This book was such an odd/surprising reading experience:

(image from Target.com)

I started reading, and almost immediately was like oh, yeah, no: this is one of those PAY ATTENTION TO ME PAY ATTENTION TO ME PAY ATTENTION TO MEEEEEEEE books where the author says gross things and bizarre things, and talks about her body and how horny she is, because she’s learned that those are good ways to get a lot of attention, and actually I think she’s had enough already.

By the end of the book, I was completely enchanted. She is a darling and a sweetheart, a brilliant and sensitive person, and no man is good enough for her. I felt like those memes where someone posts a picture of a cute little animal and writes “I WOULD DIE FOR THEM.” I went from “Whoo, good thing I got this from the library instead of buying it, because I don’t think I’m going to make it through the second essay” to PUTTING THE HARDCOVER IN MY ONLINE CART.

You know how some of us get all choked up at terrible school band/chorus concerts because of how PURE AND EARNEST the whole thing is and how so many people have worked so hard to make this happen? And how some of us almost can’t bear the sweetness of society deciding to go to considerable expense and effort to make playgrounds—with grown adults even specializing in playground equipment and playground design and so forth? That is how the author sees things, too. Her use of the word “little”; her references to treats; the way she felt about other passengers on the plane; the way she talks about her house; how charmed she was by other people putting effort into a little surprise for her; the way she felt about a question the landscaper asked her.

Anyway. I still recommend getting it from the library to begin with, because for all my change of heart, there is still a hearty measure of my first impression. But by the end, I was seeing it as The Artistic Temperament, and finding it a very valuable temperament indeed when combined with the intelligence and self-awareness she shows throughout.

I have sent the last of the Galentine’s Day care packages, and it seems perfect that it is one month exactly after Galentine’s Day. I am trying to be happy than it happened rather than sad that it’s over, but last night while making dinner I was talking to Paul about how I could just keep sending packages forever. It was just very, very fun.

I’ve seen other people mentioning that their faces have noticeably aged this past year, and it was a relief to know I was in good company. This morning I peered at my face in the mirror: was the skin EVEN MORE delicate/fragile/crinkly-looking today than yesterday?? I did one of the face masks (remember when that meant a beauty treatment? that is how I mean it here) that build up in the medicine cabinet because it never seems like enough of a special occasion to use them, and it was a fun peeling gold-glittery one, and I would say it made a 0% difference but it was pretty fun to hope for 20 minutes there while it dried. Peeling it was also fun, and made me want to put Elmer’s glue on my hands.

I keep writing this paragraph and deleting it, because it keeps sounding so stupid to me, but what has happened is that I have several favorite walking routes that all include a certain stretch of road, and I’ve had to stop doing those routes because of some guy who keeps talking to me. He seems friendly/harmless, heading for Lonely Chatty Older Man territory, but I should never have taken off my headphones the first time he said something, because now he wants to chat for an extended period every time we cross paths, which is pretty much any day I use that part of the road, even if I go at a different time. It’s a little extra difficult because he has a dog with him who wants to say hi, too, and he will let the dog off its leash to come run to greet me, and then he follows. I see him talking to lots of other people, women and men also, so I get more lonely vibes from him than creeper vibes—but I am not even talking to my FRIENDS in person right now, so I don’t want to talk to a relative stranger. But I feel upset about losing the walking routes, and upset that somehow even by my age I couldn’t/didn’t stop this from happening. I get stuck ALL THE TIME talking to strangers/acquaintances because I can’t seem to say “Welp, gotta go, see ya, have a good day!” and walk away, and I feel like the visibly aging skin goes with someone who should be able to do that. But also: today I DID say “Well, see you later, have a good day!” and walked away, and he walked with me, so now I am more angry at him than angry at myself, but I’m still losing the walking routes because I don’t really have anything between the level of what I did today and the yelling/pepper-spray level.

I was not entirely honest with you yesterday and it is niggling at me. I think it would have been fine if it were merely a case of being dishonest by omission, but, if you remember, I mentioned that the spring/Easter plates had matching mugs, and then I said “I DO NOT NEED MORE MUGS.” While that statement is true (I DO NOT need more mugs), and while it’s true I did not buy THOSE mugs, I think those words misleadingly implied that I righteously avoided buying ANY more mugs. Which is not quite the case.

