Dear Editors,

Ahhh, ’tis the season for romance and love … .

Deep kisses under the mistletoe and fun-filled sleigh rides with the one you love. Turtle doves, golden rings and sparkly things. Yeah, right.

It seems that everyone I know is, at this very moment, seriously considering ending their lukewarm, dead-end relationships in hopes of finding someone exciting and new(er) in time for holiday cheer. And who can blame them? After all, these miserable souls (myself included) have had just about enough mediocrity from their insignificant others the WHOLE year. I admit, I find myself in the same quandary as my friends. Those mistletoe kisses are so much better when love is real, and god knows no one needs another scarf for Christmas.  

If you are one of us, the many considering a change, you know there are decisions to be made, and quickly if it’s to be in time for the holidays. Lucky you, I’ve already done some research.

1. Online Dating: My chiropractor told me that eight of his friends hooked up online and are living happily after. ONLINE! (“Wow!” I said to myself, “I wish I had thought of this when I first arrived from the Big City.”) So, in between my online Christmas shopping, I did some browsing for my future love match. I had two decent prospects, from two different sites. The first one got the boot when I learned his idea of a first date was “watching football and getting you off.” I mean it’s not like I am against this, obviously, but the first date? And did he mean to perform these activities simultaneously? – Buh-bye “Billy Bob from Bayfield.” The second lives in some other far-away Colorado town. He was beautiful, polite and interesting. Then he lets it slip that he falls “in love almost immediately” with anyone he goes out with. Ugh, another stalker … delete, delete, delete. My take on the online stuff? It’s OK if you literally have nothing better to do than write e-mails and upload photos, only to find out they have no job but do have 10 kids and that their photo is actually their married best friend.

2. Keep them until after the holidays: One of my employees was utterly shocked by the prospect of starting a soul-mate search over! “Oh my Gawwd,” she exclaimed, “and be ALONE for Christmas?” I looked at her with a raised brow and wondered why I had actually hired her. “Jeez” I thought, “It won’t kill you will it?”She has a point though, and we must consider it. We’ve put up with them this long, why not just sail through the holidays in drunken denial and keep a warm body in bed until after New Years? In fact, dumping them could be a first. A New Year’s resolution you actually keep.

3. First True Love: My best friend suggested contacting your “first true love” and arranging a rendezvous, where then the two of you would realize you were meant for each other. Why she is still my best friend, I do not know. I’ve tried this hair-brained idea before. Five years ago. Surprisingly, he took me up on it. We lasted three absolutely glorious, heartfelt, sex-filled months before I recalled the reasons we split up three years before and ended it once again. He hasn’t spoken to me since and lives 1,200 miles away. But my employee had instilled fear in me for the first time, so it was worth a shot.  “Just to see how he’s doing,” I lied to myself. To my horror, he e-mailed back. After a few choice words for me, he announced his marriage plans for THIS Christmas! Seriously? Leave your first love alone. The word “first” implies there will be others.

4. Lastly, the “Christmas Exchange:” Everyone considering making a relationship change meets at Steamworks, bringing in the goods for exchange and/or return. Let’s face it; we can do this deliberately or accidentally. No one knows for sure how many people go to a holiday party with one partner and leave with another anyway, so let’s make it fun. I can hear it now: “They say it’s better to give than to receive – so you can have her (back).” Sounds like a plan to me.

To all you lovers here in our pretty little town, Merry Christmas and Happy Hunting.

– Home Alone for the Holidays

In search of moral high ground

DearEditors,

Kim Rogalin’s rationalizations in “Send Islam to the ash heap” (Dec. 8) does more to spotlight why today’s situation seems so hopeless, than to shed light on the “real” Islamic faith. His many assertions could be argued to kingdom come by scholars and history. I’d only like to point out another verse in the Koran: [2:136]: “We believe in Allah (God) and that which is revealed to us and that which was revealed to Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes, and that which Moses and Jesus received, and that which the prophets received from their Lord.”

Want to talk truth? Truth is, if you ever could crush Islam into the ash heap of history, you would co-laterally crush Christianity and Judaism into that same ash heap. Some might think this a good thing, too. As a gentle person once sang: “Imagine no religion, it’s easy if you try ... .” Especially, when considering how the wealthy, powerful have always used religion to lather us people into an unthinking, blood-thirsty rage against the other. Today’s madness in Iraq being only its most recent incarnation.

Back to Kim’s letter, he starts: “Religions can be a prime guiding factor in human affairs. When that includes an aggressive dogma of vanquishing those external to it, it becomes particularly dangerous.” I read that and couldn’t help but think about what the Catholics and Protestants, then later the Americans did to the peoples of North and South America this past half millennia – to say nothing of the gist of Kim’s letter. Just who does holdthe moral high ground? Judaism, Christianity, Islam all have cores of radiant beauty and truth. But, these truths are woven into stories and poetry for human ears, each to their own culture, as it should be. Furthermore, remember these holy teachings have been entrusted to men, all with their sins of vanity, greed and deception. Seems to me the true value, the magic, in religion was in channeling our innate personal striving for understanding and need to connect with creation, with God. The holy books and religions are maps, not the territory. No person can know God or God’s will! Sadly, we’ve allowed religion to turn into bludgeons for the ruthless. It takes no prophet to see this will lead to no happy end.

– Sincerely, Peter Miesler, Durango