You Can’t See The Condition Of My Condition From There

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For the past few years, photographer, activist and friend, Substantia Jones, has celebrated love from February 1st thru Valentine’s Day by posting pictures of couples in love.What makes her work different than the many other photographs of loving couples is that her couples are fat ― and often in various states of undress.  For those first fourteen days of each February Substania shows the world something most rarely see depicted in mainstream imagery – that fat people are in love and are very much loved in turn. That’s the good news…

Each year more and more other media outlets take notice of her work with glowing accolades.   And without fail, whenever she receives these well-deserved accolades for her work in other media, especially social which will often reprint her photos, there is a backlash. Even when an article is overall positive or at least enlightening, as we erstwhile and current models of her Valentine’s Day series, Adipositivity.com, Uppity Fatty and Fat People Flipping You Off  series know…

Now seems like as good a time as any for an important reminder: Never read the comments.

Because, in spite of that good advice, every now and then I forget where I am, the internet, and it will start off with praise and commentary for the article, then someone post that first bad comment. And once that first negative comment appears – from that point on it snowballs into a downhill shitstorm. And that’s the bad news…

For just as inevitably, the negative comments swing from how someone looks around to those who will start spouting their unasked for two cents regarding someone’s “health.”  This is when those, who from a mere photograph can and will spout, near chapter and verse, of the presumed physical, and sometimes emotional, ills of someone, especially the fat someone. Often they do not even bother to be nice about it by wrapping it in the sandpaper of “can” and “may”.

Look at her, you know she has hypertension or diabetes at that size.

I can see his ribs, he’s got to be anorexic.

I just don’t understand how people don’t see the double standard. There could be totally average size people pictured and you don’t question their “health”, because it is the “standard.” Average, thin or athletic looking people could have heart disease, diabetes or liver disease, but no one makes definitive presumptions about their “health”. Give him a salad, get her a cheeseburger.

And for God’s sakes some arm chair Dr. Oz-es out there, really need to stop acting like your judgment is somehow based on some noble concern for our health. Especially when you are basing the things you spew upon a double standard.

Because you simply cannot judge someone’s heath based on a photograph. Unless, you’re Sherlock Holmes, but since he does not exist and even if he did Dr, Watson would tell him to zip it any way, you’re not him, but I digress. You know nothing about the people in the photographs or their background. They may have health issues that prevent them from losing weight, they may have depression or any number of things that would cause weight gain. You do not know if they’re trying to lose the weight and frankly it is none of your damned business whether they are or not. If I have a salad for lunch today, it for the same reason I will have a cheeseburger for dinner tonight, I like the taste. My food consumption is not up for public discussion, especially from a perfect stranger – because there is nothing perfect about them if they are commenting on my food choices–, and especially while I am actually eating.

Average, thin or athletic looking people could have heart disease, diabetes or liver disease, but no one thinks about their health.  No one would comment that she or he could be a contributor to the high cost of insurance. Yet, one look at a fat person and it is almost considered a given. Commenting that a fat is a contributor and that it is something we all have to be concerned is pure sizest bullshit. By making this presumption it bears the extrapolation that some think all fat people are poor and/or do not have insurance. Unless you personally are footing that fat person’s insurance premium, it is just an opinion, an erroneous one at that, and I believe most of us are familiar with the adage regarding opinions and sphincters.

No one should voice an opinion on the healthy or non-healthy status of someone else’s body, whether they are fat, skinny or in between; not even a random someone in the medical profession.  The only person who can voice a definitive opinion on someone’s health without impunity is that person’s private doctor.

You are not attracted to fat people/skinny people, that is fine, beauty is… after all. Do you have a right to that opinion? Absolutely. Do you have the right to voice that opinion? Yes, you do. However, is voicing that opinion germane to the conversation at hand? If not, then please keep that opinion to yourself and avoid potentially derailing a conversation that was not about you and your opinion.

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Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 challenge – Week 8
52essays2017
A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.

And let’s see how others are slicing this week:
sol
Slice of Life Writing Challenge|Two Writing Teachers

MLMM – Tale Weaver #107: Lost

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We are wandering through ancient streets and hills. Well, I’m wandering, for I have no clue as to our destination, if any, she is strolling. She’s avoiding the main thoroughfares as much as possible, taking alternate paths as only one who lives and breathes these streets can. I tease that I think we’re lost, but I envy the ease of how she knows her way around, casually acknowledging points of interest. I see how every now and then she starts to go for my hand, but then stops herself. I don’t know what to do about that, so I put my hands in my pockets and try to remember to keep them there. Otherwise, she is charming, engaging and yeah I like her, but nothing more. She knows this. When she smiles at me, the corners waver a little, and it makes me feel a little bad, but what can I do?