(image from Target.com)

Cup of Happy mug. This is a mug I’ve included in some of the Galentine’s Day care packages. I love the color especially, but I also like the frank equating of imbibable substances with emotional well-being. And I like the little swirlies, and how the words/swirlies are carved out of the glaze. I was resisting buying it for myself—but then suddenly it became unavailable for shipping, and I am apparently unable to resist the siren song of unavailable merchandise. I had to go-actually-inside Target yesterday to pick up a prescription, and the mug section is right across from the pharmacy, so I thought I would just CHECK to see if MAYBE they had the mug on the shelf—AND THEY DID.

They ALSO had ANOTHER mug that I’ve been pining for, which has been unavailable for shipping as long as I’ve been looking at it, so I bought that too:

(image from Target.com)

Stunner mug. I don’t know why I like it so much; I’m not particularly fond of peacocks, or of the proportions of the mug/handle, or of that font they chose. But something about the choice of the word “stunner” is so appealing. I like the way it applies to the peacock and to its stance, but also to the person drinking from the mug. And with time, I’ve come to appreciate the little HITCH of the font from the T to the U, and how that adds to the whole effect.

I dreamed last night that I bought a truly enormous boat, like a multi-level boat with numerous rooms/cabins, and I invited extended family to join me on a delightful boat vacation, without realizing until we arrived at the boat that (1) I did not know how to drive a boat, nor did I know the correct verb for driving a boat; (2) I had not taken into account various Important Boat Issues such as How To Get the Boat to/into the Water; (3) I had not taken into account various boat-related expenses such as storage, docking, supplies, fuel, crew; (4) I had not realized I would need to NAME the boat, and apparently the naming had to be done Right Now before we could put the boat into/onto the water. (I named it “The Cautious Optimist” and then fretted that I should have chosen something else.)

I was so, so relieved to wake up without a boat. Even now, hours later, I keep having an anxious unhappy feeling and wondering what it is, and then realizing I’m worrying about the boat situation.

My Target account is still locked. I called again this morning, because the person I talked to on Sunday said it would be a couple days, and I didn’t want to find out I’d ended up locked much longer than necessary by not calling back. I pretended I was a person who “just picks up the phone” and I called after I had the impulse but before I could change my mind. The person I talked to read the notes on the situation, and then said she would leave a message on the desk of the person who is supposed to be handling this, letting her know I’d called. She said it CAN take up to seven business days to fix something like this, so I shouldn’t worry yet. Well clearly I AM going to worry, considering I am still a little worried about a boat I bought in a dream, but it’s still nice to be told there’s no need. (No need “YET.”)

Still nothing from Target on my locked account. It’s fine. It’s fine! They locked it on a Sunday; nothing is going to get fixed on a Sunday. Then Monday was a federal holiday. So we won’t worry. Even though some of the things I was including with care packages are now on clearance and will probably sell out before I can order again. It’s fine! We won’t think about it!

I HAVE heard from Target on other topics:

This is the first batch of care packages! Or rather, this is a bunch of individually-wrapped items from the first batch of care packages: notice how many of those emails say that “Your item” (singular) is out for delivery today. If you receive a box with, like, one or two items in it, that is not your entire care package, it is one of what will apparently be quite a few installments of your care package! If you chose for someone else to receive the package, you may want to let them know that this is the way it’s going down.

Oh! Speaking of which: IF AN ITEM ARRIVES BROKEN OR BADLY DAMAGED, do let me know. I can see how that would be an awkward thing to decide what to do about, so I am telling you ahead of time: DO LET ME KNOW. I can think of few things as disheartening as having a cruddy Valentine’s Day, and looking forward to a comforting care package, and then having the care package arrive and things inside are broken/ruined/unusable. We have had situations such as a jar of pesto leaked, a bag of chips exploded, a mug broken, a bag of rice exploded, a bag of GROUND COFFEE EXPLODED AND COATING EVERY BLESSED THING. These things happen, and Target is good about sending replacement items. You may have to wipe and sweep coffee grounds off everything, but at least you will get a new bag of coffee.

If you didn’t catch what happened with the Belated Galentine’s Day Care Package thing, what happened was I got a message from commenter Jen, saying that she wasn’t into Valentine’s Day at all but that everyone needed a little sunshine in their lives, so could she sponsor a second package for the giveaway so there could be TWO winners. And I thought that was an extremely fun idea, and I added it to the post and mentioned it on Twitter.

