It's not hard, douchebags. A grammar rant.

Okay, I've had it. I've finally snapped. I admit, I'm a bit of a grammar and spelling Nazi. Hell, sometimes I correct people when they comment on my blogs. I make no apologies for it, and if you expect one, then fuck off. However, I received an email today with the subject of "your hot". I shit you not. Your. My hot what? I would have replied with that question, but something tells me that the recipient wouldn't have been in on the joke. I mean, this person didn't seem phased that my default picture is currently one of me in my wedding dress. At my wedding. Getting married. If someone can't take that sort of hint, I fear the subtleties of my sarcastic question would have whizzed ten feet or so over his head. Someone I respect once said that the blogosphere is a "congregation of self-important hookers and weirdos". While that statement bears a lot of truth, he also should have added that it is a haven for illiterate fucktards who create pages upon pages of tripe rife with egregious spelling and grammatical atrocities. That's not to say that this is the only place this happens. Far from it. Hell, even upper-level executive, three piece suit management types do it. I've seen it often.

It's ridiculous. It's fucking embarrassing.

I don't know, maybe I actually paid attention in school. Maybe this shit comes naturally to me. Maybe I'm a fucking grammar and spelling idiot savant. It doesn't really matter. What does matter is that this shit needs to stop before I lose my mind.

So with no further ado, here's a crash course, okay?

lose - the opposite of win, to misplace something, ONE FUCKING O.
loose - the opposite of tight, your mother/wife/sister, TWO FUCKING O's.

I see this more often that I should... how can so many people get these two confused? IDIOTS.

your - a possessive, similar to mine, his, her as in "your loose slut of a sister loses her mind every time she gets railed by your whole inbred, shitbag excuse of a family", NO FUCKING APOSTROPHE.
you're - a contraction of "you are", as in "you're a dipshit", A FUCKING APOSTROPHE.

its - another possessive, similar to your, NO FUCKING APOSTROPHE.
it's - a contraction of "it is", as in 'it's fucking simple', A FUCKING APOSTROPHE.

Need a trick? Fine - when using it's or you're, expand the contraction. If "you're head is full of shit" becomes "you are head is full of shit" and doesn't make any sense (maybe it will to you because you're a fucking idiot), then you are using the wrong word. Queef.

to - a preposition, as in "turn to the right" or "it's time to go back to school", ONE FUCKING O.
too - an adverb (know what that is?), synonymous with "also", "as well" as in "Really? I went to college, too. I actually read a fucking book." It can also be used to mean "to a regrettable degree" as in "It's too late for you, moron", TWO FUCKING O's.
two - a number, it comes after one.

there - an adverb, similar to here as in "your short bus is over there".
their - yet another possessive, similar to your as in "it's not their fault that you're a fucking retard. It's your fault."
they're - a contraction of "they are" as in "they're not responsible for your complete ignorance of your own fucking language. Read a book!"

affect - a verb, to influence, as in "Your consistent poor grammar negatively affects my opinion of your intelligence, fucktard." A FUCKING A.
effect - a noun, result, as in "Your inability to spell, punctuate or use words in the proper context had a terrible effect on my ability to view you as an intelligent lifeform, you douchebag." A FUCKING E.

Occasionally, effect may be used to mean to bring about" or "cause", as in "Try as I might, I could not effect real change to your level of intelligence by kicking you in the skull."

Effect and affect are similar but not interchangeable. To effect is to cause; to affect is to influence.One trick that might help you remember the difference between the two: a, the first letter in the word affect, comes before e, the first letter of effect. This makes sense, because something is affected first, and the result is an effect. For example: Your complete inability to grasp the basic constructs of the English language affected our ability to understand your point; the effect of this was that we all laughed at you, mocking your ignorance, you asshat.

