Violet Butcher

2006-03-17T11:05:00.000-08:00

I'm not getting any I'm not getting any I'm not getting any I'm not getting anywhere.

And oddly enough, right now it feels fine.

Perhaps for the first time in my life I understand that staying in one place doesn't necessarily mean I'm not also moving forward.

It's a peculiar sensation. Some old wounds feel like they're healing, finally. I'm taking some time.

With the onset of spring I've been digging in the dirt, turning loam, pulling out roots and rocks, working side by side with a man I look forward to seeing daily. He has this manner about him, solid and serene, placid even. But beneath the surface there's live wire energy, frightening in its intensity, like he has it reined in and carefully controlled. He's brilliant and kind, looks sexy in overalls, has a great shy smile, and he cooks.

I've started heading for his place after work, and I help him with his tasks in exchange for dinner. We're doing a good job of being just friends, a curious unspoken mutual development, although the flirtation is sometimes hot and heavy and when I get home at night I rock myself to sleep thinking about what I want to happen. I wonder who will evenually take the first step of seduction, wonder how it will all follow.

We had an interesting moment the other evening before dinner. We were working outside, and for some reason we both stopped and looked at each other. My mouth said, unbidden and uninhibited, much to my surprise, like I was talking in my sleep,

God you're handsome. How is it possible you're single?

Which elicited a shocked look, a smile, a pause, and the earnest reply,

Have you seen yourself? You're beautiful.

Which made me blush.

And the moment passed, we were both embarrassed and he cleared his throat, but it's nice to know the attraction is mutual.

Maybe he's waiting for some indication from me that physical contact would be appreciated. Although, on the other hand, I must admit the absence of physical affection is making me highly aware of some pre-existing emotional issues.

I'm not so preoccupied with him, not driven to distraction, not worried about it, and this gives me time for sorting through a lot of crap in my head and heart, figuring out what needs figuring. I've played out all the shoulda woulda coulda, and now I'm moving beyond, into accepting that the past is the past, unchangeable, but also finished.

When I get there I know he'll be waiting for me.

2006-02-23T11:16:00.000-08:00

When a body knows a body already and meets it less than halfway, I see no real point in continuing the path. There is something in the wind, perhaps the phase of the moon, but I’m unwilling to connect on any level. Erase the subliminal, stop the second-guess, I want to know the bottom line, and with him I can’t see it. It makes me wonder if my whole relationship with him was just on the surface, something we simply did rather than something we both felt. That’s the part that still hurts. When I saw his face again, when he wrapped his arms around me and told me it had been too long, I found myself conceited and disbelieving. Too long? Yes. So long.

It can be awkward looking and speaking to a person you thought you knew, who in some ways you know too well. I burned my tongue on my hot coffee, and every subsequent sip reminded me to be cautious and reserved. I’m sorry I had to be that way with him. But the thought of letting him back inside my heart, of letting him once again have the power to hurt me as he did, remains an unacceptable risk. I’m sure my nostrils flared and my smile was sharp and crooked and did not reflect in my eyes. A worry crossed his familiar beautiful curved brow, I know your looks, that worry line said. But then he chose to ignore it, attempting to force the situation into an amazing yoga backbend, but I had already bent too much, and refused to apologize for my lack of flexibility.

We said the necessary things and kissed cheeks, drank our cups of coffee while our faces hid the thoughts we really thought. I was highly conscious of how my teeth clicked together when I said certain words. My denial still echoes in my ears. I did not give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry, and I didn’t cry until I unlocked the door to my little house. The tears were not of sorrow but of bitterness, and they tasted like copper. It's done. There is no return.

2006-02-15T10:44:00.000-08:00

One two buckle my shoe
Three four shut the door
…And lock it…

Once again the day of exaggerated expectations has come and gone. And the man who claims to love me? didn’t send me anything, didn’t even call, although in his defense I did work twelve hours yesterday, and he's travelling in different time zones. Jake is en route home from South America, making his way leisurely through Costa Rica, lollygagging around the Caribbean, probably doesn’t know what day it is. Supposedly he’s headed for Texas and from there flies into Portland on the 19th.

He seems to suffer a serious level of disconnect, some definite mental problem. The few times I’ve talked to him, he makes it sound as if this wayward journey were simply a vacation, as if he didn’t just up and leave everything and everybody. I have been discussing him with a long-time friend and colleague who treats mentally ill patients. She tells me he sounds schizophrenic, but she obviously can’t diagnose him with just my emotionally-charged spoutings. At any rate, he’s returning in three days (one two three, I keep looking at the calendar with this crazy mixture of dread and anticipation). He asked me to pick him up at the airport. I told him I'd think about it.

In the mean time, I’ve made the acquaintance and friendship of a new fellow. He’s of the strong and silent variety, and has eschewed his scholastic and literary accomplishments for a life of greenthumbery, and that's not a proper word but it's what he calls himself. What's your profession? A greenthumb. He owns a little blueberry farm complete with chickens and goats and dogs and cats. He came in to the free clinic three weeks ago for a tetanus shot, and we later encountered each other at the nearby deli. We shared a table and talked as though we had been best friends years ago and discovered we still have so much in common. Since then, I’ve eaten three wonderfully enjoyable and very comfortable home-cooked meals with him.

I’ll admit I’m attracted; I like the way he looks, and I like the way he looks at me. The most intimate physical contact we've had occurred when we were walking in his orchard and I got something in my eye, he brushed my lashes with his fingertip. I liked his fingertip's touch, I like being his friend, I like it that there have been no clumsy advances or fumbled attempts at seduction. It feels... respectful. Like we have all the time in the world. Like this thing that's growing between us needs water and sunlight, and let's wait and see what kind of flower it makes. He sent me ten red carnations that smell like cloves, which he grew in his little greenhouse, for Valentine’s Day. I invited him for dinner tonight.

I think Jake can find someone else to pick him up from the airport.

2006-01-24T13:42:00.000-08:00

In terms of speculation and examination, in the face of emotional flood, I find myself akin to New Orleans, wondering where have all my signs and landmarks gone?

He called, and I guess I never thought he would, because I hadn’t wanted to think about him anymore. I haven’t wanted to think about his phone call; that was last Thursday. It has been stewing. I’m testing it now and I think it’s almost edible for rumination.

I recognized it was an out-of-country call, with that foreign crackle and shush of distance between wires, although I didn’t necessarily suspect it was him. I answered and after saying Hello? during that long-distance delay, before he could even say Hello back to me, my heart flipped right up and out of my mouth. Hi, he said, in his familiar voice, and there I was, gagging on this pounding throbbing slippery jellyfish of an organ, hang on a minute I think I am about to pass out.

He disarmed me with a joke about eating insects. He told me briefly about his adventures in beautiful lands and it dawned on me that his reasons for escaping to South America are now irrelevant, and pertain only to my own frame of reference.

I somehow managed to swallow and breathe, and told him I gave the ring back to his mom. Then all those should-have-said phrases and calculated attacks came out, I shocked myself with my calmness and seriousness, and I think I shocked him although he was expecting it. I imagined both our faces as if they were across a table, faces hurt by the other, pinched and pale and unhappy and guilty.

He stayed meek and quiet and did not defend himself. I growled and told him in fine detail how he had made me feel, and refrained from too much cussing, but at one point I recall most eloquently calling him a stupid shithead fucking fuck.

It was only after I was done, and when he started talking to me about moving on from where we had been, to where we could be when he returns, it was only then that I started weeping. It felt like the tears were coming from the pit of my stomach. It felt like I was raining.

He told me he loves me. He said he misses me. He begs my forgiveness. He returns in a month, and in that time I need to decide how to handle the thought that he’s coming back, and not just that he’s going to return, but that he’s coming back to me.

So for the past few days I’ve been walking around, half-seeing things, like I’ve stared too long at the sun’s reflection in a mirror and suffered a long-term retina burn. I don’t know what to think. It’s not so easy to forget how much he hurt me. I can forgive him; something in me suspects I already have forgiven him. But forget? No. And therein, I think, lies the issue of trust.

2006-01-23T14:56:00.000-08:00

A big fat "FUCK YOU" to whichever twit with over-tweezed brows and airbrushed tan and plastic pink fingernails was whistling the theme song from Sesame Street.

2006-01-23T13:33:00.000-08:00

He called.
He called me from Peru.
He called.

Apologies for the delay, for the complete and utter loss of anything remotely resembling a thought-pattern, all I can think is that he called.

I can't believe he called.

We laughed.
We cried.
I tore him a new asshole.
We cried.
We laughed.

I think I shit myself.

2005-12-28T15:27:00.000-08:00

Gentlemen, start your engines.

It's not much of a race, but I am tempted to expound upon the idiocy of parallels one might imagine between self and automobile, the identification and personification as reflected in chrome and steel, and let's burn some rubber. Vroom, as they say.

There are six, a most unlucky number, and they all seem to find vehicular expression akin to the notion that clothes make the man. And just for clarity, clothes don't make the man, and cars simply make exhaust.

One little two little three little exhaust pipes, a lab tech a lawyer a political analyst, four little five little six more exhaust pipes, a banker a psychiatrist a building contractor. Shall we go for statistical analysis? One by one, assassination by list, here are the pansies:

The lab tech drives a Volvo, he's quirky and smart and has a green greasy sheen on his skin I find somewhat repulsive. Vegan, too, and such strict self-imposed dietary requirements tend to leave me asking Why? Video game junkie, definitely, and talks in slang and lingo more than I prefer. He's head honcho at the lab and can identify more types of foreign agents in a micro-slide of shit or blood or piss or saliva than anyone I know... but what, exactly, would we discuss over bland food and thrice-filtered water? How could I possibly have a relationship with someone to whom the word "shit" means his life's work?

The lawyer drives a brand spankin' new black with tinted windows BMW of course, and I suspect he is, in fact, an android. His hair does not ever move; there's no evidence it is not plastic, it always has the same shape and style, the perfect part, amazingly matched sideburns. I can tell he practices facial expressions in the mirror. He signs even the personal notes to me (be still my heart!) with "Esquire" after his name, and takes himself as serious as a heart attack. No funny bones in that body, unless it's Obviously Supposed To Be Funny, and then HA HA HA HA! he laughs like a puppet with the top of his head lifting up. He has a degree in history, too, and conversation can be interesting, but I fear an argument with someone trained to argue because then I'd get frustrated and have to kill him. Perhaps, then, it's a bonus that he gets bored with any conversation not centered on him, and he starts talking about his intelligence, his dog, or his recent golf game.

Mr. Conservative psych-I-prescribe-highly-addictive-drugs-to-little-kids-to-make-them-more-tractable-atrist drives a new convertible Toyota Celica with all the extras. I have nothing to say to this man but he calls me daily at 3:15, and seems to want only to talk about the weather. He has a mini statue of Venus de Milo in his office, which causes me great personal umbrage, guilty as I am of being a former lingerie model who suffered digital amputation and decapitation. He flexes his jaw muscles a lot. No, I mean a lot.

The building contractor drives the biggest possible white Dodge Ram pickup truck imaginable. The truck compliments his big soup-straining pussy-ticklin MUCH too proud of it mustache, check the spelling, this is no moustache. He calls me at all hours using his company (HIS company's) phone. He carries a rifle in his truck, he got that rifle rack chromed, just to match the bumpers. He has a wide handsome brow and unfocused grey eyes and a strangely shaped gap between his front bottom teeth, visible most of the time from too much chewing tobacco sucked during elementary school. He brags on his boat. Vroom vroom, he says! He invited me to join him on the lake in his "backyard" for New Year's Eve. "We can get ourselves a goose." He does have nice hands, but, well, no.

The political analyst pundit butt-whiffer drives a green Range Rover and blah blah blah blah! I know him much better than I should; he's far too free and easy with me. Little does he know. He does Exxxxtreme Mountain Climbing, he goes UP the mountain, you see (he told me that). Right now he's a Republican, although he has changed political parties 5 times (he told me that. He TOLD me! What a dumbfuck). This man has a cocaine nosejob but he's "done with it" (he TOLD me!) and he's really fucking preachy about doing drugs, but he'll go to a party and then ask, "Who's fixing drinks?" and "Where's the booze?" It's most unfortunate my social circles ellipse with his because he tends towards touchy-feely. He has a Harley and hopes someday I will buy a helmet. He's good-looking and athletic and I feel like telling him he'd get more girls to go out with him if HE had an EXTRA helmet, but why should I? Dumbass.

The bank owner drives a new gold Pathfinder. He is a ski nut, does Exxxxtreme Skiing (he goes DOWN the mountain, you see, he and the political yes-man can belly-buck about superiority-- one goes up, the other goes down. Or maybe about S.U.V.irility-- they can see whose winch on the front of each box-shaped vehicle is stronger and more potent). He's tall, tall, tall, with the haughtiness AND bad-posture issues that go with most tall people. But he has great legs; some weird part of me wants to dress this prematurely-balding homophobe up in a slinky black dress and fishnet stockings and take him to smoky-glass candle-lit bars and drink Midori Sours until he's silly. Alas, he is a teetotaler, and really fucking preachy about drinking alcohol, but he appreciates a bowl of maryjane now and then.

Which one wins? If I'm the loving cup then not a one. In fact I'm more inclined to pair them together, the banker and the politician, the lab technician with the lawyer, and the contractor with the psychiatrist. Matches made in Heaven.

Burn, baby, burn.

2005-12-05T16:23:00.000-08:00

Well shit where did it go? Where the hell did I put that silly little thing? My writer muse, I mean. Maybe he ran away again, like they all do. Need a better cage for that little bugger. While I’m at it, I should look for my libido, too.

I keep thinking about the time I accidentally put the milk in the pantry and the cereal box in the fridge.

~

A girlfriend of mine has a “fabulous new boyfriend” and I spent half our lunch date looking down while she was blathering (I do love her but she’s loopy about him and… well I guess familiarity breeds contempt) just so she couldn’t see the half-sneer on my face, denying myself the impulse to say, dripping with sarcasm, “Yeah, ain’t love grand.”

Is sarcasm the only dripping display of character? Surely wit never drips, nor does worry. Sarcasm just oozes that caustic bitterness all over the fucking place.

~

I had a date and I don’t think I’ll have another any time soon. It’s all just a bit more than I want right now.

You know you’re wasting time with a man (whose only intention is to sleep with you) when the hair on the back of his neck makes you queasy. It’s just the back of his neck, not even his chest, back, pits, or (gag) nether regions.

No, I’m not disqualifying him solely on the grounds that I’d want to depilate him. He had this truly annoying habit of rephrasing what I said, only louder, so the people at the table next to us could hear and think he was a witty conversationalist. It felt like I was playing the million-questions game with myself.

He also spent too much time reaching across the table and touching my hands, my shoulder, my hair, while making interjections about how stunning I looked, how he really liked my smile, little semi-sincere overly flirtatious gotta-get-laid superficial comments. My ego is plenty big; he was stroking and not even getting close to triggering it.

I didn't kiss him goodnight, didn't want to give him any encouragement. And when he asked, “Can I call you?” I shook my head in the negative and told him I’d probably be busy.

Busy looking for my writer muse. And my libido. And that lipstick I know I stuck in a coat pocket, but which coat?... And where did my keys go? I'm certainly not looking for any more dates.

2005-11-29T16:23:00.000-08:00

It's snowing.
Last night when I got home my house was 57 degrees inside, with a complaining cat.
The ride home will be like shifting through old black and white photographs; the snow always seems to blur the colors to some semblance of grey.

I agreed to a "date" for Friday night. He's a long-time acquaintance, and has been guilty of fixing me with an uncomfortable gaze in the past, but he’s humorous and interesting. He also has a charming disarming smile, nice shoulders, and an amazingly thick wild mane of chestnut hair. But he lied to me when he said he knows nothing serious could come of this date, that he'd be happy just to be part of my "rebound." I know his intentions were to reduce anxiety and allay fears, but it just served to remind me that I am, indeed, on the rebound. Which is a pretty fucking depressing place to be. You fall and bounce and then fall again. And maybe bounce again. And fall. Again.

I wouldn’t mind sticking like snow. But I already know this one isn’t worth sticking to; no, this one is just for temporarily closing all the government offices and schools.

2005-11-28T11:56:00.000-08:00

Technically speaking I lost my virginity to a whiskey bottle.

I should preface that, yes?

After escaping high school with my high-brow prudish morality and maidenhead still intact, and well into my first year of college, after 3 months of heavy panting and dry humping and oral sex with the first man I felt inclined to swap bodily fluids, we ended up in bed in his basement apartment. It was some damp shabby fluorescent-lit shag-carpet hovel with books scattered everywhere, and I thought he was cool because he was living by himself, he even had his own kitchen and bathroom. We had fondled each other on his couch, and had even made our way to his bed a number of times, but hadn’t ever “gone all the way.”

He was two years older and both impatient and unkind, although he prided himself on being a lady’s man and was wily and dastardly and oh-so-interested in conquering me. He played a marvelous courtship game. Naïve and inexperienced and virginal as I was, I thought his affections and begging indicated his true feelings, and was flattered, and I thought he really cared for me. He found great excitement in the thrill of the chase, and I seemed worthy quarry, for I had learned to tango, and would take two steps forward and then one step back. "No, not tonight, maybe Saturday." I was also extremely nerdy, and studious, and took academia seriously. He found my devotion to school a setback to his own intentions, and had to postpone his serious advances until winter break.

Quite a charmer! I remember his smile and all the dinners and movies, that whole December it almost felt like we had the town to ourselves because almost all other students went home for the holidays. He turned on the romance. He turned me on. He got me into his basement, and we ate take-out Chinese, and ended up in bed. He tried and tried and tried, and tried some more, and my God what pain that big fleshy stump caused me, but it never penetrated. I was shrieking and crying so loudly he stuck his wallet in my mouth so the people upstairs couldn't hear. He was never successful, and I finally had had enough of his attempted bludgeoning, and shoved him off, and feeling embarrassed and sorry for him I sucked him off. I left, both of us seeming afraid to look the other in the face, but made promises to try it again soon.

