This unmentionable day

So it's Valentine's Day. I know the mature and sensible thing to do is to ignore it (or maybe even sneer) but that is reasonably difficult given how many emails full of gift ideas I have received in the last few weeks.

I actually thought to myself that since I am never given anything or taken out anywhere I would treat myself to something or other. I wouldn't be so silly as to pay Valentine's Day premiums on cut flowers, or go out to dinner by myself, which would be simply awful, so I thought about going to Bunnings for a flowery living plant instead, but given I may need to move sometime soon I decided to stall on that idea. Perhaps I can have a new book (yay! - any excuse).

And I know that men don't want to receive things from women they're not interested in, and that the surest way to make a man not want what you have to give, and treat it like it is worthless, is to give it to him without making him work hard for it, and I know that if a man was interested in me he'd be asking me out, not waiting for me to give a silly Valentine or for me to do the asking or just grunting on social media or ... And I am not going to trust a man who isn't taking the initiative, because you have to ask yourself why he isn't, and I have had enough trouble. So I didn't give anyone anything either.

It's a shame really, because I don't know whether gift-giving is one of my love languages or what the psychological compulsion and enjoyment is, but I like finding different and apt and sometimes fun gifts to give. I don't ever want to be in on the histrionics that unless you get twelve roses, a ribboned box of chocolates and a stuffed gorilla it activates the Cold War, I just like some of the fun little tongue-in-cheek and humorous things. But I shall keep it for the day, which I know may never come, when I meet a man who appreciates what I have to give, in the ways that I have to give it.

And I know I can give my girlfriends or my relatives or homeless people cards and fun things any time I want, and that's a nice thing to do, but who wants to pretend that's the same thing. And I know that God loves me more than any man on this earth ever will, which is not actually a very tall order for God so far in that comparison, and that God's love is a whole lot more than I deserve.

Anyway, I was listening to Oh to be Loved by Thad Cockrell the other day, when I discovered it has been recorded by Page CXVI also. So, here are both versions, which are suitably kind of mellow for the day.