Holidaze

I should have had a pretty shitty week. I worked 8:30 AM - 10:00 PM most of the week, came in on Saturday, worked from home a bit on Sunday, and so I pretty much didn't have anytime for myself. But in a weird way, I find that comforting and I can usually make the most of the time I have when I'm super-busy. It enables a kind of focused clarity that otherwise is impossible. So, in my mind, I actually had a pretty good week. I mean, I still had a good time Friday night with a bunch of friends, got some shit off my chest that I needed to talk about to someone, relaxed a bit on Sunday, got my deposit back from my last apartment, and I think later today I might go buy a new TV. Also, it was Valentine's Day yesterday. I have no problems with that holiday.

Valentine's Day is a weird holiday, because (apparently) it's supposed to be a day of forced romance if you're in a relationship and it's supposed to be depressing if you're not. Personally, I never minded the holiday either way, single or not, because some people have a good spirit to them regardless, and I'm really into holidays with spirit. So what if you're single? Is it really that bad? There are so many wonderful things about being single and you should celebrate that; there are so many people in this city and this world that are single right along with you, and this holiday is for you too. Being in a relationship on this day is good too, guys may complain that they "have" to do this or that, but really? Really? Most of you love it. I think it's pretty awful when I hear about people that needs days like this to remember a little romance; by necessity the Super Bowl can only be one day a year, but you can cherish your Valentine all year. Really, boil it down to the purest components and this is a Holiday about Love, and who can't get behind that? Whether you're single, married, or anything above or between, isn't there something you could have celebrated? Personally, I think the world would be a better place if every once in a while we were all able to come out of our shells and just embrace and love love. It doesn't need to be just romantic love, but also love of everything and everyone, to give love to your fellow man, to just take it in and realize that what we have here is a pretty sweet deal. I don't know, maybe I'm just wearing rose-colored glasses today.

There are a couple of particular things about Valentine's Day that I would like to talk about more specifically. First off, I've begun taking a more scenic route to the subway (walking to a further stop) that takes me right by this church, and Saturday while I was walking to work I noticed that they had all these balloons that said "Happy St. Valentine's Day" on them and it hit me that this actually is/was supposed to be a day celebrating a saint. Now I don't claim to know what St. Valentine is or what he did to achieve sainthood, if I had to guess I'd say it has something to do with killing gangsters, but I'm not sure. It started getting me wondering about how many other holidays have really lost their true meaning and became a "thing". I'll come back to this in a second, while I bring up the other thing, which is a family tradition. On Friday, I checked the mail, and saw that there was a large package for me. It was from my mom, and I was not expecting it. I should have. It was, as she's sent every year since my freshman year of college, a Valentine's Day package with a card and a box of heart-shaped chocolates. The fact that it never occurred to me that this would come, despite the fact that she does it every year, brought a little extra joy to my world. It reminded me that I really do love my mother, and again, isn't that what this day is about? Love of all kinds? Well, it's about that, and it's also about chocolate. Along with Halloween, Valentine's Day is one of the most candy-centric holidays. It really makes me wonder if before candy and card companies got involved if this was ever a serious religious Holiday, and it got me thinking about the other holidays we typically celebrate in modern American society:

Valentine's Day
What it's supposed to be about: Love, showing affection to those that you care about.
What it's really about: Special lingerie, expensive dinners, getting just drunk enough (on wine, of course) to get a little freaky but still sober enough to really enjoy it. OR, getting depressed, eating an entire heart-shaped box of candy by yourself while watching clips from "Models, Inc." on YouTube.

Presidents' Day
What it's supposed to be about: Celebrating the great leaders of this nation we call home and how they have enriched our culture and history.
What it's really about: up to 20% off at most department stores.

St Patrick's Day
What it's supposed to be about: Being Irish.
What it's really about: Getting completely shithoused. This one is actually pretty close.

Easter
What it's supposed to be about: Jesus dying for our sins, coming back, spring, renewal, jew bashing
What it's really about: Finding colored eggs, jelly beans, marshmallow poultry, fake plastic grass, other candy, rabbits, and in my family's case presents. It wasn't until about a year ago I found out that not everyone got presents on Easter Sunday. This blew my mind, it was like a second Christmas in my house growing up.

