Just a quick update to announce that
Deedee Divine's Totally Skewed Guide to Life is now on sale for 99 cents. Please check out this book if you like to read humor or need a good laugh.
The following is an excerpt from my humor book,
[i]Deedee Divine's Totally Skewed Guide to Life[/i]:
There's Nothing Romantic About February
Let's talk about love, shall we? I consider myself an expert on this topic because I can correctly pronounce agape (both the version that designates affection and the one that describes how my kids leave our doors). I try not to brag about this too much, though, so I won't get stuck writing an advice column where women ask why their dogs never seem to want to cuddle. Or maybe that was their husbands who didn't want to snuggle. No, wait. I think it was their husbands who wouldn't stop hugging their dogs.
It's high time someone started a campaign to reschedule Valentine's Day. This holiday needs to be moved to a warmer, or at least a more arousing, month. I mean, there's nothing enchanting about flaking skin, flannel sheets, and flu season—unless you have some really weird fetishes.
According to the few Valentine's Day authorities I consulted (Howstuffworks.com, my Chase's Calendar of Events book, and Mom), there is little consensus on what we're even celebrating—besides a couple saints who were beheaded on this day in history.
Some suggest this unofficial holiday originated with a pagan fertility celebration, Lupercalia. That certainly makes sense, though, for me, the word "fertility" has a way of putting an immediate damper on any desires to party. During the Roman feast of Lupercalia, women wrote love letters, like they do now to Dr. Phil, and cast them into a large urn. Hopeful men withdrew one note apiece from the "love lottery pottery," and then each participant affectionately pursued his letter's author for the remainder of the year. (Important note: Because of the expected brevity of these couplings, there was no such thing as divorce in this society, and no one's chariot was ever once vandalized.)
Eventually, in an act of rebellion, ladies decided they'd rather select their suitors than take their chances on being paired with a guy named Gladius Permanus, who was rumored to be perpetually in an amorous mood.
But as I previously mentioned, there are few historical facts upon which to base the origins of Valentine's Day. So I started wondering what other, perhaps less obvious, reasons there might be for why we celebrate this holiday in the dead of winter. Here are 10 possibilities that I came up with:
1. To attract male participation, Valentine's Day had to be scheduled after football season ended.
2. Candy salesmen needed something to offset all the dieting during the beginning of the year.
3. Fewer shopping days in February caused retailers to favor this month.
4. Religious leaders demanded the holiday occur before Lent so they wouldn't have to give up you-know-what.
5. The Irish had dibs on their own saint's day in March.
6. The IRS caused too many "performance issues" in April.
7. Weddings overcrowded June—when everyone was already paired off.
8. Greeting card companies didn't want to cannibalize their Easter, Mother's Day, and Father's Day card sales.
9. July was already "hot" enough.
10. Men complained that ladies required SOME incentive to shave their legs before spring!
Despite the compelling reasons I've cited for honoring Valentine's Day in February, I still think we should change this holiday to a more suitable time like, say, maybe May 1. Spring is the season for lovers. February is the month to acknowledge dead presidents and department store white sales.
Besides, during wintertime, it's going to require substantially more than a card and a box of candy to get me to shave my legs.
Dilber MC Theme by HarzeM
