Stupid Heart...Love is for Fairy Tale Characters

As I look at my surroundings, I realize that love has been tarnished. Nothing is ever as one plans it or dreams it. It isn't like the fairy tales you see on tv, where love always wins.

I know this, but my heart...Well my heart sees it differently.

I am aware that I talk about this subject often, but how could I not when love seems to be a main emotion? If you have ever read Barb's Heart in Love=Fail, then you know that the heart can be quite irrational when it comes to love.

My heart, however, is too much of a dreamer and believes that anything to do with love will always win in the end. Kind of like when two people who are madly in love with each other find one another in the end...

Take cinderella for instance, she's poor and has nothing, but with the help of mouses and a fairy godmother she ends up going to the ball and falling in love with the prince. Does it end happily ever after? Of course, it does.

Snow White was poisoned by her evil stepmother and yet the prince finds her, kisses her and they live happily ever after.

Each story ends like that unless we are talking about Romeo and Juliet, but even then their love was so strong that they decided to die for one another.

My heart, however, does not understand that this only exists on tv and in books. It believes that love can do it all. Love can set even the coldest heart free and change a person.

Yeah. Right.

Such beliefs has broken my heart a million times, when another person hurts me with no cause.

Oh stupid heart when will you ever learn that love is only for fairy tale characters?? Love cannot be for humans...don't you see how tarnished it is?

I hope someday my heart will understand.

Hanny the coffee bean

(I think this also adds to my list as to why I hate February).

Valentine's Day Commercialism at Its Most WTFness

Ever since I returned back to the United States, the thing that has been the most apparent to me is that this country's stores are the champions at premature marketing. The themed products are seen at the "wrong" time of the year, be it hocking Christmas decorations in October or, more recently, pink heart-shaped boxes of chocolate reminding of my current state of singlehood since January first.

(Just to be clear: I've been single since December, not January first.)

This is a stark contrast from what I have observed in France, meaning the French are quite normal and make an effort to limit each festivity within their designated months, and I must admit that I quite prefer the French way of commercialism; it's less annoying.

If I see one more sappy "Every Kiss Begins with Kay" jewelry ad showing a pair of actors emulating a happy, much-in-love couple, I'm gonna go ballistic on my TV, and I can't afford a new TV set these days.





Bitterness aside, I found myself on a trip to Target this past Saturday and I couldn't resist walking by the aisles (plural) that were dedicated to selling Valentine's Day trinkets. I saw the run-of-the-mill products: boxes of chocolates, stuffed animals, bags of chocolates, bottles of wine and champagne, bars of chocolate, candles, candies, party favors, paper plates, pencils, Valentine cards that elementary school kids pass out to their classmates bearing famous cartoon characters, and chocolate roses.

However, there was one item that caught me off guard and essentially touched me on levels that were wrong.


Oh.

So.

Very.

Very.

WRONG.

My friends, this year, why don't you say "I love you" to your significant other with a black heart sporting a bedazzled Darth Vader?

This is worth repeating: a black heart sporting a bedazzled Darth Vader.

Don't his brilliant sparkles strike absolute terror into your heart?

Some things are never supposed to be mixed. I can withstand seeing the pink hearts, but this honestly has gone way too far. In the name of all that is The Force, you CANNOT do this to Darth Vader.

Or Darth Maul, for that matter.

No. Just...no.

I expect Kay Jewelers will offer selling diamond-encrusted light sabers for Valentine's day next year, and they will glow neon pink when you turn them on. There is no doubt a market out there for them.

Barb the French Bean