CJ has started her own online journal: Ceej's Battered Black Book. She says I inspired her. This is only fair as she has inspired me to do so many things, not the least of which are: my own web pages, HTML programming, CGI programming, and the Well.
My friend Zenobia called today, twice. She had a fling the other night. The first call was to tell me what happened and the second was to describe the heartache and guilt she started experiencing. She's married, you see. This is her second fling this year, and yet she says (and I believe her) that she loves her husband. But there's obviously something she needs that she's not getting from him. She calls me because we are completely frank with each other, both in terms of feelings about and descriptions of what happened.
Calling them flings isn't really fair. She cares for both of the men she had affairs with, has a deep friendship with both. Her feelings of angst and heartache are wrenching to listen to, though obviously they didn't trouble her during. Only after. Always after, the wretched morning after.
She freely acknowledges that she hates the idea of her husband having an affair, she's not sure she could forgive him for it. She knows it's hypocritical. She doesn't want to hurt him with this -- having this affair had nothing to do with him, it had to do with her and what she wanted. But now she filled with pain, because it wasn't right to cheat, it wasn't right to put her marriage in jeopardy because of something she wanted.
I know what she means. It's easy to understand intellectually having more than one lover: why should anything I do with someone else affect my relationship with Darin, when he knows how completely crazy I am about him? But in real life, at least for me, emotions -- those horrible, uncontrollable, animalistic urges that no one can totally get rid of -- come into play. I can't rationalize my way through everything. There are consequences to actions.
I asked Zenobia if she was more upset about the philosophical implications of breaking her marriage vows or about the fear of getting caught. She's not much afraid of getting caught. She's actually upset about the theoretical side of it.
I admire that. I think that if I were in the same situation I'd mostly be afraid of getting caught. If I had an affair, I'd be so worried about being caught out in a lie that I think Darin would have to be the first person I'd tell. Darin is so keen that he'd pick up on whatever was going on before I could say something anyhow.
Of course, I feel highly guilty when I so much notice that other men exist, so this whole situation is really hypothetical. I don't envy Zenobia's feelings a bit, even if I do kind of envy her having all these men around.
The part that makes me crazy is that the whole time she's telling me this I'm taking mental notes about the effects of passion and love on a normal, middle-class married woman. Not as a lesson for me. No, as story fodder.
Watching Sense and Sensibility again. Wonderful movie. The kind of movie that takes romance seriously. You want to shake the characters and tell them, "Say it! Say it! Tell him you love him! Say something!"
I don't feel that way with most romantic movies, usually because there's little honest conflict between the lovers. You never doubt they're going to end up together. Most of the conflicts between them are just stupid, contrived misunderstandings, like mishearing someone (While You Were Sleeping...although I liked the chemistry between Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman in that). Any love rivals are so unattractive (Rosie Perez in It Could Happen To You, for instance) that you know there's no way any of the main characters could end up with them.
It's Greg's birthday today. Drop him a note and wish him a happy birthday.
If you're female and single and looking for a nice guy, drop him your phone number as well. He'd kill me for adding this in here but since he never reads The Paperwork I don't have to worry. But I needed a romance angle to fit this in with the rest of this entry.