I/me - man, you would think this one would be a no-brainer. But no. I see so many pictures on teh Interweb bearing a caption similar to "Jessica and I at the mall". Wrong, fucktard. Here's a handy rule. Remove your BFF Jessica from the picture for a moment, shall we? You wouldn't say "I at the mall," would you? (Well, you probably would, but that misses the point) If saying "I at the mall" makes poor sense, then you should probably recaption your shitty little picture to say "Jessica and me at the mall", mmmkay?

Really, it's not fucking hard, douchebags.

By the way, grammar is spelled with two fucking a's. So next time you want to comment on someone for bad "grammer", at least spell it right.

Douche.

Working Out

I want anyone reading this to know that I'm really a nice person. People like me. Honestly. It's just that I have very little patience for just a few things: stupidity, things that just don't make any sense and people that act on impulse rather than common sense. That's not to say that I have a problem with impulsive people, in fact, I admire their ability to act, well, impulsively. I myself am rather impulsive at times. But, there's a difference between throwing caution to the wind and just being dumb. You'll get a better idea of what I mean as you read on. I went to the gym after work today, as I often do, and observed several recurring situations that warrant a rant of the proportions that only I can bring you. Before I continue, let us ponder the purpose of a gym, shall we? My estimation is that such an establishment is for the betterment of one's health. This takes the form of moving one's body, usually strenuously, for a period not less than half of one hour. Now that this has been established...

As I left the gym, I decided to count the vehicles that were illegally parked and those that were driving slowly through the lot looking for the primo parking spots. There were a total of nineteen. That's right, nineteen people, either parked illegally, or lazily cruising the lot hoping to get the best parking spots. The majority of those illegally parked vehicles were illegally parked within fifty yards of the gym entrance. Those vehicles hoping to bolt into any open front parking spot were about the same distance, ie. fifty yards away. There could be several reasons for this. I present those now:

• Bad weather (There are only ~65 days of rain/snow a year in Columbus, today was not one of them.)
• Poorly lit/dangerous parking lot (It is very well lit with constant activity)
• The drivers of said vehicles are handicapped, and all the handicapped spaces are occupied (There were handicap spaces available, and none of said illegally parked or cruising vehicles had the appropriate markings. In addendum, most of said vehicles are are also either lowered to be six inches from the ground or lifted to be six feet away from it)
• The illegally parked cars broke down and ended up where they ended up (Wrong.)
  

Another conclusion to which we may arrive is that these people feel some sort of need to park near the entrance because it is too far to walk from all of the open spaces a mere 250 feet away. Drawing from our understanding of the purpose of a gym, shall we conclude that these fine automobile operators are lazy? Surely not! What then is the mental condition of these offendors? Given the sheer volume of autos, I think we can safely assume that some are using equipment inside the gym that require a form of human propulsion, such as an exercise bike, or (gasp) treadmill. So, drawing again from the purpose of a gym established earlier, there are probably some of these fine persons who spend half of one hour on a treadmill. For the sake of argument, let's say a given person walks a mere one mile on a treadmill. One mile is equal to 5280 feet. Recall that the distance between many of the illegally and/or closest parked vehicles and a vast number of open parking spaces is at most 250 feet. For you math wizards, that's about 1/20 of a mile; obviously an intolerable distance to travel by foot pre- or post-workout. You're at the fukcing gym, people!!

I now turn my ire toward specific individuals who work out at my gym, who shall remain nameless (mainly because I don't really know their actual names):

Sasquatch man. You, the guy that has more body hair than an adult male silver-back gorilla. I understand that your copious amount of body hair is stiflingly hot - it's the equivalent of working out wearing a sweater. I understand that you want to wear as little clothing as possible to stay relatively cool while working out, and that a wife beater offers some coverage and also ventilation at the same time, but for the love of all that is holy - stop it, stop it, stop it. Cover it up, please. And while I'm addressing you, stop standing in front of the fan, hogging all the air. For one, you're blocking the airflow for the rest of the room. For two, the sight of your back and shoulder hair blowing in the breeze is distracting, to say the least.

