les bon temps

thank the gods for mardi gras. that's all i have to say about it. this year, instead of struggling through a second awkward, difficult valentine's day with the ball and chain, i get to spend the day in new orleans with a group of people, drinking champagne and catching plastic trinkets thrown from floats. nice distraction, if you can get it.

i never really got into the whole valentine's day thing, except in the beginning of new relationships. the only valentine's days i've enjoyed have been so much more about "look at my new boyfriend" than about the boy in question. i mean, in eleventh grade, it was the best valentine's day ever: i got to kiss my shiny new boy at a concert in front of all our friends. gloating much? oh yeah. but in twelfth grade, long after that boy and i parted ways, it was dinner at a chain restaurant with an old friend, commiserating over twisted lime-a-licious chicken or whatever. VASTLY different.

with the ball and chain, it's been an up-and-down situation. we've never had what i'd call that "perfect" experience. there have always been... complications. there was the year we were apart, when i had to work that night and we didn't get to talk. there was our first year of marriage, when he and i were both out of work in a $1,000 a month apartment. there was the year he chose to spend the night playing video games instead of going out with me. (that one, i discovered later, was THE talk of my circle of friends. no one said anything to me, mind you. but that's another rant for another day.)

ironically, last valentine's day would've been pretty much perfect, were it not for the severe complications in our relationship. we had a really good dinner, a round of drinks, and saw a great movie. i was also drunk enough to get through the marital-congress duty at the end of the night without weirdness. but the ambivalence in my heart was - and is - too much for me.

this day, thankfully, will be nice and free of distractions. it'll be good to ignore the slice through my soul that is being stuck with the ball and chain for another year. i seriously thought that this would all be done by now. heh. what did i know? one foot in front of the other. one day at a time. heh. laissez les bon temps rouler. please.