My favorite Valentine…

I received a couple of valentines via email on Tuesday. This one was My Favorite. I shared some Valentine cookies and a greeting from our state chapin who went around wishing everyone a happy Valentines day. I’m not sure it’s such a happy day for St. Valentine.

On the bus ride home, many had a flowers, some had teddy bears, heart bags, presents all around. Even at my new credit union where I went to open an account the woman had balloons. It was very sweet.

I was invited out for dinner with a guy I’ve been out with once before but I didn’t want to go. I didn't want the pressure of a Valentine's dinner but mostly that I’m “not interested”. I suggest we go for a drink later. The truth of the matter was I just wanted to go my favorite coffee shop and have a Coconut Bunny cupcake, type some emails, write a little bit and chat with the characters from a new play I'm working on. It sounded like a perfect quiet evening.

But instead I ate dinner, took a shower and hopped in to my car with the plans to meet my friend Christine at Chop Suey where Dan Savage (yes, THE DAN SAVAGE of Savage Love syndicated in weeklies all across America) was having this anti-Valentine’s Day party. It’s their 9th year doing it and you, as audience members, bring an effigy or some object that reminds you of your last lover, partner, spouse and they destroy it on stage – burn it, shred it, smash it, whatever. It's fun and funny.

We arrived just before it got started at 8:45 p.m. It wasn’t quite packed – I ran into a guy who remembered me from the capeiora class I visited my second week here. There were cute guys and a smattering of women when we first got there but it was packed 20 minutes later . Most people wore stickers that read “I’m Single” or “I’m Taken”. I wanted one that said “I’m not sure.” I'm clearly single but I’m not sure I want to be taken at this moment. Shanna, a gal I met at the bar, suggested that there were signs on the name tags that gave you some hint of one’s sexual orientation. “I mean Dan Savage has a large gay following so you expect it but I’m pretty sure all the cute boys here are gay.” I think she was right.

The first half of the show as hilarious. Participants brought up their momento, told their story and Dan destroyed it. A guy had a hand painted wooden bowl he had received for Christmas after dating a woman for two years and getting her jewerly. Smash! Another guy was given a book about “How to get closer to your partner thru Jesus” and he was an agnostic Jew. Shred! One woman had dated a frat boy had brought his fraternity sweat shirt to be destroyed. Dan insisted that a gay man wear it all around, take pictures, and circulate them widely on the internet as the ultimate reverenge. Yeah! Dan shredded photo, smashed snow globes and burned momentos.

But for all of the fun, silly ones there were a couple that were heartbreaking. A woman’s partner had left and she had kept a post-it note that read "I love you Liz" on her dash, where her partner had left it, for three years. Another woman was dating a man for 4 years and he dumped her when she became deathly ill with encephalitis. And we cheered for those people just like we did for everyone else but there was a rawness and an edge to them. Some people just left, saying “This sucks. I can’t get into it.” Funny, real pain isn’t that amusing.

I snuck out with five minutes left to before the end. Escaping the mad rush, The Man in The Moon followed me home ending my Favorite Valentine’s in Seattle to date.