There are cabs in the city that turn on their “off duty” lights so they won’t have to pick up passengers going to Bronx or Brooklyn. Consequently, most of these passengers are Latino or Black, and that figures to be, if not racial discrimination, then geographical discrimination. I saw two instances of that Friday night, when my own cabbie entertained discourse regarding such practices by slowing down and pointing out the offenders. He then ended with, “And most of them just came here anyways, bastards.” Jun and I had dinner on Sunday after watching Kill Bill vol. 1. And the conversation relentlessly turned to what we wanted in the opposite sex. We wrote our conditions on a napkin for safekeeping. She wanted companionship and I wanted a mixed European-Asian girl who can dress well and dance well and sing well and who’s not fat. I think that people tend to turn on their sex / relationship radar as the weather gets colder. It’s always nice to have someone, or at least the thought of someone close when it is dark and chilly outside. But then again, a kiss is just a kiss is just a kiss, isn’t it? What, if any, are the evolutionary advantages to monogamy / marriage / fidelity? Or, from the male perspective, why not impregnate as many females as you can if the criterion is for biology reproduction and species survival? (Well, why did males develop anyways? Why couldn’t females have sperm or the ability to bear offspring on their own, unless that means we’re putting too many biological eggs in one basket… and the chances are greater if there were two incomplete keyholders instead of one…) We’ve devised this intricate ritual of wooing and whatnot and then we set limitations on the practicality of those means via shady moral schemes. Has romance gone off its intended track? It’s now decorated with add-ons like marriage and whatnot. Whatever happened to just getting laid?