It hurt to walk home, he had bruised my fleshy petals, and had left the inside aching for more. When I got home my mixed emotions flustered me, and all I could think of was my failure to provide him with what he seemed to desire. I wanted to make the next encounter more productive. My roommate had a Jack Daniels whiskey bottle stashed under her bed, and I knew from the approximate size and shape of the bottle’s neck it should suffice my purpose. Yes, it hurt like hell, and yes, I bled on the bottle neck, which I had washed before and certainly washed after, but being able to take the size and shape at my own pace greatly reduced the trauma. I also considered how delighted he had seemed at my pain, and did not wish to grant him that sort of power over me; I wanted to experience the pleasure with him, not the pain. And considering he dumped me two weeks after bedding me three more times, I do not mind knowing he failed so miserably to steal from me the one thing he sought.

Whiskey. I take it neat, thank you kindly.

2005-11-17T11:32:00.000-08:00

You know? that love affair lasted a year. I'm proud of that. Beats my previous record by three weeks. So, by law of averages and abacus calculations and meteorlogical divinations, I estimate by the time I'm 35 I'll be able to date a man for 3 years. Right now I'm not even looking. Maybe the longer I go between romances, the longer the romance will last. Unless, of course, the potential mate is scared away by the intensity of my desire and the magnitude of my need when I do finally meet someone I deem worthy.

Worthy? Worth what? I'd never list an ad for singles, but if I did, the criteria would be a list as long as my arm. Not just the forearm, either, I'm talking the whole arm, from pit to wrist. Here's just off the top of my head:
Must love me more than anything else, except himself.
Must be willing to read my mind when it comes to my mood swings, my bad attitude, my snobbery, my idiocy, my flakiness, my fears, and know how to react accordingly.
Must be pleasing to look at and touch, although nationality, shape, height, and weight don't matter, so long he looks good in jeans, and if the proportions and physicality are shapely, healthy, and capable of athletic activity.
Must be able to intelligently discuss any possible subject under the sun, moon, and stars.
Must be open-minded, especially about religion, politics, and food.
Must look good in black, and in red.
Must be able to keep up with me. Generally.
Must be well-read.
Must prefer red wine, or whiskey.
Must be able to cook any food I want, including Mexican, Indian, Japanese, and Thai.
Must be capable of a mind-blowing massage, and be willing to rub my feet anywhere, any time, for however long I want, with no tickling.
Must be willing to dance, at least alone with me in the living room.
Must have no addiction to alcohol or drugs (prescription drugs, especially).
Must not be manic-depressive, homicidal, suicidal, homophobic, or pedophile.
No grumpy-pants, no cat-haters, no vegetarians, but bomb-throwers will be considered depending upon who-what-where.
Must know the difference between making love and fucking, and must be willing to receive bites and scratches during either activity.
Must be shy, honest, humble, sexy, and kind, and must be capable of bringing me to orgasm during sex.

That almost covers it. I know there's more but it's all I can think of right now.

Just about ready to be ready again.
I haven't heard any good jokes lately.
My sorry-for-me phase is almost passed.
All the woe-is-me music I've been listening to sounds like coffee-shop guitar-playing breathless waifs bemoaning the tragedy of a bad haircut.
And as of last night, I have no fewer than ten suitors actively pursuing me. I think I may eventually give in and go on a date and try to remember what it's like to not be whatever I am right now. Jilted. Dumped. How did I get here, and why the fuck do I feel like a hitch-hiker?

2005-11-15T11:22:00.000-08:00

Eleven hours, my feet protest. And then I walked home last night. It felt delightful in the freezing air, clear as a bell, and I was entertained the whole way by Mars swinging underneath a big fat pregnant moon.

I didn’t ride the bus because a man had been visibly ill, and although the mess was getting cleaned up, I did not want to smell vomit and wintertime bums and stinky feet all the way home. Nor did I wish to subject myself to possible illness, in case it were something other than too much booze which induced the loss of his lunch. So I walked almost two miles under streetlamps and naked trees. The neighborhood was dark and hushed. I could smell all the different kinds of woodsmoke and the damp rot of leaves in the gutter, and tried to think about nothing.

It’s too soon says my mind, too soon since the betrayal of my hope. Too soon from the distance between what was and what is not, too soon from finding love and losing it again. My body feels numb and uninterested, my libido gone, my heart a battered little pulp. I move my lips as I walk around my empty house, rehearse imaginary “what if” scenarios, the floorboards creak well-timed responses. I can’t calculate it, can’t find the logic, can’t explain it, can’t imagine it, can’t hope for something different, can’t measure the depths, can’t expect it, can’t answer myself when I ask him, why. Why?

Did I drive him crazy? Did I do something to set him over the edge? Did I cause him to run away from everything he professed to love? I don’t want to be responsible but why did it have to happen during our relationship? Okay, he didn’t want to get married, he didn’t want to be done with school, he didn’t want to live here, he didn’t want to see every day roll out in front of him the same as the day before, fine. I thought we were happy together.

If he came back to me? I suppose it’s an exercise in futility, since he’s never coming back to me. Two months, and the pain has receded to this little crystalline lump stuck between my heart and my throat that grates on the soft tissue deep inside. Like a fucking goiter. Like heartburn, or an ulcer. No medical treatment for lost love, unfortunately.

I'm getting over it.

2005-11-14T08:49:00.000-08:00

Comments are ON.
Let me know you're out there and I'm not just whistling in the wind.
XO
V

2005-11-13T21:57:00.000-08:00

In my dreams a strange man comes to me and looks at me like he's very concerned. It's a sweet, kind expression on his wide, handsome, rugged, wind-sculpted face, a face that has seen dead things, and born things, and weeping women, and he feels compassion about it all. He reaches to touch me gently like I'm a skittish horse, soft words on his breath that smells like sage and cinnamon, blue eyes flashing and high contrast to skin as brown as his boots. I think I need to move to New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, somewhere in the high wide lonesome just so I can meet him. I keep thinking he'll find me. After these dreams I can't think anything else. I know this about him: he is kind, and he belongs outside. He disrupts my sleep and I don't know who the hell he is. When I'm awake I can't bring his face into focus.

One finger two finger there I go again my mind wanders and settles on features of not-quite-Jake but Jake enough that I'm embarrassed in the afterwards, after my body spasms and shuts off for just a few blissful seconds, and when my breath has returned to normal all I want to do is smash things. My pillow makes a handy projectile and I scare my cat and I fall to sleep in tears and awaken with a stiff neck and bad breath. All those unhappy submerged thoughts come rising from freezing seawater, maybe I'm a mermaid. Freud's iceberg... You know that massive submerged portion smells stale as a freezer that hasn't been cleaned out in two years. He left. He left. He left me. My heart feels big and sore and I can't see clearly through the ripples of the tears that I refuse to let fall.

I got a punching bag, a wonderful invention, I can hit and kick the shit out of it and it just bounces back because-- ah-ha, and here's the real crux-- I exhaled my breath into it and then put water in the bottom of it. But if it is my breath, and I designed the means for it to right itself by adding water from the tap in my kitchen, am I now kicking myself? What a curious inclination. I don't really care; that was more an exercise of navel-gazing.

What I do care is, with this amazing device I am learning all new methods of aggressive behavior in myself, new techniques for inflicting sure and definite punishment upon a willing subject. It says "Everlast" on it. No shit, it's the willing spar partner who won't give me a black eye "by accident". It's the punching clown I never had, and how happy am I? At this point I've decided it needs a different name but unles I come up with something better, he is Mr. Everlast. Oh yes, it is definitely a him. He brings me much pleasure in a strangely honest sort of way, but each time it seems the reason for kicking and punching is different.

Know what? I can kick above my head, and knock him to the floor. I can punch punch punch punch punch punch punch with my fists as fast as I can and he takes it with rubbery grace, saying softly "Oof oof oof oof oof". My knuckles got all ragged until I put socks on my hands. If I stand with my back to him, I can bring my leg around level with my hips, and when I hit him with my heel, I bend him in half. "Ooomph," he says. In the middle of the night I screech like a kung fu banshee, and my my, isn't that a mix of cultures, all you twenty-first century global society souls out there.

It troubles me. They smell it like sharks smell blood in the water. My single status, I mean. When Jake became estranged to everyone, but even before I took the engagement ring from my finger, they came calling. The same weekend I drove to his parents' house to return the ring, since he had left the country and become as much a stranger to them as to me, I had over ten phone calls. "...leave a message." BEEEP "Hi, Violet, I, uhhh, thought..." Yeah, fuck you. With what were you thinking?

All I dare think about, right now, after I've tried and failed so many ficking times and my heart feels like a stupid little rubber bouncing ball with a chunk missing from it, is the man of my dreams. His name, at this moment, is Mr. Everlast. Right now I intend to kick the shit out of him, so that maybe I can smile tomorrow. And I hope I dream tonight.

2005-11-09T10:05:00.000-08:00

Alright already. Fuckin A. You really care for this wicked-willed bitch with a hangover? Want to know the saga of me? Two too many margaritas last night, there's a start. Ended up with some phone number but no name scrawled in a solid man's handwriting. Unlucky trash.

I wish I could tell you in enlightened terms, oh you faithful readers, of the rollercoasters I’ve ridden. Should I expect anything different than what has been, should I anticipate anything other than total chaos? Should my life suddenly stay on course, just because I think it should? Given all evidence to the contrary, Violet violently shakes her dark locks NO.

At this moment I should be filing paperwork, reviewing little colored charts with little colored tabs marking year and identity filled with the abbreviated notations that describe the failing health of individual human bodies. I wish I could smoke a home-rolled cigarette (yeah I know, bite me) while pushing these papers, it would add a layer of funk to the ceiling and my lungs and a level of glamour to the task, I could then imagine myself in some grainy black-and-white film noir, red lipstick on one end of the pale thin roll, the other end burning. It would also add a level of exciting possible danger, too, all these pieces of wood fiber atop a wood desk. Most people who burn themselves smoking cigarettes burn themselves while smoking in bed. Which is where I wish I were right now.

I long for a normal life. Evidently what I perceive as “normal” is completely off base, because the “norm” for me is abundant with drama and shit why don’t I get my own musical score? Come on already, Universe.

What part of “It’s not you, it’s me,” do I not believe? Two negatives and all that, it’s a wonder he didn’t flip sooner given my appetite for riddles. Flip he did, halfway through his last year of grad school, which evidently (and there goes that word again—evidently. With evidence. Proof, testimony, definition) makes people question their raison d’etre and their former path through life. He’s in South America now. Why didn’t I see that one coming? I’m thinking of changing my last name to X.

2005-03-23T11:32:00.000-08:00

What is that uncomfortable feeling of unwanted obligation, and why do we some times, some how, for some reason, perpetuate the myth of compliance? Turn it around: What is it that makes up the chemistry of true friendship? Maybe the sense of equality, and an acceptance and revelry in the other person's differences, the comfort of being together, the Wonder-Twin-Power of two people happy being together.

As usual I can more readily define what it is NOT. It is not a sense of obligation that elicits stomach-churning anxiety. It most certainly is not one-upsmanship, or slights, or casual rudeness. And friendship is not inequality, manipulation, or dominion over another. Examine your self, examine your feelings, think about the people who claim to be friends but when you get done visiting with them you're overjoyed with the sense of solitude.

Trip on this. Girlfriend came to my door at two, in the darkest dread of last night's rain, when even the dogs were all sleeping. She looked like hell. The last time she came to spend the night on my couch, he had stayed out "with his church group" until one in the morning, and never mind the smell of alcohol, they were studying Scripture damnit, and he followed her around for two more hours praying for her and telling her she needed to forgive him, because Jesus does. The word "repentance," however, does not seem to be in his vocabulary.

Last night, in the middle of the night when all the dogs were sleeping, there was one still awake, and he was smoking crack in the bedroom. She left the room, knowing this isn't the first time but it's the first time with her at home, in their bedroom, in the middle of the night. He had the lights on and after a while she went back in there, and he had all her... toys... out on the bed. Except the one with which he was buggering himself, and watching gay porn. Not that there is anything wrong with it, I will not pass judgement, shit, whatever floats your boat or gets you off, go for it, it's between you and your Maker. But she couldn't handle his request, "Here, hold this," and she pulled on a coat, grabbed her purse, and came to my house.

This is what friends are for, to provide a safe haven from crazy porn-addicted self-buggering supposedly-pious super-religious meth-freak alcoholics, and to tell her she can't have that shit in her house, but she can stay with me until he leaves, and if for whatever reason she still doesn't kick him out, have warm blankets for the next time she needs to come sleep on my couch.

Trip on this. Here we go, via electronic mail, once in a blue moon, comes nothing quite so nice as a request, oh no, it is certainly a demand. An old acquaintance, with whom I share a handful of forgettable memories, wants me to come see her. No, I am not flattered, I believe she may think she intends to be flattering, and maybe she enjoys spending time with me, but my guess is she just wants to flex those manipulation muscles. An exerpt: "...you and I only live 4 hours away! Recently I was talking to my new friend Donna, who tells me she makes weekend trips each month to see her former roommate, and I think we should do something like this. She travels more than 600 miles to see her friend! This makes me wonder about you and me, because I think life gets too much in the way of our commitment to this friendship. It's your turn to come visit, you know, since I was down there a few months ago. We're being bad friends!" and so on. Let me add that this is the most high maintenance, vacuous, pretentious person I've ever met in the world, and the thought of staying with her brings me an utter sense of despair. Add to that the cost of driving there, plus eating out numerous times, not to mention time taken off work, and no, the computations don't equate. Bottom line, her guilt trip is not worth my time. I don't intend to respond.

Guilt designed to manipulate just doesn't work on most people. Yet some people insist on throwing the guilt glove down, and expect it to be retreived, "Oh, did you drop this? Here you are, sorry I was neglectful." Fuck that. It does not elicit the preferred response in me. "I did this for you, so do this for me" is utter bullshit. It contains a twisted sense of competition, and the desire to dominate. I'm just not competitive like that, and I find it a boastful, inflexible trait. Guilt trips don't work with kids, either. I recall as a child, my mother trying to shame me into doing something for her, whereas if she had simply asked, I would have been glad to help.

It's as if the attempt at guilt eliminates the possibility of refusal. It does kindle a nasty little impulse, and makes me curious that contempt is the only emotion to show up on just one side of the face. Perhaps that is where the term two-faced originates? Half smile, half sneer. I think I'm done with feeling guilty, and I am sick of the strangely competitive mutual contempt on both sides. So now I'll just feel guilty about never writing back to her, and contemptuous about not telling her why I'm not writing back to her. Double-edged swords and two faces, oh my soul. This is not what friends are for. The only method for repentence is to stop it.

2005-03-14T15:41:00.000-08:00

Being part of a "couple" (interesting: coup, couplet, coupling, coupon, there are probably more but those are funny and strangely appropriate) has benefits and drawbacks. We spent an evening with "that" couple, the kind which, for all appearances, seems happy in their coupling, but if you spend any time at all with them you realize they are both being eaten by internal worms.

They're the kind of couple who talk baby talk to each other for fear of offending the other with a direct comment or question or request. "Pooky, I think I asked you twice now if you'd pleeeaze do the dishies?" Yeah, "dishies." Fucking killed me and I tried to hide my snort with a faked sneeze. Jake squeezed my knee because we've had the baby-talk discussion, i.e. don't fucking do it. I won't tolerate drivel or nonsense or veiled hostility or fear. Say it already, damnit.

The boyfriend, a good friend of Jake's, was a pudge-bellied wan tall thing with scrawny legs and delicate hands, slouched on the super-sized couch, a sweet bespectacled face and sweet temperament, a brilliant mind, and a glutton for punishment. She was altogether unbearable, a simpering self-proclaimed "bad vegetarian" who may have been the messiest eater of fried chicken I've ever encountered. She talked a little too shrill, she bragged on herself and her family and her boyfriend and her "media center" with the ten speakers and huge flat screen tv. She did go on about how clever she was at figuring out this one problem at work, and how everybody now comes to ask her advice about problems, and all I could think was no fucking way would I ever take her into confidence.

We had dinner over at their posh apartment, which, despite the vaulted ceilings, smelled like farts and cat pee under a layer of citrus room-deoderizers. The boyfriend was jovial and funny, witty, even, and made a few jokes that contained double-entendres, and she did not understand why these comments were so funny. She just looked at him with that imperious, "You're silly, and you haven't done the dishies," look on her round little face. For Jake's sake I held my tongue, and suffered the inquisition. She had a manner of challenging everything I said, curious to the point of chafing, and was far too interested in being my friend. Everytime I attempted to change the discussion, she would change it back with the comment, "But I have more questions..." and then came the inevitable, the question, the "I have this pain," or "Can you look at this mole," or "My Mom has diabetes," the presumptuous question that removes it from private to professional. I said no, I won't. You should contact your physician. And still she persisted.

Gentle readers, I had to tell this tenacious impertinant little twit three more times that no, I would not examine the strange itchy red rash on her scalp. She kept trying different tacks, like when I got up to go to the bathroom, "Oh, could I come with you? I want to show you what I'm putting on my boo-boo." Like when I got up to go into the kitchen, "We could go in the bedroom to have some privacy and maybe you could look at my head?" Like when I got up to leave for the evening, "Well, wasn't dinner so good? Maybe you could exchange the favor by looking at my scalp, just quickly, I mean, it would only take a second." Un-fucking-believable. They didn't even serve us any alcohol, because they're not drinkers, so I had to swallow it all with bile and water. At least bile goes down easier with wine.

I told Jake never again, no no no no no, I will not. He patted my ass and took me to a bar, and we talked about obnoxious people who just can't take a hint. Heaven forbid there should ever be a next time, because I don't think I'll be so polite.

2005-03-10T16:10:00.000-08:00

The Menopause Thermostat Wars continue! How many fifty-something women work here? How many hot flashes and chills in the day? Another 20-something and I find ourselves caught in the middle of a battle over who controls the central heat and air. It is a war waged with timing and precision, but it's completely based on hormonal flux. The lines are drawn between the Hot and Cold armies but loyalty changes daily. Someone Hot today is Cold tomorrow.

