Pre-Raphaelite artist John Collier - Lady Godiva, 1897.
As an impressionable teenager I fell in love with the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, their art, their poetry, their complicated and incestuous relationships, and the dreamy way they portrayed women from literature and history.
I can't say that Collier is a favorite, or that this Lady Godiva painting featured prominently in my youthful obsession, but I like it, and that's good enough for now.
Anyway, I'm feeling a little feminista these days, so any strong subversive female is gonna be rocking my boat in blogs to come. Lady G as you may or may not know took to the streets naked on horseback to protest her hubby, Lord G, taxing the life outta the saddo villagers. Not the most conventional of fiscal strategies but I'm sure her naked rebellion brought a little smile back to the peasants' faces.
Enough about art, time for a moan and a gripe, Cat-style; after three tumultuous years of an almost relationship I forced a good friend to have a show down with a waster she was devoting way too much time and energy to with little reciprocity, and after worming and wiggling as wasters are wont to do, he hit her with this gem, "I said I loved you. I never said I was in love with you." Utter bollocks you say, but is there a tiny difference between the Alpha and Beta version of loving, and being in love with someone, or is it just a cowardly way of saying, "I may have felt something before, I just don't find you that hot anymore, so I'm going to argue a little semantics."
Why doesn't like come with such degrees of ambivalence? I know that on more than one occasion I've felt like I like someone in general I'm just not in like with them at that particular moment but its not a sentiment you can get away with expressing, not if you wanted to be comprehended in any case. I'm falling for someone long distance style, a hell I promised I wouldn't put myself through again. As a fairly longtime platonic acquaintance, and a close-ish friend, I've been very casual about miss yous, love yous, any other terms of affections that pop into my head and pose no threat because of the lightweight sentiment attached to them. But lately I've felt a change in the air. Lately I can't trill off the love yous because I'm suspecting an in love with you sensation behind the words.
I feel your groan at this point.
I mirror it.
Bloody waster may have had a point...
"Cat Among the Pigeons"
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