AND IT SNOWBALLED. I spent the rest of the evening adding additional sponsors and updating the post and Twitter, and then I got up this morning and there are MORE. I haven’t even gone through my email yet so I don’t know exactly how many, but before I handle that, I wanted to update everyone on the situation in case anyone else wanted to participate and would have been sad to have missed it. IF YOU WANT TO SPONSOR A BELATED GALENTINE’S DAY PACKAGE, I’m planning on $25-35 per package (that’s the minimum for things to ship from Target). You can sponsor an entire package, or you can put something TOWARD a package and I can combine them. (PayPal: swistle at gmail dot com.)

I could hardly sleep last night, this is so fun.

UPDATE: Okay, cutting it off now! We got enough for THIRTY care packages!! Winners have been chosen!

BY THE WAY! The PayPal payments don’t come with the sender’s email address! And so that is why you may not have gotten an email from me saying THANK YOU SO MUCH, but I sent those words to you WITH MY HEART.

Clearly I should have had this idea sooner but I JUST DIDN’T, and I think this is a situation where it’s better late than never: if you have a crummy Valentine’s Day, you can at least be LOOKING FORWARD to something arriving soon (or, since I’m going to use Target, like eight separately-boxed somethings).

I don’t want to oversell this. When I write the care package posts, I list EVERYTHING I might CHOOSE FROM, and I think it gives the idea that I would send ALL those things! To manage your expectations (TM Texxie’s…former?…manager?…I think?), I would be planning to spend $25-35 of the Blog Ads Fund, and you know how easy that is to spend at Target. And it probably won’t be very hearts/valentines-y, since almost everything of that sort isn’t available for shipping, and I’m going to ship directly.

Well, I don’t want to UNDERsell it, either! I am going to have fun choosing things, and I don’t know yet what I’ll choose but probably one or two of the sorts of things I buy impulsively, along with a few of the things I’ve listed as care package ideas in the past (I will ask the winner about food allergies, scent sensitivities, etc.). Probably some soap and/or cleaning supplies because that’s apparently my love language now. I’ll go through my old Target orders and find things I ordered for myself and liked. Maybe a book! Maybe I’ll buy us matching note cards, or matching mugs! Maybe you are doing the keto diet too, so I will send you all keto treats, or maybe you are absolutely not doing the keto diet so I will send you all the things I eat on my days off! WHO KNOWS!

The entry rules are NOT THE TYPICAL, so pay attention. This is open to U.S. mailing addresses only, AND it has to be:

• people who are not going to have a good Valentine’s Day, for whatever reason. Telling the reason won’t improve your chances in MY drawing (THOUGH SEE NEXT BULLET POINT), but it makes for a good and interesting comments section full of commiseration and empathy [edited to add: there are some comments about feeling selfish to enter oneself when there is another option—please PERISH THE THOUGHT, this is the PRIMARY option, this is supposed to be a giveaway FOR YOU; the other option is so that people who are going to have a good Valentine’s Day, through no fault of their own, still get to enter if they want to!]

OR

• people who are going to have a perfectly nice Valentine’s Day, but want to win the package on someone else’s behalf. THIS CAN INCLUDE OTHER COMMENTERS. So for example, let’s say you are going to spend Valentine’s Day exactly how you like to (happily celebrating or ignoring), but you have a friend or family member you want me to send the package to instead, I can do that; OR if you want to win so that YOU can choose a commenter from the comments section for me to send it to, you can enter. You don’t have to choose ahead of time! You can enter, and then choose a friend/commenter AFTER you win!

Because I thought of this so late, we’re going to do this fast, and I will do the drawing tomorrow (Friday) morning sometime.

UPDATE: Commenter Jen has offered to sponsor an additional $25 Swistle-chosen Belated Galentine’s Day care package, so there will now be TWO winners!

UPDATE: Another commenter has offered to sponsor two additional $25 Swistle-chosen Belated Galentine’s Day care packages, so there will now be FOUR winners!

UPDATE: Another commenter has offered to sponsor another package, so there will now be FIVE winners!

UPDATE: Commenter Maggie has offered to sponsor another one, so now there will be SIX winners!

UPDATE: Another commenter!! SEVEN WINNERS!!

UPDATE: Kathleenicanrah has offered to sponsor another, so now there will be EIGHT winners!!

UPDATE: Commenter Julia is sponsoring two more packages, so now there will be TEN winners!!

UPDATE: Commenter Kristen is sponsoring another package, so now there will be ELEVEN winners!!

UPDATE: Another commenter sponsored A DOZEN packages, so now there will be TWENTY-THREE winners!!

UPDATE: Commenter Susan sponsored another package, so now there will be TWENTY-FOUR winners!!

UPDATE: Commenter Suzanne sponsored another package, so now we are at TWENTY-FIVE!!

