For me to know, having found out -

It may be good ... that romantic love should form the motive for a marriage, but it should be understood that the kind of love which will enable a marriage to remain happy and to fulfill its social purpose is not romantic, but is something more intimate, affectionate, and realistic.

~Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

Bloody brilliant. Also,

Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence.
~Tom Robbins

A favorite-

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Agaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.


Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

~Dover Beach, Matthew Arnold

Breakthrough?

So, last weekend I fenced in the North Atlantic Sectional Championships. Competitors were from various parts of NY, ME, RI, CT, MA and maybe a few other New England type spots. Vermont? Anyway, there were 50 competitors in Women's Epee - pretty strong event. I had what continues to seem to me a mind-bogglingly good day, and I finished in 3d place. I am WAY excited about this for many reasons, most importantly the fact that it's truly the best fencing I've done in a really long time - possibly ever. It was smart and well-executed. If I had fenced that way and not made it as far as the round of 4 I think I still would have been pretty stoked. To be able to say that I earned a medal, reconfirmed my C (THANK GOD), and qualified to fence Division IA at Nationals (even though I'm not going) is so much really tasty gravy. It's mostly nice to feel as if work and practice is starting to pay off, and maybe I'm going to climb off of my 4 year plateau sometime in the near future.

So, yay. :D