Made of eggshells

Marie has been really upset since the election, to the point of not being able to sleep and having massive anxiety attacks. Part of me wants to tell her she's kind of overdoing it -- shit, your candidate didn't win but it's not the Apocalypse. But of course she's not doing it on purpose, so it's not going to help to say any of that.

  
I've tried to help however I can. For the most part this doesn't mean holding her, because she lives a thousand miles away (although she did say she felt a lot better while she was visiting my family over Thanksgiving). But I've sent her encouraging words, along with instructions on the most basic form of meditation and a loving-kindness mantra for her to repeat (not this one, but close).  

Finally a couple of weeks ago her doctor put her on Zoloft. And naturally she had a very bumpy start. The first days or weeks on any new anti-depressant are like that. So she told me she was feeling very fragile, and asked for support.

I sent her a letter with a couple of things in it. First, I talked a little bit about how I experience fragility, echoing a couple of the ideas I describe here (though not the whole essay). But then I tried to offer her a little more:

Your body feels like eggshells -- brittle, bare.
Your skin feels tender as if washed with lye,
Then left to sit, exposed to open air,
Scarred by the very snowflakes in the sky.
 
Your spirit feels like eggshells -- fragile, low,
To flinch when startled at a sudden din
Or brood on gloomy, long-remembered woe
That wets your eyes and stabs your heart again.
 
But you are more than eggshells -- for you know
I love you and you love me in return.
Outside it's dark and wet with sleet and snow,
But here inside the coals of love still burn.
 
No eggshell lasts forever -- but when it breaks,
The bird inside spreads out her wings and wakes.

Marie was very grateful. The day I sent it she was feeling so rotten she couldn't process it any farther than to say, "My boyfriend sent me a sonnet! How sweet." But a few days later she was able to consider it as poetry, and we discussed back and forth how it might be improved.

Clearly she was thinking about more than she said. And then one day she went almost completely silent until night-time, when she sent back ...

My body feels like eggshells – brittle, bare,
My skin abraded as if scoured with salt
Then left to chill, exposed to bitter air
As blow by blow of news my eyes assault.
 
My spirit feels like eggshells – fragile, low,
Remembering past times hope was entombed
And still the news pours in new tales of woe:
Of Klansmen, oilmen, loonies given room.
 
Yet I am more than eggshells, for I know
I love you and you love me in return
Though all outside may bleak and bitter grow,
Yet here inside the coals of love still burn,
 
And burning, still inspire that bird to wake,
Which, stretched in hope of flight, all shells will break.

And all I could think was, "Hot damn, but I love being involved with a(nother) poet!"

 

Lovingly molested

Marie visited me for a week over Thanksgiving, and just flew home tonight. Together we drove out to where most of my family was gathered for the holiday. She met them; they met her. A good time was had by all.

But also we talked and talked, as always. And a couple days ago, the conversation was a little interesting.

I was talking about my dad -- specifically, about how he was always trying to worm his way into learning about my private life, as if he were groping at me with his questions. I've written about it here, and probably other places. Marie pegged his behavior nicely as "voyeuristic". And for a long time I didn't have a very good idea why he would even want to know all this stuff about me, except that he always had. Sometimes I thought maybe it was because he enjoyed the power that came from knowing things and being able to make me squirm when he talked about them.

But as I talked to Marie, I added that I had recently thought of another hypothesis ... another possible reason that might have explained his behavior. And I told her that this hypothesis could have meaning for her too.

My idea was this: maybe my dad was lonely. Well, of course I know he was lonely -- he didn't have many friends, and those he had rarely saw him. He didn't have any family except my mother's, and over the years he had alienated most of those. He didn't have a job to go to. So yeah, he was lonely.

And his social skills were a little off. He could be entertaining -- he was an actor by trade, after all -- but he didn't trust people and so he had trouble making new friends. He wanted to be loved and accepted, but he was afraid to let himself be honest and real with others ... and that has to be the first step. The only circle he (mostly) trusted were his immediate family: my mother, my brother, and me.

So I think he wanted to be my friend. Actually I know that's what he wanted, because many times -- usually when he was really drunk -- that's exactly what he would say. "I don't want you to think of me as a father ... just as an older friend who has been through some things you haven't yet, so you can ask me questions and I can give you advice." (Notice, by the way, that this implies he had a really unpleasant idea of what fatherhood entails. I think this is related to his lifelong hatred of authority.) And so I think what he wanted was for us to sit around shooting the shit and "lying about women" [his phrase], the way he imagined that Real Guys must do in the locker room. (My father was a classic Non-Athlete, but I think his image of masculinity must have dated from high school gym class -- which he hated, but which he must have thought he should have liked in order to be a Real Man.)

In short: I think he pawed at my life with a perverted, voyeuristic lust because he wanted to be my friend, and didn't know how. And didn't know that it was impossible, because the Father-Son relationship is prior to the Friend-Friend relationship and excludes it.

Marie thought this was very interesting, both charitable and plausible. But what the hell did it have to do with her?

Well, I don't remember if I've told this story yet but her mother molested her when Marie was 12. Her mother was an alcoholic, and one night (after Bible study!) she came into Marie's bedroom and started massaging Marie's vulva until she came. Marie was really upset at this but figured that a Good Girl wouldn't tell her mother to stop; also, that God wouldn't have allowed it unless she (Marie) was already hopelessly corrupt and soiled. It fucked up her ideas about sex for decades, and that in turn seems to have crippled her sex life until she and I got together early this year.

And I asked Marie, Why did she do it? She wasn't getting off, after all. And she probably wasn't particularly aroused by it -- as she objected later, when Marie confronted her with this and she said that she had no recollection of it (probably true because she blacked out a lot), "I like men." (Marie's father was dead by then, of suicide. Marie's mother was drinking heavily and fucking anything in pants.) So why did she do it? Marie didn't know.

Well, I suggested, maybe it was the same kind of thing that was going on with my dad. Maybe at some level she thought that she was doing Marie a favor. After all here was her oldest daughter, just on the cusp of womanhood ... about to come into her sexual inheritance. If you assume that her mother's higher reasoning abilities were all wiped clean out by the alcohol, it's not so crazy to think that she might have thought this was somehow a good thing.

Of course I told Marie that this was just a hypothesis. She'd have to think whether there was any external data that could make it look likely.

And after a minute she said, "Oh shit. There is."

Marie's mother was a very feminine woman. She was pretty, and paid a lot of attention to her appearance. She always had to have a man in her life, and it thrilled her to be the focus of some man's adoration. Marie was 12 -- just at the cusp of womanhood -- and didn't care about any of that. In mythological metaphor, she was totally devoted to Artemis and scorned Aphrodite. (See, e.g., this link for just how dangerous that can be.) Marie's mother kept trying to convince her to care about boys.

And so, Marie went on, ... maybe it makes sense that her mother would try to show her why it was worth it to care about boys. To show her how good sex feels. To let her experience directly why sex and romance can reasonably dominate your life. Throughout it all her mother kept saying "It feels so good." Maybe that really meant (if you look through the drunken haze) "It's worth the sacrifices. Make yourself pretty. Make yourself sweet and soft. Because then men will want to fuck you, and there is nothing sweeter in all the world."

But that means, Marie went on, that maybe she still loved me even while she was molesting me.

