Sailing a verbal ship upon a paper ocean........

Odd thoughts and bits of entry occur to me from time to time and get hastily noted on random bits of scrap paper, cocktail napkins, receipts, 3 by 5 cards.....or whatever else is at hand. Actually turning any or all of it into a post or posts is often a matter of just opening the car window and grabbing at some of the debris that goes flying about in the wind, or cleaning out shirt pockets to do laundry.
Those who know me, know that I am rarely without something to say or a story to tell...............my lack of enthusiasm for posting lately is more a matter of being still locked into a "catch-up" mode of thinking.....relegating the whole exercise to job status.

So this is going to be a ramble....(which may or may not define my writing anyway).....a potpourri gleaned from past months.

On Guys

My daughter recently acquired the full set of dvd recordings of "Sex in the City". I generally stick around for a bit after she comes home from work, to report on the evening with Cheyenne or to simply drink a beer with her and talk for a little or a long while depending on how we feel or how tired we are.
From the guy perspective, it's not a bad show.......the episodes aren't too long, and at some point or another, one or more of the women get naked (or nearly so)....leaving plenty of time to take a leak, grab another beer or make a sandwich. As a fantasy, the idea of four attractive ladies screwing their way through the male (and female) population of Manhattan Island is a nice throwback to the pre-virulent, incurable and deadly disease days of the sexual revolution......but after half a dozen or so hook-ups with someone they know almost nothing about except name, address and phone number, the idea of running into one of them (or someone like them)in the real world is pretty scary.
However, if my daughter's comments are a sample of how and why a majority of women relate to the program, then it is a pretty accurate reflection of how women behave when together and a reasonably realistic picture of life for a group of female friends.
So, it occurred to me, if we have a show that lends some insight into the thinking and behavior of a group of women then it would be only fair that I spend a bit of time shedding some light on men and their nature, for the edification of my female readers, illustrated (in a left handed but pertinent sort of way)by a picture or two that I took for entirely unrelated reasons. Of course, this involves casting aside some popular but mistaken notions and beliefs and destroying a fond myth or two.......but then,embracing the truth (however unsavory) is always preferable to clinging to a fiction (however comforting).

All of which leads me to:

Guy myth number one...men are obsessed with women and sex

One of the things that struck me about "Sex in the City" was that whenever the ladies gathered they talked about men and sex.
Generally speaking, when men gather they tend to talk about .............not women and sex..........in fact, almost anything except women and sex. Oh sure, we may spend a little time bitching about women or telling a joke or two, but after a couple of hundred thousand years of pretty much agreeing with one another on the subject, there really isn't much left to say that wouldn't amount to tediously beating a dead horse.
What you can count on is that given a chance to work up a sweat, break out a beer or two and just chill out with the guys,we are as happy as clams. The last thing on our minds is women. Which is why we can be late for dinner, take two hours to get home from work, come reeling in at odd hours of the morning and honestly wonder why our significant others are so upset. Guys, now you know.........women are upset by this behavior because they assume that we are as obsessed by women and sex as they are about men and sex.....and they get suspicious and jealous.

