I finished the J.D. Robb book. These always take two days or less to read. It really is the kind of book I read just to fill familiar assumptions, I guess. I asked for and found a reader to whom I will send the book tomorrow. I think I get more pleasure from passing the book on to a friend then I do from reading the book. Weird, but true.

I did another version of the March 19 leaflet today. Also, I helped Ravenhub write an article about the Iraqi elections for the local free newspaper. We do a great job working together. Ravenhub is great at coming up with ideas and concepts and I love adding the bells and whistles to his basic ideas. I am amazed at what a balanced team we can be when we work together.

In wandering around the web the last few days I read a challenge by a feminist blogger to write about Valentine's day from a feminist viewpoint. I'm a bit late at it, but I think I'll give it a try.

When I was a teenager, I spent my summers working shitty jobs. One summer, I worked in the cornfields de-tassling corn. A couple of summers, I worked in a corn canning factory pulling 12-hour shifts. During those long days I spent hours on end constructing elaborate fantasies about my dream life with whatever man was the focus of my current crush. I'm not talking about three or four minute visions about what might be possible. Nope. I constructed entire lifetimes for hours on end. I included career changes, I furnished apartments and houses, I provided children and storylines for years or more.

These elaborate fictions owed as much to my vivid imagination as they did to the phenomenal boredom that comes from stuffing corncobs into slots on an assembly line at a rate of 60 ears per minute or more.

I had read all the love stories. I read Jane Eyre eight or nine times. Wuthering Heights, Little Women and its sequels and Gone with the Wind were read and re-read. Certainly I had a few teen magazines. The romance du jour was "Love Story" -- a movie that had the convenience of ending before our lovers could get bored with each other!

And yet… my daydreams tended to focus on everyday events. Coming home: "I'm home, June!" "In here, Ward!" Discussing the details of the day, sharing stories with my S.O. about my co-workers and their antics.

Even then, I seemed to realize that the highs and lows of intense romance didn't hold a candle to the day-to-day details of two people who were comfortable with each other and enjoyed sharing each other's lives at the end of the day.

I really think that the Great American Novel will not be written until somebody can adequately express the beauty and wonder of true friendship and admiration between two people who have built a long-term relationship on such minor details. To adequately express all the shared knowledge, the sentences that need not be finished -- that would be a true achievement in romantic fiction.

I remember when Ravenhub and I were friends, before the great, scary, leap into romance. We were teasing each other about something -- I can't remember what. I told him:

"I'm behind you 1,000 percent."

He responded, "Thanks, George."

I should have known right then and there that he was the man for me. Unfortunately, I had only read those fake romance books, so it took me longer to realize the truth.