a shameless new low in self-whoredom

If hell really exists, I imagine it's not really a firepit where everyone is roasted and baked and broiled until the end of time. I imagine it's more like you're trapped in a pit and forced to do the same thing over and over again, like Sisyphus from mythology who rolled the stone up a hill for all eternity.

I'm sure we can all think of horrible things to endure for all time, like listening to a badly tuned radio stuck between two stations, or reading a dictionary in a language you could't speak, or playing the Kim Kardashian video game.

The linked review of this adventure in time-wasting begins with the writer lamenting "I learned ... that the quest for fame and fortune -- specifically when you don't have actual talent -- is tedious and exhausting."

As one plays, the game instructs players how to flirt with famous people and to gain fame oneself. This is not satire -- it's a game Kardashian licenses and endorses.

While playing, to better the chances for winning, a player has to buy stars in order to help make one famous. And, yes, that money goes directly to the real Kardashian herself.

I don't think the makers of Grand Theft Auto need worry about the Kardashian Fame Whore Game cutting into their business.

parking garage porn

Here's a bit of erotic fare with a realism that most porn lacks. Instead of a contrived plot with bad acting and ludicrous moaning, it's simply an attractive couple going at it in a parking garage.

I've found the corresponding video of the scene itself, which hopefully will link without dragging in popups. I'd insert it into this post on a video screen, but then I suspect popups will reappear. I had enough problems with that here before.

The husband and I have done it several times in a parking garage -- called a carpark here -- but always in the car. We were interested in satisfaction with discretion, not creating a public spectacle.

men and roofies

I was reading the "Two X Chromosomes" forum at Reddit yesterday and saw this woman's post about being roofied at a tech conference in Chicago.

I know men sometimes roofie women, that's a given, but I've never been able to wrap my head around the why of it. Why would a man want to have sex with a woman who didn't want to have sex with him? How can you get it up for a woman who doesn't want you?

This may sound utterly stupid, but I just can't grasp a man's motivation to do this. Of course, the same thing can be said for rape. Some men are just turned on by the idea of "no."

I guess this is a "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" thing. If I know a man doesn't want me, then I don't want him. He becomes asexual to me. But some men are fundamental wired wrong -- they need pussy, no matter what. Why not necrophilia then?

I have known men who only get turned on to a woman if she's turned on to him. They feed on that desire. As a woman, I think I'm the same way. I need a man to crave me. His wanting turns me on. (But not all men who would want me turn me on, however.)

All of this aside, drugging a woman at a conference is repulsive but doesn't seem motivated by sex. I've been to plenty of conventions as a model, and it's not like a bar where a woman could be drugged and then "helped" to the car. Giving a woman roofies at a conference makes as much sense as giving them to a woman in an airport. Sex almost certainly won't follow. It's just malicious.

The woman's experience serves to underscore a personal belief I have always had: never accept food or drink from someone you don't know to trust. Free samples are not the same thing as food from a restaurant. If you have a problem with a restaurant, there is recourse. There is no recourse if some anonymous person gives you sample food on the street or in a store.

You're not a beagle that eats anything handed to you. Just say "no thank you" before you end up being unable to say anything.

if you're afraid of heights...

Just watching this makes me dizzy. (You might see it better by looking at the original.)

Diving from a way up is one thing. Going over ass-backwards and upside down is insane.

For those of you like me with a fear of heights, check out the people standing at the edge. That freaks me out just as much as the upside-down dive. One slip and off you go. And they're closer to the dangerous lip about half way down the fall.

I showed this to my husband, and he said he'd love to try it.

jeopardy!

One of the things I miss most about living in the US is watching Jeopardy!, the American game show. If you're not familiar with the program, it is in a league of its own compared to other quiz programs. This one requires intelligence, unlike most other game shows which really only require glitter and smiles.

Australia has had a Jeopardy! of its own, but that hasn't aired in more than twenty years. The American Jeopardy! is syndicated to some foreign countries, but not here Down Under.

By sheer accident I found a source for current bootleg copies of the American version online. They're posted the day the program airs. I am now a very, very happy girl.

