Love

I do not fall in love like the ordinary person. It's taken me a long time to accept this. While my friends have found people that make them glow, or that they are gradually starting to resemble (I believe from the large exchange of DNA that love elicits), my approach has been like a swordfish -- fighting every step of the way while being reeled in, and then, when finally in the boat, feeling slowly suffocated and getting ready to either a) leap out of the boat again or b) stab my captor in the eye.

Thus, I've sat through many fairy tale weddings, looking on with some perplexity as my friends said the lines that were (in theory, anyway) supposed to give themselves to the other person forever. And vice versa. And I have to admit, although the thought of trying on wedding gowns amuses me, and a sparkle on my left hand might be nice, I must eventually face reality: that I would immediately spill wine all over the dress, and the ring would make me an even larger target for the mugging that will eventually take place to break me into being a New Orleanian.

There was a boy I thought that I once very much wanted to have those things with. But he wanted to have them in Canada, and thus I found a much more suitable boy who understands that it is ridiculous to want to live anywhere where it is under 50 degrees more than two months out of the year. And I love him instead.

But this love is different. I've fought it off, the best I could. I questioned, interrogated, accused, put his TV out on my porch overnight and a variety of other irrational behaviors that I can only explain by my lame swordfish metaphor. I was fighting for my life, I suppose.

But lately, the boat hasn't been so bad, and maybe I'll think about it long and hard should I ever consider jumping.

And for me, that's about as good as love gets.