A REMEMBRANCE OF VALENTINES PAST

IT'S A GIRL THING. WE WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND.

Do Women Care About This Holiday?

I think it's more honoured in the breach, by the distaff side. That's you, Selma. Many women roll their eyes or act nonplussed if you bestow candy, flowers, and a cheap but dreadfully thoughtful card purchased at the last minute at 7/11. Sometimes a guy just wants to take the already-wilting flower(s), the opened box of candy with one piece missing (zen gift), and the damned overwrought Hallmark card, and chuck them all in the dumpster in the alley where, after a romantic fluorescent-lit dinner at one of the BETTER fast food outlets, he was hoping for a quick hummer, maybe.

But no. Even such supreme sacrifices of our hard-earned poker and kino money, even such obviously long and careful planning on the way to pick her up, even the fact that we NOTICED, as we were purchasing some Binaca at the 7/11 to cover the subtle essence of medicinal gin in case we got pulled over, that it was that most-fearsome of all holidays, Saint Valentine's Day... No wonder they named a massacre after it... Where were we? Oh, yeah, we get bupkis, even after all that. Not the slightest pretense of gratitude, enthusiasm, affection, or even randiness, which was all we were ever dreaming of in our tender little masculine hearts.

But GAHFAHBIT, you should FORGET V-Day, or simply shine it on as a boozhy rip-off by the fascist imperialist running dog lackeys of the multinational flower & chocolate & stationery cartels... THEN you find out what this date REALLY means to these freakin' CHICKS! THEN you have to go back to referring to your favorite sex acts by their polite, clinical, Latin names, and very damned carefully, at that.

THEN you have to take that extra effort to ALWAYS remember her goddamned stupid name, picked out from the same goddamned stupid drug-store check-out-line mini-book of baby-names by ten million other dopey-ass Moms of other Heathers, Britneys, Tiffanys, or WHATEVER the fuck her goddamned name is!!! Instead of just "Babe," as Gawd intended. THEN you have to start waltzing around with the freakin' L-word, just to get a decent meal out of her. Or even pizza, without chipping in.

So, guys, do yourselves a favour: Remember thou keep holy thy wife's/ girlfriend's/ current fucks' Day, the Fifteenth of February, every year. That's not so hard to remember, right? There's only twenty-eight days in February, it's the really short month, right? Easy to remember. And then you divide twenty-eight, her menstrual cycle, BTW, which we'll cover on Mother's Day. Gahfahbit. Divide it by two, for the two of you, and you get...

OH SHIT!! God DAMN it! I forgot it again. Just ONE flamin' day late, and you're cooked! Now, what am I going to do with these expensive gifts? I'm out like, seventeen bucks! Oh, well. The bars are full of sad chicks who didn't get nothin' right? Gotta go cruise, I guess, long as I already got the flowers. Eat the candy myself, forgot dinner, too... Bye for now, ladies! And, BTW, how YOU doin', hanh? Nudge-nudge, wink-wink...? Buy me a drink and I''ll follow you anywhere... NO, a goddamned restraining order will NOT be necessary! Sheesh! Is romance DEAD??? Youse broads got no freakin' HEARTS!

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REAL VALENTINES DAYS

THE KIND YOU HAD IN KINDERGARTEN

When Love Was Just A Word You Couldn't Spell

That's how I remember it. Sometime in grammar school, they decided to teach us heterosexuality, dominance, and submission. Boys were required to give girls a dinky little Valentine card. Girls were required to just sit there, suffering. It was the beginning of a long and ignominious tradition in each and every one of our tiny lives, which most of us could never get expunged, even after we were no longer juveniles.

Then, as we flirted with puberty, in junior high school, the Valentine tradition was suddenly dropped by the school: Just when we could have actually used a little help, relating to the opposing sex. Relations between boys and girls entered Sharia Law jurisdiction, in the school's mind. They started trying to keep us apart: Separate gym classes, and locker rooms. Girls in Home Ec, boys in Shop. Girls became, magically, cheerleaders, but only the prettier or bouncier ones. Boys were suddenly forced to follow the dictates of adult nazis in playing the same old games of football, baseball, basketball that we'd always enjoyed freely out there on our own. Now they were referred to as Athaletics, and reserved for the talented and brutal few. And they wonder why kids get weird at that age. Or why they grow up so weird. Or why the world is so weird.

