Selfish

It was, perhaps, a bit selfish, but I spent Valentine's Day appreciating ... myself.

The bitter joke is that February 14 is really Singles Awareness Day.

I, however, am already quite aware that I am single. And for the first time in a long time - perhaps ever - I was appreciative of my unattached status on the Day of Love. I decided to celebrate it.

I changed the meaning of the acronym - SAD became Sarah Appreciation Day. I dressed up. I wore the pearls that Matt and Molly gave me. I went shopping. I bought myself chocolates and two Agatha Christie mysteries. I rented a movie. I fixed a fabulous (and pretty) dinner and had my first-ever steamed artichoke (I liked it, but that's a lot of work for not very much artichoke). I felt vindicated, though, in steaming and then ripping apart the artichoke, as it was the same one that attacked me at Safeway a few days ago. Vengence was dipped in melted butter and tasted pretty good.

I wished almost every person I ran into a Happy Valentine's Day. It felt like Christmas. I was brimming with good cheer and determined to share it. I was contemplating the different kinds of love that we experience in life, and I was thankful for the love I was reminded of yesterday.

My dad sent flowers (tulips!) to my office Friday. I ran into a former professor and mentor (and current friend) in Wal-Mart last night who had been snagged by a desperate-looking man in need of Rose Advice. Among the three of us, I think he walked away secure in a doghouse-free Valentine's Day, and then the professor and I caught up in a whirlwind of chatter next to the gourmet cheese case. I talked to Brooke. I talked to my mom.

I drank too much wine (the story of my Valentine's Day-affiliated life), but it was good wine, so that's (almost) OK. It'll be a lot more OK later today, after I've eaten something ...

I'm OK with selfish on a day like Valentine's Day. I've spent too many of them moping and feeling sorry for myself, wishing that this or that had turned out differently so I could spend that day with Someone Special, neglecting to look in the mirror and realize that I already was, and that in the continued absence of the Best Company (aka Mr. Right), my own company is pretty good to keep.

And, as Holly would remind me, a bigger Someone reminds us every day of His love, and that's worth celebrating, whether it comes cleverly wrapped with heart-spangled ribbon or whispered to a lonely heart on a bitter Valentine's night ...

Scar tissue

Some things just hurt worse than others. Longer than others.

I'm not convinced that Cheryl Crow is right, that the first cut is the deepest, but some cuts are definitely deeper than others. And they leave lingering, reminding scars.

And in matters of the heart, we either trudge on, looking for someone/thing else which we can trust and love more deeply (and which can potentially hurt us more deeply), or we lock our hearts up, give Cupid an emphatically gesticulated middle finger, drink lots of alcohol and pickle not only our physical insides, but the emotional ones, too. Well-preserved, but not really good for anything but observation. Not fit for interaction. Smelly and cynical.

But I wonder - for those of us who tend our wounds, get some emotional healing and support from friends and family and attempt to move on - whether we intentionally inflict shallower, less-meaningful injuries to our hearts, attempting to either a) divert ourselves from the deeper, lingering pain that can still cripple us in unguarded moments, or b) to add enough pain to our lives so we can't really discern which wound is hurting the worst. Do we even recognize that we're doing it? Or is it done in the hope that the next one will be the one without realizing that there's a reason that the word "rebound" is used in relational terms ... and we're living it out?

And then I wonder - is this healthy? It's done frequently enough. An internal, emotional form of cutting, I guess. But does "normal" make it healthy? Is it fair? To anyone involved? Do we have the right to engage another person's heart, inflict wounds bearing our signature on someone else in a selfish attempt to dull or divert our own pain? Aren't we perpetuating the very pain we're trying so hard to escape?

It's just something that's been on my mind lately. Scars are interesting to examine and reflect on ... and, when the pain is sufficiently dulled (healthily or otherwise), they're one more story that makes us who we are ...

Mr. Cellophane

The weekend was good.

Friday, I caught up with Holly, who got me thinking about Tunisia this fall. We'll see. A desert trek on camel back sounds very tempting.

Saturday, I finally met someone I've intermittently written to for the past several months, and we went to Denver to see "Chicago" at the Buell Theatre. It's been 12 years since I was at the Buell, and I looked every inch the country bumpkin as I tried to walk-n'-gawk at the same time. The result was bumping into much more suave city dwellers who scowled at me for being in distracted awe of the glass-covered theater district and for daring to block their busy path.

We got back to Laramie around 2:30 Sunday morning and zonked out (I'm happy to report that the air mattress was much kinder to Fuzzy that it has ever been to me). Slept through church, but had good coffee and conversation, then bid Fuzzy farewell and went shopping, where I was rewarded with on-sale lobster tails, which made a good dinner (hurrah!)

A note of caution, though: Half a bottle of wine combined with the conclusion of "Sense and Sensibility" is not recommended. It had quite a depressant effect, which was countered slightly by a long, brisk walk, but still ...

And now, the grind, which today involved watching one of our photographers get rearended by a screaming minivan-wielding woman in the intersection by our building. Not a typical Monday, for sure, but the typical stuff has to eventually get done, too, I suppose ...

Bottom's up

As I waited in the Albertson's liquor store to buy my share of holiday happiness, I marveled at the line, which began at the registers and went to the back of the store, around the back of the store, down the far aisle and almost back to the door.

"There sure are a lot of alcoholics around here," one guy in line behind me observed.

I turned around.

"There are a lot of in-laws around here," I said.

He nodded sagely. "The two go hand-in-hand, I guess."

I agreed, then plunked my liquid happy on the counter and was promptly rung up.

"Did you need my ID?" I asked. They always need my ID. I'm perpetually 12.

"No," the lady said wearily. "And if you decide to turn me in for that, it means I get out of here a little earlier today, which would make my day."

Merry Christmas

Hope ish not slosht

The economy may be in the tank, swirling the drain, staring down its own six-foot-deep, pre-dug grave, etc., but really, America, we're in better condition than we were when it crashed in 1929.

And here is why I say we're far better off in 2008 than we were in the '20s:

You can still go get a drink after you've cried long and hard over the 20 pages from your financial planning company which tell you, essentially, that you're broke.

You couldn't do that in 1929. When people really needed a double (or triple) shot of something, they pretty much couldn't get one, and whatever they could get their hands on had likely been sitting in someone's bathtub for a period of time.

Ick.

So go ahead a weep over your non-retirement fund. And then go drink. As long as there are people drinking in this country, at least one part of the economy will be thriving.

And that's something we can all raise our glasses to.

Cheers.