ROMANTIC NOTIONS

Of Love and Hisses...

Happy Valentine's Day, friends!
     All you need is love, according to the Beatles song.  Of
course, food, air, and a little money don't hurt, either.  
You also may have heard that only fools fall in love, which
makes us just about the most foolish beings in the known
universe.  But what is love?  Everyone from poets to
pornographers has put in their two cents.  We can love
chocolate, love kids, love God, love a particular movie, love
our parents, love traveling, love our friends and even love
love.  Then there's that relationship thing.  That's where most
of us run into trouble, eventually.
     The trouble with relationships is that men and women don't
always understand one another.  OK, everybody knows that.  But
why?  Mars and Venus?  Yin and Yang?  Steak and salad?  Monday
Night Football and Oprah?  When you're looking at a problem
that is this large, common and unsolvable, our management
students would say that it must be a "systems problem."  There
must be something basic wrong with our approach.  In
relationships, women often become frustrated because men never
quite learn to deal with their emotions.  And men often become
frustrated because women never quite learn to deal with their
emotions.  The problem is, teaching men and women to have the
same level of emotional sensitivity is like teaching sheep to
square dance.  Maybe the real secret to relationships isn't in
understanding one another perfectly, but in accepting one
another as we are.
     Love and warm Thanks this week to all of our friends and
supporters, especially: my lovely bride, Carol Becwar; Hiroe
Sugiyama; Caterina Sukup; Sylvia Libin He; Akiko Ogino; Laura
Hong Li; Jerry Taff; Timothy T. McChain;  Dale Frederickson;
Fumiko Umino; Beth Butler; Sue Yan; Paul Roser; Peter Adler and
Nnamdi Elleh.  Hope that all of you find the love you seek. 
Happy Chinese New Year, too!  Hope the Year of the Rabbit is a
good one for all of you.
     Have a Lovely Week,


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MORE STARR-CROSSED LOVERS?
-------------------------
     While the entire world - and probably a few aliens in
UFO's - were glued to the saga of Bill and Monica, politicians
elsewhere continued on as if nothing had happened.  For
example, Thomas Klestil, the sixty-six year-old president of
Austria divorced his wife of forty years to marry Margot
Loeffler, a former presidential aide 22 years his junior.  The
popular Klestil, who had been re-elected last April, had been
separated from his wife since she walked out four years ago
when she discovered the affair.  (Reuters)
          [ Austria is obviously a "Special
          Prosecutor Free" zone... ]


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     There are only two times when a man doesn't
     understand a woman - before marriage and after
     marriage.

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A COLORFUL PERSPECTIVE
----------------------
     Attending a wedding for the first time, a little girl
whispered to her mother, "Why is the bride dressed in white?"
     "Because white is the color of happiness, and today is the
happiest day of her life."
     The child thought about this for a moment.  "So why is the
groom wearing black?"


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UNDERSTANDING
-------------
  -  To be happy with a man, a woman must understand him a lot
     and love him a little.

  -  To be happy with a woman, a man must love her a lot and
     not try to understand her at all.

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TRUE LOVE
---------
          If you love someone, set them free. 
          If they come back, they are, and always will be yours. 
          If they never return, they were never really yours. 
          If they just sit in your living room, mess up your stuff,
               eat your food, use your telephone, take your money,
               and never behave as if you actually set them free,
               you either married them or gave birth to them.
                                -  Forwarded by Carl Creasman, Jr.

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MORE TRUE LOVE...
--------------
 
Optimist:
     If you love somebody,
     Set them free ...
     Don't worry, they will come back.
 
Patient:
     If you love somebody,
     Set them free ...
     If they don't come back, continue to wait...
 
Suspicious:
     If you love somebody,
     Set them free ...
     If they ever come back, ask why.
 
Pessimist:
     If you love somebody,
     Set them free ...
     If they ever come back, they're yours,
     If they don't, they never were - but you expected that.
 
