Happy New Year, Please

I didn't even have the energy to see it in theatres.

There was no Christmas newsletter letter this year, because I could not save up enough hope from the past 10 months for holiday-themed writing. This year was the darkest one yet for me. And I really thought I already had a couple doozies under my belt. My youngest brother killed himself, and my mother's beloved passed away. Grief casts such a long shadow that I feel pity for all the good agents with the misfortune of meeting my murky countenance this year: the release of Step Up 3D, for example, joining my strip aerobics dance class's first performance ensemble, and, of course, my Beloved asking me to marry him. The lows were so low that the highs only gave me enough air to go back under water.

Some years have taught me that we are stronger than we think we are, but this year, I learned that everyone has a breaking point. Several of you, eight dear readers, are unflagging optimists, and I love you for it. You may say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and everything happens for a reason - on your blog.

This has always been a pragmatist's blog. I will say that a healed bone was indeed once a broken bone, and thanks to many who must have read the mental illness posts, 2011 has a chance to be the best year yet.

4 Burning (Man) Questions

"There are only four questions of value: What is sacred?  What is worth dying for? What is worth living for? And what is the spirit made from?  The answer to each is the same - only love."  -A note from my friend Slumdog at Burning Man 2010 in the Black Rock Desert

Cohabitation Question

How the hey do you hide a wedding dress when your fiance is your roommate? Ideas?

3 Most Awesome Weddings Ever

Since I last wrote you, my dear seven readers, Spain won the World Cup, Proposition 8 was overturned by a federal judge, and my Betrothed and I moved in together. I'll spare you the sordid details of my own wedding planning (at least for now), and give you instead the fruits of my research. Behold: THE. MOST. AWESOME. WEDDINGS. EVER.*

SURPRISE BACKYARD WEDDING
You are invited to celebrate the engagement of Marisa and John...SIKE! Here's how you pull off a wedding in 7 days, people. Note her brother's amazing toast and how she scored a Romona Keveza dream dress.

"You don't need hands to hold her heart."

For honesty's sake

It's popular at a certain age to treat dating like a game, one where you manipulate people for sex or free meals, but playing with people's hearts, from whence their lifeblood flows, is cruel. I learned that lesson the hard way, and I decided to not be a player no more.

Hard as this is, I have to be honest with some men who no longer have a chance with me. Here goes...

Tony, Tony, Tony...please. I'm not In the Mood for Love with you anymore. We have to stop this Infernal Affair.

Adrian Brody, you knew from the get-go this was a rebound thing, because you're American Tony Leung, and I can't believe you have the nerve to call me after the Oscars when you kissed Halle Berry on national television. Wutev. Don't look at me like that. I'm engaged now.

My Beloved Proposed: An American Engagement

I always felt that public proposals in Hollywood movies are an impossible promise. The subtext is, "If you would forget that I've acted like a churl for the past 90 minutes of this film, I'll give you a life of cinematic romance. If you won't, everyone here will remember you as a witch even if you've been the movie's heroine."



Ever wonder why these movies don't have sequels? Because the sequel would be dashed dreams and resentment.

New look: You are air to me.

Have you ever run from someone you wanted to hold? Held a grudge longer than you could hold out hope? Hated yourself so much, you tried to be impossible to love? You’re not that special, you know. I’ve felt that way. And so has that lady on the train. And that dude that drops off your packages. And the person in the cubicle next to you. Just ask.

Shut Up and Love's new look, with the blurry people in the background, is about this universal vexation, how we feel and how others seem when we're loathe to love. See, people were lonely way before it was cool. And love –Love! - isn’t great. Lemon gelato, that’s great. Love is breathing for your soul. Does breathing count as great? Well, I guess so, to someone who was suffocating.

I’ll stop holding my breath, k? And you stop holding yours. Because you, my friend, are air to me. YOU are air to me. Is that weird? Gay? Unprofessional? To love you? Probably. But I love you. And I think you should love you, too. Yeah, it’s hard, but do it. Just shut up and love.

Relationship News Roundup

Men think about love, too.
And what thoughts! Somebody with a camera's going around asking men, “If you had one piece of advice that you’d give another man about love, what would it be?” Some answers are romantic, others pragmatic, but they all seem pretty honest to me. (Check out the site.)

Love in arranged marriages, lots of it
Studies show that love in love marriages start out high but decreases over time. Love in arranged marriages starts out relatively low, naturally, as in some cases the people barely know each other. This scientist found that the love in arranged marriages, however, then increases gradually, surpasses the love in the love marriages at about five years. And 10 years out, it’s twice as strong. (Listen to Scientific American podcast.)

