Bunnies / passion pop-up

↓ This is only showing the interest is in Europe. 

Interest in this card occurs this time of year. It's only a few years old but I notice stats spike, a small spike on barely looked at pages by internet standard, but a spike nonetheless. 

The card was already featured at 'tuther place, it is for a birthday that coincides with Easter. There was a large party co-hosted here at my apartment, the place was filled, and everyone packed momentarily without herding all by themselves on cue somehow into a side bedroom where cards were placed in a pile on a table. 

Birthday boy is an actor. Sensing the large puffy card would be one of my pop-ups, he held off his dramatic presentation for last. Soaking up the attention and holding it as long as possible he opened this card with much flair to the room crammed with people, page by page to eeews and aaahs, very satisfying sounds. One of Paul's friends, a dumpling of a woman I hadn't met and not knowing me, not knowing me standing right there, clamped his arm and said into Paul's ear, "Do you understand how much somebody loves you?" 

That was her perception. None of them could see, and Paul did not know the card tells two stories at once. The second story has separate mechanisms on each page but much smaller and in black and white. Attention is directed to movement and color so the story of Passion is understandably missed, purposefully so. That would come later upon further closer examination, if at all. 

And it's still a bit of a bummer to get a holiday-related card on one's birthday. Barry's birthday coincides with Christmas so they are blended and I always felt sorry for him for that. And here I am doing it. I chastise myself for not doing something non-holiday related, for taking the easier course by not thinking of something outside of Easter. I have no idea how he took this whole theme-linkage, actually, I haven't spoken much to the individual since. And now, this unfortunate bit to admit, I go dark, I do not like this, I'm not proud of it at all, but I did visit and I did linger a good long while in fact, and upon leaving I noticed a collection of ribbons and buttons and gewgaws and such, peered in for a closer look and noticed they are political in nature.

"That is my political history, my mementos."

Proudly. He had scrounged these things by way of organizing and assembled all the past trinkets collected from political campaigns into a veritable shrine. To his own loyalty. He is bragging in decorative form his political loyalty of which he is quite proud. All Democrat. There was a lot of thought and energy focused on being a loyal Democrat, a loyalty I find ordinarily displaced and when combined with fierceness the combination is stupid. Fiercely uncompromisingly resolutely stupid. Thick-headed. And worse, pridefully thick-headed. He suddenly reminded me of the characteristic I find worst among my East Coast relatives, that stupid prideful resolute thick-headed loyalty. It comes with a smirk that informs your interlocutor is not serious. That altogether creates an impossible situation. And that's all well and good when things are going all well and good but now your displaced loyalty is leading 17.3 trillion debt to 20 trillion debt and you're still Jets vs Sharks, Rams vs Broncos. Loyalty woefully stupidly displaced. I find it intolerably stupid and so my interest departs. That is what happened. 

Why?

After twenty years I lost interest completely. Because he cannot be spoken to as a person, anymore, as a friend. Any serious-minded conversation, anything mind-to-mind is forfeited. My soul cannot reach his soul anymore, it is all me and his party, such is the case so often. This is political-wise, and that should be a small part of the whole picture and not count for much, it should not interfere with everything else, it should not close the door to all other things, but it does because now politics is everything and insincere politics that accepts the type debt and corruption, insists on it, make opponents of friends because fierce party loyalty demands it, abandon reason and logic regarding serious matter for gain in small concerns, fight for corrupt files and for corrupt accounts and for creating areas for graft and empowering people who do not deserve power, is unacceptable and my mind and my soul gently steer me away from that. I did not slam my foot down and decide all this, rather, this is what happened. 

Now I look back at that night. It was a pleasant night, only a few years ago, but I look at all the energy and the expense the effort and communication that went into it and I think, "You silly futile person."