Happy Valentine's?

You're noticing, perhaps, if you're not in a reader that is, that I'm skipping the pink/red background and moving right into spring. It's not technically spring yet, but we have had some really nice weather. I hope it continues, but it's always hard to say. I do like snow, though. I have to confess that. But we had some snow last week and now I'm ready for spring because I don't particularly like the cold.

But anyway, as the title suggests, maybe I'll write something about Valentine's anyway. It's tomorrow, after all, and it's been on my mind for about a week or so. Several stores tried to put it in my mind long before that, but I haven't done a lot of shopping the past few months, fortunately, so those attempts were not very successful. The television, however, had better aim.

I even caved in and actually watched one of the Valentine's movies some station was using in their Valentine's week long line-up--You've Got Mail. I don't know why. I guess I figured it's Valentine's week after all, and since I don't have someone to share it with, I can celebrate it in some way, but watching a related movie? Really warped thinking, I know. But my mind does work that way sometimes--Halloween is another holiday like that. I'm too big for trick-or-treating, so I'll just watch a holiday-related movie. Yeah. hm.

The weirder thing about it is that I don't even like You've Got Mail. And watching it again after so many years confirmed to me in a few more ways why I don't like it--and shouldn't like it. Like too many romantic comedies, it's just another example of envelope pushing. I'm reminded of the chocolate cake and red story in Ardeth G. Kapp's I Walk By Faith book that my leaders read to me when I was a youth. I have the book now, thanks to my Aunt Leah who got it for me for Christmas a couple years ago. Really, I like that book a lot, and that chocolate story is one that I think everyone needs to hear. Just to summarize, it's a short story within a story--about a happy, delightful people who couldn't wear red or eat chocolate cake or they would become weak. But they had an enemy who didn't like their happiness and so he gradually tried to weaken them to chocolate cake and red through subtle means, like glamorous advertising of people wearing darker and darker shades of pink and eating more cake and more chocolate until they were inevitably combined.

Why do we buy into that stuff? Oh, they only lived with people they didn't really love, and they never showed them having sex. And what was all that business of talking about cyber-sex near the beginning? "We won't have anyone doing real sex in the movie"="No one will eat any chocolate cake in the movie, but there's no reason why they shouldn't talk about eating it, or eating white cake with chocolate frosting."

Why were they living with people they didn't love? What's wrong with getting married first? It seemed more to the point of showing that living together is a natural step and that after a few years you might decide you don't love someone after all, so it's a good thing they weren't married. Seriously. Do romantic comedies end in weddings any more? How many movies are being made these days with happily married couples?

I'm essentially chastising myself here. I know what to avoid and yet I watch those things occasionally too. And I haven't written to any media moguls to change things, but I need to rant anyway. It really is harder and harder to find a good romantic comedy with any kind of values, so while I would like the genre--I'm even writing in the genre--it's actually one of my least favorites because there's always so much trash in them.

So much for Happy Valentine's Day.

On a brighter note, I did get some candy from a coworker today. Although the pay is a pittance, yes, I do have a little job now--temp job, but it's nice to have coworkers again, especially if they help you celebrate the holiday in a way other than watching a lame movie. Yeah for candy! (Don't worry, it wasn't chocolate cake.)