We stop at a quaint trattoria for one of the best meals that I can remember, which is not saying much. I am enjoying the meal immensely, lost in the deliciousness of it all, but she barely touches hers. I’m watching her push the pasta from one end of the plate to the other, not really knowing what else to do. As we pass the maître de upon leaving, he gives us a hearty enough sendoff, but somehow I know he knows what is going on between she and I.

It was early afternoon when we started this impromptu tour. It was now dusk and the city was becoming a different kind of alive. There was something vaguely familiar, comforting about it that tugged at me, but I could not put a name to it. Ever watchful, she could tell it was bothering me and blatantly grabbed my arm to pull me around a block or two, turn a corner and then stop. I look up and grin.

We had been strolling around these Rome streets all afternoon, and I knew I saw it in distance earlier as we walked a part of Via dei Fori Imperiali. It seemed so far away then, I was wondering if we would get to it at all, but here we were now standing right in front of it. The Flavian Amphitheatre, or as the  name the world mostly knows it by, The Coliseum, beautifully lit up for the night.

As she had held my arm, it was only natural that she takes my hand to hold; I don’t try to retract it. Her fingers are long, her nails short, yet well-manicured, and like her soft smile, I see the tiny tremors belying her nervousness as I notice the ring on the third finger of her left hand. A ring that I know was not there a few minutes ago. I am lost for words as it all comes together. I thought she was a good friend. Yes, but no.

She is my fiancée.

This afternoon, the places we stopped, the maître de at the trattoria, this moment – all of it a rehashing of the day I proposed to her, at dusk, here in front of The Coliseum. For me this afternoon was a random, but wonderful wandering. A change of pace from the emptiness that has become my life. For her it was bittersweet reminiscing. A gentle rehashing in the hopes that it would trigger something of the life we had before the car accident wiped my memories. An urgent prayer it will trigger something. A desperate plea trigger anything.

It triggers nothing.

She knows me intimately, yet I really don’t know her from any of the other tourists milling around us. Her eyes are beseeching the words that cannot fall from my lips. I shake my head sadly, watching as tears form and start to trail down her cheeks, with neither of us doing anything to abate them, as I feel lost anew.

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This week, Lorraine asks us to weave a tale with the threads of lost.

Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie – Tale Weaver #107: Lost 16.02.17

 

Soulmates? II

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I covered this before, but considering today I’d like to bring it up again.

I have a special person in my life.

I love him immensely. When we’re together there is much laughter, very heated discussions, tears and yes love. When I completely lost my mind last year and had to face up to the reality of my actions, he was my first call for drinks and discussion. The words were never spoken, but there is no question if one calls, the other will answer because we don’t do so lightly.

He is my soulmate.

Luckily, his wife knows I am not a threat to her and is completely supportive of our friendship.

Betcha didn’t quite see that one coming did ya?

Let me begin where I ended the last time I broached the subject of Soulmates…

https://raivenne.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/soulmate/

“Nearly, everyone says and thinks of a soul-mate as the all-encompassing, be all and end all romantic type of love.

I propose a person can have more than one soul-mate and while a soul-mate is always, someone you want to share the rest of your days with, a soul-mate is not necessarily or solely the person you also want to share your bed with for the rest of your days.

But that thought is a blog for another day”

It is now another day…

The concepts of soulmates arose from mythology, Greek if I remember correctly. According to the story, our ancestors once had 2 heads, 4 arms and 4 legs. These ancestors did something to piss off one of the gods so bad that the deity punished them by splitting them down the middle, resulting in the creation of humans. To add insult to injury, we humans are now condemned to spend our lives searching for the other half of ourselves, our soulmates.

You’d think the gods would’ve gotten bored watching us run around pell-mell trying to find the ever elusive One, but nooooo. Here we humans are, a few millennium later, still soul-searching.

As Shakespeare had Puck say in A Midsummer’s Night Dream “Lord what fools these mortals be!”
Indeed, Puck-a-rooni, indeed!

I mean think about it, unless these two-headed, four-armed beings were asexual and/or hermaphroditic and/or aromantic, they were loving each other just fine without the concept of The One, but I digress…

My mileage dictates a soulmate is a person who connects with your soul in a way that changes you and that can happen on various levels.

