I should be doing other things but I am prioritizing this little venture for several reasons.

1. It’s just good practice. Working on a near-daily basis on putting words together is fun and exciting and maybe someday it’ll be something else.
2. I have been a little on and off this week, so today I’m on.
3. I’m currently in-cat-pacitated. Mr. Darcy is nestled against my left lung and while the vibration of his little purring body feels wonderful, I’m in a weird position and can’t move. Poor Mr. Knightley tried to get on my lap but alas, the laptop had beat him there already.

Alright. I had a conversation a few weeks ago and the person with whom I was speaking asked me if I liked romance. I don’t know what kind of bullshit answer I gave but I think it involved saying yes, of course, I love receiving flowers. I think I went into a detailed description of an orchid corsage. Unrelated: Orchids are really great cut flowers and they last a really long time, but the romantic choice for a corsage would definitely have to be a gardenia. Related: Derp.

Isn’t that funny, though? I can’t quite define what romance is, but I do know that a gardenia is romance. An orchid can also be romantic, but I think it’s more of a reverent kind of romance, unless the orchid is really rare and expensive, and if that is the case, please don’t stop at the corsage: Gift me the orchid, please.

So then, what is romance? Let’s start with the obvious: It’s subjective.

Sure, the word has a history: The origins of “romance” as we know it come from the Medieval storytelling form, which focused on gallant knights and on chivalry (which, in essence, is dead because I don’t see men dashing off anywhere astride no horse, but I digress). Lancelot making Arthur a beta cuck was super romantic to some, in the same way that Tristan making Iseult’s uncle and husband –who also happened to be Tristan’s mentor– King Mark, a beta cuck. Is cheating on your spouse romantic? Maybe? Or maybe it’s just an idealization of something that is exciting, bombastic, impractical and, ultimately, doomed, that attracts us.

Today I went to the Cherry Blossom Festival peak bloom announcement at the Waldorf Astoria and, among all the activities and announcements, the hotel announced the Cherry Blossom suite: a lavish, 1500 square-foot suite decorated in silk cherry blossoms, pretty gold and jewel tones. The bedroom has a big canopy bed crowned with a forest of sakura. The suite also boasts a massage room in the suite (“You can have romance AND be productive!” the marketing lady crowed enthusiastically because productivity is very romantic?) so that you can work, work, work and then plop yourself down and have a massage and then you can sleep under the cherry blossoms.

Don’t get me wrong: the suite is tasteful and lovely and beautiful. But the romance doesn’t happen without people and their ideas of romance, does it?

Why is a gardenia corsage romantic to me? Because gardenias smell like early June: They smell like warm nights in late spring and they smell like the moment before a kiss you’ve been imagining for a long time. Gardenias have those thick, sensual, whiter-than-white petals that make them look like they are glowing in the dark. When you’re close to a gardenia, you can’t help but want to smell it and touch it and be close to it, and what I want to do to a gardenia is what I want the object of my affection to do with me. Is romance, then, just lust?

Or is romance really just having someone who remembers the smallest things about you (gardenias optional) and gives you small tokens of attention, time and admiration? Are friends romantic? Can you fall in love with a stranger you’ll never see again?

Or is romance silk petals that you hope get vacuumed well before you lie underneath them? Hard to tell.

If you’re in the mood for comments, tell me what you think is romantic: Let’s build a dictionary of romance together. Doesn’t that sound romantic?