Here’s conundrum of fame, as I see it: It’s always said that if you want to be famous, you must endure criticism. The fabled “trade off”… …But the whole reason people want to be famous is to be loved. They’re love-addicts. Hating a celeb is like kicking a hemophiliac. Like I bet Tom Hanks internalizes a shitty remark way more than, say, the HR lady in your office. He’s needy. That’s why he’s Tom Hanks. All right, enough Psych 101. My Chihuahua looks like Billy Crystal and my Shepherd is Gheorghe Muresan. They need a development deal. — Diablo Cody Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Love
Happy Valentine’s Day
Who knew Carrie Fisher has a blog? — I happen to be the possessor of a very big personality . . . When I date someone, I generally have about three months of a personality available and then I finally come to the end of it. I need to refuel, I short-circuit. And then whoever I’m with shows up, and a lot of the times I don’t like him so much. Now wait, I just got a little quieter and what’d you just say? You didn’t read this? You’ve never seen that? You don’t know who that is? You really think that about me? He bothers me – not that I’m so great, but the enchantment wears off, and then the sleeping giant wakes up and says, “Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of someone dumb.” Read more →
Then Wear the Gold Hat
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her; If you can bounce high, bounce for her too, Till she cry “Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, I must have you!” — Thomas Parke D’Invilliers This is the epigraph to The Great Gatsby, which my son is reading for school. So beautiful, so sad . . . (Thomas Parke D’Invilliers is a character in Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise, used by him here as a nom de plume.) Read more →
Decline
From xkcd: Read more →
Lullaby
Certainty, fidelity On the stroke of midnight pass Like vibrations of a bell And fashionable madmen raise Their pedantic boring cry: Every farthing of the cost, All the dreaded cards foretell, Shall be paid, but from this night Not a whisper, not a thought, Not a kiss nor look be lost. — W.H. Auden, “Lullaby” Read more →
Love in the Parking Lot
I stop the car to let a man and woman cross the parking lot in front of us. The man is fat and hairy. The woman is rubbing his neck affectionately. I say to my son, “That’s what I need is a woman who worships me, even if I’m a fat, hairy slob. Which I’m not, so I should get twice as much neck rubbing.” Read more →
Proposition 8
On Nov. 4, my fellow Californians and I will vote on Proposition 8, an initiative to ban same-sex marriages, which were made legal by a state Supreme Court ruling in May. I know a guy — let’s call him Trog . . . Trog seems to have emerged from the mists of time untouched by human evolution. Not surprisingly, Trog supports Proposition 8 and he feels strongly enough about it that if you stop by his office, you’ll see a fair amount of Yes on 8 campaign material. Now I have to say that the idea of two people of the same sex getting married and making out with each other — provided they’re female and hot — does far less to tarnish my view on the sanctity of marriage than does the thought of some woman allowing this mouth-breathing ape to clamber on top of her and deposit his… Read more →
Epigram
On love, on grief, on every human thing, Time sprinkles Lethe’s water with his wing. — Walter Savage Landor [Lethe is the river of forgetfulness. — Ed.] Read more →
How I Met Your Mother
From Michelle “There is no safety net for anybody” Obama’s DNC speech: You know, what struck me when I first met Barack was that even though he had this funny name, even though he’d grown up all the way across the continent in Hawaii, his family was so much like mine. He was raised by grandparents who were working class folks just like my parents, and by a single mother who struggled to pay the bills just like we did. Well . . . if you take all that at face value — and why wouldn’t you? — it only goes to show how shallow I am, because what struck me when I first met my wife was what a nice ass she had. Hubba hubba! Read more →
EppsNet’s Greatest Love Songs: I Can’t Explain