Temporary Souls: A teacher who intentionally or not provides a valuable life lesson. The complete stranger or barely known acquaintance who unexpectedly reaches out to you at a time when you really need it. They are the people that we encounter throughout our lives, who come, touch our souls for a moment and are gone. Whether or not they have any idea that they touched our souls, we know they did and they will always be a part of us. Think of all the nth amount of people you have encountered in your life, outside of your family, yet of all these people only a select few have somehow made it in to the very core of you however briefly. For that brief moment – soulmates.

Twin Heart Souls: Think your best and/or closest friends. The ones who help you bury the body or at the very least know the right thing to say to you at three in the morning when you’re losing it, to keep there from being a body to to be buried in the first place. The one/s you really click with pretty much from the moment you meet. Those who believe in reincarnation, say it is because you have already met in a past life, and in this life you are continuing the relationship. My best friend of over thirty years and I have a saying of our relationship. Where we are opposite we are polar opposite, but where we are alike we are twins. If we both point at something in a store window – say a piece of jewelry and we both love it, without even looking at each other, we immediately know two things. 1) It’s a classic piece that can work with various styles and 2) it is likely to be considerably out of our price range and to keep on walking. From the moment I butted into her conversation with someone else back in high school, unto this day – we were soulmates. YMMV

Twin Flame Souls: This is the what most people refer to when speaking of the soulmate. If we follow the edicts of the mythology I mentioned earlier, there is only one twin flame soulmate for each of us. Like Twin Heart Souls, in reincarnation beliefs, Twin Flame Souls have spent several lifetimes together in past lives. The chemistry and attraction towards each other is undeniable. They burn with passionate fire for only each other. To go all Jerry McGuire here, they “complete” each other and only a very lucky few are able to find their twin flame soulmate.

If I go by that edict, that would mean my late-husband was my twin flame soulmate. Does this then mean if I happen to fall in love again, this person will only be second best? Considering I tend to lean toward the very self-confident to borderline arrogant types, I’m somehow guessing my potential paramour would not take kindly to that option. In addition, many people change as they grow older. If Twin Flame Souls find each other and grow together that’s perfect and as it purportedly should be. However, for most of us, the soulmate that would have been perfect for us in high school, may not exactly be as acceptable in later years, unless they too have somehow continued to follow a congruent path in life, so then what?

That thin thread of hope the deities tossed out at us, that there’s always a possibility that we will find and connect with our perfect soulmates becomes ever more threadbare when one considers after all these eons, our Twin Flames Souls may be on the other side of the freaking planet. Hell, if Richard Branson has his way, that soulmate could be on Virgin Galactic heading to a galaxy far, far away in the really not too distant future.

Just as your heart has more than one way to love, so can your soul have more than one way to share. It is one of the many reasons why I find the Highlanderish “There can be only one” soulmate bullshit, well — bullshit.

To those of you who have found your Twin Flame Souls enjoy your Valentine’s Day. For the rest of us, lets grab our Twin Heart Souls, hit a bar and and hope Branson does not get his galactic wheels up anytime soon and give us earthlings a chance.

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

Editing to add: Thanks to my Sweet friend, I am reminded that Aristophanes’ speech from Plato’s Symposium is the Greek mythology I was trying to remember and any one who saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch, knows the myth was best explained in the Origin of Love.

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Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 challenge – Week 7
52essays2017
A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.

The Sunday Whirl: Wordle-286 – Bar None

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Three people walk into a bar; stop at the top step and look around…

The place truly had seen better days. Cloth covers most of the major furnishings.  What was not covered by cloth was under the same thick layers of dust that covered the cloths. A few shafts of sunlight slanted across the room giving an otherworldly sparkle to the dust motes that took to flight upon their entrance and were now resettling. Desaturated of color, the many gray and black shades of dirt and dust gave a horror film quality to the place. In spite of the dust, decay had not taken root. The place had solid bones. The owner was willing to sell it for practically a song as long as someone else was willing to spend for the necessary repairs that certainly would be needed.

With a dramatic flair she takes the few steps down to the main level and walks over to a corner, grabs the edge of a cloth and flips it over onto itself revealing the upright underneath. It was unusual for its time period. Heavy walnut with mother-of-pearl inlays greeted them. Well, what was left of the inlay that is. The inlay was chipped in some places and outright missing in others.  The wood itself had its own dents and stains. Looking at it you could all but imagine someone zoot suited pulling up a stool and hammering out the rhythms of a resounding rag.  She played a couple of chords of what could be called a melody with some love and care and tuning.

