Valentine’s Day. It’s finally here.

As a person who’s been single most of my life, I’ve never been particularly bothered by Valentine’s Day. It is what it is, just another day.

I was never one to get worked up about what the day is supposed to be, supposed to mean, should be, what supposedly should happen on it.

Some people fall into a trap of reading messages into Valentine’s Day. They start thinking, “There’s something wrong with me if I’m not in a relationship.” Some people start believing, “If I’m not part of a couple, I’m a lesser being.”

I think that’s self-destructive foolishness. Other people can get upset and bothered when things aren’t the way they think they “should” be; I learned along ago that expectations are the road to disappointment and pain.

Nonetheless, this year’s run-up to Valentine’s has disturbed me.

Over the past couple years, I’ve had a growing disdain for all things romantic, in particular anything to do with weddings or marriage. I’ve grown to loath it, sneer at it, just plain hate it. I’m back to a place of bitterness and anger I haven’t visited in a very long time.

I positively hate watching TV and seeing loving couples, portrayals of loving marriage, new marriage, the lead up to marriage, the aftermath, the honeymoons and anniversaries and pregnancies — any of it. All of it. I hate it and the more I see it the more I hate it.

What is the approach to Valentine’s but one big portrayal of romantic bliss? “Look how happy they are, buy our product and you’ll be happy to.” Whether it’s a kiss beginning with Kay or the latest product from the sex-obsessed minds at K-Y, the propaganda is everywhere.

In normal times, when one of these messages stirs the cesspool in my heart where romance once lived, the sludge settles back to the bottom relatively quickly, leaving me the dirty-brown mire which has come to mark my existence. But at this time of year, the septic mélange is constantly stirred, the anger, bitterness, hate and all their negative kin constantly boil and churn like one big shit stew that never finishes cooking.

In my wildest imaginings, I never thought I could be this old and single, never thought I’d never know love…. And, frankly, at this point, I don’t think it’s worth knowing.

Valentine’s Day can neither come nor go soon enough. It’s a dark-chocolate, explosive-diarrhea smoothie I’m sick of having forced down my throat.

Drink up, young lovers.

And, oh yeah, Happy Valentine’s Day.

Posted: February 14th, 2010 under Blogging, Life Journals.
Comments: none

On last night’s CBS Evening News, Steve Hartman did a story on a 78-year-old blind man who lives in a small town (only 1 million people!) in India. This man lives in a house with four generations of his family. They share one bank account. Even when he goes to work grinding flour, some family member is always following and watching to make sure he is okay, even if he does not know it.

Toward the end of the story, Hartman suggested to the man that in another country he could well be alone and fending for himself. The old man replied:

And I would ask myself, “What’s the use of having a family if when I need help I get shooed away like flies from milk?” What kind of family would that be?

I have some supposedly “Super Christian” relatives who could well ask themselves that question.

Indeed, “What kind of family would that be?”

Posted: January 26th, 2010 under Blogging, Christianity, Current Events, Life Journals, Religion.
Comments: 1

Ah, another in my long sub-genre of “Why I am not writing” writings. Irony appreciated.

I wrote the original draft of this article in March of 2009 — nearly a year ago. The opening paragraphs read:

It’s not a matter of writing but not posting, which I sometimes fall into — I haven’t been writing at all. Period.

It’s not writer’s block. I think of plenty of things to write, I’ve simply let them flit away. And while it’s not unusual for me to stop writing for 2 or 3 months on occasion, this is something altogether different.

(As a free aside: anyone who tells you “there’s no such thing as writers’ block” is full of a bovine byproduct which prize-winning gardens find extremely nutritious.)

