(If you just want to read about the Fallout 3 Valentine’s Day Part Skip down to where it says “Love’N’Wasteland: Where Even The Love Never Dies – No Matter How Bad it Hurts.)

I had plans on writing about this on the day itself, but low and behold I got seriously sick at the end of Valentine’s Day and am still recovering so I’ve been neglecting a lot of tasks these past few days.

“My feeling on Valentine’s Day is: make the day your own. If you like hallmark cards, roses, and heart shaped candy, savor them to your hearts content. In contrast if you’re an anti commercialist and wish to boycott the day, be my guest. If it makes you happy and doesn’t disturb anyone else do it.

I do have a problem with this “have to celebrate Valentine’s Day one way” idea. I watched a couple of youtube new strips on a few morning shows. One had Regis and Kelly and Regis was reading off all the things men should and should not do on Valentine’s Day. One was “women don’t want stripper lingerie they want comfortable lingerie.” Kelly responded “of course I don’t want stripper lingerie.” I translated that to “Of course I’m not cheap.” That’s great Kelly, but please don’t try to speak for all women. Personally I’d love to have stripper lingerie, I think it’s hot. Also, what’s so bad about strippers anyway? I have a few stripper friends and I think they’re fantastic and anything but cheap.

While I was watching the clip I was thinking to myself A) I’m so glad I no longer have TV and B) I wish I could put a crown on Kelly as she seems to fancy herself a queen and Valentine’s Day is all for her.

The Mass perception of Valentine’s Day is that it’s a day for women; furthermore it’s a day for happily in love couples. ß I also disagree with is.

Now, I’m a feminist and I’m all for the enrichment of women, making women proud and feel good, but I also think that part of feminism is within the balance of the sexes and not in the disproportion of the favors we give – and Valentine’s Day is no exception.

Valentine’s Day is a day for women and happily in love couple if you let it be, but it DOES NOT HAVE TO BE THAT WAY.

I’ve been lucky to have someone in my life on Valentine’s Day for the past several years and it’s been great, but I’ve also been seriously single for 21 Valentine’s Days and still it’s my favorite Holiday. I mentioned in an earlier blog that Valentine’s Day has always been a family celebration extravaganza. This year was once again celebrated with friends and family, but I continued on with the tradition that my dad started and gave a surprise to my husband.

When I was young a neighbor of mine came up to me and said, “Good luck finding a guy who will create Valentine Surprises like your dad.” I was seriously offended! I didn’t want anyone to create surprises for me I wasn’t to be the one with the surprise up my sleeve. And who said it had to be a man anyway – well, alright in case I did end up marring a man, but I am the one with the Valentine’s Day Surprise.

Love’N’Wasteland: Where Even the Love Never Dies – No Matter How Bad it Hurts

This is the Valentine’s Day Surprise. I had gotten my husband the video game Fallout 3 for Christmas I have actually never played it myself, but as I work on my drawing table I’ve observed my husband, Chris, play the game. I love the artwork and the music in the game and I’m actually quite smitten with it. It seems very strange for me to like as I’m terribly into frou frou artsy things, but I love fantasy and futuristic fantasy. What if the would really were to end as we now know it and we lived in a wasteland. Would love still thrive? After all the hardships of survival and battles would people start to rekindle with their feeling of love again? More than anywhere wasteland is probably the place where love is needed most. I thought it was quite metaphorical in today’s hard time and as a little message for my husband – even in hard times the love is still strong. “I don’t want to set the world on fire – I just want set a fire in your heart.” Those are the lyrics to one of my favorite songs in Fallout 3. I had Chris close his eye before he saw the set and told him to open them when he heard the song. I think there were actually tears in his eyes.

That’s a fake hand on the floor. I usually use it as a drawing model.

Ghouls need love too!

See, Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to be all flowery with pink hearts, it can even be a morbid as having body(fake) parts. Most importantly, I think that unless you are really out of ideas you should ignor the TV and ads about what traditionally Valentine’s Day is supose to mean and what you are supose to do with it and find something about whoever you love and suprise them and let them know that your really interested in what what makes them tic. I think that’s more important than hallmark cards – I didn’t purchase any of those this year.

Love,

~ Jenny

PS: “Fallout Boy with Heart and Pre-Revolutionary Love Gun” is 3 feet tall painted in Acrylic and cut out on foamcore.

ppS: Chris did have a Valentine’s Day Surprise for me as well. He took me out to see Teatro ZinZanni “License to Kiss: in San Francisco. Below are a few photos.

Oh yeah, and who said you can only wear red and pink on Valentine’s Day. I could sense that blue was feeling leftout so I wore that.

Face painting at ZinZanni.

Thank you, Chris! XOX

Oh yeah, and the rest of my family were of course there, too.