The Perfect Celebration of Love

Three legends exist about the origin of St. Valentine's Day:

The first involves a man named Valentine who secretly married young couples during the Roman Empire. At the time, the Empire forbade the rite of marriage to lure all young men into the army and away from sentiments of the heart. When Valentine's crimes were discovered, the Emperor banished him to prison.

The second involved a man imprisoned for his underground work with Christians. While in confinement, he fell in love with the Emperor's blind daughter and healed her sight. Legend has it, he wrote a letter to the young woman prior to his execution signed, "From your Valentine."

The third legend tells of a man named Valentine who was known to lavish children with flowers and sweets. Upon imprisonment with other Christians of the time, the children he'd impacted with his kindness tossed notes through the prison bars to him.

Hard to compare to a saint, isn't it? These romantic ideals are of another time and place, but certainly we can become a Valentine for the one who has captured our heart. Here are some discovery questions designed to help you leave behind someone else's idea of Valentine's Day and create your own:

Q: What is something your Valentine sacrifices to be with you? Can you, if only for a day, give it back to them?

Q: What is the one thing your Valentine has always wanted to do/learn/be? Do it. Give your Valentine the tools to learn it. Help your Valentine become it.

Q: Without obligations, where would your Valentine's interests lie? Take away those obligations for a time. Pursue that interest with your Valentine.

Q: Quiet your routines, your surrounding responsibilities, the noise of life. What is the true essence of peace for your Valentine? It's there, in the stillness. Sometimes we can't see it for all of life's clutter. Give your Valentine that peace.

Q: What is one thing you'd never do for your Valentine? Do it.

Tomorrow: Everything I Need to Know About a Woman's Heart I Learned from a Romance Novel
Art: A Painter's Honeymoon by Lord Frederic Leighton, 1864

Time Spent on Love

"Any time not spent on love is wasted"

~ Torquato Tasso

Ah, if only the world would equate love with time and attention, not gifts, how much different we would all be. Commercialism choking the life from holidays would cease to exist, and we would be able to experience depth and meaning in our celebrations.

Time is the greatest gift one can give to another. To spend something so precious we never get back on another is the supreme expression of love and compassion. The gift of time transcends romantic love, St. Valentine's Day, even familial love. Find time today to love a stranger. An hour dedicated to shoveling an elderly neighbor's sidewalk. Ten minutes to offer a weary traveler a seat on the subway. A moment to compliment a stranger's eyes. Any time not spent on love is wasted.

This week, seek out expressions of time to celebrate love. Here are some ideas:

Ransom Notes
Select one item with special significance to your Valentine. Hold the item for ransom at a romantic location and send one or a series of ransom notes that lead your Valentine to a special place where you'll be waiting. Piece together your own notes from cut magazines/newspapers or visit this site (being near-Rickrolled is an added bonus here!)

Around the World
Is there a place your Valentine has always wanted to go? Recreate that destination for them using one room in your home. Ask them to bring their passport and stamp it upon entering. Provide a feast native to that place and enjoy it together.

Love in a Bottle
This idea takes drawing a rose-petal bath for your Valentine to a new level. Take time to pour your heart out in a love letter, place it inside a corked bottle and float it on the surface as an added surprise.

Recreate a First
Think back to the firsts-the first moment you saw your Valentine, the first hour you spent together, the first time you realized you were in love. Go back in time and recreate a precious first.

Progressive Love Dinner
Make a multi-course dinner for your Valentine. Serve each course in a different room, even if the special spot consists of a blanket and candles. Finish with dessert in the bedroom.

Dancing In
Slow-dancing provides a touch point to love. Going out is great, but taking the time to plan a perfect evening in is even better. Dress to the hilt, share your finest meal and dance.

Romantic tip Hmmm of the week: place rose petals on the ceiling fan blades above the bed. Turn on the switch to shower your Valentine with petals.

Are we in Texas? Because down here those blades are set to gale force. Decidedly unromantic and potentially funny. Your dust bunnies may like it, though.

Tomorrow: Questions to Generate Ideas for the Right Valentine's Celebration For You and Your love.

Love Celebrated in Quiet Moments

"I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight."

~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Life is noisy and messy and chaotic. Love shouldn't be. It is in the stillness we find the rhythm of true love. In the quiet, a cadence shared. A hushed concert known only to two.

If you're looking for that perfect quiet to share with someone you love this week, try these ideas:

A Walk in the Snow

If you live in a cold climate this time of year, snow captures a poignant stillness in ways few things in nature can. Select a destination spot with plenty of snow. Ahead of time, make the trek and write your Valentine a message in the snow. Red spray paint works well, but an environmentally-friendly alternative could be strong Kool-aid or food coloring in a squeeze bottle. Be sure to bring a blanket and thermos of your Valentine's favorite hot drink on your journey together.

