My, My, My, My Sharona!

I've never been a headachy or sickly type, but woke this morning with another headache. Taken to self diagnosing, the threat of apnea looms. The thought of waking up dead is bothersome, but at the same time, delusional romanticisms arise; if I am suddenly dead, the memory of me will arise as an object of deep affection in the mind of some woman. She will weep, and realize she is with the wrong man, that that cowboy, that fireman, that otherwise fine chap, was not in fact her true passion and the toucher and lover of her soul. I am. She will weep into my coffin, start a foundation in my honor, and carry my vision, my words, into the future. "He was the most beautiful person... hard...quiet... searing... the most beautiful man I have ever had the privilege to know and love," she will say to a fluttery eyed Diane Sawyer in some news interview.

In my sudden death I will find love, for the right love will not find me while I yet live and breath.

Doug Fieger of the Kinks got that love, in life and now in death. Sharona, of the song "My Sharona," is right there on NPR giving an interview, telling of how they first met, and how they stayed in touch so many years later, together at his death.

It's sweet, but you have to actually be someone in order for your former lovers or unrequited fans to come out after your death and share lofty thoughts in interviews. Step 1: Decide to be something unique and excel at it. Step 2: Not sure. Step 3: Die successful and have attractive women come out of the woodwork to praise you.

Of course what really caught my attention was the story of how she met Feiger, which supports a general theory that some of us men have. Her quote:

"I was about 16 or 17 at the time," Alperin told host Guy Raz. "He was nine years older than me. And within a month or two later, he told me that, 'I'm in love with you, you're my soulmate, you're my other half, we're going to be together one day.' And I was madly in love with my boyfriend at the time, and so it took a year for me to leave my boyfriend."

(NPR)

The theory, or formula N=N+N1+T=N1-N=N1, posits that women in general at any "solitary" moment in time have a man. That would be "N". However, at any given moment they are capable of seeing, meeting, noticing, flirting with, talking to, working with, thinking about, feeling sorry for, despising (but liking) any other man. That would "N1".  Often N and N1 exist on the same side of the equation, and totally unaware of each other.  Time passes. That would be "T". (Yes I know you are not five, but I am still working out the math in my head for myself). After that period of time, and after hanging around, working with, talking to, or thinking about the new guy, she eventually replaces the original with the new one (N1).

We see that with Sharona. She was madly in love with her boyfriend, and it took a whole year to leave him. A whole year! Madly in love! A whole year! Don't underestimate the amount of time during that year that she spent with Fieger on the sly before official termination of anonymous obscure original guy.

To the average male this should be quite encouraging, while also lending torment to your soul on the backside. That woman you are pining after right now... the one dating the cowboy...will not always be so attached. If you prove sufficiently interesting, sufficiently alpha, amusingly elusive, and just on the edge of her grasp, she will gravitate to you and line you up as a potential future relationship partner.

In this way, no unmarried woman is really beyond your grasp if you play it right.

The flip side is that once you know this, you will never feel totally sure that the woman you have is not already sizing things up and looking to swap you out. Perhaps she is talking with you about some guy at work who "totally, totally is such an ass and gets on her nerves" and you are sitting thinking, "Wow, why is she obsessing on this non-entity?"  Because women obsess on men that interest them, and what is coming out of their mouth and what is in there head often go in different directions depending on who they are talking to.

In other words, there is no security in love. Love--or whatever that is we call what we do--in life is haphazard, and love after death is useless.

Other News:

• Banks large and small are still working out their liabilities, and, failing. Four more banks have given up the ghost. Some depositors are losing money, but frankly if you are keeping more than  the insured amount in any bank, that's your fault and you deserve to lose it or take a delay in getting all your money back. That makes 26 banks for the year. The article states there were 3 in 2007, 25 in 2008, 140 in 2009. Given the 26 in two months, we seem to be at the same pace as last year, which is not an entirely bad sign. 

• 320,000 Icelanders say no to paying off national debts created by their 3 major collapsed banks. This is essentially jumping out of a plane at 30,000 feet to escape a killer on board. Without a parachute. Nobody will want to lend to Icelandic men again. (Women tend to always find someone to lend to them or help them if they are attractive enough, so the credit doom scenario is quite variable).