Capitalist Glorification of Coupleness Day

I am SO glad that Capitalist Glorification of Coupleness Day is almost over. It seems to have been particularly obnoxious this year; no matter where I go it's everywhere. It's in my email spam, my snail-mail spam, tv commercials, store displays. It's inescapable.

Why is Valentine's Day so evil, you ask? I'm so glad you asked that question, grasshopper.

You're screwed no matter what, with this stupid "holiday." If you're not in a relationship, you're made to feel inadequate because of that. If you ARE in a relationship, you're made to feel obligated -- whether it's an obligation to buy your sweetie something (and it better be a BIG diamond ring / box of chocolate / bouquet of flowers), or simply an obligation to have a "special" day. (Doesn't everyone know that it's nearly impossible to have a "special" day when there's that much pressure?) Personally, I'd much rather receive a box of chocolates on some other day because my sweetie really wanted to give me chocolate -- rather than receive it on Feb. 14th because someone felt that it was their "duty" to give me chocolate on that particular day.

And the marketing is just so fucking obnoxious. I really don't know how else to describe it. It's everywhere, worse than any other holiday. How many ads have you seen by now that start off, "This Valentine's Day, get your sweetie something they'll REALLY love..."? Heaven forbid you should get them something they only kind of love!

I mean, enough things in life are couple-oriented as it is. Have you ever seen a contest to win one ticket to Paris? Or dinner for one at a fancy restaurant? But Valentine's Day makes it all just so much more painfully obvious. "What do you MEAN you don't have a sweetie to buy chocolate for?" the ads seem to be asking incredulously. "What, is there something wrong with you or something?" Yes, yes there is. There's something wrong with me, and what it is is that I don't base my self-worth on having a significant other. I would love to have a significant other. I'm signed up on match.com for that very purpose. I frequently lie in bed at night agonizing over whether I'll ever be kissed again, let alone have sex, let alone love someone and be loved and spent my life with them. But that lack of companionship does not define me. I am not a missing half of something. I am a whole person with a full and interesting life, damn it. And Valentine's Day is a manufactured holiday whose entire purpose, whose raison d'être, is to make me feel bad about that. Fuck that shit. Fuck it to hell and back with a rusty chainsaw, to be precise.

And that, my friends, is the condensed version of my Valentine's Day Rant. I would have made it more eloquent, but it's late and I swore I'd go to bed early tonight. So much for that.

still dreaming

I dreamt that Toes was still alive, though old, and had just given birth to twelve kittens. (This probably came from a recent "Emergency Vets" episode where a dog was having twelve puppies.) The kittens were almost all black except for two or three that were black-and-gray striped. Some other stuff happened that I can't remember, and then for some reason we were upset that the kittens had gotten out of their box and were running around. I was trying to catch them and identify each one, but since they were mostly identical, it was hard to be sure which kitten was which. Also, in the span of one day the kittens grew from newborn to what seemed more like a several-months-old kitten size.

Later, I dreamt that my mom, my brother, and I were driving through the countryside. My mom was driving and she pointed off to the left saying, "hey, look at that," and I thought she meant what a pretty idyllic scene it was (a mountain in the distance, trees, a lake, very beautiful) but it turned out she was pointing out the place where we had gone to (some event?) last year. And now it was time for this year's (some event) but we weren't going to it, just happened to be driving by as it was happening.

Then we were driving on a road that went through a lake, and there were dolphins in the lake, jumping up out of it and back in like in a dolphin show, which I thought was great, but my mom was scared of the dolphins. We got through to the other side of the lake and there was a party going on. A lady was selling cake and I decided to have some, but I took my piece and cut it into two -- not half slices, but about 75%/25%, where the 75% piece was the piece I planned to eat. ;-) My brother wanted a piece of cake too, so my mom was telling the lady that she would buy two. I was taking a plastic knife and fork from the basket to eat my cake with, but then I realized that I already had a fork on my plate, so I offered the extra to my brother, but he already had one too.

Hmm, that was awfully random.

the last (?) fic exorcism

This might be the last of the fanfic snippets that I need to exorcise. This one is, "Buffy finds out about Angel and the baby." Takes place after "Doublemeat Palace" but before "Dead Things."
( click to read it )