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Why Sex With Robots is Always Wrong: The Impending Demise of the Human Species. In other words, DON’T DATE ROBOTS.
The second link, but oddly enough not the first, is brought to you by the Space Pope!
I recently spent an afternoon flipping through CDs and websites looking for a first dance song that would suit both our tastes. It’s turning out to be tricky, especially since most of Elvis Costello’s work is better suited to a divorce proceeding than to a wedding.
After a few hours, I has a “well, duh!” moment and turned to Google. Ach, my eyes! Ze google does nuzzing! Well, nuzzing except remind me why I have assiduously avoided The Knot: The Knot’s first pick for hip first dance songs is Elvis Costello’s “Alison.”
“Alison.”
Now, I was eight when “Elvis Costello released My Aim is True. “Alison” is probably the first Elvis Costello song I knew word-for-word all the way through, probably the first Elvis Costello song I sang in the shower, probably the first Elvis Costello song that spurred me to buy an Elvis Costello album as I crept toward my teens. This is a song I loved long before I could really get it. This song twangs a string deep inside my chest.
And even as a kid, I understood that “Alison” is not a song about finding your true love and life companion.
No, really. The lyrics to “Alison,” listed by the official Elvis Costello website and fan club, emphasis mine:
Oh it’s so funny to be seeing you after so long, girl.
And with the way you look I understand
that you were not impressed.
But I heard you let that little friend of mine
take off your party dress.
I’m not going to get too sentimental
like those other sticky valentines,
’cause I don’t know if you’ve been loving some body.
I only know it isn’t mine.
Alison, I know this world is killing you.
Oh, Alison, my aim is true.
Well I see you’ve got a husband now.
Did he leave your pretty fingers lying
in the wedding cake?
You used to hold him right in your hand.
I’ll bet he took all he could take.
Sometimes I wish that I could stop you from talking
when I hear the silly things that you say.
I think somebody better put out the big light,
cause I can’t stand to see you this way.
Alison, I know this world is killing you.
Oh, Alison, my aim is true.
My aim is true.
I’ve been studying the giant listing of vows at [wedding forum redacted], and as I do, I’m struck by how many people’s vows make untenable promises about “always”: I will always keep this passion alive, I will always adore you, you’ll always be my beloved and most awesomest best friend.
And I’m thinking, “…really? So, you can consciously control your impulses, turning on and off your flow of oxytocin and serotonin like a tap? Coooooool*. But most people don’t work like that.”
The realist** in me suddenly sees why marriage services are so often three-pronged: a celebration of the present with its smoochy-faced love; a reminder that marriage is Serious Business; a sobering pledge of fortitude in the face of challenges. The couple vows to behave a certain way, because, duh, you can’t control your passions, but you can control your behavior.
Because emotions are slippery, fickle things, I can’t sensibly promise how I will feel in the future. The Fella is my bestest beloved most awesomest best friend, and I’m entering this marriage believing that will always be so. I will nurture and bolster my passion, my fondness, my adoration of him, and do my best to give him reason to do the same. I enter this marriage believing that our love, sympathy, and hard work will keep these feelings vital and growing, always shifting and changing with us.
I can hope and believe and, most importantly, I can strive to make it so; I can’t promise that my crazy hindbrain will follow in step every day.
But I can pledge to treat him as someone I love and adore, as someone for whom I am passionate, as my bestest beloved most awesomest best friend. What, then, does that mean? For me, it means a promise of respect, trust, honesty, kindness, sympathy, and a mutual assumption of good intent now and in the future — even if I’m hurt, even in anger, even if my lizard-brain hisses at me.
Surely this is the crucial part of the vows, in any case. Ardent love and bountiful affection don’t test our vows of commitment. Marriage (or any bond of love or friendship) is predicated not on the continuance of fleeting passions, but on the determination to honor our promises, even (especially) when loving kindness flags or falters.
*I would like to cut you up and study you. Please?
**Yes, The Fella is aware that he’s marrying an affectless robot.
In which I discuss my ticklishness and willfully disregard my interest in primatology.
Elsa: Just because I howl like a monkey and kick, that doesn’t mean you have to stop.
The Fella: That is how monkeys say “no.”
