Tuesday morning. I hope everyone had a nice weekend. If you had President’s Day off, I hope you enjoyed that too. I didn’t have Monday off. I celebrated by participating in the capitalist system that our wise forefathers designed for us. Lincoln didn’t free me.

Speaking of holidays I failed to celebrate, Valentine’s Day was also over the weekend. That special time of year that reminds all single people just how alone they are and points out just how unnatural it is to not be a part of a couple. What do you mean you don’t have someone? Everybody needs somebody to love! Hell, in San Francisco, we’ll even let gay couples get married, this weekend only! Isn’t it romantic? Yea, love! Hope you didn’t want a restaurant reservation.

So Alicia invited me down to her place for the weekend to “get drunk and curse all couples”. Which we did. Get drunk, I mean. I don’t recall cursing any couples, with the exception of that one at Applebees that wore matching red outfits on Saturday. Eiyech.

We had a good time. We played guitar. We even played along to CD’s, which isn’t that easy. She’s learning fast. We played poker. We went shopping on Saturday, including completely geeking*-out over office supplies at Staples. I bought a set of dry-erase markers that click and retract like ball-point pens. She bought an “Employees Must Wash Hands” sign for her apartment’s bathroom. Then we went to Target and I bought a cribbage set and she bought a lot more for her apartment.

While at lunch, we decided that we should mix up the drinking by buying some liquor to make cocktails. Inspired by the drink and dessert menus at Applebees, we decided to get the ingredients for White Russians. We even bought cream liquor so that they could be all alcoholic. We learned to play cribbage while sipping White Russians on Valentines Day night as a fire burned in the fireplace. It would have been romantic, had we been spending it with sweethearts instead an orientationally-incompatible platonic friend.

To emphasize how romantically-challenged I am, I learned that I have a physical aversion to certain scented candles. The last time I was at Alicia’s, I had to leave early in the morning because I couldn’t breathe. At the time, I had chalked it up to the accumulated effects of Izzy the cat (I’m allergic to cats) and a weekend of hanging out with smokers. It seemed strange, because it came on quickly, and I hadn’t had much of a problem until then, even after playing with Izzy. I was on Claritin. I had been fine until I lay on the couch to try and sleep.

This weekend, again fine, until I sat on the couch. With a candle burning right beside me. It was strongly scented, some off-brand from Target. After about an hour, I started to have trouble breathing again. This time, as I struggled for each breath, that scent was very noticeable. I blew out the candle and we opened the windows. As a bubble of fresh air replaced the scented air on that side of the room, I returned to normal. When I walked to the bathroom, I could “feel” in my lungs the stale scented air. I asked Alicia if the candles had been there the previous time. She said that they probably had been. So yeah, I believe it was the candle. I have scented candles myself, from Pier One, and they’re not a problem. I guess I need to investigate what is different about those ones from Target.

Here’s hoping that next year I have an actual girlfriend to spend Valentine’s Day with. Ladies, if you’re looking for a geeky guy who drinks and gambles, and can’t breathe around scented candles, here I am! Line forms to the left…

*The geekness was confirmed when I took the pens into the office on Monday and everyone in my IT department marveled at them. They retract! And there’s a little mechanism inside that encloses the tip so they don’t dry out! So they’re twice as expensive as the regular kind… there’s a coolness factor! Heh. They’re all jealous. Ahem, I mean, jeez, what nerds!