The Scent of a Man
I always wondered how I could enjoy the sweaty stench of my Beloved. Apparently, his hotness is because his immune system is very different from mine. Someone's starting a dating site that includes a personality test and a genetic profile. (See the Washington Post article.)

Man marries pillow
A man in Korea has made a body pillow his bride. It's funny for about 2 seconds, before it's not. How isolated must we be for this to happen? (See the Huffington Post commentary.)

5 Things about Grief

Alternative title: why a relationship blogger might skip February.

1. There might be one “thank you for your sympathy card” card in the greeting card aisle, but it's ugly and overpriced. (I'm sad, not blind.) Memorize the copy inside and buy a cheap pack of blank cards.

2. “Parting,” as I've said, “is the cost of love.” Anguish is the cost of dying unexpectedly without a clear will. If you don't think you have a lot, you can have a will done in an hour today.

3. The worst time of the day is morning rush hour, when thousands surround me on their daily commute. I had dropped everything when these two people stopped breathing, because, presumably, everything had changed. But according to this highway parking lot and the radio traffic report, the only thing different today is me. I don't know how long the disconnect continues.

4. You feel nothing, and grieving gives you the shits.

5. Actually, you'll feel irritable and might give people you love shit. Remember to apologize and tell them you love them, because life is short.

Loving My Countrymen

"It is your country you must help, not a political party. ...Your party exists in order to serve your country, not to create difficulties for another party or the party in power. So, as a politician, you have to practice non-duality. You have to see that compassion is above any political affiliation. This is not partisan politics but intelligent politics. They are politics that are humane, that aim at the well-being and transformation of society, not just at gaining power."

-Thich Nhat Hanh referring to politics in his nation, France, in Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames, which I'm currently reading to suck less as a Buddhist.

Scrubs vs. Golddiggers

Some guys are cheap, but most guys just want to avoid attracting golddiggers who will squander their life savings and make their children take out loans to go to community college. Others have modest means but have a wealth of creativity and thoughtfulness to offer a special someone. Some women are golddiggers, but most women just want to know they're not taken for granted in a relationship. For further explanation, please refer to the flow chart below.

UPDATE: Here is a functioning link for "You might be this guy. Requires a separate flowchart. "

Mental Illness: Part II

Why does it hurt so when the ish hits the mental fan? I came across this quote researching the second in the series of posts on loving someone dealing with mental illness..

“Mental illness is feared and has such a stigma because it represents a reversal of what Western humans . . . have come to value as the essence of human nature.

...Because our culture so highly values . . . an illusion of self-control and control of circumstance, we become abject when contemplating mentation that seems more changeable, less restrained and less controllable, more open to outside influence, than we imagine our own to be.”

-From "The Americanization of Mental Illness" published on Jan. 8, 2010

Linguistics of Love Part III: Developing Dialects

Gary Chapman, an American pastor, witnessed plenty of confrontations in his family counseling practice. Couples came to him on the precipice of divorce, bitter because they still loved each other and angry because they thought that love should have been enough.

From observing these families, each a Tower of Babel unto themselves, he wrote a book The Five Love Languages which identifies five different "languages" people express and understand love: words of affirmation, touch, gifts, quality time, and acts of service. Basically, if you love someone, but you do not love them in their language, they won't understand your message and will feel suffocated without love, like a plant in a dark pantry. Conversely, if you feel suffocated, but you know that person loves you, maybe you're just not recognizing the love language they're speaking.

This point of view helped me love my friends better (not more, because I can't love them more), as I knew instantly what their love languages are. Because I like languages, I'm trying to be fluent in all five.

This understanding helped me make smarter matches, too, for myself and for others. Someone that needs words of affirmation, however, should not be fixed up with the strong silent type. I express love in acts of service, and that's great, because that's how my Beloved understands love. Lucky for me, he is very organized, so once he learned that quality time is what I need, he was able to make time together a priority even though his natural instinct is to give gifts.

He learned another love language being with me just as he perfected English in his studies in America. We've developed our own dialect with euphemisms and idiomatic expressions and gestures of love, just as my parents spoke a Vietnamese dialect borne of their inter-regional marriage, a linguistic manifestation of the compromises and shared experience that tie all couples together over time. (To my linguists: when we have kids, we'll have our own speech community.)

Love can be expressed in many ways, and that’s part of the fun. Be open to any expression.

