Sunday, January 24, 2010

Poetry Never Got Me Laid

A few days ago I had a Twitter exchange with @my_oh_mia in which she teased about chics loving poetry. Now before I dispute that, which is what the title of my blog suggests I'm going to do, I did want to thank her for her poetic contribution ( This endless winter\ Cruelly long, yet I smile\ Better Wednesdays soon) which concisely captured my mood as of late. Yes, that is exactly how I've been feeling as my lover's absence weighed on me and as I think about her return. But honestly, when I think back to all the women I've been close to I can't think of anyone who was really that into poetry.

I have written technical papers considered classics, eulogies that left rooms of people weeping, and love letters that turned a woman uninterested in marriage into my (first) wife. But I am definitely not a poet. I find the precision of its form(s) tedious. While I love exercising my brain, until smoke comes out my ears if necessary, poetry just doesn't seem worth the effort. I don't even enjoy reading it. I have a truly vivid imagination (to the point I have on occasion worried about slipping into an imaginary world so deeply I'd end up in a mental institution), yet poetry doesn't generally paint pictures for me. Nothing. I would give anything to be able to read Dante's Inferno. Well, anything except my soul. I can't, my mind draws a blank every time I try. So you can imagine my horror at the notion that poetry works wonders on women. Fortunately, it just doesn't seem to be true.

Back in high school I actually did write some poetry, specifically aimed at helping me with seducing a particular girl. She definitely appreciated the effort, but no more than she appreciated other efforts to garner her affection. No doubt my poetry was not particularly good. But then I had precious little evidence that she cared one wit about poetry to begin with. And as I moved on with life that is pretty much what I've found. Very few women cared that deeply about poetry. But all women care that a man demonstrates real effort in courting or trying to seduce them. I suppose that writing a poem is so supremely painful for most men that we get great credit for the attempt. As for me, I'd rather walk on hot coals to demonstrate my love. Because poetry never got me laid.

What?! No Blogs in January?

I realize I haven't made a blog post at all this month...until now. The problem is, you can't have "ramblings of a happy man" without a happy man. And I haven't been happy at all this month. So even when I thought of some topic I've been meaning to blog about, or a new one, I couldn't get up the energy to write about it. Why an UNhappy man? Nothing in my life has been going according to plan lately.

Home life has been wacky due to some health issues. Work life has been stressful due to a few things. And my escape valve (aka, lover) has been absent for over two months. I had an epiphany where I realized just how carefully I had balanced these three elements of my life so that in aggregate they bring me great joy. For example, some of my career choices these last few years were made to enable me to spend more time with my lover. (They were also great choices in terms of things I love to do, and in terms of financial reward.) But when my lover isn't around, the negatives of those career choices get on my nerves. Amusingly those negatives are things that she herself understands all too well. They are all associated with being "an employee" (even if in a fairly senior executive position) rather than working for oneself.

The good news is that there is improvement on the home health issues front, I've gotten a few annoying things under control at work, and my lover is returning soon. The Happy Man is returning.