Guy myth number two.....men are all alike

I engaged in an extended series of late night conversations with a young woman a couple of years ago. We had gotten comfortable enough with one another so as allow us to speak pretty freely about our sexual encounters and experiences. In the course of one such conversation, she complained about the mediocre sex she had had with that night's date and told how the previous night's date had failed to get off when she went to give him a blow job. The blow job failure she chalked up to some bad masturbatory habit or sexual issue she wasn't sure she wanted to deal with even though she had declared this person "boyfriend material" (worth "working to love"....HUH?...errrr, pardon me, how was that again?)
The mediocre nature of the current night's encounter she laid pretty much entirely at the feet of the date. (I have since gathered that "boyfriend material" is someone made to pony up for at least three dates so he can harbor the illusion of being with and develop feelings for a girl who doesn't exist....one who doesn't fuck on the first date. The one-nighter is a guy about whom the decision was made sometime early in the date, that she doesn't really like him, isn't really interested in him, doesn't want to be with him and doesn't care what he thinks of her or if she ever sees him again, but still considers attractive enough to fuck). The really ironic part of all this is that the guys were pretty much harvested from the same internet dating service, were pretty much clones of each other and went through pretty much the same brief interview/weeding process before the initial date. The men in both "categories" were pretty much total strangers when she bedded them the first time. However, the guy she dimissed with a masturbatory fuck after half a date was allowed an honest insight into who she really was......and, given that he could accept that aspect of her character, had at least a shot at having a real relationship with her simply because she was honest with him from the beginning. On the other hand, the relationship potential with the guy that she thought she might actually want to have something long term with was almost certainly doomed from the outset by presenting herself as something that she was not, thereby founding it on a false pretense from the beginning.
When I suggested that perhaps she needed to adjust her technique to better suit the responses of the guy she was with, to get to know what arouses him, she responded with something like: "What's to get to know? You provide a warm wet place to put it and a guy gets off."
Ladies, we are as individual in our preferences as you are, at least as picky and possibly more scrupulous and honest not only with you but ourselves as well. If you are not ready to put aside what you think you know and learn something about us as individuals, to be as attentive and as focused on us as you expect us to be with you......then you are not worth the cost of a date.....even if we do "get lucky" (all that's worth is a couple of beers...mixed drinks if you are really hot...maybe). It's not enough to go through the motions taught to you by someone else, we are not him. If you can't forget what you think you know based on your experiences with someone else and be there with us, then: a) you don't really know anything about sex; b)you aren't being very scrupulous in being there with us. In other words, you've got to give a shit enough and take the time to learn something about a guy to expect good sex. If an act of intimacy can be reduced to something absolutely devoid of any meaning or feeling whatsoever....it almost guarantees mediocrity. You get back out of a thing what you put into it. If you start off conning some poor schlepp into believing you are Suzie Creamcheese, girl next door, when you are squeezing him in between sad little encounters with total strangers, then you can't really expect anyone to feel sorry for you when the poor bastard finally wises up and moves on.....or when you inevitibly turn into some humanoid reptile from the strain of trying to keep the illusion of being the actual girlfriend or wife that you need him to believe you are. If you are waiting (or are on some ravenous man-hunt) for the guy who is going to come along and blow your doors off then you'd be better off converting the spare room into battery storage.

...........And that was two parts entry and eight parts rant....I feel much better now....and that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Guy myth number three..........guys like blow jobs

Guys don't like blow jobs...........guys like sacks of blow jobs. Pallets piled with sacks of blow jobs...........warehouses crammed with pallets piled high with sacks of blow jobs.......get it? A guy doesn't want to be accommodated, or given an anniversary blow job, or "some pussy".....like it's some kind of doggy treat for not pissing on the couch for a whole month. He doesn't want to have to ask for it, let alone beg for it or be made to feel like he is asking you to soil or demean or strain youself somehow to provide it with enthusiasm........anymore than you would if the shoe were on the other foot. We can concede the point about the week a month...........but for a person to go from someone who couldn't get enough of it to someone who feels sorry for us and does us a favor once in a blue moon suggests one of two things...............we were being lied to then or we are being cheated on now.

Okay...........now you know a few facts about guys. Which is not the same as saying that you are any closer to understanding shit about guys.
My last illustration was not originally intended to fit in with all or any of the above....but as I looked at it, it just seemed to say so much and fit so well that I had to find a way to include it.

A guy will take all your little quirks and pecadilloes in stride and suffer them. He will devote himself to you all his days and be faithful to you. He will work for you, bleed for you, die for you if need be if you can grasp this one thing. He needs to know that you can make him feel something, take him somewhere. Not all the time.....just when he needs it. That you are willing to learn to know when he needs it, that he can trust you to hold it for him and keep it safe and provide it without making him feel weak for taking comfort in it....or, God forbid, that you ever seek to wield it as a source of power over him. It is the most delicate thing he knows, yet it is the source of all his manly strength.
I have to say again, for emphasis, it's not all the time, that would be weak.........it's every once in a while.

This is how he needs you to make him feel ........and why.

Thus endeth the entry..........

Inspirations in a library..............

Juliska

I've always loved books, and I think I can honestly say that I've read thousands of them...............but I'd never been much of a library person. When I wanted a book, I bought it.
However, when circumstances forced me off the internet at home in December of 2004, I wound up using the computers in our new public library. I became familiar to some of the people there as a regular and when they started up a Thursday night story hour, for kids in the three to six year old age range, I thought that would be a good activity for my granddaughter.

.........and thus it came to pass that I made the acquaintance of Juliska.

Anyone who has read me regularly knows that, however much taken with the female form in it's endless and delightful variety that I may be, I am particularly attracted to the slender and lithe, the gracious, the Degas ballerina or the Art Deco statuette. Delicate, almost dainty of feature....this describes Juliska.

Insofar as she is young,(very young) I was polite and discreet....if for no other reason than to preserve my own dignity. I found out....

That she graduated High School at least a year early......

That she plays violin and piano and possibly another instrument as well.....

That she is a student of martial arts and doesn't quail at the odd bump and bruise begot from honest physical activity........thus belying that delicacy suggested by her outward appearance.