Mr. I Wear Cologne to the Gym - what the hell? I understand if you slapped on a little Cool Water on in the morning, went to work, and the smell was still lingering when you got to the gym. I understand it - but guess what? You wore too fucking much cologne if I can still smell it three machines away, ten hours after you applied it. Better still are the fucktards who apply cologne before they work out, requiring the use of a gas mask to even crack out a few reps in their general vicinity. What in the holy hell are you trying to cover up? I get that you don't want to be "that stinky guy" that we all talk about, and point at, and make fun of. But a little bit of sweat is expected at the gym. It's normal. Other gym-goers aren't bothered by it, because they are generally sweating their asses off as well, and smell pretty ripe themselves. Your smelling sweaty is preferable to choking us all on the stench of your Kenneth Cole Black, I promise.

You, the guy that smells like cat piss, and not just vaguely of it either. You know who you are, how can you not? You've somehow managed to marinate yourself in Eau de Tomcat. I think that you must be raising an entire den of mountain lions in the secrecy of your basement, because no common housecat could produce that level of stink. I can tell that you're on the premises just by taking one whiff after walking in the door. I don't even make it past the front desk before the lining of my nostrils is assailed by essence of litterbox. Even better, the harder you workout, the more you sweat, and the stinkier you become. You smell so offensive by the end of your workout that you should have little wavy stink lines above your head, a la Pigpen from the Peanuts comic strip. While the cologne guy is annoying, I would gladly pay untold sums of money to buy a 50 gallon vat of Drakkar Noir to dip your funky ass in.

The January gym-goers. I know you made a New Year's resolution to get off your ass and lose some weight, but there are millions of you, hogging up my elliptical trainer, milling about in the walkways, and just pissing me off in general with your new-to-the-gym cluelessness. I just have to take a deep breath, and know that by March, you will all be gone, back to Super-Sizing your meals, and lazing about on the sofa, watching the O.C.

The Grunter. 300 pound squats, or 20 pound bicep curls - it doesn't matter, you want to make sure we all know how hard you're working. I shudder to think what you may sound like in the bedroom, if pumping iron does this to you. Sounding like a cross between a deer in rut and a Cro-Magnon man trying his hardest to communicate quantum physics, you push, press and pull your way through your reps, your grunts of effort echoing through the weight room. I eagerly await the day you shit your pants or get a hernia from the exertion. If you could, please notify my in advance of said event. I want to bring a camera.

In conclusion... thank you, you cat-piss smelling bastard. Thank you, New Year's resolution makers. Thank you Mr. Polo Blue. Thank you, the lazy and illegal parkers. Thank you, obnoxious grunter. You are the reason that my workouts are so effective - your moronic behaviors stoke my rage until it burns with the fire of a thousand suns. My fury spurs me to work out harder, with more intensity, until the point of near-exhaustion. So while you piss me off to no fucking end, I guess that you're sort of doing me a favor. Thanks again, and keep up the good work.

Pennies

Seriously. Are we done with the fucking pennies yet? Because it is time. The American public hasn't been using them for about a decade. They have become so worthless, that people give them to each other as a matter of routine. Get your change, pick out the pennies, and leave them in that "have a penny take a penny" cup there on the counter for the next guy. Need a penny or two? Well, there should be a few there for you, because the last guy sure as fuck didn't want his. That's the game.

I hate when stores don't want to play the game. If a store doesn't have that little cup, I am immediately annoyed. The hell if I'm fishing another dollar out of my pants because it came to $5.02. When that cash register rings up $5.02 and you look at me, were fixing to have a long staredown. I'll return an item before I break another dollar and let you give me three more of the fucking things in return. And that item probably had a profit margin of at least $.03 to you, so who's the loser now? Get it? As long as pennies are still around, you'd better play the game.

