“We toggle the gas pedal of politics between zealotry and apathy,” she complained. “One day we parade in protest for rights, wrongs and indifferences of some group, some perp, some activist, some governmental faction that failed or should not even exist, and the next day we go home and order up Chinese, bitching about how long the delivery service takes to go two city blocks.”
Her dilated pupils betrayed the calm cynical shellac of her words.
I wanted to reply with something equally poised and stunning, but my mind was stuck on crystals. Sometimes I get like that, in a mental tic. I read that quote by Stendhal earlier.
What did Stendhal know about the process of crystallization, of solutes and nuclei, when he teased out the strands of love, a taxonomy of four–the usual suspects like passion, ego, appearance, and lust? Something like that.
“I call ‘crystallization’ that action of the mind that discovers fresh perfections in its beloved at every turn of events.”
Delusion.
We submerge others in the playground of our projections, our imagined lovelies that just get lovelier–because we want it so.
Objectification.
Sylvia Plath wrote plainer (“I think I made you up inside my head”).
“I believe you,” I replied to fill the lull of exhaustion her statement left. “So what are we going to do to change the world? Order lunch?”
I chuckled.
She stared through me, and my thoughts squinted, wondering what lay behind me.
In the gaze of the other 