The women i dream of, when dreams are all there is...
What does not having sex for two years do to a person? My fantasies have been expanding to include women i don't even know...
And my impregnation fantasies show no sign of abating...
GARAGE SALE WOMAN
A vendor at a garage sale, from whom i bought a gloria steinem book and joe jackson cds. I'd never met her and was a little sleepyheaded, but the chatting we shared (initiated by her) was more than obligatory. Her daughter had just moved to NY, and i told her how i had lived there cheaply. The rest of the day, i kicked myself for not giving her my number. It wasn't a strong animal attraction on my part, but her energy was gentle and bright. That night, i fantasized about being her lover, and eventually meeting the daughter, who becomes smitten with me. One night, the lonely, antsy daughter can no longer stand hearing (through an adjoining wall) her mother and i making love. She knocks on our door, and slips into our bed. The three of us cuddle languorously, with my back to the mother, and the daughter's back to me. The mother's hand brings me to erection, then directs me toward her daughter. A grandchild is born...
The following day, i biked by her house. She wasn't home, but i left a note saying to call me if her daughter had any questions about her new home.
C
A clerk at my favorite health food store, we always talk. Thinking about the first time i felt her spirit actually open up, makes my heart feel funny. I feel a bit tongue-tied with her - i'm used to thinking of a clever or funny response to something she says, two minutes too late. I feel so profoundly capable of loving her the way she should be...a kind that virtually never happens in this lost, alienated, negotiated world. Making her spirit fly by offering her my entire being, even if that's not the best choice for my life (or if it caters to a self-destructive, monogamous paradigm in which she might be trapped). I dream of making her feel a purity of love that renders her incapable of hiding...of impregnating her, ten hours or ten years from now...
MASSEUSE
Living a non-materialistic life, choosing to have only what i need, makes me sad only infrequently. If i had unlimited money, i'd get several massages a week (at least). Not having had sex in over two years, i haven't really been touched since 2013. Mild backache is a constant companion. With my savings for my next move piling up, i have plenty of extra cash. Remembering fondly my investigative essays about the sex trade in NY, i've recently been thinking of returning to an asian massage parlor. One particular memory (and accompanying fantasy) spurs me on. I remember a massage i received in Yonkers. As the woman finished, she gently took my penis in her hand and asked whether i wanted more. I took her hand, and said "Only if you want me to be your boyfriend" (i normally don't use a word so stupid as "boyfriend", but english was her second language, so i tried to keep it simple). She said yes. I asked whether she wanted to come home with me. She nodded. Was she sincere? Of course not, screams any sensible person...men are money to her. And yet it seemed that there was a sadness and hope in her eyes...
I let the moment slip away though, because...who can say? Suspicion? Fear? We're all so broken.
And now i dream of that moment being recreated, a thousand miles away...but this time, the masseuse comes home with me. Maybe she's a slave in the asian-american sex trade, and coming with me means she has to go into hiding, and live with me. I happily allow it.
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Thursday, November 19, 2015
ritch-22
Perhaps the greatest catch-22 in human history is that poor people don't have the wherewithal to change the world...and rich people don't have the desire. What is being rich? It's the easiest life on this planet. In a million ways. And yet ultimately being rich is...stressful. Could there possibly be any more damning testimony against our current social order? Those with the easiest lives are unhappy. Poor people understand how wrong things are. I mean fundamentally, back-to-the-drawing-board wrong. Yet should a poor person ever become rich, a very singular mental paralysis kicks in - a combination of fear and selective memory makes them feel that this world CAN be saved...as long as we don't do anything radical. But radical change is all that stands between us and the end of mammalian life on this rock.
Ask a rich person whether their life is hard. At first, they'll demur. Yet most of them, with little prompting, will soon be happy to offer you a litany of woes. But suggest any sort of reality that removes them from their wealth, and the most seamless rationalization machine you've ever seen will kick into high gear before your eyes. Even if they were once poor, and saw with perfect clarity the absolute inhumanity of this world, they will now argue that the suffering of the many for the sake of the few is...right. Don't hate them, don't try to save them. If you were in their shoes, you too would suddenly believe that what you once understood with perfect clarity, is now wrong.
