Profound Valentine Cards

In honor of the most romantic of holidays,
I wanted to post some of my favorite Valentine Cards
that would make any woman's heart flutter:

Click to see larger image



Ralph Wiggum's classic
card to Lisa Simpson:


what appears to be
a young Don Magic Juan:

Vintage Monkey Valentine

I saw this excellent Monkey valentine card on The Chive:

"Destino" by Dali & Disney

 I don't usually post much about my personal life on this blog. However, this Valentine's Day marked a special event for me. It was the first anniversary for my girlfriend & I. We are both fairly non-conformist & individualistic people, so it's funny that we have such a cliche day to celebrate a relationship. It was when we had our first date, after being very close friends for many years.

Despite dating some wonderful women in my life, this is the first serious relationship I've had in a long time. I was never one to just settle or grasp onto another person just because I was lonely or felt societal pressure. Even as my 30's were passing me by, I was resigned to the fact that I'd rather be alone than be in a situation that I didn't find fulfilling.

Thankfully, my patience and honesty with myself has paid off. I've found someone who I feel completes me and is everything I've been looking for in a companion. After a year, we have continued to grow closer & deeper in our understanding of each other. We share an interest in deep issues and the infinite knowledge available in the Universe.

We've talked recently about the issues of destiny and impermanence.

• Is there such a thing as "destiny"? How does this relate to free will vs. determinism?
• Is "beauty" something that is transcendental & permanent, or is it meaningful because it is fleeting & impermanent?

These are some of the things that I was thinking of when I shared this animated masterpiece with her for Valentine's Day. It is called "Destino" a collaboration by one of my favorite artists, Salvadore Dali, and Walt Disney.

"Destino" (which means 'destiny' in Spanish) was originally started in 1945. It is full of Dali's dreamlike & bizarre imagery, and there are some aspects of the soundtrack that are very reminiscent of Disney movies. Most of the animation was completed between 1999-2003, with the use of traditional animation & some computer graphics.

The finished product is definitely "Dali-esque," with the haunting feeling of the beautiful, ephemeral, and often strange nature of life & love.

Valentine Rose

I took this closeup photo of one of the roses I gave to my fiancée for Valentine's Day, using a macro lens on my iPhone.

Nature Photography

by Paul Micarelli

Flowers have been used throughout history as symbols of the ephemeral nature of love & beauty. Their organic, aesthetic appeal of a rose blossom has biological and metaphorical parallels with the human body.

It is important to literally "stop & smell the roses"- meaning that we take the time to become conscious of our surroundings and perceptions of them. Mindfulness to the world around us, in all its infinite variety and nuance, reveals the deep beauty in all existence.

Destroying Aesthetics

My previous post about the 'Totally Looks Like' blog made me think of other specialized blogs that I find entertaining.

Two, in particular, deal with the Dark Side of creativity.

The blog Photoshop Disasters is especially interesting to me, since Adobe software is my primary canvas. Most of the foul-ups here are really subtle & are often mistakes in trying to create reflections, shadows, transformations, etc.

What?!?
It's a vampire check!

Photoshop is a powerful tool, but it takes years of constant use to really master. The people who create the 'Photoshop Disasters' obviously haven't. Most of the featured 'disasters' though are minor mistakes.


On the other hand-
Cake Wrecks is a great archive of culinary creativity gone horribly, wonderfully, wrong. I'm not saying it's easy to make a masterpiece like something on Food Network, but geez...

Cakes are much more personal than print ads. That's why so many of these seem all the more outrageous.

My birthday is in February, & my sister's is on Valentine's. When we were young, we always shared birthdays. They were always a big deal at our house & my parents weren't interested in hosting 2 parties in a single month.

However, my Mom never made us share a cake as pathetic as this one:



The 'Cake Wrecks' archives has plenty more:

The Monkey Buddha is Married!

This week, I am marrying my fiancée & the love of my life, Loretta. We have been planning our wedding for a year, and the day is finally upon us!

It's hard to put into words how I feel about this exceptional woman. We are writing our vows and mine are clocking in at 4-5 min, because it's hard for me to sum up my feelings about her & our relationship. She is my life partner and my best friend. The spiritual, physical, intellectual, and emotional bond we share is something I treasure and do not take for granted for a moment. It sometimes boggles my mind that my ideal woman has appeared in my life. I try to just appreciate it & let her know how glad I am for her.

We were friends for many years, and for most of that time I had a deep attraction to her. Although she didn't share my level of attraction for a long time, eventually in 2014 I asked her to go on a Valentine's date "as friends". At that time, Loretta was changing her perception of me and this was a turning point where our relationship took a more romantic direction.

We have been engaged since 2016 and after spending almost every day together, sharing countless life experiences, going to premarital therapy, taking part in ventures together, deeply working on emotional and communication issues, and furthering our careers, we have no doubt that we are ready to travel this road together. I know Loretta is truly a soul mate, someone I am connected to in mysterious and inexpiable ways.

We had a private, legal ceremony in NJ where we live a couple days ago on Thursday, June 28. It was just our parents and our officiant with us at Malaga Lake, a small but scenic local lake. The weather was cloudy & rainy, but as the ceremony started, the sun came out and scintillated over the lake.

 Loretta DeStefano & Paul M. Micarelli

Our public ceremony for family & friends, and our reception will be at The Old Mill in Rose Valley, PA this Sunday July 1, 2018. We picked the venue because the grounds are beautiful & we planned to have an outside wedding, with us both being nature lovers. There is also an open but covered wooden pavilion and nice indoor reception hall, and we are going to party hard! The weather is going to be almost 100°, so it is going to be rough for those of us wearing tuxes. At least it's not supposed to rain... but at that heat level, we might welcome a downpour!

Anyway, I'm sure our vision will manifest into a beautiful day, just as our private ceremony did. I consider my time with Loretta to be a blessing, and I try to make every second count. Life is a flash, and all we can do is slow the mind down, be present, and breathe deeply as we take it all in, uploading our experience to the universal field.

I am joyous and proud to announce that I am now happily married to the woman of my dreams!

Since I'll be on honeymoon in Cape May and vacation in the Poconos for the next couple weeks, I may not start posting regularly until mid-August. Please check back until then, while I enjoy some down time.

Here are some photos from our engagement shoot with the excellent & talented Won Yang of Yang Photo Studio. We were at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania and Won spent hours with us, taking some amazing photography capturing our love.

Here is a link to the whole album:

 Loretta & Paul » Engagement

Monkeybutt Valentine

"Monkeybutt Valentines Card" 

by Clio Chiang

Valentine's Mood Music

Nope, no regrets here...

Johnny Cash - "Hurt"



Ne-Yo- "Part of the List"



Brandi Carlile- "Wasted"