Look to History and Nature

Every place on Earth has romantic settings: lighthouses, beaches, secluded riverbanks, turn-of-the-century churches, abandoned barns, docks, rowboats, small town train depots. Anywhere love was found and lost in history already carries an imprint that has survived through time. Anywhere nature breathes couples can reclaim our own breath, together. Pack a secret stash of quiet items to enhance the setting: a candle, a blanket, a meal shared, a love letter.

Love in a Fog
Write a love message to your Valentine on the glass shower door using Rain-X Anti-Fog. Let them discover it in a quiet moment of solitude.

Love Letters

If you do anything romantic this Valentine's Day, let it be to skip the commercialized Valentine aisles and cards that belt out songs. Love letters are quiet, crafted in moments of great attention to your Valentine. For the $4 you'd spend on a glittery For-My-Spouse-Hallmark, you can sneak into the craft store and buy a single sheet of extravagant paper and enough inspiration materials to give the letter a tiny, but memorable personalization.

Straight from the heart ensures a perfect message, but it's okay to lean on the great writers of the past. Instead of hitting the hundred and one quotation sites on the internet, find inspiration in the love letters written by famous writers to their lovers. Focus on the things about your Valentine that do not change over time. Likely, they're aware their eyes and lips may not have the same allure they once had. How much more powerful it is to hear someone loves you for the things they remember when they close their eyes.

Voyeuristic as it seems, here's some inspiration to start St. Valentine's week: a letter from author Jack London to the love of his life, Charmian Kittredge.

Thursday, September 24, 1903

Nay, nay, dear Love, not in my eyes is this love of ours a small and impotent thing. It is the greatest and most powerful thing in the world. The relativity of things makes it so. That I should be glad to live for you or to die for you is proof in itself that it means more to me than life or death, is greater, far greater, than life or death.

That you should be the one woman to me of all women; that my hunger for you should be greater than any hunger for food I have ever felt; that my desire for you should bite harder than any other desire I have ever felt for fame and fortune and such things;-all, all goes to show how big is this, our love.

As I tell you repeatedly, you cannot possibly know what you mean to me. The days I do not see you are merely so many obstacles to be got over somehow before I see you. Each night as I go to bed I sigh with relief because I am one day nearer to you. So it has been this week, and it is only Monday that I was with you. Today I am jubilant, my work goes well. And I am saying to myself all the time, "Tonight I shall see her! Tonight I shall see her!"

My thoughts are upon you always, lingering over you always, caressing you always in a myriad of ways. I wonder if you feel those caresses sometimes!

Ah Love, it looms large. It wills my whole horizon. Wherever I look I feel you, see you, touch you, and know my need for you...I love you, you only and wholly...I clutch for you like a miser for his gold, because you are everything and the only thing.

I know I am 27, at the high-tide of my life and vigor. [I write these words] to show how large to me, in the scheme of life, bulks this love of ours.


And from Mark Twain to his future wife, Olivia Langdon:


May 12, 1869

Out of the depths of my happy heart wells a great tide of love and prayer for this priceless treasure that is confided to my life-long keeping.

You cannot see its intangible waves as they flow toward you, darling, but in these lines you will hear, as if it were, the distant beating of its surf.

Forever yours,

Sam

Even an old curmudgeon like Mark Twain appears to be from his writings is capable of aching tenderness.

Tomorrow: But I Need to Wrap Something

Exercise Your Right to Vote...and Love

If you're a cynic this time of year the Vortex won't be for you next week. For some, Valentine's Day is the equivalent to corporate greed driving the engine of guilt. Why do we need one day to tell those around us we love them when we tell them every day?

You may think taking the trash out for your honey while wearing boxers and black dress socks screams, "LOVE!" (and it does) but we all need to step out of our comfortable rituals sometimes. Me, included. I confess that for a Valentine I once replaced every Hershey Kiss flag in a hundred-count bag with tiny, typed flags lauding every reason I adored him. The same Valentine now witnesses me most days in my holey-pajama-bottom-writing-pants and penguin slippers stumbling to the keyboard to weave vast hours of a fictitious life. That Valentine deserves a day free of my rituals.

If your Valentine is of the materialistic variety, I can't help you. I am a product of my dad's practicality. I don't want a dozen roses when one speaks the same sentiment. Forget jewelry. It wouldn't go with my pajama bottoms. When this romance writer thinks of expressions of love, it is in the creative, uniquely-catered-to-that-person overture where true romance lives.

To that end, each day next week you'll find creative tidbits and ideas to get you thinking about ways to make this Valentine's day truly memorable. Some are intended for romantic love, while others can be used to express love to family and friends-even strangers. We could all use a little more of that random kindness.