Perhaps you're one of those who believe that the world is okay? Disturbing yes, horrific sure, incalculably unjust...yet we're, uh, getting by? Yes, getting by, it's not so bad. We've got chocolate, beer, and blow jobs! Maybe we should try all three at once! And maybe for a few weeks when you were twenty-five, you felt like you were truly loved and understood. Never mind every other day before or since...just a dry patch, right?
Well, no.
An illustration - most people would agree that being single is hard. An ass-kicking, degrading, hollow-stomach freak show. But then things fall in line, and you get...married! Leaving all that misery behind, yes? It must be true, you saw it in a movie. But there comes a time in the life of every married person when they suddenly understand that BEING MARRIED IS HARDER THAN BEING SINGLE. What?? How can that be? But you push those thoughts away, because of the heady cocktail of social stigma and a lifetime of pro-marriage propaganda. And then...you become a parent. Finally, something pure and good. The most rewarding thing you'll ever do, so they all say. But then, a month or a year later, you wake up in the night with the paralyzing realization...PARENTING IS HARDER THAN BEING MARRIED. Not even close, really. Suddenly, all the things you were taught are the exact opposite...and it's a progression that's always one step ahead of YOU.
Having a family is hard. Not having a family is hard. Having a job is hard. Not having a job is hard. Getting drunk is hard. Not getting drunk is hard.
What does ANY of this have to do with rich people and that catch-22, you scream???
Only everything.
Being rich is about selling...an idea, a cookie, a widget. Ultimately, selling yourself. And it turns out that everything in this world we've created is a reflection of that paradigm. Sell it. Sell it again. Sell it every moment of every day. Sell sell sell...YOURSELF, until you die. Then, when you can no longer breathe...take a breath(?)
This paradigm has pushed us into a reality in which everything has a price. Dreams, integrity, your children's future...sold.
Gone.
Poor people can't change the world. Rich people don't want to.
Kiss a mammal today. They don't have many todays left.
Ask a rich person whether their life is hard. At first, they'll demur. Yet most of them, with little prompting, will soon be happy to offer you a litany of woes. But suggest any sort of reality that removes them from their wealth, and the most seamless rationalization machine you've ever seen will kick into high gear before your eyes. Even if they were once poor, and saw with perfect clarity the absolute inhumanity of this world, they will now argue that the suffering of the many for the sake of the few is...right. Don't hate them, don't try to save them. If you were in their shoes, you too would suddenly believe that what you once understood with perfect clarity, is now wrong.
Perhaps you're one of those who believe that the world is okay? Disturbing yes, horrific sure, incalculably unjust...yet we're, uh, getting by? Yes, getting by, it's not so bad. We've got chocolate, beer, and blow jobs! Maybe we should try all three at once! And maybe for a few weeks when you were twenty-five, you felt like you were truly loved and understood. Never mind every other day before or since...just a dry patch, right?
Well, no.
An illustration - most people would agree that being single is hard. An ass-kicking, degrading, hollow-stomach freak show. But then things fall in line, and you get...married! Leaving all that misery behind, yes? It must be true, you saw it in a movie. But there comes a time in the life of every married person when they suddenly understand that BEING MARRIED IS HARDER THAN BEING SINGLE. What?? How can that be? But you push those thoughts away, because of the heady cocktail of social stigma and a lifetime of pro-marriage propaganda. And then...you become a parent. Finally, something pure and good. The most rewarding thing you'll ever do, so they all say. But then, a month or a year later, you wake up in the night with the paralyzing realization...PARENTING IS HARDER THAN BEING MARRIED. Not even close, really. Suddenly, all the things you were taught are the exact opposite...and it's a progression that's always one step ahead of YOU.
Having a family is hard. Not having a family is hard. Having a job is hard. Not having a job is hard. Getting drunk is hard. Not getting drunk is hard.
What does ANY of this have to do with rich people and that catch-22, you scream???
Only everything.
Being rich is about selling...an idea, a cookie, a widget. Ultimately, selling yourself. And it turns out that everything in this world we've created is a reflection of that paradigm. Sell it. Sell it again. Sell it every moment of every day. Sell sell sell...YOURSELF, until you die. Then, when you can no longer breathe...take a breath(?)
This paradigm has pushed us into a reality in which everything has a price. Dreams, integrity, your children's future...sold.
Gone.
Poor people can't change the world. Rich people don't want to.
