Valentine's Day

So, here I sit, proposal conference looming in the distance, about 25 minutes in the distance to be exact. I just saw my chair on the way down to feed her meter. And then she'll come back up to feed me to the wolves... or something like that. I'm being too dramatic.

Well, in order to pass the time, I've decided to think a bit about Valentine's day and what that means. Everyone appears to be asking the question, 'is it just a consumer holiday?' Everyone except Thom of course, who is freely offering the advice 'remember, you can't celebrate Valentine's Day non-ironically.'

I'm not sure I know which of these thought provoking questions to attend to first. I guess I'll start with consumerism. What would Valentine's day be like without it? That's kind of my feeling. Isn't it silly of us to long for the real thing, an authentic Valentine's day where love doesn't need Hallmark tokens of affection? When hasn't love required tokenism? Dante's little love club practically replaced the objects of their affection with symbols all together. And if I remember correctly, with images of 'consumption.' Maybe I'm conflating two kinds of consumption. But really, Valentine's day, when you tear away all the heart candies, the chocolates, and all the red satin sheets, is really just desire, possesion, and consumption. I can't imagine a more consumerist holiday.

If there is something to real romance here, please, tell me what it is. What would Valentine's day be if I weren't giving my sweety a card this evening and taking her out for Sushi? Well, it would probably be quite primitive. We'd start by eating some non-poisonous flora. Maybe we'd cook ourselves a few conies on the spit, and then we'd crawl into an animal skin and do it like they do on the discovery channel. Now that I think about it, this would probably be kind of enjoyable.

So, since my proposal conference is now 12 minutes away, where I will be victim to something akin to cannibalism, I'd like to leave off on a happy note: Don't let the consumerist side to Valentine's day get you down. Love is consumerist. You possess, you get possessed; you eat, you get eaten. Sounds good to me. Wish me luck.