For a little added fun, I've included a vote where Vortex readers decide the order of the posts. Here they are:

Time (of course, right?)
Ideas that cost little more than thoughtful moments

The Quiet
Ideas found in stillness

But I Need to Wrap Something
Ideas that beat Prada and Hi-Def TVs

Questions to Help You Discover The Perfect Celebration
Ways to kick-start your own unique ideas

Everything I Need to Know About a Woman's Heart I Learned From a Romance Novel
Demystifying what is really no mystery at all

Be sure to vote for your favorite(s) on the right sidebar. The most popular picks will appear first.

Have a super weekend, everyone!

Love Packaged

Poet Rupert Brook had a philosophy about love. He believed that before great love can enter a man or woman's life, there must be a sensitivity to simple things. One must appreciate the beauty of the practical and plain, for in those lies true beauty.

It is in the simple we break free of lofty expectations and disappointments that mask true emotion. In the understated, we find love's true resonating message. To that end, a few gift suggestions for your Valentine Rupert Brook would be proud of:

Jar of Love

Find a jar around the house, large or small. Fill it with slips of paper containing poetry, lyrics, special memories, notes of adoration. Instruct your Valentine to reach into the jar when he/she has had a difficult day or just wants to feel closer to you.

Memory Box

Shadow boxes provide the perfect framework for a memory box and can be found at most craft stores. Raid your drawers for trinkets, concert stubs, photo booth strips-anything that evokes a shared memory.

Love Puzzle

For next to no cost, you can take a favorite photograph of you and your Valentine to a photo mat and they'll convert it to a jigsaw puzzle. Piece together the puzzle in advance and write your love message on the back.

Find Your Symbol

I once read a story about a man who wrapped a pin designed with multiple-butterflies in a box with a note to his love that read, "These are the butterflies you gave me when we first met. I thought you might want them back." From that moment on, butterflies became their resonating symbol. Revisit special memories and seek out objects or icons with special significance.

Engraving From the Heart

Instead of purchasing new jewelry this Valentine's day, have an existing piece engraved with a special sentiment, a secret name, even an inside joke.

Twelve, One at a Time

For those who love to give roses, why not give them one at a time throughout your Valentine's day? Leave them in surprising places, alone or with a note of endearment.

Tomorrow: Time-Love expressed in thoughtful moments

Valentine Prophesy: Love At Cabela's

The Google Brotherhood of All-Up-In-My-Blog is now popping up a Google-Related toolbar at the bottom. Fascinating. Google picks up keywords from the website and suggests other sites or videos with related content. Wouldn't it be great if it helped with author marketability? Oh, wait...that would be too helpful. For now, I'm getting six pictures of Bill Murray in varying poses of disheveled career-dom and links to bob-mitchell videos that highlight the fulfillment of the end-of-world prophesy. Not quite the demographic I'm writing for, but this is all a work-in-progress, is it not?

Speaking of blogs, I just broke one of the (supposed) cardinal rules of blogging: No more than three lines of text before a paragraph break. Man, are you guys in trouble. This rule would have cramped Faulkner. It cramps me. I have faith in Vortexers that their attention span is longer than my attention span while watching the Grammy's.

Gotta cut this short today so I can do my part to get on the Valentine-gerbil wheel. You may think that since I sailed from Romancelandia, I am no longer a romantic. Not true. I am just into the quiet, the meaningful, the non-materialistic, the unpredictable, the messy, wonderful everyday parts of love. Here are links backs to two of my favorite valentine Vortex Lists and more, if you're so inclined:

Everything I Need to Know About A Woman's Heart, I Learned from a Romance Novel

But I Live in Gnaw Bone, Indiana! How Romance is Possible Anywhere. Even Cabela's.

Next up: My new favorite movie is probably one you've never heard of. Looooove it.

Love Overboard

It's been three months since I set sail from Romancelandia to Thriller Island. Sure, this time of year I miss the windswept coiffure and the temptation to wax nostalgic on my hero's corded forearms when I read other romance blog topics: Hump Day Hottie! Steam Up Your Valentine's Day! Hunky Cop Interview! It does not help that Fabio visits me during an episode of Cupcake Wars and says to the poor baker whose frosting slid off her too-hot cupcake, "What can I say?-a topless cupcake. I laaahhve it." Ask me if I'm kidding about this. It's as if Romancelandia has a stronger gravitational pull that I anticipated. Nevertheless, this ship's course is set for true north or true blood or true descent into-in my character's case-insanity, sweaty palms and all.

So this Valentine's Day I shall dump cargo from past satin-pillow-and-Barry-White Romancelandia-laced topics to make room for new body counts. With a well-documented tear plummeting my cheek I give you new booty. Less plunder, more psychological reaping.

Crate One: Fabio After Dark

I'm the first to admit I've probably gotten more mileage out of this than Fabio, but I can't hear things that go bump in the night if this Italian Stallion is reminding me he is a "chiiiild of laahhhve." Ciao, Fabio.