Next she unveils a table which had similar inlay work. She leans a little on the table, testing its strength, nearly falling to the floor as the wobbly legs finally revealed themselves and the table broke in half as it crashed to the floor sending up a cloud of dust.   She spies the dubious face of one her companions as she fans the dust away from her and she sighs.

Slowly, they uncover the other furnishings.  Like the first table, most were in some state of disrepair, though the chandeliers looked to be in good enough condition that nothing more than a little, perhaps a lot, of elbow grease couldn’t fix.  The more they looked, the more it seemed she could see the dubious companion’s hope fall even more. The realtor knew the place was going to be a challenge.

Without a word she and the other companion look to each other knowingly. Together the husband and wife turn to the realtor looking at the two of them pretty much resigned to not making a sale.

“We’ll take it!”

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sunday whirl
The Sunday Whirl: Wordle – 286

challenge, face, half, melody, rag, resound, rhythms, root, song, stool, unusual, upright

Saturday Mix – Silly Soliloquy

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footsteps in snow
Caught in Ol’ Man Winters blow,
It was not far I walked  in this snow
And the masses shy from my harried face,
Ignore how I pace, my steps retrace
For what was mine, now gone, I cannot glean
From whence the place it was last seen,
Oh how its lack makes my heart wrench
When I thought I spied it ‘pon you bench
But it was a trick of the sun’s glare
To make me think it could be there
In defeat, to bathroom I go to silently bawl
And find it still there by the stall
Some thought it’s trite how I bemoan
But it was not they who lost their phone!
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For the MLMM Saturday Mix Bastet  invites us to write a short soliloquy. I find my self in a silly mood, thus a silly soliloquy. Willie Shakes has nothing to fear from the likes of me.

Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Saturday Mix – February 11, 2017 – Bastet

MLMM – Music Prompt # 74 – Valentine’s Day Special – i am yours

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Time stands still

She sits in the white leather armchair by the fireplace, her legs slightly akimbo as one arm casually resting on one side, one hand holds a snifter of brandy alternately glancing at its colors as she swirls, sniffs and sips its contents even as she silently watches me, waiting.

The fingers of the outstretched arm are lightly tapping the the chair. It is the only indication of her mood. I had to make a decision.

Though she has not uttered a sound since I walked in fifteen minutes ago, I hear her smoke on velvet voice in my mind as clearly as if she had spoken.

Are you sure?

Beauty in all she is

The black velvet jacket gaps just enough to expose the sheer lace of the scarlet basque that offsets her mocha complexion beautifully. Barely containing the voluptuousness underneath, it gapes enough to know it is intentional, but not enough to be indecent. The black leather pants fit snug, but not tight over her wide hips, luscious thighs. Her black stilettos are casually tossed to the side, but she sits with her toes in the plush carpet, feet arched as if she still wears them. As though her regal bearing could ever be lessened by some mere trifle as being shoeless.

Trust Me. Trust us.

I will be brave

Never able to hide anything, She watches my face as I stand before Her contemplating. There really was not anything to think about. The decision was made when i walked in the door this evening. Hell, i think She and i knew this was inevitable from when we first laid eyes on each other over a year ago. There is no place i rather be, there is no one else, but Her.

An imperial eyebrow arches as She sees the decision coalesce on my face.

This moment is me finally showing on the outside what we both knew i had accepted in my heart weeks ago. She rises as i move from the door to stand directly before Her.

With immense release, I vale to my knees, bow my head and submit.

“Yours.”

It is likely only a couple of minutes as she makes me wait, but it feels like a thousand years before I feel the touch of Her hand in my hair, guiding my head back for a kiss in acceptance.

MINE.

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At Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie we are invited to use the lyrics of “A Thousand Years”by Christina Perri as inspiration to write about love and to “Feel free to take the subject in whichever direction that you desire.”

Music Prompt # 74 – “A Thousand Years”by Christina Perri – Valentine’s Day Special

MLMM’s Wordle #141 – Brained

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With his latest exploit leaving him temporarily unable to yell, his adroit digits fly over the keyboard. It almost seemed diabolist as the more he typed the more the words accelerated across the page in a desperate attempt to catch up with the seething mess of thoughts as they escaped the confines of his synapses. Drowning in his rage he pulled no punches. No he would not be polite in this, there will be no form of tact to soften the blows. Otherwise silent, only the rapid staccato of key strikes gave testament to his diatribe.

