Valentine's Day Special 2013

   For the third year in a row (has Probably Not Sane really been around that long?) I bring you top-quality writing on what is actually one of my favourite holidays.

I get that it's not everyone's favourite holiday. Even now, half my facebook newfeed is ranting about how Valentine's Day is stupid and should totally not happen and how it's all about commercialism and that they will be spending the day with a bottle of vodka instead. Well guess what. I've been in a relationship for the past two Valentine's Days and I'm in a relationship this year too. And it's great. So I get to be all smug about things. Even better, this year I actually get to spend the day with my boyfriend, so I get to be doubly smug. Cheers Intercity for your lovely affordable bus fares.

With the amount of times I've travelled between Queenstown and Dunedin over the past couple of years, I'm probably their most loyal customer.

   Current boyfriend and I were discussing what we would like to do for Valentine's day this year but most of our ideas were pretty impractical. We originally thought camping would be cute, but then wondered where we would go/how we would get there (neither of us drives) and that what if the lovely unpredictable south island weather goes bad? (It probably will.) As we ran out of feasible ideas, we decided it totally wasn't unromantic to google for suggestions.

   It didn't work out to be the best idea.

   What I learnt from this is that there is a ton of rubbish advice out there on Valentine's day ideas. Or maybe just advice that didn't suit our relationship of being two cynical, poor, strange people, who both happen to live with their families at the moment. (So we can forget suggestions to have sex in every room in the house, because somehow I don't see either of our families appreciating that.)

   It's time to do what Bellez does best. Make fun of these ideas.

   So the first article we can pull apart is this lovely one from Esquire, mainly because it was the first result for “cheap valentine's date ideas” and also because there are some ridiculous suggestions. For example,this suggestion involves playing video games with your (pregnant)date. I'm sure Cosmo has an extension on the idea: every time someone loses, they remove an article of clothing.

Why this is a bad idea for us:

Scott's much, much better at video games than me, so it would just end with me naked, watching him play. Also I did mention he lives with his family.

   The next suggestion involves what to do with your mistress. Esquire suggests a lunch date, because you should save a dinner date for someone you truly love, despite the fact that earlier in the day, you were donging someone else. Charming.

Why this is a bad idea for us:

Because, unless you're in some form of open relationship, this is probably a bad idea for all couples. I don't know if I would really want to take relationship advice from somewhere that tries to help me sneakily sleep with two people on Valentine's day. Or any day.

   At this point, I decided it was time to research ideas in other places. Because I was being a bit lazy about it I decided to see what good ol' Cosmo had to say about that- no longer for legitimate ideas, but purely for entertainment purposes. Unfortunately, all they had was "30 Things to Do With A Naked Man" (spoiler alert:  "have sex with him" "have sex with him" and "have sex with him" probably featured on the list somewhere.)

   Surely there was more sincere advice somewhere, but if it was, I was struggling to find it. I was not keen on cutting out a hundred paper hearts and writing something I love about him on each one and scattering them about the place for him to find.

By the time I get to heart #58, I'm sure this is what it will say.

   Besides, who wants to clean up a hundred paper hearts, or be the unfortunate person to find heart #27? ("I like our sex life.") 

   "Relive your first date." I'm not sure if this counted as our first date, but I was less than keen to relive drinking goon in the gardens and watching him vomit.

   Anyway, my bus to Dunedin is booked, and out of ideas or not, I'm still going to see my boyfriend. If this post was going to have a cheesy moral, it would be that of all the things you can do with someone you love this Valentine's Day, the best thing you can do is to simply spend time with them.

   And maybe have sex with them. Cheers Cosmo!

Update: He made me cupcakes, (his mum helped, but ssh) and I made him eclaires and his sister cooked a romantic dinner for us. Also I got all pretty for our date so you know there's going to be photos...

Updates again!

   Been a while, huh? Don't I know it. I've been busy etc etc. With, you know. Not really having a life. Traipsing to Dunedin and Auckland and back and trying to find a job and (still with little success, what with me having the time to write this and all) and trying to see if I could actually make money from my art so I don't need a real job (also not going so well either) and wasting time on Reddit and all that.

I could be making dinner for myself right now but with the available food I have sitting here, it's going to be cheese on toast again and I don't even like toast, so perhaps a little catch up on here might be more productive.

   So what have I been up to other than discovering a possible vitamin deficiency caused by too much cheese and not enough else?

I've got a job. Kind of. Well, I've taken on a role as editor at the soon-to-be-relaunched Leaky Biro magazine. We've had a bit of a revamp, and although Thomas Stevenson (Dekarnuva) is still with us, we're joined by two new writers, Seth Tetley-Jones and Gareth McMullen, who you may remember contributed this lovely piece to my blog, about disturbing pornography. We're hoping to have our first new issue ready around March sometime, which means blogging on here will, as usual, probably take a back seat.

But you should definitely read The Biro (available digitally, or a print copy if you prefer) if for no other reason than at the very least, I can promise you it will look pretty. (I'm doing the cover at the moment. It looks wonderful.) The writing should be pretty top-notch too.

   Now I've got that shameless plug out of the way, let's talk about some things that will be on this blog.

• Remember the Valentine's day specials from 2011 and 2012, where I felt so excited I actually provided you with a second Valentine's day post? Well, I'm sure I can whip up another something for 2013, because y'all know you can get your romance advice from me. Will it be on Valentine's day? Heavens, no. I'm going to be in Dunedin having way more fun.

• Seeing as my drawing skills are improving, expect to see a lot more of my art (and not just the MS Paint stuff) on here.

• One day I will record my dramatic reading of My Immortal. Probably not ever though.

   Also, for those of you who remember my craving for Mr Whippy Icecream, not only is he back in Fernhill but he was also at the Fernhill Family Fun Day where I got an icecream purely for nostalgia purposes. And yes, with all the toppings. It was satisfying to do so, at last, for all of about a minute. Then I just started to feel sick from too much sugar. But it was still worth it.