Crate Two: Romantic Gift Ideas

Gifts on Thriller Island are more likely to be a jar of human skin than a jar filled with love notes or poetry.

Crate Three: Love Letters

True, this one came packaged with well-wishes of love from Mr. Roarke and Tattoo, but on Thriller Island, they'd be from a stalker or a serial killer with an m.o. for copycatting famous lovers' deaths.

Crate Four: Vast Secrets of a Woman's Heart

Or, more specifically, how men can learn them by paying attention to romance novel heroes. Thriller Island could not exist without secrets, copious and dark, but the talent to control body functions is not one of them.

Crate Five: Those Romantic Shorts

Films, not Bermuda. Let's see, there was Notte Sento and Post-It Love and A Thousand Words and The Quiet Man scene and for heaven's sake, the entire kissing scene series I did a few years ago, but on Thriller Island, the shorts will be much more in the vein of Fragments, still my favorite.

Cargo dump aside, I hope everyone feels love this Valentine's Day. And if you don't, the Vortex is full of it (and, secretly, always will be). Shhh!

Favorites: Abraham's Love Letter to Mary

I picked today's favorite for two reasons.  First, I'm watching the PBS documentary series Abraham and Mary: A House Divided which nicely counterbalances the Love in the Wild and Gene Simmons Family Jewels eppies in my DVR. Must. Have. Brain. Balance. Secondly, it is the most-visited post in the five years I've been blogging. I can't say for sure why. Maybe because love letters are a dying art filled with the urgency of falling in love we all crave. From Valentine's Day, 2008...

Abraham's Love Letter to Mary


In this Valentine's week filled with Lord Byron and Barry White, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Hallmark, I offer up a confection-free taste of love at its purest and most vulnerable. It seems before Abraham Lincoln offered up one of the most important documents in human history, he was a simple man in love who dared to pour out his heart in a letter:

My dear Mary:

You must know that I cannot see you or think of you with entire indifference; and yet it may be that you are mistaken in regard to what my real feelings toward you are. If I knew that you were not, I should not trouble you with this letter. Perhaps any other man would know enough without further information, but I consider it my peculiar right to plead ignorance and your bounden duty to allow the plea. I want in all cases to do right, and most particularly so in all cases with women. I want at this particular time more than anything else to do right with you, and if I knew it would be doing right, as I rather suspect it would, to let you alone, I would do it. And for the purpose of making the matter as plainly as possible I now say you can drop the subject, dismiss your thoughts--if you ever had any--from me forever, and leave this letter unanswered without calling forth one accusing murmur from me. And I will even go further and say that if it will add anything to your comfort and peace of mind to do so, it is my sincere wish that you should.

Do not understand by this that I wish to cut your acquaintance. I mean no such thing. What I do wish is that our further acquaintance should depend upon yourself. If such further acquaintance would contribute nothing to your happiness, I am sure it would not to mine. If you feel yourself in any degree bound to me, I am now willing to release you, provided you wish it; while, on the other hand, I am willing and even anxious to bind you faster, if I can be convinced that it will in any degree add to your happiness. This indeed is the whole question with me. Nothing would make me more miserable than to believe you miserable; nothing more happy than to know you were so.

In what I have now said I cannot be misunderstood; and to make myself understood is the only object of this letter. If it suits you best not to answer this, farewell. A long life and a merry one attend you. But if you conclude to write back, speak as plainly as I do. There can be neither harm nor danger in saying to me anything you think just in the manner you think it.

Your friend,

A. Lincoln

At first read, the lines seem to come from a measurable distance, almost political. But to realize, in the privacy of his most intimate thoughts, never meant for public consumption, this revolutionary man could pour out his raw honesty and lay every stake in his future at the hands of the woman he loved is worthy of the greatest truth of this human condition. No matter how we try to capture love's essence, it's still not enough.

Happy Valentines Day!

Late in his life, Abraham Lincoln foretold Mary of his death. Read one of my first blog entries for the story.

Love is On the Page

Poking around upstairs today, trying to tackle my closet where The Wild Things Are, I found two ideas I'd scratched out on a canary-yellow page: something sweet to do for someone you love. I could save them for next Valentine's Day; but really, shouldn't we celebrate love at random? Get carried away by the moment and not wait? How long has it been since you've written a love note? We know we should, yet time eclipses our fanciful impulses. So before these impulses slip by and the yellow page is lost, I offer two sweet, quiet projects to spread the written love to a special person in your life:

Framed, Open Book

If you know someone who adores poetry or has a favorite book passage, why not turn it into art?
You'll need:
a hardcover book, a shadow box, a utility knife, two lengths of fishing line and a glue stick.