It is my dream someday to appear on the American Jeopardy!. I tried out for the show when I lived in Los Angeles and aced the test. I had the sense I did fine in the trial runs, but I was never called for the show. I always wondered if they thought my vague title of "dancer" actually meant something more, which of course it did.

Now, however, I can claim to be a housewife in Australia. If the husband and I manage to make a trip back to California soon, I will see if I can try out again.

Meanwhile, I'll practice by watching the current shows. I'd like to make this a true daily double, Alex.

a crooked timber marriage

I sometimes find fault in columnist David Brooks's writing, but his piece on Monday is a winner. It's about marriage and not his usual political stuff. The core of his entry is a great blog post written two years ago by novelist Lydia Netzer titled "15 Ways to Stay Married for 15 Years."

I hope I don't sound like I'm bragging when I say I think I have a great marriage, but that happens to be true. I was pleased therefore to see that everything both Brooks and Netzer point to as positive elements in a enduring marriage are ideas that both my husband and I embrace.

Brooks talks about a partner in a successful marriage who "finds the annoying endearing." Rather than let your spouse's foibles and idiosyncrasies drive you nuts -- embrace them. I know I do things that my husband would probably prefer I avoid, but he'll smile when I do them and declare him cute. He does a few things that would drive me crazy if I let them, but I refuse to and laugh instead.

I know he does what he does not to annoy me but because they're part of his dichotomy of character. I assume the same can be said for me.

I particularly liked this bit of Netzer's advice: "Don’t criticize. Ever." I think you could realize this on your own simply by looking at a bad marriage -- the two constantly pick at each other about alleged faults. Such battles are often predicated on statements like "why do you always insist on" or "it's so typical of you to" and so forth.

I think that so many married people come to see their partner as their enemy, and that's the beginning of the end. I know I've seen it in couples that eventually split. Reading both Brooks's and Netzer's pieces reinforces my belief.

As Netzer writes: "You and your spouse are a team of two. It is you against the world. No one else is allowed on the team." Sadly, I think too many couples never realize that, or they realize it too late.

false alarm?

I woke up this morning and the queasiness mentioned yesterday had vanished. I was ravenously hungry, considering I hadn't eaten much during the previous two days.

When I was pregnant with Joey, morning sickness lasted for many weeks and gradually increased and then decreased in intensity. It did not appear suddenly and vanish, so now I'm thinking this was all a false alarm.

This episode has made me realize I really want another child. The husband and I were intending to be more stress-free about our attempts this time, but the edginess for me has returned. He's always quite mellow so he's not getting himself into knots. "It'll happen when it happens if it happens," he says.

I would be perfectly happy if we only had one child, and I certainly don't like the physical state of pregnancy. I guess for me the uncertainty and anticipation is what makes me edgy. After having periods of my life when I was ruled by forces and people beyond my control, I don't like being out of control.

I just need to relax and realize Mother Nature will take her own sweet time. It took more than a year before, so it could take that long or much longer the second time around.

morning sickness?

Yesterday morning I awoke and immediately I felt queasy. This was the first day this happened. My husband and I ate the same thing yesterday and the day before, yet he's fine, as is our son.

So I may have picked up a virus. I felt pretty much the same way today, but neither day did I puke. When I was pregnant before, the onset of morning sickness began more gradually with a daily increase in intensity.

This is not like that. So I don't know whether to be elated that this might be good news and it's a little girl, or just that I should feel like crap because I have a flu the husband and son have not caught. I remember thinking when I was pregnant the last time that it's weird to be excited about feeling like shit.

I'll monitor this over the next several days and then maybe give a home pregnancy test a whirl. I am somewhat leery of those as I had two experiences in the past with a false positive.

men with manicures

Here's another pet peeve I have. While I believe everyone should keep their hands clean, trimmed, and well groomed, I always find men with manicures somewhat annoying. Men's manicured hands are too prissy and pretty. I think it's particularly annoying when they also have the nails highly buffed and then top it off with clear nail polish.