Why it’s great: Love makes you hot, cold, dizzy, happy, mad . . . I can’t explain it . . . Got a feeling inside (Can’t explain) It’s a certain kind (Can’t explain) I feel hot and cold (Can’t explain) Yeah, down in my soul, yeah (Can’t explain) I said … (Can’t explain) I’m feeling good now, yeah, but (Can’t explain) Dizzy in the head and I’m feeling blue The things you’ve said, well, maybe they’re true I’m gettin’ funny dreams again and again I know what it means, but … Can’t explain I think it’s love Try to say it to you When I feel blue But I can’t explain (Can’t explain) Yeah, hear what I’m saying, girl (Can’t explain) Dizzy in the head and I’m feeling bad The things you’ve said have got me real mad I’m gettin’ funny dreams again and again I know what it means… Read more →
One Grows Out of That Kind of Thing
‘Now it might be a very romantic sight to some chaps, a light burning in a tower window. I knew a poem about a thing like that once. Forgot it now, though. I was no end of a one for poetry when I was a kid — love and all that. Castle towers came in quite a lot. Funny how one grows out of that kind of thing.’ — Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall Read more →
Valentine’s Day Tips for Girls
Make your man feel capable . . . Good: “You are so strong!” “You are so smart!” Bad: “Are you sure you know where you’re going?” These are just examples, but you get the idea . . . Read more →
Happy Valentine’s Day
We’re on a budget . . . maybe I’ll write my love a poem. Seriously though, some flowers for sure . . . I’ll take her for dinner if she wants to, but we really are trying to cut back on the spending a bit. Reality vs. romance . . . Read more →
Unrequited Love
I fell in love with a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel at the Irvine dog park last night. I kept showing off, trying to get her to play with me, but she just wanted to sit by her owner. When they left, I sat and stared out at the parking lot for a while . . . P.S. I’m over it now though. — Lightning Read more →
I Guess You’ll Do
Let’s begin this typical courtship process, shall we? Read more →
Whatever Happened to Love?
In the old days, greed and covetousness were seen as sinful; now they are encouraged. Jack Welch’s Winning sets the tone. The author grins manically from the cover – despite the silver hair, manicured nails and perfect teeth, he looks like Beelzebub incarnate. But why is “winning” so great? Because, says Welch, it enables people to make lots of money which . . . erm . . . enables them to “get better healthcare, buy vacation homes, and secure a comfortable retirement”. That’s it. Those are the three goals of our mortal existence, otherwise known as more pills, more mortgages and more burglar alarms. Whatever happened to joy, pleasure, brotherhood? Whatever happened to enjoying life? Whatever happened to creativity? Whatever happened to love? — Tom Hodgkinson Read more →
Love Hurts — So Does Frostbite
WINNIPEG, Manitoba — A Los Angeles man who sneaked into Canada in February to see his Internet girlfriend will be deported — minus all his fingers and some of his toes, the Winnipeg Sun newspaper reported Tuesday. Read more →
The Ephemeral Beauty of the World
Who shall blame him? Who will not secretly rejoice when the hero puts his armour off, and halts by the window and gazes at his wife and son, who, very distant at first, gradually come closer and closer, till lips and book and head are clearly before him, though still lovely and unfamiliar from the intensity of his isolation and the waste of ages and the perishing of the stars, and finally putting his pipe in his pocket and bending his magnificent head before her—who will blame him if he does homage to the beauty of the world? — Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse Read more →
The Potential for Fidelity
My wife is apparently a prime candidate for an extramarital affair, according to this article. She denies it, of course: “I have time for an affair?! I don’t even have time for lunch!“ Actually, I wasn’t reading the article to assess her potential for fidelity, which I already suspected was very low. I was looking for tips on how to hook up with some desperate housewives when she finally runs off with another man . . . Read more →
Chapel of Love
Today’s the day We’ll say “I do” And we’ll never be lonely anymore. — The Dixie Cups, “Chapel of Love” For decades, I thought this was just a happy, sappy little ditty . . . now I wonder if it isn’t one of the most bitterly ironic songs ever written. We’ll love until The end of time And we’ll never be lonely anymore . . . Read more →