I am half awake. Underslept, under-fed (and I really should remember clearly that when I am hungry, my life is miserable and I can make others' lives miserable too, without actual ill-will. I keep thinking of a horse-care book I read that said that horses have small stomachs but they feel very uncomfortable without something in them. I have an equine-type digestive system. Except that, thank goodness, I am capable of rejecting food that disagrees with me at need.)
Talking to people who irritate me when I am hungry and tired and irritable in general is just not a good idea.
It is snowing again. And it is cold again. I loved that almost-double-digit above-zero thaw we had this week. Why, oh why did the cold come back? (Yes, I know, because global warming is a bad, bad thing and if you are going to whine about it, you should just relocate.)
I've had the song "Goodbye, Moscovites," stuck in my head for two days ever since my brother told me about splicing it to the flying-bombs scene in Dr. Strangelove (which I have never yet seen, so I have to take his word that there is a flying-bombs scene in it).
What to say to you, Moscovites, in farewell?
Fare you well,
Goodbye, goodbye,
Goodbye, Moscovites, good night,
Good night, remember us.
Extremely black humour, I know.
There are some phenomena of life that seem extremely counterintuitive to me. Like, for example, marriage. Every time I hear of it, I marvel at such an improbable event as "one person loves another, and the other person loves them back, and they work well together, and they are happy together, and there are no extenuating circumstances like family or compatibility issues or something dead against it, and they want to stay together for the rest of their lives and spend a ton of money to indicate this to the community". How improbable an event is that? How counterintuitive, when just because someone loves someone, that has no implication whatsoever on the other person loving them back? My brain refuses to believe in it, and I really cannot understand why universally in human societies this is the rule rather than the exception. I'd rather believe in Ashkenazi Jewish matchmakers. (Of course, Elzbietka told me of a very remarkable case of mutual physical attraction beyond either party's conscious control or rational will --- but I still fail to see why it was mutual.)
Of course, the high divorce and breakup rate and the veneration of "true love" by the entertainment industry means that the phenomenon is rather rare, but still, people think, at least for a time, that they are in a symmetrical loving relationship, and agree on this, and so as far as I am concerned, they are (the eternal question "is this truly love?" always annoyed me. If you think it is, it is, done deal, keep life simple --- note that assuming I am wrong in this principle does not make the phenomenon I marvel at any more probable). And the improbability of this symmetry still boggles my mind.
Maybe that has something to do with my lack of experience with crushes. Perhaps my pheromone emitters and receivers are wired weirdly. But there is more to picking a marriage partner than pheromones, or at least should be, if the Western society tradition of living together for at least a year or so before deciding to propose filters out the insanity of a pheromone high. So then why is it so common that people meet people whom they want to marry and get consent to do it?
I feel like I am very weird, but it looks very weird to me.
ETA: Read the comments; I think I am getting at how I was misinterpreting the situation. Thanks to![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
quantumkitty 's friends for my insight. I think about ten years of puzzlement, if not twenty if you count that I've been misled by princess fairy tales since I've been capable of reading them, have finally begun to make sense.
Talking to people who irritate me when I am hungry and tired and irritable in general is just not a good idea.
It is snowing again. And it is cold again. I loved that almost-double-digit above-zero thaw we had this week. Why, oh why did the cold come back? (Yes, I know, because global warming is a bad, bad thing and if you are going to whine about it, you should just relocate.)
I've had the song "Goodbye, Moscovites," stuck in my head for two days ever since my brother told me about splicing it to the flying-bombs scene in Dr. Strangelove (which I have never yet seen, so I have to take his word that there is a flying-bombs scene in it).
What to say to you, Moscovites, in farewell?
Fare you well,
Goodbye, goodbye,
Goodbye, Moscovites, good night,
Good night, remember us.
Extremely black humour, I know.
There are some phenomena of life that seem extremely counterintuitive to me. Like, for example, marriage. Every time I hear of it, I marvel at such an improbable event as "one person loves another, and the other person loves them back, and they work well together, and they are happy together, and there are no extenuating circumstances like family or compatibility issues or something dead against it, and they want to stay together for the rest of their lives and spend a ton of money to indicate this to the community". How improbable an event is that? How counterintuitive, when just because someone loves someone, that has no implication whatsoever on the other person loving them back? My brain refuses to believe in it, and I really cannot understand why universally in human societies this is the rule rather than the exception. I'd rather believe in Ashkenazi Jewish matchmakers. (Of course, Elzbietka told me of a very remarkable case of mutual physical attraction beyond either party's conscious control or rational will --- but I still fail to see why it was mutual.)
Of course, the high divorce and breakup rate and the veneration of "true love" by the entertainment industry means that the phenomenon is rather rare, but still, people think, at least for a time, that they are in a symmetrical loving relationship, and agree on this, and so as far as I am concerned, they are (the eternal question "is this truly love?" always annoyed me. If you think it is, it is, done deal, keep life simple --- note that assuming I am wrong in this principle does not make the phenomenon I marvel at any more probable). And the improbability of this symmetry still boggles my mind.
Maybe that has something to do with my lack of experience with crushes. Perhaps my pheromone emitters and receivers are wired weirdly. But there is more to picking a marriage partner than pheromones, or at least should be, if the Western society tradition of living together for at least a year or so before deciding to propose filters out the insanity of a pheromone high. So then why is it so common that people meet people whom they want to marry and get consent to do it?
I feel like I am very weird, but it looks very weird to me.
ETA: Read the comments; I think I am getting at how I was misinterpreting the situation. Thanks to
quantumkitty 's friends for my insight. I think about ten years of puzzlement, if not twenty if you count that I've been misled by princess fairy tales since I've been capable of reading them, have finally begun to make sense.