So it's Valentine's Day today and I decided to walk around my office to see who got flowers. I'm glad I'm working in a small office in a burb of San Francisco, where everybody is laid back and not so status conscious. When I worked in downtown SF in a bigger very corporate office, there was this pressure to get flowers on Valentine's Day and if you didn't get them, people noticed. Most of the time, I think people sent flowers to themselves but bragged that their boyfriends/significant freaks or hubmeisters sent it to them. The receptionist area on Valentine's Day was the place to hang out to see who was getting delivered roses, flowers, balloons, stripograms, etc.

I didn't walk through the whole office, but I did see one bouqet. I'll have to walk through the rest of the office later to check for more flowers. Most of these women who I work with are married with little kids, so I'm wondering if they're going to get flowers here at the office or later from their hubbies and kids.

Valentine's Day at the office has always been traumarama experiences for me. I'm like one of those pathetic people who have never gotten flowers at the office. My boyfriends have always been the "I Hate Valentine's Day" types who wouldn't be caught dead succumbing to the crass commercialism and pressure of the day or at least letting other people know except me that they did. I would get dinner and flowers but never at the office. One year, I think it was 1996, I actually thought I might get flowers but I got nothing and I was so pissed. When I confronted the guy later that afternoon on the phone, he said "You know I'm not into commercial holidays". After that, I threw a shit fit and hung up on him. I think I wouldn't have been so hurt if one of my "office friends" didn't keep asking me all day if my boyfriend was going to send me flowers. Why I thought this freak of nature was going to send me flowers is still a mystery to me to this day. He so wasn't the type and I knew it, but I think I got caught up in the pressures of the day.

The Valentine's Day incident was just one of his many indiscretions, so I dumped him a few months later. Actually I first dumped him in November when I found out he was sleeping with other women, but we got back together with him around New Year's eve, so I was dumping him for the second time. You know years later, this same guy is still calling me wanting to get together. He calls me like three of four times a year to see how I'm doing and always suggests getting together. I even went to dinner with him once because I ran into him at Union Square and he offered to buy me dinner. He's a nice guy and everything but I was never into him back then and I'm not into him now. I'll have to write more about this guy later because he's a piece of work. I think I'm the only woman who's never bought into his act so my resistance is fascinating to him and he just can't give me up.

The first time called me back in 1998 two years after we broke up, I asked him, why are you calling me? And he said "because I think about you all the time." This was funny to me so I told him "You know, that's funny because I haven't thought about you at all". There was like this dead silence on the phone for about five minutes, but he soon recovered. Poor guy! I would actually feel more sorry for him if he wasn' such a jerk, but he is, so I don't.

I'm still having fantasies about the Beautiful Boy from my screenwriting class. I've never been so sexually attracted to someone I've never spoken to before. It's got to be karma or a past life thing or it's my damned hormones. But it is fun. Is that what Steve meant when he broke up with me because there wasn't this spark between us? There was a spark, but it was very small and I was so afraid of it back then. Compared to my crush on Steve, this attraction is like a blazing bonfire and I'm being burned in a totally silly way. I have never met a man in my life that was so jumpable. Well, there was Paul. But I worked with him and got to know him so he became even more jumpable. But this guy, I don't even know this guy and I'm thinking I just want to jump him and jump him now. It's hormones, it's got to be hormones, like ovulation or something. But you know, it might be kind of fun to date I guy I wanted to jump constantly from the get go, instead of someone I had to get to know to jump. Is there a difference? And I know the sex will be good and I'm never wrong about that aspect.

But all this mental stimulation is bad because I know the next time I see him, which won't be till February 25, I'll just freak out and not talk to him. I feel like I'm reliving being a 13 year old and I hate it, because that age was so depressing for me. And after all these years, it's not getting any better.