In reference to love i.e. the romantic, tragic, letsgetmarriedandhave5000childrenahouseamortgageandagoddamwhitepicketfence, hallmark inspired, mills and boon novel, hollywood movie, head over heels at first sight, kind. Can’t stand it. Would burn it at the stake had it any sort of physical form. Come to think of it, BRING ME A YOUNG COUPLE! It’s very complicated stuff this and when you say those words, as thrown around, bruised, battered and belittled as they are, people can’t help but take them very seriously. Even if you say them in the most nonchalent fashion, you can guarantee that the person you’ve said them to will spend the next week or so critically analysing everything you’ve said, the way you’ve said it, when you puased for breath, what tone you used on what word, what language you said it in, whether or not you’ve said it to someone else in the last 24 hours and whether upon really staring at you for hours on end, you MEANT it.

I use it alot at the end of phonecalls to close friends and not suprisingly reletives. I can’t help it, they may annoy the crap out of me sometimes, but they are family. My flesh and blood. I’m inspired everyday with the knowledge that I’m stuck with them. In all seriousness - I am very fond of my family. It could be ten times worse and they’ve supported through every single one of my manic phases. And there’ve been a few.
So yes, at the end of phonecalls and such. Its lovely. Unless your talking to a picky basterd or slave mistress who thinks the words hold some sort of sacred meaning and must be kept ONLY for special occasions, like birthdays, christmases and near death experiences.

What really frustrates me are those picky people who want to know how your spelling it. ’Love’ is generally what I go with. But apparantly people consider ’Luv’ a suitable alternative. I have been known to go ’Loff’ in the past, when I’m mocking someone, or being ’cute’ (someone should really cut that word from the dictionary and general existance) or friendly...or I’m drunk (When I’m not being the mega bitch, I’m being a raging alcoholic...oh what a life I lead). One of my previous paramours, I won’t mention names but I daresay he’ll know who he is, refused to say this unless I was using the ’Luv’ spelling. What I don’t understand is how the fuck anyone’s going to know, they all generally sound the same and if you don’t like it, sod off and become a scientoligist (I consider them rather barren as far as emotion goes...OPINION).

There’s also the wonders of ’taking a lover’ or ’making love’ though I can’t say WHY these practices are called such. A ’lover’ is generally a glorified fuck buddy with a pretty name (and I can say with much certainty that neither I nor half a dozen people I know have loved all their FBs). I daresay it is a nicer thing to say than ’Sexer’ Or, if we’re taking a more vulgar route (mind the pun) ’Fucker’ Irrespect of the fact that they are both, essentially TRUE. Come to think of it, however, there are only certain sects in socity who still call them ’lovers.’ Your typical teenager will be straight up - ’Fuckbuddy, friends with benefits...etc etc...’ There are a few who, after reading too much Plath (The Bell Jar) and Anais Nin (ANYTHING) and possibly, just a pinch of Germaine Greer (WE’VE ALL GONE DOWN THAT ROAD LADIES) see themselves in some bohemian idealised fantasy and refer to everything with what they consider to be a dignified tone, which turns out merely to be a shoddy english accent - they will refer to their saturday night conquest as a ’lover’ despite being half pissed on something that contains more food colouring than alcohol. Your average middle aged singleton (and/or housewife) will also refer to her...companion....as a lover. This is accompanied or followed by a flurry of giggles and blushing amongst friends. They spit the word out like it’s a curse. Like 6 yr olds, starting with a puase long enough to last a decent year before saying ’Bum....’ or, naughtier still...’Poo!’

Making Love is a concept which also puzzles me. There are several loved up couples in the world who live in a constant state of warm fuzzy and rave to all their friends about how much in amore they are with eachother and how all they ever do is make love. They say sex like it’s a naughty word and counsel their single friends on how ’having sex’ and ’making love’ are two different things and when they experience the other, they’ll simply KNOW the difference. Well. And someone will come along and rant, rave, prove me wrong, but I’m here to tell you that in my opinion and the opinion of those much smarter and far more sexed crazed and loved up than myself, that ’Making love’ and ’having sex’ are, essentially the same thing. And I say this only so, on a saturday night when your lying on a beach, stuck under some over eager and half cocked 19 yr old emo, who you could swear was the love of your life - you won’t be too dissapointed. Both practices involve the same thing. And I don’t think we need to go much further than that other than to say that, much as it is with ’lovers’ - it’s all in the name.