Sans Valentines

I am an earthquake survivor. Wow. You bet. I now share a common bond with billions of people from Los Angeles. Then I called FEMA. And I became bonded with billions more people from anywhere with a floodplain, coastline, fault line, tornado, or dry forest.

It was actually a fantastic experience. My aunt's house in Illinois lies 20 miles away from the fault line. That knowledge is not, however, something that settles in on the top shelf of the brain's priorities. In other words, when I awoke from the living room couch at 3AM, the possibilities of what was going on happened in this order 1) I'm dreaming. 2) A bulldozer is, at this very moment, halfway through the garage and is heading right towards me. 3) A loaded semi is speeding down this winding residential street at 120 miles per hour. 4) I'm having a seizure (it occurred to me that maybe everything around me isn't moving. Maybe I'm moving).

It lasted for 5 or 6 seconds, but seemed to me like 1 or 2. The dogs were barking, some distant glasses were rattling, I stood up, confused and discombobulated, then everything just....stopped. I didn't see anybody running out of their homes in boxer shorts. I did not see any 60 feet tall lizard-like monsters smashing through power lines. So.... I went back to bed. Ahhh, life.

Anybody else getting sick of hearing Timebomb first thing when you open my blog? I am. Needs to be corrected.

I really wanted a fucking cigarette a moment ago. I......shall......not.....fail........

We are eight minutes away from February 14 at the moment. We all know what that means - People who have to be told to do something nice for their S.O. go out of their way to prove that they are not as shallow and inconsiderate as they seem the rest of the year.

Valentine's Day, Christmas, and **choke** Sweetest Day all fall under the category called "gift holiday." I don't get it. Birthdays don't count because anyone who actually remembers it's your birthday and says hello deserves a gold star. Christmas isn't terrible because it is also an occasion to keep in touch with people you have not talked to or seen during the course of the year. The other two? No excuses. These holidays are purportedly about, "the ones you love." Even though we all know they are simply marketing tools. At least V.D. has some interesting mythology surrounding it.

My favorite element of history is that it is entirely repeatable. Modern scholars, newscasters, talking heads, politicians, and even you and me think that our opinions are somehow ingeniously original. The truth, which can be found by spending a day in a library, is that anything we think has been thought of a million times. I am prone to believe that technological and social change (progress could be too strong a word here) is more a result of 1) a repeatable mantra, i.e. the world is round, and 2) widespread acceptance of said mantra. I wanted to say repeatable logic for the first, but that is often not the case (i.e. marriage is the only socially acceptable way to prove one's commitment to "love" - not at all why we currently live in the institution of marriage). Well, ok, this is a discussion for another day, and a very interesting one at that- both in regards to repeatable history, and the myth of marriage.

In the case of old Saint Valentine, well, he may not have anything to do with it all. Since we cannot tell for sure the true origins of the holiday (although it is widely accepted to have been celebrated at least since the 1600's), lets' fast-forward to V.D. in America circa 1860, when it was still the holiday for wealthy lovers. Here is a commentary from the New York Times February 14, 1856 (courtesy of About.com - http://history1800s.about.com/od/popularentertainment/a/valencards.htm)

Our beaux and belles are satisfied with a few miserable lines, neatly written upon fine paper, or else they purchase a printed Valentine with verses ready made, some of which are costly, and many of which are cheap and indecent. In any case, whether decent or indecent, they only please the silly and give the vicious an opportunity to develop their propensities, and place them, anonymously, before the comparatively virtuous. The custom with us has no useful feature, and the sooner it is abolished the better.

See! I'm not the only one!

But you know what? I say, do something cool for someone you care about tomorrow. Just because we rebel against the insincerity and pompousness of Valentine's Day, that's no reason for us to be miserable and avoid all displays of affection just to say we did.

Cheers and good night.