Sunday, February 14, 2010

Valentine's Day

Valentine's day is an odd holiday, if you think about it.  It's origin is the Catholic celebration of Saint Valentine on February 14- supposedly the day St. Valentine was beaten nearly to death and then beheaded.  Somehow, I have yet to see anything to this effect on a Hallmark card.  Maybe "I love you so much I'd die in excruciating pain for you" is a little passe in an age of quickie marriages and quickie divorces?  Other great remembrances for today include the Valentine's Day Massacre, where seven men- most from the North Side Gang- were killed by Al Capone's gang or associates.  Again, no chocolate covered bullets have I found at Malley's or Deitsch Brothers.  To be fair, the predominant color of Valentine's Day is red, the color of blood, so at least that makes some sense.

In reality, the non-sequiturs of the holiday that I've described above work out well for a day celebrating love; let's face it, love is filled with non-sequiturs and a lack of logic.  The prevalence of murders on this day to buy candy and roses also falls into place nicely with love.  Murder is a huge flaw on human history, at least in my opinion, and love is filled with flaws.  Flaws in reasoning, flaws in people, flaws in relationships.  Humans are kind of one big bag of flaws, and yet for some reason we love. 

I'm writing all this as I think about my love, the big D-train.  For almost 10 years now (nine of them as husband and wife) we've put up with each others flaws, insanity and idiosyncrasies and yet we both continue to live.  Maybe because of it?  For whatever reason, we're still together, we're still alive, and we're still in love, with the addition of Ken, his flaws, insanity and idiosyncrasies.  I think that's pretty cool.  It says a lot about love and what kind of havoc it can wrack on your sensibilities.  Eh, sensibilities are over-rated anyway. 

So yes, Dwight, you came home yesterday with candy, a card, and beautiful sentiments of love, and all you get in return is this crappy blog post dedicated to you.  Which you probably won't even read.  I love you, honey!  And spreading that love to all the rest of the inter-webs.  Happy Valentine's Day, y'all!

A few other thoughts on love can be found courtesy of Dan at Molecular Fossils.  I love the cartoon he found, thanks, Dan.

3 comments:

  1. Awwww.... you are so sentimental! I think it's because of our flaws that we have such an intense desire to love and be loved in return. Thanks for the lovely history lesson! LOL

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  2. What a sweet, funny post. I love learning idiosyncratic facts like that.

    ~ICLW

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