When there is no cup for the pennies, my normal routine has become to fish through my change and immediately pick them out and deposit them into the trash. Not only are they worthless, but they are disgusting, and I'm not carrying them around. Most have been in circulation for 20 years, and as the stepchild of your change purse, they have been given no love. They live in ashtrays, parking lots, and huge jars owned by 72 year old men who remember when they were worth something. Old copper is gross enough to start with. Add to the fact that they are covered in gum and shit and filth, and you need to wash your hands every time one touches you.

Think about this: a stamp costs $0.39. 39 pennies weigh 6 ounces, give or take. It takes about two stamps to mail 6 ounces of stuff. Therefore, if I wanted to mail someone 39 cents in pennies, it would cost me 78 cents. By my definition, its pretty clear cut. When a monetary unit can't afford to mail itself, it's worthless. Dont get all cocky either, nickels... you arent far behind. (I don't really know how much 39 pennies weigh, that was just a guess. I have a scale at home, and could find out, but I can't since I threw out all my fucking pennies. Just trust me though... I'm right on this on general principle. I know by instinct that they can't mail themselves.)

Vending machines won't even take them. They hired engineers to assure that any penny which entered the slot would be immediately routed straight to the change opening. Think about the engineering involved. Dimes, which are smaller than pennies, go right into the till, but they had to create some sort of mechanism that would sort out and eliminate any penny that enters the machine, lest they get involved with the REAL money that is in there, and contaminate it with their inherent worthlessness.

Have you ever tried to give one to a bum? Seriously. I almost got in a fight in downtown Seattle last year over the fact that I gave a bum a handful of pennies. The man had no home, was hungry, cold and hopeless, yet when I gave him a handful of pennies, he tried to spit on me. Fortunately, his lack of front teeth seriously affected his aiming abilities and I easily dodged the saliva-based projectile, but nonetheless.

Isn't this enough evidence for Alan Greenspan and the Fed to say enough is enough? I now summarize my case:

1. Pennies are considered worthless, even by homeless people
2. Pennies are disgusting
3. Pennies can't even mail themselves
4. Americans are actually giving them to strangers, like some nationwide game of hot potato
5. Vending machines are even too smart to take them. Their job is to take money, not pennies.

Case Closed. Please, Federal Reserve, I beg of you. End the game.

I'm done with the fucking pennies.

Dear Lady Who Works in My Office

Really? You're getting married? It's news to me. After all, you only call your mother to talk about it five trillion times a day. Loudly. Sometimes you call your sister and your best friend and have the exact same conversation again, this time adding, "well, my mom said..." You then seek out random coworkers and start the process all over again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Every fucking day. Look lady on the other side of the cubicle wall whom I've never met - I am happy for you. I am sure you and your fiancé will live happily ever after and have 2.5 wonderful WASPy children and drive 2.3 nice, but sensible cars; but if you mention this Goddamned mother fucking wedding one more time I am going to rip the mouse from your computer and strangle you with the fucking cord. Hey - I am all for the institution of marriage, whether it be among gay couples or straight couples. Interracial or homogenous. Animal, Vegetable or Mineral. I myself am married. But I swear to God that your holy union will not come to pass if I hear you prattle on about each and every minute fucking detail one more time. This may come as a HUGE shock to you, but no one in this office is lying awake at night worrying or coming in from the parking lot at a dead run, kicking over little old ladies in an attempt to get here as fast as we can in order to overhear what GODDAMN FLOWER ARRANGEMENT YOU FINALLY DECIDED ON!

What? You decided to get white roses instead of red? Stop the presses! You decided on Pastor Bill instead of Pastor Tom? I can now sleep at night! Your Great Aunt Edna says she can make it after all? Hooray! Here I thought she wouldn't make it.

Really. Shut. The fuck. Up. Do you really think we want to hear which hotel it is you are going to put all the guests in? I guess you do because every morning you regale us with an update on everything from square footage of the rooms to the layout of the fucking bathrooms. Seriously? The bathrooms? Do YOU even care about this? Do you honestly think that I go home wondering where you and your fiancé will finally decide to place the cake in the reception hall? Sure, the corner would be nice and out of the way, but don't you want it in the center, where all can see you so cutely shove cake in his face? Well, I don't think about it. The only thing I really ever think about is how I hope you drop the fucking knife you cut the cake with and impale your fiancé's foot.

