Photo from ‘Gainsbourg, une vie heroique’. Watch the French and English trailers here and here – but do watch both, you’d be amused.

Jacqueline’s reaction to me telling her about Albert’s idea that we should try to enjoy our time together as if nothing happened until our imminent breakup in a few months (imagine it with a French accent):

I have this image in my mind, it’s like you’re running towards a wall, you see the wall, but you keep running.

Pretty much. I wish I knew relationship Parkour.

In the light of recent developments (see here and here), I find it really hard to stay cool, focus on the positives, and make the most of the time still left with Albert. At the same time, he’s still so sweet and loving (see here and here), that I find it really hard to break up with him.  Wise readers, what should I do? Comments would be appreciated.

Picture from here, where you can find many gorgeous others. Obviously NSFW.

With Valentine’s Day still in recent memory, I would like to share with you Dan Savage’s tongue-in-cheek definitions of love, being in love, and knowing when you found ‘the one’. You can find the original column here. If you’re not reading it yet or you’re not listening to his podcast, do it. It will change your life.

Anonymous asks:

I realize Savage Love is a sex-advice column (as evidenced by much vulgar language), but I’m going to ask anyway.

(1) What is your definition of love?

(2) How do you know if you’re in “love”?

(3) How do you know if they’re the “one”?

Dan Savage answers:

(1) Love is making out with someone after you’ve blown a load on his/her face.

(2) You know you’re in love when you’re eating breakfast in a restaurant together the morning after he/she blew a load on your face and you suddenly realize that you didn’t wash your face when you got out of bed that morning and you don’t care.

(3) You know he/she is the one when he/she realizes that you’ve just realized that you’re eating breakfast in a restaurant the morning after he/she blew a load on your face and you didn’t wash your face when you got out of bed that morning and he/she smiles, leans over the table, and gives you a kiss.

Albert and I were talking again about ‘attachments’. He was telling me how it was unethical to allow people to get hurt by allowing them to get attached to him, so that, in the past, whenever he realised a girl got too emotionally involved, he would end things.

I’m listening and I’m thinking about this night.

But, baby, this doesn’t make any sense. If in a year you have six relationships that last two months each, then you’d end up hurting six people, but if you have two relationships that last six months, you’d only hurt two.

Yes, but, he said with a glimmer in his eyes, if you had 365 one night stands, you would hurt no one!

That’s bullshit! At least half of those girls would want to see you again. People sometimes pretend that they are cool with things being casual because they realise this is the only way to keep hanging out with you, and I’ve been in both positions before, the one who was pretending and the one who bought the lie.

So, the only way to avoid hurting people is to be celibate.

Exactly! Or to stay with one girl.

Celibacy… or marriage!, he said, with a look of horror in his eyes.

And if you are going to sleep with someone new every night, chances are that the majority of them would be plain looking, or if they’re pretty they might be stupid or if they’re not stupid they’re mean, or they might not be good in bed, or they might not shave their pussies…

Stop, stop, stop! Albert said, wrestling me down. There’s something to be said about variety…

So you’re saying that you’d rather sleep with three hundred mingers…

Than with one perfect woman every night for a year? Albert was clearly thinking about it, not knowing what to say.

Then you’re an idiot.

Many of my ex-girlfriends would agree with you.

__________________________________________________________________

*Title suggested by the man himself.

What is pink, red, moist and delicious?

A few days ago, I could see the shadow of a thought on Albert’s pretty face. He didn’t know what to get me for Valentine’s Day. I told him I didn’t care about it, and, honestly, I don’t, but I knew he was going to come up with something anyway, so I suggested he baked me a cake. He bought strawberries, coconut flakes and little heart-shaped sprinkles and he baked a cake full of goodness and with just the right balance between crunchy and moist. We decorated it together. I drew a heart and arrow, and he wrote our initials, A and A.

Albert was in the bathtub when we had this conversation. We love to take baths, so I bought him an army of rubber toys: a rubber duck, a purple whale, a crocodile, an octopus and a lobster. And a crab, a blue seal, and a smiley starfish. We took an epic bath together yesterday, fighting and squirting each other with our toys.

At brunch with my friends on Saturday, I was telling them about Albert and the cake. My super-cool lesbian friend Jacqueline, perpetually single: ‘So when is Valentine’s Day, on the 17th?’. I love Jacqueline. ‘It’s all about being nice to each other all the other 364 days of the year, no?’ (imagine this with a delightful French accent). She’s exactly right, and I feel a bit guilty for giving into the Hallmark spirit, but the boy had so much fun with it that I’m for once converted.

I’m with you though, no matter what you’re going through. Two years ago on Valentine’s Day, I had just broken up with Maurice, so I spent the day with a big box of tissues and Eternal Sunshine on repeat. I’m also with you if you’re in a couple that scoffs at such silliness. But if you decide to do the traditional romantic dinner tomorrow, remember what Dan Savage said: fuck first!

