I probably do... or would... if I had a memory. Seriously, my memory sucks - but especially for bad stuff. I kind of like it that way, though.

Aren't you going to tell a story?

Good for you, Taz.

I have a few stories, but I think I'll wait until morning to post them.

You know, sometimes it's good to cool off and edit a bit. Heh.

All of them. :)

2000 - Stayed in. Was single.
2001 - Stayed in. Was single.
2002 - Stayed in. Was single.
2003 - Stayed in. Was single.
2004 - Stayed in. Was single.
2005 - Stayed in. Was single.
2006 - Will stay in. Am single.

So, the answer is no - I have no shitty Valentines Day stories to recount and I enviously view those of you who do have them as lucky.

I couldn't take my eyes off her neck as she played something she had written for me. I always felt inadequate on the gift-giving holidays, and through no fault of her own, this Valentine's Day was no exception.

Dinner with candles (chicken in a walnut crust, string beans, roast discs of potato with a slightly sweet brown sauce), a long letter she wrote me (we used to write letters to give one another in person and watch them being read; blushes at the moving bits), a hand on mine, a little concert for only me.

Back to her neck and the way she curled herself into me after she finished playing; I leaned in behind her she stood and turned and it was the Fourth of July...

...sorry, bad memory.

My Valentine's Days have always been meh, even when I was with someone. I've never expected much from the day, so maybe that's why.

Mine are way too recent, so I think I'll skip this opportunity for the time being...

Here's kind of a poignant (not bad) one. I went to summer arts school my junior year of high school. Among the great people was this neat guy, a musician named Dean. Nothing happened between us that summer because I found a creep to date instead (I need better taste). But over the winter, we had a big reunion party/sleepover in the fancy finished basement somebody's house in NJ. At the party, apple brandy was passed about, silly games were played, flirting took place. Dean and I connected somehow, and then went and talked for hours with that passionate high school intensity. Then we found a couch and made out for hours with passionate high school intensity, to the lilting strains of "No Sleep Til Brooklyn" played repeatedly by the other basement partyers. Then we went to sleep spooning and had breakfast together at a diner the next day. All very sweet and high school. We pointedly did not refer to the idea that something might be happening between us.

Back home, we talked on the phone a bunch of times, still pointedly not referring. We made tentative plans to go see Penn & Teller (who were new and super hip then). He sent me a couple letters, and put his picture in one of them. Still, I refused to believe he was interested in me.

Valentine's Day began to approach. I knew I wanted to send him a card, and haunted the Hallmark store for hours looking for just the right one. Not too lovey-dovey. Not too flip. You know. Finally I found one with a funky dog on the cover, a very noncommittal one. I carefully composed a cool, noncommittal message. And then I couldn't bring myself to drop it in the mail. I didn't want to make the move and possibly be at a disadvantage. I wasn't sure if he felt the same.

V-Day came, and, sure enough, there was a Valentine in the mail from Dean. I couldn't believe it. And it was an awesome card - it *really* struck just the right note. On the front were two cartoon animals. One says "I'm sad." The other: "Why?" The first "Because my friend and I are apart." Then you open it up, and the second puzzled rodent says "A Part of What?"

Good question. And it was too late for me. I put my card in the afternoon mail that day, but it must have seemed like an afterthought by the time he would have gotten it a couple days later. So this nascent flirtation fizzled right about then.

All this happened almost 20 years ago, but I can still picture that card and his writing and everything. It's a regret - I should have been bolder. He must have felt kind of confused and let down that Valentine's Day to hear nothing from me -- if he only know how much I was thinking about him!

That settles it, miko. You're awesome.

I grew up in New Mexico and was a very awkward, out of place kid. Not only the gawky youth thing (I have since grown into a gawky adult) but I was also a visually obvious minority and felt rather out of place for it. I didn't have any friends or siblings, and the other kids were pretty bad to me. Naturally, I was sensitive and hopeful and friendly, not callow and thick-skinned.

Valentine's Day was always a deep pit of hell at my junior high because the kids were just getting themselves into their first sex and whatnot with the other kids. In everyone's haste to keep up with the crass commercial feel-goodism (sorry, sorry) my school let us buy flowers to be delivered, anonymously or with a card, to other kids during specific class periods. I could have just stayed home, but naturally I wasn't smart enough to do that. So I'd sit in misery twisting my hands under the desk watching the other girls giggle and sigh at the bunches of flowers they'd probably sent themselves. It was better than when they sent me joke flowers and the whole class laughed as they got delivered.

I've had bad Valentine's Days since, but I think there's a tendency to forget the genesis of a resentment of this caliber. Now, almost twenty years later, no one knows me well enough to hurt me like that. Folks can say what they like for the salad days of childhood, but I say this: 'My salad days, when I was green in judgment, cold in blood.'

Mine are usually spent like any other day, as I'm rarely in a relationship in February for some reason. I think the only bad valentines day I've ever had was last year, when I made the brilliant choice to hang out with an ex-girlfriend; a woman that I'm still, years after we broke up, in love with. She was late, leaving me waiting on the front stoop of her house. It was nice to see her cat again, but it was cold out, and being late is insulting. Anyway, eventually she walked up holding hands with some guy, some guy who looked like he walked out of a mid-80s Metallica video, kissed him goodbye, looked at me and said "Oh, am I late? I lost track of time". It started raining buckets and all I could think of is "I really can't do this". So I left, cranked the Wedding Present on my minidisc player, stomped down to 7-11, bought 40s of Miller High Life (nothing makes a man feel like a fucking champ again quite like the champagne of beers), and went home to get extremely drunk and miserable. Now, looking back on it, I'm not sure why it hurt so badly to see her new boywhatever, I mean, I should have been over her by then, I thought I was over her. But I'm not.

And I haven't seen her since.

Update: Apparently I am going to hang out with the previously mentioned girl this week.

I'm not sure why I do this to myself.

cmonkey: NnnnnoooOOOOooo!

Yeah, I didn't think this one through.

OK. Not all of them have sucked. Today is/was (so far) uneventful and non-threatening.

I went out of my way on the way in to work via bike/bus and brought my girl some lunch and snacks from the local health food co-op.