Earlier this week, I sent my peeps an e-mail with the historic CBS Nightly News clip that aired either Thursday or Friday night about the 29 year-old Marine who died of melanoma for which he was never given a diagnosis until it was already Stage 4. The reason I sent it was not because I wanted to discuss politics* but because it was an amazingly well-done piece and I was blown away by the condition of the guy when he died. (I mean, Dad weighed 130 when he died, but under 80 pounds on a guy that was likely average height!?? Good Christ, that’s unreal.)

Yeah, should’ve thought to embrace the bcc mechanism on my Thunderbird, because today—not Tuesday or yesterday, mind you—I had a whole e-mail war going on and all kinds of people annoyed, and I’m like, “Whoa, y’all! I wasn’t even talking about Universal Health Care!” That’ll learn ME. Jeez.

My big assignment for the week so far has been, in anticipation of Valentine’s Day, talking to NWI’s most “roMANtic” restaurants to find out what makes them the place to be: Is it ambiance? Food? What? And as I’m interviewing them, it occurs to me—and this will shock no one, I’m sure—that I’m probably the least conventionally romantic woman on the planet ... well, maybe not the PLANET, but it’s gotta be the Northern hemisphere, at the very least. I mean, the various owners were talking about this and that, and I get the whole flowers/cards/candy/nice dinner out thing. I just prefer to find “romance,” if you want to call it that, in less contrived ways. Or maybe that speaks volumes as to the guys I’ve been involved with over the years, I don’t know, but if someone wanted to take me out and spend that kind of scratch on me for Valentine’s Day, I wouldn’t appreciate it like he would want it appreciated. This of course is not to say that I would rather go to Outback Steakhouse over Rodizio’s or Lucrezia’s; I’m just saying it would be lost on me. (And probably something about the manner to which I’m accustomed.) But, like, rose petals in the bathtub and that kind of stuff? I could see myself thinking “Great. A cliche” if that ever happened.

What do I find romantic, then? That’s the other thing: I never know until it happens. Anyone else like that?