MOTHERFUCKING valentine’s day. Stupid red roses. Lame ass chocolate hearts. Stupid chalky tasting cutie-pie etched in pepto bismol colored candies. Embarrassing thoughts about my last roll in the hay. Itching from all of the cobwebs cluttering up my crotch. Detesting every single smug person with someone to go home to. Regretting not stocking up on red wine to get me through the evening. Wishing I was a size 2. Size 2 women always have valentines. Bitches. Wishing that I could get away with smoking and not feel like crap or guilty about it – the kind of guilt where I imagine my ovaries shriveling up and exiting lke crusty bits of nicotine scented ear wax. Aware that this holiday was made to torture single people with no one to love, but still daydreaming that some day I will not be so bitter. Some day I will have someone to come home to.Until then, I will just keep on hating this day..
My hatred for all things Valentine’s day began in the 8th grade. I went to an all girls school. It was chock full of long legged horsey gals with ridiculously large white, perfect teeth and flawless complexions. The girls all called their fathers “daddy” and honestly believed that they would always be taken care of. On Valentines day the janitorial staff would assemble over 10 large lunchroom style tables and place them in the main rotunda. Before the end of first period the tables would start to fill with obscene floral displays. Giant arrangements of roses, monster truck sized teddy bears, those freaky giant balloon thingies with the weird shit inside. And as we made our way from one class to another the world slowed down allowing for a few extra minutes of wandering by the tables and fervently searching for your name.
In 8th grade almost all of the flowers were from Daddies and as I got older they started coming from boyfriends. Having neither a Daddy nor a boyfriend it was my perogative to become bitchy about the entire ordeal. There was a nice little group of us that bonded over the perversion and spectacle that was made over the holiday. How it set back the women’s movement! How it was hell for those of us with allergies! How it perpetuated the myth that love could be bought!But you so fucking know that we would have peed in our laura ashley underpants if we ever saw our name on something.
I have only been involved with someone twice when the relationship encountered a valentine’s day. Both times I made it very clear that I would not want to made a fuss over, that nothing special should be planned. And both times I got what I asked for and secretly hated it. You see a girl that didn’t have the flowers from Daddy or the 9th grade boyfriend is a bit damaged. There are tiny cracks on her heart. In order to prevent more cracks she sets herself up for bad things to happen so that when they do she is not shattered to pieces. But that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t pine for the day when her heart will melt and all of the cracks won’t be so fragile.
So if you are out there having a bit of a pout, I’m right there with you. If you are lucky enough to have a sweetie take care of them and let them take care of you. And PROMISE not to make out in front of me in the checkout line because I will never forgive you for that.
(have some of your own candy heart fun here.)
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
dude, valentine’s day is torture. i’m so with you on the daddies/boyfriend thing. my daddy is great but he would rather stick bamboo shoots up his fingernails than waste money on something so trifling as FLOWERS.
word on the tiny cracks in the heart.
I LOVE THIS POST!!! I hate Valentine’s Day. I’ve hated it since grade four when I mixed up the card for my best friend and another boy is school and I was tortured for the sappiness of it for months…AGGGG. Yes I’m alone, please, oh please keep reminding me of that, and do it with maximum impact on one freakin day. Whew, that felt better. In any case, Happy Valentine’s Day Cali. I love you, in that weired I don’t know you really cyber space kind of way.
And I thought Valentine’s day was the designated day to get wasted with your girl friends ? Silly me…
Happy Valentine’s Day !
i’m so glad there are people who exist who hate valentine’s day too… its such an overrater holiday. but i wont lie. when i was with LoveOfMyLife, it spanned a v-day, and the day was neat. it wasnt a whole day filled with over-the-top flowers and flowery cards and bullshit, it was very sweet… i may post about it. its been 5yrs since that valentine’s day, and i miss her more and more as the days go by. *sigh*
you’re awesome, cali, and i echo “road_less”traveled” sentiments about loving you in the dont really know you internet blogger kind of way!
Here is how fucked up this holiday is: There is a minor “storm” up here in NYC and all over the news is worry about how flower shops won’t be able to deliver their flowers and how dinner reservations wil be cancelled. What about all the people who, say, are flying out today to see a dying relative and their flight is cancelled? Or al the older people whose meals-on-wheels can’t be delivered due to icy weather? Or the homeless stuck out in this mess? Or the women scheduled for IVF, whose doctors are stuck in the burbs where the weather is truly hideous? Or the in-pain people in ER, where it is understaffed due to weather. What about those people, with true weather issues and not just “Give me my flowers and dinner!” variety?? Flowers and candy and jewelry and crap…jst becasue Hallmark wanted to make a billion. To bad their “Friednship Day” never took off.
