Songs of Love, but Not for Me

Well, Lake Chuckers, spring is in the air and the sound of love is all around. Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. I don’t know this from personal experience, you understand, only the odd movie and catchy tune.

There is a scene in “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” one of my all-time favorites, when Hugh Grant realizes he will probably never get married. In the background Elton John is singing: “They’re writing songs of love, but not for me. . .”

Yeah. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Even though I’ve been married all but about six months of my life since I was 20 years old, now that I’m not, people all of a sudden are trying to pair me off. One of my friends hopefully tried to play cupid the other day, leading me to believe word had spread that I wasn’t going on a date with anybody absent a threat to shoot an arrow in my butt. Gee, you’d think those three divorces might be a hint that . . hmmmm. Let’s just say I am as good at relationships as Dick Cheney was at open government.

Music choices might give you a clue. No Paul McCartney silly love songs for me. I like that angry woman music. Mary Chapin Carpenter used to be my favorite, until the Dixie Chicks came out with a song that contained these lyrics: “Like a fool I lent my soul to love, and it paid me back in change. God help me, am I the only one who ever felt this way?” Now that’s a sing-along I can relate to.

Not that being single is inherently bad. In fact, I’m enjoying every minute of it. Hell, I just bought a new car and didn’t ask anybody’s opinion first. I looked for reasons not to buy it. Tried real hard to think of more practical uses for the money. Bought a beautiful, black car with a push-button ignition.

Doing the single thing, I first looked at a sporty car, the one on the commercials during football games with a push-button ignition and the David Bowie background music. Couldn’t get into it. Too tall (yeah, right). The salesman came up with the line of the month: “Doyle, I can probably get you in that car, but it would take the fire department and the jaws of life to get you out.”

Since I needed the jaws of life to extricate myself from at least one marriage, that wasn’t an experience I wanted to repeat.

But every experience is a teacher, and as a newly single guy, I have learned a few things:

•    You are never too old to enjoy the freedom of throwing your underwear on the floor when you’re through with them. I presume this applies only to men.

•    If you use a really sticky dish on top, there is almost no limit to how high your stack can build up in the sink until you remember to buy dishwasher soap.

•    Never have company more than one day after the maid comes to clean.

•    If your maid speaks only Spanish, it’s helpful to learn certain words. “Socks” are “calcetines.”

•    Empty bedrooms attract adult children.

•    Never leave a teenager in charge of a litter box.

•    Potted plants and kittens don’t mix, particularly when the litter box is full.

•    As a general rule, never date outside your generation. Either way.

•    If you ever give in to the temptation to join a computer-dating site, even “just to see who’s out there,” you will inevitably be matched with at least one of your exes.

•    One of the great rewards in life is becoming friends with an ex, particularly if you share children. Really. Men and women get along much better without the interference of sexual tension.

•    Poetry and dreams are sweeter in my position, because they contain at least the promise of redemptive love. Here are a few stanzas from a good one by James Fenton, as published by Garrison Keillor in Good Poems for Hard Times. It is the favorite of a new friend of mine.


In Paris With You
   
Don't talk to me of love. I've had an earful
And I get tearful when I've downed a drink or two.
I'm one of your talking wounded.
I'm a hostage. I'm marooned.
But I'm in Paris with you.

Yes, I'm angry at the way I've been bamboozled
And resentful at the mess I've been through.
I admit I'm on the rebound
And I don't care where are we bound.
I'm in Paris with you.

Don't talk to me of love. Let's talk of Paris,
The little bit of Paris in our view.
There's that crack across the ceiling
And the hotel walls are peeling
And I'm in Paris with you.

I talk a good game, as most of you know by now, but I am truly a cockeyed optimist about all things. There is no better wish to leave you than a trip to Paris with a new love for Valentine’s, wherever Paris may be for you.

Go do it. And I’ll see you, smiling, on the flip.