The courage to be imperfect, the willingness to say "I love you" first, and the willingness to do something where there are no guarantees...

Excerpted from The power of vulnerability, a TED Talk by Brene Brown

There was only one variable that separated the people who have a strong sense of love and belonging and the people who really struggle for it. And that was, the people who have a strong sense of love and belonging believe they're worthy of love and belonging. That's it. They believe they're worthy. And to me, the hard part of the one thing that keeps us out of connection is our fear that we're not worthy of connection, was something that, personally and professionally, I felt like I needed to understand better. So what I did is I took all of the interviews where I saw worthiness, where I saw people living that way, and just looked at those.

What do these people have in common? ...These are whole-hearted people, living from this deep sense of worthiness...And so here's what I found. What they had in common was a sense of courage. And I want to separate courage and bravery for you for a minute. Courage, the original definition of courage when it first came into the English language -- it's from the Latin word cor, meaning heart -- and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. And so these folks had, very simply, the courage to be imperfect. They had the compassion to be kind to themselves first and then to others, because, as it turns out, we can't practice compassion with other people if we can't treat ourselves kindly. And the last was they had connection, and -- this was the hard part -- as a result of authenticity, they were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they were, which you have to absolutely do that for connection.

The other thing that they had in common was this. They fully embraced vulnerability. They believed that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful. They didn't talk about vulnerability being comfortable, nor did they talk about it being excruciating -- as I had heard it earlier in the shame interviewing. They just talked about it being necessary. They talked about the willingness to say "I love you" first, the willingness to do something where there are no guarantees, the willingness to breathe through waiting for the doctor to call after your mammogram. They're willing to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out. They thought this was fundamental.

Be a leader, be someone that is kind, audacious and helps to push the boundaries of love. —Lady Gaga

“For those of you that are being bullied, know that the problem is not inside of you. Know that it is insecurity inside the person that is bullying you. And for those of you who don’t feel bullied, take it upon yourself to be nurturing. Be a leader, be someone that is kind, audacious and helps to push the boundaries of love.” Lady Gaga

I can’t say whether or not I am a fan of Lady Gaga’s music. That said I am now a certified avid fan of her social activism. Surprisingly, I am enamored by what she has to proselytize as guest editor for today’s Metro NY. Please read, if only the piece called, ‘Be a leader and push the boundaries of love.’ "Today we have learned in the agony of war that great power involves great responsibility."— FDR

Click here to read one of her more moving editorials.

Got Milk? Join The Campaign for Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness

Got Milk? Join The Campaign for Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.” Jalal ad-Din Rumi

December 2, 2008, New York City:

Got Milk? Join The Campaign for Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness

Happiness is honesty.

However, critical to the successful tenure of honesty (and thus happiness) is tolerance.

People often lie because they are afraid of being rejected, afraid of being judged, and know, based on experience, that they cannot be honest, lest they face unfortunate consequences, because they are “different” and not falling in line with the program.

Although I spent almost 8 years studying international relations at the university and thus learned a great deal about détente, diplomacy and compromise, my oldest son, who was four at the time, taught me my greatest lesson about the importance of truth and the tolerance of others.

We were eating dinner and I was being stubborn and making him “eat everything on his plate,” as I often did, as I still do on occasion. The torment of this poor child was justified by some adulthood nonsense like “I work hard to put food on the table, so now you’ve got to eat it.”

But the ugly truth was that Enzo didn’t like what I had made for him. To the health-and-money conscious chagrin of many parents like me, this is often the case with kids. Thus, getting them to “eat their vegetables” is often like trying to push a square peg into a round hole.

However, as “right” as I may have been to force my child to eat what I had served him, I was also inadvertently teaching him—intolerance and importance of learning to lie. Because, although the honest truth was that the meal was distasteful to him, to survive and avoid an unpleasant experience, he had to learn to deceive me by placing the half-chewed morsel in his napkin.

When I caught him, I immediately recognized my own folly and simply laughed, kissed him and excused him from the table. I felt somewhat ashamed that I had tortured my innocent four-year old son in the name of an ideal, and immediately recognized why and where and when we begin to learn to lie; where the innocence of childhood is lost and where the misery of adulthood begins.

In sum, it is often when we are up against intolerance, when we know that speaking or being or acting honestly will only get us in trouble that we hide, disguise, deceive or lie by omission.

