Do you want to join my club?
2006-02-09, 11:52 a.m.

Do y�all guys realize that the most ridiculous and worthy-of-being-reviled made-up so-called farce of a �holiday� is happening next week? Do you want to join my club for women who eschew Valentine�s Day?

I started this when I was single, and I guess it�s not really a �club� because there are no meetings, no dues, and really, no members, because nobody would ever buy into it as fervently as I, but I would see how my single friends and I would just get depressed and feel lonely and worry about whether so-and-so was going to ask us out, or if that sumbitch we were dating would give us a card, and �is it too soon in the relationship to have expectations?� and we�d see all the commercialization of a day that Hallmark invented, and I finally said, ENOUGH! It�s bullshit.

If you also despise the bullshit, let�s form a little club. A real one. We�ll have meetings, a handshake, code words, inside jokes and perhaps matching vests or gold bracelets. A newsletter! Valentine Haters Con Dysfunctional Reunions! Tequila Drinking Contests! A Dance Off! A Gang Sign! A Gang Sign Throwdown!

I don�t know what we�ll call our club � you tell me, for you are all so much cleverer than I. I would like to work in the J. Geils Band imagery from the �Love Stinks� video of the dead fish baked into the cake, maybe as our logo. One thing�s for sure:

LOVE STINKS (here�s where I tried mightily to find the dead fish baked into the cake so I could linky linky, but alas, the internet thwarted me. I was THWARTED, I say! Use your imaginations)

If you feel a need to do something to mark the day, do a random act of Valentine�s Day kindness. It�s infinitely more satisfying to just determine that that�s a day that you�re going to go out of your way to do something nice for somebody who isn�t expecting it (or maybe just be less mean that day), than to make it a day to (1) have your unreasonable expectations go unfulfilled, or (2) kick your own ass all day trying to fulfill somebody else�s unreasonable expectations.

Now. Onward!

I was cleaning out my Outlook sent box yesterday, and godDAMMMIT, I am one funny motherfucker. Here�s an email I sent Peaches over Christmas when she was out recovering from having her gallbladder removed:

�How are you feeling today? Check as many as apply:

Tired
Sore
Hungry
Groggy
Cranky
Gassy�

(Her response was �All of the above.)

Here�s what I said to my annoying colleague Mike, when he was blaming spell check for an abysmally-written letter that I refused to sign until he fixed every.single.little.effing.mistake, and he said he was just going to just DITCH the �machine� and its pesky, thwarting spell check, and revert to pencil and paper:

�I suspect it's the machine on top of your neck.�

And here�s my reply to the news that one of our on-site managers, Irene, walked off the job (just walked!) and took a new position with another management company:

�Oooh! I hope Irene and the Somethingorother Co have a mutually satisfying relationship. In hell.�

See how much fun I am? Don�t you want to work for me and be my minions?

And one other thing: my cell phone and email have quit speaking to each other, so I can�t post any new pictures. Yeah, YEAH, I need a REAL camera with a cable-thingy that lets the camera and the computer talk to each other without the email middle man. Maybe my virus scan is tired of getting low-res cell phone pictures, and in a rebellious act of �Fuck this shit!� has been surreptitiously deleting them.

I hesitate to buy a camera, though, because in my little world, cameras were made to be left behind in a bar, only remembered when you�re halfway home, and you make your husband turn around and take you back to look for it, but by then, your camera and all your incriminating photos of yourself performing oral molestation on the salt around the rim of your glass and doing the Elaine dance and SUPAH STAH! are LONG GONE.

But in my cleaning-out-the-hardrive frenzy of yesterday, I came across a couple of pictures of DW�s and my wedding that Don took, and they�re good pictures, hell yeah, but the funny part is what Don had labeled them:

This one is called �Lovely�. Note the use of spirit tongue.

And this one is �Very Serious�.

What you don�t see, what I cut out of �Very Serious�, is that my sweet little husband is sitting next to me, watching me, with an equally serious look on his face. I don�t know. Perhaps my burning NEED for a drink concerned him.

Anyway, when you think about it, I am probably going to be getting a substantial raise in the next 4 months or so. SUBSTANTIAL. Because other people have a lot more faith in me than I do. SUCKERS!

But I might as well start spending that money NOW. On my list:

*pointy-toed shoes
*work pants manufactured in the 21st century
*a wedding dress (no, a dress for me to wear to other peoples� weddings, fools!)
*a camera
*and some Dance Dance Revolution gear, because I am told that this is what I need more than anything.

Say! For your random act of VD kindness, whyn�t you just hook me up with some of my wishlist gear? You could make this random stranger mighty happy.