I’m so sick that the impossible happened: I gave my entire plate of really great Indian food at the India Night to N. Of course, using the word “great” to refer to Indian food is a tautology because Indian food is always great. It is extremely rare that I even get to see it in this area, so just imagine how lousy I must be feeling to give up my entire plate.

After the India Night, we went to the grocery store to buy food for next week. It was a good idea to go tonight because when we got to the store, we saw the announcement that because of the Easter Sunday, the store will be closed tomorrow. I’m the kind of Christian who only becomes aware of Easter after seeing a grocery store announcement.

I’m very weird about food. I can go with very little sleep for days and not mind. However, if anybody or anything messes with my mealtimes, I become rabid. I might not even want to eat, like today, but I need to know that the food is there and I can access it immediately.
If that seems weird, then remember where I come from and Google the word Holodomor. A Ukrainian cannot bear the idea that food might become inaccessible. When I feel stressed out over anything, I go into the pantry (yes, I have a pantry) and stare at food because it calms me down.

And since I’m rambling in a state of a moderately high fever anyways, I wanted to mention that a real coffee-shop is going to open right next to my house. This is civilization, people. And it isn’t a Starbucks or anything of the kind. Just a coffee-shop where I can get by walking. We are slowly getting civilized.

For the purposes of my research, I am now reading a lot of this extremely obnoxious feminist theory of the 1980s and 1990s. I’m sick as it is, and this endless blabber about how logic, reason and language are male, while knitting, sewing, lack of reason, illogical behavior, silence and intuition are all female and let’s celebrate that because feminism is about pointing out, time and again, how men are women are irrevocably and hopelessly different, is not helping.

I remember how the first time I read Hélène Cixous with her “feminine writing”, the special language of women, and “write with your vagina” crapola, I almost vomited. It became immediately clear to me why the most pathetic, mumbling, insecure, will-debase-myself-to-get-some-guy’s-approval women could be located precisely among these pseudo-feminist organizers of knitting bees and authors of “let’s celebrate female difference” theory.

I have a cold and I’m forced to read these stupid texts, which is why I’m irritable. The good news is that I’m going to an India Night at my university later today, and that is bound to cure me of both physical and mental suffering I’m experiencing.

I’m reading a Victorian novel right now (I’ll post a review when I’m done because it’s one of the novels on my Classics list) and there is something very surprising that I found in it: one character really loves another character.

The reason why this is so surprising is that it made me realize that I can’t really remember any other fictional description of love. I have read thousands of novels, but this is pretty much the first convincing rendering of love.

When I say “love”, I don’t mean, of course, the following famous plots that have been sold to us by writers in lieu of depictions of love:

• I’ve seen you at a distance and have realized that it would be super cool to use you to bug my parents as part of my teenage rebellion. Better yet, why not kill myself altogether? That will stick it to the old folks.
• I’ve always considered him to be rude and obnoxious but then I saw his huge house and realized he is extremely rich. Now I totally love him.
• Every single aspect of his personality and every moment of his past annoy me. But if I could have him mutilated, helpless and completely at my mercy, then I’d totally enjoy living with him.
• I find you provincial, facile, and boring. But after you marry a rich guy and get some fashionable clothes, I realize that now I’m totally into you.

Cervantes ridiculed the way love is usually depicted in novels by showing how Don Quixote denies everything that constitutes the personality of the real Aldonza Lorenzo. He creates an imaginary creature called Dulcinea and adores her. Unlike a real person, Dulcinea is perfect, so it’s easy to worship her. And when she stinks of garlic, it can always be attributed to the spell created by mean magicians.

More often than not, we see characters in fiction loving not so much an actual person, but a concept, an image that might or might not have anything to  do with any real human being. This is why I was so surprised to find a fictional character who seems to be capable of actually feeling love.

Am I mistaken about the paucity of depictions of love in literature? Can you think of characters in love whose feelings rang true to you?