Minutes of manic typing pass before the cramp formed from being so tensely hunched over made him straighten his back and lift his head. He stopped cold as he caught sight of the furious expression of his likeness in the mirror off to the side. Still, the depth of his fury paled in comparison to the dazed and confused reflection of his partner standing off in a corner away from him. And just like that, the anger vanishes as he sighs in exulansis. With fanfare he yanks the sheet from the typewriter, balls it up and bins it.

Seeing the usual temper tantrum has once again passed, his partner smiles and happily bounces over to him expectantly.

“Gee, Brain. What are we going to do tonight?”
“The same thing we do every night, Pinky…”
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week-141
Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie | Weekly Wordle #141

Escape, Exulansis, Diabolist, Polite, Likeness, Fanfare, Seethe, Soften, Adroit, Drown, Mess, Accelerate

Use at least 10 of the words to create a story or poem. The words can appear in an alternate form, in any order that you like.

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For those of you who may have no idea about those last two lines – try this:

And if you’re still flummoxed go here: Pinky & The Brain.

Three Shots

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Winter in dirty rounds
Left a sour chaser
In this summer soul
El Sol hears
My shaken last call
And responds
Warm rays fall
A tonic that bides me
Straight up until spring

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The kamikaze ball dive
sent a spritzer of
mud and hair of the dog
across the erstwhile neat landscape
of three sheets to the wind
With shaken resolve
Bro and I
face Mama

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Days of straight
getting hammered, plastered

Now after a paint chaser
all proof of the head shot
soused across the wall is gone

Tipsy with exhaustion
only the bloody memory
has me stirred

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Yesterday, De (aka WhimsyGizmo), invited us to mix our muses up a bit by throwing some pub and drinking terms in the blender. But to use the words in ways that have nothing to do with the bar scene, alcohol, or drinking. Being verbose, I went for the tall drink realizing after the fact she wanted shots of no more that 33 words. Being a lush I offer the “three shots” above.

dverse
dVerse Poetics: Muse Mixology

Doing Rounds

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I twist my head slowly
trying to tame
the kamikaze tumbler
of my synapses in hyper drive
Your touch 100% proof
I never had a chance
This round is yours

Still stubborn as a mule
You struggle against the bonds
part shaken by how well
I’ve tied one on
But mostly stirred
And you know I know it
This round mine

As I curl out and then straight up
You straddle my chair neat
I drown my sorrows dirty
hammered against the heat
and wet your whistle with firewater
This last call ours
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De (aka WhimsyGizmo), invites us to mix our muses up a bit by throwing some pub and drinking terms in the blender. But to use the words in ways that have nothing to do with the bar scene, alcohol, or drinking. I think you can guess where I went with this.

dverse
dVerse Poetics: Muse Mixology

Name Me

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Before I begin this I concede that I am a prurient ass, and while I hope I am not the only person for whom the following would be such a point of contention as to blog about it, but it does irk me to that degree.

I have a confession to make: I, a writer, am at a loss for a word. Not words, for this is not a post on writer’s block, but a word. A single word -and speaking of single let me roll this back a bit and make my conundrum clear.

My spouse – the person I am married to.
My fiancé/fiancée – the male/female identifier with whom I am engaged to marry.
My betrothed – the gender neutral term for the person I am engaged to.
My intended** – the very informal use of betrothed.
My lover – the person I am having sexual relations with, but who is not necessarily my betrothed or my spouse.
My paramour – the pretentious and/or facetious use of lover, but indicative that the other person’s holy matrimony is the stumbling block between the two of us.
My friend – the person whose company I enjoy, but I have no romantic feelings for.

I’m guessing at this point you have figured out the missing rung.  So I say this to you: When I enter into a monogamous relationship with a person I am dating, but not necessarily have engaged physical relations. I do not desire to state it so baldly by using the term lover, or any indicative thereof, especially if we have yet to engage in the more physical aspects of such. How do I introduce that person to others? Please note I am not referring to terms of endearment, the romantic nouns with which we would call each other, but a clear-cut specific term when you are past saying my date, because as a grown woman of 53 years of age, I would feel utterly ridiculous being introduced as someone’s girlfriend. Thusly, I would not want to introduce a male of my peerage as my boyfriend. So what are the alternatives for the mature dating couple?

