My assistant Sarah Doom is one of the funniest people I know. She's the life of the party, a video game geek, and one of my best friends.
Today, she sent out this letter to the entire Evil Angel staff and some of our directors:
I remember my first Valentines day in 1st Grade. My mom asked me how
many kids I had in my class, I handed her a sheet of paper that was
given out to all of the kids and we went down to Thrifty's and got two
packages of valentines day cards, enough for every child in my class.
The cards were all the same size and all said basically the same thing.
When I got to school, each child had a small box on their desk. Then at
some point during the day, I would go around the class and give each
child a card. And I mean each child; the quiet one in the back, the most
popular girl in class, the prettiest girl, and honestly even the boys as
well. This was way before society had taught me that such a showing of
affection had to exclude the half of the world who are the same gender
as I. And by the end of the day, we all had a full box of valentines to
take home with us.
But then as I got older, society taught me that I would further narrow
my offerings of affection, picking only those that I choose to be
special or worthy. Eventually, I was taught to limit it to only one
person. And that card that I gave out as a child was no longer
sufficient. The cards were bigger now, they all said different things
and I was supposed to categorize my feeling for this person and pick
just the right card that said just the right thing.
More time went on, and the cards still got bigger and cards were not
enough, to show that really really special person what they meant to
you, you needed to send flowers and candy and jewelry. Apparently, as we
grew, our boxes got bigger and it took more and more to fill those
boxes. And now we absolutely could not give more then one card; people
hire detectives to make sure that the person who is supposed to be
filling their box is not buying a package of cards. And if you didn't
have someone sending you stuff you are saddened by your big empty box
and people filled those empty boxes with sadness and despair.
This morning I am sitting at my virtual desk where I have a virtual box
on it, and I am taking back from society what it has taken from me. I am
counting how many people play a role in my life, and I am buying my
virtual packages of cards. And I have one for every single one of you.
Man or woman, young or old, straight or gay, married or single. And they
are all the same size and they all say the same thing and I am going to
every box and placing a card into it.
And the virtual boxes are all the same size and the virtual desks are
all the same and I invite each and every one of you to do the same so
that no box is empty and that the shy ones and the pretty ones and the
popular ones and everyone goes home tonight with a full box of valentines.
Be My Valentine.
She cracks me up, but the letter is pretty true. It's not about how pretty or how popular we are, and we all need to know that someone loves us not just on Valentine's Day, but every day. I'm really lucky, and have a lot of great people in my life who tell me on a regular basis that they love me.
Hope all of you have an awesome Valentine's Day! I'm off to go see Step Up 2 with my daughter. She's a VERY white little 6 year-old who LOVES hip-hop. lol
Love,
Tricia
-February 14, 2008