Love Languages

There is this book out there that is about love languages. It is like those ubiquitous Mars Venus books. It is a book purchased primarily by newlywed wives who give it to newlywed husbands for the purpose of using the book to talk about the relationship.

Of course, what newlywed wives don't realize that their husbands got married so that they would never have to talk about the relationship ever again.

I say this because early in our marriage, I was presented with such a book. With a typical "I-do-not-realize-the-powers-I'm-tampering-with" attitude, I ignored it entirely, explaining that I had a stack of other books that really needed my attention first, especially considering the fact I had no idea if Spider-Man would win or not. I mean, the Green Goblin has a flying glider. How can Spider-Man possibly compete with that?

A few months after being presented with and subsequently ignoring the love languages book, an attractive single lady friend of ours told us how the love languages book totally changed her life. Because this woman was pretty, I feigned interest in the book. Which led to a "why-don't-you-ever-feign-interest-for-me-anymore" discussion with the Mrs.

Which eventually led to us discussing the relationship for a looooooooong time. Which is what the Mrs. wanted in the first place. I could have avoided this situation entirely by just reading the book and discussing it with her waaaay back when she wanted me to.

This, of course, reminds me of the Republican Vice Presidential candidate.

When I read about her, it is like there are two voices in my head and they are speaking two completely different love languages. And because there is not any common ground between these love languages, I cannot make up my mind what I think about her.

Here's an example:

One part of the brain goes, "I am very concerned about her lack of foreign policy experience."

The other part of the brain goes, "Dude. Vikings!"


One part of the brain goes, "In the brief time she has been in the national limelight, there seems to be a lot of inconsistencies between what she says she stands for and how she actually behaves in office."

To which the other part of the brain retorts, "Duuuuuude. Vikings!"


And finally the first part of the brain goes, "Neither political party truly represents your views on the issues, why even consider breaking with your tradition of voting for third party wackos in presidential elections? Especially when your reasons for subverting your principles are trivial bordering on nonsensical?"

The response?

"Duuuuuude. Vikings!"

My Lunch with Cyber

One of the advantages of living in the Dallas area is that I am in close proximity to Cyber D. As many of you know, Cyber D, Gyuss Baltaar, and I all went to college together until one fateful night when I left that institute of higher learning, slunk off into the shadows, and began to pursue my sacred destiny of heavy drinking.

Thanks to the power of the internet (specifically Facebook), Cyber D found me and wrote a really nice blog entry about me. A blog entry to which I responded in kind.

Every since these fateful blog entries, we have been talking on and off about meeting for lunch, and after a series of almost-connects, we finally met last week. I showed up early because I told Cyber "look for the man dressed up as a Viking" and I wanted to make sure no other Vikings showed up and forced me to wait outside. (For those of you unaware of this, Dallas has a very strict "one guy dressed up as a Viking per restaurant" city ordinance after it was determined that two or more Vikings eventually led to berserker rages, pillaging, and streets that run red with blood and grog. While cities like Seattle were having a grand ol' time in the 90s with their grunge movement and their flannel, Dallas lived in fear of wild packs of Nordic invaders wielding battle axes. Anyway, I love to dress up as a Viking and listen to Pearl Jam sometimes, just for nostalgia's sake.)

We picked a nice little Mexican restaurant known for its great food and family of vampire-slaying waitresses - a nice quiet place for two guys to reminisce and talk. I looked around, wondering what Cyber now looked like. Maybe he had turned evil and grown a goatee? Maybe he joined the hair club for men and now wore a patch of carpet on the top of his head. Or worse! A patch of carpet with the price tag still attached! The mind reeled.

But then I saw the shiny silver dome of his space helmet and knew within seconds that it was the same ol' Cyber. We embraced in that manly way only a Viking and a man in a silver space outfit can and then sat down to our hearty meal of jalapenos and dipping sauce.

"So, how have you been these past... eight, nine, ten... DARN! I will have to take off my shoes to go any higher, so let's just say TEN years."

"I've been great. I started blogging with a group called 'The Quad'. There are four of us." (At this point, Cyber D did a great thing and held up the appropriate number of fingers so I wouldn't get confused. What a helpful guy, that Cyber D.)

"Wow. Four whole people. That must have been your secret to getting smokin' hot women to read and comment on your blogs all the time. I only started blogging with one person." (I held up a single finger so he would know the number.)

"Was that one person you?"

"You are smart as well as good looking! That is why I've always liked you, Cyber D! Yes it was just me, and now I see how I went wrong. I should have started writing the blog with FOUR people at the beginning, and then the smokin' hot women would have started reading. As it stands now, I have had to graciously accept all of the smokin' hot women from your blog traffic."

"I am sure smokin' hot women read your blog before I linked to you and send over some of my spare Quadness."

"Yes, there were a few, but I am related to all of them. I am automatically disqualified from calling women relatives smokin' hot. If I do that too much, I'll get deported to one of those unmentionable states like Alabama, West Virginia, or Louisiana."

"Yes. I suppose that might cause problems."

"But now that we've reconnected, it is all better." I reached across the table and clasped his hand in a rough, manly, Viking way. Maybe I held it a little too long, because he eventually wrested it away, explaining that he needed it for the dipping sauce.

We talked for a long time, sharing stories that were both epic and exciting. He focused on his space and time adventures while I talked mostly about how the people of Dallas kept mistaking me for a mere barbarian when I was obviously a Viking.

We talked about our blogs and who our secret blog crushes are, but the whole purpose of writing blog entries is to keep things short, so I shall end it here. I am sure Cyber D has his own version of our lunch that he might be willing to share on his blog sometime soon.