ahhh, love.

it’s valentine’s day and love abounds. We can all be sick together in the bathroom.

I’m not a big valentine’s day kind of gal, in fact I’m mostly the opposite (as my sisters like to say, I hate love). But after reading pablo’s tale of adolescent passion, I was inspired to recall my own early dabblings in love. Perhaps this is a sign of who I was to later to become, but I had my first crush on the opposite sex not as a randy 15-year-old, but a randy 2nd grader, making me about 7 years old. Actually, I believe my first crush was on my uncle Chuck, but I’ll stick with no-relation crushes today.

Anyway, the boy of my dreams was Lance. I don’t remember his last name, but I remember liking him. He had black hair cut in a sort of Beatles-ish pageboy style and he wore tan corduroy pants and button-up shirts. I can say without bias that 2nd grade was pretty much the peak of my attractiveness, so it’s disheartening to tell you that Lance wasn’t interested in me. No, Lance liked Carrie, my best friend, the cute, freckled blonde Carrie who lived in a big fancy house made of fancy red brick. Our house was puke green and made of siding. Umm, no contest there. I vaguely recall a sleepover at Carrie’s house once. And I vaguely remember thinking it was the most divine, wonderful place I’d ever been. So naturally I hated it.

The protective forces of my mind has blocked out just about every painful memory from this time period, but I think there was some sort of uncomfortable incident on the playground, involving me and Lance and Carrie and the breaking of my heart. I suppose if I sat in a dark room and thought about it hard enough I’d remember something worth sharing, but I’m much happier not remembering. Let’s just be glad that I left Carrie and Lance and all that elementary school drama behind me at the end of the year, as my family moved to Arizona.

The rest of my experiences in love have all essentially ended up the same way, me shamed on the playground by those that I hold dear.

It’s funny how when you have kids, even lame days like today seem to affect you more. For instance, I actually considered bringing RG to get valentines pictures taken in one of those cupid costumes. My friend did it and her boy looks SO CUTE THAT I COULD DIE, but at the end of the day, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’m so not a cupid girl and even though RG would look adorable, I have to draw the line. I hate love! I can’t have photographic evidence proving otherwise.

I promise there will be no 4-leaf clovers on St. Patrick’s Day, no bunny costumes at Easter, no flag-wrapped babies on July 4th.

However, come Halloween, all bets are off.

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