Driving Off Tomorrow, Never Coming Back

3. Hit the road. If you want to be solitary and pensive for the day, maybe you could just get in your car and go for a drive. (Some of us will be stuck riding the subway, but oh well.) You know, get on the highway and go flying for a bit. Safely, of course. And you should probably have some goal in mind, lest you go too far in any one direction and then get stuck having to get a motel for the night or something. Really the point is to get out of your house, out of the office; put some distance between you and the weary little world you shamble around in every day. Put on some upliftingly sad or sadly uplifting songs — think Fleetwood, think Annie Lennox, hell, think fun. — and look at the big sky there in the windshield and remember that, all things considered, you’re free. You really are. You can go any place, any time you want. Who needs some loving companion tying them down? This is the life, fancy free and on the wind. You pack light, you move to the rhythms of your own heart.

Richard Lawson wrote some tips on how to survive Valentine’s Day as a single person. But I think his fifth bit of advice (“5. Remember that Valentine’s Day is stupid.”) is the most sensible one. Stay in! Everything costs more on Valentine’s Day anyway. Last year, I walked by an Olive Garden on 6th Avenue and there was a line of couples waiting to get in wrapping around the block! Insane. Also, as a perfectly happy single, Logan made me watch The Vow with her. I bought the tickets, but it ended up being free because the projector broke down after 20 minutes and we had to wait for the theater to fix it. As I recall, the film was not good. We should have hit the road instead.

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