some thoughts from MD

since i haven't blogged in a whole 36 hours, i thought i'd fill the space left by my creative entropy with someone else's words. i stole this from mike doughty's blog because i thought it was an interesting expression of an idea i've been trying to articulate for at least five years. without going into detail on what i do or don't agree with...well, just "well said". that covers it. obviously the personal-experience parts of the post don't parallel. well, unless you count trying to off yourself with cutlery as "therapy".

"There's a drumbeat in my head that I ought to find a woman and get married and have a kid, and I want to have a kid principally because I think I'd be good at it, that my years of therapy, and understanding of my own half-fucked childhood would enable me to raise a child in a world of fun and kindness. But it's partially a need and partially a feeling of inexplicable obligation, and I mistrust it.

But the misery of my parents' marriage in the 70s and 80s has convinced me that I have to take it day at a time, day at a time, day at a time; meet somebody and sloooooowly get to know her, live with her, get past the romantic phase and become a team, like a unit, and only then decide to create another life. I owe it to whoever's little life that is.

My last relationship broke up because she wanted to get married, and I was like, yes! Absolutely! Let's get married! Only I outlined the program above, and in addition told her I wanted her to go to therapy because of the stories she had told me about her childhood (and not to mention had serious misgivings about the weed she was smoking, near-secretively, when I wasn't around). This horrified her; especially, I think, the part about getting past the romantic phase. Despite the family she grew up in, she clung to a belief in a lifelong fuzzy-feely marriage. Maybe people do have them.

I think I'm looking for a genius."