now on autopilot

We leave today and will be in transit for a good while. Hopefully I can poke my head up here in a few days with updates if I have internet access, but if not I have lots of posts already lined up in reserve.

My daily hits vary wildly, and I can never figure out why -- some days it's only in the hundreds, while other days in the tens of thousands. So keep reading, faithful readers, because my daily gibberish will continue uninterrupted. (As long as Blogger doesn't crash again.) And if you're not interested in what I write, you can always look at the naughty pictures here and on my Tumblr.

our departure approaches

The tickets arrived today for our flight to Spain. For a variety of reasons, we did not have much choice about departure and arrival times. We fly via Singapore and London with reasonable times to change planes, for a total of nearly 27 hours in the air.

The big shocker came when we opened the travel package -- they're flying us first class and giving us a hotel suite. I am so excited. I've only ever flown first class once before when I was bumped and given a first class ticket as compensation.

Because of the nature of my husband's work in Spain, he can't tell me much about it. So I teased him about maybe he was being brought in to snuff somebody. He answered that hitmen aren't allowed to bring their wives along on a job. I didn't miss a beat and asked him how he knew that. He just laughed in response.

I told him if he was going on more international hitman assignments, could he be sure to take me along and get us first class tickets.

sweeping hypersexuality under the rug?

The laciviously titled and always interesting website "Your Brain on Porn" has a detailed and interesting essay about proposals to include or exclude "hypersexual disorder" from the DSM, which is the shrink's bible and holy grail rolled into one.

Hypersexual disorder, by the way, includes all sorts of things like intercourse, masturbation, porn consumption, cybersex, visiting strip clubs, and more.

Not being a shrink, although I am the child of two and also the sibling of one, I have a layperson's perspective on this. I feel the primary focus should be the person/patient him or herself, not how to fit him or her onto some laundry list.

The DSM has many extremely valuable uses, but at the same time it's an attempt to classify something subjective as objective. It's sort of like publishing a book on what is and isn't beautiful.

If porn is a problem for someone, what does it matter whether it fits neatly into some DSM definition? Equally, if a very active sex life isn't a problem, the mere fact that it might match some checklist seems irrelevant.

If you're interested in this topic, particularly as it relates to porn consumption, I encourage you to click through above and read the article.

cheap condoms

We have a little discount store near us that's a lot like a Dollar Store or 99-Centy Only Store back in the US. It's owned and operated by a lovely immigrant couple and packed with all sorts of super-cheap necessities.

I noticed today when picking up some items for our big trip that they sell a fairly large box of condoms for an Australian dollar (which now equals $1.06 American, by the way).

I love to practice frugality, but I don't think I'd bargain-buy rubbers. I'd be afraid you'd get what you paid for. If you don't want to get pregnant, saving a few dollars on condoms could end up costing you $100,000 with a kid you had to raise for twenty years.

Speaking of rubbers, Jake over at Facts and Friction recently made this amusing test of an old condom he'd been carrying in his wallet for months. Turns out good condoms are surprisingly strong and durable.

tits and a tongue

The Husband is getting increasingly anxious about the fact that I'll be daytripping in Spain without any protective male companion while he's off working. He's semi-convinced gangs of marauding rapists will be waiting to abduct me in some museum or cathedral and sell me into white slavery.

I've reminded him several times that I hitchhiked through Europe for several months when I was eighteen with a female friend. I'm now older and wiser and know when and how to be careful.

I've told him I will not sit in a hotel room all day re-reading the one paperback I'm taking or watching Spanish game shows and telenovellas. I will be out soaking up culture.

"What if you get lost?" he asks in a plaintive tone. "What happens if you're robbed?"

I remind him of an expression I learned from a coworker at a club when I worked in New York: "as long as you have tits and a tongue you'll never get lost."

archival hnt

The trip is now on and our departure date was moved up because of the volcano. We leave in only a few days. With no time to organize a new HNT, I dug into my archives and pulled up this shot from back in the early months of my blog back in 2008.

ninety years old

The elderly woman for whom we permanently house and dog sit turned ninety the other day. We visit her regularly at the care center where she now lives, and made sure we were there on her birthday. She didn't want any fuss on her big day, I think in part because her children would not contact her to wish her well.

