I'm actually looking forward to a Hallmark Holiday!

2003-02-14 - 8:59 a.m.

I've always been sort of a paradox.

I'm really happy, chipper and energetic, yet very anti-Disney.

I'm a really girly girl, yet am too lazy to be high maintenance.

I dream about a life with my name in lights, but I'm almost a Ph.D. candidate in engineering, where I'll have to settle for my name in print only to be read by other engineers and scientists.

I'm so sensitive that I sometimes cry during the 'lesson' portion of Full House, but I'm incredibly cynical.

I watch Seventh Heaven and, well, you all know me too well to really understand how that works.

I'm a hopeless romantic, and I positively abhor Valentine's Day.

It's SUCH a stupid holiday. I have spent SO many of these stupid days crying, disappointed in what was suppose to happen, fighting with boyfriends, etc. I even had a date one year who called his ex-girlfriend to talk with her before calling me to make a date. I decided when I was 17, the year that I had a platonic date with Blanca, that I would try to never expect anything more than heartache and frustration from the dumb holiday.

That's not to say that it's always bad. I've also had my share of nice Valentine's Days. But it was after I learned to look at is as just another date, just another night out on the town. Of course, dating somebody who wasn't mildly bi-polar helped that situation, but I'm not going to get into the psychoses of my past boyfriends right now.

But either way, it's a fake holiday. I don't know the origins, but I suspect it was invented to boost the sale of jewelry, chocolate and flowers in the late nineteents century (though, chocolate as we know it now was invented in the late nineteenth century, I would suspect it didn't take long to catch on). I bet that DeBeers and Hallmark joined forces on that one.

But this year, I'm really looking forward to it. I made/bought Mike a bunch of really cutsie gifts, I plan on picking him up at the airport all decked out in a sexy dress, I even made a reservation for dinner!

Granted, I would be looking forward to any weekend Mike was coming to visit, and I'd probably show up at the airport looking really good, but I wouldn't have the cutsie gifts or reservations. But I'd celebrate Arbor Day if it meant I was going to get to see him :-).

But make no mistake, I'm not putting any stock in the made up intrinsic romance of Valentine's Day. I just don't buy into the hype. But I do plan on being a good sport about it, and not make fun of the holiday while we're out. And I do anticipate a romantic evening, but this time I'm fairly certain that I won't be disappointed. Hell, I would be fine if our reservations fell through and we wound up at Arby's.

Anyway, I'm being stupid and sappy now.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!