Since I am baby-sitting this weekend, I decided to take Friday off to take myself out for Valentine's Day. A lot of single people see Valentine's Day as an evil, horrible day that does nothing but shove their singleness into their faces. I, on the other hand, think it's great. It is a day when you are supposed to do really great things for that someone special in my life. Well, I'm my someone special, so Valentine's Day gives me a great excuse to spoil myself and let myself do something special, just for me. Luckily for me, the movie adaptation of one of my favorite young adult novels, The Lightning Thief, came out Friday, giving me the perfect chance to not only take myself out but to do something I vowed to do this year--go to a movie alone.
I started my Valentine's Day celebration with a trip to one of my all time favorite places--Barnes and Noble. I was planning to go to Starbucks, but it was too crowded (and, if I'm honest with myself, I would rather be around all the books). Since Starbucks has oatmeal now, I was going to eat that for breakfast, but they don't have oatmeal at the Starbucks inside Barnes and Noble. I now had few breakfast options. The sensible one would have been a bagel. But, since it was my Valentine's Day, I was allowed to eat whatever I wanted. So I ate a red velvet cupcake for breakfast. It was amazing, and it totally set the tone for the rest of my day.
After spending some time at the B&N, I headed out to my first solo movie. I had grand visions of being the only person in the theater (since it was showing at 11:00 on a school day). I was wrong. It was actually really crowded--some school district other than mine must have had the day off. No worries, I wasn't going to let some kids ruin my Valentine's Day or lessen the pride I was feeling over my solo-movie victory. (Before I keep going, I feel like I just need to clear up why I wanted to go to a movie alone. I love movies. I would go all the time if I could. The problem is that I can't always find people to go with me--my friends don't want to see it, our schedules don't work out, things like that. So, there are a lot of movies I want to see but have to wait to rent because I don't want to go alone. I usually spend some time thinking that if I had a boyfriend or husband, I could just force him to go. In actuality, that would just be kind of mean. So, I decided that I should just go by myself if I really want to see a movie--who cares if other people think strange things about that girl alone at the movies. The truth is that she's just really psyched to be seeing this movie.) Aside completed, here are some highlights from my movie:
1)The theater I went to only costs $4.00 if you go before noon. I'm a cheap date!
2) Since it was my Valentine's Day, I was allowed to pay entirely too much for popcorn and Diet Coke. Yum!
3) There was a boy sitting in front of me with his mom. She kept leaning over and asking him questions about what was going on or what was going to happen. Finally, he said to her, in quite an exasperated tone, "This is absolutely NOTHING like the book mom, so I don't know!!" My kid is going to be just like that one day! (In his defense, they really did change a lot of things about the book, but, surprisingly, I still really enjoyed it.)
4) If you go to the movies alone, you aren't tempted to talk during the movie, and there is no one there to try and talk to you. More people should go to the movies alone!
5) After two hours, I emerged from the theater pretty much exactly the same as I was when I went in, so I am now one step closer to proving to myself that this whole idea that there are things you need someone else to do with you might not be all it's cracked up to be.
The moral of the story is that I will probably be going to the movies alone again. Probably soon. And probably before noon.
I made it home from my movie and decided to spend the rest of my afternoon catching up on my DVRed shows from the week, mainly The Bachelor, which I could comment on but won't. I finished up right in time to eat dinner with some friends and welcome the Southern Blizzard of 2010. One highlight from the blizzard is me trying to drive in the snow--not a good idea. I almost slid off the road on the way to my mom's. Then, I did slide off the road when I got to my mom's. I was headed towards the lake. Happy Valentine's Day to me. Thankfully, I stopped and left my car in my mom's backyard. Where it still is now.
I trudged inside and watched the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. (Because I am a total Olympics nerd and cannot wait to watch everything, and I mean everything; if it's the Olympics, I'm watching. I don't event discriminate. Curling? Watching it. Biathlon? Watching it. Cross-Country skiing? Totally watching it. I get drunk on the Olympics. For the next 16 days, I will be walking around in an Olympic-induced haze. I don't even let torch-lighting malfunctions lessen my excitement.)
Small snow slide aside, I had a pretty amazing day. I'm considering declaring several other days as unofficial Valentine's Days, so I can do it again!
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