UPDATED: Romantic Lazypantsness: It's a technical term.



Hot man, Scottish accent, AND coffee? Yes.

So I'm quite sick of the stupid "if you love her, buy her THESE diamonds" holiday commercials, and unfortunately they'll just keep getting MORE annoying until 1) the apocalypse on 12/21 kills the power or 2) Valentine's Day is blessedly behind us. So, let's discuss REAL romance, shall we? Because in my world every kiss does NOT begin with Kay (ok, technically the letter K does begin the word Kiss, but that's like spelling doughnut "donut" for marketing purposes, which irks me anyway), and fuck you De Beers.

A particularly cynical friend of mine thinks romance in concept is deception designed to get a partner into bed/relationship/marriage and is ultimately a big fucking lie because it's unsustainable.I find that attitude...depressing as hell, and so I checked with other friends (male and female, touchy-feely and not) about romance in relationships and as a seduction tool.

Flowers: Husband, CF, and a few other males I asked are unanimously against buying/picking/giving flowers to a woman. And I'm sorry boys, but your reasons are FUCKING STUPID. Worded in various ways, the basic cop-out is "why would I want to buy you/her/anyone flowers as a token of my affection when flowers die? Isn't that a temporary and not-nice symbol?"

Nice try, but fail. Flowers are pretty, they smell nice, they brighten a room/day/life for a time, and know what? They MAKE RECIPIENTS SMILE. Their temporary nature, if you must be philosophical about it, is a reminder not to take things for granted because everything is temporary.

The fact is, not giving your partner flowers because YOU don't like them is a selfish reason. If SHE doesn't like flowers you're in the clear. If flowers make her day it's romantic to give them: it shows you're thinking about HER feelings.

Candlelight: CF doesn't like candlelight because he thinks it's part of an ulterior-motive: creating a seduction. Well...um...FUCKING DUH. I'm sorry, when did being seduced become a bad thing?

Soft lighting is the equivelent of make-up, lingerie, high heels, a dress, shaving, suit-and-tie, perfume/cologne or any other "dressing up" mask people wear to make themselves look appealing to their partner. Of COURSE you want your partner to find you sexy, and low lights are an easy way to 1) set a mood of quiet attentiveness and 2) instantly airbrush some of the flaws about which a person may be self conscious (stretch marks come to mind: they're fucking ANNOYINGLY obvious in harsh light). Do you notice the flaws? Maybe not, and finding your partner attractive with all his/her flaws is part of what makes you awesome. But it's not about whether YOU notice them: it's about whether HE/SHE feels self-conscious about them. Is a partner who feels attractive not a better date than one who is distracted by self-doubt? Yeah. Thought so.

Compliments/Cards/Mushy Talk: Seriously, this isn't romance, people. This is part of loving someone. If you aren't randomly complementing your partner after X years, why the fuck NOT? If you like something about him/her, TELL THEM. Your partner isn't a mind reader, and everyone likes to be told in no uncertain terms that they're appreciated, loved, liked, admired, that their boobs look awesome that day.

Jewelry: I admit I'm not a very girly girl when it comes to traditional presents. It irks me that jewelry commericals insist so strongly that men ONLY love their women if they buy fancy-pants cold stones. However, if that's what gets you all mushy and gooey about your partner I say go for it.

It's not that difficult: choose the gifts that your PARTNER will love. For example, for our anniversary this year I got my husband a pistol. Because he's an avid gun enthusiast and his plans of saving for it were dashed in the accident that stole a few months of his time. It meant something to him, even though I don't necessarily find a gun a romantic gift. *shrug* If you want to romance ME with gifts, buy me books. Get me a MN Wild jersey (my most EXCELLENT anniversary gift from Husband last year) or tickets. Clean my house so I can write. Make me dinner. BUY ME FUCKING FLOWERS*. Ha.
Effort, people. EFFORT: If "Romance" is effort put in to woo your partner and left at the wayside after a few years/marriage/kids/etc then maybe it was a deception. In that case, I guess I can agree with CF's assessment, but it makes me sad. But mostly I think it's laziness, not intentional jackassery that locks romance in a closet.

I've been guilty of romantic lazypantsness. It sucks: resentment and unappreciated invisibility are sneaky bastards who weasel their way between people in relationship: they must be executed. No matter how long a couple has been together, a little effort to set a scene, to purposefully seduce, to ROMANCE their partner is always an appreciated and cherished gesture. Ultimately, romance is never a waste if it makes you both feel appreciated, wanted, and valued, right? The trappings are utterly subjective, but they're still an important part of a loving and long-term relationship.

*in the interest of not making my husband look like a dick, he HAS given flowers on multiple occasions after we had that exact discussion about the worth of floral gifts early on in our relationship. Win.

