Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol CXI

I swore that I wouldn't fall back into the same traps of rehashing ancient legends, tales and history when I fired this thing back up, but then I trotted out the falling down the stairs story that I had already told about Betsy Hagar.  I guess this is just lazy writing.  Welcome to the rest of the Internet, Jenks!

I know that today isn't Valentine's day, but it's this weekend and no one reads a this blog ever on the weekends, so I thought I'd also fall into the old habits of writing about saints on their feast day.  I mean, when it comes to lazy writing, go big or go home.

Or just don't write at all.  Looking at you, 2015!!!

Anyway, on Sunday, the calendar page flips over to a gigantic pink heart and a box of chocolates and a giant Vermont teddy bear--no, NOT Bernie Sanders.  We're talking about an ungodly huge stuffed bear that is sure to get your female counterpart to cross her legs at the knees forever while she stares icy daggers at you with every chance she gets.

Speaking of ungodly...

One of the symbols of Valentine's Day is Cupid, the Roman god of erotic love.  He is the son of Venus, and depending on who you ask in Rome, you will get a different answer as to his father's identity.  If we follow the Greek tradition, Eros (Cupid's "Greek counterpart) just sort of arose from the Chaos at the beginning of it all.  Some people will tell you that Mercury is the father (hence the wings), others insist Vulcan is the father because he was, after all, married to Venus.  Still others prefer to insist that Mars is the father, because there is a certain beauty in describing love as being both erotic and warlike.

Kinky.

In Roman traditions, Cupid is a beautiful youth with a quiver of arrows at his belt and a bow at his side.  He's deadly accurate with those arrows, too:  one shot of his golden-tipped arrow and you're doing things you never thought you would ever do.  Cupid's arrows are very much like tequila.

However, Cupid gives and Cupid taketh away.  In addition to his golden-tipped love darts, Cupid could also fire off lead-tipped projectiles that would turn you from being a wanton and love-filled youth and into Grumpy Cat, but with less personality and more bitterness.  Essentially, me.

Cupid's most famous myth is the one where he is sent to destroy the beautiful Psyche, but in a somewhat ironic twist, Cupid falls in love with the mortal and ends up not killing her.  Psyche is pretty fucking hot, and this makes Cupid's mom, Venus, upset and thus dispatches her son to do her dirty work.  Instead, once Cupid sees Psyche, he wants her immediately and we get, as is usually the case, a case of divine kidnapping. Nothing says love like stealing your girlfriend from her home and locking her in a dark room (no, seriously...don't do this).  According to the legend, Cupid spirits Psyche off to his palace where he keeps her in a dark room...no mention of whether he lured her into his chariot first with candy or went strait to the chloroform.  At night, he comes to her (and probably on her), telling her of his love for her, but she can't be allowed to see him (because then the jig will be up as she would instantly recognize him as Cupid).  Concerned--and here is where her sisters, jealous that Psyche is getting some godly dick--Psyche sneaks a lamp into the room while Cupid is asleep and she lights it, discovering that her lover is Cupid.  In her excitement, she spills some oil on him, burning him awake (I'm sure he would have preferred a blow job), and, seeing that Psyche now knows his godly identity, Cupid flees.

No. Psyche. With an 'e' on the end!

Psyche goes off to search the world in order to find Cupid, but she can't, so she implores his mother--the one who wanted her dead in the first place--to help.  Yeah.  This is going to end well.  Being that she's a psycho jealous bitch, Venus tortures Psyche, sending her on impossible tasks that she somehow manages to complete.  Finally fed up, Venus sends Psyche into the Underworld to retrieve some of Porserpina's beauty with the instructions not to look at it.  As Admiral Ackbar once said:  IT'S A TRAP!  Curious to see what this beauty is, and perhaps to use a little for herself, Psyche does not heed Ackbar's warning and instead peeks in the box and is condemned to eternal sleep.  Cupid "stumbles" on her in the wild while she is out cold and feels her up revives her, sealing the sleep back in the box.

Impressed by her perseverance, Jupiter decides to deify Psyche, that way she can wed Cupid as an equal and not have that whole immortal/mortal dynamic that plagues so many other couples in mythology and tragic literature.

Wait.  What?  Jupiter didn't just say, "Nice job, kid?  Here's my dick!"  Huh.  Will wonders never cease?

Anyway, this is a story about how love conquers all.  Or maybe it's a story about how we kind of lose our minds when we're faced with love.  Or just a nice set of boobs (you know who you are).

