A question for the ages. Where even to begin? Like everything else in my life my defintion of love has changed as I have. The first love that you're ever aware of is that amongst your family. You love your family members, your parents, siblings, and the rest of the assorted relatives. This love is the unconditional kind, for the most part not even questioned. I love my mom and dad and my brother and sister, and will forever, despite circumstances (maybe I'm lucky here because many don't have that kind of lasting family environment). Love becomes more complicated as soon as you start actively looking for someone(s) to share your life with. What is it that you look for? There are looks of course, you want someone nice to look at. There are things you have in common. There is sex. And then there is sex. Sometimes I hate sex. It's one of the most fun things you can do with someone(s), it can bring you closer, but... Sex is not the end all. I look at it this way. At most, I will spend maybe 1% of my life in bed with someone(s). The rest of the time we won't be having sex. Why are we supposed to think of sex as the most important part of love? I think of the moments I remember with loved ones, and what I remember is not the sex (okay, maybe those special few awesome times are in there too) but the times we spent talking in the park, the times we spent dancing our brains out, the times when I'm so down and they're the only thing holding me afloat. Those are what I remember and what really matter. You can bump uglies with anyone and have it turn out nice. How many people can you spend the other 99% of your life with? I hope and pray that the people who love me don't do it because I'm a good fuck. I hope they love me for everything else I bring. For my cooking, my singing, my intelligence, my craziness. I hope they remember climbing mountains and taking pictures more than any great hour long sessions in bed. It all goes back to our culture. We are taught that we find the special person and then we become close through intimacy (maybe this is the first step in breaking from the initial familial love). Sex sells. Love not so much. It's easy to market a sex-crazed culture, much less so a market that values warmth and coziness. So, like most other things in my life, I try to see beyond the hype. What is sex? Why is it supposed to matter so much? My answer is that it probably doesn't. Not in the face of what true love is at least. I think if you cut my dangly thing off I might even experience depths of love that my sex-crazed hormone-driven psyche can't even understand (not that I'm tempted in that direction). Okay, my lovers call, time to get freaky.

My friend Sara is here from San Diego with her 4 year old. It is just about his first exerience with snow. Yesterday we went sledding at Chestnut Ridge. It was Thursday so there weren't too many people. It was great fun, I was somehow so enthused that I actually ran up the hill, crazy. Today we are going to Olean to build snowmen and whatever else you do with a 4 year old in the snow. It should be fun. Then we come back for catfish. Yummy!

Whether I am going to start reading again. I can't decide. It's kind of defeatist because I want to do something. Of my own creation instead of absorbing the work of others. I keep feeling smarter, or more creative, or developed in a particular manner. It needs some release. Something to make it more than a tiny portion of me trapped forever in my mind. When I make thoughts appear in other media they become more real to me, more substantial and believable. I can't retain every detail of my own thoughts; I need to make the specifics have a life of their own without my capacital boundaries. So probably anyways I will start to read something otherworldy. I am so lazy. Schade.

I am very tired of getting movies just because hot stars are in them and then they don't even do me the favor of getting naked. Seriously. The last two movies (discounting that horrible BBC thing) that I watched were The Bourne Identity and Igby goes down. Both featured rather talentless actors, Matt Damon and Ryan Philippe, who would have made their presence on my televsion like a million times better if they just would've showed a little ass. C'mon, who's pretending that they like these hacks for anything besides their studly hotness? Everytime fucking Philippe got on the screen I started yelling "shut up and get naked for Christ's sake"!!! At least in that other stupid movie about rich people and drugs he showed his cute ass. It is a shame that the Culkin brother in the film actually showed him up in Igby. I can't believe I am writing about movies. What has my life come to? Where am I? For flyin' fuck's sake, I mean it. I am trying not to let my current bout of semi-depression affect my journal too much, but it tends to seep in anyway. At least my father hasn't come out to me as a closet born again christian like poor Trisha's has. I feel for you baby. I hope I am allowed to say that in the journal. You're probably not reading though, so... Going now. Whatch a movie and feel sad for me please.

This one's close to home for me since I'm from Las Vegas, but should get everyone's hackles up. Here's the story from the LV local the Review Journal .

The FBI was granted special investigative powers in Las Vegas following the elevated "orange" terrorist alert level around the holidays. It is estimated that as many as 300,000 people had their personal information handed over to authorities, including names, addresses, phone #s, credit card information, etc. The information was gathered from hotels, casinos, and the airport. A disturbing point is that no effort was made to deaggregate the information, which means that all info was handed over whether required or not, no time was taken to make sure only info requested in the individual requests was submitted (they basically gave everything they had on every guest). The FBI also has the power to make follow-up requests for individual guests and to start investigations with any part of the data mined. Ironically this flies fat in the face of Las Vegas' new slogan, `What you do here stays here' Maybe it should be amended, `What you do here stays here, unless the FBI says differently.'