VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

i love valentine's day.
yeah,
i really do.
chocolates, and flowers, and lace, and pink, and fancy dinner,
and all of that sweet, sugary, sappy stuff.
i love it.
huh?
do i have a valentine?
ha.
no.
i do not.
THAT'S how much i love it!
i'm still excited,
i'm still in the spirit,
i'm still going to dress up and play the part.
why??
because rules is rules,
and expert is as expert does, dudes.
...and you KNOW i'm trying to doo-doo alllll
of that expert-style freaky-diki romantic sh!t!
awww.
i'm like that, neighbors.
i want all that stupid old sh!t,
like letters and sodas.....
c'mon, man-
it's valentine's day,
and i'm ready for it.
i even got the valentine hearts game turnt the F* up to eleven.
check the teleport:

EXXXTRA-CRISPY, BUTTERY, VALENTINE HEART SUGAR COOKIES!!!!
wooooooooooo!!!!!
strawberry, chocolate, and chocolate-strawberry cookies,
as crunchy as you could ever want,
and tasty as you could ever imagine,
and decorated to the site-specific situationally-appropriate color-coordinated theme.
word up.
and that frosting?
there's chocolate, and also there's lemon,
depending on the style!
strawberry and lemon are in love.
chocolate and strawberry are in love, too.
chocolate and lemon hooked up once, and they're still civil,
but it'd never work between them, they're both just a bit too bitter.
ha!
*
make this mixture of you wanna-
it's straightforward enough for anybody to handle-
-
1 stick + 3 T vegan butters;
1 1/4 cup sugar;
1/2 mounded tsp salt;
2 tsp vanilla;
creamed together, of course,
plus-
1/2 cup vegan sour creme;
2 1/4 cups flour;
1 tsp bakey pow;
1 tsp bakey soda;
-
and here's where it gets good-
3 T powdered freeze-dried strawberries
OR
3 T cocoa
OR BOTH!!!
yep.
too much is the right amount.
i split the dough into 3rds,
and added in all the stuffs,
and rolled it out pretty thin,
and cut it up pretty fancy,
and so on and so forth....
until i'd used up all but the tiniest scraps,
and had a whole heck of a lot of hearts on my hands....
guys,
i baked 'em at 375F for like 10 minutes a pan,
and i had five pans,
so i'm not kidding when i say there's heckloads of 'em.
yum-YUMMMMMMM, y'bums.
chocolate ganache got a nod to come over,
powdered sugar was already here,
and those crystal magical sparkle-sugar sprankles
made a special guest appearance for the holiday.
mmm mmm mmmmmmm.
*
friends,
i LOVE love.
even when i'm not in it-
and of late, i rarely feel it-
but i sure do keep a high opinion of it,
at least,
as it pertains to other people.
i mean, seriously, what's better?
the idea that there's a person who can tolerate your suckiest parts,
because they get to experience all the other parts as well-
intimately, intricately, insistently, persistently, constantly......
somebody to trust and rely on,
somebody who is worth the effort of going all-out,
and all-in,
and whole-hog,
headfirst, and over-heels,
whirling like a savage stormswept raging gypsy heart!
i like everything about that.
also,
i like cookies.
mostly, that's because i'm sure i can make cookies,
and therefore i can have cookies,
and a few realistic and attainable goals are awfully good to keep around.
it's all really happening, kids.
hearts and flowers and all of it.
today is the day,
and while for some of us,
it's just like every other day,
i'd like to think that that's only because
doing everything loud, fast, and hard has become such an innate impetus
that the lace and the doilies are just decorations,
because the big true romance is emanating
always and in all ways in every direction,
today, tomorrow, forever.
with or without you,
with or without me,
with or without us.
the fact that we're choosing to participate is what makes it so much better;
never quiet, never soft.....