UPDATE: Commenter Alyson makes number TWENTY-SIX!!

UPDATE: Another! TWENTY-SEVEN!!

UPDATE: THIRTY!!

FINAL update! Okay! It took me a little longer to choose winners than expected, BECAUSE THERE WERE SO MANY! I am going to put the list here, but keep in mind there are SEVERAL SETS OF DUPLICATE NAMES! So there is still potential for people to see what they first think is their own name, then realize isn’t. I was going to put the time/date of each comment so people could look to see if the name was theirs or not, but urrrrrrrrggggg. But I have EMAILED everyone on this list, EXCEPT FOR the people who specifically mentioned other commenters, in which case I emailed the-commenter-they-mentioned instead. So for example, I am emailing Bsharp on the list below, to get the info about her friend Laura; but since Simone mentioned giving her entry to Marcy, I am emailing Marcy and not Simone. I have a rather exhaustive spreadsheet, so I think I will find out fairly soon if I have messed any of this up, but it was a bit of a muddley process of counting comments and looking back and forth between comments section and spreadsheet, so please do let me know if you see something amiss! (There ARE supposed to be two Marys and two Sarahs and two Kathleens on the list!)

Bsharp, for her friend Laura
Simone, for commenter Marcy
Carolyn, for her friend Suz
Mary
Michelle
Nicole MacPherson, for commenter Melanie
Kat, who will choose someone
Heather
Sara L
Kerri
Another Sue
Bld424
Rose, for her friend Natalie
Linda
Kathleen
Rebecca C
Bitts, for commenter Lisa Ann
Vanessa
Melody
Sylvia
Naomi
Marion
Sarah
Kathy Potvin, for her daughter
Brittany, for commenter Kathleen
Anna, for a friend
Karen, for a friend
Mary
Sarah
Amanda

IT TURNS OUT THAT WAS NOT THE FINAL UPDATE, NOT BY A LONG SHOT. Here are the NEXT fourteen winners, and there will likely be more, but fourteen for now so I don’t get ahead of myself:

Christa Lamb, for her friend Suzy
Samantha
Melissa T
Chrissy, for her friend L
Jennifer in Canada, will choose a commenter
RubyTheBee
Stephanie, for her friend Jen
Alyce, for her mom
Clara
Beth (Feb 12 6:33p)
Anni
Kalendi, for a friend
Erin, for her mama
Bree

Okay NOW it is REALLY the final update! After sending to all the above, I tallied up how much had been spent so far, compared it to the amount of money that had been donated, and found I had $70.04 left over, which is PRETTY TIDY at $35ish per package. Then I scanned through my list of sent packages one more time to be sure, and found I had MISSED SOMEONE, which is like my bad dream, but at least I DID notice it, and maybe that is the only one, so that meant I only needed to choose ONE more winner rather than two. But also I still needed to do my ORIGINAL package that I was going to spend blog-ad money on, so that brought us back to two. And then I found one more donation I’d missed, so yet again we are accessing my stress dreams, but I had put it somewhere I WOULD remember it, and I DID find it, so that’s okay, and it brings us up to three. So here are the final three winners, and I love that all of them are sending to their sisters:

GG, for her sister
Elizabeth, for her sister
D in Texas, for her sister

Four things I impulsively added to a Target pick-up order:

(image from Target.com)

HighKey mini cookies. I should have noticed that even on the nice 20% off sale, this was still a TINY two-ounce bag of low-carb cookies for $3.20 (FOUR DOLLARS usually). I had pictured Famous-Amos-sized mini-cookies, but these are even teensier. And the serving is seven cookies, but seriously you could put all seven in your mouth at once, no problem. But they WERE rather tasty. I nibbled them delicately, like fancy little expensive mouse tea party cookies I will never buy again.

(image from Target.com)

Starbucks Spring Day Blend coffee. Isn’t that a pretty bag? And doesn’t it give you a tiny whiff of hope to see SPRING-themed things even though we know it is only February? Target was having their sale where the $7.99 bags of Starbucks are $5.99 each if you buy three or more, so I bought two of my usual kinds and added this impulsively as the third. Their special blends (Thanksgiving! Christmas!) always just taste like regular coffee to me, but I enjoy seeing the bag, and it isn’t as if it’s more expensive.

(image from Target.com)

Swiss Miss Lucky Charms hot chocolate. I am so…I was going to say “charmed by this.” I don’t drink hot chocolate very often, and I don’t have any special fondness for Lucky Charms marshmallows, but it’s just so CUTE. Each serving is two attached packs: one of hot cocoa mix, and a separate one of the special marshmallows. And I knew I could try one serving of it just for fun, and the kids would consume the rest.

