February 14, 2025
12a – We are settling into bed for the night, while GF is going about her nightly ritual of meds, and stretches, I say “just to let you know, it is now midnight, so now I have to document everything that happens. I’m not telling you what to say or not say or anything, but just keep that in mind”. We both chuckle at that. I turn the light off, and we chat a little bit about “Bird Box”, the next book we are reading for the book club we both do. She says she imagines the creatures to be some kind of wendigo situation. I tell her I imagine something closer to looking like aliens. Like the ones in Star Wars ep. II, that runs the ocean planet. From there it turns to, through a quick mention of UTIs, to cranberry juice. How the juice blends have hardly any cranberry in them, and you have to get pure cranberry for that to be of use. I am dying, so I put on a sleep podcast, and I imagine by 12:30 I am passed out. Who knows when she does.?
7a – I wake up, apparently dreaming of being on the phone with my former supervisor at my last job. She was trying, very kindly, to relitigate the circumstances of me being fired from there. I tell her thanks for being nice about it, but I know what happened, I know who was at the heart of it, and no workplace is worth being that level of deluded about basic facts. I wished her well but that I knew she has got too good a thing going there to risk losing it over standing up for the truth. I lay there trying to wake up, until…
7:45a – Got up and typed this. I can see out of the window how frosty everything is. I check the temperature; it’s 9° right now. Looks like it will just barely break freezing later today. I tell myself if I can make it through the winter to Valentine’s Day, then I won’t go crazy from the cold. March, time change, and melting are around the corner…in theory. Right now, it’s 49 in my hometown, and 58 where I went to grad school. Either of those would be better. I remember that yesterday, I heard 2 coworkers having that usual winter conversation – “What made the colonizers stop here and say ‘yeah, this place looks great, I think we’re home now.’”. I guess there are those out there that love Midwestern winters, but they would have to be in the minority. I feel bad for natives of places that are actually nice…having all these Midwestern transients coming into their home, trying to steal their sunshine. ? Oh no, now THAT song will be stuck in my head today. But anyway, it’s Valentine’s Day! Time to stop wallowing in those kinds of mopey thoughts and be happy I found someone amazing. Every Valentine’s Day, I post a different song from the Magnetic Fields’ 1999 album “69 Love Songs”. This year, I picked “Yeah, Oh Yeah!”. It’s a fun little lost love thing…just for fun. (the miserable couple is one of my favorite literary tropes). I caption the post “happy v day”; it’s fun to make it sound like some sort of disease or doomsday. (I am NOT down about V-day; I just like that kind of energy; it’s silly!). Just as I anticipated, [one specific Facebook friend] likes the post within 2 minutes of it going up. Anyway, it’s…?
8:15a – so I need to get ready for work! – The next 15 minutes felt like a flurry of panicked activity. Digging clothes out of the clean laundry, chucking them in the dryer to fluff them, stepping in a pile of dried cat food in the hall where one of the cats puked it out while we were asleep, and a coughing fit that I should really ask my doctor about. I am not convinced that I am not allergic to cats. I grab my red beanie, not thinking that it doesn’t go with my blue outfit (since it’s not the 4th of July), but I keep it on anyway because I have to go and there’s no time to look for my grey or black one. .?
8:30a – GF’s alarm goes off at 8:30, so she can be awake to see me off for the day. By then, I am just pulling on my shoes and am ready to go. I go back to the bedroom, give her a quick peck on the forehead, and tell her I’ll see her later, for lunch. Last night she asked me where I’d like her to take me for a Valentine’s Day lunch date. She asked me if I’d be in the mood for some “chicken chunks”, which is our code for The Dumpling House.?
8:34a – In the frozen car. It’s defrosting. I put on Spotify, and the first song is the White Stripes. They were a married couple telling everyone they were brother and sister. I love that kind of lovers’ chaos, and with it being Valentine’s Day, I decide that is a good energy for me this morning. I drive first to the coffee stop, then to work, listening to the one about prescription drugs, the one about Citizen Kane, the one about having fallen in love with a girl, and the one about receiving unfortunate mail. While in line at the coffee stop, I pull off my beanie and discover that my hair isn’t a full mess, so I ditch the mis-matched hat.?