Espionage abounds; it's not merely a matter of changing the temperature in the room, no. It is about the status of who will change the temperature. If Eva turns off the heat, and Dawn sees her, she tells Carol it happened, then Carol gets Dina to turn up the heat, because it was Eva who turned it low, and Eva and Dina are higher up in the pecking order, and neither Carol nor Dawn would dare touch it because Eva changed it. It is an interesting social structure, a glimpse at the hierarchy within the office, based as much on duties as on seniority. I'm new here, relatively speaking, and since I'm not suffering menopause I've learned to simply wear layers, and have a sweater in my office, always.

But today the hot air blowing on my from the ceiling vent was also circulating the smell of tuna fish from someone's lunch. It was making me ill. I'm not part of the office staff, and so when I turned the heat from eighty-fucking-degrees! (and said "Eighty-fucking-degrees?!") down to seventy, nobody touched the thermostat for the rest of the day. Something tells me there will be hell to pay. I really wish I had an office with its own window.

2005-03-03T15:57:00.000-08:00

One problem with these big boobs of mine is that when the air is nippy and the clothing are less than wind-resistant I also suffer from big goose-bumps. This is not something that can be restrained witha band-aid. They’re not the happy languid slowly hardening sexually aroused nipples, oh no, they’re the, it’s fucking cold out here *sproing* nipples. Truly uncomfortable, all that quickly-constricting skin. Even less comfortable are the averted eyes from people on the street, who can’t help but notice.

These breasts of mine, these pendulous fleshy bastions of proof I am a mammal, sex symbols and domes of worship, especially for Americans, are huge. If I stand on my head, without a bra on, they almost cover my face. It is only by some freak distribution of fleshy growth I didn’t end up like Quasimodo.

2005-03-01T16:26:00.000-08:00

How many times did I wash my hands yesterday? Everybody is sick. Yacking hacking sneezing shitting aching groaning just-let-me-die sick. Patients were curled on the floor in the crowded room waiting for the one haggard nurse to see them into the exam room and get their vitals before I went in and poked and prodded and told them what they already know. Go to bed. Drink lots of liquids. Eat chicken soup with rice. And garlic.

I love garlic. I am salivating for some hot red spaghetti pasta with chunks of baked garlic, spicy sausage, some toasty crunchy garlicky bread, some dry red wine, and a spinach salad on the side with olive oil. Maybe an artichoke, since they’re on sale. I am so fucking hungry right now every third thought is about sex. And food. And it’s great when both happen in the same night, which has not been the case lately, since he’s been sick as a dog. So I’m force-feeding him garlic, instead.

Maybe it’s because I turn into a reclusive grumpy heap when I’m sick but I can’t stand it when people whine about being sick. I was greatly relieved to discover Jake just sleeps when he’s sick, and although he whimpered a little, there was no sniveling or bellyaching or carrying-on. Because then I would have had to break off the engagement. I am serious. There’s that whole “in sickness or in health” thing, and there’s no fucking way I could take care of a whiner. It brings out the mean impatient bitch in me.

Unfortunately, aside from not feeling very romantic, he also hasn’t been up to cooking, which leaves the kitchen work to me. There is a reason I lived on boneless- skinless chicken breasts, macaroni and cheese, tomato soup, and an amazing amount of raw vegetables. I have melted pots and pans, and once set fire to the stove. It took me years to figure out how to cook rice without burning it. However, I do know how to open a can of marinara sauce & add pepper and salt and garlic and mushrooms and bring it to a boil. Lots and lots of garlic.

And bedtime prayers I don't catch this nasty grippe.

2005-02-09T14:25:00.000-08:00

It has been a long time since I've had a quavery voice attack. You know, where you can actually feel the emotion in your own voice and you're sure you sound hyper-emotional and far too involved, but your heart is up in your throat and instead of keeping your mouth shut you blare like a fucking clarion, and then for hours or days or sometimes even years you replay what you said, lips moving and hand gestures and all, and try to convince yourself you didn't sound shrill, or mean, or unfair.

When I normally speak, I try and keep it minimal, and direct, and low and constant, very professional, even in times of stress and duress. It pays to be quiet and listen and

I just noticed the zipper of my slacks was halfway down. There's nothing like that gap and breeziness to lurch a body directly out of a self-congratulatory reverie. Yes I enunciate my words and have impeccable timing and control, and there's no graceful recovery after discovering my half-undone zipper. Fuck me. Where was I.

Shrillness.
It's ugly. It's even uglier during an argument a body has with a loved one, to declare emphatically a feeling that isn't actually felt so much as suspected, and it's more self-reflective than applicable to the loved-one. It's not that I have a problem with her calling him; I keep in touch in a touchless kind of way with numerous ex-boyfriends, and I won't be hypocritical about it, ever. I'm not jealous of her, either, and I know he would never leave me for her. My problem is not him, or his faithfulness, or even the girl on the other line. My problem is his reaction to it. If he enjoyed talking to her, that would be fine with me. I would prefer it, truly, to the morose and somber mood she leaves him in after a phone call. He is not only mopey after he gets off the phone with her, he's completely distracted, and I feel like he's a million miles away.

So.
Shrillness.
I got to his house & he was on the phone with her. Once he put the phone down, and acted all distracted and annoyed, I told him I'm sorry things ended like they did. I told him love can't be forced. I told him I don't like competing with her memory, and (increasing shrillness here) I felt he wasn't being truthful to her, or fair to me. And (really shrill, and so, so, so wrong) I said I know he thinks about her a lot, and maybe (and that "maybe" was constricted down to a clear, shrill, high note) he'd spend more time thinking about me if I cheated on him.
Ouch.

Yeah.

Bad on so many levels.

I wish I could blame two or three margaritas for boiling my blood but I was totally sober. I apologized immediately, and said it was an unfair and wrong thing to say, and I know it was below the belt. He looked like I had slapped him. But you know what? After blinking for about a minute and accepting my apology, he grabbed me and held me tight and said I was wrong, and professed his faithful love, and begged me never to feel so upset about another woman. He said his distraction is because she keeps making flirtatious and overt comments during their conversations, with heavy sexy sighs, reminiscing about some special night years ago. He said what she's succeeding in doing is ruining all the memories he had of her, and increasingly finds her manipulative manner to be a pain in the ass. He said he'll tell her to stop calling.

I can tell my comment hurt him, and it was unfair and stupid and shrill, but it didn't stop him from kneeling before me and hiking up my skirt, and then I wasn't shrill at all. Then I was panting and groaning and shrieking.

For Valentine's Day he said he would take me to the coast.

2004-12-09T13:56:00.000-08:00

Some folks lack internal dialogue, a curious and often annoying phenomenon. A woman with whom I work will spend five minutes explaining how when she was a girl, she and her siblings had to ask to be excused from the table, push in their chairs, and take their dishes to the sink, and this, she tells me, amidst many hand gesticulations and laughs, like it's comical, is why she’s neurotic about always pushing in her desk chair. I wasn’t very nice because I told her technically the neurosis was exhibited in her attempt to explain every detail of her current life by tracing it back to childhood behavior. This prompted her to smile uncertainly, thinking I was either being deadpan and joking with her, or possibly making fun of her, and the faltered smile further reduced her homely pudgy features into a puerile caricature.

This is the sort of girl who has a cell phone for no reason. I know people with cell phones who have them because they are difficult to reach, busy people (who I personally think should settle down with their bad selves before the stress of obligations kills them), but when you’re walking down the street talking on the phone and your conversation consists of, “Yah, I’m walking down the street, talking on the phone” then (and this is simple speculation here) probably you are wasting someone else’s time.

So, too, is the Very Important Pud who just loves the sound of his own voice so much he'll leave a lengthy message on my voicemail, repeating the same thing numerous ways, ("I sent the order over, and actually I sent it with one, (riffling paper) two... three, ... four others. So that is coming in a batch of five. There will be five orders coming, and you should get them all tomorrow, and I don't know if the order you want is on the top or not but it's in there with four others. You should get them tomorrow. There will be five total. Okay, you call me if you want anything else.") with that constant I'm-going-to-keep-talking-because-I-sound-SO-good pattern I often note in people who can't for a moment just shut the fuck up. I should mention this guy has asked me out and acted very put out when I told him I never date people with whom I work. Like he should be above that rule of mine, because he has a six-figure salary. Frankly, my dear, I couldn't stand the constant repetition and the self-congratulatory tone for cultivating and displaying such a suave smooth thinks-he's-sexy voice. Internal dialogue! Or blog! None of this vocalized thoughts bullshit. Think before you speak or I'll kick your ass.

On another note, I understand some soldiers in Iraq held Rum's feet to the coals for a moment while he was "visiting" the troops. He chided and sneered and dismissed their valid questions about extended duty and inadequate equipment, but that isn't surprising. I think it's time to do more than just hold his feet to the coals, I think it's time to skewer that pig, truss him up with baling wire, stick an apple in his mouth and rotisserie him over the burning oil fields outside Baghdad. But nobody takes my suggestions seriously.

2004-12-07T10:43:00.000-08:00

It finally happened, that long-awaited ill-fated day in which we didn't have sex or make love or fuck even once. We don't see each other more than two or three times a week because our schedules don't match. When we do see each other we're usually just below the fever-pitch of arousal, especially if we're in public and must behave in a civilized manner. I like it when I see the light in his eyes, that passionate burning desire to bend me over the side of the bed and part my swollen flesh with long sliding thrusts, and there's nothing we can do because we're in public. Although we do find darkened stairwells and elevators and even once a public bathroom to be convenient, and emerge nonchalant, rearranging our clothing, clearing our throats, giggling. We've stopped going to movies because neither of us manage to remember the movie afterwards, our hands and fingers are so busy, and it seems like a ridiculous waste of money. I'd rather stay at home in bed with him.

He came to my house with a grocery bag, a bottle of wine and salad with avocado, and I let my eyes absorb the sight of him, clean-shaven and wearing the brown shirt I love on him because it makes his eyes look tawny gold, jeans that show off that sexy ass and narrow hips, the dusty blond hair and the beautiful curve between neck and shoulder. After he cooked dinner and we devoured it, we sat curled together on the couch in candle-light and listened to the rain. I closed my eyes for a moment, since I had worked fourteen hours (oh fucking Monday) and had consumed half a bottle of wine, so he closed his eyes, too, and we dozed for an unexpected three hours, shoulder to shoulder, slumped on the couch. Miss kitty woke us up requesting her repast, and oh dear the candle had burned low illuminating the dirty dishes still on the table and it was almost eleven and he had to be up at five in the morning.

After a kiss and some extended hugs while breathing in the good smell of his flesh and aftershave and feeling those delightful muscles in his back, his soft lips and tongue, his thighs pressed against my own, he left me for his own home and household duties. It would have been nice if he could have stayed, but I doubt I would have let him get to sleep, given the desirous flutterings of my insatiable flesh.

2004-11-30T13:25:00.000-08:00

She's got the kind of voice that takes you into confidence, that makes you feel like you and she are sharing a wonderfully sweet secret. Her mannerisms are adorable and gracious, her laughter infectious, her eyes and hands flirtatious. She's one of those people seemingly completely comfortable in her own skin, the kind who seems never to worry about stinky armpits or bad breath, the kind who wakes up looking refreshed and pleasant and flushed rosy-cheeked from her vacuous brightly-lit dreams.

At the reception after the wedding, in which she was a bride's maid, she flirted equally with men and women, touched shoulders, held hands, sidled up against, enticed laughter, and generally seduced everyone, but not in a seductive manner. She seemed very wholesome and friendly, unforced, sweet-natured. I found myself enjoying her company half the time, and the other half the time I wanted to kick her ass. I can see why Jacob found her irresistible, and why, upon her indiscretion and infidelity, he was not only shattered, but hopelessly and inextricably doomed to forever wish she had been something else.

She's a consummate actress. She knows how to get it; unfortunately, she's still uncertain what "it" is, often the problem with people who need to be the center of attention. It boils down to insecurity. And empathic though she is, she grew frustrated with me because I remained inscrutable. Her type of intelligence found my own to be intimidating-- hers is reactive, whereas by my nature I found it very easy to direct and redirect the conversations. I dare say it was almost like throwing a ball for a Golden Retriever. She gave me the impression that she was accustomed to not only being the center of attention, but also that people generally let her wiles and flirtations distract them, so that she rarely runs onto rocky ground.

And oh yes, we hit rocky ground.

The details have been lost, but I couched meaning into a few phrases that I could tell made those wheels inside that head go spinning. Her eyes narrowed, the smile faltered, she looked at me almost in disbelief that I would dare mention something that (flip of the French manicured hand) you know, happened sooo long ago. I was neither rude nor provocative, but I made known my feelings about her increasing number of phone calls to my man, whom she had long ago treated like shit and then strung along, like he should still kindle a hope for the dream she extinguished. We avoided cattiness and pettiness, and maintained the charm, and she finally had the good grace to tell me Jake is a wonderful man and she knows she made a mistake, but admitted that it could never work. Plus, she said he and I look great together. Which we do, and dancing with him in his penguin suit was a treat and led to clandestine groping in dimly-lit hallways and keeping the other patrons in the swank hotel up until dawn with a creaky bed spring that repeatedly sent us into great waves of laughter.

I wish no revenge, I wish no victory. I have the man I love.

2004-11-17T10:36:00.000-08:00

Holy pajama pants, Batman, it's hot in here. I always think November equals sweaters and warm socks, and yes it's chilly, but hardly cold enough for this thick cable knit thing into which my sweat now trickles. I can feel it slipping down my back in a most clammy drippy way, beading at the small of my back, puddling inside my bra. I only like sweating on hot summer nights when the heat of a long strong naked body ignites me inside and out.

Speaking of naked, let us talk intentions. Out damn spot; she keeps calling him and by him I mean the man I love, the man whose whole face lights up and whose beautiful cupid-bow mouth smiles to reveal a wonderful grin every time he sees me, the man whose heart and soul sings to my own. The man whose eyes take on a slightly frantic, unhappy twinge around the corners when the phone rings and he's afraid it's her.

She called while I was at his house, and he didn't leave the room, just spoke softly to her with the energy drained from his shoulders and cradled his forehead in his hand, mumbled and sighed and after a moment during which I could hear her chirping voice beaming down from the satellite, he excused himself by saying, "This isn't a good time. No. Violet is here. No, I won't be home later. Okay. That's all right. 'Bye."

He says he says to her please, please, don't call anymore, and I believe him, I know he's not spending hours talking to her or encouraging her. He just can't be mean to her, no matter the past; he can't do anything but feel sorrow. She takes this as acquiescence. I want to kick his ass sometimes but mostly I want to get on the phone with her and tell her she's starting to piss me off.

She's manipulative and crazy, and oh lucky me or maybe unlucky her, I get to meet her at the wedding next weekend. Which is her excuse for calling so often; she's a bridesmaid and he's the best man. At least she's not the maid of honor so I won't have to swallow bile watching her hang on his arm and walk down the aisle after the bride and groom exchange rings and vows. I'll be on my best behavior but that girl had better watch herself.

He showed me a remaining photograph of the two of them, from the first year they dated. She's pretty in a pretty girl kind of way, cute hair, cute nose, too fucking cute, like Hi my name is Bubbles. I wondered at the look on his face, a blend of happiness and bewilderment, little lost puppy who can't believe he hasn't been kicked recently. The colors in the photo reveal autumn leaves and sunlight, his blond hair and her auburn curls, their cheeks flushed with cold air, eyes bright and somehow guarded. I always wonder what people are thinking, what thoughts went snapping with the speed of the camera's shutter. What prompted the photographer, and how do people remember that day?

He watched me examining the photo and made reference to how noxious and poisonous the other photos smelled when he burned them, big billows of sulfurous smoke. Oh photographs, those moments of time trapped in light and chemicals and printed on paper, some vain attempt at making the past into a tangible thing. As if by capturing a happy moment it ensures happiness. They stink when they burn.

2004-11-10T16:04:00.000-08:00

"I earned capital, now I'm gonna spend it. It's my style." What the fuck? Did the so-called leader of the so-called free world actually say that after winning an election? Go fuck a sheep and wipe the powder off your nose, you sawed-off unintelligible arrogant white landowner silver-spooned spoiled-brat willfully-ignorant egotistical cheerleader prick. Just because you beat the prom queen by rigging the voting machines does not make you a good president, or any more worthy of trust. Go ahead, spend everything. Spend it all. It is most definitely your style.

2004-11-01T16:16:00.000-08:00

Stick a fork in my ass and turn me over, I'm done.

At least for this month.

To you I say, NANOWRIMO! Best accompanied with conspiratorial eyebrows.

2004-10-29T15:50:00.000-07:00

Be safe and don't eat too much candy.

2004-10-25T15:09:00.000-07:00

Can I fucking have a minute? Can I have a fucking minute? Been going at it like a drunk fucking on a Saturday night and actually I was a drunk fucking on a Saturday night, but that doesn't translate very well to Monday morning. The tipsy afterglow feeling is a long way from here. It's not even Monday morning anymore and it's not like I'm having fun, but time is flying, as they say.

So. Sew some fucking buttons.

What's it called when you backtrack and change directions and go all wayward with a blog entry? It's not really indecision, it's more like Oh wait a minute, I forgot something else I remembered. And you're typing, and it's mutable and changeable, cut paste copy, it can be shaped like clay, you just have to poke and prod and roll and smoosh and stab it. I meant to write more blah blah about my good loving man but then I realized I never write about other people who make me happy. I swear I have other friends. In fact I went out for dinner with a girlfriend on Friday after work and then we had drinks and we laughed a lot. She even made a kick ass joke I can't remember now but it was probably a Had to be there kind of thing anyway. She taught me how to tie a knot in the cherry stem using my tongue. She kisses me on the cheek all the time and her love makes me smile.

On Saturday I had a bunch of friends (above mentioned girl included) over to my little house, and we all got happy and solved the problems of the world, ate a lot of good food and drank too much, and Jake got to meet my nearest and dearest. He even met two of my ex-men, one of whom still harbors great affection for me, and it was refreshing to see how Jake made no big deal about it. I mentioned to him later how glad I was he didn't seem to feel threatened or jealous and he said, Well, I figure if you wanted to be with either of them, you would be. But you're not, you're with me, and I trust you.

