you to know I loved you and forgave you. You clearly felt bad about what you'd done. I thought you'd take my advances and run with ...