(image from Target.com)

Peeps cereal. I can’t explain myself. Well, I can try: I recently bought Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pie cereal on impulse because I found its existence funny. And I have eaten a little bowl of it on each of my most recent Keto Days Off, and I have enjoyed it and have not regretted the purchase. So when I saw ANOTHER funny cereal, I bought it. It says it is “marshmallow-flavored cereal, with marshmallows.” HOW can that be good. I cannot WAIT for my next Day Off so I can try it!!

Apparently there is no way to avoid Valentine’s Day Angst every year, just as there is apparently no way to adequately aforehandle Mother’s Day. I thought Paul and I had finally settled into our solution: I no longer expect anything from him; I buy my own heart-shaped box of chocolates; and we go out to dinner (on a nearby day, to avoid the crowds) and get cocktails AND we split the fun overpriced dessert sampler. I bought heart-shaped plates (last year Target had red ones, this year they have pink ones) to put the kids’ dinner on, and I give each kid a giant Hershey Kiss. I have a cute heart mug to drink my coffee/tea out of. In recent years I’ve had a Galentine’s Day party with my local girlfriends. Some years I send valentines in the mail.

I’ve tried to make the Valentine’s Day holiday be about all kinds of love, and about the cheeriness of pink/red/hearts/candy in the middle of winter, and not about how disappointing heterosexual men can be, and what very low bars so many of them fail to cross. (I have NEVER had a relationship with a guy who could handle what I consider the absolute straightforward simplicity of Valentine’s Day. I am not a TRICKY woman with a series of SECRET PUZZLES that need to be solved or else the man FAILS. I like all The Usual Things. I like a heart-shaped box of chocolates, especially if it is extra pretty ((ribbon, flower)). I like flowers from the grocery store. I like doughnuts and pastries and other bakery things. I like wine, I like jewelry, and neither of them have to be expensive for me to like them. I like meals out or in. I am willing to say all these things I like, rather than making the poor man wrack his own brain to think of something himself, and I am perfectly happy to get the same thing every year, no creativity required; I am ALSO perfectly happy if the guy LIKES to come up with his own ideas! So why is all this apparently TOO TOO DIFFICULT?? GAH. Anyway, apparently it WAS too difficult, so I GAVE UP and released BOTH OF US from the entire annual issue so that we would NEVER HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT AGAIN.)

Anyway, yesterday, one week before Valentine’s Day, Paul heaved a huge sad sigh and said he just didn’t know what to DO about Valentine’s Day. I said I thought we’d already released ourselves this entire thing and no longer had to go through this each year; I reminded him that our plan this year was to get Valentine’s Day take-out and eat it in front of the children, who could make their own sandwiches. He sighed again and said that just didn’t seem like enough. Then he listed all the things that he sadly just could not get for me, either because of pandemic or because he put it off too long or because I already bought my own chocolate or because he didn’t think I’d like the earrings he’d pick out. So here is another thing I realized I needed to add to my Making Valentine’s Day Work For Me list: I am not comforting men about it anymore.

(cc’d to baby name blog)

One of you mentioned the other day that you wished you could “like” someone’s comment, and I thought yes, that would be so fun, too bad it isn’t an option. Then someone else said it, and I thought, well, maybe I should just make sure that wasn’t a possibility, and I poked around behind the scenes in the commenting options area but there was no option for “likes”—too bad. Then someone said it VERY VEHEMENTLY and I thought “OKAY FINE I WILL CHECK FOR SURE” and I searched online and…found something. And I THINK, I THINK I have enabled “likes” on comments.

However. Beta testing by a helpful friend indicates you may need to be logged into WordPress in order to like a comment. Do any of you happen to know any way around that, and/or are you good at researching such things? (It took my maximum tech research effort to get as far as I have.) I don’t want it to be a feature available for WordPress Members Only, and may remove the “like” option if that’s the only way it can be.

(A note: I hope it is intuitively clear that I can never, ever, ever hit “like” on ANYONE’S comment, or else I will need to hit “like” on EVERY SINGLE comment, and one of those strategies is less work and less likely to go amiss than the other, so that is the one I will be doing. It will be UNDERSTOOD that Swistle automatically MENTALLY hits “like” on every comment.)

Follow-up: It looks like the comment-likes system is a WordPress Members Only club, so I am turning it back off.