If we ever needed proof that Valentine’s Day is a social construct, my grandson Harvey gave it to me yesterday. I had grand plans of interviewing him about love, and writing the answers, because hey, if a grandkid can’t shovel your walks, the least he can be is a source of free content for your blog, right?

Unfortunately, my quest for insight into the nature of love through the eyes of an innocent were pretty easily derailed:

Harvey, what is love?

I dunno.

Do you love anybody?

Well, I love my mommy.

How does she know?

I didn’t want to kiss her. So mommy thinks I’m not cool. But my friends do!

Does Mommy love you?

Yeah! I have lots of friends. Monty is my friend, Lola is my friend, Travis is my friend…

How do you know Mommy loves you?

Hang on! Hang on! I’m still counting my friends. There’s Monty, there’s Lola…can I have a snack?

There probably actually is some profound and deep content in that conversation, but I haven’t been able to grok it yet. But, in the midst of all the Valentine’s Day madness, including my own minimal interaction with it, I did think of the holiday that it should be: Loveday.

Friggday, Friggday, Gotta Get Down…

I know, there are some of you who are going to say that we already have a day that comes from the ancient love gods – the Norse Frigg, wife of Odin, or the Roman equivalent Venus (in French the word is “vendredi“). But that’s about as meaningful as the dedication to Wotan we do every wednesday.

No, I’m talking about a Love day. One where you can simply say hey, this is what I love. It can be a hamburger, a rocket ship, a pair of shoes, a bowl of pho, your grandson, your goldfish, your lifepartner or that person who just smiled at you in line at the store. It’s just a day to think, not about how much material you can purchase for one particular possible role a person might share, but rather about just how much love you can find in the world.

It’s too late for Valentine’s day. That’s pretty much taken up, and trying to change it would ruin a lot of economies. But hey, today is Lupercalia, and if you don’t feel like being traditional (which involves dressing in goat skins and running around whipping people with leather straps) then by all means I invite you to take a moment during the day to think about something you love. Don’t spend too much time trying to figure out what “love” is – just take that sip of coffee, say “I love coffee!” and consider yourself inducted into the sacred order of javacrucians.

Or whatever. But happy Loveday, people. It’s a much more inclusive time than the stodgy old celibate martyr’s day, and I suspect could be a lot more fun.

 

And now, a word to our sponsors:

I feel a little guilty doing this, but after a recent Dan Carlin podcast about getting “A Seat at the Table”, I guess I felt I had to.

See, I’ve been invited to participate in CatalystCon East. I’ve been invited to not only speak but also to participate with a lot of the movers and shakers in the fields of relationship counseling, sex education, and public policy. I’d love to go, but it’s not one of those conferences that pays for itself. In fact, it doesn’t pay for anything. So if I want to go and have a seat at the table…I need to get some sponsorships.

If you’ve enjoyed what I’ve been writing here for over a year, and you think that my voice might be useful at an event like CatalystCon, it would help if you’d fill in a little bit of that donation box up on the left. I need $500 to make it work – not a lot in some people’s worlds, but in the land of the indie content producer, it can be an awful lot.

I can promise exclusive content and reports to all donors from the conference, including access to a live photo stream and participation in an “Ask Me Anything” Google+ Hangout after the event.

Regardless, as always, I appreciate your readership, and I’m also grateful to Catalystcon East for considering my proposal.