She was sobbing softly into my shoulder by this point. I held her, and kissed her, and tried to reassure her that yes, it was perfectly possible her mother still loved her. I reminded her that many of the terrible, cruel, destructive things that people do are caused not by malice but just by ignorance and clumsiness. And if anything can bring on ignorance and clumsiness, heavy drinking is surely on the list. So yeah ... it's all possible.

We talked about a lot of other things over the course of the week, but that may have been the most unexpected.
  

Banquet dinners

Dear Son 2,

 

When you called Saturday, you said that at one point Mom [this means Wife] claimed she thought she'd "have to spend Thanksgiving alone eating a Banquet dinner." At the time I just rolled my eyes because that sounded so familiar. But since then I have thought about it some more, and I've begun to get ... worried ... at how manipulative a remark it was.

 

Do you see it the way I see it? I asked Son 1 [his brother] how he saw it, and he just kind of shrugged. So I think maybe I should explain. If this is all obvious to you, please forgive me.

 

Also please note that nothing I say here is meant to sound like I'm bitching about Mom. The things I talk about -- I don't think she's doing any of them on purpose. But let me explain.

 

Mom's mother -- your grandmother -- tried to keep people close to her by making them feel sorry for her. And it worked for a while. It kept your Mom hooked until the day her mother died. But at the same time that she (I mean Mom -- your mom) felt so much duty toward her mother, she also hated her mother, and was miserable over the relationship. Other people stuck close to this lady for a while (because they felt sorry for her) but then burned out and quit. They stopped calling, they stopped coming by -- maybe a card at Christmas but otherwise they cut her out of their lives because they hated the way that she used pity to blackmail them.

 

And I think those are the two most common options, in the long run, when somebody tries to hold onto others through pity. Either those "others" end up miserable (and hating the one they pity), or else they burn out and quit. Those are both terrible ways to live.

 

When Mom says she expects to spend Thanksgiving alone eating a Banquet dinner, it's the exact same technique her mother used. (I assume she doesn't realize that's what she's doing.) So I worry about you and Son 1, because I don't want you to end up miserable or burned-out.

 

Just as an aside, it's natural to think, "Oh it's no big deal, really. I can take it." That's what Son 1 said (more or less) when we talked a couple days ago. And it's what I thought, when I was a lot younger. For many years I worked hard to make things better for Mom so she would be happy. Mostly that was before you were born or when you were very young. I assume the only part you remember was at the end, when -- guess what? -- I burned out. But for 20 years before, it wasn't like that. And all I'm saying is that I was way too optimistic when I thought it was no big deal.

 

So fine -- when I say I don't want you and Son 1 to end up miserable or burned-out, what that really means is I WISH Mom wouldn't say things to make you feel sorry for her. But I can't make her change that. The next best thing is that I want to warn you (and Son 1) so you don't get hooked by it. If you can side-step the hook, not get dragged underwater by the emotional rip-tide ... maybe you can keep your peace of mind. Maybe you can avoid both the misery and the burn-out.

 

That's the key.

 

I am NOT saying you have to be mean. Not at all. You can keep right on being as kind and generous as ever. Just remember that it's NOT YOUR job to make OUR lives turn out OK -- either of us. It's up to us (Mom and me, respectively) to do that for ourselves. Of course we love you and enjoy your company. Each of us appreciates spending time with you. But NONE of that loads a DUTY on your back.

 

Just to be clear: This ISN'T about Thanksgiving next month. You want to go to Durmstrang's Thanksgiving this year. I totally get that. And the easiest, most efficient, most practical way to go to Durmstrang Thanksgiving is to spend the holiday with Mom so the two of you can go to Durmstrang together. I get that too.

 

But SOME year, you'll no longer be going to Durmstrang Thanksgiving. When that year rolls around, I hope you can choose your venue based on what YOU want, not on some kind of heavy obligation.

 

Because it's not your job to make our lives turn out OK.

 

All this means is that -- over the years ahead -- I want you to be free and to live in a way that gives you real value. So think about it slowly in the back of your head. Please. Keep your eyes open. Be aware of the issue. And that's all I can ask.

 

Thanks.

 

Love as always,

Dad [Hosea]

 

My apartment

A few days ago I had a conversation with Marie that started like this. It didn't end like this, and in fact we are still talking. But it's something I guess I have to think about.

You know, my love, your place is really bare:
No love seat, armchair, wifi, or TV.
A kitchen -- table -- bed -- that's all that's there.
No place to house your boys -- no place for me.

 

Do you suppose that's why they'd rather stay
With your ex-wife, when back this way they roam?
She's sick and bat-shit crazy, so you say.
But maybe her place looks more like a home.

 

For thirty years, weighed down by all her hoard
Of heirloom trash, we "made a home," you see.
I finally broke out, and -- oh my Lord! --
I want to travel light and travel free.

 

But do you now? Take care. For it's well known,
You travel fastest when you fly alone.

Sent from my iPhone

Little blue pills

I just put Marie on the plane to fly home, after she visited me here for a couple of days. This makes the ... what? fourth? ... time she's visited me. I've visited her once (twice if you count the trip to her family's vacation home). I'm sure she has noticed the discrepancy and is mulling it.

It was fun having her here. Two nights ago we had my neighbors over for dinner, drank plenty of wine, and talked for hours. Yesterday she and I had lunch with one of my friends from work (well OK, my only real friend from work) ... and again, talked amiably until I had to get back for a meeting. She liked all of them; I haven't heard any feedback on her yet, but everybody seemed positive enough. It was all good.

The sex was mostly good, but I use the word "mostly" with care. As I've mentioned before, I've broken down and gotten a prescription for Viagra. And the erections have been great: solid and very durable. Marie, who is in her 50's but never had much of a sex life before getting together with me, was ecstatic. Many times, and very happily. She keeps making discoveries that if she moves like so and I pitch the angle there, ... oooh, aaah, that's really nice!

What I didn't do was come. Ever. I don't know if it is old age, or the medication, or one of my other medications, or just that I wasn't in a sufficiently rutting state of mind. But whatever it was, I could keep going until after a while I'd kind of lose interest and stop. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Last night Marie asked me if I thought I'd ever want to live with someone again. It sounds like she really hasn't given up wanting to be "Mrs. Tanatu". I told her I couldn't vouch for the future, but today No. Today I love visiting with people, having them over for dinner, talking long into the night, even fucking ... and then having my own private space I can retreat into, where I can rest and recuperate. She sighed and said Yes, she'd read advice that when you enter a romantic relationship you should never do it with the expectation that the other person is going to change in this or that way for you. I agreed, adding only the modification that the other person might indeed change -- but it's still a bad idea to hope that that change is going to be in the exact direction you want. So we cuddled until we fell asleep, and this morning she caught a plane home.

But yes, I think that's what she wants.
    

Thinking like a Tanatu

Son 2 phoned me from school about an hour ago, in high dudgeon. He said he was mad and had to vent steam at somebody. What was he so mad about? He had just gotten out of his freshman humanities class, where they had had a discussion about the Euthyphro, the Apology, and the Crito. Son 2 had tried to make an argument about how people’s understanding of justice depends on the government they live under … and nobody understood what he was talking about. Literally nobody. He said he was frustrated to the point of bursting at “trying to make them think like a Tanatu.” (Not that we Tanatus have any corner on that market, of course, but I guess in his class it was starting to look that way.)