I find it staggering they all but ignore her. She is such an adorably sweet lady and a fascinating person. She was born in 1921 and was a young wife during the London Blitz. While she's physically quite frail now, her memory and mind are as sharp as the proverbial tack.

I think part of the reason I like talking to her is because she was obviously so much in love with her husband, who passed away several years ago. I have heard from neighbors they were a very sweet and visibly loving couple who daily took walks while holding hands until shortly before he died in his late 80s.

Their lives revolved around the other, and so it still hard on her because she misses him so. In this age with so many marriages ending in divorce, it's not every day you meet someone married for 65 loving years.

A few neighbors have made somewhat veiled comments at times about how "fortunate" we are to live rent-free in a large house in exchange for minor housekeeping and dog care. I sometimes wonder if they think we have control of the old lady's money, which we don't. No one besides us stepped up when she needed help, so I can never figure out what their motive might be in catting behind our backs. Fortunately, most of the neighbors are very supportive and quite a few visit her in the care center, too.

She has rooms full of antiques and assorted stuff she's hoarded away for no particular reason. I understand her husband was a major pack rat, too. I imagine losing everything in the Blitz is part of the reason for her compulsive keeping.

We have thrown very little away, in respect for her, but we have packed up the clutter from the few rooms we use for living. The other day, so we could use a cupboard, I boxed up the dozens and dozens of linen tablecloth and napkin sets she had saved from who knows where. She told me that she and her husband never entertained so I imagine the stuff was never used.

In contrast, my husband and I are used to living with very little. Both of us have moved so many times that we're used to keeping only what can be fit in the trunk of a car. Living now with so much clutter, even if it is someone else's, makes me realize how much easier it is not to be tied down by so much stuff in life.

old lady Cher

Cher turned 65 this week. She has never denied having lots of plastic surgeries, but she still looks great, at least in pictures. The shot below was taken within the last year.

I would love to see her up close to see how accurate her photographic record is. I've seen a few celebrities at arm's length who had plastic surgery, and their pictures were always kind. Still, lots of Cher pictures are out there, and she almost always looks good.

She's well known to work out religiously and gets plenty of exercise with her performances, too. Her muscle tone looks pretty impressive for a woman her age, considering she's not shy about hiding her body.

I wonder how she feels, what she admits to herself privately. Does she wake up in the morning feeling refreshed and fantastic like a thirty-year-old woman? Or does she roll out of bed, creaking and cracking, thinking "God, I feel so old." She has to be past menopause.

And, of course, I wonder about her sex life. She had lots of boytoys in the past. Is that still happening?

I'm something of a baby about pain so I don't think I would bother with any plastic surgery. Maybe I'll feel differently at forty or fifty.

I remember watching some reality show several years ago that showed a woman a few days after her plastic surgery. She was in absolute agony and said something like, "if I knew it would feel like this, I would never have done it." She had an accident or birth deformity that gave her a reason to consider plastic surgery.

foreign adventure

My husband has been offered a short-term gig in Spain lasting several weeks in June. Right now there's probably about a 95 percent chance this will happen.

The upside to the trip is the contractor will also pay for me to tag along. The downside is James will be gone for long hours each day, so I will have to spend a good deal of time on my own, except for weekends.

We definitely decided to go for this because the money is so good for him plus we get a free trip. Neither of us have ever been to Spain, so this would be a fantastic opportunity. We've already lined up two substitutes to house and dog sit in our place for the elderly woman.

I have no idea how much computer access I'll have on the trip. I don't think I'll take my laptop because the hinge is very wonky. I definitely need an upgrade soon. So hopefully I'll be able to find some internet cafes with computers that can be rented by the hour.

afterschool gangbang special

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the world ends today

You've probably read in the news about how some people are predicting the world ends today. More specifically, "The Rapture" is supposed to happen, whereby the super-Christians will zoom up to heaven while the rest of us sinners muck around down here for a few more months while the globe literally goes to pieces.

By the time you're reading this in the New World, the big event should have already hit Australia and swept across time zones moving westward. By then, Down Under we should be having earthquakes, plagues of locusts, and assorted maurading demons bothering us, so I have some posts queued up, in case you have time on your hands before Armegeddon strikes your time zone.

