Sanford II

Maureen Dowd, when not plagiarizing helpless bloggers, often has very good points to make. She wraps this slightly overlong critique of the Sanford saga with a nice bow:

The Republican Party will never revive itself until its sanctimonious pantheon — Sanford, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Palin, Ensign, Vitter and hypocrites yet to be exposed — stop being two-faced.

Assorted

I. Difficult Books

My brother and I have both been reading On Space and Time (Majid, et al.) The gist is this:

What is the true nature of space and time? These concepts are at the heart of science, but they remain deeply wrapped in mystery. Both house their structure at the smallest pre-subatomic and the largest cosmological levels continues to defy modern physics and may require revolutionary new ideas for which science is still grasping. This unique volume brings together world leaders in cosmology, particle physics, quantum gravity, mathematics, philosophy and theology, to provide fresh insights into the deep structure of space and time.

Sounds complex, right? My brother says that he read it for eight hours the other day and made it to page 48. I applaud our Moxie. It can only be described as dense.

Actually, I put it down months ago to focus on Infinite Jest (Wallace), which is allegedly about the pursuit of happiness (hey, what great American novel isn't?) but is really about addiction of all kinds and what happens when the thing you love begins to destroy you. I was egged on (sorry) by Dave Eggers' foreword in Infinite Jest to read the book. In his world, it took him a month. I think it may have so far taken me at least half again as long, and I'm only about halfway through.

The point is this: you power through it. You put your head down and go through with it. Committ to something, one thing, any little thing at all, and follow through, and it will make it 1 million times easier to committ to something else, another thing that must be done. And when you complete that, you can go on completing things and that's the way you get things done in this world.

II. America's Drinking Problem

In the past three months, I have had conversations with two friends regarding drinking. We arrived at the topic innocently enough; they both volunteered that they feared they were functional alcholics. This is not a prideful discussion, mind you. No bragging here. Just simply my friends' confessions that they had taken a quick look outside themselves and realized that they drank, like, a lot.

A lot? Well, how much?
Everyday.
How much everyday?
At least one. Almost always more than one. More than two.

For the record, no behavior problems have been reported. Said friends are stalwart, level and professional. But the warning has been tripped somewhere in their heads. Ease up, it's going to your gut.

For the record, Pokerface listened to the two friends and compared notes. If anything, Pokerface believes it highly likely that he drinks quantifiably more and more often than aforementioned friends. Pokerface has (clear) memories of evenings on which a twelve pack would be shared between two friends. And that happened most nights. Except for maybe certain nights when it would involve that twelve and then another few here and there. Maybe four more. Pokerface does not drink and drive. Pokerface does not beat his wife or abuse his friends. Pokerface no longer even feels elevated when he drinks. It's just these long, slow, smooth times where next day's hangovers are flat and thirsty.

We live in an alcohol drenched society. In our culture it is both permissible and expected that we drink heavily. It's how we make fun happen. And that's okay, mostly. Because no one is forcing you to drink, they're just suggesting it rather fucking heavily. Loosen up, you've had a hard day. Forget it now.

I have not had a drink in two days.

Sanford

It's a pity that the discussion revolving around this highly personal event in Mark Sanborn's life isn't garnering slightly more empathetic and perhaps wistful views of love in modern middle age. After all, reading the rags I do, we've been bombarded this week with criticisms of the institution of marriage and (reviews of) tomes on the bankrupt state of romantic love in our society.

And here is Mark Sanborn showing us that romantic love is clearly not dead.

We all knew it wasn't, really. Romantic love is going to stick around, probably forever, because that's the way it's done all over the animal kingdom. If your species has two sexes, you probably have courtship behavior. Likewise, if your species enjoys social groups, your young have a long gestation or juvenile period, and mating pairs form long-term bonds, it's more likely that your courtship is going to be really complex. That's why sociologists and anthropologists study it. But in more than a social or cultural aspect, it's a combination of events and mutually-reinforcing behaviors and emotions.

Courtship = Attraction + Respect + Fear of Rejection

That's a very clinical description for a scenario that we are very lucky to have to undergo with any degree of intensity in our lives.

You are thunderstruck by the other human being. From the daily scenery of faces, the other stands in relief. When you see them, your heart drops through your stomach as though the elevator you were in started going up much too fast. The other is "interesting," a trait that becomes more novel and fragile the older you get. You may or may not experience your loins stirring. The other is a wonder. That's the beginning. What happens next gets way more complicated depending on your situation.

Those of us who satisfy the twin requirements of responsibility and domestication tend to extinguish and compartmentalize until whatever strange fire afflicting our emotional ship burns itself out. This path more chosen makes trades we may later regret; we limit the emotional damage to ourselves and regret a lost opportunity later in lieu of loving (boldly or secretly), experiencing, learning. The institutions we build in this life are too fragile to risk even at the cost of the expansion of our souls. Just look at Sanborn. He loved, and lost. He lost the other, his career, the relationship with his spouse, with his children, his financial security, and the integrity of his psychological home. Maybe more.

But he will always have the memory of her.

It's clear that Mark Sanborn is a Good Man. He's acted like a man in so many ways here. Here's Sanborn being man (enough) to be stunned by another and to compartmentalize. Then man enough to give into those emotions. Man enough to go with it and act on those emotions. Man enough to admit a lapse of responsibility. Man enough to apologize for it all to a roomful of strangers who he never wronged, but may have had events unfolded differently. And he did it internationally.

Probably a better man than I.

I don't know why you're reading this. You weren't invited and you're not welcome. Piss off.

Give me Slack, or give me death.