 

I told him that actually I could see some nits to pick in his thesis, and he accepted that. Of course there are nits to pick! That’s what drives the conversation forward. But that nobody could even understand him …!

 

So then I went on to add two other comments. (1) Welcome to large public universities. (2) Not to put too fine a point on it, but … welcome to [the state where he’s going to school]. Yes, they have a fine agriculture program. But they’re not known as a beacon of philosophical learning.

 

Meanwhile his best friend from high school is attending a liberal arts college in California, and says people introduce themselves with both their name and their preferred pronoun (he or she) … rather than leaving it to you to guess, I suppose.

 

That may encapsulate the whole red-state/blue-state thing right there ….

 

 

Pay attention, dammit!

About a month ago, I tripped and fell on my way home from my volunteer work. Here's how I described it to Marie:

I tripped and fell while walking home from [my volunteer work]. More exactly I was watching a CNN segment on my iPhone and not watching where I was going, so I set my foot down wrong and my right ankle folded under me the way it did in Peru. (I told you that story, didn't I?) So I landed on my face in the middle of a residential side street. Fortunately there were no cars coming by. I pulled myself up, retrieved my phone (which had skidded a couple feet away, still playing), turned it off, and walked slowly the rest of the way home with exaggerated caution. The end result was a bruised and bloody nose (though it's not bleeding any more) and one scraped knee (which actually looked worse once I cleaned off the dirt because you could see the blood). I wiped the knee clean with a washcloth and put a bandage on it. My nose has stopped bleeding.

The moral of the story is to watch where the hell you're going. Also that I am not immune from damn-fool stupidity and inattention.

Since then I have been walking much more slowly and attentively. But do I sometimes think of other things? Of course! I've always thought about things while I walk! So it happened again last Thursday.

... I fell again. I was looking for a place to cross the street in the middle of the block, didn't watch the unevenness of the curb, and crumpled. It was better this time: I was moving a lot more slowly so I had effectively no forward momentum, and my hands were free so I could cover my head. I just crumpled in place, right next to a sign giving the parking restrictions. A man was unlocking his bike from the same sign, and he helped me right up. I had banged up my left knee again, but it wasn't bleeding this time. 

So I made my way on to Sangha. [One of the two that I try to attend weekly, when I'm in town.] And that was a good thing, because it gave me space to calm down. Because while I was physically in much better shape than after my fall 33 days ago, I was upset and scared. Twice in just over a month? What's the common factor? I have NOT been having more generalized balance problems. In fact I have walked on dirt trails between then and now, just fine. But also in the last month I have been far more aware of the pavement under my feet; I have walked a lot slower than before; I take more care to look where I'm going. And I still fell, because I was watching the traffic and not my feet. Do I have to watch my feet for every step? Ain't gonna happen. Or just never step off sidewalks into the street? Intriguing idea but still impractical. Do I need to see a foot specialist? And do what -- encase my right ankle in a brace that prevents it from bending? That doesn't sound right. I don't know. I'm very confused and still a little bit scared of it. 

Marie is very worried, because she doesn't want me to faceplant in front of oncoming traffic. I told a friend at work and he just kidded me about it. What do you want, a walker? Trust me, it's just that you weren't paying attention. It's nothing worse.

Yeah, I'm sure he's right. So this evening I was walking home from my volunteer work again, paying exaggerated attention to the sidewalk (or so I thought) but also mulling how to respond now that Wife is demanding more money again ... and I stepped in a pile of dog shit. With the same foot that twice crumpled beneath me ... three times if you count Peru.

Somebody is trying to get my attention -- a Somebody with a remarkably sophomoric sense of humor. And I think the message is, Watch where the fuck you're going! Pay attention! Be mindful!

I'm starting to think that I need to turn every walk into Walking Mindfulness Meditation. Just bloody wonderful.
    

First day of school

It's late and I have a 7:00 am meeting tomorrow so I'll keep this short. But I talked with Son 2 this evening. Classes started today. He had the first meeting of his Chemistry class and his Land Management class; one had 300 students, and the other 200. A bit of a change from Durmstrang, which had 96 students in all 4 years.

He also joined the Fencing Club. When they went around the room introducing themselves he discovered that he actually has the most years of fencing behind him, though he's 4 years out of practice. (He fenced from about 7 or 8 through the end of middle school.) Also there's a guy in his dorm who offered to teach him to box. WHAT??? (Dad panics.) Hey, I don't want you getting a concussion! Yeah, yeah, Dad, don't worry. I promise not to get a concussion. 

And of course there's nothing I can do about it. Who'd a thunk of boxing as a form of college rebellion?

Meanwhile he has lots of plans to exercise regularly, as a reaction to the heavily fried and potato-based cuisine.

His roommate still hasn't shown up, so he's planning to spread into the other half of the room.

And that -- plus his mailing address -- is what I learned in a quarter hour.

Time for bed. Night-night.

Sent from my iPhone

Son 2 goes to college

Son 2 moves into his dorm today. 

His school is a good two days' drive from home. Actually we took a little longer because we drove out to visit Schmidt and his mom en route. Son 2 likes the Schmidts, they like him -- it's a good match all around. But now, here we are.

I should clarify that "we" means me and Son 2. Wife stayed home, partly because I can't stand to be around her for several days any more, and partly because Son 1 was due home from his summer internship the day after Son 2 and I left. So she drove to the airport to pick him up and house him. Also I think she's going to help him get his driver's license. For all her faults, Wife taught both boys how to drive over the last couple of years, and I'm grateful.

But now both of them will be in college. Still costing money, but ever more independent. That's a good thing -- it's what we raise them for. Also, as I suggested in these pages years ago, I think I was reaching the limits of how much I could do as a father. It will be good for me as well as for them that I no longer have to maintain quite the same role. Boarding school achieved something of the same thing (thanks be to God) but it will be ever more so from here on out.

It will be a busy day, but I have great hopes for it to be a good one as well. And then after this I round out the week by going to visit Marie....

On the beach

The last week, I've been vacationing with Marie and her family. The family owns a cottage on Lake Michigan, and Marie has many fond memories of growing up there. So for some time she has wanted to show me the places she so loved growing up, and she has wanted me to meet her family. This seemed to be the perfect time.

Her parents are both dead, and her brothers weren't there this week because of their schedules; but her sister was there -- let me call her Cuñada -- along with Cuñada's husband and teenaged son, one of her son's friends (emphatically not a girlfriend, I was told), and a family friend of Cuñada's that acted for all the world like Boyfriend 4. I'll call this friend Brian, if I need to talk about him.

Actually I found myself wondering about Brian. He acted like an adult authority to Cuñada's son and his friend, much as if he were an auxiliary parent. On the other hand his orders were often not very smart, and half the time Cuñada directly undercut him. He addressed Cuñada with endearments when her husband wasn't there ("dear" or "darling" or something conventional like that) and at least once I saw him pat her knee affectionately. So is he her lover? Is this really a Boyfriend-4 situation? I asked Marie one afternoon as we strolled along the beach. She said she had the same questions but had never asked her sister directly. She sure didn't rule it out, though she did allow for at least one other possibility -- namely that Brian might want a relationship with Cuñada, but not have one. Yet.

