How to Have a Hot Valentine's Day

I realize that it’s Valentine's Day and people want to read, write, talk about Love. That's fine; we love Love (loving, purely, deeply, is Hot). However, while there are many different kinds of love and I could very well write a dispatch about how Hot it is to love your Friends, Family, or the way the sun sneaks into your bedroom between the curtains every morning, I’m not going to do that. I didn't sleep terribly well last night, so I'm not feeling particularly creative, let alone saccharine, and since I find myself partner-less, I thought that I'd dedicate today's newsletter to how to make being on your own on Valentine's Day Hot based on what I learned this past weekend from trying to not get sick.

Before I begin, let me be clear that when I embarked on this adventure, I didn't feel Hot. Not even a little bit. Frankly, I don’t feel terribly Hot right now. And I don't usually aspire to feeling Hot when I'm spending time on my own—I usually reach for cozy, warm, relaxed, rested. But I was presented with an opportunity to experiment, and I gave it an honest try. Below you'll find a description of the experiment, the results, and some analysis.

The Experiment

On Friday, as I wrapped my day up at the office, I felt a little sick, a little tired. I had loose plans to go to a party where friends were going to imbibe on an inordinate amount of bananas. I knew that if I went, I would feel terrible the next day—no amount of real and/or liquid 99-proof bananas after 9pm was the cure to whatever ailment hung around my neck. I resolved to be an adult, go home after work, watch a movie, and go to sleep early. Ugh.

I resented this decision. I wanted to go see friends. My last week was fairly work-intensive, and I needed a change of air. I whined to my colleagues, "I can't believe I can't GO to this PARTY." (Hot) They didn't know what I wanted to hear from them: should they encourage me go to the party or home? There wasn't a good answer. While there was no universe in which I was really going to go to that party, heading home to put on PJs and watch a movie didn't feel Hot. It felt responsible, boring. I worried that this act would represent taking my eye off of the target (Being Hot), and that I would soon succumb to my old ways (Cute, Wholesome). I really didn't have the energy to do anything else, nevertheless I kept fantasizing about feeling well enough to frolic around Bushwick, and I almost convinced myself that I could go—maybe I'd feel better after eating something.

So I began with something that felt easy: I needed to buy eggs, and it's much more efficient to buy groceries on my way home from the office than to make the trek from my house during the weekend. I knew, moreover, that weighed down by groceries, I would have no option but to at least stop by my apartment. So I walked over to Trader Joe's. As I looked over their flower offerings, the haze of illness hanging over my eyes, suddenly, it all fell into place. Why not use this as an opportunity to make "staying in" Hot? Despite all the "make everything Hot" energy I brought to the last newsletter, it took a startlingly long time for this idea to emerge. Clearly I wasn't well.

With a new mission in mind, I clicked into action. I bought myself flowers. I bought myself a Frozen Pizza. I bought some Shishito Peppers. (And I bought all the random pantry items I needed to stock up on, too.) And then I rode the train home.

Upon arriving, I sighed. My apartment was messy—I hadn't washed my dishes, and the plumber who came by to fix “a little leak” that my downstairs neighbour kept complaining about left behind a trail of dusty tread marks on my wooden floors. None of this felt Hot. While I picked my groceries out of their paper bag and put everything in its rightful place, another friend texted me to share that she had just gotten into the graduate program that she's been lusting after. And guess what!? She was in Bushwick, around the corner from where this party was. Maybe I could grab a glass of wine with her to celebrate and then go to the party. At the same time, my eyelids felt soft, weighty. If I closed them a little bit, I was wooed by idea of rest. I responded to the celebratory text saying I really needed to stay home, and I got back to work.

The Results

First, I turned on some candles. Then, I washed my face and put on a Vitamin C mask. I tried to do this all slowly. I thought about a chocolate package I encountered at work that invited me to "Slow Down! You're not eating a bag of chips!"—I wasn't, in fact, eating a bag of chips; I was washing my sweet, gentle, cherub little face. Sud, sud, sud. Rinse, rinse, rinse. I turned on the oven and, while it preheated, cut my fresh flowers and delicately placed them in a vase. Flowers arranged, I took out my Swiffer and let it dance over the kitchen floor, cleaning up the traces of my visitors. I slid my glistening pepperoni pizza into the oven, wiped down the counter, charred the shishito peppers on the stove, cleaned the remnants from the morning's eggs from my dishes, and cracked open a can of crisp peach-pear LaCroix. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a half-full bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau I opened with a friend last week. Of course. I brought down my nice wine glass, poured myself a generous portion, and then relished in the accomplishment.

