Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. I’ve got to write something, I tell myself. But what can I say? Inspirational messages aren’t really my bag, but neither is hopelessness. In truth, I’m a romantic. A skeptical romantic, but a romantic nonetheless.

Romance is awkward for feminists. It’s defined by bullshit like proposals and lingerie and heterosexuality and money. So being a romantic and being a feminist can feel incompatible.

I don’t want diamonds. I don’t want babies or showers or proposals or my husband’s last name. Nor do I want a husband, actually.

But I want love. Monogamous, forever, love.

Most of my love stories end with me feeling like I put a whole lot of energy into trying to build something out of nothing. Lust turns to love so easily and before you know it you're invested in a relationship that seems more important than you. You end up trying to save a relationship for the sake of the relationship rather than trying to save yourself.

Before you all start accusing me of being bitter or hard or cold or damaged or whatever else women with personalities and life experience are, I'm not anti-romance and I'm not anti-love. I get sucked into all that lovey crap like the best of us. That said, I like to keep a healthy level of cynicism (hey, let's just go right ahead and call that realism) on hand.

Love's evolution is my resolution, my revolution, my solution. The time is now. 2012 is upon us. The beginning is here!

I'd like to offer you an invitation, an invocation, a wake up call. Wake up! (Zen hand clap) It's time to come to our senses, and wake up! Listen -- can you hear the alarm bells ringing? Can you hear the cries of Mother Earth? Can you hear the cries of Her children? Can you smell the stench of an industrial growth addicted civilization rotting from the inside out?