Hair

A couple of dates ago I tried to explain something to D -- answering a question of hers about what I think looks good on women's bodies and what doesn't -- and I got so embarrassed and tongue-tied that I couldn't make the words come out. Then I tried to write a post for this blog, and I had a similar trouble. This is frustrating. Someone who talks as much as I do, and who writes at such length about the smallest thing, shouldn't have so much goddamned trouble saying something so bloody simple ... especially not in an anonymous blog, for God's sake! So even though I don't expect it to be of any interest to anybody else, I'm going to force myself to go through with this out of sheer cussedness.

I don't like razors.

I wish women wouldn't apply razors to any parts of their bodies below their necks.

I don't care what other men do. More precisely, I don't shave my body and I think that men who do shave their bodies are damned fools. But it's not a question of sexual attractiveness for me because I don't have the slightest interest in other men's bodies. If they want to be damned fools, I don't give a fuck. It's a free country.

Am I consistent about this? No, of course not. I draw the line at facial hair on women, which I find unspeakably gross. There's a woman in my company's European office with a mustache. I will go out of my way to avoid any meeting where she is also present, because the mustache is so grotesque and distracting. As for men's facial hair, ... well, I shaved my chin clean for many years. Now I have a beard, but it is narrow. I shave around it. So I'm not consistent.

And in all this I have no objection to trimming your hair shorter if it threatens to get in your way, or to be inconvenient. I try to keep my beard around 3/8 of an inch long. The hair on top of my head is thinning, so I keep it short enough that nobody thinks I'm trying for a comb-over. (Comb-overs are pathetic.)

I also recognize that sometimes there are practical necessities which make shaving unavoidable. Back in school I had a good friend who cycled competitively. Every spring when cycling season started, he had to shave his legs because his cycling uniform clung to his skin so tightly that it would rip out any hairs left standing. So he shaved them all off. It was either that or give up cycling. Similarly, I have known women who work in places that mandate panty hose. Naturally they shaved their legs because the alternative was to lose their jobs. OK, it's sad but understandable.


But in the absence of hard necessity, ... goodness, where do I start?

When I see a beautiful woman who has shaved off her body hair, ... well in the first place I know something is missing. It's obviously not there. And I can feel the absence. I want to say that it feels the same as looking at an amputation, but of course that's too extreme. It's not that bad. But still, I can't shake the feeling that something is wrong because something just ain't there where it's s'posed to be.

Besides all that, think about what the hair means. It doesn't grow in until sexual maturity. It starts to fall out in old age, as the body begins to shut down. In other words, on Nature's calendar, hairless people (male or female) are either prepubescent or really old; they are either not yet ready for sex or past it. Put positively, that means that women with body hair are in that sweet spot in between; they are adult, fully sexual, and not yet past it. On Nature's reckoning, body hair means SEX! That's not an advertisement I can ignore.

And finally, if it's good enough for Sophia Loren, where could I possibly get off pretending it's not good enough for me?

I never was able to explain this to D. I wonder if I should cut-and-paste this article into an e-mail for her?

I want my medal

Walking along with this [doll] Phaedrus felt as if the two of them were sharing this experience, as though he were back in childhood again and this were some imaginary companion. Little children talk to dolls and grown-up adults talk to idols. He supposed that a doll allows a child to pretend he's a parent while an idol allows a parent to pretend he's a child.

He reflected on this for a while and then his mind framed a question: ... he asked the idol [doll], "... What would you say to all this [everything that has happened in the story up till then]?"

He listened for a long time .... Then after a while into his thoughts came a voice that did not seem to be his own.

"All this is a happy ending." ....

"Then why do I feel so bad about it?" Phaedrus asked.

"You're just waiting for your medal," the idol [doll] answered. "You think maybe they're going to turn around and come back and hand you a citation for merit."

Excerpted from Lila: An Inquiry into Morals, by Robert M. Pirsig, pp. 402-403
__________

This passage popped into my head while I was fixing dinner tonight. I was thinking about all the craziness I have endured from Wife over the years -- some stories I have told you, and many stories I have never gotten around to telling. I was thinking about the turns my life has made because I was married to her, and how it could have gone in such very different directions if I hadn't been. And I reminded myself that I made all these decisions on purpose: marrying her because I sensed there was something I needed in my life that maybe I could get from her, and because she so plainly needed the love and stability I thought I could give her; and then sticking with her because it was the right thing to do, because in marrying her I had made a moral commitment. Did I know that choosing this meant giving up that? ... in this case, that choosing to stay with her meant giving up a career where I know I could have shone (scholarship) and (maybe, just maybe) a more invigorating, more mobile life? Sure I did; to a greater or lesser extent, at any rate. But that's what a moral commitment means, isn't it? If something is right, then you give up other things to stick to it and count yourself lucky to do so. After all, the things you are giving up are less important, less valuable, than doing what's right. Isn't that how it is supposed to be? Isn't that what we always hear?