Look - you're not special, you're not different. This isn't the first wedding in the history of the world. People get married every fucking day. This isn't the most important day of your life, though I've heard you say that no less than 10 times a day. I swear to Christ, if I hear that little gem pass your lips again, I will personally write and hand-deliver a letter of condolence to the groom, expressing my sympathies at having married such a self-absorbed, self-important cunt. If your wedding day is the most important day of your life, you, my dear, are profoundly fucked up.

So, lady on the other side of the cubicle wall whom I've never met, if you do want to wear that pretty nice dress (whose picture, incidentally, you have shown me, a person you don't even know, on at least 15 different occasions), you will kindly shut your fucking mouth before I, and everyone else in this office, take turns beating you like a fucking piñata. On a similar note, if the word "fiancé" slips out of your mouth one more time, you'd better prepare yourself for a severe and merciless gouging of the eyes with the first letter opener I can find.
Anyway, congratulations on the engagement. Bitch.

The most annoying people on Earth, Part I

You know, people have really been pissing me off lately. So much, in fact, that I'm starting a new blog series - The Most Annoying People on Earth.

For some reason, my anger as of late has been directed toward celebrities who can't just be fucking celebrities.  Noooo... they can't just be happy acting or singing.  They have to have their own fragrance line or fashion label, or they decide to start running their mouths and get involved in politics.  So let's just see if we can't start with Paul Hewson.  That's Bono for the un-initiated.

Disclaimer:
What I am about to say is not in reference to Bono the musician.  I understand he is quite popular and I am told he is very talented as well.  If you are one of the mouth-breathing masses who thinks that U2's The Joshua Tree (which I do own) is the greatest rock and roll album ever and have vivid memories about how your life was inexplicably changed the first time you heard "With or Without You" performed live, please don't send me emails/leave me comments calling me an ass and/or trying to get me to change my mind.  I don't care what you think and I am not easily persuaded.

Okay, Bono... hmmm... what can we say about Bono?  Since this isn't going to be about music, I guess there really is only one thing I would like to say to he-who-wears-the-bug-eyed-glasses:

SHUT THE FUCK UP AND MIND YOUR OWN GODDAMN BUSINESS.

Yeah, I guess that about sums it up.  I know you are famous.  I know that with fame comes the ability to reach a wide audience.  And I understand that with that kind of reach comes the ability to enact change.  I do.  But I really think you've overstepped your bounds.  At the end of the day you're just a musician.  A musician with a trite moniker.

I will even go so far as to say that I believe you actually do care about the causes you support.  I'm sure all the money and time you've donated have done some good.  And I am sure that by using your fame to bring attention to a cause, you've helped in ways money never could.  But you have no earthly business meeting with world leaders to discuss policy.  You're out of your element.  You aren't a politician.  You're an entertainer.  That's all.  You sing songs to people who pay for the privilege of forgetting their troubles for an hour or two. 

You've recently been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.  Your 2nd nomination in two years.  And I've gotta say, this irritates and confuses the hell out of me. This has to be some sort of large-scale practical joke.  I mean really - what the everloving hell does a musician have to do with world peace?  Does anyone really think that you deserve to be among the ranks of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela and the fucking Dalai Lama?  Jesus Christ, I hope to hell not.  Granted, Jimmy Carter somehow managed to sneak in under the radar, but I'm willing to let that slide, since he was at least President (albeit a largely ineffective one).

To a large portion of the audience at your shows, you're just a way to spend their disposable income.  You could be replaced by marijuana.  Or functional alcoholism.  Or golf.  Or bowling.  Yes, bowling.  How important can you be if you can be replaced by bowling?  Not too fucking important, in my estimation.