“I love you” is expressed by “I want you” (te quiero) in Spanish, “(you) are (a) love(-source) (to me)” (suki da) in Japanese, “I love towards you” (aku cinta pada mu) in Indonesian, “I love a part of you” (!) (rakastan sinua) in Finnish, “I wish good (things to happen) to you” (ti voglio bene) in Italian, “to-me from-you love is” (mujhe tum-se pyar hê) in Hindi and many other languages spoken in India, “love I-have-you” (maite zaitut) in Basque, “to me you me-love-are” (me shen mi-kvar-khar) in Georgian (Georgia, southern Caucasus), “I I-you-love” (she ro-haihu) in Guarani (Paraguay). -A Language-Lover’s Dictionary of Languages (French edition: Paris, Plon, 2009) by linguist Claude Hagège

Love is not a prescribed set of actions. How boring would that be? It's a practice at understanding, an act as colorful, varied, surprising, and irregular as language.

Previously: Linguistics of Love Part I: Confusing the Language
Linguistics of Love Part II: Learning Another’s Language

Linguistics of Love Part II: Learning Another’s Language

Sometimes, learning English, I felt heady with victory at comprehension or making myself understood. I could lick the words “Zamboni machine” at the ice rink the way the other kids relished an ice cream cone. Other times, the process made me an unknowing object of derision and filled me with rage like a wild animal on a choke leash. But now I speak English, nay - LOVE English- and everything's tops.

Since Babel, every one speaks a language unto himself, and we long for someone to speak our soul fluently. Luckily, language can -with effort- be learned. The best way to acquire a new language is to learn it in terms of itself, without translation, just as monolingual native speakers acquire the language as children. Once, I found myself on Lan Yu aka Orchid Island, off the coast of Taiwan where the Yami people live; they do not speak English. When the first old man I met would point to the sky, I would try to figure out if the word he uttered meant sky, cloud, up, or grey. Rock was straightforward, as was "drink up." Usually, I got him right; sometimes, I gladly learned that I had mis-learned. But mis-learning isn't the same as NOT learning. Hell, in America, I mispronounced the verb “to iron” (I spoke it just as it’s spelled ire-run instead of i-urn) until I was 23, and I still can never remember whether I should cry over spilt beans or not.

When learning a new language, one often encounters "false friends," words that sound the same but don't mean the same thing. A well-known one is embarasada in Spanish. It means pregnant, not embarrassed. Often, there are false friends between the language that Men speak and the one that Women speak. When my brother says, "Man, my USB mouse isn't working," my boyfriend understands to help him fix it. When I say, "Man, my USB mouse isn't working," it sounds the same, but roughly translated into Manspeak, I said, "Empathize with my frustration, while I fix my USB mouse.*" (*Technology terms are the same across many languages.) I am able to translate this false friend because (a) I observed them having this conversation among their own kind and (b) I have spoken similar Woman idioms and received similarly perplexing replies in Man. (Most only have to make the mistake a few times to learn that "to be embarrassed" is "se dar vergüenza.")

Without these confrontations with confusion, comprehension cannot emerge.

Previously:
Linguistics of Love Part I: Confusing the Language
Coming up:
Linguistics of Love Part III: Developing Dialects

Linguistics of Love Part I: Confusing the Language

{define: word} n. a speech sound, serving to communicate meaning

"Is ‘I Love You’ merely a set of sounds?" I surveyed some friends. My Beloved, whose first language is German, answered that he loves me in every language, while his roommate, who speaks English and Patois, feels that “I Love You” in either tongue doesn't have the weight he's told it's supposed to. In my own family, whose primary language is Vietnamese, we never heard the words until my father dropped me off for college. In the parking lot, he said, “I love you,” in English, as if the Vietnamese words are a curse stalking survivors of the Second Indochinese War. It seems, from my informal survey, that the meaning of love and the speech sound that represents it are no more necessarily acquainted than third cousins.

But if words cannot be counted upon to deliver even the most universal sentiments intact, how can we trust any speech? Why do I bother calling my parents or writing this blog under the long shadow of Babel?


The legend from the book of Genesis goes that the sons of Noah planned to build a tower that would reach Heaven, The Tower of Babel. To punish our arrogance, God “confused the language of the whole earth.” From then, even two workers facing each other could not communicate to move a brick, so they stopped building the city, and “the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.” God, doesn’t that explain so much? Now, even people ostensibly speaking the same language can feel the distance of continents between them.

Coming up:
Linguistics of Love Part II: Learning Another’s Language
Linguistics of Love Part III: Developing Dialects