I mean, shit! Is it mid-February already? It is? Sigh.
I've never put much stock into Valentine's Day. Because I am a thoroughly Modern Girl. Yes ma'am. I shun V-Day like I shun all the other holidays foisted upon the unsuspecting masses by greeting card companies and jewelry stores. Unless, of course, I happen to be dating somebody.
But I've only been dating somebody during Valentine's Day once. And he made me go see Titantic, a movie that I had been strenuously boycotting for the two long months that it was at the one theatre in town. (For those of you wondering, that's two shows nightly. One ONE SCREEN. For TWO MONTHS! My heart almost didn't go on, y'all.)Anyway, he gave me roses and a heart shaped locket and a beanie baby. They are now relegated to a box in my closet labelled "Teenage Angst Open at Own Risk." There was slobbery kissing as well, but you don't want to hear about that.
I'm not down with romance in general. Or at least, Hollywood's notion of romance. I've seen about three Valentine's Day themed television shows so far. They all have women acting like shrews until they get what they want, then coyly apologizing to their husbands or boyfriends or what not. But for what it's worth, the men were acting like complete nincompoops too. Ah network television. You teach so much and you ask for naught in return.
Seriously, I could get behind a day that's meant to celebrate love and doing nice things for people, but could we make it so that you do the nice things because you want to do them, not because they are expected--nay-- demanded?
If you judge by the advertising and cards and flower companies and chocolatiers and what all, it's a man's sworn duty to go as all out as possible, spend as much money to prove that he lurrrrrves his woman. Piffle. Truthfully? A nice meal followed by a video rental would do it for me.
I usually celebrate Valentine's Day with any girlfriends who also happen to be single. Last year, I think I went out for coffee with Special K because she was miles away from her boyfriend. And maybe we came home and ate ice cream straight out of the carton while watching Trading Spaces. What of it?
This year, I plan on watching movies in my pyjamas with a big pot of tea. Yeah. I can't even get my Bridget Jones up enough to drink wine and sob and smoke and worry that I'll be eaten by a pack of dogs.
Sorry Miss Jones, but I'm not too worried about finding true love. If it comes and I find it, wonderful. If it doesn't, well, I've got a cat. Just one so far. But it's a good start, don't you think? He's black and I'm sure I could live in a big, ol' house and just stop combing my hair. Kids would think I was a witch and I would sit on the porch mumbling under my breath and if they just took the time to get to know me, I'd make them lemonade and play baseball with them and...uh...I'm getting ahead of myself.
I wish I were less cynical, because really, it's love, or lack thereof that makes everybody move through their lives. And I believe in love, but Valentine's Day is so fake. It's like the ten dollar whore of love. It's love all tarted up and ready for a night of drinking cheap champagne and hooting and hollering on the dancefloor and chipping a tooth on a bottle of bubbly and smoking in the parking lot and showing some thigh.
Yep, on Valentine's Day, the only way to have your love recognized is by exercising your purchasing power. Preferably in a high-priced jewellry store. You can't just, like, make a card with some red construction paper and a faux-lace doily anymore.
Case in point. My cousin, who's in grade nine, is baking cupcakes for her home room class and sending every one of them a hershey's kiss (It's a thing in my home town. You buy little pieces of note paper, write messages on them, and then the Student Council will glue Hershey's kisses to them. You can do the same with roses.) She's giving one kiss to everybody in her class, and more to the people she considers her "good friends." And roses for her crush, sent anonymously, of course. All in all, she'll have spent somewhere in the arena of $50. And she's 15 years old! Man.
So all that being said, I know I'm supposed to disregard the commercialism and the bleeh blah, because, hello? Strong, single, confident woman, blee, sisters doing it for themselves, blippity blah, but where's my heart shaped box full of overpriced chocolates, you corpulent, arrow-slinging, pampers-wearing freak?!
I mean, can I get a box of Godiva here or what? Dayum.
I am watching: Buffy. Naked Xander? Blech. And Anya? Jealous? Please! It's quite clear (Thanks to Ace and Sep) that Anya and Giles are embroiled in a passionate romance of dizzying proportions. Okay, they're not. But they should be. Go Ganya. Choose Ganya!
I am reading: The Globe and Mail online. Okay. I'm not. But I'm going to. Soon. (God, I'm really not interested in the news anymore. Like, I could not care less about world events, even though I had a really scary dream about being in New York and realizing that the US was about to be bombed and that I was going to die, like, right now and there was absolutely no hope whatsoever. So I looted some Jimmy Choos. Man, what did I eat before bed that night?)
I am eating: Peanut Butter chocolate chip cookies. I experienced high productivity yesterday. The entire house is clean, the laundry is done, and I baked cookies. Let's hear it for me!
I am listening to: Patsy Cline. Country music. The music of pain.
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