I tell you, it feels good, this thing I've got.

I also wanted to blah blah that I like the surprises I encounter with Jake. Like when I was talking to his mother on the phone for the first time (hello, AWKWARD! But they live a long way away and she wanted to know I exist and that Jake wasn't making me up or something... "Yes, I really do want to marry your son" although I don't know why that's so unbelievable because he's hot hot hot and smart smart smart) and while I'm talking to her ("please, sweetheart, call me Mom") he put his head in my lap. I got another surprise on Friday, he said Oh by the way my internship came through.

In Prague.
Then he said Wanna come with me for a month?
To fucking freezing-ass Prague. In January.

So I guess I need to make arrangements for airfare and with my neighbor to watch my cat, who will hopefully forgive me. And I need to buy fuzzy ear muffs, and it's a great excuse to buy those knee-high super-cute boots I've been coveting. It's also a really good excuse to wear some of the heavy fur coats I have collected over the years, no good for a rainy climate but excellent for the snow. Maybe if he's lucky I'll meet him at the door with tall boots and a fur coat and nothing else and we'll steam up the windows.

2004-10-20T10:39:00.000-07:00

I put a hundred and seventy-two stitches in a man's thigh yesterday. Lucky me, he smelled of trees and rain. His chainsaw-proof pants stopped the chainsaw before it severed the popliteal artery and femoral nerve but it was still a nasty wound, flesh chewed up like, well, like he had slammed a running chainsaw against his thigh. He thought it was great, only because he didn't lose a lot of blood or any essential body parts, only because he's got an on-the-job injury with a big logging outfit and will receive compensation. He thought it would be fun to stay at home for a couple of weeks and watch television. I couldn't help myself and told him he should check some books out of the library, and he looked sheepish, but then mentioned he did have a book he wanted to finish.

He was a big muscular man with strong features, big red handle-bar mustache and shaggy curly hair, big burly logger. His hands were huge. He joked, as I cut his bloody pants off him, that no woman had ever been so aggressive with him. Tearing those pants off him made me sweat with effort, suturing him up made me sweat with concentration, and it smelled like trees and rain, sweat and antiseptic solution, blood and a little bit of fear in that small room.

Those damn pants dulled my scissors. He's lucky he was wearing the double-reinforced pants, otherwise he'd have lost a limb and probably his life out there in the woods he was cutting. He flirted the whole three hours the nurse and I worked on him, and she was obviously charmed by his rough edges and course ramble, and made a date for when her shift ended. I teased her about having already seen his boxers (little smiley faces-- a source of amusement for us, and he was not embarrassed in the slightest). She joked back it didn't hurt to see the vehicle before taking it for a test drive.

2004-10-19T16:17:00.000-07:00

I once had a well-endowed man say to me as he was pounding away, "I'm sizing you, bitch." And I thought at the time Wow, that's a stupid thing to say. The vaginal walls are amazingly elastic, and it's not like your favorite pair of sweats you wash a million times until the elastic inside deteriorates and turns brittle.

I say KEGEL, damn it. Internal muscle tone is as important as external fitness. SQUEEZE, girlies, then relax, then SQUEEZE, then relax, do repetitions, tighten those internal muscles.

Not only will it help for incontinence when you get old, but in the off chance you manage to end up in bed with two Harley-riding ex-rugby-playing Kiwis (that's New Zealander for some of us), one of whom you'd been fucking for a month, and the other over whom you'd been salivating for a month, wouldn't it be pleasing to hear, "Oh damn, Patrick, your girlfriend's pussy feels SO GOOD!"

2004-10-18T16:22:00.000-07:00

"Mmmmm" is a bilabial glide. Oh me oh my oh, who knew linguistics could be so damn sexy? For me, the term "lip service" took on a whole new meaning last night. Let me whisper some alveopalatal affricates in your ear. Shhh. Define the sound of kissing. What about that gutteral grunt when you climax, what's that? Ejective is a great word for that sound, yes. Ejective ejaculation, alleviate that frustration, come on baby let's focus on some alveolar lateral slides.

I'm on fire. He sucked on my lips and called them petals. He said I taste like flowers, like honey, sweet and dizzy, and then while he kissed me with me on his lips I wrapped my legs tight around him. We breathed in and out together like some strange eight-limbed beast heaving and bucking, and together together together we came together. This doesn't happen often. It hasn't happened to me in a long time, in another lifetime even. We laughed and cried for joy and he collapsed on me and I felt like we were in a dream of happiness you sometimes hear about but never dream it can happen.

2004-10-15T10:41:00.000-07:00

For someone who can't stand suspense I sure left it hanging yesterday, didn't I? Hear that sound? That's me giggling underneath the sheets.

I respect Jake's sense of propriety for not wanting to "shack up" with me. It's quite charming. The half-whispered conversation that morning, limbs entwined in bed with the sun rising and spilling light across the warm bed, went something like this:

He said, quietly, and in the tone of a question rather than a refusal to my request that he come live with me, that he wouldn't live with a woman unless he were married to her.

I said, trying to reason, But you'll sleep with a woman without being married to her? What if I got pregnant, isn't that something a little more important than cohabitation? What if? Suppose I got pregnant, should I have an abortion?

He said, No. I love you. If you got pregnant I would marry you.

I whispered, Then come live with me, and be my love. Consider this a proposal.

He looked at me a long time, and I thought my heart was going to break, and I looked back at him, and I could hear the early morning sounds of the downtown traffic, and the clock went tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.

And then he said Yes.

***************************

I was in the process of daydreaming about sex yesterday when I realized, actually realized, that Christopher Reeve died. It dawned on me, shook me from my self-induced reverie, that my very first masturbation experiences included thoughts of Superman. I fucking rock the house, you know it.

My first imaginary lover would come flying in through my window, swoop me into those strong arms of steel, and with a swirl of his cape we'd go flying away. It's a really hard act to follow and I've had to lower my standards. "...Oh... Superman..." Oh yes. I didn't know what about him was so attractive, but I knew he was a Handsome Man, with that one curl on his forehead and those dreamy eyes. He was the only one who could come rescue me, and he did, at least in my childhood daydreams.

My escapist crush on him coincided with troubled times in my family, when my asshole father would arrive home drunk and all but burn down the house, when I had to wear long-sleeve shirts and jeans in the hot summertime to hide the bruises and marks that covered my skinny little body. I used to pray, Superman, please come find me. Take me away. Especially during the month I spent in a hospital bed after being thrown down a flight of stairs. My old man cracked my jaw and busted three ribs, and I was six years old. He went to jail for that one and I thought the whole time about being Lois Lane.

Nearly ten years Chris Reeve lived paralyzed. That's a long time. I think now he must be flying through those clouds, one fist out, knee bent, cheeks dimpled by that big boyish grin, away away away. I hope he knew, during those long dark immobile years, that he had given hopeful dreams of flying in his arms to one lonely little girl.

Oh, Superman.

2004-10-14T14:22:00.000-07:00

Pussy cat pussy cat where have you been?

His Pug likes my Persian. I suppose I shouldn't pretend that couldn't be or isn't a double entendre. No false modesty here, nosiree. I call him with the wicked intent of distracting him from his studies, and I swear I masturbate more now than I did when we were still getting around to getting it on. I haven't changed my sheets since I don't know when and they smell like him and like me and like the two of us, that sex smell, something between blood and ocean, with a good dose of rosewater.

This weekend I spent a night at his place downtown and couldn't sleep for the sound of the cars, so I listened to him breathing and thought about my space in the world, the continent, country, state, city, street, house, room, bed. The bed was comfortable but disheveled, thin pillows and threadbare quilts, soft cotton worn to sheer silkiness that smelled clean and warm like he smells. Nothing tucked in except the fitted sheet. My place in the world was horizontal in a darkened room with streetlights casting strange tree and telephone pole shadows on the walls with a good loving man parallel to me, two lines of courses that somewhere cross. Do they combine to make one line, or diverge at some future point? What design does destiny hold? I could hear the old house settle, smell the acrid scent of burning leaves coming through the open window, feel the cool damp October breeze on my bare skin.

After a fantastic dinner, which he cooked for me, and delicious red wine, which went to our heads and other extremities, we washed dishes. Which was really much sexier than it sounds, and involved much horsing around and laughter. For the first time ever he commented on the size of my breasts; he asked to see if I could balance beer glasses, so I showed him with coffee mugs. It takes some skill, balancing, and I was giddy and giggling and couldn't keep the mugs from falling, but it wasn't for lack of ample shelving. Somehow my shirt ended up in the soapy sink and then we tried to see if we could fuck standing up facing eachother. It's a curious sensation, that particular position. Not the most convenient, but well worth it for the all-over twitchiness and spasming. It's as though the nerves rasping together compound the feeling. We felt like monkeys.

We ignored the phone, took a shower together, turned off the lights, and he carried me into the bedroom. I love being swept off my feet, and wrapped my arms around his strong wide shoulders. We made satisfying and delicious and hard and pounding and slow and intent and good love for hours. He fell asleep with my head on his chest, and didn't awaken when I moved. I lay there, my arm against his, my toes and lips and scalp tingling and alive. The kind of autumn night I love.

I remember wondering how many other women have slept there, lying beside him? Not that I care, not that I need to know when or who or what, but now that I know his bed I wonder who else knew it. Who else knew it and didn't appreciate the warmth of his body and the sweet mumbles he makes while sleeping? Who else laid her head on this pillow while pinned by his smooth strong body?

It's not jealousy that stirs the thoughts, it is curiosity. Why me and not someone else? I could understand if those lovers he has had in that bed, in that room, in that house, would not want to sleep there, because I could not sleep there. Slumber is important. I much prefer my own bed, my own house. But something I thought, there in the dark with the three a.m. train whistling through, is that I want to sleep with this man forever.

So I took my heart out of my throat and held it to him in the palm of my hand, I told him, in the morning when he rolled over and we looked at each other for a long time before I hooked my leg over his hip and pulled him to me.

I told him I want him to move in with me.

He said he won't live with a woman unless he's married to her.

2004-10-07T11:32:00.000-07:00

It happened. I resisted it for years. I'm not sure how or why it happened, and I'm in limbo, feeling both livid and disgusted. Indeed, when it happened I said, "Fuck," at my reflection in the bathroom mirror.

I'm reading my first cheesy romance novel.

Oh, the cheese. We're talking gorgonzola here. The halting dramatic eye-batting breathy prose chock-full of description, the similes intended to build character, as if that were possible. The build-up of sexual tension ("Abigail felt a flood of warmth and emotions about the uncivilized and unkempt young man with intense hazel eyes..."), the tease of erotica (..."his hand did something beneath her dress that made her breath catch in her throat...") and the "surprise" ending. Cheesmo. Melted.

All the women at work read these paperbacks like kids eating candy. They swap them and compare notes on authors, they talk about recurring characters with affection. My policy has been to ignore the books, which litter the breakroom, with their covers featuring an airbrushed hero and heroine caught in a windblown fleshy embrace; ignorance is bliss. I wish I were ignorant still.

For two months now, three books with broken backs have sat on a shelf in the women's bathroom, dog-eared and well-worn. The spines break at "the good parts" where I don't even want to imagine some lonely homely girl getting herself off to "...she could feel the heat of desire building deep within her body. Her heart was pounding in her breast, and she felt light-headed. He caught her as she swooned in the moonlight..."

I don't want to be reading this drivel. It's badly written, blase and cliche and above all cheesy. I've always prided myself on reading fine and classic literature, those books that are indisputably powerful and moving. I steer clear of dreck-- I have no time for it. But, all that aside, and all my revulsion notwithstanding, I have gotten half of the way into one of these cheesy books.

Fuck.
Cheese.

2004-10-05T16:15:00.000-07:00

Mister I-Donated-A-Lot-Of-Money-To-This-Clinic-What-Did-You-Do-With-It-All?-Ha-Ha-Ha! just called me up and asked if I'd join him for cocktails.

The receptionist at the little clinic where I work three days a week transferred him to my direct line, and I happened to be at my desk, and I happened to pick up the phone. This pisses me off on a number of levels but most of all because it blends that line I try to draw between business and pleasure, blends it and shakes it and serves it with salt around the rim and I just can't drink margaritas, no thanks.

Even if this had happened three months ago, during the brief space in between the former and the current lover, I would have had mixed feelings about getting involved with this rich pearly-white-smile man who prides himself a bit much on his South of France tan. Rich people are freaks. He is so rich he doesn't know what to do with it all; he is Plasticman. Super facial reconstruction-- nobody has a jaw like that-- and probably pectoral and deltoid enhancement, hell, probably penile implants too. Of course my mind goes there. I admit incorrigibility.

His Daddy did something clever with money and now he does, too. Oh but he gives to worthwhile charity cases, like little druggie-junkie-boozie clinics whose patients have no insurance. I shouldn't badmouth him so much. He seems like if he weren't such a rich freak he might actually be a decent fellow.

So, taken off guard, I agreed to meet him this evening for an hour --and only an hour, I was very specific-- in the swank hotel bar where he's staying. Where he's staying in the penthouse, of course. And I know already he'll try to get me up there, and I'll shuffle and curtsey and say, "Gosh Mister Rich Man, we at the clinic all appreciate all that you do for us and we want to keep this beautiful generous friendship of yours a mutually happy one and Oh MY look at the time! You know, I thank you kindly for the drinks and the conversation, but I must be going. I am late for a previous engagement." And then before he knows what has happened, I go walking out the door.

2004-10-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

Any idea how difficult it is to fuck in the front seat of a Toyota Landcruiser? Park it down a dirt road, the only lights coming from the sky and the farm house windows two miles away, dog barking somewhere in the dark night. Slam your lips together with mine, both of us dizzy and heady with the scent of fresh cut hay and my perfume and warm flesh. I couldn't get around the gear shift, I couldn't find the seat belt release, I couldn't pull your clothes off fast enough. And then my Mom knocked on the window and laughed at us and shouted, "Get a room!"

I dragged him along with me to visit my Mom. She's fast becoming the whip-thin wild-haired hermit woman down the road who goes stumping through the fields and creeks in her big rubber boots. She has chickens and cats and a big ugly dog. Her pride and joy is a Brown Swiss milk cow I bought her years ago, which she treats like a queen and calls Lenore. During the warm months she gets by selling eggs and vegetables to the neighbors, who let her use their phone, and pick up the random necessities for her at the store. I'm the only one she calls; she still has the scrap of paper with my calling card number and phone number on it, which she keeps on the little fridge. If I'm not home ("You have to talk to the machine, Mum") she leaves messages like, "Hello? Okay you're not home. I talked to the machine." All her mail gets routed to me so she doesn't have to worry about bills ("Violet? Those bastards turned off my electricity again...").

She's an odd duck but she is sweet and funny (both peculiar and ha ha) and happy, and hasn't stopped smiling since my old man died. Most of her time is spent in the garden, or going for walks with her dog, or cleaning her already spotless snug little home, or reading good old books.

My estimation of Jake increased during our stay with her. He was, as usual, well-mannered and respectful, and knew how to compliment her on her jams and casserole and home-brewed beer, but he also joked and laughed with her, and she gave him a big hug when we were ready to leave. He's the seventh man I've introduced to her. She liked him best. I think I do, too.

I like his voice and words, his intentions, his resolve. I like his mannerisms and smiles. I certainly like what his body does to my body, and it's not even what it does so much as how it does it. There's such sweetness and sensuality in his touch I find myself daydreaming. He likes to tease me, build the anticipation, get me twitchy and dripping and panting and aching and swollen and then bury himself in me with one long slow slide, and bury his face in my breasts. I've never been much of a screamer but he gets me worked up and very vocal. Sometimes I surprise myself, shouting at him, bellowing, groaning, moaning and whimpering. I heard the sound of a bird warbling, a pretty song, high and delicate, and realized it was coming from my own throat.

He talks soft and sexy almost the whole time, unless he's busy with his tongue and lips on particularly sensitive parts of my anatomy. But the best are the pauses when he makes me wait, and I always thought I hated waiting but maybe it's only that I've never learned patience, he makes me wait after he's done something intensely thrilling and he says, letting his lips touch my skin he says, his warm breath against my skin and he says, "You like that, Violet?"

Oh yes.

2004-10-04T09:57:00.000-07:00

Boom. Mt St Helens just erupted. She sure is a steamy hot bitch.

2004-10-01T10:59:00.000-07:00

I could be President. Watch. Here goes.

Pause with best "trust me" look. Acheive this by drawing eyebrows down and making mouth a straight line. "Uh," blink blink blink, "Uhhh," blink blink smirk, "uh," blink blink-- say "freedom" and "security" and "hard work" three times, blink blink blink, cock head. Pause. Blink blink blink, "uh, well, uh," blink blink blink, sidestep question, find a way to say "fight for freedom" and "secure" and "speak simply," blink, "Uh," blink blink blink, blink blink blink smirk. Pause, look bewildered that anyone dares to doubt truth and sincerity, blink blink blink. "Uh," blink blink, "uhhhhh," blink blink blink blink, smirk, preferebly with a patented and much-practiced crooked grin.

I liked the part when he said "Mexed missiges." Fucking hilarious. We sat there watching in disbelief that THIS is our President. This buffoon, this idiot, this gaping speechless desperate flippant cretin, he's the one "on the phone" with other leaders of the world. He can't keep a straight face, he can't answer a question with any sort of thoughtfulness.

