Gimme Love! Gimme 11 Red V-Day Presents!  I will serve faithfully the lover who treats me (and us) to this menu of 11 red perfections I desire for V-Day or anyday.

Come alive St. Valentine!  I always confuse you with the Earl of Sandwich so I had to look up your story.

Just another saint put to death by Roman Empire’s Claudius ll by stoning?  No one really knows why he inspires such love festing. Like our nameless lusting,hurts, fears, desires and awe over Love, the source will always be a mystery.  St. Valentine doesn’t even have a Hallmarkable Avatar the way St.Nick has Santa Claus and St.Patrick has his green leprechaun.  OK maybe we made Cupid his Avatar and Psyche his holy grail to rescue from the Underground.  St. Valentine himself did leave us his skull crowned with flowers.

No wonder we throw ourselves into gifting and loving on this day! We want our own love story, we want much more than mandible-less skull relics peeping through the portholes of Time!  It’s been cold outside and we want some hot lovin’!

A search for the pagan roots sometimes helps with hot lovin’ inspiration, our unfathomable mythical connections and general bookishness.  Here’s a Wikipedia gem, apparently Valentine’s Day is based on the pagan holiday Lupercalia, and one can find references to Spring cleaning and new life ala the wolf Lupa who suckled the infant twins Romulus and Remus…but this!   “At this time many of the noble youths and magistrates run up and down through the city naked, for sport and laughter striking those they meet with shaggy thongs.” Lashes from these animal skin whips were to said to increase fertility.

That is a Caligula-worthy porn movie or music video begging to be made.  Here are 11 steps to real red things I prefer my lover to give me:

Step 1. the gift. lash blinkings and sexy trinkets.

Bat your boy eyelashes sweetly at me, brush my hair and adorn me with jewels. Betony Vernon jewels, please.

Her roots may be dirty blond and she may be a coalminer’s daughter, but the sex-full and simultaneously purposeful jewelry of Betony Vernon beckons more than gold, sporting real bedhead or the 17 year old thrill of wearing the football star’s hickeys. And she herself brilliantly mixes a soft 40’s minx look with an Appalachian porn vibe, melikes it, quite stunning.

Step 2…red wine, red velvet, red monkeys

Let’s soak in a robust Red and gurgle beneath the fez’d monkey at New York City’s The Jane Hotel bar.

Did they open the big room yet?  Can we slip the bartender a crisp $1000. and play inside?

Step 3. gift me your mind…wine tipsy, fluttery red art repartee

Have you seen the art shanties they make in Minneapolis’ Medicine Lake?

no! but look at this old, esoteric, really red media cover, isn’t it the best new media you’ve seen lately?

um, is it a fallen angel Avatar for a multi-platformed, multi-channeled whatever?

well no.  It’s just old.  which somehow feels fresher. captivating…creation of Fleur Cowles…born unremarkable made herself into an icon and became friends with Presidents, Ctzars and Parlimentary Persons of every ilk. She published Flair for a year and lived it her whole life.

This picture may or may not be her but it comes up in a google search and damn…a red hat at the pool?

Step 4…hungry. Vlada. Russian Samovar.

Why? Why? New York History Baby. Russian Passion. Russian vodka. It’s the haunt of Carrie Bradshaw (“It’s very…red” she observed.) and the former creation of Jilly, Sinatra’s bodyguard who welcomed the Rat Pack to it’s cushy red banquets… owned by our new friend, the bold, the blond Vlada and ballet boy Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Step 5. baby, can you feel my red shoes under the table?

these exact Christian Louboutin shoes, that you are   ***f e e l i n g***  right now are in a lineage of men memories fueled from red leather me-wrinkled ankle boots at 6 on a swing with my Dad to my red peep toe Charles Jourdans in the eighties when we first met in the club that was a church, you grabbed me to Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” and we did until “Take Me Home”…I love that you are the man who buys my shoes, protects my feet and unabashedly buys my heart.

Step 6.  prodigal son and the siren.  ballet.

our shoes journey syncopated steps making diagonal leagues in the icy February air across Lincoln Center’s vast plain towards the ballet. I am gasping over Diaghilev’s siren in Prodigal Sun…this red and white deco sketch, this is a Superheroine, a visionary anime from the 1920’s. The ghoulish crew, the melodrama and the Balanchine timeless modern force gets you. the lovers’ body puzzles! when she wraps herself in the endless infinite red scarf! the leathered, tethered and pleading son’s slide down the Father’s body…whoa.

Step 7. after ballet dessert cool down with pichet at spot.

My sweet friend Pichet Ong p’onged from The Spice Market to P’ong to Spot. talk to the tart. the yuzu Oreo-crusted ice cream sandwich and with macerated strawberries, passionfruit foam and crumbly chocolate soil has us in Marilyn Minter sugar overdoes overdose.

Step 8. at your sacred feet. gimme men’s feet, expensive shoes, no socks.

my X-ray specs mind-spy and feel your ankles and see my just desserts. (blogger note: there are no photos of sexy men’s feet online…do even gay men ignore the feet?)

Step 9.  seduction finale. love chamber essentials, bring these please:

swagger, stagger, protect, expose, circle, unwind, grasp, conquer, surrender, shake, shore up, possess, release, smile, eyes close, surprise.

here am I deep like earth eyes, to protect, to feed the twins you are, all of it there’s more than all of it here. enough chair, red cloth, milk, space, poetry.

hindu hop skotch. the red is for Shakti Female and the white is for Shiva Male and Pink is the…Pleasure.  gotcha Volupta, child of Cupid and Psyche. I am feeling your Holy Name of Bliss:-)))))))

Step 10.  thankfully, you know exactly my bathroom essentials…

dry brush, scrubs, scented oils, white marble, gigantic proportions, big mirrors, fresh flowers, art, huge white linen bedsheets or towels…I love when things get used for something other than what God intended.

Step 11.   and I will soothe your morning with my hangover cure. just promise me you will bring me your hunger…always.

it may be manhattan, but the mourning dove is sweeting us from sleep, let me sweet you with some coconut kefir to sooth the hangover, open that lovely mouth for some buttery biscuits while listening to sweet Telepopmusik to send you on your way…into another day…

Lyrics to Breathe :
I brought you some something close to me
And left with something new
I can see through your head
You haunt my dreams
But theres nothing to do but believe
Just believe
Just breathe
Another day
Just believe
Another day
Just breathe
Another day
Just believe
Another day
Just breathe
I’m used to it by now
Another day
Just believe
Just breathe
Just believe
Just breathe
Lying in my bed
Staring at the ceiling
Just breathe
Another day
Another day
Just believe
Another day
I’m used to it by now
I’m used to it by now
Just breathe
Just believe
Just breathe
Just believe
Just breathe
Just believe
Just believe
Just breathe
Just believe
Another day
Just believe
Another day
Just believe
Another day
Just breathe
Another day

Just breathe

I do believe
Another day
Another day
Another day