Everyday I Wake Up, I Choose Love, I Choose Light, And I Try, It's Too Easy Just To Fall Apart

--"You Me & The Bourgeoisie", The Submarines

I started reading 9 Chickweed Lane in 1994 when it first started showing up in the L.A. Times. It was something to read and laugh at while I was waiting for classes at USC to start.

I've always loved the interplay between the main characters of Edda and Amos.

Finally, after 14 years, starting when they were in junior high and lasting till now, of teasing the audience with this dancing around the issue it looks like they're finally going to consummate the relationship.









This kind of makes me happier than when my friends actually get together because it's like I've been following these two for half of my life, from when they were in that awkward "we're just friends" stage to the recent "we're dating but open to see other people" college stage.

Till now, I always thought this would be how Edda and Amos would remain in the strip when dealing with each other:



People always claim I hold onto 9 Chickweed Lane so tightly because it closely mirrors my story. Dorky guy becomes fast friends with talented and pretty girl who inevitably remain close for a titan's age until they have some kind of detente that settles everything once and for all? Nope, that doesn't sound like anyone I know, right? In reality, though, I knew I grew to like the strip almost in spite of it reminding me and her. The real reason I like it is because it presents reality in this skewed and often hilarious point-of-view that kind of matches my perception. Of course, it mirrors the koala and donkey aspect of my life because it often mirrors other aspects of my life. From the struggles one generation experiences in dealing with the one before it, to the way friends both help and hinder you at different times, to the way no one stays very long in one role in your life--there's a lot more reminiscent of my life than just the friends-become-lovers aspect to the story.

Most of all what ties it all together--and to me--is the fact that the strip almost has a cautious approach to love. I always write about how true romantic love often adopts this wistful and forlorn quality. More great romances are spent in waiting than in the actual doing. For the most part this could be true of all life. The strip almost presents our time on earth as being 80% finding out what we want to do and 20% actually doing it. From finding out how we really feel to what really we want to do with our lives--the characters always seem to be in a constant search for what will make them happy and fretting that every choice they make will inevitably lead them to actually making them unhappy. It's this search and almost fatalistic attitude to living that I agree with.

I don't know if every choice I will make or made is right, but in the end I make my choices, worried that it won't turn out for the best, and have to live with them.

That's Edda.

That's Amos.

That's Breanne.

That's Toby.

And that's me. I can only hope that someday I find my trip to Brussels to put it all together.

Yours Swimmingly,,
mojo shivers