WEP-Valentine Challenge

First of all, before I begin with the task at hand, I'd like to let everyone know that Sylvia Ney is posting today over at the Parallel's Blog about Science Past, Present and Future. Be sure to check it out!

It's time for another WEP Challenge!  Thanks to Yolanda Renee and Denise Covey for hosting this fun event!

Since it's February, this month's challenge is all about Valentine's Day.  You can celebrate all that is wonderful about the holiday, or you can post something that laments the very existence of all that it entails.  The choice is yours!

The piece I'm sharing now is a follow-up of my recently released novella Self-Help 101 or: How I Learned to Take Over the World Through Tolerating My Family.  Since I'm turning it into a series, I've been inhabiting that world for awhile.  As such, it's hardly surprising that this is the direction my mind took when it came time to write something for this challenge.  

But never fear!  You don't need to have read the novella to read this.  I promise.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy!  

Dani Finklemeier’s Valentine’s Day Survival Guide

Valentine’s Day can be a tough time for those of us who don’t fit into the typical order of things.  I fit into the mold about as well as those super-strength acids people use to dissolve bodies in horror movies.  Sure, I can conform to the shape of acceptability for a brief time, but my true nature soon begins to corrode the container I’ve stupidly tried to inhabit.  Fortunately, that fact doesn’t bother me as much as some people seem to think it should.

In my early years, I probably wouldn’t have gotten any valentines if the school didn’t require kids to hand them out to everyone.  Then in middle school, I could expect only one, which came from Seth.  Now, even though Seth had been my best friend since age three, I knew he wouldn’t have continued to give me one if his mom didn’t remind him to do it.  I’m not saying that he’s a thoughtless guy, because he really isn’t.  He just isn’t that good at remembering little things like that.  When it comes to the big things, he does fine.

I’m not here to go on and on about the boy I’ve known most of my life who went on to become my boyfriend.  Doing that while purporting to give advice to people who must endure Valentine’s Day alone would be too obnoxious, so without further ado, here’s my somewhat questionable advice.

1.       Buy yourself chocolate.  No one else got you any, but that doesn’t mean you should be deprived of a source of comfort on what might prove to be a lonely day.  And if you want to get through the day without adding a misdemeanor to your record, you’re going to need the chocolate.

This is something I do every year.  I don’t believe in waiting for anyone to get me chocolate when I can do it myself.  Only I know what kinds of chocolate I’m craving at any given time anyway.  And if someone does actually buy me chocolate as well, that’s even better!  How can you go wrong with that?

2.      Remember that, even if you eat your entire stash of chocolate in one night, there’s bound to be a massive chocolate sale the day after.  Congratulations!  You’ll have the opportunity to eat your feelings all over again!

I also take advantage of this.  Why not?  It’s unthinkable to allow that kind of opportunity pass you by.  Granted, I’ve never understood why there would ever be enough leftover chocolate to justify a sale, but hey, it benefits me in the end, so whatever.

3.      If you find yourself particularly sad about not having someone special, pick a romantic movie so cheesy and rife with bad dialogue that the idea of romantic love becomes repulsive to you.  The effect may only last a day or two, but it should be enough to get you through the dark times of Valentine’s Day.

You know the kinds of movies I’m talking about.  These are the ones with clumsily-written clichés about how these two people can’t live without one another while having only known each other for a few hours.  Sure, people can make a strong connection in a short amount of time, but that doesn’t mean you’ve reached the point where you’re going to go all kamikaze over it.  And if you are, then perhaps you have some deeper issues.

I’m also talking about the poorly acted movies with corny dialogue and terrible music.  There has obviously been no effort to make a film that wasn’t a gigantic pile of crap.  These movies give love a bad name, and that’s exactly what you need to help you get through a lonely Valentine’s Day.  Be cautious, though.  If you’ve been eating your feelings all night, watching too bad a movie can lead to nausea.  Ick!

4.      Come up with a fun tradition for Valentine’s Day that in no way requires you to have a significant other.  Instead, you can share it with a friend or family member.  Granted, it may be a struggle to find someone romantically unattached who is also willing to spend time with you, but hopefully not impossible.

Seth and I have a tradition like this.  We get together each Valentine’s Day, watch movies, and eat vast quantities of unhealthy food.  It is absolutely one of my favorite traditions.  It was his idea to start this tradition, too.  We were thirteen when he proposed it, and it was that awkward age where you start to really notice whether anyone is remotely interested in you or not.  Those awakening hormones can really throw off your Valentine’s Day equilibrium.  It helped both of us forget about those concerns by giving us something to look forward to other than implied rejection.

Until, of course, the year he skipped out on our tradition to go to a dance with another girl.  I might have gone through a bit more chocolate than normal that year. 

Whatever.

5.      If you’ve ever been through a nasty break-up, focus on all the reasons why being in a relationship isn’t always a good thing.  And if you’ve never been through a break-up because you’ve never been in a relationship, look at the examples around you.  They’re everywhere.

I’m fortunate that I’ve never been through a nasty break-up, or any break-up for that matter.  Being considered an undateable weirdo for most of my life helped me out on that front. Still, I’ve seen enough heartbreak amongst the other people in my life to know how unpleasant these things can be.  There are also plenty of movies describing that kind of heartbreak, and perhaps selecting some of them for your own movie night might help if you don’t have the personal experience.

So, there they are.  Dani Finklemeier’s tips for surviving Valentine’s Day.  Hopefully I helped you, but let’s face it.  I probably didn’t.  Valentine’s Day can suck for us misfits no matter what we do.  

At least we have Halloween.