Now I don't mean to mock other people's religious beliefs. As long as you don't bother me with your religion, I won't bother you with mine. But really -- if you're predicting something will happen like it's a guaranteed certainty, and it doesn't actually turn out to happen, well as the old saying says about fooled once, fooled twice. After all, the televangelist who got this whole "the world ends May 21" thing rolling predicted the same thing more than ten years ago and it didn't happen then, either. Oops.

So we'll all know tomorrow who were the fools on this topic. Considering a massive majority of Christian leaders are saying this won't happen and that the Bible specifically says no one will know the date of any rapture in advance -- not even angels -- I'm fairly confident I'm on the right side here. But I leave that to judge for yourself.

And here's another blogger's irreverent take on the subject.

you're really annoying me

I thought this article was interesting -- two journalists wrote a book about why little everyday occurrences annoy many of us so much.

Random cellphone conversations do not annoy me unless the other person is extremely loud. Nut sometimes an overheard conversation can be quite amusing. I recall one overheard conversation several years ago back in Vegas when I was in a department store. While describing his son's graduation from kindergarten, the man on the phone said, "it was just like a big graduation -- they called them up on stage for diplomas, they were wearing caps and gowns, they played 'Pomp and Circumcision' and everything."

I am annoyed by unexpected delays if I need to be somewhere in a hurry. Traffic snarls and long lines at the airport are classic examples. I alleviate this stress by leaving very early for any important flight or trip. My husband does the same.

My only other pet peeve are people who smoke in clearly marked non-smoking areas.

I think sometimes you can make an annoying circumstance amusing. My husband and I had to wait once in a line for someplace and the woman in front of us on a cell repeated the same thing many times, much like the woman referenced in the linked article. My husband started repeating her phrase to me as if he was having a conversation. She soon got the hint.

A little improv might help with people who clip their nails on the subway. Just make up a song on the spot and sing outloud to the tune of "Singing in the Rain."

I'm clipping on the train
Just clipping in the train
What a glorious feeling
I'm pretty again...

About now, start clapping your hands in rhythm and get the whole car to join in.

deep sea hnt

Much like in California, whales also are spotted off the Pacific coast here in Australia. Notwithstanding their massive size, they won't attack humans in the open water. One nonetheless must be careful about getting too close to them because they can accidentally cause injury if they collide with a diver.

In such an occurance, it's very helpful if another diver knows underwater recessitation skills because reaching shore or your boat may be impossible in time to render aid. Developing the ability to hold your breath for extended periods helps the diver render the necessary assistance in case of an emergency. Regular practice, accordingly, is very important and strongly encouraged.

the chemistry of attraction

One of my regular readers emailed a link the other day to this article about chemical influences on the laws of attraction.

In a nutshell, scientists have found that when women are ovulating, they are drawn to men with more masculine attributes like muscle tone, a more masculine voice, and dominant behaviors.

At the same time, women give off subtle clues they're ovulating and try to look more attractive by, for example, wearing tighter or more revealing clothes. Their behaviors resulting are more attractive to men.

All of this is negated, however, when women are on the pill, making less-masculine men seem more attractive.

It's a fascinating piece with much more detail. Rather than try to summarize the entire thing, if you're interested, I recommend you read the whole article.

In my own experience, before I was married and when I was on the pill, I was more attracted to the metrosexual, rocker sort, although that wasn't always the case with some notable exceptions, particularly my husband.

I went off the pill after I was married, and I have noticed some differences. When I'm ovulating, there are times when I practically rape James, not that he's complaining. But I also think I notice other men more during those periods, particularly the "more masculine" ones.

goodbye sahara

I was saddened to hear that the great Sahara Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas has closed for good. With its passing, another part of Sin City legend is no more.

The place had long passed its heyday, but the Sahara still had character to spare. It was a relic from classic 1950s Vegas that could not survive the recession that has crippled Nevada.

I liked the Sahara because it was on The Strip but set apart from it at the same time. Unlike the other casinos that huddled close to Las Vegas Boulevard, the Sahara was set further back from the street and had more of a resort feel.

