They say excuses are like assholes. Everyone's got one, and they all stink. What makes my excuse different is I don't care to share it with you. Just know that I have no legitimate reason for missing all this time. Sure, I could spin you a yarn about taking a brief leave of absence to allow the news reels to gain a bit of a head start so I'd have more to talk about, but it would feel hollow and empty. So, why don't we both just make a promise to pretend this never happened, and we'll keep plugging along like I've been here with you the whole time. Fuel up, rev your engines, and pop this bitch out of neutral. Let's do this.
It's that time of year again - that special day when Cupid flutters his fat little wings, flitting from tree to tree shooting heart tipped arrows with the sort of utter disregard for tact and propriety usually reserved for private speak-easy meetings on Capitol Hill involving leather and lace, water sports and bear mace.
Maybe I'm just aging, but I find it increasingly difficult to understand the social roots for these strange little steps we all agree to dance. In an effort to compile something worth while for you all this morning, I chose to valiantly wade deep into the morass of Valentine's Day (henceforth abbreviated as VD) opinion stories on the various news circuits. I've matured past my youthful days of getting a good gut laugh out of the over-hyped sentimentality of the whole affair. And I believe I'm past my conspiratorial ranting about capitalist schemes plotted in collusion between the fields of dental hygiene and blood diamond markets to produce a tidy first quarter profit. Instead, I find myself overcome with an underwhelming lack of interest. Another thousand words on how social media is the death of romance, or a vignette from some quack shrink about how seriously you take the validity of VD is telling of how serious you take your relationships and I'll be forced to politely ask my big friend Chief to kindly wipe the glazed drool off my chin before he puts his weight on top of the pillow.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's anything insidious about the emotion of love. I'm just trying to add my voice to the much belabored point that this image of love that has been cultivated in the social subconscious these past few decades is simply unrealistic. The very concept of VD as a special day where you can step up and assert your romantic love for a person enough in a day that it will carry all year is ludicrous. Go ahead, strap on your leather jacket and hold a boom box under her window and blast Peter Gabriel until the cows come home. What the fuck are you going to talk about once the batteries on your ghetto blaster die out, though? Go and blow your overtime on the bouquet of GMO Monsanto Roses. Sure, they may stay in bloom an extra month, but I hope you have some pretty sweet smelling bullshit to fill the air with once those flowers finally wither and die. True love is not something that can be measured in candy hearts and candle-lit dinners. And this notion we're inundating our children with, that romance is as simple as a cardboard X-Men valentine and a creamy-filled chocolate, will be what eventually leads to the death of Cupid's touch. We place all this absurd attention on the courting process, that it seems we've forgotten the basics of human interaction. After all, what good will all those expensive French dinners do you when you realize you're suddenly 50 and can no longer stand the sight of the love of your life, simply because you never learned how to get to know her in the first place?
Is there a point to all this? Not really. It's my first day back and I just wanted to stretch the fingers over the keyboard and play a little bit. But I'll try and find one for you, so you don't feel like I've put you in a dour mood without reason. If you really want to celebrate VD this year, try and give this a shot. Go down to the mall and return the earrings. Call up the restaurant and cancel your reservations. Go down to wherever your significant other is working today, fake a family emergency to get them out of there, and just go home. Spend a few hours learning to be comfortable looking into their eyes, instead of stammering over empty conversation while wax drips onto the over-priced silk table cloth. Make sure you've got all these little basics covered before you nervously try and pull a flourish. After all, you need to learn to walk before you can waltz.
Three Monkeys Say: Throw on those Victoria's Secret wings and get your arrows baby. Let's get kinky.
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