About halfway through the debate it seemed like his batteries started to run down. We watched as he leaned against his podium, as he stood with his mouth hanging open a couple times, as he scrabbled, trying to "get back to the message to the 'merican people, that a free Iraq will make the world more secure" (but we're going to occupy it so we can get the oil) as he tried so hard to come across as just a normal guy, hey, look folks, gosh and shucky, I ain't gonna do nothin different, ever, just gonna bleed this country dry, stay on course chasing terr'ists and, well, you know. I'm gonna say "speak simply" cuz all y'all are just simpletons, oops I mean simple folks, and you unnerstan how hard your job is, so you gotta admit my job must be lots harder. This job is SO hard. I gotta disregard all kinds of criticism, ignore lots of people who tell me I'm wrong. I'm RIGHT, because I said so. But anyway, I wake up every day thinking about what people will tell me to say about terr'ists. It's a really hard job. I'm glad we did the thing in Iraq, the wrong thing at the wrong time for the right wrong reasons, I mean it wasn't the wrong thing, I mean the right wrong thing, finding the evildoer and bringing him to justice, still speaking simply here, simple words, simple black and white ideas, we did the thing. I just KNOW how this world WORKS. I've got a stake in it, gonna have steak for dinner. I work hard at it. If I blink with every syllable I remember to speak clearly, as opposed to speaking simply, which is what I always do.

He blinked seven times as he said "strategy" and three times as he said "peace" and you know someone telling a lie will blink twice as much as someone telling the truth.

I knew already who I have to vote for, but this debate confirmed it.

2004-09-29T14:58:00.000-07:00

Fuck the full moon. Fucking hanging there making people lunatics, driving little lold ladies into raging car-crashing tizzies, turning mild-mannered men into psychopaths, moonbeams loosening the straitjacket on societal codes of conduct. Hurry up and wane, you big shining fuck-with.

A radiology technician I'll call Kevin has a big sad-eyed puppy-love crush on me. He's not bad looking, he's got a big infectious grin and he's tall and wide and walks in an I-played-high-school-football kind of way, and probably ten years ago he was hot shit. But I've had to explain to him three times already that even if I weren't otherwise involved, I don't date people with whom I work.

He likes to flirt with me, and tell me things that he thinks are interesting things about himself. Everything and I mean EVERYTHING has a moral to the story, delivered like gospel truth, and the story is long-winded and riddled with halitosis masked by cinnamon Altoids, and ridiculous gesticulations and facial gestures. As though through super-animated antics he might win my attention and affections.

He's not disrespectful, and doesn't sexually harrasses me, although he pretends my enormous breasts are high-beams and jokes that I've blinded him. What can I do? What can I honestly do? I don't find it disrespectful (believe me, in comparison with some insults I've suffered, it's not disrespectful, or harrassment), just childish and baudy. The attention I'd get for some kind of lawsuit would be worse than him comically putting his hands over his eyes and squinting. If I ignore him he really does go away. I don't want him to lose his job, I have to work with him, and in truth he is a great technician. He's just a pain in the ass.

Last night on the PA system we had 1970s and 80s canned muzak playing, music sans words, just those Top 40 catchy melodies rattling off the speakers. Sometimes the vocal parts are played by trumpets, or flutes, or guitars, and this doesn't improve it. I ride home exhausted and wake up with this bullshit in my head and can't fucking remember the song's name, and trying to recall the words drives me to distraction. It does not make for listening pleasure, the fucking elevator Bangles, and supermarket Madonna, and shopping mall Genesis, and hospitalized Prince.

Last night as I'm talking to Kevin about a procedure I want done on a patient, the karaoke version of Prince's "1999" (oh yes I recognized that one) came on and Kevin started singing. I can't fault him for that, he has a pleasant enough voice, lots of people can listen and hum or sing at the same time. But I do NOT want him to interrupt me, while I'm discussing work, to tell me, with a big not-quite embarrassed grin, "I used to strip to Prince."

I said, "Excuse me?" and he repeated it, bigger grin this time, and I just looked at him. There he stood, with his five o'clock shadow around his goatee and his vain attempt at covering his increasing bald spot and his glasses smudged with fingerprints. I looked at him and couldn't even begin to imagine him prancing around in a satin g-string. In fact all that came to mind was an image of a man's hairy bare pale legs with slumpy white socks, feet moving in time to the beat.

"Kevin."
"Yeah?"
"I don't care to know that."
"Oh. Okay. Sorry."
"Yes."
"Sorry."
"Yes."

Then I handed him the chart and the prescription for the X-ray and left the technicians room without saying anything else. And fucking woke up this morning with
They say two thousand zero, zero, party over,
Oops, out of time
So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999
I was dreamin' when I wrote this
So sue me if I go too fast
But life is just a party
And parties weren't meant to last
rattling around in my head.

Fuck 1999. Fuck the full moon. Fuck lunatic fools. Fuck fakey fucking canned music. Fuck Prince. Well yes, I would fuck Prince. Fuck parties. Fuck work. Fuck me.

2004-09-28T16:09:00.000-07:00

Such clever devices, fingers. One lover whose dick was even smaller than his thumb had some amazingly talented fingers. Not that I'm all that prejudiced about size, because it's not the size of the dog so much as the size of the bite of the dog.

But let me tell you about fingers, those bony appendages, pinky, ring, middle, index, and that wonderful opposable thing that sets humans apart from other furred beasties.

It's not that his hands were large, or all that strong, and his fingers were average at best, but WOW what he could do with them is something I've taught and encouraged many an other lover. He would cup his whole hand around my crotch and slide only his middle finger inside, no deep penetration, no frantic stabbing (which almost always pisses me off-- slow the fuck down with the fingers), just one easy motion. And then he'd twitch his finger against that button of rougher flesh just up inside, commonly called the g-spot, located on the vagina's front wall. The fleshy pad of his palm provides constant warmth and pressure to the clitoris, and it was like his finger were the smallest living vibrator.

2004-09-28T13:38:00.000-07:00

I am prone to jealousy. I hate feeling jealous. It seems to stem exclusively from the desire to possess something another person has, be it looks, popularity, charisma, faith, bed partner, leisure, attention, dreams, whatever. I can rationalize it, and when I feel jealousy I can usually pinpoint what it is, which leads to comparing my self with the object of envy, but that's a whole other topic. But it doesn't always make the jealousy stop. No, it doesn't fucking work that way.

Jake's not the kind of fellow most people, men or women, look at twice. He's unobtrusive, quiet, shy, handsome with fine features but not distinguished, and I joke that his chi must be directed straight down into the ground. He said when he was a boy people would often forget he was there, even his parents, and he would hear all sorts of things not meant for children's ears. He'd be a great spy. He could smuggle drugs.

But the past few weeks, he's been happy. Very happy, and given my ego and the things we've been doing to each other's bodies, I like to think I have something to do with this incredible glowing happiness. This happiness is infectious, and people are starting to notice him. Especially women. He is, after all, soft-spoken but also wry and witty and hilarious when he gets on a roll, he has a strong jawline and a great smile, and underneath those frumpy graduate student clothes he has a beautiful body. Of course, having never endured such focus and attention, he is completely oblivious to the wiles and flirtations of the so-called fair sex.

I went with him this last weekend to a party, which was fun and wild and included mostly older students, a lot of wine, a keg, and twice as many women as men. Desperate women. Desperate horny grad school women who play "I'm empowered" and "I don't need a man (but I want to get laid)" passive- aggressive mind games. The game is one of female rivalry more than anything else. It seems to be based almost exclusively on the chivalric notion that a woman should be pursued. The goal is not even about getting laid, but if there is a chance to rouse jealousy in other women, then it's double the prize.

Upon extricating myself from a mundane discussion about chemical fertilizers and the New World Order, I found Jake in the next room, three pretty women talking and laughing and making eyes at him. Sizing each other up. Touching his arms and shoulders with little girlie slaps or meaningful pauses.

The brunette laughed, feigning shock at something he said, and pushed his chest, letting her hand pause for a minute. This is not something men can do to women, reach out and push on those chunks of meat that define us as mammals, and when a woman does it to a man, it is essentially copping a feel. Up rose that green-eyed monster from its internal swamp, scales glistening, wrath and cunning and long sharp teeth.

I noticed from across the room that his glass was empty, so I made my way to the kitchen, and poured glasses of red wine for him and for me. I strolled back amidst the throngs of unknown people talking, laughing, sounds like the ocean's waves, conversations washing over me. With great care and deliberation and the sweetest possible smile I sidled between him and the burgundyhead with cats-eye glasses. His face lit up, I handed him his glass, and he put his other arm around my waist and introduced me all around. Oh the looks! Those die-bitch looks! And I thought, Yes, girlies, he's taking me home, and he's got amazing fingers, and we're going to fuck until we're exhausted.

What is the opposite of jealousy?

40

2004-09-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

Forty fucking posts, here we are. Something of an accomplishment, me sticking with this thing for more than a month. I want to thank you all for reading my scribbles. You know what, my handwriting is completely illegible. It looks like Arabic but I assure you it's English. If I take my time and painstakingly print something then it turns out okay but my scrawl is sometimes so bad even I can't read what I've written. There's not a living soul who could decipher my checkbook.

Not only is the writing sloppy, but the thoughts sometimes all come in a jumble. Like when I wake from a dream and try fumbling in the dark to record the details before they fly away right out of my cranium and it's fucking frustrating as hell. The next morning it looks like a child's drawing of ocean waves and seagulls. I squint, bite my lip, turn the page sideways or upside down and sometimes I think I can remember the genesis of the thoughts, the desire to record, but not always. Such is life.

I have been scribbling today over at en mass, where we do it on buses and trains. There will be more to come. Just you wait.

2004-09-23T13:03:00.000-07:00

When I was a young girl and asked my mother about sex for the first time, she gave me Ann Lander's Little Book of Sex or whatever it's called. In the book are the answers to a myriad of questions, and also plenty of warnings about safe sex. My copy had a typo, and I fretted for years about public fleas. Certain they were hiding in public restrooms (where else?) I would spend more time lifting the seat and examining the toilet than I'd spend emptying my bladder or bowels. It was a terrifying thing; I imagined an epidemic, and was sure I'd get public fleas. I'm still a freak about germs but I don't worry about fleas hiding in the toilet anymore. And I learned it is "pubic," not "public." Paint that "L" on the book editor's forehead.

His pubic hair is blond and soft and crinkly. I ran my fingernails through the curls and watched the shiver of delight twitch the whole length of him. A very nice length it is, too. One of the nicest I've encountered. Ram rod straight with heavenly well-pronounced ridges and it is a wonder to me how the skin can be so soft, and the muscles within so hard. I traced patterns on his tawny skin with my fingers, from the points of his hip bones down the outside of his buttocks to the inside of his thighs to that section of skin behind the testes, so nicely hung, more crinkly blond hair.

My own is a dark thick patch of blue-black curls. I keep it trim and proper, not bushy and unruly but not shaved, either, because I like to be grabbed by my hair. There has to be enough to snatch, you see. Pull me around by my hair and shake that club and talk rough to me and I am ecstatic.

This morning I had to peel the underwear (RED! sha-ZAM!) I wore last night off the floor. I swear my bodily fluids are like super glue. Protien stains on the sheets, on the rug, on the couch, on the... kitchen counter... At one point he had me pinned against the refrigerator and in my excitement and groping I accidentally activated the cold water dispenser. It was shockingly cold. Laughter during wild passionate sex is like the cherry on top of a chocolate cake.

We did some talking last night, and then some more without words. We changed the mood from quiet and nostalgic to sad and weepy to happy and laughing back to thoughtful and serious. His old flame calling him had rattled those bones in the closet. As we lay entwined and coupled on our sides, slow solid oh motion slow delicious oh sliding slow between us slow, slow, oh, only the streetlight casting shadows across his beautiful face, only his beautiful eyes doing the begging, Please don't, please don't ever, please, please, please don't hurt me. And I let my eyes shine back Trust me, trust me, trust me, I love you, my sweet one. I kissed his tears away, tasted the salt on my lips, and thought how much he makes me feel alive.

2004-09-22T16:27:00.000-07:00

Last night Jacob arrived at the worst possible time. He sat and waited. And waited. I appreciate him. I dragged him with me back to my office. "My office" is not much more than a closet with a desk inside it.

I locked the door and we got ourselves all worked up for a few minutes, and then we decided we ought to control ourselves. Besides, he wanted to play with my stethoscope, and with my Stretch Armstrong doll. Stretch serves as stress relief when I want to tear someone's head off. Jake was amused with me. And he was not forthcoming with his promised "in-person" question that had been troubling me for hours, until I started frowning.

His best friend from high school, with whom he still corresponds, is getting married in two months. Jake is one of the groomsmen in the wedding. He asked me if I would go with him to the wedding. He already has a cabin reserved for a week. Oh, sweet romance. Fuck yeah.

I said, "Will you dance with me at the reception?"

He acted surprise, and joked, "You know what dancing might lead to, right? It might lead to holding hands..."

"Seriously. Will you dance with me?"

"Well yes, of course."

"Okay. Sure."

"You mean you wouldn't go with me if I wasn't going to dance with you?"

I pushed him so he sat on my desk, and moved in between his knees and growled, "I want to dance with you, is all." And I can't count how many wedding receptions I've been to with non-dancing puds.

He pulled me close and we held each other, wanting each other, but I still had five more hours of work.

After a few minutes of rocking against each other and subdued groping and gentle kissing he pushed me away and looked at me, sighed, and said, "My ex-girlfriend will be there."

"Oh yeah?"

"I just wanted you to know."

"She break your heart or something?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

He pressed his face againt my breasts and I ran my fingers through his soft downy blond hair, trying to process this information and the sudden change of mood. In the space of two phrases I had gone from sexy lady friend to big-bosomed comfort. A former flame had just interrupted my happiness at being asked not only to a wedding but for a week-long getaway with this wonderful man, and that made me mad.

I knew nothing about his ex girlfriend. High school sweetheart, first romance, maybe? He had been as tight lipped as I about previous lovers, and that was fine, but in this case I wanted to know his feelings. And I hate competing with the ghosts of the past.

So I asked, "Have you spoken to her?"

"Last night."

"You want to help me out here? Tell me what's going on?"

I guess "she" had called him to find out if he had a date to the wedding, and he had told her a little about me. He doesn't trust her, and doesn't want anything to do with her, but as with most affairs of the heart, lack of trust doesn't make the love stop, nor does it assist in the healing process. We sat and talked for half an hour about how some things, even things five years gone, can still stir up all kinds of pain.

She had cheated on him numerous times, they had gotten engaged because he thought it would make her happy, and then she had borrowed money from his parents to fund a weekend trip with another boyfriend... it was a rotten mess. And his love for her seems to stem not so much because she's loveable, because she's not, but because he wanted her to be a better person. Because he believed and probably still believes she's a better person. I told him disappointment is the most bitter pill, and actions speak louder then words. And after saying that, I kissed him hard and long, and whispered in his ear he's mine, and I want to make him forget the damage done by a faithless woman.

He whispered back, "Oh, thank you."

Tonight. Tonight he is mine.

2004-09-21T14:06:00.000-07:00

AAAAGGGGG! He is such a fucking tease! Unfair, I cry FOUL!

I copied and pasted Monday's post to him in email and this is what he writes to me, as I am getting ready to leave for work, as if I'm not preoccupied by him enough already--

I'm glad you still like me even if I fart in your bed.
Maybe next time the opportunity arises you can come fart in my bed.

What time do you get a break this evening? I have something to ask you. It's nothing serious, just better in person.

You're beautiful. I can't wait to kiss you again.
Jake

"I have something to ask you....in person."
I'm no good at suspense. Mystery novels... that fucking last page gets read first. That's all I gotta say. I have the sneaking suspicion that Jacob KNOWS this about me and likes to use it to his advantage because he's a big fucking tease.

Damnit.

2004-09-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

Don't fucking think for a moment that because he makes me lightheaded and dizzy and lustful and drops my brain somewhere down around my pelvis that I would lose myself to him. No no, I know who I am and like me just fine. And what I like about him is he knows and likes who he is, too. It's about fucking time already; the men I usually find are adamant I won't change them but they're nothing but boring lumps of mud anyway. Not this one. He's completely self-winding.

I have this overwhelming desire to...

I don't know.

To...

Be tamed. Domesticated. Do all those domestic things. Like wash dishes and have babies and walk the dog and read funny quips out of books to eachother and have a garden and fight about bills and have barbeques with friends and sit by the fire and cuddle and come home every night to someone who is happy to see me. Other than my cat, I mean. I want to do those things. Things my parents did for about two years while my fucktard father tried not quite hard enough to be sober.

I think I'll document it, in this relationship, the first time we get together for the evening and don't end up having sex. There's the momentous milestone everybody recognizes as important, that first time two people engage in intercourse, important because of its intimate and expectant nature. It's the culmination of desire, the manifestation of physical attraction.

I know it was important to me, that date when after a cup of sweet sherry he sat on my couch and he was embarrassed and reserved, and didn't know what to do with me, and we had run out of conversation. Feeling bold in my frustration and painfully horny and sopping wet and desperate for his skin I swung my leg over his lap and straddled him. We were both breathing hard and grinding our jeans-encased hips together, hands exploring skin, lips mashing together, grunting and sighing like animals. I remember distinctly unzipping his jeans and pulling off his clothing and seeing him nude for the first time, like some incredible marble statue come to life, his nipples and mouth and penis flushed hard and rosy dark. Oh my my, do I remember. And it's fresh enough in my mind that I feel all fluttery just thinking about him right now.

But in my experience there's another milestone, and that's the one which often goes unnoticed. It's the first time during a date that you're not intent on having any physical contact other than a kiss or hug. The first time you don't make love when you're together. You're not in the mood or you don't feel well or the day was too stressful (in which case you SHOULD have sex!) so you forego the intimate touches.

Is it a bad thing, this change to familiarity? Is it indicative of a lessening of passion, of that too-comfortable feeling which eventually gives way to routine or even habit? Are there any relationships, any marriages, in which 'the daily grind' means sex rather than travail? Is it possible to maintain the level of excitement I feel for him for months, years, decades? I am such a libidinous vociferous passionate and demanding lover I think it makes a big difference to me... but I wonder if it's only because the previous men with whom I've gotten that far in a relationship hadn't had much to offer other than a nice hard dick and a pretty body. Sure that's shallow of me, but like I said, I know what I like. Sometimes all I have energy for is the physical.

It hasn't happened yet, a date with no sex, or at least with no sort of mutual satisfaction, provided by mouth or hand, and it probably won't happen for a while since we see each other on such a sporadic basis. But I will pay close attention to it. I am curious about how it will feel with someone I think I am falling in love with, and who I consider my equal on numerous levels.