I used to swim there frequently when I lived in Vegas. Wearing a swim suit with a little robe cover, I would park in the free guest lot and simply walk through one of the buildings to the swim area. A big smile and tits will get you in almost anywhere.

I also used to feast regularly at the Sahara's bargain-priced all-you-can-eat buffet. I ate like a horse then because I danced for hours a day, so I'd eat until I was stuffed and then ask for a doggie bag for the rest. The staff never cared how much you ate or took with you.

dancing naked again

After I left my last exotic dancing gig in Vegas, for a while I never wanted to see the inside of a gentlemen's club for a long, long time. I didn't think I would ever miss it.

Lately, though, I have been missing it a little. I certainly don't want to go back to the grind and hard work of dancing for hours on end nearly every day. But I wouldn't mind doing it again, say, once a week. Trouble is, no one wants an exotic dancer on such a semi-part-time basis.

My favorite customers were always young soldiers on leave. I had a sense many of them had never been inside such a club before and I also knew some of them were due to be shipped out soon for places like Iraq or Afghanistan. Many of them had the same excited, wide-eyed, fascinated look on their faces. I imagine some were virgins, too.

On occasion, they'd get too rowdy and would have to be thrown out of the club. But many of them were quiet and impeccibly polite. They didn't want to miss a second of the performance. For some, I hope, I provided a nice memory that might help them a bit through those rough times "over there."

Sometimes on my days off I would hang out in certain lounges of particular hotels or casinos which were ideal places to meet men for casual sex. I usually would hook up with thirtysomething men in town for a convention. Every now and then, however, I ended up with a Marine on leave from Twentynine Palms or Pendleton.

They got for free what they'd otherwise have to pay some hooker. They all said they soon would be shipped out for Iraq or Afghanistan, which I imagine was not true for some of them but very real for others of them. I think about those boys more than occasionally and hope they have been all right. Maybe they shared tales with their buddies about the wild, sex-loving girl whom they met on leave.

osama bin laden's porn stash

The press is quite beside itself with the news that porn was found in Osama bin Laden's hideaway. Presumably this was leaked on purpose to further embarrass Al Qaeda and underscore their leader's hypocrisy.

The revelation intimates Osama himself was the prurient consumer of this smut, but no information revealed points to that fact. The media doesn't seem to realize that the porn may have been used simply as a cover for encoded messages. To the untrained eye, it just appears to be pirated porn. Somewhere hidden deep in the file's coding, however, is an encrypted terrorist message.

Of course the Pentagon likely searched such material extensively for just that reason. If so, the porn "leak" wouldn't exactly be a lie -- it is porn, but it may not have been used as porn because it contains secret messages. It's highly doubtful that would be revealed by officials.

What I found disappointing with the news was the lack of detail about what kind of porn. Straight? Gay? Bisexual? BDSM? Femdom? Bestiality? Scat? Pissplay? Gonzo? That to me would be the most interesting tidbit.

blogger go boom

If you left a comment recently on my blog and don't see it, I did not delete it. Blogger had technical problems during the last several days and deleted many posts and comments on countless blogs. Fortunately my posts survived the putsch but some comments did not. So feel free to comment again.

trump is toast

Salon magazine and I obviously are on the same wavelength. I ran a little item last week about how Donald Trump wasn't really a real political candidate, and this week they're saying the same thing, although with a great deal more humor than me.

The piece begins "Donald Trump's fake presidential campaign is finished." It doesn't get any prettier with comments like "Mr. Trump, meanwhile, is back to being a television clown." And then "Trump has reached the point where he's been uninvited from the sort of stupid celebrity nonsense that stupid celebrities like him live for."

Ouch.

great clock hnt

The Great Australian Clock is this horological monster standing over thirty feet tall in the Queen Victoria Building in central Sydney. The QVB is an indoor shopping mall that is more than a hundred years old. I always thought shopping centers were a mid-twentieth century phenomenon but they're not.

I can't help thinking that the big clock looks rather phallic, standing upright with that bulbous top. I look at the clock and my mind begins to wander.

woman wakes up with strange accent

A woman in Oregon says she suffers from an extremely rare condition known as "foreign accent syndrome." After she had oral surgery recently, she claims she suddenly developed a British accent. She's appeared on a number of television shows as a result.

