valentine’s day and other barbaric practices.

cupid is the roman god of love, an entity who wanders around in the shape of a winged cherub, a flying creepy baby, blindfolded, and armed with a bow and arrow.

not exactly something you want taking aim at your heart.

i’m heading out for some yoga, wine, and chocolate, now the once. my valentine’s date with myself. i think melanie at nova yoga has something civilized in mind, such as yoga first, followed by the wine and chocolate. but if i need to reverse that order, the really wonderful thing is that i can, because i am my own date.

when you are your own date, you avoid conversations like the following:

1:            where do you want to go?

2:            i don’t care.

3:            there must be somewhere you want to go?

4:            it doesn’t matter. you choose.

5:            i want to go to for sushi.

6:            i HATE sushi. if you loved me you’d know i hate sushi.

the other day my best friend and i played hooky and went browsing at our favourite swanky danky store: the “previously loved” store on kenmount road in st. john’s. it’s a great spot for twacking around. you can satisfy your evil shopping cravings and feel great at the same time because you are supporting epilepsy nl.

amy goes mad for the dishes. but when i feel like getting wild and crazy i really like to indulge my penchant for cardigans. there’s nothing like a little devil-may-care attitude to get you through the day.

when we walked into the store, the first thing we spied was a headless manikin wearing a gorgeous pink sequined dress. all manner of things pink and purple were on display in honour of valentine’s day. i immediately, of course, thought of the st. valentine’s day massacre. not the infamous gangland chicago massacre of 1929 attributed to al capone.

the other valentine’s day massacre.

back in the day, when I was a kid in school, the arrival of february meant we all pestered our parents to buy us a valentine’s press-out book. that was a kind of a workbook with stiff pages and little press-out valentines on each page. these usually depicted smiling animals holding little hearts with cute captions such as “bear me in mind for your valentine!” and “i koala go for you.”  this was in prehistoric times when all the classes were taught in the same classroom by the same teacher. so the entire day was spent with me watching all my classmates passing valentines to one another, dropping them on desks as they went to sharpen pencils, passing them slyly or shyly out of sight of the teacher. each one and that one bestowing valentines on each other.

the end of the day was always punctuated with the dreaded question “how many did you get?”

saint valentine was a historical figure who was beaten with clubs and beheaded in 1836. he had nothing to do with cupid, or couples, or love, or torturing little children by forcing them to lie about the number of press-out valentines they either did or did not receive and having to resort to bestowing valentines on themelves signed “from your pal, svetga” and “ be mine, signed marco.”

the poor guy would probably would be grateful to spend his namesake day eating chips with me in front of the forensic files marathon.

i have decided, in all my wisdom, that life is like a rock. Sometimes it feels like something heavy i wear around my neck. other times, when i flip it over i find all sorts of cool things scurrying around beneath.

there is nothing funny about being lonely, or isolated, or heartbroken.  i sometimes find myself with too many “why bother” days, and not enough “devil may care!”

single people, unlike clothing and furniture, have got to shake the “previously loved” label. we are all, always, fabulously lovable.

but why is it often that the person we most need to convince of this is ourselves?

seeing as we are all tiny specks clinging on to a rock which is spinning around in outer space (i’m paraphrasing michael a. singer) we need to love the frigging hell right out of ourselves.

this year i turned over the rock and found all sorts of wonderful things for singles to do, from yoga, to movies, and yes, romantic dinner out with oneself. i didn’t even have to search that hard at all.

by the way, chaucer was the one who invented valentine’s day in order to sell more of his poems.

here is my conversation with myself about going to yoga:

me 1:             Great! We’re going to yoga, wine, and chocolate!

me 2:            I’m going to eat all the chocolates.

me 1:            We can do that right after we do the yoga.

me 2:            I’m going to dip my chocolate in the wine.

me 1:            Right after we do the yoga.

me 2:            I don’t want to do the yoga part.

me 1:            We have to do the yoga part.

me 2:            You hate me.

tonight I’m eating all the chocolates. namaste.

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