Step by Step:
1. Purchase a shadow box (available at craft stores) that will allow roughly a two inch margin around the opened book.
2. Remove the box's back panel and place on the table, backside facing up. Lay the book flat and open and trace around it using a pencil. Set aside.
3. Use the utility knife to poke four holes about an inch inside each corner of the traced rectangle. These will hold the fishing line and you don't want them visible.
4. Flip the panel over so the pencil marks are facing down and center the book, making sure to cover the holes you just made.
5. Cut two lengths of fishing line, each twice as long as the length of the book (top to bottom).
6. Thread the fishing line from the back through the top right corner hole you made, down along the page under the one you'd like to display and out through the bottom right corner hole. Tie the line snug in back to anchor the book's right side. Repeat with the left side.
7. Place a small amount of glue on the back of each display page and press gently to hold in place before reassembling the box.

Mirror, Mirror

Why not slip a sentiment or note of encouragement into the compact of a special woman in your life? Trace the powder puff onto card stock or a scrap of beautiful paper, cut out the circle and write your note. Circle a strip of tape on the note's back and affix it the mirror so she can remove it later.

And while I'm in the romantic mood and on the subject of love notes, here's a fun, award winning Italian short film that uses 4,500+ still photographs to tell a story. Enjoy.

An Open Letter to a Poster

Dear GTR,

Let's just say it. We've met before about six months ago. I know you don't remember me, but ah....do I remember you. The juxtaposition of your mysterious post initials and the allure of your ancient language makes you unforgettable. I know you bestow your random affections on other bloggers: middle-aged Worlds of Warcraft gamers who reside in their mother's basement, PTA moms sharing bundt cake recipes, one perhaps named Ethel who spread seeds of knowledge about her tomato crop from her farm in Illinois. Only rarely does your silver tongue reach it's glorious intended audience.

Your words are a siren's song to my heart. When you mix phrases like "toot Valentine's color screen and sexuality as News" and "romantic novels," you have only to add the magic words "time travel" and I'll be forever yours. Translating your timeless Chinese characters into words meant only for me and for an intimate three thousand others-words like "concubine cinema" and "harem movie"-makes me reflect on the genius behind such poetry.

Are you twenty-something with bad hair? Do you travel through your days with a sticky hand plagued with carpal tunnel, your only true companion? Are the whites of your eyes bleeding from the seventy-two straight hours you've been staring at a computer screen in the dim shadows of a black-lit, velvet poster of Jessica Simpson? Inspiration must come from somewhere, no?

Rest assured friend, your efforts have not gone unnoticed. That you pillaged three dozen days of posts showed me your commitment to spreading your wisdom. Thank you for holding time captive so that I am the last in my writing class to complete my assignment. Thank you for illustrating time theory: what took you mere moments has translated to an hour, maybe more. These are the distractions filled with lasting memories.

Some may call you a malicious tool, but not I. Should the need arise in a future novel, you, GTR, will be the secondary character who meets his fate in the most poetic form of justice befitting such a man. I'll remember those yellow teeth. Inspiration must come from somewhere, no?

Sincerely,

Frustrated (but not in the way you're hoping)

Post-It Love

It's Friday of our week-long Love-Fest and the time is ripe for a romantic short film. Though the ones I've posted here before, A Thousand Words and Signs, are still my favorites, this one is delightfully sweet, just in time for Valentine's Day. Enjoy!

Bid Valentine's Day Return

I'm sure this comes as no surprise to anyone, especially if you've looked at my profile on Blogger, that I list Somewhere in Time as one of my favorite movies. The truth is, it's THE movie for me. Enough years ago to be the possible seed of my time-travel preoccupation, connected enough to be the strongest memory I have with my best friend in high school, and powerful enough that I strive to capture anything close to the impression it left on me in the hearts of any reader who picks up my stories.

I'd heard it was the most rented movie of all time--a cult-classic more popular than The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The soundtrack is one of the most successful in film history. At some time I'd heard a fan club existed, one of only three dedicated to a film. Heady company with the Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. This week, I stumbled upon the website for the International Network of Somewhere in Time Enthusiasts and was completely amazed at the treasures I found.

An online store with not only CDs, DVDs and printed photos from the movie, but vintage 1912 jewelry, articles by the fan club's founder and extra in the movie, little known trivia (My favorite: The man in the hallway who stares after Christopher Reeve's character, Richard, as he exits the washroom and remarks, "Astonishing" is Richard Matheson, the science fiction/horror author of Bid Time Return, the novel the movie is based upon). Shirts, music boxes, even a replica antique pocket watch fill the online store.

More stirring that that is the devotion of this international society to the memory of the actors who brought the story to life and the dedication to the causes they believe important. They played a large part in sponsoring Christopher Reeve's and Jane Seymour's stars on the Walk of Fame and continue to champion spinal cord research.