A few dozen documented cases of this malady really exist -- a patient suddenly begins speaking with what sounds like a foreign accent, although the person is not from that country or region. The condition results from a stroke or blow to the head.

Now I have to say I'm a bit skeptical about the Limey from Oregon, particularly in light of the fact that no recorded cases exist where the extremely rare condition was caused by dental surgery. Her urge to tell her story all over TV makes her claim more dubious to me.

Medical literature is full of real stories of people with very rare and strange brain conditions. Neurologist Oliver Sacks has documented some of them in his fascinating books. None of them, however, rushed off to the Today show.

Imagine getting thumped on the head and suddenly having zero interest in sex. Now that would be scary. Or, worse, you're thumped and you develop a fetish for something bizarre, like raw chicken used as a sex toy.

a non-anniversary

I deliberately did not write a post on the one-year anniversary of our attempt to get pregnant. I truly did not dwell on it, but the mere fact I'm writing about it now does suggest it's not entirely a non-issue. If I say I'm not dwelling on it, that sounds like I'm avoiding it, which I'm not doing either. But I'm not stressing about it. It will happen when it happens if it happens.

There are times when I see a massively pregnant woman struggling to walk while holding on to her aching spine and secretly feel relieved that hasn't happened to me. There are other times, however, when I see an adorable little baby or toddler and feel a pang of "oh how cute, I wish that was mine."

I was out shopping with James last week and we saw a cute baby about six months old being carried by his father. He was giggling and cooing at us over his dad's shoulder. The Husband and I exchanged a look and both knew what the other was thinking.

And then the kid exuded a tablespoon of milk vomit on the man's shoulder.

buckle up

This made me giggle. If they're not really in a helicopter, I sure was fooled.

mother's day confusion

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there.

When I was a child, Mother's Day was never celebrated in our household. Mommy Dearest did not believe in celebrating, to quote her, "sentimental nonsense perpetuated by florists and greeting card companies designed to guilt you into buying their product."

I remember one year in school we had to make Mother's Day cards in art class. I told the teacher my maternal unit hated The Day of Mother and forbade us from getting her anything. I was compelled to make a card anyway. Being the foxy little sneak that I was, I made the card to be cooperative then tossed it in a trashcan on the way home.

So I crafted a very surreal and bizarre card with unrelated pictures cut out of magazines surrounded by glitter and dayglo stickers. Given the intended recipient would never receive it, I made it more an exercise in existential froth.

wild things

When I first saw this, I thought it was a facade created by Hollywood production designers for some upcoming movie or commercial. The overgrown ivy, particularly the stuff on the door, looks too artfully created. And the satellite dish seems too over-the-top.

No real place could look like that, so tastefully cliched in its abandonment.

Well I was wrong. It's a real run-down house on Bedford Avenue in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, New York. You can learn more about the photographer here.

the donald redux

A reader emailed me and asked the obervation "you claim you're nonpartisan on your blog but you bash Donald Trump. How is that nonpartisan?"

Well thanks for writing in a classy way and not leaving a snarky anonymous remark. You raise an interesting point.

My answer to that is simple: because Donald Trump is not a political candidate.

Ah, but you're splitting hairs, you might say.

I don't care if he declares his candidacy in a few weeks. He's still not a candidate.

Why do I say that?

Because his "possible run for the presidency" is about publicity, not politics. He's not interested in winning; he's interested in using the public spotlight to promote himself. He needs a new focus of attention on himself now that the reality show is waning and his financial empire is on shaky ground.

He's no different than Al Sharpton and others like them. They are professional media whores who never met a microphone they didn't like. They realize that a fleeting flirtation with a "run" for some political office is a great way to guarantee future publicity and, therefore, earnings for themselves.

There are plenty of viable candidates on all spots of the political spectrum. But The Donald is not one of them. Nor is Al Shapton.

But he's tracking well in the polls, you say.

Polls are like lettuce. What's good today won't be next month. Hell, if you put Charlie Sheen's name in the mix, he'd probably poll well, too. A poll does not a politican make.

