Blue Valentine

Number of Miles on the Treadmill: 2.25
Number of Valentine's Day Sugar Cookies with Heart Shaped Icing: 1
Number of Valentines: 0
Today's Lip Gloss: The I-Don't-Have-Any-Valentines-To-Impress-Au-Naturale-Appeal of Jurlique Love Balm.

My Favorite Valentine's Day Memory (read as: let's forget this one ever happened, and remember the one that made you happiest): 

I was 17, a senior in high school with big dreams and a bright future, madly "in love" with a boy I barely knew.  His parents were out of town, his house was empty and we sat awkwardly in his kitchen--me nervously eating Sweethearts out of bowl, him struggling to keep up our witty banter.  For lack of anything better to say, I let him in on a little, innocent secret:  I had a Sweetheart eating ritual. I could never eat just one--first I'd spill a few into my hand, construct a sentence out of the phrases, then take it apart one delicious candy at a time.  It was the writer in me--I couldn't let the words go to waste.

As if it were the cue he'd been waiting for all night, he reached across the table, spilled the entire bowl of sweethearts on the table, and said with a grin, "this should keep us busy for a while."  I don't remember anything else from that night, really, except for this moment.  A moment lasting 10, 15 minutes tops.  Combing over the table, heads dangerously close, hands touching as we picked up Sweethearts and arranged them into strings of phrases, laughing when our sentences didn't make any sense, smiling as we ate away our words.

I was in CVS on 18th and Park this afternoon, buying a Valentine for my roommate, when I noticed a bag of Sweethearts.  I hovered next to them for a long time, picked the bag up in my hand, contemplated all of the sentences I could make and then eat, but ultimately put the bag back on the shelf.  I wouldn’t have anyone to make sentences with this year.

But now I suppose that isn’t entirely true, is it?  I can make Sweetheart sentences with you:

Now I WONDER about THAT SMILE.

We were just TWO HEARTS making SMALL TALK for a while.

"I LOVE YOU," I said.  "You are a RISING STAR," he replied,

"but you'll never hear me say: "MARRY ME."'

Give it a try, trust me it's fun (even if you're unhappily single and prefer to make sad poems out of your candies ie: above).  Of course, using real Sweethearts are recommended.  It’s much better when you can literally indulge in the candy of your labor.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Sweethearts.

xoxo, Pretty.