Elsa: That’s how monkeys say everything .
Yesterday, Gaoo had us over for our wedding cake tasting. The Fella and I sat in her pretty front room, the sun warming our backs. We paged through her albums of gorgeous cakes and batted around ideas the way kittens bat around colorful balls of yarn, all while we ate dainty slices of cake and tiny chocolate cups filled with frosting off a delicate floral porcelain plate.
(Gaoo’s an artist and a genius, incidentally. I already knew that in an abstract way, but I understood it viscerally last week when she glanced at my preliminary sketch and immediately added a whole new dimension that blew my mind.)
As I ran errands after the tasting, I discovered that a local housewares boutique sells the exact jars I wanted for our (non-floral, non-perishable) centerpieces. The owner, who knows me by sight, generously offered a ridiculously sweet deal on a dozen. (Buy local, kids!) Her offer changed “Hey, that’s a great idea! Now how can I do it cheaper?” to “Hey, that’s a great idea! Let’s do it!” So, more than four months before the wedding, we already have our very simple table decor lined up.
And we finished the invitations!
The completion of these first few gewgaws and trinkets nudges me toward an inescapable conclusion: holy cats, we’re having a wedding. That must mean we’re getting married.
Yikes.
And Yippee!
A few more details remain, of course. For example, we haven’t settled on a first dance song. So far, we’ve eliminated:
- Yakkety Sax
- The Final Countdown
- The Futurama remix of Rocketship.
So, three songs down, eleventy billion to go.
In which she describes a love for the ages.
I had my first bridal meltdown just a few days after the engagement.
Okay, okay — it was a whole-world meltdown, and only incidentally bridal: the computer had crashed, my back was spasming, a loved one had snubbed me, the kitchen was a mess, I’d had a spat online, and life seemed out of control for just one evening. Topping it off, I’d started to check out (and to price, yikes) reception venues, and I’d contemplated the Lovecraftian heaps of chiffon and satin that any bridal boutique would try to foist upon me if I should enter looking for a lace-trimmed hanky or other modest bridal accoutrement.
And then I started crying. Not decorous, soft-focus bridal-portrait tears rolling down joy-pinked cheeks. No. Great honking sobs rippled through with snot-rattles.
And The Fella, who is the best thing in my world, handed me a roll of tissue, turned out the light, and laid down with me in the quiet dark. Quiet except for my snorting sobs, anyway. And we talked peacefully and with love, and without anybody calling me crazy, which was a nice touch and a mark of great restraint.
The conversation went on for a while, winding around too many concerns to catalogue, but it ended with this exchange:
The Fella: And everyone will be happy for us! And what will we say to anyone who isn’t?
Elsa: [sniffling] Um. “Cram it with walnuts, cranky”?
The Fella: Okay! Yes!
I suspect the simple, silently repeated phrase “Cram it with walnuts” will let me smile my way through many hours of party-planning, routine elevator chat with acquaintances puzzled by the absence of an engagement ring, and inescapable conversations about what we must have at the wedding.
If you arrive at the wedding to find a glassine bag full of candied walnuts at your place, or a bowl of gold-leafed walnuts as a centerpiece, or a maple-walnut wedding cake, you’ll know why.
Be happy for us, celebrate with us, or allow me to provide your walnuts.
Once again I find it late in the day when I need to post my nanoblomo entry and I’m out of steam. I briefly considered plagiarizing one of Elsa’s posts, but I can’t sink that low. Let’s see if I have any notes of my own for posts so I can copy myself…
A ha! From conversations with JM:
JM: I’ll miss you when you’re dead.
Elli: Of corpse.
_____
JM: (trips) Ow!
Elli: What happened?
JM: I’m turning more and more into you.
Married almost 10 years and I get my revenge.
JM: Hey, you’re not getting a photo model release for that.
Elli: Our marriage certificate is my model release.
For some reason JM loves to tie my socks in a knot… while I’m wearing them, that is. Well, many weeks ago I got my revenge and a photo to boot. (I can’t find previous photos of my knotted socks–they must be in storage.) Maybe when he’s away next week, I’ll knot all the socks in his drawer…
Elli
Elsa