If anyone you know loves this movie, be sure to send them to the fan site. For many of us who have experienced the movie to the point of saturation, the treasures at this site are like experiencing it for the first time all over again.

And if you haven't seen it, find it. Watch it. I'll wait. Go.

Was it as good for you?

But I Live in Gnaw Bone, Indiana! How Romance is Possible Anywhere. Even Cabela's.

Cabela's, the sports and outdoor superstore mecca for so many red-blooded American males, is by far the most unromantic place I've visited in the past week. A close second? Walmart with the guns and tank tops, but the stuffed javalinas pushed it over the edge for me. Where better to prove my point about romance? Remember when you were fifteen and even the most mundane place became a destination when paired with the right person? So step into your camo hunting suits and grab a package of jalapeno beef jerky-we're getting romantic at Cabela's.

Top Ten Romantic Things to do at Cabela's:

1. Name a fish after your Valentine. Commit its details to memory so you can find it again when you return. This will cancel out the time your beloved wore a new outfit you didn't notice for two years. While you're at it, donate to the wildlife fund to ensure its species will have plenty of procreation opportunities in the future, even if you don't.

2. Test out a rod and hook her. Don't bust out your best Mike Iaconelli impression. That will only make her want the guy on the water ski promo poster. Extra points for a cheesy line about how she's the best catch anywhere.

3. Lay on a speedboat deck, hand in hand. Close your eyes and pretend you're anywhere but near the portable camping loos.

4. Crawl in a display tent and play truth or dare. Better yet, share a secret. Just be sure your inner fifth grade boy scout doesn't rear his ugly head and initiate a finger dare that will clear the outdoor section.

5. Shoot the scary drunk guy leaning against the saloon door in the shooting gallery while proclaiming, "I love her, Black Bart, I'll protect her 'til the day I die!"

6. Drop her off at the door before you park in the E lot, halfway to Guatemala. While you're at it, open her door for her, not by leaning across her thighs and popping the broken door handle but as a true gentleman would: dodging stacked canoes on sale by the door and offering your hand.

7. Consume the foot-long chili cheese dog Lady-and-the-Tramp style.

8. Lead her to the bear skin rug in the home decor section and do your best Fabio impression. Be sure to whisper in your best accent, "I can't believe it's not butter," so she can envision it past your flannel clad-paunch and your chili cheese dog breath.

9. Compare her to a gazelle in the African grassland taxidermy display. Avoid eye contact with the elephant if you don't want those Springbok horns shoved where the sun doesn't shine.

10. Locate the exact place you met on a GPS and tell her it's where you lost your heart.

Tell us the most romantic, unromantic place you've ever been...

Abraham's Love Letter to Mary

In this Valentine's week filled with Lord Byron and Barry White, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Hallmark, I offer up a confection-free taste of love at its purest and most vulnerable. It seems before Abraham Lincoln offered up one of the most memorable and eloquent speeches in human history, he was a simple man in love who dared to pour out his heart in a letter:

My dear Mary:

You must know that I cannot see you or think of you with entire indifference; and yet it may be that you are mistaken in regard to what my real feelings toward you are. If I knew that you were not, I should not trouble you with this letter. Perhaps any other man would know enough without further information, but I consider it my peculiar right to plead ignorance and your bounden duty to allow the plea. I want in all cases to do right, and most particularly so in all cases with women. I want at this particular time more than anything else to do right with you, and if I knew it would be doing right, as I rather suspect it would, to let you alone, I would do it. And for the purpose of making the matter as plainly as possible I now say you can drop the subject, dismiss your thoughts--if you ever had any--from me forever, and leave this letter unanswered without calling forth one accusing murmur from me. And I will even go further and say that if it will add anything to your comfort and peace of mind to do so, it is my sincere wish that you should.

Do not understand by this that I wish to cut your acquaintance. I mean no such thing. What I do wish is that our further acquaintance should depend upon yourself. If such further acquaintance would contribute nothing to your happiness, I am sure it would not to mine. If you feel yourself in any degree bound to me, I am now willing to release you, provided you wish it; while, on the other hand, I am willing and even anxious to bind you faster, if I can be convinced that it will in any degree add to your happiness. This indeed is the whole question with me. Nothing would make me more miserable than to believe you miserable; nothing more happy than to know you were so.

In what I have now said I cannot be misunderstood; and to make myself understood is the only object of this letter. If it suits you best not to answer this, farewell. A long life and a merry one attend you. But if you conclude to write back, speak as plainly as I do. There can be neither harm nor danger in saying to me anything you think just in the manner you think it.

Your friend,
A. Lincoln

At first read, the lines seem to come from a measurable distance, almost political. But to realize, in the privacy of his most intimate thoughts, never meant for public consumption, this revolutionary man could pour out his raw honesty and lay every stake in his future at the hands of the woman he loved is worthy of the greatest truth of this human condition. No matter how we try to capture love's essence, it's still not enough.