Ok, so I've been pretty hard on Bono.  But to be fair, there is another group to blame for his self-important strutting about.  That's right, I'm talking about the political leaders who listen to him.  Seriously, what the fuck are you thinking?  In most cases you've been elected by the people of your country to represent them.  I, for one, would rather you not take your cues from the mouthpiece of a has-been, no longer relevant Irish rock band who's last album licked balls.  And not in a good way.

Alright I think that's enough.  Bring on the comments.

Oh, and Bono - lose the smirk.  Dick.

Love Junkie

So, for reasons that are unimportant to the purpose of this rant, I found myself in a hotel Sunday night. Late at night and lacking anything better to do, I stumbled across the movie The Notebook on cable. Now normally, I avoid this type of movie like the plague. I have the same allergic reaction to this type of open faucet of tear-jerking swill as I do to any other book written by Nicholas Sparks - an author who never met a romantic cliché, dramatic contrivance, transparent plot point or insipid line of dialogue he didn't love like a dog in heat. The Notebook is, in fact, a laughable story all around.. a cheesy, dopey, by-the-numbers affair that fails in its every attempt to be anything other than painfully predictable. The characters are clichés straight out of the Stock Character Handbook, their actions a seemingly endless parade of poorly constructed hazy lens falling-in-love bits, mixed with the occasional limp confrontations, all supported by bad dialogue. There is not one single millisecond of originality or opaqueness of plot in the entirety of The Notebook. Yet somehow, even while rolling my eyes and sighing dramatically at the aggravatingly trite and predictable corniness of the character's circumstances, I still became honestly and emotionally invested in the story. By the end of the movie, I found myself in tears, hoping that the main characters would end up together, and sobbing like a child at the final conclusion.

Going into it, I didn't want to like this movie. In fact, I wanted to hate it with all the fury that I normally reserve for all so-called "chick flicks". And really, after watching it, I still cannot say that I liked the film. Actually, I disliked The Notebook, not because it's a rotten movie, because it IS that, have no doubt. Rather, I disliked The Notebook for what it forced me to discover about myself. At the end of the movie, as I wiped away my tears, I realized that for all my toughness, my impervious to the world facade, I'm nothing more than a hopeless romantic at my core. And the reason I avoid these films is because, often, my own life is nothing like that depicted in movies such as The Notebook.

What these types of films fail to recognize is that real life never plays out the way it does in the movies. The guy doesn't always get the girl, true love doesn't always win. But then again, if the movies were like real life, who would go see them? Nobody wants to sit through ninety minutes of actors struggling and failing with the same issues that they face in their own lives. Real life, real love, as opposed to what we see on the big screen, is messy. It hurts. It's ugly far more than it's beautiful. That's not to say it isn't still great, but it's never the way it is in the movies - all wrapped up in a neat little package, all the loose ends tied up, everybody living happily ever after. It's this vast separation between fact and fiction that is where I run into trouble.

I find myself embittered, not because I've been hurt so badly in the past and in such a spectacular manner that I no longer believe in love - that's far from the truth. I'm somehow bitter because despite how many times I've had my heart broken, I still believe in love. Deep down, I believe that love conquers all, even though I've been shown time and again that it doesn't. Despite my past, despite what common sense tells me is impossible, I believe in that all-consuming, passionate, torrid love story. That desperate, triumphing over all obstacles, clinging to the object of your heart's desire, as depicted in the still image above, from The Notebook. The kind of story where the knight rescues the damsel in distress, and they ride off into the sunset, to live happily ever after. And that proves to be my downfall time and again - ignoring what I know to be reality, while looking for that perfect movie ending.

So really, while on the surface, this appears to be a rant about a spectacularly schmaltzy movie, it's really more a rant about myself, and my mistaken ideals. They say that the first step toward recovery from any addiction is realizing that you have a problem. I consider The Notebook to be my intervention, my wakeup call. Like the heroin junkie who wakes up one morning in the gutter, I have hit bottom. It's time to pull myself up, dust myself off, and start being realistic about my expectations in the romance department. Because until I can do that, any and all relationships I'm in will be doomed to fail.

