MISCmedia for 2/14/01
Living With V.D. (Valentine's Day)

AS PREVIOUSLY WRITTEN HERE, I used to hate Valentine's Day.

Now, I llluuuuuvvv it.

And it's not just because (at least as of the time of this writing) I'm in head-over-heels infatuation with someone bright and down-to-earth (which I am).

It's because I'm now convinced that human connection, in all its forms (including sex and romance) is one of the keys to moving human society beyond its current power-and-money obsessions and toward something healthier and more stable.

Things I've learned during the process:

• Loneliness sucks.

• Self-righteous loneliness sucks worse.

• Being told to "like" being alone, as a supposed alternative to loneliness, sucks worse yet.

• Knowing is not enough, to re-quote the closing epigram in Hal Hartley's made-for-PBS movie Surviving Desire.

• If you haven't a sweetiepoo of your own, don't sweat it. Be your own lover.

  By that I don't mean masturbation, and I don't mean obsessive self-absorption, and I don't mean that "be your own best friend" self-help junk. I just mean treat yourself the way you'd like a lover to treat you, with honest respect and kind appreciation.

  And since it's the lovers' day, give yourself a present. Maybe a handsome little decorative tchotchke; maybe some dark chocolate and raspberry truffles; maybe even a day-spa massage or a couch dance if that's what moves ya.

• And as a lover (at least of yourself), you can and should now spread that love to the world around you--friends, co-workers, the neighborhood, etc.

  Again, this doesn't refer to salacious solicitations; (i.e., don't sue me if you come on rudely to some stranger in a bar and responds with a punch in the nose. Indeed, that kind of unsubtlety is the mark of a selfish wolf, not of a lover.

  No, I mean spreading as much of all the kinds of love (familias, agape, eros, etc.) in the appropriate form to the appropriate recipients. This is hard for many of us repressed-Calvinist northern Caucasians; damn hard for some. But it's worth it.

So lots of huggs, kisses, and/or kind words to you and yours, this little-over-midway point between solstice and equinox, when the world is just starting to come back to life.

NEXT: Re-editing Star Wars was one thing, but re-editing Red Dwarf is a potential abomination!

ELSEWHERE:

• Make your own automatically-written porn story....
• A letter-writer wants to know how to tell if she's having an orgasm. Insert your own joke-response here....

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• Parts one and two of a cash-strapped single mom's travails thru the welfare bureaucracy.
• A personal account of being pushed out of dot-com employment.
• A fashion makeover gone very wrong.
• Parts one and two of a mild pique of jealousy for Mexico's public-transport system.
• Amazon.com tries the wrong way to become a respectable company.
• What might be the basis of '90s nostalgia.
• Boo for consumer-sex and non-sex; yay for real sex.
• What's wrong with Playboy isn't what its most vocal critics claim is wrong with it.
• What we know so far about the new administration.
• A glimpse of our forthcoming coffee-table photo book.
• Still more new cable channels.
• Just when you thought the '70s revival was dead, here comes a new energy crisis.
• Should we pity poor Belltown yet?
• How to improve Ken Burns's Jazz.
• I know what IT is, and if you're nice I just might tell you.
• Yes, Virginia, there's race discrimination in "nice" Seattle.
• A Hollywood insider acknowledges the death of the mass audience.
• Lynda Barry's Cruddy is anything but.
• My dream of a permanent alternative daily paper.
• People you're not better than.

ARCHIVES:

• 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, and 1986-94 columns
• Reviews of literature & art, nonfiction & culture criticism, movies & videos, and music & noise
• Longer articles and essays
• Some slightly weird little fiction pieces
• X-Word crossword puzzles, now with on-screen solving
• Cyber Stuff, links to cool and/or useful sites
• A listing of many Things I Like (and a few things I hate)
• The origin and future of MISCmedia