THE VALENTINE'S DAY WISEACRE

[LinRobinson]

Valentine's Day is, simply Love Day. With the exception of your odd massacre, it's not about Valentine at all. Whoever he was. Some Pussy-whipped Roman flit. It's all about Love. "Love" in the sense of "Having Somebody to Take You Out Somewhere Expensive and Give You Things".
Which would be a pretty simple transaction, except that our entire concept of Love and what it means has gotten cluttered up with all sort of sayings that people take as truth, leading to misunderstanding and the sort of homicides that misunderstandings justify. It's time to examine some of these seemingly benign maxims and weed our the facts from the foibles.

For openers, it's widely stated that All's Fair In Love And War. Not so. Let's examine this one in specific detail:

1. Poison Gas: unfair in both, although perfume is generally excepted
2. Lying about marital status: considered unfair in love, merely ineffective in war.
3. Surprise and sneak attacks: fair in both, though unsporting
4. Biochemical tactics: unfair in war/ widely advertised in love. Because warfare operates on the Geneva Convention, as opposed to the more conventional conventions of Paris. Or even conventions of Shriners.
5. Taking no prisoners: frowned on in war, merely cost effective in love
6. Two timing: unfair in love, OK in war, but difficult. The problems with having a war with two fronts has been discussed, but not as widely as difficulties with the beast with two backs.

It should be obvious at this point that these homilies are not always what they seem. Let's just cast a cold eye on other saws, mots, and chestnuts that confuse our inevitably confused approach to the other sex.

Love makes world go around . False. Love can make your world go wild. Or kablooey. But the rest of us will not be moved.

Love don't last, cooking do. True. Where are preservatives when you need them?

Love conquers all. False. Or there would be no soap operas. War doesn't conquer all either. That's the whole point. Half of it has to lose.

Love is blue. False. This notion probably comes from "Blue Movies". Otherwise who knows what they were thinking? Actually, love is pink inside.

All you need is love. False. It's like saying all you need is money. Or youth. Or looks. Or a ladder as tall as the well you fell into. Not a solution, in short.

Love means never having to say you're sorry. False. Actually, it's superior firepower that means never having to say you're sorry. You hear people in love saying how sorry they are all the time.

Love hurts. True. But not as bad as the lack of it. When you look down a calendar of American holidays and commemorations, Thanksgiving and Love Day really jump out as the least crazy reasons to celebrate.
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[Mlou]

Well now, you've gone and destroyed all my illusions.
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nothing is ever simply Yes or No. There's always a But...


GINGERBREAD MAN by Mary Lou Healy at Amazon.com http://www.publishamerica.com/shopping/shopquery.asp?catalogid=16658 at Publish America

[LinRobinson]

Iconoclast curmudgeons need love, too.
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[Hissmonster]

So how was everyone's valentines?

Please feel free to give us your creative spin on it, either prose or verse!
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"Come to the dark side; we have coffee!"

[pengwenn]

I was home alone. I cried. That about sums it up.
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Is this my reality or yours?

[Delaney]

Okay, I'll bite...

Jamie and I had been on the outs lately, and I didn't write about it because it was embarrassing lol. After all the promises she made I figured the girl she had been with would be gone in a snap.

Well, she wasn't gone right away, and I got pissed. So I told her that maybe I'd find a date then.

And I did, assuming she'd be home with the other girl on v-day.

(So much drama... girls )

So I was talking to this woman named Carla the whole week, night and day, and our first date was valentine's day, planned by accident. We had tons of chemistry and both had high hopes for the night.

Then Jamie tells me she broke up with my nemesis about 5 minutes before Carla arrived.

All of a sudden, we got really shy and barely talked. Watched a movie, she was sitting on my bed, and I was just like, um, I don't want to do anything... let's eat!

We go to eat and it was so uncomfortable that neither of us finished our meal. We left right after the food came. It was miserable.

Then of course Jamie swoops in later, and I was still in this horrible mood due to a tough week quitting my job and my roomie in the hospital, and I just HAD to vent something that I'd been carrying around for years about my job and how I didn't know if I'd ever fit in again anywhere, and my manager...

And she just looks at me and goes, oh my god, you LOVED her!

And I just started bawling.

And then Jamie started saying, maybe if you call them (old job) and stuff like that and I was just, No! I did it that way for a reason! I did the right thing, I know I did, it just hurt. The way it ended I guess, not so much that it did.

*sigh*

So it was all very wearing on the heart, all of it. And it was all crammed into that one day. But on the flipside, after I cried I immediately felt better and found I could eat again without throwing up, and realized that denial is like poison to me, so now I know. I guess its hard to explain without all the details, but definitely, it was a hard day. And ever since that day, my life seems to be in upswing again
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"My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher." - Socrates