It started with musing on my ideal romantic day: a warm afternoon spent between cool sheets with a loving partner; listening to our favorite records and singing our favorite songs; hugging and kissing the day away. Whatever came after would be irrelevant because we would still have that moment. Then, in a flash, I realized this to be the focus, the inception, of the Church of Romance. Partners and consenting adults would form our congregation, and our holy relics would be a turntable and a pair of speakers. The congregation would make offerings of their favorite pressed vinyls, and services would proceed as described above, preferably in a large open space with dozens of fresh mattresses. The more zealous practitioners might imbibe psilocybin and cannabis to more fully experience the Sabbath's grandeur. Worshippers would leave feeling refreshed and at peace, ready to face the week's rigors knowing the support of the community would be waiting for them. For what could be more universal than love and music?!?! But my next thought was of how the Church would be perceived and eventually labeled. Drug-addled, perverted, polygamous fornicators; New-Age free love hippies with no real beliefs and no discernible benefit to God or country. Then would come the forced disbandings, public ostracization, and the eventual crushing of the Church's spirit and self... And so the Church of Romance died as it had lived- while I was listening to side A of Weezer's Teal album. Specifically, while listening to their cover of "Take On Me," but ironically not during their cover of "Happy Together."