So I’ve never been much for Valentine’s Day, although I’ve never had a horrible one. I just don’t really need another reason to spend money on people, and they probably don’t need to spend any money on me. Given my ambivalence, it’s a little ironic that my self-selected anniversary with Katsumi fell on 2/14/02. Four years later, we got engaged. Remember that? I do. Vividly.

It seems an ocean of time ago.

And I’m sitting here thinking about it, and it’s kind of blowing my mind. We didn’t have Jake, things hadn’t yet fallen apart, and everything looked pretty damn rosy. Who knew then the way our lives would take us? It’s kind of cruel, when you think about it, that innocence. And it’s all here – it’s documented. Most of it, anyway.

But whatever. Onward and upward. Tonight B! made me broccoli rabe, which he hates and I love, and I’m sipping some Malbec and promising myself I’ll go to bed early tonight. It’s certainly not where I thought I’d be on that night ten years ago when Katsu and I first knocked chopsticks at Betty’s, and definitely not where I thought I’d be the night we got engaged. But it’s not all a downer. I mean, after all, tonight I *did* get the broccoli rabe.