Polls are like TV ratings. And The Donald very much understands those.

chilly day hnt

It was a little chilly and breezy the other day, so I put on a fleece when I went for a walk with my husband. I was still somewhat cold, however. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why.

the doppleganger in red lipstick

Have you ever looked at a news photo and spotted someone who looks almost exactly like you? That happens to me sometimes. I guess I have a fairly "common" face.

Yesterday I was looking at some news photos online of various spontaneous celebrations that occurred after news broke about Osama bin Laden's death. Smack in the middle of one is a woman who looks like she could be my long-lost twin.

Not only did she resemble me in the face, she had the same hair color and style. And what I found particularly intriguing was the fact she wore bright red lipstick, which I also love to wear. Not only was it the same color as mine, but it was freshly applied -- she may have rushed to a spontaneous celebration, but she made sure the lips were perfectly presented.

I wonder who she is and what kind of life she lives. Does she enjoy sex and giving blowjobs as much as I do?

The red lipstick suggests she might. I know that turns men on even more when you give them head with your big red lips.

good riddance

Osama bin Laden is no more. The reaction here in Australia seems to have been more subdued than in the news pictures and footage I've seen from back home in the States.

Osama was at large for so long and had faded somewhat from public attention that it seemed like he would never be captured. That's not to disparage the United States military who doggedly pursued him; it's just that his vaguely ominous specter seemed ubiqitous and unending. I imagine the public sense today is something like when news broke that Hitler was dead.

I suspect the identity of the Navy SEAL Team Six members responsible for this triumph will not be made known publicly for a long time and perhaps never. All those unnamed heroes deserve our thanks and gratitude. I hope they're awarded the multimillion-dollar bounty that was on Osama's head.

A long way from home, I felt very patriotic and proud of America today. I know it's difficult to celebrate someone's death, but he brought so much suffering to so many people that it's hard not to feel emotionally stirred. I have a corny CD of American patriotic music I played today and am missing those amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesties.

nasty censoring bitch

I approve most comments on this blog. The usual exceptions are spam and religious diatribes posted in response to sex-related posts.

On rare occasion I post a political topic of some sort but try to steer into non-partisan waters and don't tar one viewpoint or the other.

Last week, in response to one of those apolitical political posts from a while back, an anonymous commenter left a virulently strident and partisan comment, faulting "the other side" 100 percent while exonerating his/her "side" as the paragon of virtue and correctness.

I deleted the comment. A few days later, the anonymous one was back, this time with a broadside at me, evoking the First Amendment and calling me a nasty censoring bitch for deleting "the truth."

I'm always amused, in a slightly annoyed fashion, at how quickly some people wail about how their "First Amendment rights are being trampled" without obviously understanding what is and isn't a part of the Bill of Rights.

I am not a government official nor part of any government agency. Hence, any action I take in approving or not approving a comment is not within the realm of the First Amendment. That applies to government action, not private action.

On the same footing, censorship is an official government action to suppress speech or expression. Forbidding sale of Time magazine because it contains an article about Wikileaks is censorship. Refusing to sell Time at your newsstand is not censorship.

So I neither censored you nor trampled your First Amendment rights.

I exerted editorial control, which is my perfect right.

I don't have much time for stridently partisan people. Those who peddle the line that "my side is always right; yours is always wrong and the cause of all problems."

I think stridently partisan people are the problem. A democracy is about open debate, a free exchange of ideas, respect for other people, and a consensus of agreement. "My way is the only way and you must go along with me" is totalitarian, the sort of thing practiced in warm and fuzzy places like Iran and North Korea.

The very sort of countries that rely on censorship.

sexy or strange?

I saw this first at 4chan, where the primarily male audience drooled all over their screens about her. I reposted this to my Tumblr page, where it immediately garnered scads of likes and reposts.

Sometimes I think I understand the male species, but other times I still misjudge them. I think she looks freakish because of the makeup, shoes, and near anorexic thinness. So I asked my husband. He didn't notice much else at first besides her pussy. I hadn't really paid much attention to that.

To red-blooded males, I imagine pussy is like a bone to a dog. The pooch doesn't really notice much in the world beyond the thing he's happily gnawing.

Speaking of my Tumblr, this would be a good time to pimp it again. I have nearly 5,000 followers now. I guess that's good. Tumblr used to give you your worldwide and national rank, but they abandoned that for some reason. Click here to see.