Valenwyrms Day MMXXII

So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings
Written By Jeff Lehman

ISSUE #184

In Drive My Car, an actor directs a production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in which the performers all speak a different language—Japanese, Mandarin, Korean Sign Language, more. They combine textual familiarity with deep attention to their partner’s body language. Keen presence is required to find their cues within the moment.

And moments are lily pads on time’s murky pond. Flimsy oases of recognition. Past and future can be kept at bay, blurring at the green edge of vision. Two people can make a structure out of moments; with more, a sailboat from the lily pads. These are crafts of intellect, built from mutual attention—like a story, love is shared imagination.

It is hard work, people often say. An exaggeration, I think—love is work, but no more work than reading or writing. It is spiritual volunteering. It requires little more than the vigilance to look and build your partner a bridge of thought. Reinforce it then with understanding. Strengthen it with care. Buoy each other with hope.

More like this:
So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings
A Wedding
So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings

I’m at a wedding, here are wedding songs! Secular.

So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings
So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings
Valenwyrms Day MMXXII
So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings

In Drive My Car, an actor directs a production of Chekov’s Uncle Vanya in which the performers all speak a different language—Japanese, Mandarin, Korean Sign Language, more. They combine textual familiarity with deep attention to their partner’s body language.

So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings
So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings
Skin Care
So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings

We care for neglected skin as we do unpolished silver—our touch removes the film of neglect, of doubt and disbelief. In place of cloth, it's the plow of soft fingers, electric atoms sloughing dead cells away.

So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings
So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings
Valenwyrms Day MMXXI
So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings

Whales sing. The theory is songs are their way to find love—the ocean is numbing in its lonely sprawl. Even when swimming miles apart, they'll change their tune to match the others. They follow some intrinsic pattern. Nobody knows why.

So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings
So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings
Falling in Love Can Make You Sick
So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings

It's the nauseating quality of love—barely worth enduring at all, but who can help it? There's no getting off this ride. We swing to the same spot every year. If we gave form to time and stretched it, the Earth would look like a giant slinky. Spear a certain point and you dissect me every year.

So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings
So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings
Skin Hunger
So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings

Haven't felt this alien since middle school—I ask permission to go outside, walk the halls half-asleep and wonder what it could feel like to be held. Months into quarantine, I see now I'm guilty of taking touch for granted. The line between forgetting and never knowing is thin as worn chiffon.

So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings
So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings
Valenwyrms Day
So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings

Valentine's Day exists to jump-start the economy during the late-winter doldrums. As with most things American, the point is to get you to buy shit. Love is the most abundant resource in the world; naturally, someone found a way to exploit it.

So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings
So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings
Cuffing Season
So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings

You don't have to be in a relationship to use it, but I will warn you that some of the songs are a little precious because, as you know, I tend to be a little precious. If you're willing to drown yourself in the L-word every once in a while, this will be perfect for you.

So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings
Jeff Lehman
Previous

Songs to Learn and Sing
Next

The Best Songs of 2021