I Didn't Mean to Miss Valentine's Day

...but I did. I was in the process of writing a post yesterday, from my not-very-snowed-in house, but I was kicked off the internet and I didn't particularly want to fight with the connection. Now that we pay for it, our connection has gotten a lot better -- the university used to provide dial-up service to students, faculty and staff for free, but now that dial-up is going the way of 8-track technology no one wants it anymore and the U doesn't provide it anymore. We live in the country so our choices are extremely expensive satellite, some sort of radio signal do-hickey (also expensive) and dial-up. We're too cheap to pay very much for internet, especially since Len only uses it to buy records and I don't use the computer at home. It turns out the service you pay for has made it into the standard cassette tape era and isn't so bad. Except when it kicks me off.

Don't you love it when you have to put up with a long, completely pointless aside?

What I had intended to say, yesterday, before I was so rudely disconnected, was that I am not a Valentine's Day fan. I'm sure that comes as a big shock. I spent way too many years not-very-happily single to find much meaning in the Hallmark presentation of romance. To the contrary, I found the pressure to coupledom quite hurtful. Now, I just find the All Women Want Chocolate/Diamonds/Flowers/Stuffed Bears called The Love Bandit offensive. The most romantic gift I've ever gotten was an atlas from Len during our first year together, I had mentioned in passing that I would like to have one and was blown away that he remembered. Last weekend he spent several hours out in the freezing cold, replacing the alternator in my car so I wouldn't have to take it to the dealership. That's the stuff of Love.

Here are a couple of my favorite quotes on love:

"Love is not a game
Love is not a toy
Love's no romance"
--From "Congratulations"
Paul Simon

And this is from a piece I heard many years ago on NPR, it was a conversation between Matthew Broderick and the playwright, Wendy Wasserstein. They were talking about broken hearts and Wasserstein said this at the end:

"I do find the thought that two people can fall in love really humane. I remember, when I was writing The Sisters Rosensweig, that was my thought that here was this woman who was all closed up, and someone comes into her life and that she- It just seemed terrible human-"

It struck me as such a lovely thought, that love is both humane and human. Unfortunately, NPR doesn't have this archived.

And on a completely different topic: George Clooney has sent me an e-mail offering me a "lucrative part time job"! Yes, I'm very excited too. It seems "the job takes less than 5 hours a week and it a mean by which you can increase your weekly income by about $500 weekly". So if you don't hear from me for a while, that's where I'll be. Swooning at George's feet. With a Love Bandit.