Here I am, a young able-bodied woman, curled up on a bed in a solitary apartment, avidly devouring The Letters of Edith Wharton and eating sugar snap peas raw from the package. I do not wash my vegetables because, as usual, I have no sense of where things have been or any such larger picture. I am lazy, hungry, able-bodied and young, what other factor could there be? I think I may well read this entire tome of 600p tonight; time does not favor such endeavors, but I just cannot get enough of the letter/diary format. I wish I were cool enough to write letters -- correspond! I think I will start saving more of my emails. I am cool and someone might want to publish them one day, haha.

Well this paper, at least, is going to be the coolest one I've ever written. I don't think I've ever -- this is a sad confession I'm about to make -- written a paper with a real thesis before -- it's always been a paper about Margaret Sanger or about Emmeline Pankhurst, on whatever random research I happened to come across first. But now I have a real question to start out with, something semi-original and demanding my own thought rather than just a masterful synthesis of quotes and facts that hit the right notes. That is: how did leisure culture, conspicuous consumption &c change gender identities/representations among the elite class (in early 20th century "fashionable New York")? Using The House of Mirth I mean to show how at least five new and perverted categories were created: the helpless, passivized (feminized) male, male as passive spectator/judge, the social climber/outsider, the manipulative monster female, and the utterly objectified female - the ideal - whose ultimate goal is to become a consumer object. &c &c with all sorts of historical documentation to back up what I say, rather than adapting my paper to what sources seem available. I know it's a bit late for a first swing at such an exercise, but I know I can knock this one out of the park; and also for the first time I am doing real, thorough research (ie, I'm actually reading it) and I do still have long-term hubristic goals I'm keeping close to my vest, and all in all I'm just very excited about this paper.

In class today we were asked to all say a bit about our topics and before it came around to me I was mortified to hear another girl announce she was using The House of Mirth (my book, you understand). I realize that lately I'm irrationally inventing arch-nemeses to set up against myself -- this girl has for weeks been one of them. The best way I can explain this girl to you is to refer to a survey my other professor brought up which compared the Dutch and Belgian school systems; the general conclusion was that Belgian children know more, while Dutch children talk more. So my read on this girl is that, brought up in a culture which encourages her to express her own opinion no matter how stupid it may be, she is confident in every word she says and utterly convinced of her ability to rule the world, with or without proper fascist training. Anyway, perhaps "annoyed is a better word than mortified to describe my first reaction to the news that I shared a topic with one of the most vocal in that still-unbelievable academic whine-fest (ah yes, the "This reader is crap!" comment came from her). She introduced her topic as, "I'm going to use The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton to look at how women are represented..." Anyway, let's just say, I did not feel out-done. And I already have the Letters and her autobiography out of the library so she can eat my dust, mm-hm. Must a budding academic be mature? I think not.

Well, back to my Edith...

I did end up reading well over a third of the book... I felt compelled to read through the Morton Fullerton years -- it reminds me too much of myself. (I know I'm doing it again -- identifying too closely with my reading material.) I crave the freedom of honesty -- how I wish I really had the courage to say and do only what feels right. I still cannot - I refuse to - put myself out there with no certain gain or response: I cannot love to love; I love to be loved, which is no love at all. And yet a truly shameless, unrestrained love threatens to render me helpless, dependent. No, I am in control of myself and will control everything about my relationships. It should never be this calculated, but I haven't yet concluded that it's worth the risk of pain: the pain that evinces itself when need is not met with equal, identical need, effort, time invested, depth of feeling and understanding -- if all are not equal and identical there is a basic inequality, and in what relationship could there not be some such inequality? So you decide if it's worth the risk; you decide if you're brave enough to love for the sake of loving. I'll admit I am not -- not yet.

I said the other day, "In moments of honesty, I do know what satisfies me" -- I want to try to define that. I don't want to isolate unknown quanity X, for anything I'm looking for is in many senses of the "I'll know it when I see it" variety, and I believe so strongly that there are many kinds of love and each manifestation should unfold and evolve organically. But I need to clarify, reposition myself a little.