Yes, ragged cuticles and dirty nails are nasty looking. That stuff can be managed. My husband washes dishes by hand to keep everything super clean and the cuticles healthy. He doesn't do it every day -- just once or twice a week. The dishwasher takes up the slack. But his hands look great without that Liberace look.

dreamy gangbanger

The media is all a flutter about a "handsome" gangbanger felon named Jeremy Meeks who was recently arrested in California for firearms possession and related gang charges. The suspect's mother is using his mugshot photo, seen below, in a viral campaign to raise money for his $900,000 bail.

Yes, he does look like an Abercrombie & Fitch model. And yes, those are gangbanger tattoos on his face. The tattooed tear next to his eye is traditionally a badge of honor reserved for gangbangers who murdered someone, usually a rival gang member. Oh what a lovely fellow. His bail was set at nearly a million bucks for a reason.

This thug has already spent eight of his thirty years in prison for grand theft auto. That long of a sentence suggests it was a pretty rough crime like carjacking.

Very bad news in a pretty package is still very bad news. That won't stop the gushy mail that's sure to follow from women who have more time than sense and see his picture in Us magazine. Dear Jeremy, can I call you Jeremy, I just know you've been the victim of false arrest. My name is Tiffany, everybody calls me Tiffi, and I was hoping you could write to me and...

the legend and the clown

Someone has put together a cool collection of behind-the-scenes stills and outtakes from some of filmdom's greatest movies. My two favorites are the shot from Alien (see click-through) and the candid shot below of Dustin Hoffman with Lawrence Olivier on the Marathon Man set.

I like the Alien shot because you see the scene without the magic manipulation of post production. The mysterious creature looks fake here, whereas in the movie it appears organic and mysterious. It's one of my favorite scenes in a movie I've seen many times.

The Hoffman/Olivier one shows such a contrast of character. One is a young clown and the other is an old curmudgeon. Olivier looks like he might be "staying in character," a "Method" method, but Hoffman clearly isn't. Curiously, Olivier was famously anti-"Method."

I can't decide whether Olivier knows the younger actor is goofing and smugly ignoring him or if he's just utterly oblivious. I read once that the legendary Brit was rather ill when the movie was made so that suggests an answer, if indeed the illness story was true.

The Hoffman/Olivier photo is by the famous Mary Ellen Mark.

new yawk, new yawk

I've written before about how I miss Los Angeles, a place I lived for a while. I also miss New York, where I lived just before LA.

When I was emancipated at 16, I left Chicago and moved to Manhattan. New York is a tough place to try to find your feet at 16. I knew no one in the city.

I happened to wander into this Tumblr with wonderful photos of New York. I like how the digital images have the slightly granular quality of older 35mm images. He obviously doesn't dump every New York photo he's shot onto his page. He picks out the best ones -- atmospheric night shots, moody daytime scenes, aerials, landmarks in a new light, and more.

The picture below (right click to see better) was shot in my old neighborhood of Chelsea. You can see the famous Flatiron building, and that's Madison Square Park on the lower left. I lived in two different apartments in Chelsea, both times subletting an extra bedroom from single female lawyers married to their careers.

The tall, slender building to the left, a luxury condominium, was still in the early stages of construction when I lived there, and subsequently has been mired in extensive litigation ever since. It topped out in 2010 after I left, but still has not opened, with some of the units not yet completed.

The building is a testament to New York's mad real estate market. Even though it's a bankruptcy battleground for creditors, hopeful buyers have plunked down millions for units, including one at $57.3 million, bought by Rupert Murdoch.

Millions of dollars for a box of air in the sky for which you may not actually ever take possession. And people laugh at the idea of suckers buying a share of the Brooklyn Bridge.

If you're interested, I see they have a $37.5 million duplex still available. I guess everything else is sold out.

cannibal chic

Let's say we have two cultures: Culture A and Culture B, existing on the same world.

Culture A is technologically advanced. With that technology it does many good things, like heal gravely sick people or save endangered species. Equally, with that technology, society does some bad things, like make war on nations within that culture.

Culture B, in contrast, is pre-Stone Age. Their technology is almost non-existent. They don't even farm; they're hunter/gatherers. Culture B also practices ritualistic murder and cannibalism. They attack or abduct members of other tribes within their culture, then kill and eat those individuals. Sometimes they kill and eat members of Culture A who have wandered into their territory.