With that in mind, here's this week's Latin phrase:

Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur.
"Ah-mar-aye et sah-pair-aye wicks day-o con-kay-dee-tour."

Even a god finds it hard to love and be wise at the same time.

It wasn't until some time after Alexander the Great died and before the Roman Empire rose to power in the Mediterranean world that Cupid went from being a handsome youth to the chubby little spanker we know him as today.  As his symbolism for both Heavenly and Earthly love began to be translated over into Christian mythology, Cupid became more of a cherub type image, and that's how he persists today, morphing into a more cartoonish caricature of himself.  If that's possible.  Unfortunately, Psyche hasn't followed along with him, and so Cupid has become associated with a sort of cruel prankster who enjoys seeing people fall in love with the wrong partner.  His most famous modern namesake is the "dating" site OKCupid, whose abbreviation (OKC) always makes me think of the Thunder and Kevin Durant.

Wait a minute...Kevin Durant is deadly accurate shooting, as well.  Holy shit, guys!  Kevin Durant is Cupid!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

An Even MORE Tragic Finale

I come to you, handful of blog readers, with hat in hand, ready to issue an apology for the oversight.  After writing last week's blog, I sat and thought on it (I have a lot of traffic to contend with on the daily commute) and I'm pretty sure that I had already told the story of falling-not-falling down Betsy's stairs.

Close enough to the image
I was trying to invoke

My shame, it is evident.  Do with me as you will. 

*ties blindfold around eyes* 

*lights cigarette*

But wait.  If you pull the triggers on that firing squad, you'll never get to hear the even more tragic tale of what happened after Betsy's graduation party!

Oh, I see I've earned myself a brief stay of execution.

Now, for this, you need to realize that I lived in a dingy little backwater town called Markle, which confidently strode the border of Huntington and Wells Counties in Indiana.  I lived on the western (read: far more cool and hip) side of town, so I went to Huntington North High School in Huntington, Indiana (don't ask where Huntington South is...).  Huntington was the county seat of Huntington County (amazing, I know), and as such was the largest city in the county.  Most of my friends lived in Huntington, not Markle.  It was a ten mile drive to Huntington--you know, all day trip type distance.

Betsy was one of those Huntington-residing friends.  Another was my good friend Matt Webb (it's almost like Matthew was a popular name for boys born in the middle of the 70s), and so it was that I made sure to go to Matt's graduation party.  I think it might have been the same weekend as Betsy's.  Don't ask for specifics; it was twenty a few years ago.  I've imbibed a few drinks and had mind-altering drugsblowing sex since then.  Details are a bit hazy.  Concentrate and ask again later.

Anyway, my friend Matt was a doctor's son, and a fairly successful doctor, at that.  As such, he could afford the finer things in life...such as a pool.  A pool which was fully engaged when I showed up at his party.  However, this was his "official" graduation party, and so all of his family--including ten thousand younger cousins--were at the party, and they were using the pool.

Like this, but with MORE purple

Unlike Betsy's party, I had no grand schemes or designs or speeches to deliver.  What I did have was a small bag of the ugliest fucking ties that the Seventies could have ever vomited up and called fashionable.  Matt was a big fan of retro fashion, and so I knew he would love these.  My dad didn't want them, so I folded them neatly and put them in a bag and took them to Matt's party. 

I was right.  He loved them.  He gushed over how happy they made him.  I felt pretty good.  Having a big slice of cake probably didn't hurt.  I spent probably an hour at Matt's house talking with him, his younger brother (he was a sophomore at HNHS), his mom (she worked at the school), and his dad (never met him before that day).  It was a great time.

After overstaying my welcome, I shook Matt's hand, congratulated him for graduating (I mean, why not?) and turned to go.  As I was leaving, Matt stopped me and said, "Hey, come back later tonight.  After dark.  A bunch of people are coming over.  It's going to be a pool party."  There was a hesitation, and then he added, "You can bring a suit...if you want..."

Now, the important thing here is that Matt and I ran in many of the same circles in high school.  This meant that, at this pool party, where bathing suits may or may not be needed, there was an excellent chance that several of the girls I had crushed upon over the course of the past four years would be in attendance, including Rachel, Amy, Elizabeth...and Betsy.

Holy shit.  I might get to swim naked.  With Betsy Motherfucking Hagar.

(This was not her middle name.  It was Anne.)

Ecstatic, I went and visited a couple of other friends, where they, too, were talking about Matt's graduation pool party.  Oh, the debauchery that the night promised.  It was almost too much for my 18-year-old mind to process.  I was almost literally aquiver with excitement. 

