Or: A few of my favorite things

By J’Mel Davidson

Geez, is it that time of year again? Time flies when you’re trying to avoid the one day a year where it’s actually encouraged for people to force their public displays of affection upon the Eleanor Rigbys of the world.

As much as I want to complain about this big-business sham of a greeting-card-company-manufactured holiday, I guess I really can’t.

It is the American way to celebrate openly and with much vigor the fact that you have something that others may not. While I may have to put up with Valentine’s Day once a year other people have Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Functioning Liver Day to suffer through.

Of course, my seething, white-hot hate comes from the fact that I have never ever had a Valentine. Sure, while in grade school I’d get the occasional flimsy paper wishes from the kids whose parents had forced them to give every one in class a card. But that only meant that I got the cards with innocuous prose like “It’s good to have friends” and “Yup, it’s Valentine’s Day alright…” I’d take these cards home and stare at them in anger because, really, I’d rather have gotten nothing at all. I didn’t want the forced effort. It’s the same as getting a trophy when you didn’t win. It hurts more than helps — like when I was 9 and we had my birthday party at Putt-Putt and I lost the golf tournament but I got a trophy because it was my birthday! I won the “Today Coincides With the Day You were Born Nine Years Ago” trophy.

The trophy was assy and I hate it and the person that designed it. I understand that in some way it was supposed to make me feel better for not winning at golf but what it did instead was instill in me an absolute hatred for receiving credit that was not due. This was the seed, I suppose, of my slight inability to take a compliment. See? I figured all this out with out a therapist.

But I digress…

There was a time I thought I was going to get a Valentine, and I did — a bouquet of flowers. Unfortunately they had been ordered in advance so by the time I received them the woman in question had already decided that she’d had enough of my shenanigans. Of course, I didn’t find out until a week or so later. I guess the true “Valentine” was that she didn’t break up with me until AFTER I’d bragged about how I’d gotten flowers from a girl that really seemed to get me.

Sigh. Eyes closed, head hung low, heartfelt sigh.

Still, I can’t blame people that actually have unconditional love with taking this holiday based on bragging to the hilt.

I would if I could.

Instead, I drink wine made from raisins, Visine and Zippo fluid, then vomit away the pain of solitude.

But, seriously, I have a few things and people that I love. Of course there is no sweetheart on this list because, as you all know, my taste in women is comically bad. In fact, the only way the girls I fall for don’t disappoint is in their capacity to disappoint.

So, what do I love?

I love discovering a new candy at some out of the way quick mart or gas station. Last week I discovered Sweet Tart Rope. It’s a tube of Twizzler-like candy filled with a sweet paste and Nerds candy. Damn it, it’s good! I took a few with me to see There Will Be Blood and promptly announced to the theatre that I was holding outside snacks.

No one snitched…

I love watching trailers in a darkened theatre and making fun of all the formulaic romantic trash with my crew. Not in a loud and annoying way, mind you, but just to make sure that we all hate whoever thinks that Brittney Murphy tripping during a wedding rehearsal is “cute”.

I love that southern women think that everything is “cute”.

I love my sister because she is a strong and intelligent woman that acts her age and not her shoe size. She gives me hope.

I love hunkering down in front of the television on a day off and enjoying hour after hour of daytime court shows. This coupled with cheesy bread and two liters of Coke Zero and you can’t tell me nothing, son!

I love that my best friend Sam and I can have the same conversations about M.F. Doom, David Lynch, Terry Gilliam and David Mamet over and over again and never get tired of covering the same ground.

I love the fact that it was I who introduced Reservoir Dogs to most of my friends upon arriving at Savannah College of Art and Design all those years ago.

I love “The Great Pumpkin Waltz” to the point that I used to burn CDs where the song appeared at each odd track so I didn’t have to keep skipping back to it when I walked to work.

I love movies with non-sappy, realistic or semi-downer endings. You can walk from the theater after these and hopefully tell yourself that you have it better than the poor sucker on the screen.

I love the moment in every Martin Scorsese flick when he dissolves from an image to the exact same image. This is a real movie-nerd thing and I’m going to go so far as to say that if you have never noticed it, then you can’t call yourself a Scorsese fan. So there!

I love a shot of Jameson’s and a nice room temperature Guinness to wash it down with.

I love fresh tumble-dried underwear.

See, the things in life that actually make me happy are fairly simple. These are the things that wouldn’t change regardless of wealth or what women I had. And that’s what it’s all about. That’s what Valentine’s Day will be for me this year and every year — the little things.

I’m going to celebrate the things that can’t leave me, disappoint me, use me or make me sad: the things and people in life that I truly love.

I’m not going to let one random day a year make me feel bad anymore. Instead of honoring a relationship that will likely fail and buying gifts that loose their meaning the moment Feb. 15 rolls around, I’m going to think about the stuff I’ll have on the 13th, 14th, the 20th and the next month.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, Happy Valentine’s Day, young lovers. Good luck with all of that.

Send the love, if you dare: Write to j’mel@bhamweekly.com.