What Was She Thinking?!

One of the top songs of the 1980s, and one of my favorites, Foreigner sings along with the New Jersey Mass Choir.

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody!

I thought the perfect man existed only in my dreams. I was wrong. And I woke up 20 years too late.

Marcus posted some sad songs and I agree with most of his selections, especially November Rain by Guns N Roses. That one never fails to bring a tear to my eye.

But This Love, by Sarah Brightman, is one of my all time, get the Kleenex out, here come the river of tears, bona fide sad songs. I don't think it's meant that way, but the combination of Sarah's haunting voice and the musical arrangement make it so. See if you don't agree.

This Love, Sarah Brightman (15.1Mb 320Kbps MP3)

This love
This love is a strange love
A faded kind of day love
This love

This love
I think I'm gonna fall again
And even when you held my hand
It didn't mean a thing
This love

This love
Never has to say love
Doesn't know it is love
This love

This love
Doesn't have to say love
Doesn't need to be love
Doesn't mean a thing

This love
This love

I've been lucky enough in my life to have received uncompromising, all encompassing, unconditional love. I've also doled it out. Once, it was reciprocated; another time it wasn't. But I think that's because the person it was focused on simply didn't realize exactly what he had. But the beauty (or madness) of that kind of love is that it doesn't matter whether it's returned or not. Because it's selfless. And that my friends doesn't come along every day.

I was inspired by an old post of Cami's at S-p-i-l-l. She wondered exactly how many times she really meant it when she said "I love you."

I can tell you unequivocally that every time I've ever told a man I loved him, at the time I said it, I meant it. Or thought I did. But in reality, looks like mother was right again, as usual. She always told me that you only ever have one true love. You may have other lovers, but only one TRUE LOVE.

So for me, that would be, first and foremost... Robert. I met Robert quite by accident. I was drunk at the time and had called a cab. He wasn't the cabbie I was expecting so I stood there on the curb, probably swaying a little in my drunken state. I observed, "You're not Vivian!" Vivian drove Yellow Cab #83 in San Antonio at the time (1980); Robert's was Yellow Cab #81. In my drunken fog, I'd gotten the numbers mixed up when I specifically asked for her cab -- that's called a "personal" in cabbie parlance.

So I let him take me home. We made small talk on the way. We talked a bit about music. Turns out I didn't know diddly squat about it. I was intrigued by his intelligence, yet put off by his seeming arrogance. I thought he was full of himself. I also thought he was very cute. And I KNEW I was damn cute. (I really was back then; I had the cutest outfit on the night I met him, a black wool knit dress that cost me a fortune. It had a full skirt that would swing out in a big circle when I twirled in it, a slim bodice, three quarter sleeves and a scoop neckline. Completing the ensemble were my black snakeskin belt, snakeskin pumps, brass purse and black felt hat. Drop. Dead. Gorgeous. Too bad I was so miserable inside at the time.)

But back to Robert. I thought smugly that there'd be no chance in hell I'd ever take up with the likes of HIM! After that, for some reason, every time I needed a cab, I'd call him instead of Vivian. Forget about her, she might have been a single mother struggling to make ends meet, but I had Robert on the brain. I'd befriended Vivian because I'd just lost a ton of weight, down to a 10-12 from a whopping 26-28 and she inherited my entire wardrobe. Because up until just a few months previous, I lived a home with my mother so had nothing to spend my money on BUT clothes. So they were pretty expensive and trendy, silks, wools, suits, dresses, a fur jacket, etc. But then mother died and I was alone.

So one night, I'd decided to go out to my favorite bar, across town. I called Robert. On the way, I stopped at the grocery store to get some cash and a few groceries (including a box of tampons, a Cosmopolitan magazine, a bottle of sangria (for later at home), and some other inconsequential items).

When I got out of Robert's cab at the bar, he stopped me, reminding me that I couldn't go into the bar with liquor (the sangria). Robert suggested I leave all that in the back of his cab and he could just pick me up later and it would all be there. Great idea! So when I'm ready go to home, of course, Robert is nowhere to be found. I end up taking another cab home, but I'm pretty miffed. I thought it was pretty cheesy of him to make off with my groceries. Though what kind of freak would want a box of tampons?

Several weeks went by and again, I was in a cab headed home after another night of drinking. And I was bitching to this cabbie about how Robert ran off with my groceries. I really thought it was an awful thing to do. About halfway home, the cab breaks down. Oh, great. Stuck out here on Broadway at two thirty in the morning. Just fucking great. So he has to call another cab to come get me.

Guess who arrives? Robert of course. I wondered where he'd been. He told me that he had my sack of groceries back at his place, so of course I ended up going there to retrieve them. He said he was thinking about calling it an early night. (He worked the night shift, 6PM to 6AM.) So after we got to his place, which was really just a room in a motel that you rented by the hour, day, week or month, we started talking. I wasn't sleepy and neither was he. I remember laying on the bed, fully clothed of course, except for my shoes. And he was sitting in the chair across from the bed. We split the bottle of sangria. And just spent the rest of the evening -- er, morning -- talking. We talked about everything. About his work, about my mother's death, about San Antonio, about Austin, where he'd just come from a few months previous. His life growing up in Alice, Texas, my life there in San Antonio. Before we knew it the sun had come up.

So from there, I guess you could say that love -- or some weird approximation of it -- blossomed. In other words, I chased him until he caught me. That was October 1980. Except for some rocky times when I was unsatisfied with the relationship Robert and I had and ran off in search of greener pastures, we've been together ever since. He nursed me through my cancer back in 1991, walked five miles in a rainstorm to rescue me and my flooded 300ZX, and now it's my turn to repay the favor during his rough time.

I told a friend recently that just because I love him doesn't mean I approve of everything he does, but I know that I will always love Robert, even if I were to fall in love with someone else.

Originally published at joniverse.com, February 24, 2003.

Don't forget to check out my Hunkalicious photo album. They may not be your cup of tea, but these guys (celebs mostly, except Robert) certainly do send my little heart aflutter. As my friend and fellow blogger Rori is wont to say, "I'd do him!"¹

¹ This phrase actually came from a "Lida and Melina" (Nicole Sullivan and Debra Wilson) skit on MAD-TV. Wouldn't want you to think me and Rori are a couple of sluts.