Happy Valentine's Day

Today is Valentine's Day formally, although I consider every day my day. You could celebrate in the usual manners (chocolates, wine, romantic music), or you could celebrate by imaging groveling at my feet as you suck on my toes. I laugh and spit unto my feet for you. That would be a fitting way to celebrate.

Winter

It’s winter again in the city. Of course, it has been for some time. Some of you darling slaves of mine know my unusual proclivity towards the city in winter. There hasn’t been enough snow for me yet this year, though, but when there is, I love the way the cold and snow envelop the streets.

I’m a native Midwesterner and I’ve traveled to many parts of the world. I’ve found that there is a strange quality toward Midwesterners and our winters that is only paralleled by others in climates that are unpredictable in the winter. We see it coming in the fall. We bundle up. We put on our gloves and our thick coats and hug our shoulders to our ears. We bear it. And in the spring, we have a smug sense of accomplishment. I think that’s what it is I love about winter as well. A sense of toughness, of getting through it. We have withstood yet again.

There is a strange, chaotic kind of beauty about a city in winter. It is a beauty that few appreciate. Savagery. There is grace in harshness.