If Culture A forces Culture B to stop ritualistic murder and cannibalism, is Culture A wrong for doing so? What about if doing so rips the entire fabric of Culture B's life, which revolves around ritualistic murder and cannibalism, thereby forcing Culture B to dissolve and become part of Culture A? Is Culture A a superior culture for doing this in the name of stopping ritualistic murder and cannibalism?

No, I'm not taking an anthropology class and hoping someone will answer my exam questions. Actually, I'm currently reading a book about New Guinea, the larger island sitting just to the north of us here in Australia. Certain pre-Stone Age tribes in New Guinea practiced ritualistic murder and cannibalism well into the twentieth century, and the practices may not have died out entirely even today.

The book has a politically correct subtext of sorts that western culture was somehow wrong to impose its morality on the cannibals to compel them to stop eating other people. This has forever altered the cannibals way of life and affected their artwork. While the author never comes out and says this was wrong per se, there's some condescending subtext about how westerners can't understand the importance of cannibalism to the New Guinea cultures and that respectful distance is warranted.

I disagree. In my opinion, Culture A has a moral responsibility to force Culture B to stop ritualistic murder and cannibalism as soon as possible. Actually, I don't care so much about cannibalism, because you won't have that unless you first have ritualistic murder. It also should be noted here that some of the warring New Guinea tribes kidnapped, killed, and then ate small children.

I'm reminded of that horrible scene in Cormac McCarthy's brilliant dystopian novel The Road, where the central character accidentally discovers a group of people cooking a human baby. There, society has deteriorated to such a point where people will do anything to survive, including eat each other.

Yes, we in western culture still do terrible things. Weapons of mass destruction are evidence of that. But homicide is not central to our culture. We do not celebrate it, revel in it, glory in it, as some of the New Guinea cannibals did (and possibly still do). Our entire world does not revolve around it, as was the case for the New Guinea peoples.

Killing other people is wrong, and if a culture's entire existence revolves around killing other people, then they must be made to stop, even if it means dismantling their entire culture and subsuming them into western culture.

Otherwise, the Nurenberg Trials were a waste of time.

every penis nickname from movies

They don't have my husband's nickname, which is my favorite: Mr. Happiness. Because it sure makes me happy and is always excited to see me. And it's such a gentleman, too, always standing to greet me.

tweetaholics

We all know one or two or several of them -- the people who cannot stop tweeting on Twitter about the most mundane, boring, trivial aspects of their lives. I have even seen a tweet from someone announcing the end of his constipation and the exalted glories of his most recent bowel movement.

Most Americans know the name Anthony Weiner, who is possibly the biggest douchebag ever to hold public office. His fall from grace came after he posted pictures of his junk on the Internet, which he shared with attractive young women who had no interest in seeing his anatomy.

So social media is not his friend. But like many habitual pests, he cannot stop pestering that which loathes. Anthony is a Twitter addict, which comes as a big surprise to exactly no one. He is to Twitter what a plague of mosquitoes is to your skin on a humid summer day.

He tweets about links he accidentally clicked online. He tweets about his stock purchases. He tweets about cancelled airline reservations.

No one cares, Anthony. No. One. Cares. One. Iota.

Anthony Weiner should take a page from David Vitter, another douchebag in excelsis who happens to hold elected office. For those not familiar, he is the married US Senator exposed in media reports as having a diaper fetish which he indulges while cavorting with hookers. Vitter tweets, but only about serious political stuff, not about traffic jams or ingrown hairs or his reluctant bowels.

I have a Twitter account, which I never use. People keep asking to follow my non-existent Twitter feed. Why? Why do you want to stare at a blank screen with my account name at top and nothing else? There's no there there. If you must follow someone, follow Anthony Weiner. He'll love you for loving him. Join his other 23,600 followers who also have far too much time on their hands.

brute strength

I had a dream the night before last in which my husband and I had six sons. We were torn whether or not to stop our family growth or try one more time for a daughter. I woke up before I knew the answer.

I think I know why I had this dream. Not long after we moved in together, I learned that James is stronger than he realizes. He slams things too hard, turns knobs with too much force, and yanks everything like it's been set in concrete.