What happened to me? What drove me from the keyboard, the blank piece of paper, the written word? If the title of this blog article didn’t clue you in, allow my younger self from a year ago to do so:

I got my heart broken around the mid-point of (2008). Over the last two years or so I could have had no more graphic a demonstration of why I gave up on romance. I tried to “hang in there, baby,” tried to “soldier on,” even limped into September, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t go on-line at all for nearly 4 months. Didn’t even turn on the computer for nearly three months. It had become a source of pain I meant to avoid at all cost. Even now I am trepidatious at venturing into cyberspace. There’s no call for it. I assiduously avoid anywhere she might be. I know she has no intention of contacting me in any way. But still. That instinctive shying away, as if to avoid touching a deeply bruised area, remains.

She broke my heart, she broke my blog. (She broke a lot more, but that sounded like a pithy title to me….) I don’t blame her. It’s all on me — as usual. If I was any good at this stuff, I wouldn’t be 40 and single. My mistake was answering when hope knocked. The biggest mistake of all was loving to begin with. (I’d like to think if there’d not been history between us, I wouldn’t have fallen for it… but I know what a fool I am.)

Looking back, it seems ridiculous that “I couldn’t take it anymore,” ridiculous to have feared the computer, to have not even turned it on for months… but there it is. And here I am… still thinking of things to write but doing nothing… still dreaming futilely… still wondering what I can ever do to be all right.

As I concluded a year ago:

Though I have started turning on the computer again, and even dipping my cyber toe into the bit streams, writing is something I have completely fallen out of. If only love were so easy to leave.

Posted: January 25th, 2010 under Blogging, Life Journals.
Comments: 1

More MySpace “friend” nonsense.

This afternoon, the following subject line graced my email summary:

MySpace Friend Request Trista would like to be added as one of your friends!

Hi Gene,

Trista would like to be added to your MySpace friends list.

Et cetera.

So, I logged into my MySpace account to check this “Trista” out. The control panel blinked happily “New Friend Request!” I clicked on it. The friend request page was blank. Nothing. “No friend requests pending.”

Huh. Now what was that about?

MySpace sends out an email when someone supposedly wants to be your friend, but nothing if they take it back. I think they should send a second email in such cases, something like:

MySpace Friend Request The biatch changed her mind

Hi Gene,

Um, forget we said anything.

Posted: April 16th, 2008 under Life Journals, The Funny Side of Life, Websites.
Comments: none

“Do you have to, do you have to,
Do you have to let it linger?”
– lyrics to “Linger,” by The Cranberries

 
I felt better a week ago. It’s into the third week and I’m still fighting this thing. I feel like reheated crap on a stick. Most of today I spent sleeping on and off. As I laid here thinking this afternoon, I couldn’t believe how awful I feel this far in. Most people get sick, they’re BLAH for a week and then they recover. With me, it lingers.

I first noticed this around age 13 when both my father and I got sick. We’d just switched to new health insurance — my first experience with big, bad HMOs — and, as a result, a new doctor. My father quickly recovered and returned to work. At first, I appeared to be on the same track, then suddenly I got worse. It seemed to me like I’d gotten sick again. I ended up being sick two weeks to his one.

That’s the first time I noticed it, but given my health difficulties up to then, I’m sure it wasn’t the first time it happened. After that, I watched it happen time and again.

That’s exactly how it went down this time. By the first Monday, less than a week in, I seemed pretty much over it. I still coughed up gunk, but gunk increasingly thinner and lighter in color. I thought I was out of the woods. All weekend, I’d marveled at the speed of my recovery. Then it went south. By Wednesday, I felt awful again. Here it’s almost another Wednesday later, and I’m no better.

 
Right now, I’m inclined to blame the infection. I’m prone to getting infections when sick, and I’m thinking that is a large contributor to the lingering.

I tried to get away without taking antibiotics. I do not like taking pills. In my 20’s, I frequently let my body fight infections off on its own. This time it’s not going away. I’ve given in and started the antibiotics, and I’m a little distressed and disappointed my body wasn’t able to get rid of this infection itself.

Posted: April 16th, 2008 under Life Journals.
Comments: none