Flowers and candy

Here are the ghosts of Valentines Days past:

1. My first Valentines Day when I had a real boyfriend, circa 1987, Eau Claire, Wisconsin: Dreamy boy, great friend, fun.  He presented me with a small box of candy and five wilted maroon roses he picked up at the grocery store (the last ones in stock) on the way over to my house.  I think he took me to one of the hotel restaurants in town, where I’m sure he was ripped off for two “special Valentines Day” meals of shrimp scampi.

2. Valentines Day parties 1988-1992 (they all blur into one, and I’m kind of making this up), Poughkeepsie, New York: a college dorm common room; house music; bowls full of colored/flavored condoms; drinking flat, skunky keg beer; and grinding to Madonna with gay male friends.  At least one of those years I was seeing someone, which means I spent that night in his dirty tube-sock scented dorm room.

3. Valentines Day 1993. St. Paul, Minnesota: Living with the guy I wouldn’t call my boyfriend.  Going out to a nice dinner and trying to act all cool about it, like we were just poking fun at romance.  Almost surely drinking too much and getting mad at him, probably making out with him anyway.

4. Valentines Day 1994, St. Paul, Minnesota: Now officially dating the roommate-friend, but still kind of mad at him for not pursuing me like mad the year before.  We try to have a “perfect” evening anyway.  The evening begins with a rich, decadent meal that includes foie gras and wine pairings at the best restaurant in our neighborhood.  We bicker.  The fatty meal and booze sits poorly in our stomachs.  Then we rush off to a Kronos Quartet concert where we sit in the middle of the row at a crowded auditorium.  One of us gets violently ill and has to beat a path to the bathroom mid-concert.  The other one doesn’t feel so great either.  (We’re married now, so I’m supposed to be sweet and discreet about who got sick.)

5. 1995-2011*, Los Angeles, California: a series of uneventful Valentines Days with the boyfriend who is now my husband.  Most years we go out to a special dinner, with a very special price tag.  But as the years go on we try to go a day or so before Valentines Day.  On the best Valentines Days, when the kids are in bed, we open a good bottle of wine, possibly eat a home-cooked yet grownup dinner.  Sometimes we watch a movie.  In the early years it was “When Harry Met Sally.”  But lately, if we watch a movie, it’s probably “Kissing Jessica Stein,” a sweet movie even if you’re not a lesbian or bi-curious.

* the exception was 1998, when we returned to the beautiful, historic Los Angeles restaurant where we had been married.  We had the Valentines Day special: three courses and a single glass of champagne for something like $120 each.  The courses were minuscule, like parodies of “nouvelle cuisine.” We seriously considered ordering a pizza afterwards.

Valentines Day is to romance as reality television is to reality.  I think I always knew that but was compelled to go through the motions of celebrating it as if it had real meaning.  How commemorating a martyred saint is connected to a day supposedly dedicated to love, I don’t pretend to know.  But I’m glad not to spend a lot of time or money on it anymore.