As a result, I've found that no appliance knob is safe, that drawer pulls can be ripped from their parent, that windows crack when doors are slammed too hard, and that car doors can be slammed so hard they cause other people's car alarms to sound.

He's not angry; he's a tremendously mellow guy. He's like the Six Million Dollar Man or Superman, too strong for an ordinary world.

I've learned our son seems to be developing this same trait. He likes to hammer things, like hammer one object into another until one or both break. A TV remote is a universal tool and can make music or smash a fly or bang a peg into a toy. I imagine by the time he's twelve or so, he'll join the husband in the knob plundering brigade.

Therein was the source for my dream, I suspect. I said something to a friend about how I had a flash-forward vision of my future with a whole brood of male children inadvertently banging and smashing and yanking in a badly battered house. The picture in my head was like a cartoon, with every surface pitted and patched and cracked.

I now keep a wrench handy for the drawers with shattered handles and the washer harvested of knobs.

sex with inflatable plastic object

As the child of two shrinks, I was raised not to mock other people for their problems. So I'm of two minds about Edwin Tobergta of Ohio, arrested this week on public indecency charges for standing naked on a public street and trying to fuck an inflatable pool raft.

Edwin has a thing about pool rafts. This is at least the seventh time he has been arrested for public copulation with an inflatable object -- usually a pool float but also a blow-up pumpkin on one occasion. He's done time more than once for his naughtiness, but as soon as he's on the street, the siren call of a wanton air-filled vinyl device beckons his loins once more.

This guy has a major problem. It doesn't sound like he's trying to resolve it. He's ruining his life. So for that I think he deserves scorn. Because Lord knows public shame has no effect on him.

What also tipped me over to one side, to the "it's okay to laugh at Edwin" side, was the T-shirt he wore when arrested the other day. It reads "I'm out of my mind. Please leave a message."

Edwin, you've never heard of an inflatable woman to be enjoyed in the privacy of your bedroom?

hung men and grammar

I dropped out of high school in the tenth grade, and the GED courses I later took only covered grammar basics. The GED essay portion is apparently the primary means of testing language skills; I don't remember many grammar questions at all except for some very easy multiple choice ones.

So I'm not able to articulate grammar "rules" per se, but I think I know most of them instinctively, probably because I'm a voracious reader and have an instinct for mimicry. I probably mimic the rules I've absorbed sub-consciously.

But that doesn't mean I'm not on the lookout for handy, easy-to-remember grammar guides for the thornier patches of the English language. This article is one such example; I bookmarked it last year and meant to post it here but forgot. Encountering it again recently, I'm making a point to do so now.

For example, I knew about the subjunctive (but didn't remember it was called that) as being one thing I often stumble over, and the article has some good examples to help the memory.

The piece was written by a guy peddling his own book, so I might have a gander at that to see if it's helpful. I'd classify this as a great book to borrow from the library as opposed to actually buying.

"Hung" is a verb that often ensnares me and, alas, the article does not mention that. Maybe his book does. Men can be well hung but hanged if they're executed -- at least I think that's right.

ultra orthodox rabbit hole

The internet can be like a rabbit hole. You're looking for one thing, but then you end up going down a rabbit hole and end up in curious locations.

I was looking for information about a forthcoming science fiction novel but somehow ended up reading this article from a year ago about an ultra-orthodox Jewish wedding in Jerusalem. The pictures in particular caught my attention (follow the link and you'll see what I mean; there are many of them and even more here).

I almost feel like a visitor to another planet when I look at those pictures -- it's a world entirely alien to me. The bride looks so objectified and like some kind of sacrificial victim with that weird veil amid that massive sea of black-clad men.

When I lived in New York, I occasionally saw Hasidim, usually males, in Manhattan's jewelry district. At times, they almost seemed frightened of women and would go out of their way to avoid you.

I remember once walking down a somewhat narrow sidewalk and three middle-aged Hasidic men were coming toward me on my side. They actually walked into the street to avoid me, even though there was room to pass.

I would hate living in a society where men were so separated from women. I don't mind being around women, of course, but I would mind being around them almost exclusively.