Impatient:
     If you love somebody,
     Set them free...
     If they don't come back within a little while forget them.
 
Playful:
     If you love somebody,
     Set them free ...
     If they come back, set them free again.  Repeat.
 
Vengeful:
     If you love somebody,
     Set them free...
     If they don't come back, 
     Hunt them down and make their life miserable.
 
Animal-Rights Activist:
     If you love somebody,
     Set them free...
     In fact, insist on them being free even if they don't want
          to be.
 
Lawyers:
     If you love somebody,
     Set them free...
     Clause 1a of Paragraph 13a-1 in the second amendment of
          the Matrimonial Freedom Act clearly states that...
 
Business Major
     If you love somebody,
     Set them free...
     But retain a majority of stock in the spun-off subsidiary.

Bill Gates:
     If you love somebody,
     Set them free...
     If they come back,
     We can charge them a re-installation fee and tell them
          that they are going to need an upgrade, too.
 
Biologist :
     If you love somebody,
     Set them free...
     They'll evolve.

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     "I've been in love with the same woman for forty-one
     years. If my wife finds out, she'll kill me!"
                                -  Henny Youngman

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IT TAKES TWO...
------------
     A husband was reading a study in the paper, filled with
pride since it proved the superiority of men.  He proudly told
his wife that the study said that men use 2,200 words a day,
while women use over 4,000.
     The wife pondered that a moment, then concluded, "That's
because women have to repeat everything they say to their
husbands."
     Looking up from the paper he said, "Sorry, what did you
say?"


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     "I was married by a judge.  I should have asked for a
     jury."
                                     -  George Burns

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COMPUTERS - MALE OR FEMALE?  THE DEBATE RAGES ON...
------------------------------------------------
Women generally reported that computers should be referred to
as "HE" because:
 
  -  In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.

  -  They have a lot of data, but are still clueless.

  -  They'll do whatever you say if you push the right buttons.

  -  They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the
          time they are the problem.

  -  As soon as you commit to one, you realize that, if you had
          waited a little longer you could have had a better
          model.
 

Men, on the other hand, concluded that computers should be
referred to in the feminine gender because:
 
  -  No one but their creator understands their internal logic.

  -  The native language they use to communicate with other
          computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.

  -  The same input often produces completely different results.

  -  Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory
          for later retrieval.

  -  As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself
          spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.
 

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  -  A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.

  -  A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't need.

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A FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE EXPLAINED
----------------------------------

   How to impress a woman:
 
     Compliment her,
     cuddle her,
     kiss her,
     caress her,
     love her,
     stroke her,
     tease her,
     comfort her,
     protect her,
     hug her,
     hold her,
     spend money on her,
     wine and dine her,
     buy things for her,
     listen to her,
     care for her,
     stand by her,
     support her,
     buy flowers for her,
     go to the ends of the earth for her...


  How to impress a man:
     Show up naked.
     Bring beer.

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THE RULES:
---------
     A woman has the last word in any argument.  
     Anything a man says after that is, by definition, 
     the beginning of a new argument.

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IT'S STILL THE SAME OLD STORY...
-----------------------------
     For the last two years, Deko has been trying to win the
love of his life.  And he is as persistent a suitor as the
world has ever known.  It would help you to know that Deko is a
5-year-old albatross living in the Izu islands of Japan.
     Deko has built his lady love fancy nests, chased away
other males who tried to cut in, and spent hundreds of days
standing faithfully at her side.  But to no avail.  All his
attention hasn't provoked a single flicker of attention from
the lady albatross he desires.
     His persistence is legendary.  His intelligence, however,
is not.  Obviously not the brightest bulb on the string, Deko
has yet to figure out that the love of his life is a wooden
decoy.   The imitation birds were placed in the refuge by
marine biologists to attract the endangered birds and encourage
them to breed.
          [ Strange how women are never surprised to
          hear that Deko is a male. ]

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