Big stick diplomacy

In history this morning, half-listening to my professor's lecture on Teddy Roosevelt, I decided to name my future hypothetical publishing house Carry a Big Stick.

The only things I know about tomorrow are:

• I have to get up at an obscenely early hour.
  
• Bill and I are in fact going to the robotics scrimmage. How we're going to make it up two and a half hours' worth of interstate and back is yet to be determined.
• We're not recognizing Valentine's Day. My choice. I hate Valentine's Day. For the first eighteen and a half years of my life, I thought it was because I was bitter and lonely. Nope. Last year with a recklessly romantic boyfriend and bright yellow daisies and a red stuffed dog named Roscoe (currently sprawled across my pillow), I still hated Valentine's Day.

I went into CVS--okay, so I went in there with the intentions of getting Bill something small and cute and useless or maybe edible, but tomorrow's also our 14th month together. Anyway, moseying around the obnoxious pink and red Valentine's aisle were a couple middle-aged guys looking lost and sort of droopy around the edges.
Poor dudes. I'm not even going to get into the commercialization aspect, because if you haven't heard it before wait ten seconds and you will, but the pressure we put on relationships because of a stupid holiday that originally celebrated a saint getting beheaded is ridiculous. If our relationships hinge on remembering a day that practically forces love down our throats, then we're all doomed to never discover real love.


Current Project:
Reading my way through Dan Barker's Godless. I think the first part, about his personal journey from evangelical to athiest, would make a more interesting novel or written in the style of fictional prose. It'd be much more powerful if he showed a few important detailed scenes than the general overview he actually draws.
That might be a slight bias of mine, though. I'm chained to show don't tell.
Every book I read is research on how to write.

I'm so incredibly tired.