Ultra-orthodox remind me somewhat of the Amish, who I used to see when I visited my grandparents in Pennsylvania. There, however, the males, particularly the younger single ones, have no qualms about staring at the "English" women and will freely talk to you.

cuckolding conundrum

I was looking for some pictures to post on my Tumblr and came across a webpage dealing with cuckolding.

If you're not familiar with this kink, cuckolding involves a committed couple getting off on one partner deliberately cuckolding the other with the latter's knowledge. Most often, this involves a dominant woman, her passive male partner, and a third male (or more) outside the couple with whom the woman has sex.

This may happen in front of the submissive male, accompanied by verbal humiliation. Or, he may be forced to sit in an adjacent room and only listen. He could also be bound. Some couples take it much farther with the cuckolded male submitting to the dominant male(s) in homosexual activity.

Of course couples should be free to do whatever kinky things that ring their chimes, as long as everyone is a willing participant and no children or animals are involved.

How many people practice this? I could find no definitive figures but, based on all the pictures and blogs out there, it must be more than a few. Published articles (like this and this) say it's common.

I have the say the idea of forcing my husband to have sex with another man while I humiliate him verbally is a gigantic turnoff for me.

But now here's where the conundrum comes in. The idea of watching my husband fuck another man's wife while he's verbally humiliating the husband, and maybe me joining in either sexually or verbally or both, is a big turn on for me as long as the other woman is submissive.

I honestly don't know why this is. I guess a shrink could help me unwrap this, but I'd feel embarrassed going into a lot of detail with my shrink brother. (He reads this blog so he will see this at some point. I think he'd also be uncomfortable talking about this in detail with me.)

This is all academic, however. My husband has zero interest in indulging my fantasy. His only response when I suggest things like this is something along the lines of "kitten, you're twisted. Thanks but no thanks."

burning love

I saw this posted online -- a couple had their wedding photos made against the backdrop of a real wildfire burning out of control that was destroying thousands of acres, including people's homes. They wanted to recreate a "burning of Atlanta" feel.

That struck me as in poor taste and callous. What a memory moment -- celebrating your love in a new life together while it's the worst possible day in the life of other people. And what if other people had died, but you only found that out after the photos were all completed?

This is when Fred was just about to kiss me, and then the medivac helicopters flew right over us. We were so angry that messed up our shots.

I'd wager a tidy bet they'll be divorced within five years.

taking off my shirt

Some woman posted this as she tried to figure out why men and women remove T-shirts differently. Men can yank them off over their head in one movement but women can't. She thinks this is because a woman's T-shirt is fit and cut different than a man.

I believe she's wrong. Women often wear a man's T-shirt or a unisex "medium" T-shirt. Women often wear their T-shirts as tight as men. But they still can't pull them off like this.

My theory is this: boobs. And shoulders. And upper body strength. We women have tits. The point of greatest stress and resistance on the shirt is as the bottom slides up your front and bunches at your boobs. The boobs slow down the movement. They also get in the way when you move your arms.

In contrast, the greatest stress and resistance for a man is at his shoulders, the thickest spot on his torso. So once the shirt clears the shoulders, it flies off. The man gives it a good yank when he first tugs, so it sails over easily. Also, men don't have boobs that get in the way of their arms.

Men also have greater upper body strength than women, a factor of both their arms and shoulders. So yanking a shirt is much easier for them.

I've always thought it's very sexy if a man can yank off his shirt like this in one effortless move. He's dressed and then suddenly, boom, he's half naked inside a half second. Men seem to do this with particular ease as they're undressing for sex. Baby, I'm ready already.


Some woman posted this as she tried to figure out why men and women remove T-shirts differently. Men can yank them off over their head in one movement but women can't. She thinks this is because a woman's T-shirt is fit and cut different than a man.

ugliest?

I am a sucker for website promotions that lure readers with tempting teaser headlines. I fell for one yesterday that promised to reveal "The 30 Ugliest Former Child Actors."

I was expecting some horrid toads, but many of them were just familiar targets like Ron Howard. Yes, he's no longer cute Opie. That's been true for decades. But anyone should be surprised not everyone in Hollywood is glamorously gorgeous?