By High School, most of us had begun to reach some accomodation with the Other, if only a stand-off. Valentines re-emerged, as an actual, personal, semi-volitional thing. If you wanted to, you could give a girl a Valentine. If she wanted to, she could accept it. Most likely, you were already "going out, " if you did the Valentine's thing. There was a certain expectation, on both sides. The girl might actually be embarrassed by a Valentine. But she might be pissed if she didn't get one from her "steady." The boy felt stupid giving her one, but he knew he was in jeopardy if he didn't. Pretty much a lose-lose situation, all around. Real romance, at long last, in other words.

Then in the adult world, or college as a craven alternative, the tradition fell into flux. It was so unkewl... And yet... Better safe than sorry. Better to get one than not to get one. After all, you're both out there on the meat market now. You're not kids any more. You both wanna get some. You both need something, not sure what. And what else is there to do? This is one of the rituals, one of the more harmless ones. And it's a way of keeping score, at least in your own mind. So you go through the motions.

If you're actually in love, or think you are, or desperately wish you were, then the whole stupid rite begins to mean something. A guy wants a girl to know how strongly, and tenderly, he feels about her. A girl wants to know it too, and to be celebrated, to celebrate the brief instants of love in our long and dreary lives. Those bright shining moments when the world consists of just two people, in a pleasant fog of affection, mutual regard, sexual attraction,and yeah, ok, love. Especially when you're still young enough to believe it all, to believe that this other person can and will complete you, for a moment or a lifetime, and make you whole. Make your life better, special, worthwhile, important, the whole nine yards and a bag of chips. Ah, to be twenty-something, and stupid with love. On Saint Valentine's Day.

As you get older , it tends to drop off again, the old tradition of 14 FEB. You may or may not observe it, but it becomes just another obligation, another red day when you're supposed to do something, so you do it, out of respect for the calendar, or something. Because now you're older, and you've had your bubbles burst, one by one. All those hopes and dreams and fantasies you placed in or on or around another person have come to little, or naught. And you got up off the ice, and skated off. Because that's what you do. So now you're alone, or nearly so. Perhaps sleeping next to an accomodation you made to keep skating along. Maybe there is still love there. But you're so busy, so consumed by the details of your ever-more adult life, that all that romance stuff just recedes into the distance, like your own youth. February the Fourteenth becomes a reminder of that; of your age, of your youth, of your lost loves. Sad, but sweet, if you're at all lucky.

Finally you realize you've gotten REALLY old. Older than you'd ever thought you'd be. Your life is like a mountain, which you've climbed a little too high. You become aware, at some point, that it's time to climb back down. It's natural. It's going to happen. It's happening. You might as well enjoy the view. If you are still lucky, there's someone beside you on that too-high place, ready to make the long slow journey back down the mountain. Some one to hold your hand, to help you along, to keep you from stumbling and falling. Someone to help along, too.

You begin to realize at last, what it was all about, this endlessly repeated quadrille, which we dance as fast as we can, never daring to stop, lest we fall out of the dance, never quite realizing that it was all about the dance itself, and the inter- relationships among the dancers, and finding the one dancer you could go on with, until the music stopped. And you relish the opportunity to turn to that person, on 2/14, every year, and on many other days, and remind them that you love them, and that they love you.

One day, one of you will die. You know that. You both know that. Of course you both fear it. Of course there is nothing you can do about it. Only make each day count, as much as you can. On Saint Valentine's Day, you do a little something extra. I always got flowers and candy for my girl. I made her a card. I'm not an artist; she was, but she always seemed to like it. I know it pleased her, and reminded her how much I loved her. I thought about her all day yesterday. I wished I could have given her something, anything, to remind her, again. All I could send her were my thoughts, and my love, wherever she is: It's Valentines Day, so I'll say Heaven. I don't know if such a place exists or not. I would doubt it, normally. But I would make one for her, for Valentines Day, and every day. Happy Valentines, Ginny.

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Suggestion Box & Tip Jar We would like to make over this blog to make it easier to access, to read and to comment on. We would also like to serve our readers better by providing more of what you need and want to see. All serious suggestions will be considered. We hope to move to our own domain in the near future, and we would like to ask for your financial assistance in doing that, and in upgrading our hardware & software. Small one-time donations and larger long-term subscriptions are welcome. Exclusive advertising is also available. If you think we are wasting our time in doing all this, please let us know. If you wish to help us, now is the time. As always, negative bullsh*t from right-wing trolls will be sh*tcanned. Thank you to everyone else. Please send feedback & PayPal contributions to cosanostradamusATexciteDOTcom. Thanks.

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