It's one of the most miserable weather situations we see here in North Carolina, but there are chocolate displays at the grocery store, and the men are lining up to buy flowers. I mean, these men are running through the rain, shielding their heads from the deluge, and into the store to buy flowers. Romance. J and I are going to make dinner together tonight, which is sure to be as amusing as it is full of Valentine's Day bliss. We're going to open one of the expensive bottles of wine that my father gave us, warning "save this for a special occasion," and we've been left to wonder what, exactly, in our lives, would warrant that term. We...finally cleaned those clothes that had been piling up for, literally, months off the closet floor! Special occasion?

Of course, I already indulged in a little pre-holiday celebrating when I was finally able to exit the household last night, and, glory be to Jesus Christ, eat pizza with - get this - cheese all on it and actually got excited about having a glass of wine. Trouble is, where we were the bottles were half price and suddenly those bottles were being ordered by our little foursome of girls at a rather alarming rate. Before I knew it I was rhapsodizing to our new friend Kelly (who was born on the same day near the same time in the same region of the United States of America as me) about my philsophy regarding life in your twenties. Because, you know, all that wine - that made our minds ever so clear and ready to talk about life, heavy, heavy life.

But it did the trick, getting out and just living it, because I think had I continued to nurse myself back to health, as I could have gotten really into (TV in bed? In February? oh yeah) and thus entered into a rather dull existence well, it could have stuck for a while. Instead, as I explained last night in really, exquisitely high brow language while waving that wine glass around the table, "when else are you going to do this?" When else, indeed? Probably tonight.