Yesterday

...Was Valentine's Day. St. Valentine's Day. I remember being so particular about that a few years ago. So it's one of several hundred thousand things I'm less uptight about now. Still got a long way to go until I'm a parrothead about life in general, but in some ways this is progress, and in some ways it feels like backwards movement. But this sounds dreary and really I'm in a very good mood, so moving on.

My boyfriend and I are doing the long distance thing. Have been since we got together, actually. So for the holiday we sent each other packages. He's a big fan of pizza so I sent him a Papa John's giftcard (he gets not fancy pizza there), some sweetarts (he promised good things if they were provided), a Weighted Companion Cube made of paper (so not at all weighted, but pretty damn cute), and his valentine.

That's something I'm just as particular about as I was a few years ago. I don't expect anyone to ever make one for me, but I want to make the ones I distribute. Thank god this wasn't the case when I was in grade school, because I was a crazy child about crafts and forever being driven further crazy when I didn't think they were perfect. This was more or less always the case, so you can imagine the hellishness making valentines for twenty + classmates would have entailed. Just selecting the one of four designs that best expressed my deeper than the deep blue sea affection for certain someones was exhausting. Anyway!

I used the Ogden Nash poem To My Valentine (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-my-valentine/), and brown ink on pieces of cream on burgundy paper. I fret over the aesthetic of a valentine about five hundred times as much as I might about a class worth of perforated professions of love. But all the lip biting was worth it; I'm very pleased with this one. Hopefully he is, too. The poem is funny on its own but has some shared significance between us.

Unlike the last time I mailed him something, this package got to him on time. Early for the holiday, actually. The package he sent got here this morning. He'd written a note I have turned all giggling happy nitwit over four or five or a dozen times, and enclosed some of his DS games with the things he'd gotten me for St. Valentine's Day. We both like sour candy, so we both sent and got some. He got me a book of e.e. cummings poetry and a little stuffed kangaroo because I "find cuteness in the oddest places." I'm certain it isn't odd to find this thing cute; it's freaking adorable.

The book was an exceptional choice for me. I love almost every poem I've ever read by cummings, and I don't think my boyfriend could care less about him or poetry. But he cares enough about me to have gone to the bookstore and gotten the book, and then worried I might have already had it. And I love him for all three of those actions. And more.

Ended the day by having drinks and a bit of food with Ghost Tour friends at The Frosty Mug. Stuffed olives and pear cider. Mmmmmmmmmmm.

What's striking me as really wonderful about today is that it wasn't sad at all. I miss my boyfriend a lot, and sometimes the want to be with him is enough to make me cry. But today was nice outside and internally, too. I still miss him and when I saw the note and book in particular I wanted him with me to smooch senseless, but I wasn't sad. And obviously presents does not generally = unhappy. I didn't know what to expect out of the day in that regard, though. And to have it turned out as pleasantly as it did... I feel lucky.