My personal stance, my plank in the platform, is that I am very fond of Valentine’s Day. I am a fan of love; I am glad that there is a day that honors love, in all its forms, filial and fornicatory, penetrative and otherwise. I am cheesy, and okay with that, a little (lot) sappy, and okay with that, and I enjoy the people I love and want them to know that they are adored and there’s no need to be okay with that–it is just a true fact.

I don’t need flowers or chocolate (though I enjoy flowers and chocolate) and I don’t require the perfect romantic evening that starts with a candlelight dinner and ends with passionate, gazes-locked, whispered-pledges lovemaking on a bed of velvety rose petals. Though of course I do not judge you if that is how your Valentine’s Day must be conducted otherwise everything is ruined and your sweetheart never really loved you.

Our plans involve garlic and DVDs and for me, anyway, general, overall qualities of happiness and contentment, possibly because of the Oreos but maybe because I am a little cheesy and a little sappy and kind of crazy about this guy I’m seeing. But also I will call my mom, and my brother, and my best friend, and also I will tell you guys–Happy Valentine’s Day! Take my love. TAKE IT. You have no choice, for it is yours. But don’t tell me what you do with it.

photo via chicks57

E has been working his ass off doing wonderful things for his little company, and they said thanks with a very large travel voucher. You tell us where you want to go and what you want to spend it on–a hotel, a safari, airfare–and we will make the arrangements for you. It was both incredibly generous and incredibly deserved, and I was so proud of him, when he told me about it. “I am so proud of you!” I shrieked. “Where are we going?” I like to get down to business right away. I am very practical in that way.

Who says I’m taking you? E said. Because he is hilarious. And once I finished beating him with my shoe, we got down to brass tacks. We have a small but significant pile of money. How do we maximize awesomeness and minimize our own expenses? How do we spend this properly and to greatest and happiest effect? We decided that we needed to do something we would be reluctant to splash out on because it seemed too big a luxury or too crazy a trip. So, something international. A big city? A few days in London, a weekend in Paris, a flyover Amsterdam, a couple of minutes in Prague? I started to get excited about the idea of a romantic whirlwind trip to a place with cobblestoned streets and quaint old-timey street vendors selling authentic cuisines in a paper sleeve and maybe some accordion playing and picturesque waifs.

But our pile was not that large a pile, and the bags under my sweetheart’s eyes were large bags, and what he needed was not a weekend of running jumping climbing trees but of lying very still and Just Being. My baby needed a break. His older brother said, there is an amazing place in Cancun, right on the ocean. Seriously–you walk out the door of your little private cabana, and there is the ocean, right there. At your doorstep. And they catch your food fresh every night and prepare it for you and there are only three rooms and you are hidden away and you can snorkel and swim and it is paradise.

Paradise is way out of our budget, dude, we said. No way, his brother said. And he was right. For a week, seven days, we can afford paradise. Actually booking paradise was the trick. Okay, this week! No, sold out. This week? Sold out. This week? Sold out. Okay, fine–pick a week for us. The first available. And so we are going to paradise at the end of February, right when we are the most tired of winter and want it to be over, please. Cancun! The ocean! A week of reading and lying down and eating and drinking and scuba diving and reading and eating and finding other ways to occupy ourselves. E is very excited about the possibility of wrestling sharks.

He needs this vacation badly, and I am so glad to see how excited he gets, when we talk about it. Paradise, for a week. He deserves it.

It’s been a semi-conscious hobby of mine for a long time, to consider escape routes from buildings in case of a raid by rabid wolves or how I would carry us all to freedom should the earth suddenly drop out of the bottom of the Wells Fargo building and we plummet into ahellmouth of some kind. But I realized, recently, that I have kind of morbid contingency plans in place, too. That what I’m always doing at every moment, is bracing myself in case of utter disaster, from the absurd to the ordinary, zombies to the phone call no one wants to get in the middle of the night.

E called to let me know he was leaving work, that the roads were really bad (because we’ve been stuck right in the middle of a never-ending blizzard of snow, falling right from the sky) and that he was going to be awhile, driving slow and hoping for the best. And as I hung up the phone, I realized that I was already half-way through plans, ideas, considerations, possible outcomes and the smartest courses of action. If he were in an accident and he got stuck, if he were in an accident and he were hurt, if he were in an accident and hurt badly, if he were killed. I realized I was sitting there considering whether I would stay here, in Utah, close to his family, or if I was smarter to move, get away quick and not drive myself crazy with the too-familiar surroundings. Whether I’d pack myself up, or sell everything. Whether I’d just tell my landlord to keep everything, and bolt. And where I would go. Home to my mother? Back to California? Somewhere warm, maybe. Maybe I could move to Florida or Mexico. Maybe I could move to Italy. Maybe I would survive it, if he had an accident. Maybe my life would go on.

I am the kind of person who says things like “don’t borrow trouble!” and “we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it!” and “problems,schmoblems. Let’s have a daiquiri!” I am not the kind of person–I didn’t think I was the kind of person–who worries at things and dreams up problems she doesn’t even have. I am good enough at being anxious about the problems that actually exist and hang out on my lap drinking grape soda (I hate grape soda) and poking me in the eye. I have enough to worry about, trying to distract myself from the things that are real and sad, without piling more things on and watching them teeter.

My first thought, when I realized how, well, weird this was, and possibly dopey, was that I really ought to quit it. But you know, it’s actually kind of nice to think that while my real and concrete problems are not so easily solved, that I’ve got some things taken care of and totally under control, no matter how imaginary they are. You want the apocalypse taken care of? You come see me. I want my personal apocalypses taken care of? I ought to write these ideas down.

Sometimes I can shake it off, usually by shaking off his hands in some ingenious way. Leaning down, leaning back, switching positions, distracting him with the parts of my body that might be acceptable. Sometimes, everything stutters to a halt. Everything comes crashing down into this one fatal flaw of mine, this one particular blemish–that having small breasts should be considered a blemish is, in my rational moments, an astonishing thing. They fit my frame, my body size. They suit me. They are perky, adorable. They are perfectly reasonable. They are, in a dark place in my head, not only not good enough for me, they’re not good enough for my boyfriend no matter what he says or how he demonstrates his actual admiration, and I want to say I’m sorry.

We stayed here in Utah, where E’s family all is. E’s family knows how to do the holiday. There is a lot of food, and a lot of drinks, and a lot of giggling–if you do not leave a family party with your face hurting, then probably you spent the entire time locked in the bathroom with some kind of stomach flu and that is very sad. Everywhere there is a flurry of wrapping paper and shiny things and everyone’s racing around, hiding bags and yelling at you if you open the wrong cupboard and asking each other in whispers, in front of the person you’re whispering about, what you got for them. It’s all secrets and lies and deceptions and tackling to keep you from ruining the surprise.