So let�s do a little something fun, shall we? Let�s break out the cheesecake and the harp, get some soft-focus dissolves working, and have ourselves a good old-fashioned clip show. I�d like to reminisce about Valentine�s Days past!
See, I�ve always talked a really good game about how much I�ve always liked Valentine�s Day, even when I didn�t have anyone to share it with (which was for all but a spare few of my twenty-something years, read on). If I�m going to espouse the virtues of the holiday even now when I am lucky enough to have someone with which to celebrate it, I feel the need to first establish my credentials as a pro-Valentine, onetime-confirmed-bachelor-sincerely-in-fear-of-being-desperately-alone-forever-and-likely-to-die-surrounded-by-parakeets-and-not-be-discovered-until-I�m-Nicole-Richie-style. Henceforth and therewith�
Prior to the eighth grade, Valentine�s Day was pretty much just the day where my mom bought me candy and a little card, and we all hugged and said how much we loved each other, and it was really very sweet. That�s why I�ve always loved it, I think�at its core, I�ve never thought of it as a �couples� holiday; I was so rarely part of a couple, and so fond of my family, that it didn�t seem like any kind of conflict of interests to enjoy the day when we all said �I love you� to each other. In the eighth grade, however, I finally had someone to spend it with. I bought my girlfriend (!) a little stuffed bear holding a heart, because I was thirteen and it was still okay to lack for any and all romantic originality. As you can see, the gesture didn�t work out too well, considering we broke up two months later and I became gay.
Several Valentine�s Days came and went before I was coupled again. February 14th of my senior year in high school found me at the tail end of a torturous relationship with my high school sweetheart. We had been fighting, and I was in the middle of making (!) her (!!) a valentine to say I was sorry, when she said a bunch of things that really, really pissed me off and I gave said valentine to someone else instead. Yeah, it sounds kind of horrible, but she got me back: that night, she told me she was a lesbian. The next day, I told her I was gay, and that was the end of that.
I had many single Valentine�s Days in college (all of them, in fact), where I sat in my dorm or apartment and ate chocolate hearts and things (themed candy is always on sale, which ROCKS) and watched people get eviscerated. Like, on TV. Because I liked horror movies. It wasn't so bad though, really. Like I always say: if I�m ever going to feel bad because I don�t have anyone to cuddle with, I certainly don�t need to wait until February to do it. But I honestly tried not to, because I don't think I deserved to be so hard on myself, frankly.
Cut to: Valentine�s Day three years ago, when I made all these same pronouncements, and then got my ass pre-dumped a couple days later. I ate my words along with all the chocolate my defunct Valentine had given me, and it didn�t taste very good. Two years ago, Dr. Goodhead and I got all dressed up and went out carousing. We had dinner, ate chocolate, got drunk, and saw Justin Guarini leaning against a phone pole in Hollywood. I actually really enjoyed that night, on account of how it was wacky and spontaneous, and just a really pleasant evening spent with one of my closest friends. Last year, I spent the holiday making sure my mother didn�t try to stick a microwave dinner into the VCR, or otherwise destroy her belongings and/or endanger her health. This did not feel much like a Valentine�s Day, but had I been home I�d probably have spent it with He Who Shall Not Be Named Lest My Sense Of Pride And Character Judgment Spontaneously Cannibalize Itself In Shame, so in retrospect I'm glad to have been alone and still (technically) single. Better to be alone for Valentine�s Day than forever to have its memory tainted by�that.
Anyway, I�m not trying to evangelize for V-Day, or anything. I guess I�m just saying it was hard for me to be really sad on a day when chocolate could be bought for ten cents on the dollar, you know?
Trivia Fact Of The Day: Did you know that in 1974, Faye Dunaway married Peter Woolf of the J. Geils Band? I�m Watching: 24, and am honestly, seriously disappointed that FLOTUS didn�t have the stones to tell Walt�s wife what a scheming assbag he really was. And: Passions, now being aired FROM THE VERY BEGINNING on the Sci Fi Channel. I have been so excited for this, I�I can�t even tell you, because it would shame me.