I set everything down on the coffee table in front of the couch. I had my fancy socks on and I put on a matching PJ set (as opposed to the usual college softball team T-Shirt and random girlie boxer-shorts). I watched the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which got hotter the more disjointed Joel's memories became. As I finished my dinner, I had a flashback to a friend exclaiming that his girlfriend wasn't joining us on an outing because she was entering her Hot Girl era, and she was going to stay home watching Rom Coms accompanied by various pints of ice cream. The Hot Girl Gods were smiling upon me: I happened to have a pint of Ben and Jerry's cookies and cream in my freezer. I went to bed half an hour before midnight, and woke up to the soft rays of mid-morning light.

The Analysis

We must now stop, step back, and ask ourselves—was it Hot? Maybe? I think so? This has been hard for me, so let me begin by stating the most important fact: I am proud of myself for listening to my body, for slowing down, and for allowing myself to relish in an evening full of treats. But I must also admit that I am struggling with calling my Friday night Hot. Action, dancing, partying, people, bodies moving, excess—that’s Hot. Staying home? Alone? With ice cream and wine? That sounds sad, no matter how AeStHeTiC I made it seem. I said it in my first dispatch: I rarely feel Hot. Perhaps I don’t know how to be Hot unless I'm before another's eyes. I guess this is why I started this newsletter in the first place, to deconstruct this superficial idea of Hotness (and yet it requires that I write to you, my dear reader, to prove that my evening alone was Hot. Aren't we silly, us humans?).

I recently read Audre Lorde's "The Uses of the Erotic" for the first time (which I absolutely must discuss in more detail in a subsequent newsletter). In this exciting, electric, enlightening, though slightly bewildering, text, Lorde explores the importance of learning to listen to the erotic in ourselves. She defines the erotic as a power that is deeply female, “it is an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire.” Deriving from the Greek work eros, it is love in "all its aspects—born of Chaos, and personifying creative power and harmony knowledge". The Erotic pushes us toward excellence, as it “is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing.” There is an Erotic, sensual knowledge, deep within all of us, but it’s been considered dangerous, which is why it is often kept under control by limiting it to the bedroom. Lorde writes, "the considered phrase, 'It feels right to me,' acknowledges the strength of the erotic into a true knowledge."

My Friday night, despite being tame and alone, "felt right". And, at the same time, to arrive at my Friday night, I was pulled into a battle between two ways of being (two selves?): a tantrum-prone toddler seeking stimulation ("look at meee!") and a more mature, adult part driven by feeling seeking refuge. To learn to listen to feeling, and to acknowledge relaxation and pampering as an integral part of the Hot agenda has been a challenge. Fortunately, however, I was pulled forward by a quiet understanding that rest and solitude was what I needed, and that the flavour of rest required included thoughtful, pampering self-love. I was driven, perhaps, by the Erotic.

What's Hotter than the erotic? I don't know. Lorde suggests that the erotic is what makes us empowered, dangerous—it makes us feeling, joyful, satisfied, energetic, passionate. A lot of these traits also make us Hot. There's more to explore here, but this is a kernel here to which I'm drawn.

Ultimately, yes, with Audre Lorde’s help, I can accept that my evening was Hot. It was Hot because I allowed myself to feel, because I leaned into treating myself, and because as I dug a spoon into my tub of ice cream, I did, in fact, feel "main character energy". But more importantly, it was Hot because I tried really hard, despite my anxieties, to love; purely, selfishly, powerfully. At the receiving end? Me. Good thing I wasn’t going to write about love.

I don't know if this helps you figure out how to have a Hot Solo Valentine's Day. It's helping me, a little bit. Tonight, I’m headed to a party with some friends to celebrate (or soothe?) our single souls. But even if I didn’t have plans, I don't think I really need a Valentine this year. As each word appears on the screen, it's becoming clearer and clearer that what I'm doing here (and what I did on Friday) is write a love note to myself. And what more could I need?

Extras

Before I go, here’s a soft, gentle song that’s also pretty Hot, as well as a Hot New Yorker Cartoon:

Happy Valentine’s day, loves.