I’m just not a fan of V Day! It tends to skew some’s perspective.
I am also not a fan. Wes and I had one really lovely one where we spent a ridiculous amount of money and Wes had to start eating fish after decades of vegetarianism because it was a fixed menu and there were chocolate heart things for dinner and did I mention the ridiculous amount of money? Yes. But I was 22 or so. And Wes was the equivalent of that, having just moved to NYC and being in something of a heyday escape from life. We were young and dumb.
Anyway, I have never again allowed so much money to be spent. I don’t want gifts on this day and, while I love to acknowledge how lucky I am to have Wes and how much I love him, I frankly do that every single day.
Perhaps it goes back to my teenaged roots, when Melissa and I were 14 years old and used to draw anti-love, anti-Valentine’s messages all over the place. We had a mission statement: “Love is a useless and undefinable emotion which only serves to perpetuate our unhappiness.” We chanted it.
I’m with you, babe. I hate any and all holidays where useless tokens of affection are exchanged and expected. I doubly hate that kids can’t even give out stupid paper valentines to the people they want to, unless they give it to everyone. Yeah, I support grade school cliques.
Have fun with the cobwebs.
Aahhh…. Valentines Day; designed not just to torture the singles of the world but also designed to torture every 13-14&15 year old girl out there. I am almost scared to say that I am not single (as I do not wish to be pelted with tiny flavorless candy hearts), however we have made a pact to not celebrate this greeting card day. It’s is gross and extravagant and meaningless. Diamonds are hideous and unless you make them yourself cards are vastly overpriced. Flowers- well don’t get me started on the social and political ramifications of flowers. Suffice it to say – Valentines Day Sucks for everyone! And although this is already waaaayyyy tooo long I do have a little story to share about my most mortifying Valentine’s day: There was a thing called mystery roses at my Jr. High School in Knoxville. So on Valentine’s day you could purchase a rose of all different meaningful colors for a buck and have them delivered with a note. I receieved a secret admirer rose and just KNEW it had to be from my huuuuge crush. I was elated and asked everyone if they knew wether or not it from him. At the end of the day when I was supposed to be meeting my admirer, my best friend shows up and says she had sent the rose so I didn’t feel like a loser. Uh, right. Cheer up Cali – I love you in a non-anonymous real life way!!!!
I have to add that I have put up my Bad hair photo for photofriday today because I won’t be around Friday. Laugh long and laugh heart-ily.
Sorry, I can’t promise not to make out in the check out line. We’re always just frenching at our local Keyfood. (Really, I just wrote that because I wanted to use the word “frenching.”)
I love the candy hearts that you show in this post. Much better than the “fax me” message you find on some of those. I mean, what the f is up with that?
Much love to you from this not-so-secret admirer of yours of St. V’s Day.
“You see a girl that didn’t have the flowers from Daddy or the 9th grade boyfriend is a bit damaged. ”
Amen to that!
Do you know the initials of Valentine’s Day is VD…very interesting.
Oh Red… you are such a saint. So cute. So worth it. I am snarky c*** today… sent everyone “F*ck 2day” candy hearts. I am truly juvenile.
I think I’m going to write a post on my blog and dedicate it to you today… I miss you. You’ve gone from 3 blocks away to the other side of the country. And I would like nothing better than to get embalmed with you today and spit loogies at happy couples while we sipped coffee in front of the Pig and tried to sober up.
I’m 29 years old and I’ve never had a boyfriend for Valentine’s Day. I’m anti valentine’s day and I’m happy to know that I’m not the only one!
Girl, do you want to know what we did on Valentine’s Day?
We went back to couple’s counseling.
Seems it’s pretty easy to get an appt on the 14th of Feb for some reason.
Oh, I forgot to mention.
We went to couple’s counseling. IN A BLIZZARD.
Valentine’s day always strikes me as a Hallmark holiday, one where the media hypes it half to death, and then there’s no way, even if you had some minor fondness for the day, that it will live up to expectations.
Is it just me, or is it weird to find fathers giving their daughters flowers for V Day? I’ve always seen it as a day for the coupled to be nauseatingly romantic in public, annoying the singletons, who are otherwise quite content with that status — but between parents and children? Not unless parent and child are making valentines from scratch together, an activity that probably loses its charm after one or two go-rounds.
I have never liked Valentine’s Day. Expensive and mean. I usually don’t participate.
I so get what you are saying. I’ve never really liked Valentines day except the couple of years that I was with my ex and it just sucks. It always makes me feel miserable.