PS: This song is playing in my head. At 3:05, Leo looks a bit like my baby.

Pic found here.

I’m sleeping. I’m dreaming of being a maid, sweeping floors. Random guys are catcalling as I’m making my way past them. I’m ignoring them, because I’m waiting for my man.

Good morning, baby!

I turn around, pull the blanket on top of my head, and hug my pillow. I’m not ready to get up.

Good morning, baby!

I open one eye and see Albert’s big grin and blue eyes staring adoringly. The sunlight makes our curtains glow.

Baby, didn’t we talk about it before? If my eyes are closed, it means I’m asleep. Eyes closed, sleepy.

Oh, sorry, you can go back to sleep now.

I kiss him on the cheek and frame his face with my hands. Our noses touch.

It’s how we can communicate in our dreams.

Are you ok, baby?

I had a nightmare. There was a guy who wanted to take you away from me. We were at the theatre, it was a really nice theatre and I got in and I assumed you weren’t there, but then I saw you talking with this guy and he was all over you and then I waved at you and you came to me.

So it wasn’t a real nightmare.

But I still wanted to cuddle, Albert said, batting his eyelashes and looking all shy.

Lots of things happened since I posted last time.

And then lots of things happened since I started this draft. I got stuck, because I didn’t know how to continue the story. I still don’t.

About two weeks ago, Albert received an acceptance letter from a university up north. He’s going to train to become a teacher, which is awesome and totally rocks and I can picture him being very good at it and happy doing it. I’m a bit fed up with Boring City, where we live, and would welcome the chance to go somewhere new. And I love him, so I would move up north for a year, it’s not a big deal, but the boy doesn’t want me to. In his ideal universe, we would go on as if nothing happened, enjoy each other’s company till September, then say our goodbyes. The good thing is that, unlike going travelling around the world, this would not happen before fall. The bad thing is that, unlike breaking up because he’s travelling around the world, this doesn’t make any sense to me. He wants to break up with me because he loves me too much. We’re too happy. He’s become too attached, and this scares him. He thinks he let himself go. ‘So what is it that I’m preventing you from doing?’ ‘Umm, nothing’. Unlike him, I’m a  big believer that I flourish in relationships. That, because of my attachments, I can live a bigger life, become better, wiser, more confident and more accomplished. We talked about (t)his dilemma at length, but I’m incapable to understand his reasoning, probably because he’s generating it as we speak. It’s probably just a hunch, his intuition telling him to run away, rather than a well-formed argument, but what I’ve learned in my many years of misadventures and lost loves is that you can’t fuck with intuition. The weird thing is that he’s still so sweet to me, so loving. I have no doubt that he loves me and that I make him happy, so, naturally, I can’t understand why he wants it to end.

My reply to his train of thought was that life is short and filled with suffering, and if we have something like this it’s foolish to throw it away. Good relationships are hard to come by. Life will certainly confront us with a good share of loss and ill health, so when something miraculously good happens, we should say thank you, please, can I have some more.

In the immortal words of Woody Allen as Boris Yellnikoff:

That’s why I can’t say enough times, whatever love you can get and give, whatever happiness you can filch or provide, every temporary measure of grace, whatever works.

I understand that he’s afraid of commitment, of being with someone forever and ever (and so am I), but we’re in such a good place with our relationship that I don’t want it to end now. I don’t want it to end in September. It’s too fucking soon.

You make me so happy, baby, it’s like you’re my smack. (He’s never done smack.) And that’s why I have to give it up, you see?

But baby, the problem with smack is that it destroys your brain cells and it turns you into a peril for society. The problem is not that it makes you feel good. Are you saying that I’m toxic for you?

No.

Boys. Gotta love them boys.

My emotions have been all over the place these last few days. I’ve been feeling mad and sad, lovey-dovey and down and confident and hopeful, but I think I’m about to make peace with it. Yeah, it’s not ideal. It’s not what I want, but it still means that I’ll get to enjoy the boy’s affection, incredible sex and good cooking a little longer. And then we’ll see. There is no way we’ll solve this by talking and thinking about it any longer. To be honest, there is a small part of me that thinks he might just change his mind and decide to keep me. Silly, I know. But if he doesn’t, well, it wasn’t meant to be. I don’t want to be with anyone who doesn’t want me. And that’s why, even though the times are strange, everything is as it should be.

Found this lovely picture here.

Maybe I should start writing a novel about pansexual vampire eye-candy. I like vampires and I like candy. This might work.

Albert, lifting my skirt and looking at my legs while I was moving away from the sofa:

When I’m rich, you can be my secretary. We would fuck all day long. ‘Give me those papers, Miss Sexypants’, I’d tell you, and you’d be like, ‘yes, sir’.

Thanks, sweetie.