Tomorrow my schedule and his will coincide again, and I know this much, that I intend to...

I don't know.

To fuck him like there is no tomorrow.

2004-09-20T13:15:00.000-07:00

He likes playing with my cat. She gets the whole feline suspension of disbelief thing going on while he drags the sash from my robe across the floor and she goes mad scrabbling after it. She likes him and begs his attention.

I like him and beg his attention, too.

If this is a dream I don't want to wake up.

I told him about Blog and that he was my favorite subject. He asked Do you use real names? I said No, and he shrugged, said he didn't care that I wrote about him, and that made me glad, and happy I told him. I could see him waging internal war, and wanting to read it, but also wanting me to offer it to him. Which I didn't. And won't. But I might paste and copy this one to him.

Friday night and Saturday were delightful. His sister was seen safely onto the airplane; it was a sweet goodbye and she took me aside and told me in her earnest young voice that her brother's in love with me and she's never seen him so happy. So I took him home with me and made him even happier.

He had me breathless and swollen and twitching and in need of a dry pair of panties on the drive to my house. He talks dirty with such nonchalance and sincerity, no cheesy hard breathing or exaggerated sighs, no cliche descriptions or over-used phrases, just low-voiced and constant, one image after another. He used words like tongue and soft, and panting, perfume, drowsy, licking, and tingling rosy areola, and fleshy petals parted deliberately with sweet excruciating slowness, and treasure rhymes with pressure, and flooded senses, and a lot of "I'm going to" phrases.

He drove with both hands on the wheel and made a few sideways glances at me as I squirmed in my seat. I can honestly say no man has ever done this to me, made love with just his voice, other than over the phone. But this was so much better, and more anticipatory. His immediate presence opened a whole new door for me; I could see him and smell his aftershave and noticed that big bulge in his jeans and I was close enough to touch him, but he knows I have a rule about distracting the driver. So no touching. Other than myself, and I did, and didn't care who might have seen as we rode down the streets, I had my hand up my skirt. It was unexpected and enjoyed.

The time on Friday can best be described as a romp, and he more than fulfilled all his promises made during the drive from the airport. He has been studying me closely, and learning what I like. I am so very grateful. I am also in awe of any man who is capable of finding and penetrating those dark wet folds without guidance from either his hands or mine. What a nice hard surprise and a gasp and swollen throbbing flesh pressing against all the right points. I love that slide and thrust and pulse within, with him.

A few times we just lay there, feeling each others' accelerated heart rate through thin flesh. I like to lie on top of him and use his body as he lets me generate the rocking motion, focusing completely on the friction. He pinched and kissed and caressed my breasts, ran his hands over my thighs and back and down between us, exploring with his fingers.

I liked our all night long. We even slept a little.

Sleeping with someone is in some ways even more intimate than sex. It indicates both comfort and a level of trust. It says, Here I am, completely vulnerable, lost to dreams. It is a measure of both romance and companionship, and it throws a line of hope out into deep water. Will that person still like you if you fart in your sleep? He did, and I didn't care. Will you still want to kiss in the morning with bad breath? Yes, and it didn't seem to matter to either of us. Do you sleep well together or does he keep you up? He's a lighter sleeper than I am and every time he woke up he wanted to hold me or make sleepy love to me. I cannot complain.

I cannot complain about anything, except I didn't get to see him yesterday, and not tonight or tomorrow. That's something I am complaining about. Emails and talking on the phone are nice but what I want is to feel his warm hand at the small of my back and his lips and breath against my neck and my face buried against his chest.

The more I see him the more I learn what I want.

2004-09-17T15:55:00.000-07:00

I told him last night I didn't want to spend the night because I want him to spend the night tonight. Changed my sheets and everything. Candles, black satin lingerie, handy little bedside towel, pitcher of ice water and a glass, massage lotion, we are set and ready to spend the whole night together. Neither of us has to get up early tomorrow. As it should be on a Saturday. And I intend to keep him up.
All.
Night.
Long.

2004-09-16T15:53:00.000-07:00

Teeth are one of my favorite things. I love the way they feel on me, the contrast between skin and bone. I love the way my own teeth feel, that sensation of pressure on the bones in my skull, the muscles of my jaw, my lips bared. I like raking against his skin, the skin on his shoulders, the skin on his neck, the skinny skin skin between my lips and I let him feel just enough tooth to take his breath, make him gasp. That's the inhalation I like to hear, sucking air between his teeth while he's... between mine. I like to run my tongue over my teeth and over his teeth, and notice the stark contrast between teeth and soft, soft warm lips and slippery tongue.

I'm a day late posting this. Bite me. Please.

They included me in all their jokes, which was nice. I met Jacob's doll of a sister, she's younger than he and looks just like him. Except she has that breathtaking quality about her some people have, the kind you like to look at, which is made sweet and accentuated by her complete oblivion of her own beauty. She couldn't believe he was dating me, and said to him, Way to go bro, and, Who would've thought you'd get so lucky, you loser. Which made him blush and smile that I wanted to kiss him. And I do.

I mentioned during the course of our meal-- she picked pizza-- about not liking to meet relatives. They asked, so I entertained them with my horror tale of meeting the family of a former beau. It happened years ago. I was still a student and he was a practicing doctor fifteen years older than me, and I thought he knew everything. After a few months of serious dating, Ed asked me to go home with him to meet his family, which was a four hour drive. We would stay the night at his elderly parents' home. I thought sure, why not?

I learned from the photos on the wall, because he hadn't told me, that Ed had been married. His first wife had died seven years before, and she had been "a saint." His mother told me, as she showed me the pictures of Ed and his huge homely wife, that "beauty is as beauty does." Then she looked me up and down and said to the old aunt in the corner, "She's too pretty to be nice." And then she smiled coldly at me, daring me to believe she had paid me a compliment.

Okaaay. I couldn't believe my ears, and so lamely smiled back at her and it dawned on me, She thinks I'm a gold-digger. I was dazzled by the man's career, but I wasn't after his money, and this pissed me off.

At the dinner table I was seated between the two monster children who wanted to have a Look My Mouth Is Full Contest, who kept elbowing me in the boobs and getting greasy fingers on my dress. Also at the dinner table, the conversation, which was all about Ed, who ignored me completely, was punctuated by the old woman at the head of the table, requesting I pass the butter or the salt or the green beans, even though other people were closer and could have reached those items more easily than I. Her intention was attention, and I am appreciative, but I felt like a waitress stuck between two monkeys.

Then his mother learned I was soon to graduate medical school. "Well," said she, "You're going to have to work really, really hard, won't you? I guess it won't be easy as you think, will it?"

Ed piped in with, "But she gets far on her looks, Ma, HA HA HA HA!!!" Nevermind I was at the top of my class, nevermind I had received honors and awards and grants for academic excellence, it all boiled down to his perception of me, and I was easy on the eyes. Fucker.

I spent the rest of the time playing with the two little monstrous boys, spent a horrific sleepless night alone, of course, on sour sheets, and he didn't seem to notice that I didn't speak to him the whole way home. I broke up with him and considered it a valuable lesson.

Jacob and his sister listened wide-eyed. True to the form I'm starting to appreciate ever more, he proceeded to invite me to meet his parents. It dissolved into silliness, with his sister warning under her breath that they're cannibals, and then he said only during the full moon, and off we went into ridiculousness, fueled by a pitcher of beer.

Curious, how memories of uncomfortable and misfortunate situations become fodder for laughter.

I liked later, back at his house, after his sister had gone to bed. I liked it very much. Especially his teeth and fingers and warm breath on my cheek. Especially that he asked me to stay the night for the first time. Especially that he left a note for his sister "in case she gets up and wonders where I am" that he was driving me home but he'd be back in half an hour. Especially that he walked me to my door and said Goodnight my Love before he kissed me.

I feel like I'm holding my breath when I'm not with him.

2004-09-14T13:28:00.000-07:00

Sunday I saw him as I walked to the corner, I saw him in his car. He was in his car and I watched him from the sidewalk and he never saw me. I saw him in his car with a blond woman. I saw him go driving and thought You know, he has never spent the night. I've been to his house and there's no mark of women's hands there but then there's no mark of me there, either. I thought, how much do I really know about him?

How much do we really know about anyone, for that matter? You can read these little electronic blips on the screen and think you know me but I guarantee you that you haven't come within a hundred million miles of my soul. For that matter, I find things about myself all the time that surprise the hell out of me.

Seeing him with another woman. Yeah. It pinched. That tight little pinch you get when someone you love, and yes I think I do love him, turns into someone you realize you don't know at all. A hard mean pinch right between the heart and the throat. And then my heart went slamming against my ribs like a caged lion, screaming and roaring, teeth bared and muscle and bone slamming the bars, rattling the hinges.

Twice in my life I made the mistake of cheating on men. It is a mistake, too. It's a rotten fucking thing to do, two-timing, and it is always discovered, uncovered, exposed like a corpse found in a shallow grave ten miles from town. Every detail seems to matter, every phone call, everything said, every tiny little bruise, a scrap of evidence here, blood under the fingernails. Three times I've had men proclaim faithfulness to me and then end up fucking someone else behind my back. I probably would not have minded so much if they had just been honest about it, if they had come clean. Granted, I was never married, so we're not even talking the realm of extramarital affairs here, we're just talking about cheating hearts.

I personally think if you're married and sleeping with someone other than your spouse then you're a coward. I've heard all the reasons, all the excuses, all the lies. The bottom line is you have the balls to ball some other woman who doesn't wash the shit stains out of your underwear, or some other man whose shit stains you don't have to wash, but you lack the balls to be honest with the person you swore in front of God and everybody to love and cherish. So fuck you. You know who you are. Admit it, move on. "It'll ruin my marriage..." oh spare me, your marriage is already ruined. Either end it or try to rebuild it. But quit being a fucking pussy.

I didn't call him and I didn't call him and I didn't call him until I could trust my voice. And then I called him and he came over for dinner last night.

It wasn't until I had him good and pinned beneath me that I asked who was in the car with him.

He looked confused and then started laughing. It wasn't a mean laugh, nor an embarrassed laugh. No, it was a genuine laugh, an Oh-Violet-you're-funny laugh, and he said his sister is in town for the week, and asked would I like to meet her tomorrow, which is today. And then we proceeded to have wild, intense, possessive Yes I Was Fucking JEALOUS sex, all full of hardness and biting and grasping and damn it was good.

Then he held me close and told me I'm the first woman in almost a year he's dated, that he even tried newspapers and online dating services but hated feeling so desperate. He said when he saw me that day, and I actually spoke to him and smiled at him, he knew he had to ask me for a date. He said look at us now, don't we have fun together? And that he likes being with me, and wouldn't jeapardize our new good thing. And then he said it. He said it he did. He said I love you. It is so nice to hear.

Oh shit I have to meet his sister today. Am I the only one who gets nervous about meeting relatives? I'm not the girl that usually meets the parents. In fact I have a comical story about that but it'll have to wait. Sigh.

Wish me luck.

2004-09-10T10:27:00.000-07:00

Charcoal for food poisoning, mix it in water and swallow it down and it absorbs the poisons, leeches it from the system, and makes a body regurgitate a violent torrent of wicked-looking black stuff. Don't try this one at home.

If all the things we do are visited on us again then color me jade. Does it come around again? Does it? I've been mean before, I don't know how to explain it away but I have lied and cheated and yes I have stolen, although sometimes all of it was unintentional. Double the vice.

I try not to leave things untied, I try my best to make breaks clean and then sterilize them as best as I can, but sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes infection sets in, seeps into the flesh, causes inflammation. Sometimes I should have been mean, but had some silly notion that friendship might follow passion, some secret wish for a back pocket lover, some hope of chivalry and pedestals, some wish to be doing something less unkind, which makes the lies hurt most of all.

I heard from a long-ago lover, and I may be wrong but I think he contacted me for the sole purpose of telling me how terribly I treated him. He wrote friendly, and I responded friendly, and mentioned where I am and how happy I'm feeling about where I think I'm going. He wrote back with great bile and animosity, obviously perturbed that I don't feel guilt or regret or pain for what I, yes I alone, as though he had no culpability in the mutual relationship, put him through.

I had had a hard time breaking up with him because he was "a nice guy" and easy to like, but I just didn't love him. His habits became kin to fingernails on a chalkboard and although we made all the nicey nice noises, I couldn't stand being around him, and faded out of his life with no real explanation. Being "a nice guy" he said I didn't have to give him one. So now he writes and tells me what a bitch I acted, and he was snobby and dismissive that I would dare imply there was any possibility of friendship or the exchange of Christmas cards between us.

I thought, go ahead and vomit your charcoal, motherfucker, because I will never ever see you again. And if I do, I have no obligation to be nice.

2004-09-09T16:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes all I do is cope. Like most melancholics I'm the fucking life of the party yahoo there she goes did you know she can do a double flip with a twist? It entails being sassy and drunk and spinning around in a circle and then giving two fingers at once over the shoulder.

When alone I try to distract myself rather than fall into despair, which isn't always easy, and I'm alone a lot. I much prefer a warm body beside me, or inside me, the taste of salty sweat.

Why the libido? Why the need for manflesh to fill the hollows and nooks?

I'm of the Aristotilian belief that we all have split aparts, that somewhere, someone matches to us, meets us, balances us, and fulfills us. And I think, given that insurmountable desire to reproduce, to press flesh to flesh and become one and the same if only for some blissful minutes, that what we're really trying to do is connect the puzzle pieces together again. Humpty Dumpty. We're trying to screw back together.

It's a connection, a few moments of ex stasis, when we can forget all about the frailties and limits of life. For me it affirms life, after working all day long among the dying. I told myself I wouldn't write about this but I'm always the first to break the rules. I am a physician and I work hard long hours in three clinics, one of which is a chemical detox center. I hold a lot of hands, and when it gets to that point sometimes it's all that can be done. Needle tracks and nose bleeds, teeth rotted from vomit. One sweet old man of great lifelong misfortune who had been in the detox for months finally breathed the ghost from his rotted innards on Tuesday, and I wasn't there, but I'm told he asked to say goodbye to me.

I fuck because I am fucking alive, and I want it to mean more than this pitiful existence I see daily. It can mean more but it's up to the individual. It troubles me when wandering the electronic halls of these online journals I read contemptuous complaints about how other people have boring blogs, or how others' writings mean nothing. Boredom is self-reflexive, and it is all nothing, we all die. Let this then be a reminder of mortality, which is also a reminder that we are alive here and now. So fucking live already. I only have contempt for contempt.

Violets is blue.

2004-09-07T13:18:00.000-07:00

Jacob is fitting nicely (oh my, yes, yes, yes) into his role as companion-- I'll not use the word "boyfriend" because it strikes me as juvenile. It smells of drinking binges and looks like letterman jackets and reeks of the expectations of things like "promise rings" and an automatic date for Valentine's Day.

Companion, bed partner, lover, friend. These are more then enough possibilities.

He came over on Saturday afternoon, and as we drank lemonade I told him I don't see enough of him, and he started taking off his clothes. I think I could get used to this one. And I like the way he looks at me, so serious, intent, earnest, sweet. He kisses with more than just his mouth, and it thrills me even more than it did on that first date.

His skin is always so warm to my touch. Not everyone has flesh the constant temperature of sun-warmed beach sand. My own is often cool or cold, like fishbellies in texture and color and temperature. I like to press my skin alongside his and leech his warmth. We like to lounge in bed and talk after mutual satisfaction of that delicious friction. Saturday we looked at newspapers and magazines and as we perused the most recent Rolling Stone magazine, we saw there in the racy advertisements this thing called a Liberator.

He pointed at the page and wagged an eyebrow at me and I could not help but laugh. It's so silly. It looks like those football training-camp tackle skids, bright blue and rubberized foam. It's a butt ramp for better angles during sex in numerous positions.

How the hell would you even work that into a conversation? "Hey, I want to pound you on this big hunk of bright blue plastic." And where, pray tell, would you keep it? It's huge. Maybe some people have room enough in their closet for such frivolous contraptions, but not me. Talk about ruining a mood-- "Just wait a minute, I'll get my ass prop out from under the bed... oops it's dusty, and... cat hair... and oh, um, those... stains? uhhhh...."

We giggled there wrapped up in my sheets, intoxicated with the smell of roses and lavender and sex and sweat in the sunshine. He likes to grab big fistfulls of my hair. I took great pleasure showing him what all those big pillows in my room are good for, and why a Liberator is kind of like reinventing the wheel.

2004-09-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

People look at me like I'm a picture, like I'm incapable of looking back at them. They let their eyes travel the planes of my face, from my lips and nose and cheekbones to my eyes, to my hair. They make self-conscious glances at my breasts but when it comes to my face they seem unconcerned about me seeing them seeing me. I'm talking about complete strangers, people in the grocery line, people at the bank, people across the room, people I have never seen before and will never see again. Daily. People seem to forget the Kindergarten adage, Do not stare, when it comes to me. It troubled me for a long time, this attention, the stares, but I have come to accept it and lower my eyes. I think, Go ahead and look.
Sometimes I glance back, curious, especially when I can feel the gaze brushing against my face for longer than most, and I have seen some amazing things in the eyes of men, women, and children. I have seen faces wide open, the windows of the soul blown wide, hearts beating. I have seen darkness and anger, great billowing black clouds overshadowing the consciousness, the charcoal heat of jealousy and hatred. I have seen a knife-edge balance between contempt and disbelief. I have seen the reverie of peace and love, and I have seen lewdness and lechery. I have seen a dream of hope, and an upwelling of joy inside the eyes of others.
If the gaze does me no harm, if the person looking at me still looks at my face but for practical purposes has in fact stopped seeing me, then I glance away and do not break the dream into which he or she has tumbled. If the look is hard and real and bent, I make a mirror of my own eyes and let them see what I see. They withdraw, and catch themselves.

And if they glance again, I might even wink.

2004-09-02T15:54:00.000-07:00

Where the fuck have I been going with this thing? It's like a drunken shuffle down an unpaved memory lane, or maybe like, um, shit I don't know. That analogy ran away waving its little arms, screeching No! Don't pin me like a dead bug behind glass!

