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My drug of choice is writing––writing, art, reading, inspiration, books, creativity, process, craft, blogging, grammar, linguistics, and did I mention writing?

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Shakespeare's Sonnet 23--My Forbidden Love

Not YOU!
All you did was write it.
Unsupportive Girlfriend gets really jealous when I talk about Shakespeare's Sonnet 23.  She says, "You care more about that damned poem than you do me!"

This is, of course, absolutely and patently ridiculous.  It doesn't even make sense, honestly.  How she can come to such an unreasonable conclusion is totally beyond me.

I make sure to take extreme pains to take both of them out to lunch the same amount of times, and I'm very careful to get them both gifts at the same time. When I bought 23 a white Akoya pearl necklace, I made sure to also buy unsupportive girlfriend several pairs of kooky knee-socks. Granted I had that one picnic with 23 out in the park where I made my famous tuna salad and we walked the lake as the sun set, but Unsupportive Girlfriend doesn't like those things anyway.  At least I think she doesn't.

I mean, sure, there was that incident last year.  And that was my bad...I admit it.  No matter how many times I tried to explain that 23 and me are just really good friends, she wasn't buying it.  Then she looked at me and said, "if you can look me straight in the eye and swear to me that you don't love 23 more than me, I'll never say another word." Well....I kind of flubbed and said something about "different love" and "kinds of affection."  It was probably not the best thing I could have said under the circumstances, but that was seriously like seven months ago.

Now every time I take 23 to dinner and a movie unsupportive girlfriend turns into a dreadful harpy about the whole thing.  "You're taking 23 to I-Sushi, huh?  You only took me to IHOP."

Seriously?  You want to keep score about that?  IHOP makes great eggs and really great coffee!
Don't worry about her, my love.
She just gets upset since she and I don't have the same connection.

As an unperfect actor on the stage
Who with his fear is put besides his part,
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart.
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
The perfect ceremony of love's rite,
And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,
O'ercharged with burden of mine own love's might.
O, let my books be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
Who plead for love and look for recompense
More than that tongue that more hath more express'd.
   O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:
   To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.


I am a writer.  I have a dumpy writer's body, and on the best of days I'm wearing clothes that don't match and only sort of fit.  I would much rather talk about how vampires have changed as a monster over the decades and why Hawthorne gets a bad rap for being dry when he was off the HOOK with all the messed up shit going on in his writing than I would enjoy getting drunk and having dick measuring contests about whose job sucks more. I watch alpha dogs (not always just alpha males) work their mac daddy mojo on the world and everyone in it while I can't seem to quite care quite enough to do anything but be immolated with envy when they get what I want (not always just teh hotties).  People with great fashion, great cars, great pecs, and great extroversion leave me choking on their dust, and while I don't care quite enough to shuffle my priorities away from writing, reading, writing, being a geek, writing, cheese, writing, video games, and writing, I also don't not care enough to not feel a pang.

So that's why some days I love this fucking sonnet so hard.  I can't imagine my life without it.  I bought it a diamond ring, and I'm going to ask it to spend the rest of our days together.  I know I should probably check with Unsupportive Girlfriend before I do, but she'll probably just find some way to blow the whole thing out of proportion somehow.

1 comment:

  1. I love Hawthorne. I always argue for people to read him, particularly his short stories. Rappacini's Daughter and the Birthmark = the messed up-est of shit.

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