En Medias Res

In which we shall see: Holiday horrors, mass warfare, florists, crossword puzzles, metaphorical groundhogs, Oprah, and a franchised sandwich shop.

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I have finally bowed to the inevitable and started a blog. Appropriately, I believe, it all begins on the most momentous day of the year - that Day of Days, Terror of Terrors, Agony and Ecstasy, cheap chocolates and cheaper sentiments... Valentine's Day. (Sorry to start things out on a cynical note - it made for better dramatic effect.) Now, don't kid yourselves - y'all know perfectly well that THIS is the day for which we all live (in denial) for the rest of the year. Birthdays? Pshaw - another year, another couple of wrinkles. Christmas? No longer a day, this one lasts an entire month (or more); and while the cumulative pressures are indeed intense, they are also diluted to some extent by the presence of "family", "friends", "Santa Claus", and "Scrooge", all of whom have legitimate means for distributing the occasional soothing balm to an otherwise stressed-out soul.

No, February 14th is the traditional date upon which self-esteem depends, when candy is a beacon of popularity rather than a beckoning omen of figurative destruction. (I should know.) Today we face the massed forces of Hallmark, Godiva (I surrender!), florists en masse, SAD, and the naive philosophies of the uninitiated and/or willfully blind who insist that "It's not about HAVING someone! It's about loving EVERYBODY!" while those around them shake their heads pityingly and go back to the newspaper crossword puzzle. (5 Across is "facsimile".) Women, you know of what I speak: on February 2nd we lift our respective heads from the burrows where we've been hibernating since December 26th, sniff cautiously, tentatively open our eyes to determine whether there will sun or shade, and think, "Crap! Feb. 14th is only 12 days away! I have GOT to get to the gym!" after which the annual emotional scarring begins anew.

"It's no big deal," you're saying to yourself right now. "Hardly something to get worked up about! I don't need some commercialized pseudo-celebration of Romance and chubby half-naked children with arrows to validate or make me happy! I'm a good person, I have friends/a husband/a boyfriend/etc... and I'm in control of my emotional well-being!" Lies, all lies. But keep telling yourself that - it just might work someday. And when it does, please contact me ASAP with all the details. I will immediately leave the Recovery After Valentine's Institute for the Needy and Gibbering (R.A.V.I.N.G.) clinic for which I am currently volunteering (experience counts!) and rush your story to Oprah. We'll make a mint! (With dark chocolate is especially good!)

So, welcome to my blog, and congratulations for making it here (hopefully - though the odds are against it - unscathed) through the treacherous pink-and-red-and-white jungle that is Valentine's Day. Gird up your loins (as it were), for it will be back again - like your Thanksgiving cold and the Easter grass stains - in a year.

Soon I will sit back down and work out a somewhat more traditional "introductory" post, explaining the title and probably more about me than you ever wanted to know (if you haven't already reached that point) - and with any luck there will be a little less PMS, sleep-deprivation, and protein-deficiency (yes, Micah, you were absolutely right about Subway).

Watch out for falling turtles,

C

Meaningful phone calls I made today: 0
Stupid things I did today: 1
Defiantly stupid things I did today: 1
Stupid things I could have done today but didn't: 1