Imagine this: It's 1976 and you're dating a man named Rick. He has a moustache and owns at least one reindeer sweater. High off of reading The Easter Parade and The Great Santini, he's all pumped up to write the next great American novel but, to make ends meet, he's currently working for Hallmark. He's been really cagey about his latest project, only revealing that this will be the first time Hermann Zapf's Crown font is used in a publication.

The fact is, things could be better between the two of you; he forgot your birthday… then your anniversary. Then there was that time he bit your head off on the car ride home for making fun of him during a game of Monopoly at a friend's house.

Now, imagine it's Valentine's Day and you're not expecting much – but Rick?urprises?ou. It turns out that book he was working on – it's all about you! And your relationship! Your eyes well up with tears of joy. Then, as you skim through, they become tears of something else. You discover that the book is full of lines like this: “Please don't get mad at me if I forget your birthday or some special day we share.”

And this: “Please don't expect me to always be good and kind and loving. There are times when I will be cold and thoughtless and hard to understand.”

And there's even a photo depicting couples board?ame?ight paired with this text: “Please don't… make me look foolish in front of other people.”

I spotted this amazing treasure at Spoonbill and Sugartown and, of course, I had to buy it right away. Aside from the prose, the photographs are priceless – but even more priceless are the hand written annotations and underlined passages in my copy, beseeching the reader to re-read certain lines. It's out of print (as you might have imagined) but, as your faithful friend, I've digitally preserved this amazing book; every magical page can be viewed here.

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Posted on February 9, 2009