Still running (7 miles yesterday, 4.2 today) and writing in the cemetery here in wintry, late-fall Northern Ohio.  But now, after running, when I’m consequently sweaty, I take to the cab of my truck to write rather than risk catching a chill outdoors. 

 

While running today, I realized that my modus operandi vis a vis running is precisely now contrary to what it was while I was in the military years ago.  Then, though I quite often ran through a cemetery (Corozal, Panama), I never, except for one shocking psychic moment, stopped running while in the cemetery, but always ran back to ‘home base’ unstoppingly.  But now, I always end in the cemetery.  How the hell did the cemetery become my new ‘home base’? 

Hey, I’m not concerned that I’ve yinned my yang.  I think, indeed, that this reversed implementation now matches up well with another realization that occurred to me right after running yesterday: that I’ve transformed my warrior role from service to the state into one of failsafe rebel.   And what that means is that I exist to crush our government should it ever attempt a wholesale curtailment of our freedoms.  Precisely the notion that ran through my head was this: ‘If our government ever stifles freedom so entirely—on whatever grounds or for whatever justification—so as to become indistinguishable from a totalitarian regime, the counter-measures I’ll undertake to devastate the regime will make today’s terrorists appear to by fighting by Marquis of Queensbury rules.’ 

Yep, I’m now a rebel-in-waiting and hoping never to see 'the day'.  For the true warrior yearns for the fate of the proverbial Maytag repairmen: waiting un- (but not dys-) functional till all the laundry’s done.

 

 

Hey, don’t look at me that way—what did you expect?  I’d never ever want Bush’s Borg-total-control-clone to consider me more than once as anything but nondescript.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous.
But let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together;
For the pillars of the temple stand apart.
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
Let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
(From "The Prophet" by Kahil Gibran)

She wonders how I feel about her.  But why does she wonder?  Have I not told her so in so many ways?  Ah—but that was ‘before.’   Before what?  Before the feelings went away.  Went away?  How could such profound love so prodigiously expressed drift into nothingness?   I tell you: it’s not easy being a sensitive, caring man and having deep feelings that time cavalierly and without warning retracts.  Or perhaps it’s more the case of the heart, too easily given, not withstanding the test of time?

I think perhaps women are wiser in their penchanting reticence to embrace every chant of love as ‘the real thing.’  They’ve heard penises talk shit before, even rhapsodize, knowing that what some men call ‘love’ is only intelligence in the service of bestiality.  O, they could pretend, letting the men pretend to not pretend, and, you know, sometimes such affairs become so curiously confounding that all pretense gets dropped and an ember of love is discovered in that embrace of bodies, heart to heart.  But usually not. 

What would happen if every time you heard anyone say to you “I love you”, you had an orgasm?  Would that enhance the quality of one’s life?  Here’s Tiger Woods ready to clinch his next Masters with a putt on the 18^th and an admirer calls out right in the middle of his swing: “I love you, Tiger.”  Squish.  His nine-iron shoots erect before he can finish the swing and his putt is untrue due the interference of his damn ding-a-ling. 

No, it’s better allow some native skepticism to shadow and sometimes shadow-out precarious romantic intrigues.  “I’ve been burned by love before”, she screams.  So then, twice shy?  Men don’t seem to get burned as much…cause the feeling goes “away”? ...

 

 From Willow :

Mad, just after being hit with a pouch containing the magical Dust of Broken Hearts…

MADMARTIGAN: Oh, Sorsha. Awake from this hateful sleep. It deprives me of your beauty. The beauty of your eyes.

Sorsha's eyes open and a dagger flashes from beneath her bedsheet and appears at his crotch.

SORSHA: One move, jackass, and you really will be a woman.

Madmartigan reaches out with both hands.

MADMARTIGAN: You are my moon, my sun, my starlit sky. Without you I dwell in darkness. I love you!

SORSHA: What are you doing here?

MADMARTIGAN: Your power has enchanted me and I stand helpless against it. Come to me, now, tonight. Let me worship you in my arms.

SORSHA: Get away from me!

The dagger slices his shirt right up to his throat.

MADMARTIGAN: I love you!

SORSHA: Stop saying that!

MADMARTIGAN: How can I stop the beating of my heart? It pounds like never before.

He grabs her free hand and clasps it against his naked chest. Her other hand presses the dagger against his throat.

SORSHA: Out of fear.

MADMARTIGAN: Out of love.

SORSHA: I can stop it. I'll kill you.

MADMARTIGAN: Death next to love is a trivial thing. Your touch is worth a hundred thousand deaths.

And the next day, after the Dust ‘wears off’…

Sorsha twists her body uncomfortably.

SORSHA: You're holding me too tight.

MADMARTIGAN: I don't want you to get away.

SORSHA: Why? Because I'm your moon? Your sun? Your starlit sky?

She angrily whips her head around and her thick hair hits him in the face.

MADMARTIGAN: Get your hair out of my face or I'll chop it off.

They ride along in silence.

MADMARTIGAN: Did I really say those things?

SORSHA: You said you loved me.

MADMARTIGAN: I don't remember that.

SORSHA: You lied to me.

MADMARTIGAN: No I didn't, I... I wasn't myself last night.

SORSHA: I suppose my power enchanted you and you were helpless against it...?

MADMARTIGAN: Sort of...

SORSHA: Then what?

MADMARTIGAN: It went away.

SORSHA: Went away??   "I dwell in darkness without you," and it went away??

She elbows him hard in the gut and makes a run for it!!!