Kiss a mammal today. They don't have many todays left.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
gingerturd leftovers
As a writer keenly concerned with feminist issues, righting the wrongs of patriarchy is never far from my mind. When i take on a project like revising (or reimagining) classic fairy tales, the awareness of how steeped in chauvinism all our myths are, can be daunting. I don't want to overreach for the sake of polemics...sacrifice entertainment for the sake of enlightenment...but at what point should you just throw the baby out with the bathwater? Is it stupid to even try to improve inherently flawed product? Do you compromise too much by retaining the skeleton of the old structures, in the hopes reaching more people? It's a tricky line to walk.
What do you do with a canon of literature in which old or ugly women are virtually invisible, except when used to personify evil? How do you make women a vital force, without making them copies of brutal, amoral males? How do you turn a man's world into a human world, without coming off as a man-hater?
One method is gender-swapping - take some iconic or heroic character, and make him a her. I considered doing so with both "the gingerbread man" and "the man who laid the golden turd". Enough male protagonists! But...the rhyme scheme of the well-known "run run, as fast as you can" refrain just doesn't work with "gingerbread woman". Plus, the traditional ginger demise at the hands of a fox was easily translatable into a "foxy lady" - and would have felt forced the other way around. Still, did i pass up on a chance to make a strong point about how our society abandons single mothers? In "gingerbread woman", that would have been the straw that leads to her suicide. Would it have been more off-puttingly depressing for a gingerbread woman to kill herself?
Similarly, i considered "the woman who laid the golden turd"...but even though some of us may admire (or just envy) the male lead character i went with, there is an inescapably sleazy quality in the way he hoodwinks the town. It felt more appropriate to give that sleaze to a male. I originally made the metallurgist a male too, but realized that that might make the women seem like nothing more than a subservient harem to a male power structure. With a female metallurgist, i tried to imply that all these women might be quite content with their lives, and were nobody's slaves. In doing so, i chanced having a woman of authority too closely associated with male sleaze, but it seemed worth the risk.
I've come up against these choices in the past. On one occasion, it was such a close call that i wrote two versions - "goldilocks" and "goldilad". I thought goldilad was worth a try, because of all those female bonobos acting so sensibly sexy...and in any kind of traditional telling of goldilocks, the female lead (yay!) is rather passive and mealy (aww).
But "goldilad" didn't work quite as well as its big sister, right? Just not as entertaining.
Ah well. Such fine lines we satirists walk. Perhaps my best work in this field happens the further away i wander from the original tales' skeletons.
And i think the same fate would have befallen "the woman who laid the golden turd". Some male objectification would have been a lovely "shoe on the other foot" touch, but the overall picture would lack sharpness. Don't agree? Okay, you asked for it...
What do you do with a canon of literature in which old or ugly women are virtually invisible, except when used to personify evil? How do you make women a vital force, without making them copies of brutal, amoral males? How do you turn a man's world into a human world, without coming off as a man-hater?
One method is gender-swapping - take some iconic or heroic character, and make him a her. I considered doing so with both "the gingerbread man" and "the man who laid the golden turd". Enough male protagonists! But...the rhyme scheme of the well-known "run run, as fast as you can" refrain just doesn't work with "gingerbread woman". Plus, the traditional ginger demise at the hands of a fox was easily translatable into a "foxy lady" - and would have felt forced the other way around. Still, did i pass up on a chance to make a strong point about how our society abandons single mothers? In "gingerbread woman", that would have been the straw that leads to her suicide. Would it have been more off-puttingly depressing for a gingerbread woman to kill herself?
Similarly, i considered "the woman who laid the golden turd"...but even though some of us may admire (or just envy) the male lead character i went with, there is an inescapably sleazy quality in the way he hoodwinks the town. It felt more appropriate to give that sleaze to a male. I originally made the metallurgist a male too, but realized that that might make the women seem like nothing more than a subservient harem to a male power structure. With a female metallurgist, i tried to imply that all these women might be quite content with their lives, and were nobody's slaves. In doing so, i chanced having a woman of authority too closely associated with male sleaze, but it seemed worth the risk.
I've come up against these choices in the past. On one occasion, it was such a close call that i wrote two versions - "goldilocks" and "goldilad". I thought goldilad was worth a try, because of all those female bonobos acting so sensibly sexy...and in any kind of traditional telling of goldilocks, the female lead (yay!) is rather passive and mealy (aww).