I'm supposed and you must say suh-POSED to be doing paperwork, but hey can I borrow a finger or two? Mine are tired. Tap tap tap. Fuck paperwork. Tap. Especially when it's electronic. Why oh why (did she swallow the fly) is it still called paperwork if there's no paper? Because "bullshit" isn't as nice a word.

The past two posts need a bullet in the head. Chalk it up maybe to feeling loved for the first time in a while, and Jacob has stirred up all sorts of emotions. Ever go swimming in a pond with a silty bottom and your feet stir up the fine grains of dirt and microscopic organisms and algae? Great billowing and swirling muck, and all those things you can't even imagine, but some of them have teeth and stomachs and little filaments that pulse the water through their little systems.

*flush*

This blog thing wants to run away with me on its back. Or maybe I'm on my back and it's having its way with me. Can I grab hold of it, make it what I want? And what do I want with it? No boring sentimentality, no shame, no pity. Surely no stupid cliches. I don't want to tug heart strings or post photos or talk religion or politics or jobs, unless they're blow jobs. I don't want to be popular or have comments, I don't want to worry about hits or counts or what the fuck ever.

As usual it's easier to define what I don't want rather than what I do want. Like once I told a friend I didn't ever want to be with a man who ate pickled cabbage because the smell of it makes me want to hurl. He said What, are you going to ask all eligible bachelors whether or not they eat pickled cabbage? What if you find your true love, and you forget to ask, and one day after you've been married fifteen years with two-point-five kids you come home and he's gommin' down on pickled cabbage because he suddenly remembered how much he loves it?

I want to go swimming in the muck and then get out again and take a nice hot shower, and watch all those little dirt and algae particles and think of all the things that can't be seen as they go curling down the drain.

2004-09-02T11:39:00.000-07:00

Are you there, God? It's me, Laura Danker in a sweater.
I've thought about rewriting that Judy Blume book from the point of view of the girl who developed before anyone else.

Kiss my ass if you think it was fun, or in any way enjoyable, when the boys would pretend to grab or grope, or when they would throw the ball so it would hit me in the chest when I wasn't looking. PE was hell. In a year I turned from quickness and pixiedust with fast running legs to an ungainly unbalanced clutz who nobody wanted on their team.

Oh sure I had girl friends, and at one slumber party in seventh grade the five girls I liked best all decided to accuse me of stuffing my bra with socks, and were both jealous and bitter because they were all flat-chested with training bras. I tried to explain how I would gladly trade bra sizes with them and they said incredibly hurtful things to me. The moon cast a long lonely shadow on the pavement as I walked home crying at three in the morning.

Yes it sucked that, when I was thirteen, my own father asked me where did I get that rack.

I became a studious bookworm and teachers' pet, spent lots of time with my Grandma, and withdrew from any peer activities. I would go days at a time without anyone saying a word to me. I had no friends. Until I was a senior in high school I wore huge shirts, often three at a time, and looked chunky although I wasn't. I was tiny with this enormous set of dugs, and I had no idea what to do with them. I crossed my arms a lot, and hunched my shoulders. I had terrible posture. The bras I bought were too small, and they pinched and chafed because they didn't fit.

The summer before my senior year, when all I did was read and swim, I also worked in an antique furniture shop. Betty moved into the apartment above the shop. She was one of those wholesome grain-fed women, very athletic, very blond, very worldly. She was seven years older than me and literally took me under her wing. She helped me pick out flattering clothes, encouraged me to stand up straight and show the world "those amazing things" as she called my breasts, and taught me to apply makeup, and helped me remember how to laugh and smile.

My senior year I was asked out by over half the boys in my class, including the quarterback of the football team. He was one of those rugged good-looking guys with wide shoulders and a tiny waist and a strong jaw. He asked me to the prom. This resulted in a catfight outside the library, when his jilted ex-girlfriend (who, ironically, was one of those who had been at the slumber party and made me feel like the loneliest girl in the world) jumped on me.

I kicked her ass.
And had a fantastic time at the prom.

No, Laura Danker in her sweater didn't have it any easier than mousy little Margaret.
Are you there, God?
Sometimes I think maybe He listens.

2004-09-01T11:45:00.000-07:00

I should have known the full moon hung low. Traffic in the emergency unit swelled like the tide. Death came on my watch and nothing could be done, he rolled over and his guts spilled across the floor, that heart-wrenching anguish. The hair on the nape of my neck stood up. The first response team had failed to check the source of blood soaking his jeans, and of course there was so much, so much, that hot dark life liquid, like molten iron.

They turned him to move him and his throat had been almost severed in the accident, and his anus was detached, and that's all that holds us together, really. That long tube that runs from mouth to ass. Cut them both and it's like gutting a fish. Death goes slithering.

I have seen death before and it always surprises me when a soul departs. I am torn between wanting to catch it and shove it back into the body, and wanting it to escape the torment of the body's pain. My job is somewhere in between.

So I haven't been in a very good mood.

I worked two shifts back to back and slept in the broom closet. I was called a bitch and an angel in the space of an hour. When I finally got home I slept fourteen hours and had fitful wild sexual dreams of lovers and monsters.
Good morning, I am back from the dead. Sometimes I would rather be asleep, despite the nightmares.

But this last weekend was sweet, and he is sweet. We spent five hours naked in my bed in Saturday sunshine exploring the living flesh, touch points, nerve endings, sensitive spots. He is both inexperienced, and intuitive, which makes for delicious love. He was willing and very able to please. Oh my, yes.

We took turns taking our time, and after it all we said more than all the secrets lovers say, limbs entwined and bodies slippery together like two soapy hands washing eachother. I told him things I don't normally tell, about dreams and ambitions and hopes and wishes. He ran the palm of his hand over my left breast and I talked with my face against the soft blond curls on his chest. His skin is golden and tawny and makes me look milky blue. My black hair is a wild contrast. I could not tell except by looking where he started and I ended. It has been two days since I've seen him and I want to be with him tonight.

Sex and death balance the weight of a soul, and I find myself desiring oblivion.

2004-08-30T14:59:00.000-07:00

I think my head exploded.
Fuck Monday.

But he's wonderful.

2004-08-27T11:02:00.000-07:00

If a man receives a skeletal injury to one side or the other of his body, often his penis, when erect, will point to the injured side. I think it's called Throckmorton's Syndrome or something like that, and I could look it up in those dusty medical and radiology texts in my office but I am LAZY.

Last night out of curiousity I dredged the depths and found all my past lovers. It's a number I'm not inclined to disclose in polite company but I don't have to be nice here. I am what I would call a connoisseur, and what others would call an experienced woman, and some would declare a slut. Sticks and stones, whatever, give me the bone. I didn't lose my virginity until I was 19, I've never been knocked up, and I've never had sex for money. Although I have done nude photos. But I'm not counting that.

Thirty six. Three dozen. How many peckers in a bushel?

That averages out to four a year. Let's play the numbers game. Only three of them were one night stands. Only two of them overlapped, so to speak. One was a woman. One was a cross-dresser. One was married. Eleven of them lasted more than six months. One lasted more than a year. Eighteen men have asked me to marry them. Four insisted I keep the ring even though I declined the engagement. I am still very close friends with eight of them. I have filed three restraining orders but one was a freak who had never been a boyfriend. With twenty-four of them, I ended it. One fellow died in a rock climbing accident. The others broke up with me.

I've seen all kinds of male sexual organs-- big, little, huge, stunted, short, fat, skinny, hairy, long, circumcised and uncircumcised. The Brazilian who crowed like a rooster when he came had a long dick that pointed to the left. The bull-rider I spent a winter with had a short dick that pointed to the right. The hot shot attorney I dated briefly had a penis that pointed back at him, curved inwards. He was a selfish bastard. The fairly well-known author and one of those who proposed to me had a dick that curved away from him, which I liked forthe sensation, but he was sogenerous it bordered on self-sacrificial. The mean streak in me wanted to hurt him.

If Jacob asks me how many men I've slept with, the number increases to forty one because there have been a handful who spent the night but with whom I've never been intimate beyond some flirtation and kissing. If he asks me how many men I've made love with, (and he's got that sort of curious romantic streak, so he'll ask, and he'll probably phrase it that way) I'm inclined to answer six.

There have been six men who have loved me and I loved them, six men I even considered marrying, but due to time and circumstances it didn't work out. There is a big difference between making love and fucking. I'm much better at fucking... but I think it would be nice to make love with Jacob.

There, I said it.

2004-08-25T10:56:00.000-07:00

Take me, Jake. Wake me shake me make me, Jake. That could get very silly. There are so many possible rhymes, and half of them might be misconstrued to mean what I mean. What I mean is it hurts good to feel that flood of sexual tension and desire, it feels delightful to ache with dizzyness, but I am starting to feel as desperate as a two-bit monosyllabic rhyme.

Some people I meet and it feels like I've met them before. Others I know and still feel like I don't know them. Very few people, but they are out there, I meet and it feels like I've known them forever, and the only thing to work out are the idiosyncrasies. Jacob feels like this to me. Yeah I'd like to feel him. I'd like to feel him naked and hot and sweaty.

I don't think I'm giving him mixed signals at all. I'd say the feeling is mutual. He wears these jeans that look damn good on him. It's like that Violent Femmes song, I look at his pants and I need a kiss. And yes I can tell the state of arousal I cause in him, it makes his pants look like a circus tent, tons of excitement and fun under there but we haven't even done any dry humping. Which for this sort of man is standard. Also standard is the question he will soon ask about previous partners, in which is embedded the question of diseases; this is why I already had a complete checkup and blood tests and I am quite happily clean. We just have to get the conversation out of the way.

I took him out for sushi last night, thinking raw fish would encourage some advances. He does like to tease me. He's gentle but a tease. He watched me slip a whole BIG piece of sushi into my mouth and after the wasabi rush left my ears ringing and eyes watering, he chuckled and asked, "So can you actually unhinge your jaws?"

Always looking for an opportunity, I said, "You," and patted my lips with the napkin, cleared my throat, "should find out sometime." His left eyebrow went up about an inch.

He took me home and came in to use the bathroom. We ended up on the couch where he finally finally finally dared to touch my breasts, although he didn't reach up my shirt and I didn't remove my bra.

I'm definitely a breast man kind of girl. They're very big and I like to feel careful, attentive hands on them. I once dated a foot man, and that didn't work at all because my feet are insanely ticklish. He ignored the part that wanted attention and gave attention to the part that wanted to be ignored. I can't say for sure if Jacob is a breast man but he seemed to enjoy it.

He kissed my neck as he carressed, unhurried, and I traced my fingernails along the nape of his neck, there at the hairline. He made these delighted little murmers, like he couldn't quite believe what he was doing. It pleased me greatly and ended too quickly.

We paused for a breather and he said quietly he needed to leave. I have never begged a man to stay. But I thought about it. I also thought about him thinking of me and touching himself, maybe even as he drove hime, thinking of me like I ended up doing, thinking of him, right there on the couch after he had gone, all those little nerves in that sensitive cluster firing away, flesh swollen and aching for release. I think of him a lot. I want to show him so he knows.

2004-08-24T10:55:00.000-07:00

Damnit but everybody's got their panties in a bunch today. I should have stayed in bed with my cat and a good book.

My mother called me last night, something she does about once a month mostly to remind me she needs some money for groceries and to ask when I'm coming home. She doesn't have a phone or a car and has to impose upon her nearest neighbors, a polite young couple who live half a mile away. She doesn't want a phone or a car and the neighbors are generous and ask her to stay for dinner.

She was full of gossip. My mother starts at the end of her gossip and works backwards, which makes for some interesting conversations, all the pieces reveal themselves in reverse. It's like dismantling a shed-- you tear it apart the opposite order it was built. First comes off the roof.

Which is why I heard, "That hippy woman down the road left her family." As I understand it "that hippy woman" was working out in her garden when she had stroke. She lay there, collapsed, for three days, before she managed to awake. She dragged herself into the house, where her teenage son and husband were watching some reality show. She pulled the shotgun from above the door and blew the television to bits, then packed a bag and left.

My mother thought this was a prime example of why not to have a television. She's a technopath. She will be reincarnated as Shiva and she will smash all the machines.

2004-08-23T11:35:00.000-07:00

Friday sweet Friday. I met Jacob for dinner and then late in the dusk we walked around his neighborhood, which is halfway between gentrification and senility. Old Craftsman houses falling into disrepair. Big trees. We "talked," and I mean we talked about "us," which is something we both seem to like well enough. For some reason such discussions always seem longer than they are. This one was short and sweet, and a commitment of sorts was stated. It felt prudent. We smiled at each other.

He's nice. He's a nice boy. He hasn't seen me drunk, or mean, or mean and drunk. He hasn't seen me after a hard day's night when I'm on call and have done unpleasant but necessary things to other human bodies, and I wake up with nightmares. Gangrenous limbs amputated. Delirium tremens. Straight jackets for possible suicides. Death creeping in the shadows. Eyes rolled back in the head from drowning in whiskey, toothless puckery lipped mouths screaming my name. He hasn't seen most of me. I hide it like I hide my breasts, blanketed in that white cotton coat with my name embroidered on it. I become someone else but it's a big someone and he doesn't have a clue about her.

I don't want to feel like I'm just fooling around with him but I really want to fool around with him. He's got these long lean muscles like a swimmer and blond hair and hazel eyes and I am still unanswered on the question, that burning question, the question that lights a fire and gets me so, so hot and bothered. No, it appears I have to wait. Aside from some delightful but brief moments of steamy kissing and some exploratory groping that left me aching, I haven't had the pleasure.

2004-08-20T10:08:00.000-07:00

What the hell, I have the theme song from the Indiana Jones movies stuck in my head. Fuck me. It's so damn dorky I can't stand it, trumpet flourishes and everything. It has been more than a few years since I have seen any of those movies. In fact I think the last time I saw Harrison Ford swing that bullwhip was during my first long-terminal relationship.

My then-boyfriend and I at the time had fallen into the boring routine of "hanging out" and watching series movies, like all the Godfather films, and Star Wars Trilogy, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures, Rocky and Rambo 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 and any other possible space-filler so we didn't have to actually talk to each other or even touch eachother aside from the obligatory hand-holding.

I started cheating on him with this Greek fellow from my organic chemistry class. Those first few groping trysts were wonderful and exciting and garlic-scented, and I have never known another man so adept with his tongue. Things progressed rapidly, as such parked-car time-limit I-gotta-be-home-by-ten flings do, and thus I discovered he was impotent.

Oh sure he could come, it wasn't a physical disfunction, and hand jobs and blow jobs got him off easily enough, but when I would try to climb on top of him he'd go limp as a wet noodle. Frustration, let me tell you about frustration. I remember once grabbing his dick and trying to cram it into me. I remember stroking him good and hard, until his breathing was serious and ragged, and situating myself for a sneak attack, all to no avail. DROOP that big dick would deflate as soon as it saw the terrifying cavern between my thighs.

Around this time my boyfriend begain suspecting something, so I guess he wasn't as dense as I thought he was. Also around this time Bill Clinton said, emphatically, "I did not have sex with that woman," and I thought Bill and I maybe, possibly, had a common secret.

I had to end it with the Greek guy and my boyfriend, mostly because I had to take organic chemistry again.

Have a great weekend. I have a date tonight with a sweet handsome sexy man and I really hope it ends some time after breakfast.

2004-08-19T10:34:00.000-07:00

I have no trouble finding trouble, and it finds me easily enough too, but please, please spare me the tempest in a teapot.

Yesterday afternoon I stopped on my way home to buy some groceries, especially wine, butter, and toilet paper. A woman came up to me in the wine section and stared at me, and when I glanced curiously in her direction she stated my name. I nodded at her, didn't recognize her, she's a pretty thing with short blond hair and a too-even tan and was wearing a dress to accentuate the cleavage, but her uncomfortable shoes made her hunch her shoulders.

I could see her face fighting angry tears, and then, then, gentle readers, she spit in my face.

The first thing I thought of was my French-Canadian Grandma's voice telling me always carry a hankie in my purse. She often said it in French, which brings romance along with the pragmatism. The second thought I had was, this must be the woman who my previous beau left me for, and then dumped. I don't know why it's my fault, unless in the throes of passion he called out my name. And I don't know how she knew it was me unless he still has the photograph I gave him months ago.

I matched her gaze as her delicate nostrils flared in fury and indignation, and I reached into my purse, pulled out the pale blue hankie. After deliberately wiping her saliva from my cheek I asked her with quiet kindness, and I ask everyone, why would you want to be with someone who treats you like a disposable commodity?

She looked like I had slapped her, then her lip trembled, and then she turned on her heel and walked quickly away from me.

I stopped at Jacob's and related the story to him, which took longer than I wanted because I was rattled and had to fill him in on background information. I also explained the dreadful head honcho meeting and why I was wearing tuxedo pants. And I found myself talking about work, although I have strict rules about it because I have a terribly depressing job. I didn't intend it to be a plea for comfort, or a pity party, or anything emotional, but I found that catch in my throat and he sat and let me tumble.

When the tempest passed he put his hand on mine and I realized I had never even held hands with him. It scared me and thrilled me that I was so open with him; I keep a tight lid on my life. He put his arms around me and I rested my head on his chest and got tears and snot on his shirt.

I realized that I really like the smell of him. Clean and warm and something else, the good scent of garden herbs and earth after the rain, that's how he smelled. I wrapped my arms around him and leaned into him with my ear against his chest, and he sat back against the couch. His heart beat a slow steady rhythm until the shadows crept up the walls, and the light turned that amber of sunset, and his belly growled at me.

Then we kissed and I took my groceries home.

I'm not afraid of falling.

2004-08-18T14:50:00.000-07:00

Yankee fucking doodle I dropped macaroni and cheese all over the lap of my linen slacks. It has made about forty little crescent-shaped marks from the processed psuedo-cheddar outlined in dark buttery grease.

In half an hour I'm supposed to meet Some Important Business Person and act like I'm simply salivating to bend over backwards to give him a blowjob. And I have greasy cheese stains on my lap. Home is almost half an hour away, and the nearest clothing store is fifteen minutes away. I'm hopeless.