Now, if only there was a Love-aholics Anonymous...

Neurotically yours,
--jen.

The L Word

As I was watching a movie the other night, I casually remarked to a friend of mine during a dramatic scene that the downfall of most relationships is the indiscriminate use of the "L" word. Love. Ever since I said that last week, I've been thinking about it over and over. Sometimes my rambling oddball comments have a small grain of truth. I've thought back at the failed relationships I've had and those of my friends as well, and at the root of many, using the "L" word has played a part.

I think of how people blindly jump on this rollercoaster of pleasure and pain they call love and how many feel its bitter sting at the end. Is it because the idea of self-sacrifice isn't clear to them at the beginning? Is it a lack of understanding that emotions will run high and low in all relationships? Or are they just in love with the idea of love? Perhaps it is that people jump to using the word "love" far too soon, and far too easily. It saddens me that many people throw the word "love" around so much that it has lost its meaning. It has almost become a pointless word. "I love you" isn't a statement said to just end a phone conversation. It's not something that if you say it enough times, it becomes magically true. Love has truly lost its meaning (if there ever was a concise meaning to it), and people seem to say "I love you" to anyone and everyone, without really meaning it, or more accurately, without understanding the meaning of such a powerful word... such that an illusion of love is created in their minds and all emotion behind it lost...

I mean, if you think about it, is there even really a need to tell someone that you love them in the first place? If you truly love them, wouldn't your actions speak for themselves anyway? Wouldn't the two of you have such a deep understanding of how each other feels, that those three words wouldn't even need to be said? Do you have to hear it in order to understand that it's true? That's not to say that you should never say it, don't get me wrong, but to say that you shouldn't use it so much or so indiscriminately that it loses its meaning in the context of your relationship. Think of the couple that's been married fifty years - do they say it non-stop the way they did in the beginning of the relationship? Probably not. That doesn't make it any less true. I know that when I am in love with someone, it's shown through my actions, in how I look at him, in how I touch him, not by my use of any particular word or phrase. Of course I use the "L" word, I say "I love you", but if I don't say it every five minutes, that doesn't mean I love him any less.

Oh, that I had the strength to prevent others from leaping before they look, from using the "L" word inappropriately, to stop the heartbreak before it starts. But I've learned that when hearts are set on someone, even the wisest of advice often falls upon deaf ears. Experience is a harsh teacher - everyone learns that lesson at least once, and more often than not, people leave relationships with a bitter taste in their mouths and their hearts. I know this holds true for me. In fact, I can really only speak for myself.

That being said, let me also state empatically that this is not an advocation for or against relationships, or even for or against love. I'm only ranting because it seems that love, or the idea of it, is thrown about far too casually these days - be it in the media or amongst my personal acquaintances. Holding hands, smiling, kissing, "making love" and riding off into the sunset... The idea of it seems so promising, but there is so much more to love than that. There has to be. I see so many people jump headlong and fall into relationships that are bound to fail, blithely spitting out the "L" word before they could possibly experience that feeling. Commitment, self-sacrifice, forgiveness, being willing to do anything to make another happy, being there in good times and bad... these are the things that build a lasting relationship. These things - both giving them and receiving them - are what constitute love. Not just saying the word, but following through in action.

That isn't to say that I've never fallen victim to this emotional pitfall. Of course I have. I've spit out the "L" word when that really wasn't the case... Sometimes to avoid hurting another's feelings, others because I was so wrapped up in that new relationship giddiness that I said it thinking I truly meant it, only to have the harsh reality come crashing down later. However, having been taught that lesson the hard way more than once, I resolve to never speak that word blindly again... to think before I speak, without exception. Like everything else in my life though, it's a work in progress - I'm still learning.