Five-ish years ago, my best friend Rachel and I co-hosted a college radio show called The Cassette Deck on KTCU's 88.7, The Choice. We played a mix of indie, local, classics, and talked entirely too much/make entirely too many bad jokes. We had a new theme each week (ex: one week, we decided on a horse theme, and played "All the pretty horses," various songs by Band of Horses, and that song by the Velvet Underground with the lyrics "I'm sticking with you/cause I'm made out of glue").
In a nutshell, it was amazing. Not in a give your rose to the Bachelor amazing (they've ruined that word for everyone), but jsut... fantastic. I miss those days a ton.
On the first Valentine's Day that coincided with our show, we were basically obligated to create and play a V-day mix of love/heartache/heartbreak/eat cake music, with a bit of Frank Sinatra ("each day is Valentiiiiiiine's Day"), for good measure.
During the last hour of our shift, we decided to create fortune teller Valentines for each other out of scrap paper we found in the station (and because I'm the world's most sentimental pack rat, I found mine a couple of years ago, but I digress). You would lift the flap and read something like "You will put eight children up for adoption tomorrow!" or "Tomorrow, your crush will try to push you off a cliff!" or even more nonsensical wonders like "Granny or Tranny?" We even incorporated a few magic 8 ball/1990's AOL throwbacks, like "fortune teller deadz, try again LaTeRz."
You'd hope we had some reason for acting goofy and ridiculous (like indulging in a Chimy's marg or two prior to our shift), but nope. We just have strange sense of humor (which I feel like is a must with all the close people in my life).
I used to love Valentine's Day as a kid. Those were the days when bringing valentines for your entire class was mandatory. You'd decorate your shoe box (if you were me) with red wrapping paper and construction paper pink hearts and a thousand paper doilies and too much glitter glue, and you'd write your name with swirls and dot your "i" with a heart, and make a slit through the lid to house your collection of love. And it was total l-u-v back then too, because your classroom crush HAD to send you a Goosebumps or Goof Troop-themed valentine. If you were lucky, he would even include a special note. One year, I received a Home Improvement-themed valentine featuring JTT, Tim the Toolbitch Taylor, and several power tools, with a hastily written "you are a sweet gril!" in blue marker underneath. The grammar snob in me promptly decided I couldn't like him anymore. A sweet grill? Booooo. Barbecue this, loser. He wasn't sporting one of those snazzy chili bowl haircuts anyway, so our pretend relationship was probably doomed from the start.
As I grew older and middle school arrived, everyone started to have "REAL" boyfriends and girlfriends and sit next to each other at lunch, and hold hands during passing periods and all that. I was one of those girls who secretly crushed on guys in my gym or honor's English classes despite never actually interacting with them or striking up a conversation. I'm not shy by any means, but everyone is awkward to the nine thousandth degree in middle school, and somehow I thought that secretly liking a guy would translate into him asking me to the winter dance (where we would sway back and fourth to "all my life" by KC & jojo after I'd kicked off my glittery platforms in the bathroom so that I wouldn't be taller).
Sadly, no matter how much Bath and Body Works glitter eyeshadow I rocked, how many times I wore my favorite abercrombie white tee with a red butterfly, or how many flipped under ponytails I stuck on top of my head and tied with color-coordinating ribbons, I only had a date to a dance one time in middle school, and never received an over-sized bear or a dozen roses or a gift certificate to Chili's.
it kind of looked like this, only higher on my head and with a big ribbon.
i had trouble finding a picture in google image search of this hairstyle gem (surprise, surprise), but i know i wasn't the only one who did this... right?
In high school (and later on in college), I finally got the hang of things, and was dating/in a relationship with guys on a more regular basis. And while I have indeed had a boyfriend for the past three Valentines Days, none of them were actually nice V-Days. At all. Two years ago, my boyfriend tried to send me flowers, but they were lost in the mail. He felt terrible, and I knew it wasn't his fault. But he's Swedish and thusly lived (and still lives) in Sweden, so I didn't actually get to see him that day. And those flowers never showed up. Also, Valentine's isn't really a big deal in Sweden, so there was no transatlantic exchanging of gifts or even cards. In fact, between our work schedules, we didn't get to talk at all on Valentine's. I think I received an "jag alskar dig, sotnos!" text, but that's about it (translation: "i love you, sweet nose." sweet nose is a pet name in Sverige).
But Jesus Jones. Last year takes the cake, though. Firstly, I had a lady sonogram (not the fun kind women have when they're preggo... the other kind), and it was agony. Later on during that appointment, I had to weepily schedule my hysterectomy for a mereweek later. Secondly, I arrive home to discuss the appointment with the old ball and chain (I say this in jest... kind of), and he hands me super cheap, ugly, and already wilting grocery store flowers. I'm no snob and grocery store flowers are completely fine (well, sometimes), but it was a little disappointing that there was zero thought involved (and he knew I was probably going to schedule my hyst at my doctor's office that day).
But the real gem of the evening was when told me that my Valentine's present was "getting to live with him for free."
I had hoped that we would be exchanging gifts, hoping that we'd each secretly bought something for the other person, but nope. I'd ordered his gift online (a pressure cooker he'd had his eye one at the cooking store), and originally, I felt terrible about it arriving after Valentine's. But as it turns out, I had the privilege of getting to live with him, so, uh, there's that...
So while I'm alone this year, I think it's safe to say that anything will be a vast improvement over last year. I don't want to tempt fate, though, so I'll just leave it at that.
In other (probably more interesting) news, I've started tweeting for Etsy Fort Worth on Wednesdays. So today, I included a link to an amaaaazing lemon kiss cookie recipe, which (if you scroll down) is the post just before this one. Enjoy!
