Where's My VE Day?

Now that’s just about the best Valentine I’ve ever gotten: a postcard from the Taj Mahal from Julia, who is in India. A brief little history of the Taj for you: it was built as a mausoleum for the wife of a Raja. His matching black stone mausoleum was to be built next to hers so they could lie together for all eternity. Now that’s romantic. Except that his never got built and hers is overrun with tourists. Still though, it beats roses.

Actually, the best Valentine’s Day gift I’ve ever received is the one that still causes people to shake their heads and pity me. I was in undergrad, slugging thru a tough semester. Wait, they were all tough… Anyway. My boyfriend arrived at school to be reminded by friends that it was, in fact, Valentine’s Day. (a day he knew I abhorred. I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve been dumped on or shortly before this holiday.) So there he was, unable to leave, knowing he had to do something. Right? The panic set in. Do I do something, do I not? What’s going to get me yelled at the least? Since he’d forgotten and I was due at any moment, he looked at the floor and spotted one tiny red metallic confetti heart. And then he set to work. He cleaned off my entire desk, pinned up all my drawings, put my pens and rulers and various other drafting equipment away exactly the way I liked it, brushed my desk clean and placed the red heart in the exact centre of my now gleaming white desk. And then he went to class where all our friends gave him hell. This is why it was so hard to let him go; he understood me perfectly. Cleaning off my desk and setting that little heart was the perfect gift for me. I’ve always been a fan of small subtle gestures and he understood that. Had he swamped my desk in flowers, I would have been happy, but for him to think about what would make me smile, what would mean something to me, that meant the world to me. I had that heart taped to my mayline for years.

So, anyone want to volunteer their favourite Valentine’s Day story? It’s such a pressure filled holiday and being here, where no one knows me, has sort of lifted my general hostility toward the day. It’s like being completely alone in the world has taken the edge off. Or it could be that I’ve been in the planning office all morning and they aren’t allowed to put up any sort of decorations to remind me that someone should be declaring his eternal love to me thru stuffed animals with cupid wings and baby talk. Wait, there’s the hostility. I once made a piñata of cupid for the occasion. It’s too much pressure when you’re single and it builds with each person pityingly shoring you up with platitudes about meeting the right guy some day. That sort of social pressure requires a constructive outlet. I consider beating an effigy of cupid with a stick constructive. Especially when he’s filled with candy.