My woman/My man sounds like someone is trying a buy a couple seconds while desperately trying to remember the other person’s name while not insulting their maturity by addressing them as my boy or my girl.

My lady, while acceptable enough, sounds so stuffy as though bowing of some sort is expected. My gentleman caller evokes, well, peals of laughter, and expectations of bows, curtsies and polite kissing of said lady’s knuckles (*press play on hurl.mp3 here*).

Granted there is the classic sweetheart, but seriously. For those who know me, I can already hear their snort at my attempt to say such with tenderness except maternal and I haven’t done that when addressing my sons since they were in grade school.  Saying sweetheart with derision or utter sarcasm? -oh in a heartbeat. Saying it with affection? -never gonna happen. And honestly, could you see me with a man who would call me such, except smartastically? Great the old standard Let Me Call You Sweetheart is now running in the background of my mind as I type this. Ugh!

That leaves the ubiquitous my guy/my gal. The former immediately brings the classic Mary Wells tune to mind, while the latter conjures Judy Garland & Gene Kelly hoofing it. So again, I really would prefer a term that did not engage my already natural tendency to drop a song lyric at any given prompt more chances to run rampant. And cripes – now Bon Jovi’s Runaway is in my head- I really can’t stand myself sometimes.

I have read somewhere that other places, such as in the Chinese language, there are several distinct terms for love. These words define, romantic love, from familial loves, from humanitarian love etc. Whereas English only the generic love which encompasses everything, versus in love, which is solely the providence of romantic relationships. If the English language, which has no qualms in blatantly stealing phrases from every other language in existence to make its point when needed, has such a dearth of more appropriate terms for the varying intricacies of love itself, is it really surprising we are so lacking in terminology for the extended ladder rungs leading to it?

I imagine part of the reason for this lexiconic lacking is a mix of history, tradition and longevity. History in that from the days of yore the human life expectancy was a much shorter one than now. Tradition in that a hundred or so years ago, it was pretty much a given that anyone over the age of 25 was likely either married or widowed, unless the person was a spinster or confirmed bachelor. While it was possible for a widow in antebellum south to reenter the courting pool, she retained her late-husband’s surname if/until she remarried. There was no need, read time, to establish more dating/courting terms for the mature single person beyond the genteel gentleman caller. Longevity in that it is still the relative norm to presume a person will date, became engaged, get married and at some point widowed, and as we’re talking this day and age –  possibly divorced. However, as we are living much longer and by extrapolation, dating longer, and/or returning to the dating pool at later ages, the strictures of old-fashioned courting are as outdated the as term gentlemen callers. As such we find ourselves in a bit of linguistic conundrum.

So here I am a week from Valentine’s Day, throwing out a net into the linguistic waters in search of a word in English that is equivalent to the immediate understanding of girlfriend/boyfriend yet does not immediately bring to mind the days of high school. Any takers?

**While intended as a romantic term is used interchangeably with betrothed, I personally have considered it a step down on the romance ladder because of the classic definition of the word intend. Betrothed, brooks no question, two people are definitely going to get married. John Watson proposes to Mary Mortenson in the traditional way with a ring and everything (Yes, I am a huge fan of BBC’s Sherlock – just zip it – would you do that for me please?). There is no question they are a devoted couple and John is going to marry Mary, thus they are betrothed to each other.
When a spontaneous proposal happens, but there is no ring on hand to seal that part of the deal, I think intended should be used. In a moment of passion (not that type of passion – geesh people!) Pat pops the question to Leslie. However, because Pat has more love than moolah at the moment, it takes a bit before an engagement ring is placed on Leslie’s fingers. Until the rings show up, they intend to become engaged/married.
And going back to 221B Baker Street as temporary analogy (I said zip it), in the case of Sherlock flashing an engagement ring at Janine, Sherlock would have introduced her as his betrothed for we would see the evidence of such on her left hand ring finger. However, as she would have been the sole ring wearer, she could introduce him as her intended. After all Sherlock bought the engagement ring because he intended to propose (<– see what I did there?). Intended – you can all but hear the comma, space, but and ellipses immediately following that sentence can’t you? This is why I place intended as a romantic term a rung down on the ladder.

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Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 challenge – Week 6
52essays2017
A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.

And let’s see how others are slicing this week:
sol
Slice of Life Writing Challenge|Two Writing Teachers