We'll just call it excitement and leave it at that.

Not Betsy...but another perfect blonde

I drove home, practically floating the whole way I was so happy.  I got home, parked the car, went inside and began preparing.  I got fresh clothes, grabbed the swim trunks (you know, to be gallant), and then hopped in the shower, scrubbed myself until I was pink and fresh-smelling, and then shaved and trimmed.

I was looking and feeling good.

I made myself some food and then sat down on the front porch with my parents to eat.  That's when my mother started in.

"Did you have a good time?"

"Yes, quite.  In fact--"

"Well, good.  You've been gone a lot over the past couple of weekends. I think it's about time to wrap up the graduation party circuit."

"Well, you see--"

"There aren't any other of your friends--your good friends, your close friends--parties to go to, right?  Good."

"Well Matt Webb--"

"You just went to Matt Webb's house.  You gave him all those old ties.  No need to go back."

Instead of arguing further, I just frowned down onto my plate and said, "Yeah, I guess not."  It's not like I could tell my mom that I had been invited to a pool party where I might see the nakeds.  Especially not ones that I had pined for for years, written erotica about, or developed pubescent carpal tunnel syndrome over.  Dejected--nay, defeated--I stayed home with my parents that night.

And yes, Matt had his pool party.

And yes, there was skinny dipping involved.

And yes, Betsy was there.

*peeks out from under blindfold*

Oh, what's that?  I've earned my freedom by spinning that tale?  Well, thanks, I'll just be going now.

*thinks back to what might have been on that fateful night at Matt Webb's house*

On second thought, just end it for me now...

Resuscitation

The other day, I was asked about breathing life back into this blog by a very attractive, very funny, very sexy young redheaded woman.  I pondered it for a few seconds days and, at her continued urging, decided that, yes, I guess I could maybe string a few words together in a manner somewhat pleasing for your senses.  Because, when have I ever been suggestible to the words of a hot woman?  Right?

Then I realized that it's Groundhog Day.  Groundhog Day!  The symbolism of rebirth, of being dragged unwillingly from a warm den and tunnel!  Oh, the symbolism is strong with this day.

Fear, anger, hatred?
A Groundhog knows not these things.

And once I began thinking about the symbolism of Groundhog Day, I remembered that it was the birthday of on Betsy Hagar, the Teutonic goddess on whom I crushed throughout high school, unrequited, silently, there in the corner...there in the spotlight.

*clears throat*

You get the idea.

At this point, I don't remember all the stories I told in the past, and frankly, I don't feel like going through all my past entries and reading everything that I've already written.  I mean, I like you guys; I just don't know if I like you that much.  Except you.  Yes, you.  You know why.

In movies, there's always the guy pining for the girl who is way out of his league, and he wants her from afar, but he never summons up the courage to tell her that he writes and masturbates to erotica about her that he has deep, deep feelings for her?  And then at the end of the movie, he finally grows a pair, and he walks up to the girl and he tells her that he loves her and then she always--always--falls into his arms and they go off and presumably live a happily ever after life filled with, presumably, lots of sex and blow jobs?

Well, that's what I decided to do with Betsy...from the safety of the other side of graduation.



What?
We were the Vikings.

After we shuffled of the educational coils of one Huntington North High School, I did the graduation party circuit.  I went to a lot of my friends' parties and did what I could with cards and gifts and stuff--it felt a lot like Squidward in that episode of SpongeBob where he's playing Santa Claus but is basically just giving away all his shit to make SpongeBob feel good?  Yeah, that was me with post-graduate gifts.

This is the situation in which I found myself at Betsy's graduation party, cheesy card and shitty gift in hand, my heart racing in my chest as I pondered the speech that would certainly win Betsy's heart and make her mine for that happily ever after story, complete with lots of sex and blow jobs.  I walked in, gave her the card, she gave me a hug, and...I got distracted talking to someone else.

Now, I don't know if you remember a lot of the graduation parties that YOU went to, but, well, they are thrown so that the graduate is the center of attention, so that the graduate is showered with undying adulation from their friends and family, so that the graduate is the center of the spotlight.

They're not thrown so that some other dork can have his teen romcom ending to his high school career.

And so it was at Casa de los Hagars.

The longer I stood in Betsy's living room, the more unnerved I became.  Eventually, I gave up, since she was ringed by a least a dozen other attractive high school girls (all fellow graduates of HNHS Class of 1994) serving as sort of a Midwestern Swiss Guard.  I approached Betsy, got another hug, and told her that I needed to be going.  She asked if I couldn't stay longer (I think I had another party to get to, honestly), and I made the polite small talk of telling her I wanted to, that I would miss hanging out with her, and that I hoped to see her again soon.  Not quite the romantic ending that I had built up in my mind, but it was still gallant.  Ish.

