In-The-Bag Kind Of Love

A few years ago, I was watching the movie The U.S. vs. John Lennon and I said to my friend Lisa, who was sitting next to me on the couch, "I want an in-the-bag kind of love."

For those of you who haven't seen the movie, you should. Besides the political tilt obvious from the title, there is a lot of John and Yoko in the film. A lot.

No matter what you think about Yoko and the blame often tossed at her for breaking up the band, the footage of the two of them in the movie makes it clear to me... they were really, truly in love.

And it's the kind of love where you have fun doing anything, or nothing with that person. Normally I'd kind of gag at that kind of description, because although I'm a romantic at heart, and am definitely guilty of being a bit sentimental, I also have a sarcastic side. Couple that with a low tolerance for cheesiness and overly saccharin sentimentality that is so much more common among celebrities and in Los Angeles generally, than in-the-bag kind of love, and you'll find me rolling my eyes at people describing their love as special and unique (case & point JLo from a few years back talking about her relationship with Ben Affleck...they're still together, right? Oh, wait.)

But John and Yoko never really described their love as special, they just were in it.

You see, there's this scene where John and Yoko do an interview from a bag. Sort of. It's more of a cotton sheet that covers both of them, but they appear to be in a bag. Anyway, some reason is given for why they're doing this and it's something about wanting to do the interview without actually being seen. It's silly and probably got missed by most viewers. But I found it... significant in that these two were having such a good time together, were so in love that they'd basically hang out under a sheet for an interview...just because. Maybe they were tired of the press, maybe they were tired of how they were depicted, but they just hung out in a bag together, because they felt like it and it felt right.

Remember, this occurred to me a few years ago, Hopefully my recall is close to the mark.

At the time, I truly don't remember who I was dating. I'm pretty certain I was single and I might have had a few guys I was interested in, but no one that would've likely gone in-the-bag with me. They all would've wanted to know why, specifically, we were doing it and they'd probably grow very impatient with the whole thing. I, in turn, would've grown impatient with them and the whole thing. Very anti-in-the-bag.

So fast forward to now.

For almost two years, I've had an In-the-bag kind of love.

Funny thing is, when Marcus and I met and started hanging out, I'd forgotten all about this. It wasn't as though I were actively looking for an in-the-bag kind of love, it just sort of found me. (My friends can attest that I didn't even know Marcus and I were dating - he was so stealth and ninja about it - I only realized we were together when it was too late and I was already in too deep or, as I realize now, in-the-bag.)

For some reason I remembered all of this last night and I told Marcus about it. Actually what I said was, "we have an in-the-bag kind of love." And he said, "yeah, we do."

I reminded him about the movie and that scene. He laughed and said, "yeah, I'd hang out in a bag with you and do interviews."

Thing is, I already knew that he would.