So I was all set to write about how if you seek to find meaning in Valentine’s day, or if you seek to gain acceptance of it or make peace with it, what you should focus on always is number one: yourself.

I really wanted to bring you guys to tears; to make you realize that a feast that celebrates love can be at its core a feast and a holiday and a reason for self-love– that important and primal and instinctual part of ourselves which in healthy doses is accountable for mentally healthy people who respect and love others and are productive members of society.

But then I thought about this: why is it that no one feels compelled to have to talk up another couple of borderline-made-up holidays* such as Halloween and St. Patrick’s day?

It’s because the candy is bad, isn’t it?

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Halloween’s kiddie-Mardi Gras is nothing but a purely decadent smörgåsbord of ANY kind of candy you can dream up –pitifully interspersed with a few healthy offerings such as the very rare apple, orange, or bag of pretzels– and St. Patrick’s day is a bacchanalian debauchery of alcohol where it’s understood that adults of a consenting age (and well, not-so-consenting age as well) who imbibe, WILL.  And how.

So, you have pure sugar in all its forms, being hurled at you.
And you have alcohol and possibly boobies –though not hurled at you in Mardi Gras fashion, true.  But hey: boobies.

And then you have Valentine’s day.

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Yes, there is much chocolate.  Chocolate AND flowers, even.

But there are so many hurdles to attaining the chocolate– having a date seeming to be the paramount obstacle to it all; the procuring and securing thereof not even guaranteeing that chocolate or flowers (let alone sex) will be had.

So what’s left as the bait/offerings to make this day sweet?

Lame pre-cut pieces of paper, little hearts with cheeky messages that mostly taste like Styrofoam (but I will still eat because I’m weird and I also like Peeps), and Hershey’s Kisses and Hugs are all that you get.

– Garbage.
– Nasty candy that manages to taste stale when fresh (aside from my tastebuds: "Mmm!").
– Crappy chocolate and crappier white chocolate.

I’m telling you: Valentine’s day needs to hang on dearly to the concept of self-love and either go Exotic Erotic Ball on us or find some diabetic association to picket against it, so the sheer tension of it all makes us eat more candy and feel guiltier until we’re rapt in a viciously delicious cycle where our mouths just water, Pavlovian, whenever anyone even faintly mentions the word "Valentine".

But anyway…. this is all just to say HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!!

May you find merriment and love today, in whatever form feels right to you.

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* Don’t you get all defensive with me now, people.  By what I just said I mean that celebrating Pagan New Year or a minor saint elsewhere in the world are not a top priority religionwise for most people– but are a top priority for Party Depot, M&M/Mars, the beer industry, and Hallmark.