So with Valentine's Day quickly approaching, my thoughts have turned to the romantic realm. Specifically how silly this whole holiday is. I'd like to smack Chaucer upside his literary head for being the source of this nonsense. People become all upset and lonely for no reason, just because of some ridiculous date. Really no good comes of this holiday. Life is not a movie where the hot cheerleader suddenly falls for you (you in this case being the awkward, slightly nerdy outcast who is misunderstood by most) just because you give her a half eaten box of chocolates and a heart shaped card made out of construction paper and streamers, all of which she finds oddly endearing. Instead, it ends up being about spending money on gifts and dinner for your loved one all because of this arbitrary date. The funny thing, I believe, is that if your relationship is bound by the chains of love and adoration that this holiday champions, shouldn't these gifts and dinner be commonplace and sporadic, just because? You shouldn't need Hallmark to tell you when to break out the red wine and oysters and gaze lovingly into each other's eyes over candlelight? (I wish I could insert one of those puking smiley face emoticons right here, it would be perfect.) I have never been in a relationship over V-day. Ive had 6 and 9 month relationships, but both, interestingly enough, started in the months shortly after the wicked day. And I frankly have no personal resentment towards the date. I stopped feeling slighted or lonely after my first make-out, when I started to realize I was not a leper, and gosh darnit, people thought I was desirable (this wasn't until senior year of HS, but don't you judge me).
Valentine's Day frankly stopped being awesome around 6th grade. Thats when you moved onto middle school and Valentine's Day no longer meant everyone in the class having a party and giving each other valentines and candy and such. I mean, I remember 2nd grade, we made our own valentine holders out of milk cartons and turned them into dragons and stuff. I mean, thats fricken awesome. At that point, Valentine's Day was right up there with Christmas and my birthday in terms of holiday joy. The next year, oddly enough, leading up to this sugary celebration, I had a huge crush on Kelly Rippl. So I was eagerly anticipating some sort of cool valentine, maybe a Ninja Turtle, or perhaps Ducktales. Hell, it was from Kelly, so it could have been a Care Bear and I would have been slapping high fives with everyone. I would have been that excited. However, I had this sneaking suspicion that this cuckolding minx really liked Scott Urbasich, who was one of my mortal 3rd grade enemies. I would have never known though, because we were all supposed to make out valentines more or less equal, so nobody in the class felt slighted or upset.
Well Kelly drops off my valentine (it was Super Mario...nice), and I read it. "Hi Justin, Bye Justin"...WTF?!!? What the hell kind of valentine was this? I turn to my friend Sam and he got the same thing. I was peeved. I balled up my little fists into spheres of rage and made a beeline for Scott's holder as he went to the bathroom. As Mrs. Vopel yelled at me not to touch Scott's things, I found the valentine and opened it as he came running back. "I like you. -Love, Kelly".
What a skank. I ripped it in half and tried to sneak back to my desk. Too late, I had made a huge scene and was stripped of recess for the rest of the week. Fuck you St. Valentine, martyr my ass.
On a different note, I just returned from Colorado. When I was there, I had dinner and drinks with my ex gf Ashley, who lives in Denver, and her bf. Now Ashley is from Denver originally and I met her at Miami my freshman year. We both got lame GPAs because pre-med blows, and both spent the first semesters of our soph years at home. She subsequently transferred to the U of Colorado and I came back to Miami. We did the long distance all fall, but I was an immature tool and couldn't handle it. So we broke up in November, right before Thanksgiving of 04. This is significant because I had visited her at the end of October in CO and that was the last time I had seen her in person. After a fairly nasty breakup and cooling off period of around 6 months. We began talking again, and I now consider her one of my best friends. We talk every other week or so and generally have an awesome relationship. But for various reasons, we had not seen each other in almost 5 years.
Well, I meet them for dinner and it was just the most surreal thing. Aside from the fact that we were not dating and were very different people than we were our freshmen years of college, nothing changed. It was not awkward, it was not tense or strange. Her bf is a really cool guy and I got along with him immediately. It was just one of those moments which seem automatically destined for weirdness or an awkward story, and instead it ended up being probably the highlight of my trip. Its just really cool to think that I have these kind of relationships in my life. I mean, we dated for 9 months, we know each other really well, and its to the point that we are comfortable enough with our pasts that we are both go-tos for our respective problems in the present, whether it be relationships, professionally, or emotionally. It may sound weird to discuss relationship issues with an ex, but I realize its a unique situation and wouldn't trade it for the world. I guess this is growing up...
So today's song is Mika-Happy Ending. Now I'm not a huge Mika fan, I appreciate the Queen influence, but most of it is just too meh and flaming for me. But Happy Ending is a damn masterpiece. The layered backing vocals and crescendos at the end are just incredible. And its ironic, because the title conveys happiness and idk, a happy ending? But its really quite a bitter, saddish song. So its perfect, there was a happy ending in CO, but Valentine's Day is really a bitter saddish day for most, though unnecessarily.
"This is the way that we love, like its forever. Then live the rest of our lives, but not together..."
JW
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