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A fresh topic. Love.

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17:37 / 24.10.04

i thought i knew what love meant, but i didnt know the real meaning till now. it feels like a friendship on fire.

ONLY NICE THINGS

18:38 / 24.10.04

You may wish to check whether this is in fact friendship, but your friend is on fire. This explains feelings of flushedness and heat when you are near him or her, a sense that every moment is precious (because they will shortly be consumed in flames), and breathlessness and light-headedness (smoke inhalation).

An easy way to tell is to persuade a small child to touch your friend on the elbow or nose. If the child instinctively flinches back, your friend may in fact be on fire. Seek expert assistance. Holding a flower under his or her chin will determine whether he or she is on fire (the updraft from his or her flaming torso will both inflame the flower and send it flying upwards when released in a shower of crispy petals) and also whether he or she likes butter.

If at the end of all this your friend is demonstrably not on fire, then *congratulations*. Love is in the air!

(nb. If the love in the air is making you salivate and think of roast pork, this is in fact not love, and your friend really is on fire. Just to be sure, seek expert assistance)

Tryphena Absent

18:50 / 24.10.04

Haus, I feel your advice falls short. xxsarahxx could be on fire, say for instance she had severe nerve damage from an earlier accident and couldn't feel anything.

19:19 / 24.10.04

Of course, if the heat and light is confined to the upper femur, it's likely that the conflagration is the result of a friend's hip on fire...

19:29 / 24.10.04

I have seen things you people would not believe, friendships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, c-beams sparkling in the dark near the Tennhauser Gate. All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.

19:45 / 24.10.04

I'm afraid you've all misunderstood sarah's obvious cry for help.

Get yourself to a clinic, dear. These things are almost always cleared up by a swift round of antibiotics.

19:54 / 24.10.04

Ah, so she meant it feels like weeing on fire.

Well, I think you're a bunch of rotters. Good on you, xxsarahxxx. Hope he/she/it reciprocates and you are on fire together for as long as you ought to be.

20:01 / 24.10.04

This being Barbelith, though, do reassure us that you've actually spoken to the immolatee, hmm?

Phex: Dorset Doom

20:36 / 24.10.04

Ethanol actually burns clear so you could be on fire and not know it. I saw it in an episode of CSI Miami. Tell me: would anyone gain a substantial insurance payout from your demise?

unheimlich manoeuvre

21:01 / 24.10.04

give someone a fire and they'll have fire for one day.

put someone on fire and they'll have fire for the rest of their life.

*i'll get my coat*

Lilly Nowhere Late

05:44 / 25.10.04

You bunch of teasing cynics. I'm on fire for all of you!

love, love, love...

go xxsarahxx! Go!

05:49 / 25.10.04

love? Bah! An affliction that allows you to ingore glaringly obvious character flaws and the advice of all of your friends to pursue the affections of a sociopathic manic depressive.

Don't be fooled kids!!!

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:19 / 25.10.04

Ethanol actually burns clear so you could be on fire and not know it.

Call me Mr Raider, call me Mr Wrong, but surely there are other ways of determining that you are on fire than the colour of the flames? Like the ow ow hot hot burny burny mcdead dead?

Phex: Dorset Doom

10:08 / 25.10.04

Nah nah nah: Y'see, in this one episode of CSI: Miami the guy who was covered in Ethanol was wearing a fireproof suit, and because Ethanol burns at this ridiculosly high temperature it burnt through the fireproof suit and he only noticed at the very last second that he was, in fact, dead. So you see, we have incontrovertible scientific proof (via television) that one can be on fire without the ow-ow-hurty-hurty, with the provisio that one is wearing a flame retardent garment of some kind.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:19 / 25.10.04

Yeah, but presumably the speed is a factor here also? That is, death by ethanol fire when wearing a fireproof suit is so quick that it would be hard to mistake for anything more than a passing fancy, rather than love.

Further, as we have established, this feels like friendship on fire. Being on fire does not feel like being on fire if one is wearing a fireproof suit, regardless of the colour of the flames. So, actually, burning to death in an ethanol fire while wearing a fireproof suit, along with being, like, totally baroque, is actually like being friends, but for a very short time.

10:19 / 25.10.04

Sixteen hours on, it's quite possible that xxsarahxx might be dead, but dreaming. Of fire.

I once asked fire to walk with me, but it misinterpreted it as a solicitation for services of a sexual nature.