999 words/FCA

Lost & Found Valentine's Edition Bloghop

It's time for the Lost & Found Valentine's Edition Bloghop!  This bloghop is brought to you by Arlee Bird and Guilie Castilol-Oriard, and it's co-hosted by Elizabeth Seckman, Yolanda Renee, Denise Covey, and Alex J. Cavanaugh.

Today I'd like to share a piece of fiction with you.  I hope you enjoy it!

Cursed Love

Once upon a time, a girl named Harriett learned a lesson, even though most days she didn’t even remember that she’d learned it.

The lesson was this: one should be careful of curses.

One should also be careful of people who know how to cast them.  Unfortunately, those who can cast curses don’t typically advertise the fact that they can.

It all began when Harriett was fifteen, and she did what many of her age tend to do.  She fell in love.  Perhaps it wasn’t the mature kind of love that most adults take seriously, but it was certainly the most intense feeling she’d ever known.

The mysterious boy moved in next door in the middle of the night.  That alone added a level of mystique to the situation.  However, when she saw the black-haired boy with the gray eyes on his front porch the next morning, her heart practically did a great flip out of her body and landed at his feet.

Unfortunately, he didn’t go to school like most kids their age, so she couldn’t hope to run into him in the hallway.  She wanted more than anything to talk to him.  To get to know him.  She just didn’t know how to take that first step.

It took three weeks of seeing him outside every morning before she approached the chain link fence and offered him a simple greeting.  “Hello.”

The boy smiled tentatively and introduced himself as Jonah.

Several weeks passed with daily greetings at the fence.  Smiles were exchanged.  Fleeting glances paved the way to longer conversations, and within a few months, they started sneaking away from the fence to spend time hidden away in a grove of pines behind their houses.

Every time Harriett smelled a brand new pine-scented car freshener, she recalled their first kiss.

*     *     *

Jonah wasn’t supposed to fall in love with someone normal.  A mundane life would have only drained him of his magic.  Yet when he looked into Harriett’s cerulean eyes, he couldn’t help himself.  The risk didn’t matter.  After spending an entire childhood in solitude, it was good to have someone.  Those stolen moments made his days brighter.

Every time Jonah’s mother added pine needles to her cauldron to make her signature anti-wrinkle potion, he thought of Harriett’s embrace and the sweet scent of her straw-colored hair.

*     *     *

During another intimate moment in the pine grove, Jonah buried his face against Harriett’s neck and breathed her in.  “I wish we could run away together,” he whispered.

She laughed softly.  “We’re only sixteen.”

“I know.  Maybe one day we can take off and see the world together.  I don’t want to be worried all the time.”

Harriett never understood why Jonah’s mother was so strict, but she didn’t want to risk losing these moments with him.  She hugged him closer.  “We will.  We’ll go, and we’ll see everything we can.  Nothing can stop us.”

*     *     *

Jonah’s mother had been on her way to collect pine needles when she caught sight of her son and the neighbor girl kissing among the trees.  Her blood boiled.  She slipped away soundlessly, all thoughts of her anti-wrinkle potion banished.  She had something more important to do.

*     *     *

Neither Jonah nor Harriett noticed the difference right away.  The curse made them forget what they had previously meant to each other.  When they saw one another from their respective yards, it barely registered.  Why would Harriett notice the strange boy who never spoke to anyone?  And why would Jonah care about this girl he didn’t know when he had to work on honing his powers?

Only one day out of the year was any different.  Each year on Valentine’s Day, they remembered everything.  For twenty-four hours, they looked at each other and saw just how much they’d once meant to one another, and they were allowed to spend that time together before the veil dropped between them once more.

Jonah’s mother designed the curse that way for a reason.  That single day wasn’t enough for Jonah to devise a way to break the curse, and it was just enough to keep him from moving on entirely.  The vague sense of wrongness would keep him from looking at any other girls who might distract him from his life’s path.  That outcome was worth letting them have that one day.

*     *     *

Each Valentine’s Day, the lovers met in the pine grove as soon as their memories returned, and they spent the entire day together hidden away from the world.  Once they were both eighteen, they started renting hotel rooms so they could have the intimate moments they craved.

When they were twenty, they decided to run away.  Jonah wasn’t sure what would happen, but he knew he had to try.  They made it as far as the state line by midnight.

The next morning, they both woke in their separate beds, the memories of the previous day nothing more than a blur.

*     *     *

When Harriett was twenty-two, she discovered she was pregnant.  This came as a shock, because she wasn’t in a relationship.  She’d never been with anyone.  She thought back to various college parties she’d been to, and though she couldn’t recall anything happening at any of them, what other explanation was there?

Her parents were disappointed, but they invited her to stay at home even after she finished school.  They didn’t want their daughter to be alone.

*     *     *

Harriett walked carefully down the sidewalk.  It was the week before Christmas, and she didn’t want to slip on the ice with her infant son in her arms.  He’d been born with gray eyes and a headful of straw-colored hair adorning his head.  The doctor had commented on how unusual that was, but the boy was also healthy, so she wasn’t concerned.

She reached her car on the side of the street, and she was about to place her son in his car seat when someone bumped into her.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” the young man said, his eyes wide.  “I wasn’t paying attention.”

Harriett, barely recognizing him as the neighbor, clutched the baby to her chest.  “You’re lucky I didn’t drop him,” she scolded.

The young man looked down at the child, while she focused on his face.  Something stirred inside her as she looked from the neighbor’s gray eyes to her son’s gray eyes.  They were identical.

“Jonah,” she said quietly as something snapped into place inside her.

He looked up, the recognition evident in his face as he studied her.  “Harriett.”  That single word was filled with wonder.  He silently offered her his hand.

She took it, vowing never to let go again.