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Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Valentine's Day

My favorite part of Valentines day in high school was the way the main office would explode with flowers and candy and balloons.

My least favorite part was sophomore year when I got a mysterious rose from a secret admirer in my locker only to discover it was from the dorky new kid.

When I was 24, I was a month or two (amicably) broken up with a boyfriend, who was also my boss. We started chatting late in the day, and before we realized it, it was hour or two past quitting time and we were hungry. It seemed natural, since neither of us had Valentines-specific plans, to have dinner. We ended up at the Indian restaurant where we had our second date and traded first kiss and Valentines stories. Later I gathered with friends at my favorite punk rock bar for alt-country night, drank too much, sat on many laps, and kissed too many people. It was quite perfect.

The following Saturday night, I cleaned the house til it glowed, made myself a delicious dinner, opened a bottle of wine, filled the dark apartment with candles, and enjoyed a quiet meal by myself. Halfway through the wine, my apartment buzzer sounded. It was him. I was mellowed enough by the wine to not be very surprised to have an unexpected visitor, though he was taken aback to see the candlelit house and bottle of wine half finished, yet find me alone. He pulled out a brochure and started explaining how he had been planning a winter vacation somewhere warm, and had found a reasonable package deal to some resort in Mexico. I was wondering why on earth he came over so late on a Saturday evening to tell me about a trip he wanted to go on when he said, "But when I think about going, I can only think about you with you. Will you go to Mexico with me?" It was really the most romantic gesture anyone had ever made to me (and the dark apartment lit with candles really underscored it all so well); it was a shame I was almost too drunk to fully process what was happening. (We did get back together for another year, though we did not go to Mexico.)

When I was 26, I got a different boyfriend a ticket to see Alejandro Escovedo at the Old Town School of Folk Music while I volunteered for it. We went to my favorite Thai place for dinner beforehand. He was grumpy and untalkative because work had been stressful, as it had been for the entirety of our relationship (five months at that point). The concert, as can be expected, was amazing. The perfect end to the evening would have been to stroll home through my darling neighborhood, stopping for a decadent pastry at Cafe Selmarie on the way back. Instead we made a beeline for my apartment and went to bed without saying much. I lay awake for most of the night, a huge weight smothering me, feeling guilty for feeling like I had wasted my volunteer points on a ticket for him. We broke up about a week later, and I made my way back to Tim.

We don't really do anything special for Valentines Day.

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