Cuñada is a big, loud, friendly, outgoing woman. She was the chief organizer of the week, and clearly the boss. She was also very welcoming. What she told Marie was that she was glad of the chance to tease Marie about having a boyfriend, because I am quite literally the first boyfriend Marie has ever brought home to meet her family in all her 55 years. What she told me, in addition, is that she is delighted Marie is so happy. Up till now Marie had been happy plenty of times, of course -- but all her normal range of emotions were like an overlay on a bedrock of something that was not happiness. Now she still has the normal range of emotions, but they are an overlay on top of profound Joy. Apparently there really is something to the old cliché that getting laid improves your mood. Who knew?

And there was plenty of sex this week. Marie and I were in the same bedroom (of course) and spent every night holding each other, fondling each other .... The night I arrived we were both exhausted from travel and I wasn't about to get hard, but I fondled Marie to a long string of rolling orgasms that she had been sure she was too tired for. Then we woke about 3:30 in the morning and fucked properly before finally falling back asleep till the morning coffee. Cuñada teased both of us because she had the bedroom next to ours and the cottage wasn't built to be soundproof. Marie insisted, "But I was biting my hand hard to stifle myself so I'd be quiet!" Cuñada answered, "Mi hermana, if that's what you call quiet ... well, let me just say you've never tried to have sex when you've got small children in the house." Marie and I heard a lot on this theme over the week.

A week or two before this trip I saw my doctor and got my first-ever prescription for viagra. After years of progressively rarer and softer erections, I figured it was time. And so Tuesday afternoon, when we had some time and could plan half an hour ahead, we decided to try it. The results were remarkable. I never actually came, but I stayed hard for longer than I have in many, many years -- probably the better part of an hour. Marie, who has usually made do (very happily) with my fingers and tongue, was beside herself. Since I had plenty of time, I varied angle, depth, and tempo; she said afterwards she had had no idea how different each different angle inside her was going to feel. She was exhausted and giddy. I've often said that women are at their most beautiful lying back sweaty and flushed, with their hair a tousled mess. By that measure, Marie was very beautiful that afternoon.

Later that evening, after dinner, she and I decided to walk down to the beach. It was dark but warm, and we took a blanket to sit on. So we sat in the warm night and looked at the stars. After a while we lay back. Then we started kissing. I began to stroke her hair, ... her ears, ... her neck, ... her throat, ... her breasts. My hands slid down her sides and pulled up her loose sun dress. She had no panties for me to pull aside, and she was very wet. We were completely alone, so I massaged, and prodded, and opened, and rubbed until Marie was gasping and jerking and trying not to yell. And then ....

I checked again. We were completely alone. So I slipped off my own pants and slid inside her. It was the afternoon all over again. But we were on the beach, in the open air. Isn't this what teenagers do, fuck on the beach? It was warm and close and exciting. Maybe tonight I could come? I got closer ....

Completely alone? Well no, in fact. There were voices, and a light. Were they coming our way? Yes! Had they seen us? No way to tell. I slid out of Marie and lay on top of her, as still as I could manage. The voices and the light got closer to us, and closer still. We lay quietly, almost holding our breaths. And then we saw them, two teenaged girls walking along nonchalantly, talking casually about their own concerns, reading their cell phones while also using them as flashlights to find the way. They passed ten, maybe five yards to one side of us, giving not the slightest indication that they ever saw us. We waited till they were well out of sight and out of earshot before we carefully pulled ourselves together and found our way giggling back to the cottage. 

Hey, another first. Fifty-four years old and I've finally had sex on the beach!

What else did we do this week? We watched fireworks, we cooked, we barbecued. Teenaged son had a birthday so we all got cake. We swam in the lake, strolled through the woods, visited the local tourist attractions. I read to Marie and she showed me old family photos. We talked and hung out. It was relaxing and a lot of fun. Life on the beach.

I also found out a few days later that she wrote a poem there about some of our discussions, but somehow I never got around to posting it until 2022. You can find it here: Hosea's Blog: Roads not taken (hoseasblog.blogspot.com). 

Sent from my iPhone

Art of the everyday

Fantasia on a white board

Still life with computer

Collage with Post-It Notes

Threnody for a bid proposal, with paper shredder.

Outside the birds in the trees chirp in classic dactylic hexameter

Homer once heard these same birds, twitt'ring on the Ionian shore.

Aves longae, officium breve.

Home alone

A week ago yesterday (Thursday) Son 1 flew home for the weekend. He's got an internship for the summer back where he is going to school (a day's drive from here, or a couple hours by air) so that's probably the only time we'll see him all summer. But his brother was graduating high school.

A week ago today (Friday) I took the day off work. I spent some time with Son 1, and then my mother drove into town. We had lunch and then drove on out to Durmstrang, for the student awards ceremony. There we met Wife, who was unsteady on her feet and progressively worse as the night wore on. (She looked drunk, and Son 1 said he smelled alcohol on her.) Son 2 won four awards; so did his best friend; nobody else in the school won more than two. So we had plenty of opportunity to play proud parents.

Son 1 drove Wife home and spent the night at her place.

Saturday was Durmstrang graduation. Wife was sober and in much better shape than the night before. Son 2 had a lot of people to say goodbye to. So did I, for that matter, because I had been on campus a fair number of times, talked to the teachers, and knew many of the parents at least by sight. Many goodbyes, many hugs. Then we unpacked Son 2 out of his room and drove home. Both boys came with me.

Saturday night we went to see the latest X-Men movie. 

Sunday morning we saw the latest Avengers movie ("Captain America: Civil War"). 

Sunday afternoon Son 1 flew back to the city where he's working and spending the summer. 

Monday was a holiday so I paid bills and did laundry. Son 2 read.

Tuesday Son 2 had a doctor's appointment. Other than that I went to work and he looked for a summer job.

Ditto (minus the doctor's appointment) Wednesday, Thursday, and today (Friday).

And then tonight I drove him to Wife's place, an hour each way. He's 18 now, so there are no longer custody rules about where he has to be; still, he wants to see Wife this summer ... and she'll be upset if he doesn't visit her ... and she has offered to teach him to drive. So fine, I took him there.

And I am so relieved.

Don't get me wrong. I love both my sons. I like them and think well of them. I enjoy spending time with them

But I am so glad to have my apartment to myself again. After only a week of company, solitude is delicious.

A couple months ago, Marie speculated about whether we would ever live together in a quasi-married state, except that of course legally I would still be married to Wife. But this evening may have answered that question.

It is such a relief to be alone.

Sent from my iPhone

Petulant

I'm feeling grumpy today. Marie was here for a few days midweek, and everything was rosy. Then suddenly -- after her third visit, mind -- she asks me what STIs I've been tested for. Well I've donated blood, which means I've been checked for HIV. But nothing else that I remember. On the other hand ... shit, I haven't had that much sex over the years lately, and I've never, ever had any symptoms. So how worried do I have to be?

She replied with an email that ran in part: 

I'm calling my doctor tomorrow and telling her that the new lover who I thought was low-risk for STIs is instead extremely high risk; that two of his four partners, including his wife of 30-odd years, were promiscuous, never used protection, and he never used protection with them.  Nor did he or his wife EVER get tested for ANYTHING.  

