Natalie walks up State Street, drenched in sweat. It's Valentine's Day 2011, and Natalie is feeling hot. It's gotta be at least 50 degrees out. Then, she overhears a man say to a woman, ""I apologize for my complete inability to do anything romantic.""
Natalie texts Jack: Are you going to do anything romantic today? My friend from home apparently is sending me flowers, which is horrifying.
Jack: See, I would like to avoid being romantic today in fear that it would be looked upon as horrifying…
Natalie sits at a computer in the Veteran's Museum as a vibrant crowd of TAs marches under her window. She gazes at the shouting mass as they assemble on the capitol building steps, and she cries a little bit. Humans are so awesome.
Someone in the room says, ""So are we supposed to talk about this reorganization or just nod and bend over?""
Natalie thinks, ""My valentine to Scott Walker: Fuck you."" She giggles quietly.
After Natalie finishes at the Veteran's Museum, she receives a text from Jack telling her that he is at North Campus Union, if she'd like to swing by.
Natalie: Ok, I will let you know if/when I am coming. That's what she sai—nevermind.
Jack: Pssh! Trust me. I'll know when you're coming.
Jack, again: I hope we never have sex… that way I can keep up this façade of sexual dominance.
Natalie sits at a computer in Memorial Library. The kid at the computer next to her receives a phone call. He says into the phone, in the silent computer lab, ""Happy anniversary to you too.""
Natalie: I hope we never have sex because we'd probably just break each others' hearts.
Jack: Can't we think more romantically, forget about hearts, and just say w—
The text cut off there.
Five minutes later, Jack: —e are satisfying the soul?
Natalie texted half of a reply, deleted it, and then began texting another, better reply, when suddenly Jack appeared next to her in the computer lab.
If this were really a romantic comedy starring Jack Black and Natalie Portman, Jack and Natalie would definitely have immediately had sex up in the stacks. However, real life is more documentary style, and thus boring things like botany lecture intervene.
Botany… boring? How could talking about all the turgid vacuoles ever be boring, especially on Valentine's Day? I will explain. Plant cells have water bubbles in them called vacuoles. When the vacuoles are engorged with water, the plant cell is stiff, or ""turgid."" This has everything to do with Valentine's Day.
Last week, in a lecture hall full of Christians, someone read off the big screen at the front of the room, ""Your soggy box lights up the whole room!"" They were playing Mad Libs, and all the fornicators giggled.
Valentine's Day 2009, it was Natalie's cousin Brad's 24th birthday. He and Natalie had made plans to meet at Dobra and discuss their lives. Forty-five minutes after Brad was supposed to be there, Natalie called him to see what was going on. Brad groggily told her, ""Yeah, it's not going to work today.""
Natalie asked later what had happened. Brad said, ""I was hung-the-fuck-over."" He then described his Valentine's/birthday evening. He went to Restaurant Muramoto by himself after officially getting out of bed at 8 p.m. ""And it was perfect,"" he said.
Brad moved to San Francisco the following August. He put his history major to use by getting a job at Ancora.
I could never be a history major, even if they do have more fun.
Comments for Angelica? E-mail her at aengel2@wisc.edu.