Others were actually quite normal looking, like Jonathan Lipnicki seen below. You may remember him as the precocious kid in Jerry Maquire. He's all growed up, and if he has any handicap, he looks quite a bit younger than his actual age. But he's hardly Elephant Man, either, so the "ugliest" moniker is patently cruel. (BTW, he's 23 but looks about 15; being short doesn't help him.)

I'll bet whoever wrote this "ugliest" piece was much cuter as a child than as an adult. It happens to most people. Cute puppies grow into ordinary dogs. Cute kids grow into undistinguished adults.

All the reason more not to let your kid become a child actor.

class picture

I love this picture (right click to see better). Queen Granny seems oblivious to where she is. POTUS is being the boy scout as is the gent with all the medals.

Angela Merkel looks like she's contemplating smacking off Granny's hat. "Vatch this, fellahs, he he he." Next to her, the President of France looks like he just told her a dirty joke.

And Pooty is like the snotty kid in the neighborhood who nobody likes but was invited along because their mothers made them.

literary cunnilingus

I'm reading a literary novel right now that was written by a married man and dad who, I presume, is heterosexual. Here's a pretty spicy passage about muff diving that he wrote:

"Already he was retreating under the tent of their quilt, slipping down toward her waist and her knees so that she could no longer see him. She knew what he was going to do because they had done this before, and at first she had been shocked. She had been shocked that he would even have such an idea. But then she realized this was just one more way that he had experiences far beyond her ken, and she had given herself over to him and to what he was doing and, yes, to the sensations.

"He had used his tongue on her in much the same way that she would touch herself when she was alone, only this felt so much better: the orgasms so intense, especially that first time when the feelings had coiled inside her, building until she had come so powerfully that she had feared she was going to pee on the rug at the edge of the ballroom.

"Now his hands were massaging her thighs and his head was between her legs, his mouth moist and warm and insistent. In a moment, she knew, he would gently part her pubic hair and stiffen his tongue, and he would be brushing it against her so rapidly that the sensations would swell till she came, and then, when her legs might still be shaking, almost abruptly he would be holding his body up on his arms and sliding inside her."

I was impressed that a man could write this from a woman's perspective and sound like he had experienced this himself. Maybe he practiced on his wife and then had her describe to him what the feeling was like. He's no Adonis on the book jacket, but when it comes to cunnilingus that hardly matters -- it's all about tongue and technique.

my scandalous past

Memory is a funny thing. You can completely forget something for a number of years, and without warning, and without even a trigger, the memory comes bounding back.

I was out walking through the neighborhood yesterday with my son Joey when suddenly I remembered that when I was in either kindergarten or first grade I had the idea I could charge boys in my class a dollar to kiss me.

My moneymaking scheme was not a success. Only two boys paid me and only one kiss apiece, never to be repeated.

Then I had the idea I could charge boys dollar to look down my underpants to see my coochie. This was a more successful venture. Some of them wanted to touch, too, but I didn't allow that. Nonetheless, for dollar, they got a good extended look. I gave them their money's worth.

One day about a month ago I was at the train station with Joey and realized I had forgotten my wallet. So I had to go back to the house to get it. Maybe I should've just charged the men on the train platform a dollar to look at my snatch until I had enough for the fare and back.

my highest recommendation

I mentioned yesterday I was reading an excellent novel. It was so good I spent more time with it than planned and have already finished. I give it my highest recommendation for you readers out there.

I'm talking about The Good Father by Noah Hawley, published two years ago. I was able to find it Down Under here in Sydney, so you shouldn't have too much trouble if you're in an English-speaking country.

The book is achingly good. It's neither a thriller nor a mystery but it has some elements of both. It's more of a literary, "serious" book and not really a genre novel.

The central story involves a fiftysomething father who is a highly successful rheumatologist and his twenty-year-old drifter son. The father's world is turned upside down when his son is arrested and prosecuted for the assassination of an extremely popular senator almost certain to become the next President of the United States.

The father is devastated and tries on his own to learn the truth when the authorities stonewall him: did his son do it and, if so, why? Because he's becoming mentally ill? Or if he didn't do it, was this a case of mistaken identity or was he deliberately set up, either to take the fall or as some kind of brainwashed Manchurian candidate?