Is that an accurate assessment of the situation, Hosea?

Well no, it bloody well ISN'T accurate. I replied explaining why not, and telling her I'm willing to ask my doctor for a round of tests the next time I see him (next month). That calmed her a bit, but not completely.

On the other hand it also pissed me off. I have these visions of sending her the results of the damned report along with all the books she brought me on this trip, and then canceling our next visit(s). I mean -- shit! It's not like we've even actually fucked in any serious way, because I can't stay hard long enough. A couple thrusts and I go soft again. I never come when we're together. All our love-making depends on my fingers and my tongue. So who exactly is being exposed to bodily fluids here? And you don't see me losing my shit over needing medical reports!

After Debbie broke up with me for not moving faster to separate from Wife (and of course she would have preferred divorce), I decided that when the separation was complete I wouldn't tell her. I didn't want her to think that now we could be all fine again: I figured that if I wasn't good enough before the separation, I'm not willing to be good enough after. And I'm starting to think the same way about Marie and this damned testing.

Why? Why am I willing to be so sulky and petulant? I don't know for sure. Maybe it's because I'm embarrassed at being called out, because I feel ashamed for having somehow appeared wrong. And shame is a very nasty feeling, so it's the easiest thing in the world to replace it with anger. I'm pretty sure that with food and sleep I'll get over it. But I've spent the day grumpy and irritable, and I don't like it.

Good thing I live alone, huh?

Sent from my iPhone

Radio silence

What ever became of Hosea?

I got busy. It's been a busy time. I've been traveling for work -- enough that for March and April I've been away more than I've been at home. I think I wax in the office three weeks out of two months; it would have been two weeks, but at the last minute one trip was postponed till July.

Son 1 won't be coming home this summer. He's got an internship in another city. It's unpaid, so I'm underwriting the venture. But it's work experience.

Son 2 graduates high school at the end of this month, and is going to college in the fall in a city that's a solid two days' drive from here. He's excited. Just yesterday he asked if he can volunteer for a program whereby he volunteers on a farm in France for some weeks this summer in exchange for room and board. This means, will I buy him a ticket to France?

Wife and I have (I think!) ironed out all the kinks of our separation agreement. Not bad for FOUR YEARS.

And I've been writing a lot, but it's all in emails to Marie. I don't know how this relationship will look in the ling term, but she's my best correspondent by far.

Battery's low. Gotta go.

Sent from my iPhone

The ear-bone's connected to the clit-bone and the ....

Earlier this week Marie visited me for a couple of days. Like last time, she visited mid-week. (She works in retail so Tuesday and Wednesday are her weekend.) She cooked dinner for me two nights, which was a luxury. (Although she also broke my cut-glass butter dish. Oh well.) And we talked a fair bit when I was home from work. As always. But the biggest drama was in bed.

Marie no longer laughs her way through each orgasm. So I assume her laughter burbled up out of astonishment and relief after decades of believing herself incurably anorgasmic. And, like my uncontrollable laughter during my Second Date with D, she may have felt partly "Oh my God, this is really happening!" Anyway, her vocalizations are no longer restricted to laughter. But they are loud and gratifying all the same.

Marie's clitoris is neither large nor prominent, and it has a tendency to recede into the surrounding flesh. If I didn't know what I was feeling for, I could easily lose it. Could this explain part of her chronic anorgasmia and sexual dissatisfaction before now -- that her lovers were perhaps inexperienced and therefore clumsy? She tells me that -- before me -- she hadn't had sex in twenty years. That would have put her in her early thirties at the oldest. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that her other lovers were inexpert at their job, though she assures me they were always kind and gracious and considerate.

In any event, her appetite for sex these days is almost adolescent in its intensity. The night she arrived she warned me that she didn't want to do much more than cuddle: she had had a trying week at work and disturbing results from her most recent mammogram, so her libido (she went on) had flown straight out the window. Fair enough. Her flight got in about 11 o'clock at night. I met her at the airport, we drove to my apartment, I held her for a few minutes, and we went to bed. By that time she was already wet and fully aroused. So yes, we made love after all.

Marie never seems to tire of stimulation, of my giving her one more orgasm. Wife used to stop me pretty quickly because she said she got too sensitive after the first one and it hurt. Debbie got sensitive too, although she was more ready than Wife for a repeat. Even D would -- occasionally and after a while -- push my hand away and turn to kissing. Marie will pull me up to kiss her, if my attention has been too exclusively on her vulva. But if, as we kiss, my hand traces its way back down again, she's always willing. At one point she even told me, "I get to where I feel like I really need a breather; but then ... well, you start to distract me again and I forget all about it."

But what seems to have surprised her the most was the fantastic interconnectedness of her responses. I suckled her ear, running my tongue behind it and into all the little whorls; she came. Then it was her neck; then her shoulder. (She didn't come when I suckled her shoulder, but she enjoyed it.) Later on I suckled her toes, running my tongue between them intently. And she responded again. She was on a roll, and it didn't take much to push her from one peak to the next.

Later she told me about a book she had read, where the woman cuts her toe and the man has to bandage it; so to clean the toe first he licks it, and the woman "feels it between her legs." Marie said she had always scoffed at that line as impossible. But she's not scoffing any more.

By the end of Marie's visit the sheets were a bloody mess. Marie was puzzled: she was sure she had reached menopause by now ... hadn't she? I told her not to worry. I didn't add that the same thing happened to D when we first started fucking, though she too was sure she had hit menopause. It must have been a last hurrah by all the parts of her reproductive system: out of work, past their time, but called into action for one last glorious orgy. Not to drift gently into that dark night, but by God to go down fucking. As they should.

We didn't discuss her mammogram a lot, nor some other things that had been on her mind and that she e-mailed me about soon after. But it was a good visit.

Elly at home

This story continues from the post “Hil at home”.

 

Two days later, after more meetings plus an afternoon of beer with former colleagues (and dinner with a new one), I left Germany. But instead of flying directly home to America, I stopped over in the UK to visit Elly. Now Elly and I were never romantically involved either. Twenty years ago we were colleagues, at another company. Then for a while I worked for her. Elly is sweet and not terribly aggressive, but she’s smart and systematic. These days she works as a technical writer; but back when I worked for her there were a hundred others who did as well and she managed annual budgets near a million dollars. A few years ago I started e-mailing her again, and these days (she says) she and I write each other more often – and at greater length – than she and any other ex-colleague from that company. (For many years it was a small startup, so on the whole we were a very close bunch. That’s where I met Debbie too, come to that.)

 

I said we were never romantically involved. But in fairness I have to add that there was a time – recently, I mean, while we have been e-mailing – when I was trying to flirt with her. The flirting was subtle, so that I could always deny it; but my idea was to see if I could nudge her in a physical direction. I never really wanted an emotional relationship with her; besides that she lives on the wrong side of the Atlantic Ocean, so the whole exercise was always kind of theoretical. But back when I worked for her there were certainly plenty of nights when I whacked off to thoughts of her, and for a couple of years now (before Marie came back on the scene) I’ve been without somebody. So it was a private game – and as I say. I never said anything to her that couldn’t have been taken innocently – but there’s no question that I entertained a couple of lascivious fantasies in the back of my head.