This is why teaching and learning—to compromise our ideals, to accept that our truths are not necessarily the truths of others, and making an effort to accept others, regardless of their differences, is so vital to the health and well-being of humanity and the world today.

"How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these." George Washington Carver

*

On Sunday morning, after standing in the cold pitter-pattering of rain for thirty-minutes, I got to go inside to see Milk.

Film critics are already saying that Sean Penn deserves an Oscar for his leading role as Harvey in this heroic and inspiring movie.

Milk is the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay publicly elected official in the United States, if not the world, who went from feeling lost at 40 in New York at his new corporate job in New York City in 1970 to leading and tragically becoming a martyr for the gay pride movement in San Francisco when he and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated on November 27, 1978.

Writer John Cloud remarked on Milk’s influence, "After he defied the governing class of San Francisco in 1977 to become a member of its board of supervisors, many people—straight and gay—had to adjust to a new reality he embodied: that a gay person could live an honest life and succeed." In 1999, Time Magazine listed Harvey as a hero and an icon and as one of The Time 100 Most Important People of the Twentieth Century.

Until Harvey came along in 1977, there was much to be said for the lack of tolerance in the United States. Although the nation had witnessed and been changed by the women’s and civil rights movements, millions of people whose love, affection and desire for others of the same sex were still hiding in the closet for fear of being judged, imprisoned and often subject to the threat of violence.

(By the way, much like the use of the misnomers of “black” and “white” have long been used to abet the division of races throughout history, I strongly believe that we should stop associating being “gay” primarily with one’s sexual orientation. Because being homo-sexual means a lot more than who you are apt to sleep with. As per Keith Olbermann’s recent commentary, it is also very much a a question of love, affection and the pursuit of happiness. )

As Time Magazine summarized it in their June 14, 1999 issue, being Gay and accepted in America still had a long way to go a mere thirty years ago:

"In the 1970s, many psychiatrists still called homosexuality a mental illness. In one entirely routine case, the Supreme Court refused in 1978 to overturn the prison sentence of a man convicted solely of having sex with another consenting man. A year before, it had let stand the firing of a stellar Tacoma, Wash., teacher who made the mistake of telling the truth when his principal asked if he was homosexual…To be young and realize you were gay in the 1970s was to await an adulthood encumbered with dim career prospects, fake wedding rings and darkened bar windows."

Thus, due to the brave actions of a man like Harvey Milk, a vast number of normal, loving, productive, creative and happy people all over the U.S. were encouraged and instilled with the courage to come out openly about who they were and fulfill one of the basic tenets of the Declaration of Independence signed over 200 years earlier—“that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

"If a bullet should enter my brain, let the bullet destroy every closet door." Harvey Milk


*

This morning I read an article in amNewYork, courtesy of Mike Swift of the San Jose Mercury News, titled “Homosexuality in Genes…”

According to this article, recent studies have shown that “compared to straight men, gay men are more likely to be left-handed, to be younger siblings of older brothers and to have hair that whorls in a counterclockwise direction.”

Although one might argue that this new scientific evidence strengthens the notion (i.e. the obvious truth) that homosexuality is a natural, normal and innate inclination, I was also alarmed by the way this news piece presented the significance of the study results. Because by focusing on identifiable, physical traits one might be giving license to bigots to discriminate.

That said, in light of the recent controversial passing of Proposition 8 in California and the release of the critically-acclaimed film Milk, these study results are timely, encouraging and will hopefully lead to some intelligent conversations and conclusions about human nature, living life honestly and the value of tolerance.

As always, thanks for reading.

"I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird." Paul McCartney


See also: A Question of Love

A Question of Love

A Question of Love
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

Spread Happiness: Gay Marriage is a Question of Love

November 10, 2008, New York City:

Please take a moment to watch this important video, A Question of Love by Keith Olbermann, Anchor for MSNBC's 'Countdown,' and then pass it on to others.

You can read the transcript here: Marriage is a Question of Love

As is written on Paul Jeromack's facebook page, where I originally came across this beautiful commentary, "If you don't tear up watching this, you have no soul."

I couldn't agree more.

