On Love and Peaches

Everybody knows that people who are in love are intolerable. They persecute everybody with cutesy stories about the relationship that they believe to be the greatest romance of all times and that people around them consider to be a mundane and boring story. "So why do you like him?" my sister asked me once. She truly repented of asking the question when forty minutes later I was still answering it in painstaking detail. 

My readers have to recognize, though, that in the 23 months I've been blogging I have never indulged my desire to tell them about the most beautiful romance ever, which is, of course, the one I'm living right now. Today, however, I want to loosen my restraint a little and regale you with the most recent touching story of this great romance in celebration of the International Women's Day. Feel free to skip.

Yesterday, the male protagonist of the great romance was passing his SAS certification exam while the female protagonist was working on her next article. After passing the test with flying colors, what do you think the male protagonist did to celebrate? Went out drinking with his buddies? Bought himself a gift? Plopped himself on the couch in front of the television? (All these, of course, would be great ways to celebrate that I would support wholeheartedly.) No, he remembered that the day before the female protagonist, who is also a passionate lover of peaches, couldn't find any at the local supermarket. So he went on a hunt for peaches, found them, and brought them home to the peach-loving female protagonist.

Peaches are not only my favorite food ever. They also carry a host of literary allusions. (You want to live with a literary critic, get used to the fact that everything carries a literary allusion). Giving peaches to a person symbolizes sacrifice in the name of love, the kind of sacrifice that doesn't perceive itself as such and that exists for its own sake. Here is a link to a short story on love and peaches from O Henry, one of our favorite authors ever, that inspired this symbolism of peaches for us.

And now I solemnly promise not to share any more romantic stories for a while.

You Know You Are in Love When. . .

. . . there are many athletic half-naked male students running around the campus, but you walk through their midst and never notice that they are there or that they are naked. (It's an activity called "Naked Mile", people. I didn't come up with it, so don't ask me what it's all about.)

. . . you drag yourself out of a warm bed at 6 am and the only thing that makes you happy is knowing that your partner will be able to stay sleeping in that nice, warm bed for a few more hours.

. . . you've been preparing to interview a job candidate for a week but you still don't know their gender.

. . . you dress up to stay in with your partner, and don't care what you wear and how you do your hair for work.

. . . you keep noticing how ugly and unappealing all movie stars and famous singers are in comparison with your partner.

. . . the first thing you notice in any store is something that could be a good gift to your loved one.

. . . there is always a goofy smile on your face and you keep wanting to start singing and dancing in the middle of the street.

. . . you are too happy to care if the students hand in homeworks late.

. . . you'd rather be in a tiny town in the Midwest with the person you love than on a Caribbean cruise without him.

Žižek on Love

This is Žižek on being loved as a traumatic experience: "Being loved makes me feel directly the gap between what I am as a determinate being and the unfathomable X in me which causes love." The guy is brilliant, people.