But "goldilad" didn't work quite as well as its big sister, right? Just not as entertaining.
Ah well. Such fine lines we satirists walk. Perhaps my best work in this field happens the further away i wander from the original tales' skeletons.
And i think the same fate would have befallen "the woman who laid the golden turd". Some male objectification would have been a lovely "shoe on the other foot" touch, but the overall picture would lack sharpness. Don't agree? Okay, you asked for it...
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
animals
The clever monkey
hides in the trees
The clever dolphin
hides in the seas
The clever bear
hides in caves
The clever stingray
hides in the waves
The clever dung beetle
hides in turds
The cleverest of all
hides in words
hides in the trees
The clever dolphin
hides in the seas
The clever bear
hides in caves
The clever stingray
hides in the waves
The clever dung beetle
hides in turds
The cleverest of all
hides in words
Sunday, November 1, 2015
naked nurse 12
SOOTHING OUR SOCIAL/SPIRITUAL/SEXUAL STRIFE
Dear naked nurse,
The fist bump. Yay or nay?
-colorblind in Canarsie
Dear colorblind,
On the surface, it's easy to jump right in. An innovation from the black culture replacing a dusty white tradition? Sounds great! But if you're white and you try it, you perhaps can't escape the nagging feeling that someone's playing a joke on you? Black men are just waiting for you to make a fool of yourself? Then...a brother shares one with you, and everything feels okay. You're progressive! Inclusive (and patronizing)! Give yourself a pat (er, bump) on the back.
Settle down. Take a look at not just the bump, but what it's replacing - the handshake. Figure out the non-verbal shorthand (so to speak). A handshake is what's known as a mimic gesture - a copy of some larger behavior. In this case, the handshake is a mimic of a hug. Two people wrapping themselves around each other (or coming as close as they can, given social restraints). In this world of brother killing brother, color killing color, and everyone killing another, a mini-hug is a whole lot better than no hug at all. It's often the first step toward peace (uneasy or not).
What is a fist bump, body language-wise? As best i can figure, it's either a mimic of 70s cartoon superheroes the wonder twins (unlikely), or...antlered animals head-butting. You can dress it up with hipness and camaraderie, but that's the non-verbal core.
In a world in which civility is strained and universal siblinghood DOA, how can ANY version of a hug not be preferable?
Plus, have you noticed that you never notice women (of ANY color) fist-bumping? Good for you, feminine intuition. As for myself, i've always preferred the roman/Beastmaster forearm squeeze...but that's just me.
So if someone offers you a fist bump, try wrapping your fingers around that outstretched fist. And hug!
multiplicitous mergings,
the naked nurse
Send queries to nakednursing@yahoo.com!
Dear naked nurse,
The fist bump. Yay or nay?
-colorblind in Canarsie
Dear colorblind,
On the surface, it's easy to jump right in. An innovation from the black culture replacing a dusty white tradition? Sounds great! But if you're white and you try it, you perhaps can't escape the nagging feeling that someone's playing a joke on you? Black men are just waiting for you to make a fool of yourself? Then...a brother shares one with you, and everything feels okay. You're progressive! Inclusive (and patronizing)! Give yourself a pat (er, bump) on the back.
Settle down. Take a look at not just the bump, but what it's replacing - the handshake. Figure out the non-verbal shorthand (so to speak). A handshake is what's known as a mimic gesture - a copy of some larger behavior. In this case, the handshake is a mimic of a hug. Two people wrapping themselves around each other (or coming as close as they can, given social restraints). In this world of brother killing brother, color killing color, and everyone killing another, a mini-hug is a whole lot better than no hug at all. It's often the first step toward peace (uneasy or not).
What is a fist bump, body language-wise? As best i can figure, it's either a mimic of 70s cartoon superheroes the wonder twins (unlikely), or...antlered animals head-butting. You can dress it up with hipness and camaraderie, but that's the non-verbal core.
In a world in which civility is strained and universal siblinghood DOA, how can ANY version of a hug not be preferable?
Plus, have you noticed that you never notice women (of ANY color) fist-bumping? Good for you, feminine intuition. As for myself, i've always preferred the roman/Beastmaster forearm squeeze...but that's just me.
So if someone offers you a fist bump, try wrapping your fingers around that outstretched fist. And hug!
multiplicitous mergings,
the naked nurse
Send queries to nakednursing@yahoo.com!
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