10:38 / 25.10.04

I had a relationship once where, for years afterward, I could stick my hand into a pile of burning coals without flinching. I think he was a fireproof suitor. [

ucks]

10:41 / 25.10.04

[I didn't know we had those damn emoticons--I was trying to type that I was "ducking" but never mind... the wet sponge one of you threw hit me in the temple, anyway...]

12:16 / 25.10.04

love? Bah! An affliction that allows you to ingore glaringly obvious character flaws and the advice of all of your friends to pursue the affections of a sociopathic manic depressive.

So, are you, like... busy this weekend? *blushes*

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

14:11 / 25.10.04

We've all felt that burny sting of unrequited arson.

O rose! Thou art flambe'd!
The invisible flame
That burns through the night...
etc.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:19 / 25.10.04

"Love feels good though we stuck in the hood
Love my last album though the joint went wood..."

15:40 / 25.10.04

I had a relationship once where, for years afterward, I could stick my hand into a pile of burning coals without flinching. I think he was a fireproof suitor.

Oh Joy...Joy, that is quite funny.

Why are people so down on love? Is it because of it's elusive nature?, or maybe because it is so illusory? Doesn't that describes the nature of all emotions though.

Is love just too hokey?

21:16 / 25.10.04

A good question, BarbeLilith.

Love.

Probibly one of the most often discussed topics in human civilization(and depending on if you include sex in that, THE most discussed topic, I would imagine).

I can't speak for everyone here, but I know for myself, and those that I have observed, love is, well, almost like a painful addiction, like someone who just wasn't meant to take acid dosing again and again, getting bad trip after bad trip searching for that utterly and completely happy moment of release.

Most people try to give up, and some even actually make it. But, for the rest of us, try as we may, though we know the chances it will end well, or even begin well(or begin at all, for that matter), are damned slim, we still carry on. That feeling, hotter than the noontime sun in the middle of Alabama, colder than a Canadian winter, and more beautiful than the dawn, draws us and calls to us.

However, I cannot overstate the risks and pain here. Love's darker face has claimed much. Money, time, and countless lives have been given to her. She(and yes, I think of love as a "she", mostly because it makes sense to me, not because I say it is "True") is a cruel mistress indeed. The scars she leaves can take kalpas to heal(kalpa=LONG LONG time).

Did that give at least some insight into your question?

James

Phex: Dorset Doom

22:11 / 25.10.04

By taking a random sampling of key-words and phrases in Cassius' post ("Money, time, and countless lives have been given to her" "The scars she leaves can take kalpas to heal" "Colder than a Canadian winter" and "damned slim") I've concluded that he's probably met my ex girlfriend.

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:15 / 25.10.04

You know, that doesn't sound like being on fire at all. Is there any possibility that you guys are doing it wrong?

22:30 / 25.10.04

maybe we're all just at a disco, having been time-shifted back to the brown and orange seventies, and this is just a disco inferno? we're all on fire? 'love is in the air'? no?

i'll be getting my coat, too...

00:19 / 26.10.04

My girlfriend used to tell me to start fires.
But she was four inches tall, had a ginger beard, dressed exclusively in green and spoke with an Irish accent.

Regrettable Juvenilia

07:30 / 26.10.04

By taking a random sampling of key-words and phrases in Cassius' post ("Money, time, and countless lives have been given to her" "The scars she leaves can take kalpas to heal" "Colder than a Canadian winter" and "damned slim") I've concluded that he's a joke suit.

Regrettable Juvenilia

07:31 / 26.10.04

I mean, he probably isn't.

But it's what I need to tell myself, to sleep at night.

07:34 / 26.10.04

Probibly one of the most often discussed topics in human civilization(and depending on if you include sex in that, THE most discussed topic, I would imagine).

Not in my house. In my house it's the Justice Society of America.

13:27 / 26.10.04

Phex:
Actually, probibly not, but now that I reread it, I was describing several of my ex's quite well. Damn. Almost eerie that.

Fly Boy:
Sorry, all too real and subject to occasional fits of overblown visuals in my writing.

*shrug* As far as flaws go, it beats the hell out of flaming people for no apparent reason, wouldn't you say(not saying you do, but still)?

James

13:32 / 26.10.04

Beats the hell out of torturing kittens to death too, don't you think (not saying anybody does, but still)?

13:38 / 26.10.04

People are far too prone to confuse "love" and "passion".

Not the same thing, those.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:40 / 26.10.04

I'm really sorry if I seemed like I was flaming you for no apparent reason! I should ammend that now.

It's because I find your posts really funny, but in a sad way.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:07 / 26.10.04

In my house love *is* the Justice Society of America.

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