Who do I still think I am??

This one's about too much and not enough.

MOB-RELATED ACTIVITY:

What's up, friends, lovers, and everyone in-between? Happy Valentine's Day to all you fine people...now that the niceties are out of the way, I have a list of gripes a mile long I've got the rest of the afternoon and evening to get into, so if you don't mind I'm gonna have at it. Disclaimer: Nothing I have to say in today's entry concerns the fact that I won't be upset if you choose to wish me "Have a nice day!" instead of the traditional February 14th greeting reserved for those with better hearts than me (more on that later...).

Anyone heard from Brother Nature , our Blog Mob bOSS (with an uncapital B) lately? I'm guessing he's joined the Witness Protection Program in an effort to avoid Andre, who looks like he's making a concerted effort to be a better person monkey ever since his unfortunate kidnapping at the hands of our Mob. As Lyn's a sly fox noted in the comments section of my entry yesterday, we may be seeing a role-reversal of sorts...is Andre becoming more cultured and esteemed in Joel's absence? Will Joel be showing up randomly at 3am, drunk off banana schnapps and demanding access to our keyboards while leaving piles of crumpled and balled-up sheets of loose-leaf paper strewn about as blog entries deteriorate into hastily sketched notes via MS Paint? Is anyone else concerned by Joel's not-so-sudden disappearance, too consumed by thoughts that maybe shadows are just Hitchcockian silhouettes of the man himself while love songs of the Canadian prairies murmur in the backgrounds of our very souls?

I defy you to prove me it isn't so!

BCF PROMPT: "What is your opinion of Valentine's Day? Has it become too commercialized?"

I want to say yes, but upon further examination maybe that's not the case. Oh, don't get me wrong...that "holiday" has been sold out for a long time. But it's really just part of the over-commercialization of everything. Days like today used to mean little more than remembering to do something just a bit extra-special for someone you care about (usually involving chocolates and flowers and other feelings things that are quickly consumed before the reset button on snarkiness is hit normalcy returns). Now, sub out "Valentine's Day" for any other square on the calendar that has some pre-printed labelling on it, and Hallmark's already had a section set up in the local drugstore three months ahead of time just in case you need to remind any segment of the population how insignificant you'd be without their presence on their special day. Pretty soon we'll be celebrating everything from the person who stocks the local gas station with energy drinks to the genius that came up with the life-altering decision to market t-shirts that don't have tags in the back. But I digress...

Yes, stores are guilty for pimping out what used to be simple celebrations of our fondness for certain people and our forays into the natural selection of romantic interests. But society's just as much at fault for allowing that to continue in exponential excess year after God-forsaken year. You shouldn't need to take out a small loan to purchase/deliver a greeting card, but because some jerk-off can't properly express gratitude to his wife/girlfriend/mistress 364 other days of the year, that's what it looks like the world has come to...and because that same wife/girlfriend/mistress won't shut up for weeks about how that dude totally topped himself this year, the bar gets raised and expectations skyrocket, and every commercial becomes a variation of "Every kiss begins with Kay (Jewelers)" whenever the mere notion of a gift-giving occasion arises. Whatever happened to "Love Will Keep Us Together" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G0sOA6hTg0) and "You're All I Need To Get By" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqbpZvtIQZ0)?

So before all y'all get crazy tryna outdo the next man (or woman), take a step back and think about how you can celebrate love on a daily basis instead of padding a corporation's dirty pockets with more of your hard-earned dollars and sense just because your sweet-ums should have that heart-shaped whatever as opposed to the regular-shaped whatever you can buy on any given day at any time. And if that's not enough, then learn how to come to terms with you not being enough for that person, and start thinking about maybe trying to come across as someone who is to someone else who thinks you are. Don't say I never gave you some sound advice.

MUSICAL BREAK!!

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It's hard for me to believe that I'm hitting the halfway point in "The Soundtrack of Your Life"  and I'm just now dropping my first Wilco track, yet here it is. And there are way better songs I'd mention if I were to undertake this same proposition in any other month (although there might be one or two more that make this month's cut), but contrary to the words I sometimes string together and the emotions that lace them up, "I'm Always In Love" (album: Summerteeth {link:http://www.amazon.com/Summerteeth-Wilco/dp/B00000I5JS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392415611&sr=8-1&keywords=wilco+summerteeth}; lyrics: http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/132770/) sums up a little of what's going on in the randomness of everyday situations and observations I have/encounter. I can't help it; I think a lot of things and sometimes I can fall in love with the idea of love itself before I've heard a person ruin it by talking (among many other reasons a person can wreck the initial attraction, and I'm sure I've done it myself a bunch of times).

