Filed under: scraps

Photo: Teen Angst ~ a Graffiti Love Plea

Written on a handrail, this angst-ridden teen love graffiti was found today in Penarth, on the steep steps above the esplanade (near the Bay Leaf Restaurant) leading to Alexandra Park. Transcription below...

Photo

"Mickey, I'll be easy going, you can do what you want, see the boys as much as you want, I'll never hit you except in play-fights where I batter you! When I look into your eyes I know what I want, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I know I've messed up but please I'll do whatever you want. You will always be my best friend and I won't control you, I'll never give up on you, and if turtlepillar does die completely then I'll still come down here and think of you. I can't live without you, it's so hard to know that you're not mine. Please don't give up on me baby. I want you so badly, I love you xxxx"

Who's Mickey? Who wrote this? More curiously, who (or what) is 'turtlepillar?' contra omnia discrimina

Guest Author, Zan Anselmo, on What Love Really Is

Zan Anselmo, a friend, writer, artist and fellow CFS advocate wrote the following short observation on what love really is. I found it profound, accurate, personal, insightful and incredibly honest. It actually brought a tear to my eye through it's insightfulness. She kindly agreed to sharing it here:

I KNOW WHAT LOVE IS
- Zan Anselmo 

I woke up and realized the script I was writing is a fake. I lost myself in delusional dreams, but now, I'm finally awake. Because what I thought was love, was never really love. I thought the ache in my heart was an indicator that this is real. I thought misery is what love makes you feel. But I woke up, and realized I didn't know what love is. I thought love was something bad, and I wished it was something I never had. But I woke up, and finally figured out what love is. And love was never about me, or searching for someone to set me free. Love is about waking up from your own dream, and seeing people as they truly are. It's about loving them unconditionally from your heart. And love isn't about hating someone that doesn't serve your needs, and love isn't about what you can do for me. I woke up and finally figured out what love is. And everywhere I turn, people are writing their own unique scripts and stories, full of pain, jealously, envy, remorse and sorrow….and they sit there wishing, praying they'll find love tomorrow. But I know, love does not suffer and love does not hate. Love is patient, and love will wait. And I woke up, and finally figured out what love is. No one seems to see it, no one seems to feel it, because they keep searching outside. And when these external forces wound them, they quickly run and hide. But I woke up today, and finally knew what love was, and I knew it was love, because I watched the pain dissipate from my soul.

contra omnia discrimina

Maybe this Time - Cabaret - Liza Minnelli

Maybe this time, I'll be lucky,
Maybe this time, he'll stay, Maybe this time,
For the first time, Love won't hurry away. He will hold me fast,
I'll be home at last, Not a loser anymore, Like the last time, And the time before. Everybody loves a winner, So nobody loved me; 'Lady Peaceful,' 'Lady Happy,' That's what I long to be,
All the odds are in my favour, Something's bound to begin, It's got to happen, happen sometime,
Maybe this time I'll win.....

Maybe this time, I'll be lucky, Maybe this time, he'll stay,
Maybe this time,
For the first time,
Love won't hurry away. He will hold me fast,
I'll be home at last,
Not a loser anymore,
Like the last time, And the time before. Everybody loves a winner,
So nobody loved me; 'Lady Peaceful,' 'Lady Happy,' That's what I long to be, All the odds are in my favour, Something's bound to begin! It's got to happen, happen sometime Maybe this time, maybe this time, I'll win.....

A chair is still a chair

A chair is still a chair
Even though there's no-one sitting there
But a chair is not a house
And a house is not a home
When there's no-one there to hold you tight
And no-one there you can kiss goodnight

A room is still a room
Even though there's nothing there but gloom
But a room is not a house
And a house is not a home
When the two of us are far apart
And one of us has a broken heart

Now and then I call your name
And suddenly your voice appears
But it's just a crazy game
When it ends, it ends in tears

Darling, have a heart
Don't let one mistake keep us apart
I'm not meant to live alone
Turn this house into a home
When I climb the stairs
And turn the key
Oh, please be there
Still in love with me