Lorenzo

Gettin' Some in NYC! (on Valentine's Day, 2008)

Gettin' Some in NYC! (on Valentine's Day, 2008)
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

The New York City Department of Health launched a very cool new TV, radio and print ad campaign for condom distribution today with the official slogan: Get Some.

Today, the Department is dispersing street teams to meet commuters at busy crossroads around the city – including Union Square in Manhattan, the Atlantic Avenue station in Brooklyn, and 149th Street and Grand Concourse in the Bronx – to distribute the official new NYC Condom for Valentine’s Day, which was redesigned by Yves Behar, founder of the San Francisco-based design agency, fuseproject.

However, “despite its new packaging, the NYC Condom itself has not changed. The distinctive new wrapper contains the same lubricated Lifestyles latex condom that was in last year’s subway-themed package.”

For more information about the campaign and where you can “get some” read the Department’s press release on this important event.

Also check out the cool very-very short, seconds-long, art videos created for the campaign on the Department’s website.

This has been a public service message brought to you by Lorenzo!

WATCH A Special Valentine’s Day Video I Created: Six Stories of Love

God, I Love New York!

God, I Love New York!
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

View LARGE.

I know I’ve said it before, if you count my posted photos that’s practically 25,000 times before, but I just have to say it again—God, I Love New York!

I got off the R train this morning at 6:55 feeling exuberant after taking a few good shots on the subway and walked up onto Broadway at 23rd—I was in awe of what I saw.

Most people, especially hurried-frazzled, and often frustrated, New Yorkers might likely say, “There’s a bunch of people crossing the street—so what?”

So what is that I saw something much more magnificent.

For I saw a unified horde of dark and tan overcoats scurrying across the glistening wet streets of this teeming metropolis, streets that are often striped with incredibly-aesthetically appealing white lines; the moving scene as a whole, complementing an exquisitely grey-and-blue overcast sky that served as the backdrop to the landmark Flat Iron building in the near-distance.

At that moment I yearned to get my camera out and take more photos. Alas, I knew I had important work at the office waiting for me, and so I couldn’t linger and loiter about the streets as I would have otherwise preferred to have done. I thought to myself, “God, what I would give to be able just to take photos of the city and its people all day long!”

As I crossed Madison Square Park, I also thought, “God, I Love New York!”

Because, I do.

What I see everyday is often gut-wrenchingly amazing to me. Thus, I am often compelled to either take my camera or pen-and-pad out to somehow capture the ineffable.

In particular, I am especially enamored by city people, if only because I believe everyday people are beautiful—much more so than nipped-and-tucked, botoxed-and-otherwise “beautified” celebrities. And I think, if I lived in the country, instead of the city, I find the weathered faces and callused hands just as beguiling.

Nonetheless and allthemore, I am rather fortunate to live and work and love in New York City.

Thus, I practically creamed my pants this morning when I saw a young lady crossing the street dressed in a fashionable P-coat, Prince-purple velvet stilettos, an unlit cigarette coolly dangling from her hand, and jeans tattered at the cuffs—I was whet, not because it turned me on in some sort of sordid-lascivious way, but rather because it piqued the bestial aesthete in me.

Sometimes I walk about this city and think, “Who needs galleries and catwalks and glossy magazines when you have a vibrant-and-glorious living museum buzzing about you day-in and day-out?”

Fact is, if you open your eyes and allow all your senses to tune in to your surroundings, the scenery of your diurnal journey—you don’t! need others to curate, exhibit or otherwise display what is "beautiful" for you. Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder, and thus, sometimes all you need to do is simply stop, if only for a moment, and behold.

Problem is, most of us, me included, are stuck behind a desk for most of the day. Most of us must grind and grunt and bend over, over and over again, all day long, so that ultimately, we don’t get to see or experience much beyond three grey carpeted cubicle walls. And most of us, are too frazzled and preoccupied otherwise when we leave to take notice of anything as we horse-blind our way home.

Regardless, on my short excursions to and from work, I still find myself invigorated by the little I do get to behold on the streets of my beloved city.

Much of the time what I feel about this town is equivalent to what one feels when you first fall in love with someone, and you want to tell them how and why and that you do—love them—over and over again.

And that’s exactly how I feel about New York City.

Thus, with this set I’m sharing a few sneak preview shots of four different sets of new photos that I am working on, which convey my exuberance and passion for NYC.

