i should really be in bed. if it were at hand, i'd post marvin gaye & tammi terrell singing "you ain't livin' until you're lovin'." & if any of this seems too much, i plead pseudoephedrine (no wonder you have to get it from behind the counter now!). the sidebar is wrong : i am reading de l'amour by stendhal, written after his own great romantic failure, which is available for purchase here. i much enjoy the preface to the first edition, a citation from an m. simond :

it is of little use for an author to beg the public's indulgence. for the very act of publication gives the lie to this pretence at modesty. he had better submit himself squarely to the justice, patience, and impartiality of his readers.

i may adopt such words. other things i enjoy so far :

the reverie of love defies all attempts to record it.

-----
it has been borne upon me this evening that perfect music has the same effect on the heart as the presence of the beloved. it gives, in fact, apparently more pleasure than anything else on earth. ... the habit of listening to music and the state of reverie connected with it prepare you for falling in love. (this is the reason i immediately gave up on this blog following, to put it lightly, my disappointment. music, all music had some sort of connection to her. it's possible that an innocent mix i had made for her had set the tone for falling in love.)

-----
man is not free to avoid doing what gives him greater pleasure than any other action.

love is like a fever which comes and goes quite independently of the will. (he later says, the will has no control over love.) it is chiefly in this that mannered love differs from passionate love. the charms of your beloved are not a matter of self-congratulation, except as a stroke of luck.

finally, there are no age limits for love. look at madame du deffand's infatuation with the churlish horace walpole, or the more recent and certainly pleasanter example in paris itself.

which reminds me that hemingway said, what is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel bad after. (there is no right & wrong; there is merely me & you.)

he also said, [a man] should find things he cannot lose, in my favorite short of his, "in another country." (have you read it? would you like to?) i've strived to do just that; pace barthes, i didn't decide to fall in love. it was more like what stendhal writes :

you were unconsciously bored by living without loving, and convinced in spite of yourself by the example of others. you have overcome all life's fears, and are no longer content with the gloomy happiness which pride affords : you have conceived an ideal without knowing it. one day you come across someone not unlike this ideal; crystallization recognizes its theme by the disturbance it creates, and consecrates for ever to the master of your destiny what you have dreamt of for so long.

... & to think i thought i was over you. how could i do that when i can't even get over a cold?