Memorial Day
What it's supposed to be about: I'm going to go with people dying, or something like that? Am I close? Is this exactly the same as Veteran's Day?
What it's really about: the start of the Summer Movie season. Spider-Man or Wolverine are likely to make an appearance. This year we get Terminators. Oh... I get it, it's a memorial to all the people that died in Judgment day after skynet launched. Makes sense.

Independence Day
What it's supposed to be about: the adoption of the declaration of independence and the formal birth of our nation (and essentially modern society).
What it's really about: Fireworks, Barbecues, Baseball. To me, that is America, so I'm totally ok with all this. Bonus points to this holiday because (I think) most Americans actually do know why we don't work on this day, even if they think "The Forth of July" is the actually name of the holiday.

Labor Day
What it's supposed to be about: working? I don't have the slightest clue.
What it's really about: parties hosted by Puff Daddy, the last day to have a summer party, wearing white for the last time for a few months.

Jimbo's Birthday
What it's supposed to be about: peace on earth and good will towards all men.
What it's really about: people always eff this one up and make it all about me. Seriously, I'm not like that, you shouldn't celebrate me, you should celebrate that you all get to share a world WITH me.

Columbus Day
What it's supposed to be about: Christopher Columbus "discovering" the new world.
What it's really about: apparently being Italian.

Halloween
What it's supposed to be about: Candy.
What it's really about: Candy. Egging houses. Channel 11 showing scary movies for "Shocktober".

Veteran's Day
What it's supposed to be about: See "Day, Memorial". I have no idea what the difference is. Is memorial day for those that died and this is for the guys that didn't?
What it's really about: no clue. I don't even think I have off this day. I had to look up when it was. I'd be willing to bed department stores have sales for this, but not as good as Presidents' Day.

Thanksgiving
What it's supposed to be about: Acknowledging the fact that different people can give thanks to each other and celebrate that only through unity can we endure.
What it's really about: Getting drunk and over-eating, fighting with family, starting Christmas shopping and getting an extra day off from work after Thanksgiving, because fuck it, that's why.

Christmas
What it's supposed to be about: Jesus being born.
What it's really about: Santa giving presents. I'll cede that most people PROBABLY know what the real reason for Christmas is, but I'd wager most don't really give two shits and just like the presents part. Especially kids, who I think we can all agree is who this holiday is mostly for. Whatever, I have no beef with X-Mas, I love it even if it is a painted whore of a holiday at this point.

New Year's
What it's supposed to be about: The arbitrary designation of where a year "ends" and a new one "begins"
What it's really about: Getting super-duper drunk, kissing someone at midnight if you're sober enough, and then deciding you're going to start or stop doing something for the rest of your life and then following through with it for anywhere between 2 and 60 days.

Martin Luther King Day
What it's supposed to be about: Celebrating human rights with specific emphasis on a man who taught the world that Knowledge is Power and that all men truly are created equal.
What it's really about: Having a quick holiday to recover from having a whole week of work after the Christmas/New Year 1-2 punch. Seriously, his birthday is 1/15, yet we always celebrate it on a Monday. Doesn't that seem suspicious to anyone else?

Groundhog Day
What it's supposed to be about: seeing whether nature's great forecaster thinks we're going to have an early spring or long winter.
What it's really about: getting drunk and making babies

I think that covers the major ones, but I suppose it's possible I forgot one if it's even more obscure than Veteran's Day (Father's Day and Mother's Day don't count). I think we're about due for a new Holiday, it seems like we don't really celebrate half of these at this point anyway, so let's mix in some new ones. Like, shouldn't we have a day celebrating the invention of the Internet or something? I think we have enough summer movies at this point that we need another weekend in the summer to get a bunch of these, maybe we could take Boxing Day and put it in the summer or something? Well, that's all the time I have for now, hopefully I'll stay too busy to watch entire movies so that I can instead take 20 minutes to write blogs.