And I suppose in a sense it is even true. Spend long enough at any hard job, and you will get something out of it through the sheer discipline of coming back again day after day and working at it. My marriage has been no different. Sure, I have learned things I wouldn't have learned otherwise. Sure it has shaped me ... "built character" as the saying has it.

Only, sometimes I wish someone were going to come along and give me a medal for it. Because there are these moments of doubt, when I think, "Throwing your life away on something worthless may build character, but in the end the struggle is still worthless. Is this what you have done?" If God were watching, and if I could be sure that in the end He was going to give me a medal for hanging in there all those years, it would make it easier to be calm about it all in retrospect.

Of course, I know this is absolutely the wrong attitude to take. In the first place there is nothing I can do about the past anyway, so fretting over what might have been is a complete waste of time. In the second place, I know that the healthiest thing for the soul is to cultivate an entirely different sort of attitude. Whatever comes next -- whether that means tomorrow (in this world), or a lifetime from now (in the next) -- the best way to face it is with a soul that is free, calm, attentive, and curious, one that looks forward with hope and not backward with despair. Disappointment, anger, bitterness over the past, ... all of these things are snares. They weaken the soul, make it less healthy and less able to deal with new situations when they arise. So whether there is another life or world beyond this one -- or not! -- it is completely counterproductive to obsess over what happened back then that I cannot change. Better far to shake free of all that baggage and look ahead. That's the real reason forgiveness is so important. It's not just that is important to those who wronged you, because it lets them off the hook. But far more is it important to you yourself, because letting them off the hook also unhooks you. Without forgiveness, you are trapped by all the anger and bitterness you feel towards them. Without forgiveness, you can't forget. Without forgiveness, you carry around a bigger and bigger past wherever you go. And the bigger your past, the less room you have for a future. So without forgiveness, you close off your own access to a future of freedom -- a future whose shape you can never know till you get there, a future you can never enter unless you are willing to adapt to new ways and new things, a future you can never enter without looking forward in hope and curiosity. I already know all this. I already know I should simply abandon what has failed in the past, and press forward.

I still want my medal.

Sleeping in the car

This weekend we drove the two hours to Hogwarts to see Son 1; also his coach was giving a presentation about the sports program, and they were having an Open House for prospective students ... which might include Son 2. (He like the place but isn't sure he wants to go to the same school as Big Brother.)

It was late as we drove home. I always do all our long-distance driving; Wife and Son 2 both slept at least part of the way. And I found myself thinking wistfully of this cartoon.

I'm glad to do the driving, even if it is a long way, if only I can offer this.

Still an anchor?

Yesterday, Wife told me she had had a nightmare the night before. Awful things were happening (I don't remember all the details, and mostly they aren't germane) and she was lost (which terrifies her). There were strangers who offered to help her find her way, but she just got more and more lost. "And," she went on, "I was trying to find you. It was like any other time I have a nightmare, I knew if I could only get to you I'd be safe."

Then she paused and reflected, "And in the dream, I even knew you didn't want to be with me any more. You didn't want me to be with you. But it didn't matter. I still knew that I had to find you, and if I did then I'd be safe." Pause.

"You really are still my anchor."

In another context, that remark might have cried out for a sarcastic rejoinder. There are so many things the symbol of an anchor can mean, and many of them aren't too good. But it didn't seem like the time for any of that.

And the crazy thing is that I suspect at one level this is even true. It's not a level that is operative in the real world, it doesn't inform anything she does, and it's not going to help anything once Son 2 is out of the house and we split up. But I don't think she was actually lying, .... It's strange.

Listless

Off and on throughout the day, I've found myself thinking about Wife's new boyfriends. And I just keep staring vacantly into space.

It makes no fucking sense. God knows I no longer care how Wife shops her body around. I don't want to stick with her for the long term. I sure as hell don't want to fuck her any more! She's become ugly and almost totally dysfunctional; meanwhile I have D, who is attractive and a sexual dynamo and who somehow (utterly unaccountably) adores me. Yes, D is many hundreds of miles away. But she's still incomparably the better choice.