 

At the same time, it was always really clear to me that they were fantasies. I was trying to nudge her in a physical direction, at least in her mind, but she remained resolutely un-nudged. This is in contrast to (for example) Marie, who proved remarkably easy to nudge. I assume Elly never noticed that I was trying to nudge her; in any event she never showed the slightest indication that she had noticed. My two-sided comments just went sailing past her.

 

Still, we hadn’t seen each other in something like 15 years, and here the company was prepared to send me as far as Germany – clear across that Atlantic Ocean. So why shouldn’t I stop and visit?

 

Actually I had thought of that originally a year ago, when I had another trip to Germany to make. But there wasn’t time to make the plans and she had other things going on. Then I was supposed to go in the fall, let her know, she made time in her schedule … and the trip was cancelled for budgetary reasons. So with this trip – thirteen months since I first floated the idea – she made sure to clear her schedule. Even though I was arriving the weekend of Mother’s Day (that’s in March in the UK) she arranged for her ex to have the kids so she could spend the day with me. It was flattering.

 

Elly met me at the airport. Middle age doesn’t make any of us look better – the skin around her face sags today and she has a pot belly – but it was clearly her and she was in a good humor. “Gosh, Hosea, you sound so American – haven’t you lost that accent yet?” We made our way to the airport hotel where I had reserved a room, left all my luggage there, and then found her car. In all our pre-visit discussions we never quite figured out “What should we do with the time?” so she drove me back to her place. And as we were leaving the airport and about to merge onto the highway, we were rear-ended.

 

It was a low-velocity impact; probably neither of us was going over 30-40 miles per hour. And we were traveling the same direction. But it was a real jolt, and Elly had to get out to exchange insurance information with the other driver. Our conversation was a lot more subdued after that, until we got to her house. Then she went into the bathroom to throw up. She came out and offered to make me some coffee, but was clearly jittery. “Elly, it’s OK. You can relax now.” I touched her shoulder. “I think I need a hug.” “I think you do.” And so I held her for a couple of minutes.

 

It didn’t get any steamier than that. In fact, that was probably the tenderest moment of the visit. But it was good. After that she called her insurance company. Then we walked to a local pub for a late lunch and a beer. We talked about our kids, our divorces, and the coworkers we used to share – who’s doing what now, who’s still in touch, who’s disappeared. We took a long walk through her neighborhood on the way back, still talking. A few hours later we drove to dinner, and then she sent me in a taxi back to the airport – not wanting to risk that particular drive again the same day. I gave her a kiss on the way out the door, but demurely on her cheek. I texted her when I got to the airport, and she texted back that she had had a wonderful day.

 

I’ve said nothing about her house, but in fairness I have to. When I talked about Hil, I suggested that the state of your living space is a mirror of sorts, that it says something about the people who live there. Elly has primary custody of her two children – an autistic son and a daugher, aged (I think) 16 and 14 respectively. So it’s not just her who lives there. And – unlike Hil – she didn’t know we were goi ng to end up at her place. But it was even more cluttered than Hil’s house. The dining table was covered with papers, old dishes, and empty (but unwashed) food containers. The sofa had things all over it: some were papers, some were in bags, … I don’t remember what all was there. The counters of the kitchen were covered with dirty dishes. I don’t know quite what I expected, but that wasn’t it.

 

Some of my expectations were met. As in Hil’s house, there weren’t a lot of books: I’m fond of Elly and can fantasize about her sexually, but she’s no intellectual. She’s even smart, but she doesn’t live in her mind and her ideas, the way I do. That’s part of why I can imagine sex with her but never an emotional commitment – we don’t speak the same language. We don’t live in the same world. In the longest run we would always focus on different things. And so we can be friends – even good friends – but never real friends, not in the deepest sense.

 

There were movies – Elly likes movies. Tellingly, her taste is more like that of Son 1 and Son 2 than it is like mine: she likes James Bond and Star Wars – adventure movies – but doesn’t have much interest in art house movies. I recommended “Brooklyn” to her months ago, but she hasn’t seen it yet. “Carol” or “The Danish Girl”? I didn’t bother to ask. (Now actually I like Star Wars too; but I’m at best tepid on James Bond.)

 

Elly had cupboards full of nice dishes. I didn’t see anything similar at Hil’s place, though it’s possible she kept them elsewhere. But then, I would have expected Elly to like nice things. She also had alcohol: bottles of wine sitting out, cordials, gin in the cupboard. Beer.

 

But the dirty dishes with old food scraps? I don’t know what to make of those. Elly recently took a new job, one that is demanding crazy long hours from her. And she is a single mother. But her job, for all that it is demanding, is at nothing like the level she where used to work. She dresses more sloppily than she used to. I wonder if she has given up, … or is starting to give up?

 

Sometimes I wonder the same thing about myself, especially when I think about my career. I don’t dress like an executive – even an executive wearing casual clothes. And the barenness of my apartment cannot look any snappier than the clutter of Hil’s house or Elly’s.

 

But maybe I can make a point of doing the dishes a little more regularly.

 

 

Hil at home

I’m on my way home from a business trip to Germany, during which I was able to visit two friends at home.

 

The purpose of the trip was to attend a workshop for all the people in my division who do the kind of work I do. (You remember I work for a big company.) Hil put on the workshop, which means she was mostly pretty busy during the whole week. But Thursday night she invited six of us to her house for dinner. “The last years we worked together very often and very close and for me our relation changed from ‘just’ colleagues to friends. It is great to have you here in ---- this week and I thought it might be a great chance to invite you to my home, sitting together and enjoying the time.

For this reason I would like to invite you for Thursday evening – after we finished the workshop - for a small dinner at my house.”

 

You remember that my friendship with Hil has never been romantic, and clearly there couldn’t be anything romantic about an invitation to six people. But it was kind and personal. Everybody says invitations like this don’t come easily in Germany. So naturally I was happy to accept.

 

Is a home a self-portrait? In some ways yes. Unless you live alone, your home won’t reflect you exactly; but surely it reflects the collective personality of your family or housemates, of the corporate entity that lives there. My apartment, for example, is very spare: there’s a dining table and a bed but no other furniture; bookshelves and art, but no other artifacts. And this somehow fits with my living so much in my head rather than in the tangible world – except for food and sleep, food and sex. On the other hand the house I shared with Wife was chronically cluttered and usually dirty: dominated by Wife’s obsessive need to hold onto things (heirlooms, artifacts, memories, grudges), by her depression and indolence, and by my resentment of her expectation that the rest of us lived to serve her.

 

Hil’s house is very cluttered. She explained that “In Germany we don’t have family rooms, so we put those things in the living room instead”: this would explain, I suppose, the exercise machine and large television in the living room. And she has two little girls, aged seven and nice. (She is divorced from their father; and while she has a boyfriend, he has his own house down the street.) Does all this explain that there were no empty level surfaces except the dining table? Maybe that’s just the clutter that comes of single motherhood, plus Hil’s busy worldwide travel schedule. There were bookshelves but not a lot of books – not real books, anyway, except for a huge number of glossy coffee-table books about ancient Egypt and the secrets of the Pharaohs. Somebody in the family really loves this one subject, but nobody in the family is an all-around intellectual. There were a lot of Disney princesses, and a lot of family photographs. Hil clearly dotes on her two girls. I already knew this from the way she talks about them every time we work together, so I wasn’t surprised to find it in her house.