Home

When I think of home
I think of a place where there's love overflowing
I wish I was home
I wish I was back there with the things I been knowing

Wind that makes the tall grass bend into leaning
Suddenly the raindrops that fall have a meaning
Sprinklin' the scene, makes it all clean

Maybe there's a chance for me to go back there
Now that I have some direction
It would sure be nice to be back home
Where there's love and affection
And just maybe I can convince time to slow up
Giving me enough time in my life to grow up
Time be my friend, let me start again

Suddenly my world has gone and changed it's face
But I still know where I'm going
I have had my mind spun around in space
And yet I've watched it growing

If you're list'ning God
Please don't make it hard to know
If we should believe in the things that we see
Tell us, should we try and stay
Or should we run away
Or would it be better just to let things be?

Living here, in this brand new world
Might be a fantasy
But it taught me to love
So it's real, real, real to me

And I've learned
That we must look, look inside our hearts
To find a world full of love
Like yours
Like mine
Like home..

CHOCOLATE By John Scalzi

Chocolate is God's way of reminding men how inadequate they are. I am
vividly confronted with this fact every time my wife and I go out to a
restaurant. When it gets to dessert, my wife usually orders the most chocolate-saturated dessert possible: It's the one called "Unstoppable Double-Fudge Chocolate Mudslide Explosion" or some such thing. 

I always wonder why anyone would want to eat anything that promises a
catastrophic natural disaster in your mouth.

The dark brown monstrosity arrives at the table, and my wife takes the first bite. Before the fork is even removed from her mouth, a small moan escapes her lips. Her eyes, previously perfectly aligned, first cross slightly and then faze completely, pupils dilating in pure
chocolate pleasure before the eyelids clamp down in ecstasy. The hand
not holding the fork clenches into a fist and starts pounding the table. The silverware rattles. After about six minutes of this, she finally manages to swallow the bite, realign her eyes, and take the next shuttle back from whatever transcendental plane she's been visiting. Slowly, her sphere of
consciousness expands to include me, her husband, her life-long mate, her presumed partner in all things ecstatic. "Hey, this is pretty good," she'll say. "You want some?" No, I don't. I want nothing to do with an object that does to my wife in one bite what I've worked for an entire relationship to achieve. It
wouldn't do any good, anyway. Men just don't have the same relationship with chocolate that women do. It's not even close. I wandered around the office today and asked men - "Chocolate. Your thoughts?" - and the result was always the same. First, a confused look as to why they're being asked about something so trivial, and
then some lame, obvious statement: "Uh...it's brown?" 

Ask women the same question, and you get responses like "The ONLY food group," "ESSENTIAL to life as we know it," and the ultimate casual swipe at every member of the Y-chromosome brigade, "better than sex." Ouch. Some women will try to make up for that last one by quickly
adding that chocolate is supposed to be an aphrodisiac. Uh-huh. Chocolate certainly increases desire; problem is the desire is usually for more chocolate. The best a guy can do is buy a box of chocolates and hope he'll be considered somewhere between the cherry truffle and the strawberry nougat. Don't get me wrong. Guys like chocolate just fine; it's just not essential to life as we know it. Respiration is essential to life as we know it; chocolate is simply one of those nice little bonuses you get. We won't usually pass it up if it's offered, but I don't know too many guys who would get substantially worked up if it were to suddenly disappear from the face of the earth (ironic in a way, as back in the days of the Aztecs, only
men were allowed to have the stuff). 

When I eat a chocolate dessert, I
enjoy it, yes. My world view doesn't narrow to include only the plate that it's on. Maybe we're missing something. On the other hand, we don't have to
pick up our silverware from the floor after we're done with our tiramisu. Life is about trade-offs like that. All I know is that come Valentine's Day, chocolate will be among the things I offer my wife. I can't truly appreciate it, but I can truly appreciate what it does for
her. Which is close enough.

Copyright © John Scalzi

John Scalzi is a columnist and humorist living in Virginia. For more
columns and essays, visit his website: www.scalzi.com