Love Stinks

Oh, okay. Here we go again. Another fabricated holiday that's been perverted into a gift-giving occasion. I'm just sorry I missed the MLK Day White Sale this year.

Look: I have nothing against romance. Lust is pretty good and a little infatuation never hurt anybody, except maybe Michael Douglas in that rabbit-boiling movie. But I don't get it, really, the hearts, the flowers, the candy, though I have nothing against it. I understand the obligation of delivering pre-fabbed cardboard boxes filled with the very nastiness that you're trying to get your 'loved' one to avoid. After all, if you really love somebody, do you want to make them fat? Worse for you, do you want them to think that you think that it's okay for them to get fat? Even just a little?

Oh, yes. Yes, you do.

Because love, that is, the deepest kind of love, is about acceptance. Jesus taught me that. He was the Super in my building in Sheepshead Bay so many years ago. He would say, "You know, Mr. B, you look at my wife, she is fat and you say, 'Jesus, is she fat!' and I say 'Hell, yeah!', and I love her. I love her because she is my luck. She is my star.And she loves me. You know, that's good. You'll see!" He actually sparkled when he said this. In my younger, stoopider days, I thought Jesus had huffed one too many buckets of Mr. Kleen, but now, I kinda understand what he was talking about. Of course, they may have done each other in with hatchets since then, for all I know, but for the period of time he was talking about, his past to his present, he figgered he'd done well and been lucky with his fat wife. Trying to talk him out of it would have been like trying to get a fish to snort air.

And that's the second thing. If you've got true love, love the one you're with, as the song goes. It seems that love is an exceedingly fleeting thing, sort of like a house plant. Most house plants, if you didn't already know this, comes from tropical climes. They need water and light - not too much, not too little, or they're freakin' shrivel up and die. Love must be nurtured and treated with a level hand. This applies both to love of others as is does to love of one's self. Love in general, okay? M-A-I-N-T-E-N-A-N-C-E. And a little fertilizer at reasonable intervals since love must always grow. Sure, a leaf or two may fall off, but new ones can grow back in their place. Okay - enough with the plant analogy.

Point is, being loved should not be taken for granted. And we're not talking about the box-o-Stovers kind of love here, but instead are-you-a-match-for-my-blood-type-because-I-need-a-kidney-sure-no-problem kind of love. That's a parent's love for his child, a fiftieth-anniversary kind of love: it's Titanic. You feel me? It love without a doubt and without doubt. The kind of love that even when something goes awry and one is parted from another, not a moment goes by when the other doesn't think of the one, and vicey versey. It's a presence and a force whose absence is a great dark hollow filled with the smell of old wool and stale beer. Love is awesome, not in the current vernacular sense of it, but in the way the parting of the Red Sea was awesome. It takes your breath away, forever.

Which is why love stinks. It utterly sucks. It's transitory and there are no guarantees whatsoever. Put your all into it and what do you get? A note penned with grim and angry goodbyes. A phone number that you can dial until you're black in the face because there's no cell service on The Other Side. A shadow of Spot or Mittens passing ever in the periphery of your vision, having actually been long gone to that Dog Park or Cat Box in the sky. In the end, there's just that - the end. Heartache, if you manage to survive it, is just the start. The echo of love stays ripe and near rotting, seated next to you on the train to Hell.

A bit harsh, you say? I daresay not! This is no shell game. The stakes are known up front. Love is not to blame at all. Love is not pain. Hope is the culprit. Fall in love and believe it will be different, that it won't end. Go ahead. You hope that it will be different and your hope will betray you. That's your ego talkin', brother. Don't blame love.

Check, check. Onetwo, onetwo.

Oh, wait. Huh. It doesn't end. Not ever. How about that? Does that suck? Or, is that the best thing about love? Once you've had it, you cannot let it go and, better still, it won't let go of you.

Oh, okay, then. Happy Valentine's Day. Just don't bring me any chocolate. After all, I need to keep my girlish figure.