A New Lover

I have to confess that there are times when my bibliophilic tendencies push me to read (gasp!) textbooks. This is, of course, grossly embarrassing. Everyone knows education is just a gauntlet everybody's gotta run so they can get a job and so the government can feel it's done right by its citizenry.

Yeah, sure, you learn some random garbage along the way that theoretically expands you as a person and helps you sound smart at dinner parties - but you shouldn't want to actually read textbooks for fun, should you? I mean, that is ridiculous, right?

Nonetheless, I still end up reading textbooks from time to time. For example, I read some of my sister's business textbooks, most of my wife's University coursework, and a couple of months ago picked up a sociology book called "Uncoupling."

This, at least, makes a bit more sense, because although it is a collection of case studies compiled by a professional sociologist, those case studies are of people who have gone through the ending of long-term relationships - a process with which I am deeply (if not particularly willingly) involved. So when I found this "Uncoupling" book in a thrift store I was intrigued enough to shell out a quarter. As I began to read I decided it was totally worth the twenty-five cents, because in the stories of others I found endless commonalities with my own experience - similarities that helped me make sense of what has been such a senseless reality.

For example, the book said that the initiator of the breakup, struggling to construct an identity distinct from their partner, always finds some sort of transitional person. It can be a professional counselor, a buddy, or a lover - but pretty much every initiator finds a person who will affirm this decision and allow her to feel moored as she jumps out into the thrashing sea of identity-disturbance agitated by her decision to break her commitment and connection to her partner. Eventually, the book went on, the rejected partner - having resigned himself to the inevitability of his fate - likewise finds such a transitional person.

I might as well admit that the reason I am posting is that a couple of days ago I realized that I had done it. After a few false starts, I have taken a lover. Her name is Art, and she is the most seductive temptress I have ever met. Not only does she demand every spare second of my time (although I've got to admit I do sometimes resist her on this) but she is also absolutely insatiable. Even everything is not enough for her. It seems I'm always either playing her a song on my ukulele, writing her these endless letters, or drawing pictures for her.

I known, I know... it's stupid; but what can I do?!? I am deeply, head-over-heels in love, and even though the "Uncoupling" book said repeatedly that transitional people don't necessarily outlast the transition, this relationship is different. I just know it. I am aware that right now I am having to work really hard to please her and that later it won't be so effortless, but I get so much pleasure that I can't seem to help myself.

Words fail me, as words always fail to express the inscrutable exhortations of the soul. My lover, Art, is inexpressible. To talk about her is to dance about mathematics: perhaps my words can give a glimmer, but they have nothing on experience.

I think my feelings are perhaps better expressed with a video I discovered on the internets. Go. Watch. Experience. Now.