Only, ... in that case why do I feel so defeated? Why is it so hard for me to pick up and do the next thing, whatever that is?

Admittedly there is lots going on. Work just announced a major reorganization whose impact nobody seems to understand yet, all so that we can focus on our customers more effectively. And I'm sure that's just dandy, although I have to wonder then what was the point of our last reorganization, or the one before that? Were those in order to help us focus less effectively on our customers? Or didn't they have exactly the same motivation this one has, which must mean that they failed or we wouldn't have to reorganize again? And so this gives me confidence in the latest reorganization ... how, exactly? Just because we are smarter than we used to be, so now we've got it right?

But when I found myself staring vacantly at my computer screen or wandering the halls aimlessly at lunchtime, it wasn't the reorganization that I was thinking of. It was the two new boyfriends -- the ones I don't care one whit about.

Maybe I just wish she could have waited until Son 2 is out of the house, because I don't trust her not to drag him into her network of lies and deceit. Maybe I just resent having to think about her at all, so any news of any change in the way she lives is automatically unwelcome.

Or maybe I just have no fucking clue why I'm acting like it matters to me, when all the reasons in the world tell me it shouldn't ... er, I mean doesn't.

Time for another glass of vodka, and then bed. I guess. Or whatever ....

Busy girl

And all this time I somehow thought Wife was just sitting back, staring at the walls and moping!

You all know Wife has an account on OKCupid, and that she was seeing Pop for a while. I also knew that she had struck up correspondences with a number of other men on the site. What I didn't know was that she was fucking two of them! Better than that ... she is fucking one of them (do I call him Boyfriend 6?) while she coos to him about wanting permanence and about how his warm body against hers has done wonders for her depression; and then at the same time she is "cheating" on him (her word, not mine) with another one (Boyfriend 7?) who knows about Boyfriend 6 but not vice versa. Wife tells Boyfriend 7 to be very careful that Boyfriend 6 not find out about them, because she doesn't want to spoil the potential for a permanent relationship with him.

I'm not sure I'll be able to keep these two straight with mere numbers, so maybe I had better give them names as well: I'll call Boyfriend 6 "Kevin" (which is close enough) and Boyfriend 7 "Jenner" (ditto). Then there's Al, with whom she appears (so far) to be "just good friends": they get together every so often to go walking.

Apparently Son 2 knows about these guys, or at any rate knows that they are friends of Wife. (I'm not sure she has let on that she is fucking both of them -- one behind the other's back, no less! -- but knowing how poor Wife's boundary control is, I can't be sure she didn't.) Last weekend Kevin (B6) gave Wife a whole bunch of food, which she explained away to me by saying that her friend Leia's mom is getting senile and buying food she doesn't need so she helped Leia clean out her mom's refrigerator. Come to think of it, Wife repeated that story to Son 2, while complaining to him that I didn't believe her. (That's not at all what I had said, but she has a hard time listening.) So I guess she is not totally transparent with Son 2 either -- and thank God for small favors! Meanwhile a few days ago she was still trying to meet up with Pop for breakfast, but apparently he promised he'd be available on a certain day and then skipped town.

This must explain why she was suddenly motivated to vacuum the house yesterday, after years of neglect: one of the two of them must have been coming over, and she wanted the place to look nice. It explains why she is always so careful to make the bed ... because she has been using it during the day, and has probably washed the sheets on top of it. My God, it has been years since she showed that much initiative or energy! There must be something to the idea that all them endorphins kicking around in your brain can make you do all kinds of unexpected things.

The only thing I kind of wonder is why she has bothered to hide it from me? Why should she care what I think, any more? Am I going to do anything about it? Well, in cold honesty I no longer care where she shops her body around as long as she doesn't interfere with the rest of us. Son 2 is in eighth grade, which means that next September he will almost certainly be out of the house at boarding school somewhere; and at that time, we'll just dissolve the marriage. There will be no more reason to stick together. And if I have stuck it out this long, there's no real reason not to stick it out just a little bit longer.

Now how do I break the news to D, that Wife is getting more sex than she (D) is? That's not going to go over at all well ...! I suppose I can try to console her that at any rate Wife's not getting me, but I don't know how much comfort she will find that. I don't know. But I do think it is remarkable that Wife can still conceal that much of what she does, after all these years when I thought I had learned to read her pretty well.

What a busy, busy girl ...!