stop. start. stutter.

Back when I was in college (the second time -- long story) I was known for calling Valentine's Day "Surly Singles' Day", dressing in all black, climbing up on the picnic tables in our apartment quad and beseeching my audience to RESIST THE HALLMARK PROPAGANDA, etc. I've calmed down a lot since then -- and no, it has nothing to do with being happily partnered, it has to do with just being too old for that shit -- but still, I'm so relieved that Best Beloved shares my approach and attitude.

Every February, we stop our regular flower-buying (Safeway: a dozen roses for like $10, high-quality, long-lasting, and very pretty on the kitchen counter, thank you very much) when the late-January/early-February price-hike kicks in, eat in on both the weekend before and the weekend after instead of risking the hoardes of humanity in our favorite resturants who are looking for a 'romantic' dinner, and wait for February 15th when the chocolate goes to half-price. (November 1 and February 15, man, are great days for those of us who can't resist the sweet tooth.) And I'm sure you've all heard the rant a hundred thousand times before -- about how love isn't love if it needs validation from Hallmark, how Valentine's Day is a charade that legitimizes the 1950s happy-nuclear-family myth while ignoring the disturbing sexist and heterocentrist underpinnings of the custom, blah blah etcetera -- so I don't need to deliver it again, but still:

So today, tell your partner that you love him or her, but not because it's Valentine's Day; tell your partner that you love him or her because you should tell him or her every day. Save the chocolates and flowers for one random day in March or July or October; save the gifts for a time when you see something perfect and just want to make your partner smile. Practice kindness and charity as a habit, not as an exception. And don't get stressed out about being Romantic and Fairy-Tale and Storybook one single day out of the year, because it's the other 364 that make up the sum of a relationship.

And if you're single, and you're tired of the hype too, I think there's probably a college-apartment-quad picnic table somewhere in New Jersey that's free for use as a soapbox.