8:59a – I get to work and quickly get inside. My part-timer is here today, which is unusual. She typically has Fridays off, but she missed some time Monday, and is making up hours. I catch up writing this journal, sip coffee, and do a few work tasks here in my office with the door closed and the space heater on. I return to the dream I had. I am so sick of my last job, and some of those toxic people occasionally being allowed to occupy space in my head. I really have well-and-truly moved on, but sometimes it sneaks back. I wish that would stop.?
9:25a – I realize now that today is going to be a very slow workday, and I wish I could just go home. It would be better there with GF. Scrolling through my socials, I guess a lot of people I know have their anniversaries on V-Day. All the lovey-dovey stuff mixed with posts about the terrible state of the world, as it has been this past month or so, is a disjointed mess of a state of things today. The Ohio “birth begins at erection” bill!?!?! Perfect for V-Day. It would be hilarious if it weren’t horrifying. Someone pointed out that for a little schadenfreude (<– I spelled that correctly on the first go without looking! Nice!), to look at #leavingmaga. Indeed, that was uplifting. Hey, it’s 14° now – progress!
9:42a – I fix the “Sad Orange” playlist I made on Spotify. When GF and I started dating, we made each other a playlist. The one I made for her was kind of off-target. I simply included things I thought were good and wanted to share. That was fine and all, but she made one for me that was much more personal. So, I am taking this hour or so to redo mine for her. I stayed in that space for a while, and it was very comfortable and enjoyable, finding things that I both like, and are the right vibe for either her personality, or what I think of when I think of her. I figured this is a great little V-Day thing to do.?
10:30a – I pause that for now; it’s not done yet, but it’s better. In the process, I rediscover a bunch of stuff I used to listen to, like in the 2000s-2010s, before I sold off my CD collection, in 2014 right before moving cross-country to Indiana. I think I got $400 for all that, which I guess wasn’t bad for right around 1200 albums? Things I used to own. Surprisingly little of it I had marked as liked songs on Spotify. It’ll be good to have that stuff resurface again. I go out to my car and get the card and candies, and I fill out the card. When I get done with that, I see someone post about how my employer is being quick to roll back DEI initiatives, not waiting for anything to become official on a federal or state level. I respond that I am doing my part to ensure my office/department is remaining a safe space, and they will have to come in here and physically remove any of those safe space elements they don’t like. I look online for safe space window clings, for my office door, wondering if I’d get in trouble for displaying one. A couple of weeks ago, I walked down to Normandy florist and gave them this Diet Coke glass I bought for GF (she is a Diet Coke fiend). I get them to put together a small batch of daisies and a sunflower to be delivered on Valentine’s Day. Just now they called me to verify the delivery. They said that it would be there in the next couple of hours, so by 12:30 at the latest. Which is just perfect (sarcasm) because I knew that she was not going to be home then. I was really hoping that she would be there to answer the door for them. Oh well, maybe her time out of the house will go quickly.?
11:00a – GF messages me, saying she way overslept. I say not to worry about it; she does her job just fine, and sleep is necessary. I assume she didn’t sleep well last night? I write this on a Google doc, and she has fun reading along with it while I write it, throughout the day. She says it’s like being able to be with me all day. She sends me a silly valentine made by my favorite baseball team; it’s a pun on one of the player’s names. I make one similar, with a player she likes, but is no longer on the team. We do end up picking Dumpling House for lunch, and we plan for her to pick me up from work here at 12:30. Until then, I keep an eye on the department while listening to the D&D live play series I keep an eye on. I get a couple of emails regarding some work things I need to do, but they are not pressing, so I make a note to handle both on Monday morning when I get here – today is not the day. I overhear someone ask my part-timer if she is cold out there at the desk without a heater, and I immediately put my space heater out there. I wish she would have said something if she was cold earlier. I was just keeping the heater in my office not being used, and I felt bad about that.?
12:24p – I get the message that GF is right outside. I leave and once in the car, I give her the card and candies. The card was weirdly sweet, which is kind of my brand. She laughed at it. We drive over to Dumpling House. On the way, she remarks that the tattoo shop downtown is doing a flash-sale of arm/leg pieces, suggesting we get one. I love it when she wants to be spontaneous and adventurous! I really would love to get my 1 tattoo worked on…it is a matching tattoo that I got with my ex, and I’d love to embellish it, add on to it so that it is a different thing now. There, we talk about her work, I tell her about my dream, and she admits that it happens to her, too sometimes…letting bad people take up too much space. Lunch was pretty quick this time; I offer to get her a dessert beverage, so we drive over to Starbucks. She goes a slightly back way; we pass by the corner of Godman/Umbarger, where she swoons at the house on that corner that she has always wanted “It is so cottagecore!”. I agree that it looks “modern witch”, which I meant in a good way. After we get drinks, she drives me back downtown, where she jokingly threatens to kidnap me. I say I’d rather that than go back inside work, but I get out of the car and head in. She says she needs to go to Target for something, so I bid her a good shopping adventure. Time for her to run back home?