Spoilers:  I never saw her again.

Now, sure, in high school, I was an athlete.  I wouldn't describe myself as athletic, but I also wasn't a tub of lard that hurled himself forward by the mass of my gut sticking three feet out in front of the rest of me, either.  And while I had decent dexterity of foot (pedantry?), I, like everyone else, would still trip and fall slip and make a fool of myself.

As I was walking down the steps from Betsy's living room to the door, a framed photo collage that was propped on the back of the couch and leaning on the banister railing slipped and fell behind the couch.  It was loud, at it startled me a little bit.

Betsy, however, thought that I had keeled over and came running to help me.  There was a look of confusion on her face when I was standing there, quite upright, attempting to get the picture collage unwedged from behind the couch and back in its place of display.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yes, quite.  The picture just fell, that's all."

"Oh, I thought you had tripped and fallen."

There was a long moment where we stared at each other, and then I finally said, "Well, no.  However, I guess I shook this loose while walking down the stairs..."

We bid each other adieu once more, and then I walked out of her life, forever.   And the last thing she said to me was that she thought I was enough of a clumsy lummox that I had fallen down the stairs and done myself a grievous injury.

No.  Not the romantic ending I had envisioned for that particular relationship.  But at least I felt her boobs pressed against me.  Twice.

Small victories.

Happy Floralia

I wouldn't want to break with tradition here, and since today marks another obscure Roman holiday, I thought I would go ahead and write about that.  I mean, I could be doing work.  Or writing about work.  But I'm not.  I'm also heading a lot of sentences with conjunctions, which is a no no.  But, what are you going to do?  Not read my blog?  You and 7 billion other people.

Anyway, April 28th is the first day of Floralia, sometimes known as ludi Florae, or the Games of Flora.  Flora was an ancient goddess sacred to the Romans, most likely arriving in their culture via all the Sabine women that they kidnapped and raped incorporated  into their society.  A temple dedicated to Flora was built on the Aventine Hill, very near the Circus Maximus.  There was a second temple dedicated to her, or to Flora Rustica (she liked it rough), on the Quirinal Hill.  One or both of these were dedicated during the Roman "regal period," when Rome was ruled by a king, before the Republic and the Empire.

If I keep this up, I'll name all seven of the Roman hills.  Four more to go, meretrices!

Flora was a goddess of flowers, plants, vegetation, and fertility.  You probably could have guessed that much without the explanation, just based on her name along.  With the coming of the new growth and the reemergence of green vegetation after the winter, it was natural for the celebrations surrounding Flora to occur during the spring.  Thanks to this, she was assumed to be a personification of the spring, or a goddess of the spring.  Thus, she was venerated during the games that came at the end of April; her celebration lasted for six days.  While she was not one of the "big" names in Roman mythology, she was nevertheless important, especially considering her association with the spring, rebirth, and the growing of plants.

One important note about the Games of Flora, especially for us Westerners and especially for Christians:  animals, especially goats, rabbits and hares, were released during the games to celebrate Flora and her gift of fecundity.  These animals were chosen based on their "fertile and salacious" nature, according to Roman poet Ovid.  Another interesting tie-in with modern Christianity, although possibly more loosely tied-in, is the notion that, for Floralia, Romans eschewed the wearing of white garments and instead chose more colorful attire, similar to the pastels we associate with the spring and especially with Easter.  Hell, might as well stretch all the way to the coloring of eggs, too, right?  Why not.  It's Floralia, after all!

The celebrations involved plays, dances, and, of course, games.  Two things of note for the Floralia, though:  one, it was more a Plebian holiday, whereas most of the other celebrations in Rome heavily favored the Patrician families.  Since the common folks participated so readily in the celebration, Floralia was popular with the people, even if Flora was not considered one of the big, important goddesses--especially if you compare her to Ops or Ceres.  The other interesting thing about Floralia was that prostitutes actively participated in the games.  Normally, prostitutes were kept on the edges of society, no matter how valuable their services were to the populace.  Since most prostitutes were slaves, they were excluded from society and were not considered citizens of Rome.  Even women who were not slaves but entered into prostitution were thusly excluded from society.  However, all prostitutes, even prostitutes who were not slaves, participated in the games, showing that even the whores were not completely excluded from Roman society.  Their activities, aside from the obvious, included mock gladitorial battles, dancing naked (now we're talking!) in public displays, and performing their own plays--hopefully naked, as well.  Hooray, prostitutes!

