This is not a weekend.

This is a Wednesday night.

It seems the time has come to prune some extraneous leaves on the branches of my social tree. My phonebook now includes some names to which I cannot even match the slightest hint of a face.

I have now reached the stage where I can answer the question, “So what are you up to tonight?” with, “Oh nothing,” and invariably end up somewhere loud at three in the morning stumbling into a dirty bathroom and incessantly repeating the line that never fails to impress: “I have work in the morning! I can’t believe that I am out doing this!”

Someone always calls at the last minute with something just a little too exciting for me to pass up and stay responsibly home on the couch. It’s rarely the same person two nights in a row.

I don’t even have time for myself anymore. My yoga DVD’s are gathering dust in front of the TV. My library books are a week overdue because I refuse to return then until I’ve finished reading them, but I just can’t seem to find a corner in my schedule to curl up with one. I’m too busy tossing clothes out of my closet getting ready to go to someone else’s birthday party.

My little black book is more like a little black binder by now.

The dishes are piling up in the sink. The clothes are piling up on the floor. My list of things to do is piling up in my mind.

It’s not that I don’t love to go out. I do. It’s not that I don’t love seeing these people. I do. The problem is that there are just too many people to see and so little time in which to see them. I don’t even think this is healthy anymore.

At which point do we just have too many friends? Acquaintances? What are we even calling them these days? You’d think with all the little booklets by Hallmark we’d know what a friend is by now.

And how to decide which “friends” to hang out with and which ones to let go of? Is it even moral to choose between people like that?

The upshot of all this is that if I ever need anything, I’ll be able to make more than one phone call.

Ah, February 14th. The day Russia was liberated in 1943. The day Teller of Penn and Teller was born back in 1948. Two months after my birthday. Oh, right, and Valentine’s Day.

This whole concept of celebrating Valentine’s Day with my significant other is new to me, you see, so forgive me for not really remembering that it exists. In the past, I’ve always spent Valentine’s Day with the people I loved, not the people I was in love with. So I figure that this Valentine’s Day really won’t be all that different from all the rest, save I’ll spend a little more time with one person and a little less time with the whole gang.

Still, that whole sappy romance thing just doesn’t cut it for me. Don’t get me wrong; roses and chocolate are all well and good, but I need a little more variety than that. I need to have fun. Ridiculous, outrageous, hilarious, entertaining fun. So, for those who are spending their Valentine’s Day with their beau, their best buds, or both, I present a companion piece of sorts.

1. Drive-thru dining: Get some cardboard boxes. Big boxes. Try a furniture store, or you could even get a nice set of moving boxes. They need to be big enough for you to actually walk around in, though. You’ll see why. Get together one or several friends, sit down with some crayons and markers, and draw yourself a car.

Go all out; make yourself rims and flames and whatever you want to do. Attach some string to the sides so that it hangs from your shoulders, then walk – sorry, drive – down to your local drive-thru establishment, order your dinner, and roll out. You, your buddies, and the McDonalds staff will have a good laugh.

2. Spreadin’ the word: What better way to share your favorite love (or anti-love) song with people than to write them out where they can see? Buy yourself a big bucket of sidewalk chalk and head down to a fairly busy place – a bus station, a parking lot, a park – and write out lyrics and quotes wherever you want. It’s just chalk, so it washes out and you won’t get in trouble for graffiti. I wouldn’t advise anything with curses, of course, but everything else is free game.

3. Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it: No, I’m not talking about what you think I’m talking about – though if you wanna do it like they do on the Discovery Channel, hey, I’m not stopping you. That’s just another list for another day. But if it’s nice enough outside, why don’t you pack up a nice lunch and go to the zoo?

Yeah, you heard me. The zoo. There are plenty of places to go and things to see. You learn a ton of stuff, you satiate your wild side, and let’s face it; animals do some pretty funny things. If it’s too icky outside, though, don’t forget that there’s always the aquarium. Find a local one here.

4. Darling, you look positively gaudy: Here’s one of my personal favorites. Grab your camera, first of all. Head down to any clothing store that has dressing rooms – the bigger, the better. Separate from everyone else and for about twenty minutes, pick out the tackiest ensemble you can possibly manage. Then head to the dressing room and put it ALL on – the earrings, the hat, the scarf, that vest-shirt-tanktop-atrocity, the 80′s pump shoes – and stroll out. Meet your buddy or buddies outside the dressing rooms, giggle for a bit, take pictures. Lather, rinse, and repeat until security catches on and throws you out.

5. Free hugs: Humbly inspired by the Free Hugs Campaign, why not cheer up people who may not be feeling their best on St. Valentine’s day? Write a big sign that says “FREE HUGS”, then head to someplace public – a mall, a train station, or a busy street if it’s nice enough – hold up the sign, and wait.

You can do this by yourself or in a massive group, stationing you and your buddies in various places. You’re sure to brighten someone’s potentially otherwise dreary day, and you feel damn good doing it, too.

That doesn’t have to be it, though. There are a ton of other things you can do, too, if you just use your imagination…and yes, I know that’s a cheesy thing to say. Really, though; Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to be about Cupid. To hell with Cupid, anyway. Just have fun; that’s really all that matters.

AIM, with its elaborate sound effects and cutesy but cluttered design, has lost its appeal for me. There was a time when I, like many of my friends, left AIM constantly signed on, just in case some crucial or exciting message might pop up unexpectedly. But over time, the many irritations of AIM began to wear on me. I signed on less and less frequently, and eventually not at all.

Those advertisements at the top of the buddy list window would make loud and abrupt noises out of nowhere, which freaked me out. I’m through spending hours meticulously crafting witty away messages or tweaking my profile, and I’m definitely through reading other people’s away messages and profiles. The internet has come a long way, and there are far better ways to kill time. Like Facebook. Also, in the many long years I’ve been using AIM, I have acquired a lot of “buddies”. A lot of random buddies, many of whom I no longer care to chat with. It’s so awkward when some long lost acquaintance I occasionally partied with during my senior year of high school wants to kill time by IMing me. I have nothing to say, but at the same time, how can I blow someone off when we haven’t spoken in three or four years?

And then there was the issue of screen names. When I created my most recent AIM screen name (wildhoneypie07, in case you’re wondering), it was totally clever and cute, a fusion of a nickname and an inside joke, plus the year I could one day expect to graduate from college. Now, though, as a recent college graduate, it just seems silly and embarrassing.

Gchat, on the other hand, is so sleek, so streamlined, so…mature. Since it’s integrated into your email, it doesn’t seem childish and desperate to leave it open most of the time. Plus, it looks more professional if you’re pretending to work while chatting. And instead of pictures of post-it notes to indicate an away message and Zzz’s when someone is idle, Gchat gives me a simple green dot, orange dot, red dot, or grey dot to represent online, idle, busy, or offline.

We use our real names now, instead of silly nicknames, so you always know exactly who you’re talking to. Since Gmail is fairly new, all of your contacts are current and relevant people you actually want to talk to. And lest you think Gchat is all work and no play, the adorable emoticons do a cute little trick where they flip right side up and sometimes color themselves in.

Now if only Gchat would add a chatroom option and get rid of that creepy “chat history” feature, I’d be in chatting heaven. Just remember to go “off the record” before any potentially incriminating chats.