 

How often does Hil entertain? Maybe not a lot. She sat us all down at the dining room table, and offered us drinks: apple juice, water, or non-alcoholic beer. It sounded like she keeps no alcohol in the house. Then she left us to go work in the kitchen making pizzas, until the time she could put them in the oven and join us: this meant we were on our own for – what was it? – half an hour? More? I remember when my father used to make pizza at home for guests, and he always invited everyone into the kitchen to talk and socialize as he worked. Not Hil. To be fair, her kitchen isn’t large so there’s not much space for company. But it felt a little awkward to be left to our own devices for so long, especially as we didn’t all know each other. We’re all in the same line of work, but what we have in common is Hil. And we didn’t even have any alcohol as a social lubricant ….

 

Even when the pizzas were ready it felt a little awkward at first: she made three pizzas but they were done at different times, so we each took a slice of each pizza in turn, a little self-consciously, rather as if we were following a schedule. By this time Hil was with us, though, and the conversation picked up somewhat. But then, somewhere between the second and third pizzas, it all began to click into place. The magic of sharing food began to do its work; we told stories, we laughed, we melted together as a single party rather than just a group of people who all know Hil. By the time we were done and going back to our hotels it was late and nobody was ready to leave. It was fun. In the end, it was fun.

 

I continue this story in the post “Elly at home”.

 

 

Phone sex

In all my 54 years I've never had phone sex -- until this week. I was travelling for a few days, which meant spending Tuesday night through this morning in a hotel. Marie's work schedule has her off work Tuesdays and Wednesdays. So I offered to call her Wednesday morning ... maybe we could talk for a bit.

In an e-mail some weeks ago, Marie had broached the idea of phone sex, because she finds herself getting wet at the sound of my voice. At the time I hadn't replied with much conviction either way. But I remembered her idea in the back of my head.

So she called me about 7:00 Wednesday morning. At first we had reception problems. She moved out to her living room because the connection had dropped in her bedroom ... which meant she had to put on a sundress in a hurry. This told me she had started out naked in her bedroom, which means she was thinking the same thing I was. But then she worked her way back into her bedroom and the connection held.

For a long time we talked about this and that; nothing terribly sexual, but just talking. It almost seemed like we had both forgotten the idea of trying sex this way, or given up on it. And that conversation was fine too.

And then I started musing, "Gosh, it would be so nice if you were here ...."

If you were here lying beside me I could kiss you. I could stroke your face and run my fingers through your hair. Then after a while I might nibble your earlobes just a bit ... and maybe run my tongue up and down the ridges of your ears. I could kiss the front of your neck with my lips and tongue while stroking the back of your neck with my fingers.

And then I think I'd run my fingers softly over your shoulders. I'd run down your arms, pausing at the soft skin on the insides of your elbows. You know, skin like that is very sensitive and it gets ticklish easily ... so I'd rub it just firmly enough not to tickle, but still softly enough that you knew it was a caress. I'd stroke the rest of the way down your arms to your hands, hold them, and feel each finger. Then I'd work my way back up to your underarms, and caress them in the same way -- just firmly enough not to tickle, but so that you still new it was a caress.

From there I'd run my hands gently across your breasts. Oh, it looks like your nipples are standing up, so I'd kiss them ... lick them, suckle them, maybe even bite them gently. While I was kissing one, I'd trace my finger around the other -- around and around, pinching gently and then caressing the rest of your breast.

From your breasts I'd let my hands drift across your stomach and down to your sides. I'd rub your hips and feel the soft hair on your legs, caressing the outsides all the way down to your knees. I'd caress the backs of your knees, again taking care to be just firm enough that I didn't tickle; and then stroke your calves down to your feet. I'd nuzzle your feet for a while: rubbing the soles, kissing each toe, and running my fingers gently between your toes. I might even suckle your toes briefly.

From your feet, I'd start back up on the insides of your calves, ... your knees ... your thighs. When I got all the way up, I'd run my fingers up and down the very outside of your vulva for a little while, and the same time that my other hand rubbed across your pubic mound through your pubic hair ... pushing down just a bit so you could feel the pressure. After a minute or two, I'd start peeling back the petals of your labia, one at a time, until I could dip my finger in to tell if you were wet yet or not.

At various points throughout this description, Marie had murmured "Oh my!" or "Oh yes!" When I got to this point she confirmed, "I'm very wet." I went on.

From there, what I think I would do -- by the way, this is kind of like "Sesame Street", you're invited to sing along at home! -- is to insert one finger inside you and let it slide in and out for just a minute or two. My middle finger. Then after a minute I could curl either my index finger or my thumb, depending on the angle, so that it could caress your clit. I'd do this gently at first ... and then do a little more ... and then more ... and more ... and more. More. More. 

And then the laughter started. Like before, it began to bubble through the phone, incoherently, uncontrollably, ecstatically, ... on and on. All the while I murmured in her ear "Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes!" And she laughed and laughed and laughed.

When she was quite done she asked about me. She didn't have a story line to tell me, so I just described as closely as I could everything that I felt and experienced as I masturbated. It didn't take as long, because I was more businesslike handling myself than I had been with her. But it was still very nice. And then we wound up the phone call.

Later that day I got an e-mail from her that ran, in part:

It's a very good thing we don't have Skype, because I would certainly have abused it this a.m. if it had been available. It's quite a shame that you missed the visuals, however, as you would certainly have enjoyed them -- the squirming, the wild thrashing, the drumming of the heels. It occurs to me that you are still stuck in your hotel tomorrow morning; and that while it's a normal workday for me, I'm not scheduled until 11am. I had been planning to go to the pool again, but it seems to me that if I want to get wet, exercise my cardiovascular system and lungs, and give my lower body a good workout, there are more pleasurable means of doing so than the stationary bike. Besides, we are both good enough scientists to know that only reproducible results count.... As in, "Please sir, I want some more!" Might you be amenable to another 7am call?

I was. We had another phone call Thursday morning, just as agreeably.

Friday -- today -- we had to stop. I had to leave my hotel early and Marie found that she was waking up so early in anticipation of our calls that she wasn't getting enough sleep at night. But when she wrote me Thursday evening to say so, she did add one other comment about that morning's call.

I should possibly mention, too, that scheduled calls should have ... well, built in time on my side at least for ... um .. recovery. For now at least. If you hadn't taken care of me this morning, I would have had to take care of myself! And you're more fun ....

Really? My voice has enough of an effect that she has to masturbate after talking with me on the phone? Wow ... who knew?

I'll blush quietly now, as I sign off for the evening.
    
    

Asynchronous reporting

It looks like I haven't been writing a lot lately, but that's not really true. What's true is that most of my writing has been e-mails and text messages to Marie.

The only way I'll ever be able to catch up the story is to start posting those here, or excerpts from them. And the only way to keep the chronology straight is to post them as of the time they were really written, not as of the time I get around to pasting them into this blog.

That means going back in time and posting things in the past. If anybody is actually following this blog at this point -- which I suspect nobody is -- there's a risk you could find it confusing. You'll log in today and see seven posts in January plus one (this one) in February; later you'll come back and if you only look at what has a date later than this one you might see nothing new ... even if a bunch more posts have been added in January.

