To each her own path

Over breakfast, I begin populating my plate. I take some eggplant, some seaweed salad... haven't put down the seaweed salad when I hear, "what about the marinated apples, you used to like those?"

"I still do-- I can only serve myself one thing at a time."

I take a slice of apple.

"What about feta?"

"Mom! Can you please not micromanage my breakfast choices?"

No answer.

***
Apparently there's an unwritten rule in the house that the second my mother notices that I'm on the computer, I'm expected to yield it. Fair enough, it's her computer--but can I finish my sentence, or the article?

She came downstairs, saw me, and said:

"Are you going to be on that all day?"

"Can I read the paper, please?"

"The New York Times?"

I just didn't answer, didn't want a lecture on the liberal media. I also did not say, "I'd need the computer less if you could provide less fodder for the blog."

She asks me how many people came to my anti-Valentine's Day party this year; I said, twenty-five, not including the soon-to-be-born. She said, "I don't get it, don't people realize that if everyone were anti, no children would be born?" I said "not at all," but didn't care to elaborate. I just don't follow that logic-- how is aversion to a hallmark holiday a threat to human reproduction?

By the way, there was a baby in front of me on the plane last night. It was angelic, because its parents bothered to calm it down every time it piped up.

I've always been a bit sensitive to people's imposition of convoluted logic on things I hold dear... such as AV Day. AV Day has become such an institution that my friends don't allow me to not have it. I really haven't been feeling it for the last few years, but come January people start asking me when the party is and shudder in horror when I say I'm considering not having it. The truth is, in the seven years since I first hosted the party, I've gone from, "ugh, this is such a stupid holiday, I hate it, smug couples are annoying, I'm single and this holiday makes me feel bad about that" to, "I'm single and who cares? The smug couples are the first to either break up or annoy the crap out of each other; the holiday is still stupid but I've had so many anti-Valentine's Day parties that I now have a positive association with it... and I'm tired."

But I still get annoyed when people insult the institution that my anti-Valentine's day party has become. The party is anti-Valentine's Day, not anti-relationship/anti-family, what have you. Couples come to the party (as long as they agree to act indifferent toward one another). I'd have the party if I'd happen to be in a relationship any given February.

But I'm also at the point in my life when I'm done fighting with people because I don't feel the need to explain myself. I got through this early because everyone expects vegetarians to explain themselves. At first you feel the need to make sure everyone understands exactly why you made that decision, and then you just let it go.

An insult to AV Day partially prompted me to decide to not date someone I was considering dating. We were talking about food; fondue came up, I said I made chocolate fondue for my annual AVD party. He said, "how is that an AVD party? That's just a Valentine's Day party. Chocolate is a Valentine's Day staple." What could be more smug than co opting chocolate??? Chocolate is for everyone! That's the point of having it at the party-- I'm reclaiming chocolate for the single. I am quite the vigilante.

This person's inability to think outside the fondue pot came up again in the same conversation. We'd earlier discussed Sex and the City, and it came up again. I said that my friends and I overwhelmingly identified with Miranda, which absolutely surprised him-- he found her, among other things, "sad." One reason, according to him, was that no woman should have to propose to the father of her child over a $2 beer. That, to me, is completely missing the point: That's what worked for Miranda and Steve; for them, that was so much more special than what this guy would have considered an apt proposal. I fundamentally believe that everyone has their own path, and I don't have a lot of patience for the people who define love, romance and relationships for everybody else along prepackaged and often artificial guidelines.

I suppose that's why, when it comes down to it, I host an anti-Valentine's Day party every year.