Valentine Gift Pereceptions and this gutless wonder

The Valentine's Day issue of perceptions and impressions.

A biggie. Give the wrong gift, say the wrong thing, particularly on first approach, and you're toast...or at least down to some sports analogy for desperate times, best forgotten.

I mean, if you give a woman (or a guy) a copy of THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES and they get the wrong message, what do you say? What do you do? Or, worse yet, what if they move away a few weeks later, willfully (don't laugh, I know a really nice guy that happened to).

I mean, to me, that book is about going for it. Putting all other considerations secondary and attempting to jump lover's leap in your rocket powered heartmobile. If that's the message you're going for...Boy Howdy! Hope they receive the message and respond accordingly, just don't name any of the kids after me or steal any of the names I have tucked away just in case I do end up with more progeny.

As a "I'd like to get close" gift, that book suffers from being maybe too much, like Steve Martin in "Housesitter" when he builds a house for his love and she rejects him, probably not in the least because he went too far.

Start small. 101 GREAT LOVE POEMS is a good call, you can always laugh off questions about what you're trying to say by saying that it's Valentine's Day and thus love poems seem like a good gift. Coward. You and I both know that you meant you want to take the relationship, as they say, to the next level. Usually that level involves a bed or at least the backseat of a four door sedan.

I'm giving one book for Valentine's Day this year, just one. I took LOVE GODS OF A FORGOTTEN RELIGION and FROM AN UNEXPECTED QUARTER out of circulation, so my choices narrowed, but in the end I decided to wimp out and give INVOCATO. It's chock full of romantic and erotic poetry, but with enough other things that I can wimp out and say I was just trying to show my craft (ack. craft, hate that word) er...my art.

See, I am gutless, as well.

Better still, save the money and just email a link to your intended to my website or to my podcast shows (you could even narrow it between the romantic and the erotic ones, but that may be too obvious) just link them to my radio page here. Tell them you found this nifty collection of podcasts and audio files...you can even send the link to several friends, to mask the fact you're really just wanting to get it to the one person you're focused on.

Good luck. And, I repeat, do not name the children after me.