TV commercials make parenting look like there are going to be good days and bad days - like, it'll be this gentle wave, like you'll have a blissed-out, really wonderful day or two, and then, you know, then you'll have an issue. And what parenting is, is kind of earthquake.

I get letters every year from women who think Valentine's Day is an empty exercise, but are ironically pretty exercised when their boyfriends neglect or forget it.

But it doesn't matter what you're doing, it matters how you're doing it.

Is it adultery if I’m committing it at one end of a guy and he’s committing it at the other end of that same guy?

Valentine's Day is much more of a holy day of obligation for a guy in a relationship with a woman, because a woman has certain emotional expectations. Even if she doesn't value Valentine's Day, or views it as a corporate exercise, she still often wants her boyfriend or husband to go through the motions, just in case she values it.

the truth is often a mixed message

You can’t pray away the gay, but you can torture a conflicted closet case to death.