Happy Valentines Day!

Late in his life, Abraham Lincoln foretold Mary of his death. Read one of my first blog entries for the story.

A Mental Pilaf Made From Quinoa, Denim and Bite-Sized Chunks of Dean Butler

One should not let an opportunity slip away to celebrate being number one. Okay, so it's not the number one Publisher's Weekly three-book-at-auction deal for the week, but it feels good. Ready? Wait for it...wait for it...
Dean Butler shirtless.

Yep. Test it out. Ga-head, Google it. Number one, baby. Woooooo!

I'm completely distracted today because I didn't get enough sleep last night. I watched the celebrity-fat cinema experience that was Valentine's Day then was sad that it was a good two hours of my life I'd never get back. Think of the literary masterpieces I could have consumed in that time. Think of the literary masterpieces I could have generated in that time. Not even a gay Bradley Cooper character was worth that.

Anyone here ever eaten quinoa? These little parasite-wormy-like grains love my keyboard. Normally I don't eat while I write because I get ocular migraines and have to take screen-time-outs, but remember how awesome edits are going? I wanted to work straight through lunch yesterday and my quinoa wanted to jump ship to beneath my M key. Longest game of Operation with a mechanical pencil lead. Ever. And while we're on bizarre grains, all this week I've been eating from a bread loaf labeled Ancient Grains.  Does the mere application of the word ancient make it somehow healthier? What about stoic grains?

Mostly today, though, I'm mourning the departure of my favorite jeans. So instead of working on my gun-chase-through-a-major-urban-area scene, I'm wisely flexing my writing muscle today by writing a missive to the Levi Strauss Company that they will, most likely, never see:

Dear Levi Strauss execs,

I have a been a faithful customer for longer than Madonna has had Devo chest armor. I hung with your brand through years when your designers thought hey, let's spread those back pockets and make a woman's ass look larger. I hung with you when your red labels went geriatric large-print and made me look like my backside was part of a presidential motorcade. I hung with you when waistlines plunged lower than The Situation's IQ  because, hey, nothing is sexier than ass-crack-and, well, women don't need to sit down anyway. But then you stopped making my favorite number and your outlet sales clerk felt my pain about as much as getting her text allowance cut by five. Jeans aren't just pants for women. They are a full-on relationship. Thus, I am ending ours. Sure, Calvin Klein's swanky back pockets are so far south it makes me look like I'm packing heat or worse--bad rap tunes on my ipod; and sure, DKNY jeans are sized for DiNKY elf-like creatures, but I shall prevail in my search.

Sincerely,

A non-geriatric, non ass-crack consumer

Whew! I feel so much better. Thanks for letting me Ranty McRant. Now I can get back to some heat-packing of the fictional variety.

Hooky

Dear Vortex readers,

Please excuse L.A. from writing a fresh post as promised today. The seven inches of snow on her Texas doorstep called to her Colorado heart like a siren's song.

Past Valentine Posts:

Love is on the Page

Everything I Need to Know About a Woman's Heart I Learned From a Romance Novel

The Perfect Celebration of Love

Time Spent on Love

Love Packaged

Love Celebrated in Quiet Moments

Abraham[Lincoln]'s Love Letter to Mary

Protesting Hallmark

I'd really hoped to get this love-fest kicked off yesterday, but I couldn't physically get to my computer. I'd like to say I was here

or here,

but honestly, my day was filled with all manner of need-to-do instead of want-to-do. To make up for it, the luuuve posts will extend daily through the weekend. What could be more exciting to a romance novelist than a holiday to celebrate love?


I hear you naysayers. The glass-half-empty people in the back. Yeah, you. Is Valentine's day a commercialized juggernaut meant only to perpetuate feelings of guilt and obligation? Yes. Do we all become a bit misty at the thought of a day to remind us of what truly matters in this lifetime? Absolutely.

So with that in mind, you'll find six days of posts dedicated to love in a decidedly non-juggernaut way. That uniquely romantic strand in a romance novelist's DNA? If you don't have it already, you'll own it after these posts. If you've been around here for any length of time, you know how much I love the raw honesty of a love letter. What better way to begin a Vortex love fest than by reading love letters crafted by some of the greatest writers in history? See if you can guess the authors:

July, 1943

Darling,

You want to know what I want of you. Many things of course, but chiefly these. I want you to keep this thing we have inviolate and waiting-the person who is neither I nor you but us.

-John

May 12, 1869

Out of the depths of my happy heart wells a great tide of love and prayer for this priceless treasure that is confided to my life-long keeping.

You cannot see its intangible waves as they flow toward you, darling, but in these lines you will hear, as if it were, the distant beating of its surf.

