Happy Commercialized Excuse for Oppressing Singles Day

You can read my personal feelings about Valentine's Day in a previous post--albeit that I've been happily non-single for six years. Still, something about forcing people (particularly, often the male half of the relationship*) into a hastily-planned show of love that may be less than sincere doesn't sit well with me. Then again, perhaps that's just my flu talking.

I'm working from home today--felt much better, then got up and took a shower. Man, do you realize how much energy it takes to get up and stand under water for half an hour? I'm worn out just from getting dressed, then dragging myself and my laptop to the couch.

Okay--sorry, this is my day for griping--but this story about Cleopatra not being such a looker is a little ridiculous. First of all, there's the small matter of whether or not the coin's designer ever saw Cleopatra--much less up close. Second, there's the matter of cultural ideas of beauty being different every decade, much less 32BC versus 2007AD. So regardless of whether to us, "She does look as if she's forgotten to put her teeth in," maybe we ought to just leave a little mystery in the myth of Cleo's beauty.

Immediately upon leaving this morning, Alex burst back inside, shut the door, and pronounced that yes, once again, it was snowing. Again. In Texas. I'm wondering if we mistakenly entered the wrong house sometime around Christmas, if we both took a wrong turn home one day and now we're living in Missouri--because clearly it can't be Texas we live in, not with all this snow we've been having. Bizarre.

And here's Alex's contribution of the day: the uber-helpful error message he received from The Gates Error-O-Matic (or, The Empire Formerly Known As MS):



*For a hilarious illustration of this, listen to this excerpt from this past week's episode of A Prairie Home Companion.