Every Friday, I share  the pop culture, fashion, lit and random blips that crossed my radar during the week. (+ stuff like art) Except today when I share thoughts about love. Enjoy!

What a week. I don’t know about you, but I’m plum tuckered out today, Friday, Valentine’s Day. While other people are slipping into things made of lace and silk and getting ready to spend mucho dinero on a fancy dinner, I’m slipping into comfy pajama pants purchased  from The House of Kohl’s.  Hey, work hard, play hard, that’s my motto.

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have two, yes, exactly two, V Day love-related thoughts to share.

Celebrate it, don’t celebrate, sneer at it, call it a Hallmark holiday in front of your co-workers then go home and cry yourself to sleep –  the truth is this is just one day but we all do need love. We don’t need thong underwear that comes balled up and packaged in the shape of a rose.

Love begins with your own self. Learning to love yourself is the greatest gift… well… OK, we all know how that turned out. But still…

My first thought on love is really a thought on celebrating the small things as they pertain to you, an individual in this moment. Not you and Jimmy or you and Lindsay, etc. etc.

“Chocolate is delicious, beautiful sights and sounds are all around, you do get many things done each day, and you do make a difference to others… There are people who wish you well, who like you, who see the good in you. Almost certainly, you are loved. Your kind heart and good intentions are real, they exist. You’ve created much good in the past and you continue to do so in the present. Like me, you’re not a perfect person – no one is – but you are a good one.” – Rick Hanson, Hardwiring Happiness

Thought on love #2: I’ve been married for almost eleven years. It’s edging into the territory where I feel like I have opinions and shit about what makes a good marriage, but I’ve never been able to encapsulate them as well as Ann Patchett does in her essay “This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage.”

“Standing waist deep in the swimming pool at Yaddo, I received a gift – it was the first decent piece of instruction about marriage I had ever been given in my twenty-five years of life. ‘Does your husband make you a better person?’ Edra asked.

There I was in that sky-blue pool beneath a bright blue sky, my fingers breaking apart the light on the water, and I had no idea what she was talking about.

‘Are you smarter, kinder, more generous, more compassionate, a better writer?’ she said, running down her list. ‘Does he make you better?'”

‘That’s not the question,’ I said. ‘It’s so much more complicated than that.’

‘It’s not more complicated than that,’ she said. ‘That’s all there is: Does he make you better and do you make him better?'”

Yes. That’s really all there is.

And yes, yes, yes, yes and yes, a thousand times yes. Plus, scallops and garlic mashed potatoes.

I would be remiss if I didn’t leave you with a Valentine’s Day gift: best friends who try out tips from the Internet together! Now that’s love.