After all the chocolate, after all the cards, after we’ve all been made psychologically sick from the diamond advertisements and physically sick from Sweethearts, love remains. Valentine’s Day passes, and we live on. Somehow. Bleh.
As someone lacking a significant other, I’ve been thinking a lot about love lately. Valentine’s Day is always a bit difficult for us singles, even the cynical ones who don’t buy into
traditional, bourgeois Hallmark crap. Try to open a door for me, and I’ll rearrange your kneecaps — does my arm really look that weak to you? Natural skepticism makes me see my lover-bird friends and ask: As hard as I am, is it possible for me to be capable of that soft, googly-eyed simpering?
I can acknowledge love exists; that’s a start. It’s the magnetic feeling between two people that keeps them together like taffy. It’s a jaw-breaking force that seems to make spending time with my friends more difficult than it needs to be, the third wheel on a very sexy bicycle.
Unlike many people, I believe that love can happen regardless of gender and that no law, no matter how hateful, can strip it away. Not that the legal system should even have the power to do so in the first place.
Apparently, it’s not enough for the states to continue to march insensitive policies forward. President Bush in his State of the Union address demanded a constitutional amendment to separate straight and queer.
But there is progress on some fronts. In New York, yet another court challenge succeeded in its attempts to make gay marriage legal by judicial fiat. I love the intent; I just wish such dictates lasted longer than the moment taken by the populace to slap down the idea of freedom to love. Apparently, the reason the law exists is so closed-minded men and women can use it as a tool to tyrannically maintain their comfort zones. They would shove valid feelings back into the darkness just to ensure Britney Spears has some kind of sanctity the next time she pops down to Vegas. What ever happened to social contract theory? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? When did sexuality become a threat necessary for Big Brother to control?
Society keeps making closets. Big closets, small closets. We each have to play a predestinated role to one extent or another. Anything that might scare the general population must be silenced and shattered. For this reason, transsexuals have limited protection under the law. In most states and cities, employers are allowed to fire an employee if they find out he or she is transgendered. Karen Frances Ulane was a pilot at Eastern Airlines who was fired because her gender change might have reflected badly on the corporate image. In 20 years, one might hope such restrictive mindsets would have changed, but just five years ago teacher Dana Rivers, after teaching nine years at a Sacramento high school, was fired because her planned gender operation would distract from an educational atmosphere. Eugene itself has not fully addressed the transgender community, still tied up on the minutia of bathrooms. As if a “not intended for your gender” sign is sufficient to stop sexual predators.
Love is also inextricably linked to its inverse: anger. In many states, murder is still considered a reasonable response to finding your wife in bed with another. In January, Jimmy Dean Watkins received a sentence of only four months in prison for murdering his wife. His blind fury was apparently excuse enough for killing a woman. Crimes of passion have long been a staple of our legal system, but I’d have hoped by now that the anachronism would be confined to “Days of our Lives”. Can you picture a woman walking in on her cheating husband, stabbing him and getting away with it at a jury trial? It would never happen. You see, women are so used to being hysterical all the time (a result of their inherent biological frailty), they should have learned how to control themselves. Men, on the other hand, are so used to being big, strong paragons of brawniness that whenever emotions cross their otherwise rational brains, they are so startled they temporarily lose control, the poor babies.
You know who’s really hysterical? I am, but not from my femininity. It’s called being desperate. The last person who asked me out on a date was somebody’s mother. Even so, I have a little hope in this cold, hard heart. He or she better have a sense of humor though, that’s for sure.
Do you know what love really is? Having a Greek pizza delivered straight to your couch during a “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” marathon. Now that’s romance.

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