"I recognize... perfect freedom in loving and un-loving; but only on condition that it is associated with equal sincerity." EW

Those are the two main things: freedom and sincerity. The freedom to love, leave, come back and express one's emotions sincerely. Nothing so calculated as I always am -- I know I would not be calculating if I knew no one else was calculating toward me: if there was a fundamental trust. I wouldn't worry about others' reactions or silences or relations with others if there existed a real commitment to unfettered honesty, brutal if need be. I never want to go on in a relationship that is obviously dead because no one can say it; I don't want to feel trapped or forced to do or say anything because that's what I did or said last week, or it's the next "logical" step. So far as this can ever be the same for two (or more) people in the same measure at the same time, I want my relationships to be exactly what feels most authentic to all involved, and if it is not right I want to trust that this will be discussed honestly.

"Relationships," "love," "people" -- I guess in the spirit of honesty I shouldn't seem purposefully vague or evasive here, should I? If you know me at all you must know I'm not really interested in traditional relationships -- for me, they seem limiting and inauthentic. I do beleve there are infinite possible expressions of love, and some are possible for me. First of all, whenever I think of love I never perceive it in terms of hetero/homo/bisexuality, mostly because, as discussed in my last entry, I perceive so little in terms of sexuality at all. So for me, possible love relationships can exist with men or women; I could even envision some sort of loose affiliation between more than two people. Increasingly, these seem superficial qualifications. I am looking only for people who have a "way" about them, people "like me."

And so what is this love -- it is whatever it evolves into naturally, I suppose. In this larger sense of the word "love," I love Josh and Lani, which is an entirely non-sexual kind of love that is sometimes triangular, sometimes two/two&two -- there is a dynamic we share that the three of us more or less understand, there are certain unspoken agreements, there are terms and conditions, there is honesty. My relationship with the two of them, together and individually, is the most fulfilling I have ever had; it is what it is; it is a full love.

And in and out of my life there will be other people and other understandings, other dynamics and accepted interactions, limits and allowances. There are a lot of possibilities if you are open to them...

But there are still the ugly human emotions and there are still the risks: what when you love one way and are loved back in another? To love more or less strongly hurts, and I'm not sure any amount of sincerity can change that. And what about jealousy? My relationship with Lani and Josh is such that if either of them had a boyfriend I would not be jealous; that's a different kind of love. And if they loved a fourth person in the way we love each other I would not be jealous; ours is not an exclusive or contingent kind of love. But I can imagine that if I loved another person in a way that manifested itself in, say, long quiet walks, laying in bed together and intertwining fingers, if this person had sexual needs I could not fufill, wouldn't I encourage them to meet them elsewhere, and wouldn't I still be jealous? Yes and yes, I think. But if I tried to be everything to someone without feeling or meaning it, wouldn't we both be miserable? Of course.

So I guess the sort-of answer for me is to love wherever I can for as long as I can, just as it evolves naturally and try to be at peace with that. I don't expect love ever to last forever and whenever it has ceased to be a joy it ought to end naturally as well.

Complete satisfaction is unrealistic or impossible, anyway; maybe one or two people in the world could completely satisfy me. Even then, no: no one can do that -- you have to be able to find that in yourself and all around. I think I do believe what I wrote to Benjamin a few weeks ago: love is love; you can't multiply it'it just is; and you always have it. I am never alone: understanding and warmth are everywhere: I am loved, I love: I am satisfied.

And honestly, this is not something I've angsted over for maybe two years now. Not since I learned it wasn't the be-all/end-all of my existence have I angsted over not having a "boyfriend." My eyes are open to whatever feels right at any time: it is still hard, but I am open to love, and as I understand more, I am open to more kinds of love. I'm very happy with where I am and what I have now -- but my eyes are open, I am ready...

Less than love is nothing
And nothing is not enough
And more than anything
I wish you love, wish you love..
From Jonatha Brooke's new album, which I want but cannot have or even hear... miss my Kazaa. :/