Forever yours,

Sam

Oakland

Thursday, September 24, 1903

Nay, nay, dear Love, not in my eyes is this love of ours a small and impotent thing. It is the greatest and most powerful thing in the world. The relativity of things makes it so. That I should be glad to live for you or to die for you is proof in itself that it means more to me than life or death, is greater, far greater, than life or death.

That you should be the one woman to me of all women; that my hunger for you should be greater than any hunger for food I have ever felt; that my desire for you should bite harder than any other desire I have ever felt for fame and fortune and such things;-all, all goes to show how bug is this, our love.

As I tell you repeatedly, you cannot possibly know what you mean to me. The days I do not see you are merely so many obstacles to be got over somehow before I see you. Each night as I go to bed I sigh with relief because I am one day nearer to you. So it has been this week, and it is only Monday that I was with you. Today I am jubilant, my work goes well. And I am saying to myself all the time, "Tonight I shall see her! Tonight I shall see her!"

My thoughts are upon you always, lingering over you always, caressing you always in a myriad of ways. I wonder if you feel those caresses sometimes!

Ah Love, it looms large. It wills my whole horizon. Wherever I look I feel you, see you, touch you, and know my need for you...I love you, you only and wholly...I clutch for you like a miser for gold, because you are everything and the only thing.

I know I am 27, at the high-tide of my life and vigor. I write these words to show you how large to me, in the scheme of life, bulks this love of ours.

-Jack

Is there anything more romantic than reading a man's complete devotion to a woman? Okay, maybe a photo of a guy rescuing kittens from a flood, but I digress. I hope the words of these famous writers have started your ideas flowing. If you partake in any Vortex suggestion this luuuuve week, let it be this one: write your own card/note. Some greasy bohunk or hausfrau who made fifty bucks to write that greeting card can't come within a galaxy of expressing your true feelings. Belting out a Journey riff when you open it up won't cut it either. Take your cue from the gifted writers above and dig deep.

Leave your author guesses here...answers Wednesday

Tomorrow: But I live in Gnaw Bone, Indiana! How Romance is Possible Anywhere. Even Cabela's.

Everything I Need to Know About a Woman's Heart I Learned From a Romance Novel

Our week-long celebration of love and romance concludes today with the wealth of information found between the pages of a romance novel. Men are forever trying to figure out a way to pluck the right emotional string to reach that mystical realm of a woman's heart. It's hardly mystical, often uncomplicated and intuitive. Men need only to look to the heroes who populate romance novels for a compass. Who else but women who write for women are experts at the vast terrain of a feminine heart?

Romance Heroes understand there are regions of a woman's heart he may never see. A woman's collective experiences form a deep labyrinth of emotions: worry, hurt, triumph, truth, and thoughts she shares with no one. Heroes know that with respect and patience, a map to navigate the maze becomes apparent.

Romance Heroes are gentlemen. Chivalry may be a dead art in modern society, but the romance hero knows simple gestures place them at a serious advantage over other red-blooded males. This can be difficult terrain, especially for women who embrace feminism with an iron grip, but even a woman with a strong sense of her modern role in society can grow weary at times.

Romance Heroes recognize strength is not measured in pounds or arm-wrestling trophies. While heroes may be good at setting course for a specific goal and reaching it, women burden themselves with details and sacrifices and the whole of life such that they become the very fabric that allows others to reach their goals. Heroes never doubt there is a strong woman behind every great man.

Romance Heroes do not have body functions. Only the dicey romance writer will expound on his need to take a piss (ahem...guilty. The Lost Highway), but on the whole he is far too preoccupied with saving the heroine, child, world to engage in pull-my-finger antics. This is why he gets the girl and the only ones who appreciate your armpit noises are your drinking buddies.

Romance Heroes are out saving the world. They live by the others before self creed. They rescue dogs from hot cars, women who drop their purses, elderly who need a seat and step up without being asked.

Romance Heroes never smother. They're diffusing a bomb that could annihilate the entire northern hemisphere. They don't have time to call a woman's cell phone seventeen times a day.

Romance Heroes embrace defining moments. When called upon during emotional peaks that life dishes out to us all, they react with character and integrity. They know their legacy carries on after three hundred pages.

Romance Heroes are scarred. Some of the best heroes in romantic literature are less-than-perfect men who sport limps or disfigurements. It is the same reason the Beauty and the Beast legend has been reinvented in alternate forms for centuries. Yes, some women like the idea of taming that which cannot be tamed; but mostly, we understand a hero is not always found beneath a Hollywood face.

However you decide to celebrate Valentine's Day (or not) this week, I wish you all one glaring moment of peace where you feel the love around you and give it back in return.

Kim Lenox's second book in her Shadow Guard series, So Still the Night will be a May 2009 release. Kim's books are perfect specimens to study the ideal dark alpha hero. Love her writing. LOVE it.

Monday: Double blog-award day!! Thanks, Vesper.