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The Mushiest (COOLLIST) Ever

Well, February 14th approaches again, and as usual, I find myself
stranded, a charged particle in a mass of ionic bonded molecules.

I don't feel too bad about this, however.  When I was in school, I'd
often feel poor upon seeing all the romantic things afoot.  In Austin,
the only real evidence of this upcoming event has been this week's
issues of the Austin Chronicle and XLent, both which, understandably,
had cover stories on things to do with your romantic partner on
Valentine's Day.

Oh well.  I saw a suggestion somewhere for something for us hydrogen
nuclei (gotta stay positive!) to do.  While I can't celebrate personal
romance, I can express love.  I am fortunate to have a collection of
good friends, spanning the country, that I can honestly say that I
love.  I have a suspicion that some of them love me back.

Now, love, much to my chagrin, is not a constant thing.  It takes
effort to maintain it, and such maintainence may be nearly impossible
at the distances in which I'm currently working.  I sometimes doubt
that any of you would miss it if I stopped sending these missives
forth.  However, usually when I'm starting to feel particularly blue, I
get a mail or a phone call that boost my red and green levels
sufficiently so I can joyously carry on.

Dr. Landiss, in a seminar, divided love into three concepts from the
Greeks: agape, eros, and philos; respectively, respect for ones
humanity, lust (both positive and negative), and deep friendship.  I
hope that this 14th, even those of us with little eros in our lives
can appreciate the philos that we share and attenuate a personal agape
for other people, all around us.

In closing, sorry for turning off the usual irony and wit that
pervades this.  I'm really trying to tone down the ironic aspects of
my life now.  There really is too much about which to feel positive
for me to dwell on the unfortunate and contradictory.  That doesn't
mean that I will ignore suffering and strife, but I will make an
effort to find what is good and make it better.

Yours, in all that matters,
-- 
Benjamin L. Combee (combee@techwood.org) <URL:http://www.yak.net/combee/>
that public-access-TV-making, video-game-collecting, cryptography-pushing,
World-Wide-Web-explaining, fem-music-loving, bad-pun-creating guy in Austin
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