one minute til midnight
Tuesday
14 February 2006

marilyn@orcus:~$ cat .bash_history | grep dict
	 dict whipporwill
	 dict whippoorwill
	 dict vagaries
	 dict fie
	 dict detente
	 dict moxie
	 dict speculum
	 dict speculate
	 dict picturesque
	 dict picaresque
	 dict eleemosynary
	 dict licentious
	 dict substantiating
	 dict bedraggle
	 dict lucent
	 dict lucid
	 dict manikin
	 dict persiflage
	 dict ecdysiast
	 dict lonely
	 dict lonesome

• × • × • × •

From my favorite new find marina:

Love is not a given, not ever. Love happens, and evolves, and is shown through acts. It is not a feeling, sudden and abrupt, that you happen upon, that happens upon you, like an assignment. You do not give yourself up to love, in all of your brave abandon at the foot of emotion, unable to control yourself. That may be part of love, of course. But I believe that love happens over time. It's something proven and done and made with work; what you do in the face of helplessness shows it. How you behave in crisis shows it. What you do out of fear or hurt, because of your deepest character, makes love apparent. Frequently, to love someone is to realize them in terms of yourself, whether that's the right way to do it or not. Because of this, no one wants to believe terrible things about the people they love or have loved, because those terrible things say something about the person who commits them, but also about the person who loves the person who commits them.

And an old favorite, the lovely miss klingrap:

Midtown at rush hour was a sludge-pit of people carrying flowers. Women with roses hovered on curbs, uncertain how to navigate the lakes of dirty slush separating them from the flashing "walk" sign across the street. Teen couples kissed in doorways, metallic red balloons fluttering in the wind behind them, getting in the faces of flat-lipped businessmen clutching Hallmark envelopes, dirty bits of snow kicking up behind their salt-encrusted shoes.

In the liquor store, everyone was buying red.

Some bitch squeezed her fat ass down on the not-really-a-seat next to me on the subway and my bottle of cheap Portuguese cabernet almost went toppling to the floor as I struggled with New Yorker, iPod, wine (helloooo Yupdom!) and the sudden unwelcome elbows. A man across from me with a moustache that seemed to pull the rest of his face down with it set a bag between his feet. Tight yellow buds and sprays of red peeked out over the top. A girl with hair in liquid curls giggled around an enormous blue teddy bear.

I felt naked without flowers. Sure, I had the wine, but that could either mean that I was going home to a romantic dinner with the boy or that I was a pathetic loser planning to get smashed by herself and sob over Breakfast at Tiffany's on the Lifetime channel. I wanted flowers as a badge of honor saying "look, I'm loved! I have a boyfriend and we're in love and I'm not alone today and I want all of you strangers to know it!" Because that's why people get flowers and cards and candy and balloons on Valentine's Day: as proof to other people (the more remote, the better - co-workers and strangers are ideal) that they are loved.

• × • × • × •

Happy Valentine's Day. I do hope you blasted anything small and singing and pink or red on this godforsaken day.

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