When I was going through my Wilco discovery phase and buying up albums from before my origin point, I found certain simple aspects of this song to be somewhat inspiring...I managed to let its influence creep into my own writing at the time. No joke; last night I spent some time digging through old notebooks because one of my personal favorite lines (in anything I've ever written) is "I'm a silly boy in love with bein' in love"...and not only did I find it, but it's actually in an item buried in my WDC portfolio ("Sarcasm in its ugliest fine form" ). It's far from the greatest thing I've ever been lucky enough to compose/commit words and internet space to, and it's more about the state of the relationship I was in back then than anything else, but it's also not the worst idea or summation of love I've ever come to either. And unless you're some crazy, creepy, psycho-stalkerish individual, there's really no harm in subtle feelings kept internally when they're held for someone else and you can't/won't/don't do anything about them.

THE DAILY BOX SCORE:

Best thing about today? If you're already down with A Song A Day on Facebook ({link:https://www.facebook.com/asongadaycuzIcan }), then you know that legendary hip-hop group De La Soul is giving away their entire catalogue for free today in advance of their 25th year together. That's notable because due to their pioneering use of sampling techniques, you can't get a lot of their music on iTunes. This has me excited, because I finally get to own a non-cassette version of "Me, Myself And I" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJEzEDMqXQQ). Why wouldn't you want to own some groundbreaking stuff? http://gawker.com/de-la-soul-are-giving-away-all-their-albums-for-free-152282789...

Remember what I said at the beginning of this entry about those who have better hearts than me? Well, who had the EKG this afternoon that proves some of you might not? This guy. And that's about where the great news ends.

So yeah, I had an EKG at my doctor's appointment this afternoon, and the doc said it "looks perfect...as healthy as it can be"..."well, there's this little dip here but it's not important, so yeah, it looks great!" Only next month I have to go for pulmonary testing to determine "the age" of my lungs, which is common knowledge (to me, at least) that the numbers won't be favorable. And then they tried to draw blood, for some "preliminary" tests...after having been pricked in both arms, they couldn't come up with more than the drop that ended up on the bandage. But dammit, you can bet that if I grabbed a newspaper the wrong way I'd bleed for a painful eternity from a paper cut. On top of that, I'll need to see another orthopedic doc for x-rays on my once-busted, twice-operated on ankle to determine if that's the cause of problems I've been having with my back and hips when I stand or walk for more than 10 or 15 minutes. And he looked at me- eye contact, and that's not my strong suit- when he said "arthritis". As in, "Your soreness? It's very likely that it's arthritis." So he's pulling me out of work for a month...plenty of time to see the new ortho and visit my local hospital to get the blood work done. What does that all mean? In math terms, me = <. I'm thirty-fucking-eight years old...aren't I too young to be arthritic? I can say with every bit of certainty that I'm definitely not mature enough to be handling all of this right now. But hey, on the plus (no pun intended) side, I haven't gained nearly as much weight as I thought I did! Guess I'm just wearing it less favorably than I prefer to.

And I'm supposed to avoid salt, because the bottom number of my blood pressure is higher than normal. Not by much, but enough for the doctor to basically say (in not so many words) "Don't eat, because you're shlubby and there's salt in pretty much everything you eat, even though you haven't touched a salt shaker in half your life". Glad I chose a handful of stale pretzels to snack on last night to fight off hunger before going to sleep...which probably contributed to my stone-dry veins as well this afternoon (because the nurse taking my vitals and trying to get me to bleed into a needle got me to realize that I hadn't ingested much of anything in solid or liquid form today, save for a few sips of an energy drink that somehow froze in my fridge overnight before I left the house this afternoon and thinking I'd want to stop and eat after my appointment...yeah, I was in no mood for that).

So, balls on top of balls, if I may be so explicit when rendering what today's prompt has been to me while also attempting to reconcile within the unstellar day I've had so far. Don't send me a card and contribute to the world's gluttony while I ponder what my own has done for (and to) me. Enjoy your loveliness, lovelies. Peace, why I wonder, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!