Sleep Late, Turn in Early

Ramblings Post #7
There are many signposts in life that mark where you are in life. How great your Christmas haul, ...er, I mean, how much love was shown to you during the holidays? Was your birthday party really what you wanted, and not just that show of excess you enjoy smashing in your friends' faces? Are you alone for Valentine's day? By all these measures, I'm pretty much currently following the recession downhill. But read on ardent follower. Seriously, both you can read this.

Well, here we almost are again. Next week it's either one of the the better holidays (if you're with someone) or one of the few days you just want to sleep late and turn in early if you can (you lonely, lonely wretch). I guess again this year, I would be in the latter category. Prior to last year, for three years straight, Sporty and I had gone out on Valentines. I don't know how this happened, since on all three occasions, she picked the actual day. Yes, I bought her some gifts. All that.

You can laugh, giggle and admonish me under your breath for the next few minutes, I'll wait.

(me humming a little tune. Okay, done?)

But if you've ever been alone for Valentine's day, in Atlanta, when you know what feels like half the freaking populace through sheer dint of personality? And are considered the even keeled, level headed one among your peers?(The "in Atlanta" part is crucial, as one writer so craftily mused: "If you can't find a woman you would leave your wife for on a Friday night in Atlanta, you didn't leave the house." So they are out there. Everywhere.) And yet, I find myself without a companion at this time. Okay, I haven't actually been looking and I don't really have the time. I have the preliminary draft of an appeal brief due that Monday right after, so I'll be locked in a cage match with a word processor and case law. But still, it's the principle of the thing.

I explained it to Schmoopy as the difference between someone dieting and someone starving. Neither one is eating, but for wholly different reasons. I guess I'm doing a little of both. I'm hungry as hell, but I don't want to eat.

And only relatively recently had I started liking V-day. One of my most ingrained memories of the heart infused day happened in elementary school, back where everybody got a valentines. Well, that particular year, it was everyone BUT me. As though I just been forgotten. It's not a particularly pleasant memory, especially for childhood. The lonely valentines were okay by comparison. Going back to that from kinda cool V-days are just depressing.

It's hard to describe lonely. You kinda have to have been there for a minute yourself to get the gist of it. Some of my peoples have tried to downplay the whole commercial driven sentiment of it, but the reality is they just don't get it. Sometimes you just want somebody who cares about you to be there.



And quite frankly...lonely is the pits.

So Saturday, I'm going to sleep in late, work on my brief and turn in early. Hopefully I'll forget what the day is even is. But I doubt it.

Barkeep. I think I'll have the orange kool-aid. In a martini glass.