Hawley crafts incredibly beautiful prose. Some passages are about as close to heartbreaking as any book I think I've ever read, and I have read many novels. Other parts are very, very funny. The resulting emotional contrasts make this a particularly powerful book.

I've read several reviews comparing Hawley to Don DeLillo, but I was reminded more of Ian McEwan. I love DeLillo but he's more expressionistic and abstract than Hawley. McEwan works more by slowly peeling away hidden truths, and Hawley is much the same but writing in a different voice and genre.

I'm making my husband and MD brother read the book as soon as possible because I want to compare notes about various elements.

If you're a reader, I hope you'll have a chance to enjoy it, too. I just loved it.

violent passion

I'm reading an excellent novel that I'll write about in a future post. In the book, the narrator describes how sex really heated up at one point in his marriage. He and his wife really went at each other, with some good hot fucks full of slamming and biting.

He then says in summary: "passion is, in many ways, a kind of violence -- the only sanctioned means by which one spouse can attack the other."

I don't know if I can quite agree about that, at least for me personally. Headboard banging sex is about surrendering -- you're dropping all your inhibitions and totally giving in to your passion and love for the other. You're becoming pure in your love and passion and, with that, you lose physical control at times. But you're not attacking your lover. Attacking sounds like raping or something, grabbing and slapping and dragging along the floor by the hair.

The one difference, between the fictional characters and my own marriage, is that while the sex becomes amazing, there are other troubling forces working against the couple, pulling them in two different directions. So maybe they're having more angry make-up fucking, whereas the husband and I get the headboard banging because we're still sappy happy in love.

I can remember past lovers where we had problems in our relationship outside the bedroom, and it did make for hot angry fucks at certain times. So perhaps this passionate violence is on a case-by-case, couple-by-couple basis. Or is that violent passion?

denial is not a river

When searching for something unrelated, I happened on this article about a women married to a supposedly straight man who's a big name performer in gay porn. She says she has no problem with what he does because she thinks he loves her and he's only in it for the money, but her body language in interviews suggests otherwise.

The piece mentions an earlier article, this one in Marie Clair, which I hunted down and found. There, she acts like his porn work is fairly mild and says he only lets men blow him while he watches straight porn and thinks of her.

Now maybe that's what he told her, but two minutes of searching on Google and I found a video link to him getting it in the ass from a man while he blows another guy. The scene ends with this supposedly straight husband kissing one of the men and licking up the latter's ejaculate.

Her thesis in both articles is that everything's okay because he says he loves her and the money is really good. Well honey bun, men can lie. It's been known to happen. A lot. If he's so good at acting in gay porn that he can pretend he loves it, how do you know he's not giving you a performance when he says he loves you?

What if there was good money for him to perform in beastiality or scat porn? Would that be just peachy, too?

No amount of money will get a man to do something "way out there" that he doesn't want to do. The guy is getting $1,500 American for each porn scene, but that's not a whole lot of money in the scope of things. He could probably pull in that kind of money dancing in a gay club and no sex would be involved.

And "good money" is not the real issue here. Your husband has sex with men and lots of it. It can't repulse him or the viewers would see this. The fact that he's willing to keep doing it suggests he likes it. He's conning you, and you're allowing yourself to be conned. He's a good actor all right, but at home, not with his butt lubed up and probed by another man.

The more this woman insists it's not a problem, the more she's telegraphing that it is. He's either too into himself or too dimwitted to figure this out. Or maybe both.

I don't have high hopes for this marriage's long-term future.

molly all over

You'd really need a serious fixation with an actress to want something this big on your body for the rest of your life. The real test would be if you've also seen Pretty in Pink 37 times. If so, then you'd officially be in John Hinkley territory.

When I first saw this, I couldn't tell for sure if it was Molly Ringwald or a young Mary Tyler Moore. A closer look revealed it was the former, but the expression seems more like the latter from her The Dick Van Dyke Show days, a staple of my classic TV rerun childhood.

This is not his only tattoo. If you look closer, you can see one on his chest that looks like it's graffiti.

When people have this many tattoos and can't get any more big ones, do they ever feel disappointed at their sameness? In my mind, it would be like wearing the same clothes for the rest of your life.