This Wednesday, February 9th, 2011 at Akbar from 9pm until 12 (or later) it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: Valentines • $2 Processing fee, please
Drink Special: $4 cosmopolitans
If you read to the end of this post, and come to CraftNight and tell me a bit of the secret phrase, I will give you a special prize.
We’re making valentines at CraftNight this week, and oh god, I can already HEAR your eyes rolling, they are rolling so loudly, it is making a sonic impression through my monitor. It’s so very fashionable to dread Valentine’s Day.
Here are the top 5 (yawn, snore) excuses for not celebrating Valentine’s Day:
1.) I don’t have a lover or spouse
2.) I hate doilies, roses, chocolates, stuffed bears.
3.) Valentine’s Day was invented by Hallmark
4.) I was dumped and love is dumb
5.) Everyday is Valentine’s Day, why should I celebrate it?
I shall not dissuade the authenticity of the feelings above, go ahead and knock yourself out feeling the way you feel, and then prepare for some TOUGH CRAFTNIGHT LOVE. Ready? Okay.
The kingdom inside your skull needs to get over itself, and think outside the lacey doily.
You can be too cool for school and stuff your enthusiasm for the only life you have into purchasing and wearing a new hat that the majority of the population finds in poor taste (which will eventually be appropriated by mainstream culture, only to be rejected, eventually worn as a joke, and then taken seriously again at some point). You can show us your stylish best and remain safe and aloof.
OR.
You could stop being a namby pamby ninny about the ONE thing this silly spinning marble needs most: LOVE. Love is enigmatic and multi-faceted, with more hairpin turns and dizzying heights than anything any of us ever experience. How could we expect love to be epitomized with such a limited list of mass marketed external signifiers? You don’t need a lover or a life partner to have love in your life. You don’t need to buy into the mumbo jumbo, the roses and the stuffed bears and the licorice-flavored underwear, if you believe such things, no wonder you don’t like Valentine’s Day!
There are more than 3,583,294,001,285 ways to experience love. Here are just a few:
1.) Send a postcard to a long lost pal or relative
2.) Leave a cookie on a pillow for yourself to eat later.
3.) Stow the good intentions and DO that nice thing you were wanting to do for someone.
4.) Look outside your own heartache and help someone else with theirs
5.) Get a kid or an adult a FREE ice cream cone: WOOOOOO!
6.) See if you can be generous to someone you can’t stand, even if it’s just for 5 minutes (not always fun, but
sometimes oddly productive in very surprising ways)
7.) Hold the door open for someone who least expects it.
8.) Write a poem and sing it to the sky.
9.) Do the dishes even if it’s not your turn.
10.) Give the cat some tuna instead of the usual dry kibbles.
You could do nothing, it’s normal to do nothing, it’s easy to do nothing. But then again, you could do SOMETHING to help prove that the world has love in it. Valentine’s Day is a way to show generosity of spirit while having a good time.
It’s SO NOT COOL to like Valentine’s day. It’s NOT COOL! This means, if you’re any kind of trend-setter or trend-follower, you need to start embracing Valentine’s Day right now. Make your own list, make one you like, make one for me!
You can invent a way to celebrate love that works for YOU!
By all means, you don’t have to overanalyze love, but please do have some.
There will be a lot of it for you at this week’s CraftNight!
xoxo,
JP Craft Captain
Secret Phrase: Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you. But when roses are wilted and violets are dead, sugar is lumpy… and so is your head.
