A Valentine's Memory I Found in Therapy

Today was Valentine's Day, and I didn't celebrate it. I had dinner with my 10th grade cell group. In exchange for food, all I do is recite rap lyrics with the sly ones. We really like the New Boyz. I was replaced long ago as the spiritual leader of the group.

In a conversation with a friend, I was reminded of a Valentine's Day two years ago. At the time, I was spending a semester in Rome. I kept a blog, called Lectio Difficilior, but I can't explain why. I think I wanted to make it difficult for my mom to find it. Below I've posted part of the Valentines entry for that blog, because it was an important day in my life.

After school, I was walking home from school when I popped into a chic boutique to peruse the new men's fashions, because, if you haven't been keeping up with my personal life, I have recently become fashionable (and not in the way that, women want to carry me in their purse. Well, actually, in that way too, but that's not the point). So, in a nameless clothing store, I was looking through the assorted blazers (by TOGS clothing, no less) when the owner/operator/only worker in the store Rion decided he wanted to help me. He kept handing me things to try on, and watching me flip through the stretchy pants. As I was leaving, he stopped me and struck up a conversation about my studies, complimenting me on my Italian. Then he said we should get coffee sometime. Eager to leave, I agreed, and then he said, "Okay, let's go."

I got asked out by a guy on Valentine's Day. After I had stopped running, I reflected and thought about how nice it is to be appreciated by someone, even if it's a guy. It's the thought that counts anyways, like Ned from Pushing Daisies says, "on a holiday created to sell greeting cards, it's still kind of nice to get a card."

During the four months I spent in Rome, I was propositioned by three different men. Rion was the first. The second was at an after party for a Shakespeare production in London; as to what happened, I cannot relate it here. Or anywhere. I am going to take it to my grave, and bury next to the body I used to fake my death. The third was the night I was robbed and forced to sleep on the streets of Florence. Let's just say I thought the coffee he offered was spelled r-a-p-e-c-o-f-f-e-e. Which still spells coffee.