Love and other vices

Quote du jour: Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age. - Anais Nin


Site du jour: In honor of V-day, I thought I'd throw out this site, where the romance publisher Harlequin describes why they decided to patent the kiss.

This invention, The Essential Romantic Kiss ("The Kiss"), involves a method by which two people can reciprocate their romantic feelings towards one another in a manner that deepens attachment, provides pleasure and promotes physical and emotional well‐being. Further, this method improves with repetition, can be performed at virtually any time and, if registered by the US Patent Office, will be freely available to all persons everywhere in the interests of enhancing romantic love and generally making the world a better place.

In case you think I'm kidding, here's the seven page kiss patent.

And, in other news, there's an anti-Valentine's day movement in Malaysia. "Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said Monday's celebration of romantic love was "not suitable" for Muslims." The idea is that Valentine's day encourages vice. I don't get that. Commercializing romance is crass, maybe, but I have trouble associating heart-shaped chocolates with vice.

Hmmmn... well, okay, I guess I could think up a few associations...

Shout out du jour: Have to say, I love Xenia's Valentine's Day card. I am envious.

Exercise du jour: Really, considering the day, I should be indulging in some patented kind of vice-encouraging exercise. But I refuse to post that as a goal here. It's not That Kind of Blog. Instead, I'll settle for posting the goal of bicycling. Is there such a thing as bicycle vice? Hmmmn.... maybe I'd rather not know. Forget I asked that question. Nevermind. I really don't want to know.

FAIL. I am a failure. Or at least I feel like one. It was a dark and stormy day, with lots of rain falling vertically and wind blowing horizontally, so I guess I can give myself a pass on the bike ride. But in the evening -- of course! -- another computer crisis from a long-distance relative. Moral: exercise first thing on the elliptical. Evenings are not safe. [In this case, literally. Another cyclist was killed riding in that storm, even though he was wearing lights and was off to the side. A car, driven too fast for the conditions, "didn't see him" in an intersection.]

Rodin's unpatented version of The Kiss courtesy of Ulleskelf.