So consider this a WARNING: when writing about Marie and my developing relationship with her, I will not restrict myself to posting in current time. You may have to back up. I won't give anything a date earlier than November 28, 2015, so you won't have that far back to go. If I remember, I'll add a note explaining what day I actually posted something.

In fact, the next post I write after this will be dated a week ago. So please don't be confused.

This has been a public service announcement from your blog management .... 
 

Laughing

Marie just left to fly back home. She was here for three nights visiting. I had no available vacation just now, so I was at work during the day and nights were really all we had. It was enough.

Marie had a lot of worries before making the trip, though they were overcome by her desire to see me. Probably her biggest worry was that she would be incapable of orgasm: for decades she has described herself as frigid, ... as permanently anorgasmic. But then I had also explained that my own body is slowing down. She worried that she wouldn't lubricate, and that we would have to buy a commercial lube. She had tried using a Japanese eggplant as a sex toy and found it was painful because it was too large -- it had been twenty years since the last time she'd had sex, and so her cunt wasn't well-stretched.

She needn't have worried.

Yes, it's true that it was difficult for me to slide inside her ... more so because I didn't get very hard. Also her thighs didn't spread apart very wide or very easily (probably from lack of practice) and she has gotten quite fat in the decades since I saw her last -- another reason the mechanics were awkward. Of course, Wife used to be quite fat, so I didn't hold it against Marie. But the mechanics of actually fucking were awkward.

On the other hand, she lubricated beautifully. Copiously. Easily.

And the "frigidity"? Well, Marie was prepared for the prospect that she wouldn't come. She was ready simply to enjoy whatever she enjoyed and leave it at that. So we kissed; and we caressed. She spent some time kissing and fondling my penis, appreciating the texture and the weight. I licked her ears, kissed her neck, suckled her breasts, pinched her nipples, and then worked my way slowly down her front. I kissed and licked -- slowly at first. I inserted a couple of fingers and curled them up to massage her G-spot. Then I kissed and licked a little more intensely ... and a little more ... and more. I rubbed her inside and out ever faster and with ever more urgency. She breathed heavily, mumbled and moaned appreciatively, rocked her hips a little ...

And then laughed.

And laughed.

And laughed.

The laughter came tumbling out, unstoppably, in waves. It sounded like she was trying to talk over the laughing, but soon I realized it was nothing coherent ... just jumbles of random consonants sprinkled here and there among the laughter. The laughter which flowed out of her, on ... and on ... and on ...

And on!

Finally she had to stop. She waved at me, a little vaguely, please to stop and to come up to kiss her, to hold her. So I did.

We held each other for a while and then maybe we did something else before finally drifting off to sleep.

The next evening, when I got home from work, we were talking for a while. I brought up the previous night a little gingerly, in case she was self-conscious about it, so that I could tell her, "I don't know what it felt like from your side; but from my end, ... if you can't come you sure do a hell of a good imitation." Marie laughed -- a more conversational laugh this time -- and replied, "So maybe I should take the word can't out of my vocabulary? I've been thinking today perhaps I should replace it with the word multi-orgasmic." And she laughed again.

That night was much the same, except she tumbled into her orgasmic laughter a lot sooner. I guess practice makes perfect.

She has stopped talking about frigidity. She has stopped talking about being sexually damaged or inadequate. She smiles and laughs a lot more these days. She's a lot happier.

It was a good visit. I'm glad.


NOTE: I found myself wondering ... why laughter? At first I thought perhaps she felt some kind of anxiety about what was going on, sort of like the one and only time I've been afflicted with uncontrollable laughter in bed, which I described ... oh wait, I guess I haven't. (Just checked.) It was one of the times I was fucking D during the extraordinary "Second date" -- I think probably this time here. And it was because all of a sudden I realized, "My God this is really happening." Somehow our First Date hadn't registered with me the same way, possibly because it was all so new. But with our Second Date I suddenly realized, "I'm in bed naked with a woman who is not my wife. Wife doesn't know about it and hasn't given permission. I am sneaking around behind her back to do this. So this is an honest-to-God affair, and it is really happening, and it has become a real thing. And we are about to start fucking in just a minute ...." And I started to laugh. I laughed uncontrollably for a few minutes before I could go on. All because the whole thing had become too big for me, all at once. But when I asked Marie she said it felt to her more like relief ... after all the stories she had told herself for so many decades about her sexual incapacity, after all the misery she had inflicted on herself with these beliefs, to be past all that was the greatest relief ever.

Also I googled "laughing during orgasm" and found that it's not all that uncommon. Anyway, it's all good.


[Posted on Friday, February 19, 2016.]

Icarus

I wondered how long it would take me before I wrote Marie a sonnet. This one took an hour and a half over lunch today. (Well, then a few hours later I came back to make some minor improvements to the scansion and in a couple other spots.)

You have to realize that in a way it's really cheeky of me to send Marie a sonnet. When we were in college she knew far more about poetry than I did and read a lot of it. She also wrote. Time and again she would give me a piece by one of her favorite feminist poets -- or by herself -- and I would flounder around helplessly not understanding it. As a side note, none of these poems ever rhymed, and none was in iambic pentameter. Not that that's a bad thing.

The images came to me because the tug between safety and risk is a big deal for Marie: it is a big part of how she understand her life. She said that when she first heard from me last fall she strongly considered not writing back, because she felt that engaging with me again would be emotionally unsafe. The course of prudence was clearly to keep silent. But then she reflected that she had been taking the safe course of action for several years by now, and all it had bought her was safety ... and stasis. Maybe it was time to risk something, ... just a bit.

Anyway, I thought about that for a while and decided to put it like this:

You know the fate of Icarus too well:

Those wings his father made, that let him go

Too near the sun. Wax melted. And he fell,

Smashing his body on the rocks below.

 

For safety you should live life on the ground:

A house, a yard, some money set aside,

With walls and fences built up all around –

A fine and private place where you can hide.

 

And yet you’ve met me on this precipice.

Our wings are stoutly made and bound with tar.

It’s sudden death if we but step amiss.

To skulk back down is safer, sure, by far.

 

But look, my love, and see the boundless sky.

Come take my hand – and leap! – and let us fly.    

I have a new girlfriend

Yup. Marie.

She still lives 1100 miles away. But maybe I shouldn't have taken her quite at her word when she expressed all the strong reasons she didn't want a new romantic partner.

Not sure when we will get a chance to see each other. She's going to call me Wednesday evening, which will be the first time we have heard each other's voices since the early 1990's. This has all been by e-mail.

You remember back in December when she said she wanted nothing to do with me, but I could write if I wanted to? At the time I characterized that slim permission as "a glimmer of hope." Probably I should have characterized it as winning. The only thing she would allow me to do was write? Skin me alive, boil me in oil, but whatever you do don't throw me in that briar patch .... 

I shouldn't gloat. But it has been a couple of years since Debbie left. Maybe it's time to find out if I have learned how to handle romances a little better and with fewer bad habits.

It's also true that there is something intoxicating about the challenge of seduction. Wish I were a little younger so that I felt more desperate urgency about the sex at the end of it all. But it will be great to see Marie again, to be friends with her again ... and maybe to handle bed a little better than I did before.