Tuesday, February 13, 2007

The eve of saint valentine

Here we are on the Eve of Saint Valentine....but what does that mean, exactly? What does it mean to me? Pretty much fuck all, to tell the truth. I used to get all worked up about it...but not in the "omigod it is valentine's day and i don't have anyone to send me roses.." way. Instead, i had a small, elite group of friends with whom i anti-celebrated such a bullshit Hallmark-owned, manufactured-to-sell-more-greeting-cards-and-cheap-chocolates holiday. We called it "Black _____day" (fill in the blank with the appropriate day of the week. in this case, it would be Black Wednesday. I don't think i'll actually bother this year. I've become that apathetic. for real. Here's some important information for y'all:

Under the rule of Emperor Claudius II Rome was involved in many bloody and unpopular campaigns. Claudius the Cruel was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues. He believed that the reason was that roman men did not want to leave their loves or families. As a result, Claudius cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome. The good Saint Valentine was a priest at Rome in the days of Claudius II. He and Saint Marius aided the Christian martyrs and secretly married couples, and for this kind deed Saint Valentine was apprehended and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. He suffered martyrdom on the 14th day of February, about the year 270. At that time it was the custom in Rome, a very ancient custom, indeed, to celebrate in the month of February the Lupercalia, feasts in honour of a heathen god. On these occasions, amidst a variety of pagan ceremonies, the names of young women were placed in a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed.

Romantic, yes? A day that is marked by the majority of the western world, that in fact celebrates the beheading of a priest, and marks a day of ancient tradition that allowed men to draw the names of woman from a box, to do with as they pleased.

The last Valentine's Day that i actually "celebrated" in a "normal" way (meaning that i was involved with someone and decided to do the whole i'll-buy-you-some-edible-massage-oil-and-we'll-go-out-for-dinner) went something like this:
I made the reservations, he came home late, high on coke, we went out for dinner (that he didn't eat, as a result of being too coked up), and then we came home, and didn't have sex (as a result of him being too coked up). There were no roses (he forgot and spent any extra money we had kicking around on coke), but my dad did send me some carnations, with a card saying "from your secret admirer" and my then (coke-head) boyfriend picked a fight with me over them, because he didn't believe they were from my dad, but instead fabricated an affair between me and my much older, married, unattractive boss. Ah, romance. Forgive my cynicism. I just realized that i may have shared this delightful anecdote with you all last year - perhaps i should check the archives.

On a more uplifting note: Poppy and i reunited this past weeekend for some fun photo-ops. We donned our wigs and drove out to Lawrencetown beach with all kinds of fun props on hand, but ran into several difficulties:
1.) Her camera was left in someone's car and not available, so we broke out my antiquated digital camera (for whihc i have no cord to hook it up to the computer to download the meager amount of pictures we took). We also had my 1974 canon SE (i'm really much more of a manual kind of gal), but that would require film developing and scanning to get up on this bloggery, which may happen sometime in the future, but not tonight.

2.) It was FUCKING FREEZING, and we just did a little flashing, as opposed to any full scale strippin' down to our undies (specially picked out for your viewing pleasure - mine were hot pink with "Free Nfld" printed on them - very sexy indeed..maybe they'll make it onto another post sometime)

3.) We had a near-death experience on the way to the beach. It went like this :

Violet: Hey - there's new lights installed up there. A red light...

Poppy: Weird - i've never noticed those before.

Violet: It is just one lane over that little bridge...HOLY FUCK! THERE'S A TRUCK COMING RIGHT TOWARDS US AND IT ISN'T STOPPING!

Poppy: Oh shit...what the fuck is his problem???

Violet: What an asshole! (as we backed up rapidly, amidst beeping of horns and much middle finger gesturing from the oncoming driver)

...Now, look back to the beginning of all that and notice what we remarked on but failed to comply with...a RED LIGHT, which evidently was in place to control the traffic due to the ONE lane...ooops.

After we recovered from our shock, (and the near-frostbite we incurred due to our little beach photo shoot) we decided to mark the near-death occasion by taking pics of each other flashing in front of the temporarily set-up light that nearly killed us both. All i have to do to get them online is to find the cord of a Kodak easyshare camera, circa 2001. Do you have one i can borrow?

This little adventure also earned me a splinter in the palm of my right hand (i'm guessing from the railing on the boardwalk) that i can't remove, try as i might (i'm right handed which makes delicate operations using my left hand a bit tricky). This is what i am really lamenting over this eveing, on the eve of saint valentine. Not that i am alone and have no one to buy my flowers and cheap chocolate. That i am alone and have no one to take the goddamn splinter out of my hand, where it will fester to the point of infection, turn gangrene-ish, and my hand will have to be amputated, meaning that i won't be able to play my guitar to finish the song i started writing last night. hopefully, they will catch it before the infection spreads to the rest of my body and i will live to write another bloggery. ...



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