February 14, 2012
Toronto, ON

Mes Cheries,

Happy Valentines Day! I’m back in bed, watching the X-files and drinking coffee with my Valentine. Who has dog breath. She’s still asleep, but any moment now Ursa la Sweetland will decide it’s time to get up and walk around the corner to the dog park, where I’m destined to throw her little blue ball over and over again. But for now, she’s snoozing and I’m the early riser, awakened by my dream in which I was writing a song! It’s a melody I was working on already, but now I know where the story takes place… And it’s only a matter of time before I figure out what happens.

It’s been a lazy few days in Sweetland. I came down with a touch of the plague this weekend, and I suppose it’s no wonder. For the last six weeks I’ve been such an impressively high-functioning workbunny. My efforts culminated at the Sweet Soirée Valentine’s Cabaret show I hosted last week at The Cameron House. To say it was an incredible evening would be an understatement. Every performer was so unique and amazing. And I think we all left feeling significantly sexier, and decidedly more romantic…  Not to mention, I got to tell the mysterious tale of  St. Valentine, doctor and priest, with his magical eye ointments and abject martyrdoms. All to the tune of a Captain Dirt & The Skirt song we’ll be recording for our upcoming new album!

I did a good amount of proper historical research in the name of my Valentine’s story (not that it affected what actually came out of my mouth) and learned there were 14 saints named Valentine in all. A coincidental number perhaps… We know for a fact that one of them was executed on February 14th, 270 AD and buried on the Via Flaminia near Rome. But that’s all we know. The rest of the tall tales that have surfaced over the ages, are most like just that. It was the Roman pagan festival Lupercalia, celebrated on the 15th of February, that was linked with romance. During this festival young single men would draw a small piece paper with the name of a woman, who would be their destined partner for a courtship game. So once again, the merging of pagan traditions with Christian names has given us our modern-day holiday. Poor St. Valentine was removed from the Roman Calendar of Saints in ’69 (dude) as they claimed there was no historical proof of his sainthood. But it’s possible he had just gotten a little too sexy for his hair shirt.

And speaking of sexy, as we speak agent Scully had been tied up and unceremoniously thrown into the trunk of a car. I think she’s about to meet her maker. Or at least, some aliens. Sadly there is no romance in her near future, as her and agent Mulder don’t make out till season 9. But I’ll get there soon enough. As there is no plague in the world that cannot be cured with the judicious application of hot toddies and an X-files marathon. This is pretty much my plan for the rest of the day.

Love love love,

Sweetland. ♥