I’ve never been much into Valentine’s Day. Maybe because I’m a perennial spinster at this point. Which is not a bad thing – I fully intend to rock some silver pigtails like an ageing Wednesday Addams someday.
But I will happily take your heart-shaped chocolates. Or any shaped chocolates. Mama don’t discriminate. 😉
No V-Day celebrations for me though. I just had an ordinary day at work. Busy and okay. Chocolate-less apart from my morning mocha.
February 14 is also the Australian Library and Information Association’s Library Lovers’ Day. Since working in academic and special libraries, I haven’t really celebrated it, other than to pop into local public libraries to see what displays they’ve got. “Blind date with a book” is always a winner.
Just get a library card, folks. It’s a great gift to yourself. Once you get the card, you don’t even need to physically enter the building if you don’t want to because, hello, eResources.
You can read up on interesting tidbits like how Captain Cook was stabbed to death after attempting to kidnap the ruling chief of Hawai’i. On February 14, 1779.
Or that YouTube was launched on February 14, 2005. Unfortunately too late to save me from horrendously cutting my hair. These days I could just search “how to cut your own emo fringe” but alas, not in the 90s and early 2000s.
I guess what I’m saying is February 14 is a lot of things, and means a lot of different things, and also nothing at all.
Probably didn’t warrant a whole-ass blog post but if you’re down here, you still read it. 😛
PS. 9 years ago, I wrote The History of February 14, a flash fiction story for Every Day Fiction. It’s not necessarily something I’d write now… I penned a whole bunch of second person stories around that time because I was trying too hard to be edgy or something… but this was probably one of the better ones. You can check it out on the Every Day Fiction website and let me know what you think.
Lee-Ann Khoh 