UPDATE: I've been told Husband DID buy flowers before the conversation. However, I maintain we did HAVE that conversation at some point. Since I don't recall whether it was before or post-flowers, I concede the point.

Enough mush. On to the most important point of this post:

Let's discuss the total bowl of awesome it would be to give me Gerard Butler (preferably naked but not required) for any occasion, shall we?

CLIMB INTO THE HANDBASKET...and hang the hell on.

 

If you're wondering, I'm TOTALLY using that title for my as-yet-ill-conceived memoir. That's right: "climb into the handbasket" was one of the many fucked-up ways people found this blog. Here are a few others:

• "i'm in love with my same sex therapist" - I'm fairly certain I've never blogged about this. Should I ever I'll be sure to tag it something obnoxious.
• "mini donut bus" - snicker
• "pithy porno for men" - I suppose this is because I SPECIFICALLY add tags that indicate this is NOT porn and these aren't the looked-for penises, and that amuses the fuck out of me.
• "ripping each other's faces off" - well, that's violent. And gross.
• "shit my pants as an adult" - yeah...I just have nothing for this one at all.

In other news, so far today I've managed the following nonsense:

• offered to buy a former co-worker and his new bride porn. Doesn't everyone want a subscription to Penthouse as a wedding gift??
• was called an Orca* which did fabulous things to my brain, considering I've gained four pounds back after our annual Girls Weekend Group cookie exchange (HOMEMADE FUDGE, WHY CAN'T I QUIT YOU?)
• been recruited by the travel-hell job that laid me off last November by a former co-worker (not the one I offered to get porn: that would be inappropriate!) who has been rehired and seems to really want that employee referral bonus. I find the prospect...unlikely.
• spent far too much time on Twitter and Amazon after discovering many of my followers/followed twitter peeps offer freebies. Indeed, the Kindle app on my iphone is STEAMING with the stuff I've downloaded...and I now know some wonderfully sick writers to add to the Dirty Book Club.

*to clarify, a discussion in regards to swimming in the ocean led to that, which to be fair WAS intended as a compliment. One of the many nicknames for an Orca is "sea wolf" and the person in question SAYS it was meant thusly. I, however, pointed out next time such a text should be read out loud to a female before sending it to a girl, and that another nickname for Orcas is "KILLER DEMON."

To be fair, Killer Demon may be more applicable than either a whale OR a sea wolf.

I'm cool with that.

PS: spellcheck refuses to acknowledge "orca" as a word. Fail, spellcheck. Fail.

Phoning it in: Vengeful Turkey (again)

It's nearly Thanksgiving and I've been considering family, things for which I'm thankful, and all that sentimental bullshit.

And I'm writing NONE of it here, because I'm also busy as hell right now at home. I'll try to put a real post up over the weekend. In the meantime, something I posted originally a couple years ago about one of my favorite Thanksgiving memories.

Miss you, Grandpa.

I come from a large extended family: my mom's the oldest of eight, dad's the oldest of seven. Holidays at my grandma Kit's house (mom's side) are crazy: cousins, animals, aunts and uncles all running haywire. Stories are told and retold, children are in and out of the house all day followed by the dogs, cats are hiding in terror, and horses are hitched up for rounds of sleigh rides. It's all loud insanity and it's wonderful.
When I was about five my grandparents lived on a large farm in northern Minnesota, outside of Cloquet. It was more than a hobby farm, less than a farm-for-a-living spread. After all, they had seven kids still at home (four of them teenage boys) to feed so anything they could supply from the farm was much more cost effective for a second grade teacher and a heavy equipment driver for the county. In addition to the herd of horses, cats and dogs for fun, I remember cows, chickens, goats, sheep, guinea hens, and turkeys. There were probably other random animals from time to time...I know one of my aunts had a pet raccoon for a while.

One turkey in particular took an instant disliking to my small five-year-old form. He decided I was a blonde devil and for months I couldn't walk near the barn without him attacking. In case you didn't know, 25lb turkeys fully live and loaded have VERY STRONG wings: he'd extend them out to each side and run at me, screeching and beating his wings at me until I was cornered against the barn. I loathed that stupid bird. My aunt Elyse, only seven years older than me, had to beat him away from me with a big stick. That bastard gave me nightmares every time I stayed at Grandmas for the entire summer.

Thanksgiving came and we were all sitting around the large kitchen table. It was a cacaphony of children and adults all talking at once, passing food, slipping treats to the dogs under the table, and laughing. I, being the oldest (and therefore exalted) grandchild, sat next to my Grandpa, a big, gruff man who was really a big softie with the grandkids. He watched me take a big bite of turkey and waited until I swallowed. Then he told me that was the big nasty tom from the barn. To this day I think he was telling me just to see how I'd react, being a girl mostly sheltered from the more unpleasant farm duties (we never went there on butchering day after the chicken incident).

I cheered and asked for more.