It's raining this Valentine's Day 2018. As it should be! Here's a bunch of stuff you should enjoy instead of another person.

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Here's a love story that doesn't cheat the audience. After a gut-wrenching break up between leads, Clementine (Kate Winslet) and Joel (Jim Carrey), Clem has all her memories of Joel wiped. Distraught, Joel seeks to do the same, but as each successive memory is wiped, he begins to remember why he loved her in the first place. Unfortunately, he can't stop the process, so it's a movie full of momentary happiness and regret bordered by an ever closing time limit. I think this is Carrey's best performance and Winslet does a fine job as usual. Something about their relationship feels so real, as the meakish Joel is forced to live a little and Clem is forced to slow down and confront things she's running from. It doesn't for a moment feel like manic pixie dream girl nonsense. They've both got their problems and try to make it work, but it just... doesn't. Neither of them can explain why it fell through, but we can see it as objective viewers, not unlike the objective friends you have who tell you your relationship is toxic. This is is a must watch, even if you've got something to be happy about.

2. Her

When I heard about this movie, I was interested, to say the least. But the synopsis didn't help it from looking like one of the most pathetic films of all time. The lonely writer falls in love with his operating system. It's easily one of the most gut-wrenching movies of all time and completely slew me when I first watched it. It also manages a few philosophical questions beyond what true love is. What is artificial intelligence? Can it die? Where do they go once we deactivate them? Should we talk to the dead through artificial intelligence? Do we become immortal by transferring our consciousness to AI? Is the cloud gonna kill us all?? Oh, Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson are great too.

3. Othello

If you're in need of a bit of tragedy and treachery, Othello is your man! And if you need a reason to feel good about staying single for the holiday... Also, a lovely ode to never introducing your significant other to your buddies. Especially to those you've slighted or perhaps done questionable things to their significant others. Seriously, if you think Iago does what he does simply for getting skirted a promotion, think again. He's either got nothing but white noise in his head or something really bad happened that drove him to that point. Maybe, the moral of the story is to live in a bubble. Or a glass house and polish those stones you intended to throw instead.

4. The Essential Rumi

What can I say about Rumi? Rumi is the greatest poet to walk the earth. Here's a sample:

A Star Without A Name

When a baby is taken from the wet nurse,

it easily forgets her

and starts eating solid food.

Seeds feed awhile on ground,

then lift up into the sun.

So you should taste the filtered light

and work your way toward wisdom

with no personal covering.

That's how you came here, like a star

without a name. Move across the night sky

with those anonymous lights.

Mad with love, in ecstasy of the formless, in awe of the simple and deviant: this is the love Rumi provides. He provides a love of nature, a reverence for it. His words are simple, but their order and meaning are obscure and tantalizing. Take a look at that last stanza: "That's how you came here, like a star." This guy was talking about how mankind came from star matter before anyone else! But you could read that another way. You came here without a name, without purpose, and you can mingle with these other anonymous lights or anonymous people who are as formless as you. Basically, read Rumi if you want to understand. And that beard! What a beard!

5. The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico

If you get rustled by the thought of ornithology, have I the contemporary legend for you! This is about a deformed hermit bird whisperer and a mysterious child who comes to the abandoned lighthouse on the English coast with an injured snow goose. They bond over the recovery of their mutual friend, and she returns when she's much older. Just in time to see the hunchback row his dingy out to the beaches of Dunkirk where thousands of European soldiers await evacuation that isn't coming. I can thank Chris Nolan for making one of the greatest war films ever for introducing me to this historical event, and I can also thank Paul for providing either the worst transcript of the British accent ever written or the best, I can't tell for sure. This is also great if you're into love stories, although I have to admit, the love story, while never explicitly stated, was a bit unsettling. Maybe that was the point? Anywho, calling all history buffs, legend seekers, and British accent buffs.

Okay, this list is just turning into crap I like. Use at your own risk, and most of all, stay inside this Valentine's Day! It's a dangerous world out there, no sense in risking it.