i attribute my distaste for valentine's day to growing up in a jewish day school where we were never allowed to celebrate the not-so-jewish holiday.

"we love our students all year round!" read the inevitable note home to our parents every year on february 13th. "so we please ask that you encourage your children to not celebrate the saint's holiday in school."

but when i got to middle school, saints became fair game. so did non-jewish boys. but my distaste for the holiday never waned.

really, most likely because i hate the color pink.

however, a little research reveals that, in actually, st. valentine's day as a lovers' festival actually has no relation to the saints but rather the customs have been handed down from the roman festival of the lupercalia. a festival where the names of young women's names were put into a box and drawn out by men. in reality, this is the origin of 'valentines' -- cards linking men and women together for sexual purposes.

i could have sworn that part of ice-breakers during orientation freshman year of college.

by the way, the roman catholic church officially cancelled valentines day in 1969 when they realized it had gone from a festival of love to an orgy of consumerism.

festival of love to what? i stopped reading at "orgy."

at this point, it would be natural to continue on about the hallmark-ization of the holiday or the superfluous celebration of an emotion that should, in theory, be celebrated all year round. pending, of course, who you are.

rather, i see it as an excellent opportunity for self-loathing. but i'll probably go on as directed above.

whether we're single, dating, married, or divorced, the dreaded february 14 arrives each year to ambush our self-esteem. no other days convinces otherwise happy people that they're in fact social pariahs.

if you ask me, our culture's obsession with love and coupling could be better utilized with a little focus on happiness. and energy drinks. which, in a new study conducted by ten kids at a wedding held at the same hotel as the monster-energy-drink-national-convention, has actually been proven to be the purest source of happiness.

yet perhaps the most profound thing to happen to valentine's day since it was officially cancelled in 1969 (insert 69 joke here if not already conceived) happened when eve ensler re-envisioned february 14 for every twenty-something kid with the vagina monologues (which you should never see with an ex-significant other and/or hook-up sitting a few rows in front of or behind you).

the vagina monologues is feminist, funny, sexy, and grave. it has been called "the stories of triumph over a woman-hating culture."

i think it's a triumph for those of us who do not shy away from intimacy and sexual provocation.

so in honor of the three separate gentlemen who asked me out on a valentine's date today while i was getting lunch at cosi and in tribute to this blog being a forum for education in addition to self-deprecation, i present my all time favorite vagina monologue fact:

the clitoris is pure in purpose.

it is the only organ in the body designed purely for pleasure.

the clitoris is simply a bundle of nerves: 8,000 nerve fibers, to be precise. that's a higher concentration of nerve fibers than is found anywhere else in the body, including the fingertips, lips, and tongue, and it is twice ... twice ... twice the number in the penis.

who needs a handgun when you've got a semiautomatic?

well then, happy v-day to me.