At my house, we don't celebrate Valentine's Day. I'd almost say that I don't even 'believe' in it, but that wouldn't be true. Because every Valentine's Day, I'm reminded of the first anti-Valentine's Day me and my man had 12 years ago. And something that doesn't exist can't remind me of something, can it? Anyway, it was a cold and stormy night...well, I don't actually remember the weather, but chances are it was very cold and probably snowing. My man had to work that night at the restaurant he was a cook at, so I hung out with this guy that I had met on the Internet and had invited to come all the way from New Zealand to stay at my house without having met in person before. True story. This was in the days of dial-up, where I had struck up a friendship with a couple of people on a band's message board (Five Iron Frenzy's message board, to be specific), a friendship that turned into frequent ICQ sessions (young ones, Google it), exchanging of cultural artifacts (e.g. country-specific candy and music), very expensive group phone calls (somehow my friends and family got involved in the whole thing), and a meeting of the brother (who was/is in a band called The Lads that was touring Canada). So, by the time it was proposed that this Kiwi come visit, there wasn't really any question as to the logic or safety of the whole thing. My boyfriend (a.k.a. my now 'man') was even cool with it and took him snowboarding. Oh, and to tie the whole thing together, as my first anti-Valentine's Day present, my boyfriend/man gave me the Five Iron Frenzy hoodie that I always stole from him. Now that's love.
Anyway, Russ King of King Cabinets, brother of Steve, visitor of Canada, drop me an email if you find this post. It would be lovely to catch up. Also, I really like this Kiwi brand called kowtow because they make lovely basics with 100% organic fairtrade materials that aren't processed with the chemicals that are slowly killing us all (or at least causing me to become a hermit). But shipping to Canada is $40...shall we rekindle our cultural artifact exchange?