The subway shots here were taken this morning at 7 AM on the 1 and R trains, the other two were taken last Thursday night, during and after a photo shoot with my dear friend Gillian Crosson for a prospective upcoming advertising campaign.

Loving Lindsay

Loving Lindsay
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

Lovin’ Lindsay

Dear Lindsay,

So, I’ve heard. Okay, I read…

I was on the express train downtown this morning, when, there, over some stranger’s shoulder I caught a glimpse of you, or rather, your picture. At second glance, because you know I was compelled to look again, I read the news—you’ve checked into rehab.

My immediate reaction was that it wasn’t the drugs or the meds of the drinking that was-is (are-were) the problem, but that simply you haven’t been gettin’ enuf love—shit baby, I know exactly how you’re feeling right now, darling, dear.

Guess you didn’t get my message then, huh? I wrote to you, some time ago, just to let you know that not only am I available, but that I’d immediately, no questions asked, no pre-nup even, marry you.

Alas, it seems that my humble suggestion fell in between all the other fan letters, the red carpet walks, all those talks with reporters eager to reveal the real you.

Little do they know though that you’re just as human as anyone else, extraordinarily talented perhaps, but still just as human. And that like a lot of other girls you want to marry and make babies, and that essentially what it all boils down to is that, like other girls (and boys) you just want to feel and be loved.

That’s what the glitz and glamour and flashing lights are all about anyway, right? You love us by entertaining because you love to make people happy, love to see them smile and laugh and cry even; in other words, you like to make them feel. In turn, we love you back by screaming “We love you Lindsay!” from the other side of the velvet rope, and by making proposals from afar.

But that ain’t enough is it?

You’re only human, aren’t you?

I know, I know how you feel Lindsay. And I sincerely wish you a quick recovery.

Wearing My Heart on My Sleeve (for you),
lorenzo

It Is Only The Beginning

It Is Only The Beginning
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

The End is Not The End
(it is only the beginning)

Last night, my estranged wife and I sat down in the breakfast nook and looked over the photo from her recent high school reunion.

She demurely asked me if she could “Ask me a question”

I hesitated for a moment, if only because there is this thick entanglement of synapses in my brain that when triggered tell me to pause, tell me to figure out how I should react, tell me that I must assess the moment first and then respond, because something seemed amiss here.

Thus, “I knew what was coming,” because I understood by the context, by the moment, and by her look that she wanted to ask me a “guy” question.

Despite this learned, and truly token, reason for pause, I was actually open to answering.

Besides, before we were dating, before we fell in love and decided to try this matrimony thing, before the kids, the house and the corporate job—we were actually very good friends. And things are fairly amicable now, living apart is apparently the elixir to everything.

Nonetheless and allthemore, she eventually asked and I honestly answered. I was actually happy for her. She is a wonderful woman and she deserves a lot of attention—at least a lot more than I was able to give her when we were together the last couple of tumultuous years.

(12 hours later)

Anyway, sleepy-eyed and a little worried about being late to work (again) this morning, I consoled myself on the bus stuck in traffic by reminiscing on this warm moment.

As a result, it occurred to me, I had an epiphany, that there are really very few bad experiences in life, that for the most part life is pretty kosher, it is vibrant, teeming with possibility, and it is wonderful—if you want it to be.

The two bad experiences that immediately came to mind though were—one, actually being physically sick (Enzo, our oldest, was reeling from a cold this morning, crying because he didn’t want to go to school)—we all know how excruciatingly grueling truly ailing can be— when there never seems to be an end to it all and you vow to clean up your act if only you ‘re allowed to survive; and two, is the experience of being in a sick relationship—not sick as in perverted, but sick as in quite normal, sick as in the natural disintegration of it all, when you can’t just have fun anymore and actually have to deal (with issues, decisions, obligations, and dreams that pull you apart and off into opposite directions).

Of the two, I’d take reeling over the bowl for a night or two, because the latter lasts a lot longer, and is much more painful in so many respects—your heart, soul and mind all ache at the same time and, combined, they make your body sick.

Since the separation, we don’t argue much anymore. We play tennis on occasion. We talk, we calmly make decisions—and like last night, we even talk about our feelings.