That she keeps not one but several web sites (somewhat compulsively) that range with neural abandon at electric speeds over a wildly eclectic variety of subjects.
She's got God trapped in a corner with an empty glass, a finger poking Him in the chest, and firing questions at a rate that's got the poor old guy taking notes just to keep apace.

On one occasion, I had gleaned an armload of ambitious tomes from the used book rack. When I went to pay for them, she remarked that I had bought up the books she had donated. People, this was not lightweight fare that I had picked up.

I think she knows that she is nice looking.........I don't think she has a clue how timelessly, classically, breathtakingly pretty she is.
I think she knows that she is smart enough and talented enough to distinguish her from lesser lights...........I don't think she has a clue how intensely smart and talented she really is.

What a marvelous life she has in store for her....How fortunate I am to be allowed to witness a bit of it unfold.

I've added links to at least five of her websites.......Delphic_Trope, That's Enough, My Alien Eyes, Stick Activity and (the latest) Readmewrite. They are all worth a more than casual examination.............I highly recommend "the Timmy Book"........and leave you to explore to your delight, confusion, consternation and, perhaps, frustration, as you scurry about in her world scrambling after the thoughts and observations that she leaves in her wake.

Cheyenne's World

Cheyenne is an outgoing child and tends to "take over" what ever environment she finds herself in. She makes friends and digs right in, making a home for herself.

The library has been no different than anyplace she has made herself at home. She adores the ladies at the library and wants to help them. I try to let her satisfy her curiosity and express a boldness whenever possible or permissable. At the same time, I try to keep her occupied at least to the point where she is not "pesky".....interfering with the work that they have to do. I am not sure how successful I am at the latter, but the ladies are tolerant and patient and gracious about it.

Even after Story Hour ended (before the holidays) I thought it would be a good idea to keep Library night as a going part of our weekdays together. As she advanced in the accumulation of "sight words" to the point that she could begin to construct simple sentences, I began to formulate the idea of her writing a story. After all, one of the Dr. Suess books comprises only 220 words and at this point, Cheyenne has about fifty words that she can recognize, read and (for the most part) spell.

I am not sure when exactly the idea came to me to spend 15 or so minutes a night working up a weekly diary entry using, as much as possible, the simple words that she knows and helping her post them to a website....but over the course of the past couple of weeks, this has come to fruition. Dear readers, it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to Cheyenne's World.

On Monday night, we make up an "idea' card...........she writes down some of the things that she would like to write about.

On Tuesday night we make a rough draft of the entry. She does all the writing for all of these things and I help her with spelling out the words that she doesn't know yet, and editing the text down to a level where she can mostly read her own entry without help.

On Wednesday night she copies the rough draft onto the special "three line paper" they use in kindergarten and first grade. She has to write it out as neatly as though she were going to hand it in to the teacher. It is here that we make any changes to the text.

On Thursday night she posts her entry on the library computers. She does all the writing and all the typing.........I post the pictures and see to the template and such like.

I encourage everyone who reads this to visit her(the site has been added to my links list) and leave a comment. She is thrilled by the idea that people from all over the world may be reading what she has to say, and would be delighted to hear from you.
The comments are "moderated" by me..........so they won't be posted immediately. They will come to me by email and post upon approval.
Take note that even non-blogger users can now sign a name and leave a link to their url by choosing the "other" radio button over the comments box.

It's time to scrounge up something to eat for supper.........so I'll let this stand as the entry of the hour for the nonce. Regaining the momentum of entry that I maintained before my forced dormancy is further complicated by the fact that each delay spent in catch-up mode creates a new catch-up point..which makes the whole effort a Jay-Oh-fucking-Bee as opposed to a pleasurable excercise in unfettered Bozean expressionism.......but as in all things, this too shall pass and before you know it I'll be back to figuratively staggering in from some mental bender, bouncing off the walls of the blog-o-verse,and kneeling before the cybernetic equivalent of the porcelain altar.

Thus endeth the entry............

Auld Lang Syne...............

.........means "Old Long Since" in some obscure tongue or argot or another. It doesn't make much sense in English either.

I heard a story once about some prince or another that sent for all his wise men and counselors. He asked of them to say one thing to him that would make him happy when he was sad and sad when he was happy..... (don't ask me why ....some princely balance thing or another I suppose).
Of course that thing was: "This too shall pass."

As the dark nadir of the solstice passed in 1998, and I reflected my way to a New Year that I knew would bring on a welter of cascading changes in my life.........(I had no clue how many or how profound)....I thought about this little story. It was in that vein that I coined what has since become a signature New Year's Greeting for me.
One that, at the very same time, would bless the worthy and pierce the heart of the guilty.

......Thus,dear readers and friends......

"May everyone get what they deserve in 2006!"

Thus endeth the entry...........