So, gather up your goats and rabbits, pelt your friends with beans and lupins, and go watch some strippers dance around a pole or two.  It's Floralia!  Get out there and celebrate it!

Felix Dies Natalis, Roma!!!

I keep meaning to tell you about my new life, but, hahahahahahahahahahaha, whatevs.  I'll get to it eventually.

The one thing that has struck me as strange is that I picked up a new follower, though I can't identify who the noob is.  I find this remarkable because I've been staring at the same 107 pictures and names for the past year or so, and then someone new pops up and confuses me.  Regardless, welcome to the fold, my new friend.  I hope you're not scared away by the word "vagina."

The reason for not telling you about the "exciting changes" in my life today, however, is that we have a very important birthday to celebrate today:  Rome's.  That's right, the Eternal City was founded on April 21st, 753 BC.  In Roman terms, this was year 0 AUC, which stands for ab urbe condita, or "from the founding of the City."  It was a Roman demarcation of time, which makes sense.  The Romans didn't give much of a shit about what happened before their majestic home and city was founded.

They didn't give much of a shit, not because they were proud (well, okay, they were a little full of themselves), but because the place where Rome currently sits was a majestic slophole of a swamp prior to Romulus cracking his brother over the head with a spade and then breaking ground on his new home.  A slophole, I might add, that was inhabited by a bunch of fucking savages--like a town in New Jersey with a Quick Stop.

You've heard about the Seven Hills, right?  The Seven Hills are the seven hills (duh) surrounding the Tiber river on which the city of Rome was built.  The ancient Romans chose to live on those hills because the valley was an insufferable bog rife with malaria-bearing mosquitoes, and the lowland wasn't really all that habitable until the Cloaca Maxima (or, "largest sewer") was constructed.  Even then, in the beginning, it was more for draining the lowlands and may not have been the best at removing waste from the city itself.  It took subsequent improvements on the sewer system to make it more effective.  In the beginning, it was still open the atmosphere around, so mosquitoes and other disease-carrying insects could still breed in the water that was being transported away.

It's kind of strange to think about how far we've come in 2700 years...

Romulus went on to become the first king of Rome.  We don't know who his parents were, because he was found in the wild and suckled by a she-wolf until he became a man, along with his twin brother, Remus.  I mean, his real parents.  Romulus and Remus were the offspring of a Vestal Virgin and Mars, the Roman god of war (and, originally, agriculture).  However, Virgil, while writing the Aeneid, was able to link Romulus and Remus (they're a package set, until it became king-making time) to the hero Aeneas, who fled the burning city of Troy after Odysseus et al. snuck into the city and ended the war.  You remember that, right?  Big wooden badger horse and all?  Good.

Aeneas, after doing his own tour of the Mediterranean world--including plowing Dido, Queen of Carthage--went on to become one of the people who helped found Rome.  After plowing Dido's fields for a while (figuratively, as Carthage didn't have a lot of agricultural lands), Dido wanted a little more commitment, and Aeneas said, "Pax, ex sum!"  He then crossed the Mediterranean from north Africa to the boot of Italy.  There, he met a cat named Evander who told Aeneas where a great place to found a great city was.  That place, naturally, was the Seven Hills (and nasty swamp).

So, here we are, celebrating Rome's birthday, with three possible founders.  Incidentally, Evander was a Greek who fled the southern part of Greece and settled with his many followers on one of the hills of Rome--the Palantine Hill, if you must know.  It is from here that we get the word "palace."  When Evander was showing Aeneas around, he probably said something like, "See, this is my hill.  You go over there and settle on one of those other six hills.  Capisce?"  He totally said that, because it's Italian, and when in the place where Rome will eventually be founded, do as the people who will eventually become Roman do.  Er, yeah.

This is what the founding of Rome most likely was:  an accumulation and aggregation of the tribes that lived on the seven hills under one crown, the king being Romulus.  From there, with the city founded, they went on to war with the surrounding tribes, including the Latins (from whom the Romans stole a language), the Sabines (from whom the Romans stole women), and the Etruscans (from whom the Romans stole a peninsula).

So, in your post-Easter ham coma, and before we start planting trees on Earth Day tomorrow, if you're feeling like you need a reason to celebrate, why not take a moment to wish Rome a happy 2767th birthday.  Darling, you look marvelous, not a day over 2500, if I do say so, myself.