Two nights ago I wrote to her:

Subject: just want you to know

i'm wearing one of my favorite, most comfortable, shirts right now: the orange LBI t-shirt (that you gave me). thanks.

i still love you (you know). i may just not want to live with you, or anyone else, for that matter, but i still love you, nonetheless and allthemore.

say hi the kids for me, please tell them i love them (too).

lorenzo

*

So why do I share this with you? It does seem rather personal after all.

Well, it is rather personal, and thus it is rather real.

I think it is important to be real, to not be afraid of being human, to encourage others to do and be the same. I encounter too many people who are afraid of expressing themselves for fear of being judged, for fear of not being like everyone else, for fear of having failed one ideal or another.

Moreover, I think it is important to convey that there are alternatives to nasty break-ups. I know of too many that have gone this course; I’ve witnessed the rage, the grating anger, the virulent frustration. I find it unfortunate and unnecessary.

Perhaps, it is because I believe that the end of a relationship is not as bad as it seems nor as tragic as our society purports it to be.

It is primarily because we deem it to be that it becomes heavier than it really is. The end of anything is always the beginning of something else. Sometimes, it is the unknown, sometimes it means we have grown beyond the realm of another or that our vines have spread apart.

Initially, the intertwining is divine, but then we find ourselves thirsting, pining for space, and we start to miss the taste of freedom.

Ultimately, we begin to face the reality that we are squeezing life out of one another.

Thus, although given the druthers, we usually choose to continue suffocating, because we are taught suffering is part of the deal. We are sold a set of beliefs that justify the grief of monogamy and (un)dying commitment by deeming them as natural as breathing, and that intimacy and love and desire are as everlasting as life itself.

But just as life meets death, the makeshift bliss of contrived human relations dies too.

Once we have begun the institutionalized path of the relationship it is almost impossible for it not to become the same old thing, the same hard road to nowhere where upon all the signs read "dead end."

Most of us see this sign and resign ourselves, as if we had signed a contract with a no-compete clause, the breech thereof that would end absolutely everything—till death do us part.

Thus, we sigh, we cry, anger takes over, we become utterly despondent and sulk, never realizing that the answer lies in our innate inclination to run away, to turn in another direction, if only to move on, elsewhere alone.

You see, there are essentially two realities we live in. There is a personal reality that all of us are capable of manifesting, but which most of us do not realize. And then, there is the social reality that the vast majority blindly follow by heeding to contemporary values, constructs of thinking, and the institutions that support them.

Thus, to live a happy life it is incumbent upon the individual to realize what is the absolute truth within one self. Personally, I know that the great things in life, whether they be interactions with others or the awe of the morning, are all fleeting. Perfection is possible, but it is ephemeral.

Therefore, It is wholly natural to say goodbye, for everything must come to an end. And when we realize and accept this inescapable principle of being, we allow ourselves to turn our strife from a bumpy road to hell into the joyride of our lives.

It is true that nothing lasts forever, including "love," and yet as foolish humans we still strangely perceive, conceive and cohort as if we are capable of manifesting otherwise. And despite the wise lessons of time, we find ourselves falling in love over and over again anyway.

The late and great mythologist Joseph Campbell stated that he believed the romantic form of love as we know it today in Western civilization began with the troubadours of the Middle Ages. Therefore, everlasting or "true" romance is not something that has existed throughout the history of mankind. And not only has it not always been universal, it is also not necessarily an innate need that can only be fulfilled by "the one."

In fact, the notion of the "soul mate" has been alien to much of the world for most of the time we have existed as intelligent sapient beings. It is oddly as elusive as all those things which are invisible and divine, yet somehow we find ourselves inclined to hopelessly believing that such ideals can be manifested in a single person anyway.

The hard truth is that romance is a commercial enterprise that we actively partake in and which artificially realizes this swell of sentiment within us, one that does not entirely stem naturally from within. Or if it does, it is expressed with trite expressions of amorous emotions. Valentine's Day is a perfect example of this, for it honors something that should be celebrated creatively everyday, and one which buying a card or candy or a bouquet is only okay if you are too lazy to make an effort.

Overall, we accept so many things that we are told wholesale to believe in, simply because it is easiest to sail through life that way. If we had to try and figure out which way to go with every step, we would immediately get weary and wary of the journey.

Surely love is a many splendored thing, but it is not always meant to be everlasting. And once one has learned to accept this, she or he will be all the more happier, and likely happier than most.