I was checking out the women in the hall and trying to decide if I could borrow a skirt or pair of pants, which involves all sorts of difficult figuring and timing problems. "Hey I don't know you but I really want to get into your pants..." or "What size are you? Can I borrow your skirt? Now?" Yeah.

****
ten minutes later
****

I am wearing a slightly too large pair of men's tuxedo trousers. They look kind of chic with my fitted jacket and heels. My boss had a pair in his office. I didn't ask why or how, I just breathed a sigh of relief and used paperclips to take in the waist.

Ten more minutes to go. I hope the paperclips don't slip.

2004-08-18T09:02:00.000-07:00

He came dragging back around again like a tom cat with another notch in his ear, wanting what I've got, and because I don't appreciate the way he thinks of me I told him no. He stood on the porch and I stood arms crossed in my doorway. He tried to be manipulative, and seductive, and all I could think was the new girl he left me for isn't working out like he thought she would.

I don't understand the complications, the mechanisms, the way people come together and break apart, and I've been studying it carefully my whole life. We're defined by the relationships we keep, by the things we learn from others, as much as by our natural tendencies. We move in and out of other people's lives, and it's not exactly easy to find a good friend or a good lover and if I ever find both in one man I swear I'll marry him.

I have a general distrust of over-enthusiasm or flattering sincerity when I meet new people, both men and women. Hypocrites talk like saints and hide their claws. I also have a strong dislike for people who have dropped me in the past, and then want to kiss and make up and pretend nothing ever happened. I grew up with that bullshit and I wash my hands of it. Aside from my curly black hair the only thing my father gave me were bruises and long absences and then big whisky-smelling kisses when he'd return home. He was a son of a bitch.

Which is why I said no, and saw this man's face, which I once thought was handsome but now I know too much about him, go from pleading to cajoling to attempted seduction and finally to rejection, like he wasn't the one who rejected me first, and then he got mad at me. He even sneered when I said I had a new beau and didn't want to see anyone else. He said some mean things, and accused me of using people and them discarding them like they're a pair of shoes. I told him if that's the analogy then he gave me blisters and get the hell out of my life.

I closed the door and sat in a chair, and felt the cool air from my ceiling fan, shaped like a big stainless steel boob with the sound of scimitars sweeping the air.

2004-08-16T16:45:00.000-07:00

I'm a loner by nature and don't need the company of a man to make my life complete, but companionship does have its rewards. If, while alone, I laughed as hard as I did Saturday afternoon, people would question my sanity.

Jacob did indeed call me, and on Saturday he took me swimming. We went to the river. The water is clear and cold and best of all there are no crowds, just quiet seclusion. We parked and walked half a mile up the sandy bank to a little beach under some big shady trees.

It has been a long time since I've felt comfortable about my body with someone who is basically a stranger to me, but he doesn't ogle or stare. We pulled clothes off to reveal swim suits and he raced me into the water.

As horny as I was on Thursday night, and as much fun as we had while swimming, I did not make any passes at him because I have these rules. One, no sex on the beach. Sand. Friction. NO. Two, no sex in water. I can't stand that feeling. If you've ever plunged a toilet I expect you might understand. It is completely unenjoyable. Don't blame me for not being adventurous, I have already been adventurous, hence the rules.

So we wrestled and splashed and swam across the strong current to the other side, which was deep. There was a rocky cliff and a perfect ledge for jumping about three feet above the water. He only scared me once by diving and then staying under, and when he surfaced he was twenty feet up river. He let himself float down and used me, clinging to the rock face, as a brake.

People are always surprised how strong I am. I'm not very big, aside from certain assets. If you removed my breasts I'd weigh about 120 pounds. I wear a size 4 jeans. But because I'm so top-heavy I have to, yes, have to, do sit-ups and push-ups daily to keep my back strong enough to carry the weight. I don't have back problems, knock on wood, and I can arm-wrestle truckers.

I think he thought to dislodge me from the rocks and float with me downstream, but neither the force of him nor the current behind his weight could knock me from my hold, and I looked at him defiantly. He met my look with a serious gaze, and I felt my heart thumping. Our lips and fingernails had turned blue from the cold water and goose bumps stippled our flesh. I could feel his body heat as he hung there, propped against me.

He brought his hand up to my face and we had a delicious river-water teeth-chattering kiss before I dunked him and he chased me back to our towels.

We sat and warmed up in the hot sunshine, and snacked on cheese and crackers he had brought. He has a wry dry deadpan wit I appreciate and he had me roaring with laughter, and he took great delight in making me laugh.

And then he invited me to dinner. At his house. My curiosity peaked, I said sure. I met his little dog, a pug, named Bug. Very aloof and adorable all at the same time. Jacob and I ate his leftovers (yeah. I would never invite someone to eat my leftovers, but then that's because they're my science experiments, stashed in the back of the fridge) he had cooked the previous evening, roasted chicken and marinated mushrooms, Greek salad with cucumbers, red onions, and tomatoes. I asked him three times, "You made this?" And was rewarded by a smile and a humble shrug and nod.

He drove me home at that point in the evening when most men would ask me to stay. He walked me to my door again and the kiss was longer, but it was still just a kiss. And although I felt like insisting on some sexual satisfaction, I also thought how nice it is to be courted.

2004-08-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

Punctuality is a virtue but not one of my own, which is why I wasn't ready when he arrived. Patience is a virtue, also, and he browsed my bookcases and knick-knacks while I spent ten minutes fussing, and he made appreciative noises of my home, and I could hear my heart pounding with that excitement that always saturates the air of a first date.

Dinner was unremarkable, some romantic intimate small-tabled Italian food and wine by candle-light as is mandatory for first-date seduction. The conversation was sweet and we thankfully did not discuss our resumes, which sure, I'm always ready to do when people have nothing interesting to say, but it's nothing I ever bring up. "What do you DO?" is such a fucking (say the "g") annoying question; I am always tempted to say, "I breathe and eat and fuck and sleep." Maybe someday I will say that, but I didn't have to last night.

After dinner we found a cafe with outside seating and continued our conversation. He had fun stories about travels to foreign lands and people he had encountered, we talked books and movies and favorite foods. We laughed and it felt comfortable. And when we stood to leave, that's when it happened.

There are two manly etiquette types, and one insists on grabbing the elbow of a woman to assist her in a crowd, which always feels too pushy and like he's trying to cop a feel. The other kind of man simply touches the center of a woman's back, that expanse beneath the shoulder blades but well above the ass, a comfortable reassurance of his presence. He was a back-supporter, not an elbow-grabber, and it was just the faintest touch of his fingertips through the thin cotton cloth of my dress but oh my, the electricity in that touch made me feel flushed and all fluttery.

He drove me home and walked me to my door, and as I unlocked it he touched the bare skin of my arm and asked, "May I call you?" He actually said "may." Not "can." I love a man who knows the importance of modal verbs. I said, "Please," and still touching my arm he leaned his body against mine and pressed his lips softly to my hungry mouth. He tasted like coffee and cinnamon.

"Okay you have to come in now because my panties are all wet." No, I didn't say this, because he was already walking towards his car, and he turned, grinned under the streetlamp, and waved.

My head throbbing I let myself in and then got myself off, and as I drifted in and out of sleep I thought, "Oh. Oh no."

2004-08-12T15:40:00.000-07:00

What a surprise. I have been formally asked out for the evening. Earnest young man, trim and proper and cleans behind his ears. Handsome, too, and looks like the type that reads a lot but may also ride his bicycle without wearing a shirt. He was sitting with a co-worker of mine in the little grungy cafe a few blocks from my house.

I like my co-worker Tim, he's clever and has a kind personality, and when he waved I strolled thither and winked with a smile. I made pleasantries, then took my leave and sat alone across the room. Before they left, Tim's friend Jacob walked up to my table and without making any small talk asked quietly if I had plans for the evening or would I like to accompany (yeah he actually said "accompany") him to dinner.

I said sure because he looks like he's terrified to even think about touching me. You don't even understand unless you have your brassieres custom-made because nothing in the store fits. He also won't call me Dolly, or refer to my breasts as "the girls." It takes both hands and half a foot to count the chauvanists I've suffered.

We exchanged numbers and seven is for luck, tick tock goes the clock. It's a flower-print summer dress kind of evening.

Don't I wonder if he would if he knew he's possible fodder for Blog? Blog hungers! Blog must eat!Shall tomorrow I share the juicy details and the unflattering moments and my unkind observations? It can't be said of me I don't kiss and tell... I tell it all. But do I tell him? Ah-hah, therein lies the hmmm.

2004-08-12T10:19:00.000-07:00

My swimsuit modeling career was short-lived because the gay photographer hired to take my pictures said all I was good for was lying across the hoods of muscle cars in a g-string bikini. It wasn't something I wanted to cultivate.

I spent a lot of time in college naked in awkward poses while strangers tried to capture the shapes of me on their paper. You might think it's an easy thing, being a nude model, and sure the money is decent, but above all gravity reigns. Fifteen, twenty minutes stuck in one position, even stuck reclining, is a long time to remain motionless. You have to sneeze, you have to pee or fart, your arm falls asleep, your belly gurgles, your nose itches constantly. The first time I did it I nearly passed out because I was holding my breath.

I had to quit modeling because I acquired a stalker from some art class or other. Motherfucker obsessed so much he broke into my house but thankfully I was in Mexico at the time and my landlady held him at gun point until the cops came. There should be more pink haired little old ladies packing heat.

2004-08-11T11:42:00.000-07:00

So here's what I got in my inbox:

Here's a special offer for you...WANT TO GET A WOMAN? The first and only pickup, dating and seduction guide. Written for men ... by women.
(blah blah blah)
This is the only e-book of its kind available.You get 2 free adult videos with every order.Check out this great guide here: enhancemefast7.com

"Enhance me fast"?
"Get a woman"?

I would never, ever, ever fuck you.

2004-08-10T11:23:00.000-07:00

I once thought a cowboy would make me happy. Or maybe I thought I could make a cowboy happy, and reform the wanderlust but maintain the ruggedness, although the two do tango. I learned about it the hard way. When I was in college many moons ago that Marlboro Man image dogged my days and I found myself frequenting bars where pretty girls who look like they might be at least 18 never get carded, and such men linger like the scent of cheap tobacco.

Wayne was far too handsome, and he knew it; he was a rope-thin bullrider with chiseled good looks and a dick he had nicknamed "Suffleupagus." For three winter months we spent every night shacked up, as he called it, in my cheap apartment.

He screwed like he rode, which is to say hard, and with an amazing determination to stay at it until bells started to ring. There's a joke about 8 seconds and bullriders and he disproved it.

We didn't even talk about seeing each other again when spring came. He went back to driving his old black Lincoln from one town to the next throughout Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Montana. He left to go riding in rodeos each weekend, making enough money to drive and eat and sleep until the next home-town crowd. He left me sweetly, but as quickly and as completely as a rider gets thrown from the back of a bull.

2004-08-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

He knocked at the door about nine-thirty on Sunday morning and I knew who it was instantly. Tom's dealing with "issues" and I can understand, I even sympathise, but not very well at nine-thirty on Sunday morning when I was up to no good at two. He caught me with baggy eyes and wild hair and morning breath. I didn't even invite him in, we just stood there on the porch, me in my red robe and him dressed like to impress me.

He wants to make me a part of his life but his girlfriend doesn't know, and he likes living with her but thinks maybe he has other commitments to make. I told him at point blank range he had better not consider me the monkey wrench. I have played that part, I have played the fool, and then the man who left her for me ran into the arms of someone else and got married in three months.

And I would never consider Tom. He's nice enough but... No. Something about him grates my insides, and maybe it's because his "issues" reduce him to near blubbering whenever he talks of himself or of his unhappy relationship, I don't know, but after half an hour I told him he had to go, and I was nice but made it clear that he didn't have a snowball's chance in hell with me. I told him he ought to go home and either kiss his girlfriend's ass and beg forgiveness for his cheating heart or break up with her. I was not very compassionate on Sunday morning.

2004-08-06T10:27:00.000-07:00

Yeah so I miss that sonofabitch. I haven't cried at all over him not wanting to see me anymore. I do miss those dark brown eyes and his incredible body but not his looks and wisecracks that I never thought were mean but now I wonder how well he liked me. While there is something to be said for animal magnetism, there is also something to be said for simple companionship.

Passion does burn hot, and it consumes the peripheral vision that lets a body see the slights, the missed communications, the uncomfortable silences you try and fill with nonsense and kisses. The world spins faster and you can't remember anything, or maybe you want to remember it differently. It's like trying to put a square peg into a round hole. The friction caused by tring to force it is all-consuming and even exciting, but sooner or later and usually it's too much later you realize you just can't force it.

I didn't call him, but I did call my old college roommate who only hears from me when I feel overwhelmed by emotions, and for Christmas and birthdays. She has this intense mothering instinct, and I can't handle her half the time, but I think she's the main reason I graduated. She commiserated and encouraged me to wait before dating again, to give myself Time to Recover as she called it. She's a darling and has never had a fling just for the fucking. I almost envy her.

2004-08-05T16:38:00.000-07:00

I used to work as an antique furniture appraiser with a man I later slept with and then couldn't work with anymore, but before we lost control (and damn there's not much nicer than carpenter's hands) we were very good friends.

I remember once I went to an auction with him and there was a headboard for a queen sized bed; it was beautiful teak wood, 1920s, clean and spare lines, very well made.

Except the grain of the wood made it look like two eyes, two large and malignant eyes, were open and staring at whomever might be on the bed. Someone had even taken sandpaper in a desperate attempt at scratching out the left eye, and this was the only mar. Aside from the evil glare, I mean.

He wanted to buy it for me, personally, and I told him there's no way I'd fuck anyone with that in my room. It's like a bad fantasy and science fiction story about the woman who lures men to her room and then feeds them to the bed.

2004-08-05T15:59:00.000-07:00

Fuck-me shoes have got to be comfortable, which is no mean feat and no mean feet. Smile, don't wobble. Work those calves and thighs with the five inch highs. But first make sure they're comfortable; it is possible.

Try on every last one in the store, I don't care if it's "not your style," fuck style, we're talking fuck-me shoes, it's all about the stride, and comfort makes the stride. I heard some ignorant girl say they're called fuck-me shoes because that's all they're good for, that there's no good way to walk in them. Bullshit. It just means she wouldn't ever wear them and that's fine. They're not for everyone. But they are for me, and when I buy, I buy for comfort.

The best are with a solid toe and heel, and I like to find one with a strap across the top of the foot. Stillettos give the most elegant profile but I prefer a thicker heel that tapers to a point for comfort's sake. Never don't ever fucking buy plastic unless you want your feet to blister and rot and then... well you certainly won't feel like fucking.

2004-08-05T10:46:00.000-07:00

My boobs and I went swimming yesterday.

They often get more attention than I do but I'm not jealous. I keep them harnessed, trussed-up, bound in straps and elastic and cloth.

They certainly cut short my career as a ballerina and that's a joke because I hated that unitard tu tu too too bullshit. Those cunts always called me Betty Boop hee hee hee and I guess now I should take it as a compliment but I don't necessarily want to be known as the tits and ass girl. T & A oh yeah I got plenty T & A. I am packed and stacked and loaded vroom vroooom.

One of my best lovers called me buxom and voluptuous and curvaceous and marvelled at my tiny trim waist all in one flattering conversation naked on my bedroom floor. I should call Marco again. Polo.

My kind of buxom means jogging is out of the question. It's more like bouncing. I'm restricted to walking.

Swimming is nice, though. My favorite is the breast stroke. The fatty pendulums that weigh me down the rest of the time become flotation devices and I can forget about gravity for a while.

2004-08-04T15:17:00.000-07:00

Been poking around this Blogger thing here and trying to learn how it's done, reading some interesting things and some not so interesting things. I've been thinking about what I want, what I want to do with this, what I want it to be, WANT, fuck I want so much and this thing doesn't even have batteries
Ha ha

I don't care if I do what's been done. Nobody should worry about doing what's been done already because damnit it may have "been done" but not by me. Or even if I have done it before why not do it again? It's like practice, it's always practice, and maybe once in a lifetime it's gonna be perfect. It's like flirting, or kissing, and gazing through some blogs it's even like fucking and you know I haven't done any of those enough.

Give me a whip and I will beat you all. With pleasure, of course.

2004-08-04T12:49:00.000-07:00

Obsolete and replaced you know what, I am just too damn mean to cry this time. Or maybe it's waiting around lurking like a thug, finding the opportune moment to strike me in the solar plexus and make me crumple like a dead insect.

Nah.
The pain took six seconds to process before the anger set in. He's so fucking full of himself and I am sick of his stupid judgements and comments and dements. Kiss this ass you so wanted, motherfucker. My curvy fine ass you kissed, motherfucker.

Maybe he's more intuitive than I gave him credit for and he ended it because he knew I could take it or leave it, that it was mostly to have some arms around me at night. The sex was fine but I've had better. I've even had better via satellite. At least he wasn't a pussy about it, he just said Hey I've met someone else and I want to see how it goes with her. Whatever.

So tonight I have the place all to myself and that's fine. I can see the future and it involves a bubble bath and a bottle of wine.

2004-08-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

That crazy moon was hangdog last night and I had a fucked up dream about a solar eclipse. Let me tell you about the weekend. So cliche I went to three garage sales and one was at this crumpy old Victorian on a hill, lots of wrought iron painted white and who thought that was a good idea?

There in the musty little carriage house with fancy paned windows, there hanging next to half a crystal chandelier, there was a floor-length shaved mink coat. I didn't even hold my breath, but when she said Eeaah, $25 I saw the floor spin.

It smells like camphor and dead things and I love it. I want to spread it out on my big bed and fuck myself on it. It is only for sharing if I'm wearing it, then you can pet me, too.

2004-08-03T13:16:00.000-07:00

Virgin here, fucking-a. Can we see how long it takes to break, is it painful, will this thing hurt? Will I like it or think it's no big deal? Can it infect me with some dreadful deadly disease or can it create offspring?

Public masturbation here I come. Nnnnnn.