Your Fuzzy Wuzzy Quotient for the Day

Disclaimer: Even though, yes, I am posting pictures of a cat here, and yes, he's adorable, and yes, that is why I'm posting these pictures of him, I am not a crazy cat girl. This isn't even my cat, swear. I'm cat-sitting for The Ex. In fact, I think I'm even less of a crazy cat girl because I haven't even shown you a picture of Nina, who is at this very moment tearing apart my legs because I won't play with her, because I'm busy writing about someone else's cat. So there.

This past Saturday was that great Cleveland holiday known as Sweetest Day. A day entirely absolutely created by the candy industry, in a marketing move to dupe those dumb Lake People into having another reason to buy chocolate covered strawberries. And it has worked so completely, that if I'm alone Valentine's day, I'm okay. But on Sweetest Day, with every boyfriend, even if we're broken up I expect an honorable mention. And I have yet to be disappointed in this thing I had no right to expect in the first place. In this way, with many others, I am a true example of the Midwest Girl.

There are some things you learn about flowers by the time you're thirty. One, you should always get flowers. Even if they are daffodils picked from someones front yard, flowers are one of the best things a guy does for you. He may buy you other things, or make you mix cds, or do your household chores. He may in fact be one of the sweetest guys in the whole world. But if he has never brought you a bouquet, there is something missing in his soul, a light that either hasn't flickered on yet, or has already flickered out.

Second, flowers mean lots of things, and they are maybe not always welcome things. But you always say thank you. Flowers are not something you should over think. If you are not gracious about it, you can be the one that turned off flowers for another future girl. Flowers are emotional, in a way that doesn't make a lot of sense. They link together all sorts of weird things; dignity and beauty and fragility and fucking. When you are in a room with a guy, and there is a vase sitting there between you, there are very few situations where you are justified in throwing them in his face - physically or figuratively. And you accepting them gracefully does not denote surrender or forgiveness. You don't have to take him back. But there should be acknowledgment. This is why flowers are known as the standard universal "please forgive me" or "thank you" or "I love you". Other gifts don't produce the same aura of vulnerability that they do. They make you soft. It's good to be reminded you can be soft.

And then there's chocolate - which is so obvious that a fifteen year old virgin wouldn't misconstrue that message. But look how pretty they are! (note: chocolates are like diamonds). I love Lilly's.

That pistachio one, by the way, was really fucking good. And so was the cranberry one in the pink plaid.

I know, alright, we'll stop talking about flowers and chocolates. My point is though, that you should never ever date anyone who doesn't give you both. Not every week. But sometimes when they don't have to, and it doesn't gain them anything.

Sunday was a lazy fall day. I drank some vodka from the night before. I watched bad cable. Lead Paint Cookbook took me and Really Bad Cleveland Accent to brunch. Which I invited my friend Alli to before I knew LPC had a gift card, and for which I have to take her out to dinner some point soon. Just let me know what day dear, or let me buy you lots of absinthe? Which, by the way, if you read this, that's 10/30, not this Friday.

So it was a very pleasant brunch, because those three girls are the girls you wish you had known right out of college, before you fell in with that Wiccan guy. They would have never allowed that to properly happen. I actually did know Alli then, but she lived far away before the Wiccan guy showed up. So it's not her fault.

So it's cold, blustery, rainy, sometimes sunny. I need some sneakers with better tread and no holes in them. I need an actual coat. I need a wine cellar, a fireplace, and some sedatives for my cats. I need blankets and a mattress all to myself, and more time to sleep that doesn't interrupt my fast-paced tv watching lifestyle. I tried to find a building to go to this morning, Charity was waiting for me, but I had no luck. Everything I looked up was bought by Chinese firms or torn down two years ago. The season is ending for improv, now I have to settle down for winter planning. I think it's very funny Pandora just put Tegan and Sara next to Johnny Cash. Start going to Pat Catans more. Start cooking again and driving my friends crazy by taking pictures of food. It's time to nail the shutters closed. I'm proud of myself because at this point last year I was thinking how fast everything seemed to be going by. Now I feel like this year took it's good old time, and I think that's a good sign.

If I had, as I often wished, been born an actual bear, required to hibernate for months, I think I've would have figured out a way to stay awake. Maybe eating college students?