So, the end is not the end. In fact, I’d like to think that in terms of my marriage, that perhaps we are at a new beginning somehow. We are becoming friends again, and that is a good thing.

My feelings on the matter are akin to how I feel about death. I want people to party at my funeral, not because I am dead, but because I have lived, and my life has been an example of how to live the good life, for life should be a celebration, a comedy—not a tragedy.



*

JC: Goethe says "all things are metaphors" —everything that is transitory is but a metaphorical reference. That's what we all are.
BM: But how does one worship a metaphor, love a metaphor, die for a metaphor?
JC: Well, that's what people are doing all over the place! Dying for metaphors. And when you really realize the sound aum the sound of the mystery of the word everywhere—then you don't have to go out and die for anything because its right there all around , and just sit still and see it, and experience and know it.

~ The Power of the Myth, Love and the Goddess, Bill Moyers Interviews Joseph Campbell

Lindsay, Will You Marry Me?

Lindsay, Will You Marry Me?
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

Why Can’t A Woman Be More Like A Man?

“I want to get married before I’m 30.”
-Lindsay Lohan, InStyle Magazine, October, 2006 –

Oh, boy.

Here we go again.

Just the other day I was sitting and sipping and chatting, having a beer with my dear-dear friend and art dealer, Michele, when we started talking about one of the holy grails of life—“relationships.”

I don’t recall now, nor did I recall then, but for some good reason I had realized an epiphany earlier in the day, I had realized that everyone’s looking for love—in the wrong way.

We’ve got it all messed up. For we’re putting the cart before the horse, the wagon before the mule, love before the damned fool. For ultimately, people fall in love with people, not their ideals.

"One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry."
- A Woman of No Importance, Oscar Wilde -

In other words, we’re placing the institution, the tradition, the ideal, before the person that we’re futilely seeking to fulfill these intangibles.

Any quick perusal of the personals will find platitudes like:

“I’m looking for a LTR (Long Term Relationship).”
“I want to get married before I’m 30.”
“I want a committed relationship.”

Although there surely ain’t nothing wrong with pursuing perfection per se, actually expecting it is another matter entirely.

A long time ago, there was a man by the name of Plato. This guy was good friends with another guy named Socrates. Inspired by his good friend, Plato started his Academy, a school of philosophy, which, amongst other things, contemplated The Forms.

Over the years people took the theory underlying these ideals and fucked it all up, because ultimately a whole lot of people were convinced that these ideals could be manifest in the here and now, that somehow one might really find “the ideal other,” somewhere, at some point, during their brief stay on earth.

Alas, the archetypes we strive to ascertain are not really ascertainable in this world, if we adhere to the original line of thought as proposed 17 centuries ago. For Plato actually taught that these ideals were only truly possible once we died and were reunited with the form of whatever we idealized as mortals.


Professor Higgins:
Why can't a woman be more like a man?
Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;
Eternally noble, historically fair.
Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat.
Why can't a woman be like that?
Why does every one do what the others do?
Can't a woman learn to use her head?
Why do they do everything their mothers do?
Why don't they grow up, well, like their father instead?

Why can't a woman take after a man?
Men are so pleasant, so easy to please.
Whenever you're with them, you're always at ease.

Would you be slighted if I didn't speak for hours?

Colonel Pickering:
Of course not.

Professor Higgins:
Would you be livid if I had a drink or two?

Colonel Pickering:
Nonsense.

Professor Higgins:
Would you be wounded if I never sent you flowers?

Colonel Pickering:
Never.

Professor Higgins:
Well, why can't a woman be like you?

-A Hymn to Him (My Fair Lady), Lerner and Lowe –


If you’re looking for love don’t look to hire, don’t seek someone to fulfill a role or position in your life; pursue those things that interest you as an individual—be passionate about something and you just might find someone who will be passionate about you.

Then again, not that this advice has worked for me…

Thus, I give in. Lindsay, I’ll marry you.

Just give me a few more years to accomplish a few things, and I think I should be available by 2016— when you’re turning thirty.

lorenzo


For, I'm gettin' married in the mornin'
Ding-dong the bells are gonna chime.
Kick up a rumpus, but don't lose the compass;
And get me to the church, get me to the church,
Be sure and get me to the church on time!

- Get Me to the Church (My Fair Lady), Lerner and Loewe -