Virginia may be for lovers, but Valentine's Day is for sulking into a giant box of supermarket chocolate

Praise Jesus and pass the toffee ripple, Valentine's Day in Scotland is not the 48-hour guilt- and glut-fest that it is in the States. If I'd wanted to, I could have completely avoided Cupid's trappings in the run-up to modern society's most loaded holiday and, for once in my life, been spared Hallmark's annual victory in the battle against human decency and true emotion. But--who am I kidding? I love feeling bad about things! And, after all, it's all about the love.

I suppose this year I technically have less ground on which to complain, since I'm with someone emotionally, if not physically. And I'm very happy.

Where my Beauty and the Beast fans at? It's like the West Wing up in here.

But if ever a holiday was devoted to the physical, the tangible, the purchasable, it's Valentine's Day, and so playing off the less than fully satisfying aspect of an essentially spiritual connection did not appeal. I'll save that consummate martyr attitude for Easter, thank you.

So, reasons for continued sulking addressed, on to the dripping red heart of the matter: the flatmate and I had ourselves an anti-VD celebration (always a good idea) last night, and holy cow, please remind me to never, ever eat anything with sugar in it ever again. We raided the local grocery store for pizza, wine and candy, rented the anti-loviest movie we could find (about mounting domestic abuse, triple homicide and the angry ghosts of the deceased! Yay!) and proceeded to get good and sloshed. Go ahead and stick THAT in your card press, Hallmark.

I'm pretty sure it's illegal to sell this much sugar in one box

The best part is that it came with an identification key! Yay for no strawberry cream surprises!

This was a terrible movie, but it served its purpose.

The movie ended...and so did I. It was approximately 8:45pm.

It was a great night, a perfect object lesson for the oft-repeated phrase, "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with," as well as its little-known second instruction, "and then get piss-drunk on plonk and nougat with them." Ah, romance.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!