1:30p – Back at the desk, my part-timer has gone home while I was out, so I am alone here in the department. From the look of the parking lot, a lot of other people are gone for the week too. I decide to do 1 of the things that I was going to procrastinate until Monday. It took 2 minutes, so I can bask in all that productivity for the afternoon! I am just here nursing my iced coffee.?
1:39p – I get a message from GF “Hey, I’m doing a thing.” She is at the tattoo shop; she’s a total ink junkie! A friend of ours is there too, apparently. This friend is in the book club we do. I guess her return home will be delayed. I wait for her to show me what she did, which happens at:
2:15p – It’s a lemon! On her calf, right above her ankle. That’s very cute, as she is all about all things lemony. After that, I don’t hear back for a while. Things at work have really died down, and I am kind of just here and available, should anyone need it, which I am sure they won’t. I poke around on YouTube or read through some news, waiting for the next thing, whenever and whatever that is.?
3:05p – Right around now, I start to get anxious about the flower delivery. How long will she be out of the house? Will they be there still, when she returns? There have been the occasional porch pirate issues there.??
3:33p – I check in on a good friend, who is very single. Seeing how her V-Day is going. No response.?
3:55p – FINALLY! She is home and got the delivery. It was still there! Wow, not being able to suggest to her to head home was so tough! But who knows…maybe it was for naught. I just wanted it to be a cute moment when they arrived.?
4:30p – Time to go home! My job has kept me from being with the person you are supposed to be with on this holiday – but now I can go!?
4:50p – I walk in the front door, and I see that she has been busy. She purchased an air mattress, and blew it up, setting it up in the living room, with all the snacks, flowers, and whatnot. We had talked about doing just a cozy night in, and this really works! I can now tell her all about how I was so anxious for her to get home, where she was kind of just going around town all afternoon. She thought it was funny, which it was! We dive into the snacklebox, which was filled with all kinds of red, pink, and white snacks.?
6:20p – We were both too busy and too at work to do anything about dinner, so we just decide to order something, ultimately ending up on Crapplebee’s. How elegant. The plan was to each pick a movie that fits today’s theme. Her choice, Valentines Day, was not available anywhere streaming, so we spent the time waiting for the food looking for her alternative.?
7:45p – The food arrives, and we get that all set up while she cues up the first movie, the one she selected…
8p – Four Weddings and a Funeral – I have never seen this before. There is a ton of this kind of thing that I never would have sat down and checked out if not for GF. It’s not that I don’t do romance movies, they just aren’t usually the super popular stuff. That’s just not the neighborhood I usually occupy. But it is pleasant, and stuffily British, which I usually appreciate. After doing Groundhog Day earlier this month, I realize there has been a lot of Andie MacDowell lately.?
10p – The first movie is over, and with the air mattress being right there, Valentine’s Day gets properly, um, christened.?
10:30p – Movie #2 was my pick, and I went with Trick, from 1999. It’s about this guy in his 20s trying in vain to hook up with this go-go dancer, ultimately falling for him by daybreak. It has one of my favorite scenes ever – the pep talk in the bathroom from Miss Coco Peru. Sassy drag queens always have the best perspective on things.?
The movie ends right at midnight. She enjoyed it more than maybe I was thinking she would. We end up staying up until about 1:30, before heading to bed.?
I never was one for Valentine’s Day, usually. I was always one of the people that thought if you love someone, show them on any day. Why save it for just this one day every year, going through these standard, predictable motions? There’s nothing wrong with doing it on, say, March 19th, or September 2nd. Memorial Day will do. Tax Day, Their birthday. Whatever the 113rd day of the year is. But today is here, and it’s today. So why not this day too? Even when it’s expected. We will soon be on to another today, where we can continue showing affection for those we love in more standard non-Valentine’s Day ways. If it makes your special person happy, then go make them happy.?
Hug ‘em if you got ‘em!