J
U V V V W U V
Of warm love, hot hate,
& cold cereal
A Valentine's card. To both of
you from one of me:
Last year, Valentine's Day came
on a Sunday. I was glad that it did, I
joked to my friends, because that
meant nobody else got any mail that
day either.
I say this not as an attempt for
pity - OK, not exclusively as an
attempt for pity - but rather to re-
mind you of the feeling that you, as
two people in love, might not re-
member too well. But you've felt it
before, both of you, if you've felt 'at
all.
It's that vague resentment, that
unique brand of hatred born out of
love, or out of the need for it. It's
the feeling that, as the Joe Jackson
song puts it, "Happy couples ain't
no friends of mine." Anyone who's
walked home alone from a party be-
hind a pair of lovers performing ex-
ploratory surgery on one another
with their tongues, hoping that your
third grade teacher will walk up,
ruler in hand, and make them stop
because they haven't brought enough
for everybody - or, better yet, that
they'll just get hit by a truck - has
felt it. Anyone who's sat at a table
for one and watched someone else
cradle a warm hand instead of a cold
bottle of ketchup has lived it. Any-
one who's spent Valentine's Day
without - well, without a
"Valentine" - knows.it like the in-
side of their empty mailbox.
Is it wrong? Probably. Is it hate?
You damn betcha. And like any
other brand of hate, from Nazism to
moralism, it's one of the strongest
bonds around. It joins us, regardless
of sex, in a s/he wo/man Hater's
Club the Little Rascals could only
have dreamed about. And even if we
suspend our membership for a while
- maybe for the rest of our lives, if
we're lucky - we all have the card
somewhere in our wallets. Even you
two. It makes us watch Dudley Do-
Right cartoons and root for Snidely
Whiplash, together in our loneli-
ness, knowing that sour grapes is
the best meal to share.
I suppose you're wondering if I'm
writing this just to vent some spleen
at you. After all, you're in love, and
Valentine's Day is just four days
away. You're winning.
But this card isn't a show of re-
sentment. I wish it were. I wish I
could see you walking down the
street, hand in hand, oblivious to the
rest of the world, and sigh, and roll
my eyes, and shoot you a look of
disgust, quickly, and maybe mutter,
"Jesus," to myself, and keep walk-
EON JIM
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ing.
But I can't, because chances are
good I won't see you walking down
the street hand in hand at all, for
reasons you know all too well. And
if I do, I can't react like I normally
might when I see a couple in love.
Instead I stare at you just a frac-
tion of a second longer than I would
otherwise, first out of surprise, then
out of guilt. Because I'm wondering
if I'm looking too long, or looking
away too quickly, and all the while
hoping to God that you don't catch a
glimpse of me puzzling this whole
thing over. Because I hope you don't
think I'm looking you with the
same hatred so many people do -
one entirely different than the one I
just described. Because you're not
something I see every day.
Then I look away and I wish you
luck instead of ill, because enough
people wish you ill already. People
who don't normally hold anger to-
wards a boyfriend and girlfriend, a
wife and husband, a woman and her
man.
Because you're none of these.
Because you're both the same sex.
They don't even have to hide it.
They can snicker about you to your
face just as well asbehind your
backs; they can use the word
"faggot" just as easily as their
grandparents used the word "nigger,"
receive just as much approval for it,
and with just as little culpability.
Most of the rest of us will stand by
just as silently as our grandparents.
And they don't have to stop there.
They can beat the hell out you when
you walk out of the bar together,
knowing full well that the police
officer that comes (if anyone calls) is
just as likely to hate you just as
much, and to be just a l-i-i-ittle bit
too slow to catch the offenders, just
a 1-i-i-ittle bit fuzzy on the details
when conducting the investigation.
Knowing full well that the Love
That Dare Not Speak Its Name is
now the Love That Dare Not File A
Police Report.
Why do they do this? Why not?
Enough people are racists, even
though most people feel (or say)
racism is evil, an embarrassment.
But homophobia? Homophobia is a
redeeming quality! It's a feature of
any man worth his weight in Bud
Light and L.A. Gear models.
Homophobia is funny! It's the
comic thrust behind any number of
movies and Three's Company
episodes.
.Hell, homophobia sells! Turn on
the TV sometime. You'll see a
commercial for Kellogg's Nut 'N'
Honey Crunch, with a pack of
rough-and-ready cowboys - read
men - and a grizzled old cook, that
goes something like this:
COWBOYS: What's for break-
fast?
COOK: Nut 'N' Honey.
Whereupon the cook finds him-
self staring down the righteous gun
barrels of a pack of offended cow-
boys.
Get it?
Nothin', honey.
Get it?
Something tells me they
wouldn't be that angry to find out
nothin's for breakfast.
Of course, it's around this time of
year that it becomes most pro-
nounced. This Tuesday we celebrate
love - or at least its profitable ex-
pressions - but it's telling to see
what kinds of love we don't cele-
brate. Go to a Hallmark shop. Look
See Poniewozik, Page 20
i
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Good Christmas gift ideas.
A
EEKEN
SINCE 1989
4LMANNC
llmst*44, ,
a
_.... _
Nineteen Years ago...
February 10, 1970
Terrorists attack passangers waiting to board an Israeli airliner in
Munich, Germany. The grenade-hurdling terrorists killed one passenger
before being caught up in gun-fire with police. Twelve persons, including
three terrorists, were woundednin thefight at Munich's Reim airport.
This was the fifth Arab guerilla attack against El Al, Israel's national
airline, in the past 30 months.
Forty years ago...
February 10, 1949
Actor Robert Mitchum trades in his Hollywood tweeds for jail denim as
the bobby soxer's hero is sentanced to 60 days in jail for conspiring to
possess marijuana.
Sixty-six Years ago...
February 10, 1923
"Director James M. Davis, head of federal prohibition forces of
Michigan, states yesterday... that no prohibition officers would attend the
Junior Hop.
"Mr. Davis said, however, that there would be agents in Ann Arbor to
watch for bootleggers."
Items in the Weekend Almanac are culled from past issues of
the Daily on this date in history. All articles are taken from
Daily files which are open to public review in the Daily's
library.
OFF THE WALL
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(In response)
Bach kicks ass!
(In response)
Schumann is better
(In response)
Beethoven is best
The only time an education is
interrupted is upon entering school
e.
Anarchy vs. Chemistry:
Long live Anarchy!
New recreation facility in Tehran:
The spa of Iran
...
There is no gravity: The world sucks
...
You can pick your friends and you
can pick your nose, but you can't
wipe your friends on the side of a
couch.
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