hearts

heart dress, heart earrings.

valentine outfit

i'm a valentine's day grinch.  in the tradition of julie, i'm practicing a more positive attitude about this dreaded holiday and embracing hearts.  

i gave cecily these earrings for valentine's day this morning, then immediately borrowed them.  

sorry, cecily.

kork-ease mary janes.  i didn't check the heel height when i ordered them online.  i'm a giantess in these heels.

if there's one thing i can't get enough of in a shoe it's a) red and b) mary janes. i have to stop myself from buying more red and more mary janes, trying to diversify my footwear.  

my tights are looking the worse for wear, but i don't want to invest in new ones at season's end.  


valentine recipe

molten lava cake.

i know this cake is a cliche, but i make it almost every year.  it's so easy and, if you're a human being, you'll love it.  i used paula deen's recipe, minus the orange liquer because i'm not a fan of orange and chocolate together.  i also added a pinch of salt.  

i always add an extra pinch of salt to every dessert. try it!


valentine date

george bernard shaw's pygmalion at provo's echo theatre.

pygmalion at the new community theatre in provo, the echo theatre.  my first show at the echo.  can't wait to check it out. 

and i've never seen a production of pygmalion before.  


valentine poem



tons of love poems at the poetry foundation.  if you want to get your feet wet with poetry, their website is the perfect place to explore.

A un Desconocido

BY LORNA DEE CERVANTES

I was looking for your hair,

black as old lava on an island   

of white coral. I dreamed it   

deserted you and came for me,   

wrapped me in its funeral ribbons   

and tied me a bow of salt.

Here’s where I put my demise:   

desiring fire in a web of tide,   

marrying the smell of wet ashes   

to the sweet desert of your slate.

My intelligent mammal, male

of my species, twin sun to a world   

not of my making, you reduce me   

to the syrup of the moon, you boil   

my bones in the absence of hands.

Where is your skin, parting me?

Where is the cowlick under your kiss   

teasing into purple valleys? Where   

are your wings, the imaginary tail

and its exercise? Where would I breed   

you? In the neck of my secret heart   

where you’ll go to the warmth of me   

biting into that bread where crumbs crack   

and scatter and feed us our souls;

if only you were a stone I could   

throw, if only I could have you.

valentines tell-all & what i wore

what the?

julie reminded me how much i hated valentine's day in 2012.  i'll admit that the day is hard for me, but not for the reasons laid out in most romantic comedies.

it's just.

a) fake and cheap, b) a huge pain in the butt, c) expensive.  i feel like i have to fabricate emotion or something, and i'm really prone to angst around things that seem inauthentic.

well, today was good!

floral couch dress from boulder, utah.

first of all, i wore this kind of ugly but very valentines-esque dress.  i got it in boulder, utah on a field trip with students.  one of my teenaged boy students wrinkled his nose and said, "it looks like a couch."  it does!  which is why i fell for it.  that and the fact that it was handmade by a woman in boulder from re-purposed vintage fabric.  it usually just sits in my closet, but i decided to try to be festive like julie and wear something for the holiday.

secondly, i started on some anti-depressants.  some might find my confession to be TMI, or possibly deleterious in future job interviews, or embarrassing, but really, people, we need to talk about this stuff.  i used to be so embarrassed about my flaws.  i'm trying to own them, accept them, & love them now.

the black dog bit me, and i need medicine to heal it.  i've been through this before, and i've been lucky that medication has been so helpful for me.  i don't love taking it, but it really helps.  i'm trying a new kind, called vibryd. evoking the idea that i will soon be super vibrant again, perhaps preternaturally so.

i forgot about him for a second.

thirdly, i have this really amazing friend.  she's sort of a goddess/witch/pioneer/muse/and my lady valentine.  yesterday she called me while i was commuting home, exhausted and sad and barely able to keep my eyes open on account of fatigue and tears.  she said, "stop by on your way home."  so i did.  she handed me this e.e. cummings book with her own marginalia and a vintage full-length silver fox coat.  i said, "how did you know?"  she said, "because jesus is real."

i guess i have to accept the coat on account of the fact that jesus told my valentine to give it to me. & it will get passed along to another lady going through hard times some day, down the road.

happy valentine's day!  read e.e. cummings!

xxoo

9. by e.e. cummings

there are so many tictoc clocks everywhere telling people what toctic time it is for tictic instance five toc minutes toc past six tic Spring is not regulated and does not get out of order nor do its hands a little jerking move over numbers slowly we do not wind it up it has no weights springs wheels inside of its slender self no indeed dear nothing of the kind. (So,when kiss Spring comes we'll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss lips because tic clocks toc don't make a toctic difference to kisskiss you and to kiss me)

bright spots

1.  sitting next to taylor j. in church today--suddenly realizing we were both shaking with semi-repressed & nearly uncontrollable laughter during the last verse of the last hymn--something about "reproving our every ill desire."

2. receiving my first valentine from moses--this bright yellow heart.

3.  sister tamara.  her stories.  her rocks.  her.

4.  mushroom crepes made by lula and anna.

5.  this bulgari snake watch.  thinking about liz taylor's jewelry. i know it's wrong, but i love rubies a lot.

Making it Work: Courtney Love and the The Babys on Valentine's Day

Before Eve Ensler made it cool (and I hope you took a look at yesterday's post on this), Valentine's Day was painful for me from my teens into my 20s.   I was perpetually boyfriendless and stupidly bitter about it. In college--at BYU--I remember cutting withered hearts out of black construction paper and giving them to my peers on campus, who were alternately amused and confused.  I guess this was far better than cutting myself.

BYU was a place where chaste pre-marital coupling happened often and quickly--engagements were short, and weddings ubiquitous.  Even in the late '80s, to graduate single and uncommitted was still a tad edgy--but I finally learned to embrace this and flaunt it when I, myself, graduated single at 23.

And that's another story.

Once I met my future spouse, Valentine's Days were often just awkward, both of us buckling under its pressure.

Now that I'm older I've decided I really love the aesthetic, and have embraced it like a kid, if only for the art and chocolate.

Here are the pros and cons of the day as I see them:

Cons:

1.  Jacked--up Vday menus.  (Relatedly, crowded restaurants full of corny couples.)
2.  Corporate Vday cards and their nauseous sentiments.
3.  Red roses.  (I can't stand them--particularly the way the bodegas put together these beauty pageant sized bouquets with baby's breath, and then jack up the price.)
4.  Single people might feel sad! 

Pros:

1.  The shape of the Valentine heart.
2.  Heart-shaped boxes of chocolate.  (And more and more organic, fair-trade chocolate available.)
3.  Dark chocolate.
4.  Heart-shaped passion fruit donuts at The Doughnut Plant.
5.  Vintage Valentines
6.  Kid-to-kid handmade Valentines
7.  Pop songs about love from when I was in junior high.  (See below.)
8.  Red dresses and pink tights.

So last night, throwing myself into the day, I made chocolate-and-stout black bean tostadas, and picked up a small heart-shaped chocolate cake.

I put on a red dress and hot pink tights.

I visited Bond Street Chocolates where they had absinthe and rose-infused pieces.  Also, skull-shaped bon bons and chocolate Buddhas.















And Valentine's Day makes me think of Courtney Love, who, in spite of everything, I continue to love.  And in addition to the obvious relevant resonance of her last name, that whole kinderwhore look seems inspired by vintage Valentines, no?

This Baby's video was A.'s Valentine to me today: the link sent in an email. Perfect and perfectly free! (Check out the back-up singer's hot pink top!)

 This was my Valentine to all of my friends on Facebook:

There is way to make V-day work for you is all I'm saying.  I hope you found something to love!