Friday night, I was home in time to do two loads of laundry before midnight.

Saturday was a pretty good day.

Started out with a small gathering at the Red Cup in the morning.  In the afternoon, I joined a group of people put together by the Debster for the purpose of forming a Socrates Cafe discussion group.  I do so admire the Debster for her inspirational attitude of doing something rather than just talking about doing something.

In the evening, I had dinner with the lovely Juliet, went back to the Red Cup for an hour and then a few minutes listening to the acoustic set at GSpot followed by a few minutes with a couple of regulars at Isis.

Home again with plenty of time to spare to sit in my living room wingback chair, browse the internet with a cup of hot chocolate and a little jazz on the radio while a fire crackled and the cat perched on the back of the chair above my left shoulder.  I was again in bed before midnight.

This morning, I’m literally in bed with my laptop atop my lap and I’ve read the NY Times and the Wash. Post and looked at the new vids posted by John X and M Carp while Sinatra streaks from window to window to see the birds and squirrels.

One of the habitues of Isis was James, whose heart is weak but good and gentle.  He told me he’d spent a little time closely observing me from afar and that his main thought was that I seemed “content.”

As the poet Robert Burns observed, it’s quite a gift to see ourselves as others see us.

I think of contentment as my goal rather than my lifestyle, personal style or manner.

On the inside, it seems I’m often restless, discontent and irritable.

I may have to reconsider that attitude towards myself and my life.

After all, I have a lovely and quiet home that brings me a lot of joy.  I’m surrounded by artwork produced by the creative urges of people I know and care about.

I drive a nice car.  It’s not the jazzy two seater I had last year, but it’s a very nice vehicle.

I have a lovely wardrobe. 

Self employed, I make a living but I don’t have to show up at a particular time and I don’t answer to much of anyone about anything I do.  For example, Friday afternoon, I went to the studio of the Oz and he and I whiled away some sunshine going to get some keys duplicated and then to far south OKC to take possession and inspect a home that is in a probate estate.  Bluntly, I sorta fucked off Friday afternoon, but got paid for it.

I have a support system of friends and family that is very satisfying and fulfilling.  Mom’s frisky and feisty and that’s a big plus.  I have children and grandchildren I adore and who enhance my life simply by their very existence.  I do interesting things and meet interesting people. 

I have time to read and write and contemplate and blog and fulminate and roar through that avenue.  The diversity of my acquaintence delights me: transexuals, Europeans, gays, straights, Africans, Asians, people from the India subcontinent and S. America, rich, poor, middle class, right, left, radical, believers, non-believers, drunks and recovering drunks. Citizens of the world, all.

What more do I need to be content?  As MB says of herself: I have all I need all around me. 

This morning, as I write, the computer is churning out a playlist of soothing music:  Yo Yo Ma is playing some Brazilian pieces right this moment. 

The Sumatra coffee beans I ground this morning make a full flavored and “round” cup of java at my side and a cigaret burns in the ashtray invitingly.

Another X, privacy shattered Sharon, is getting married and I so love her and wish her the very best.  This news makes me very happy and I find the circumstance soothing, calming and I love her enough that I’m glad for her because I know how much it pleases her.  That seems extraordinary to me that I would have those feelings, and I’m happy for that.  No jealousy, no envy, no snarky bullshit.  I’m really pretty lucky on the score of X relationships.  I want them all to be happy.  I still love all the ones I once loved.  I am sincerely glad that my Xwife is remarried.  I want her to be happy and get what she wants out of life.  Barbara Jellybean remarried and it always makes me glad to see her and see her seemingly happy.  I have other Xs still out there looking and struggling for a good relationship.  I’m wistful about the loss of some of the relationships, but it would make me sad if they never reached their goals and I don’t really have any deep regrets about my lovelife.  While I’ve been grousing about my current situation, I’m really sort of, well, content to let the universe unfold as it should without me thinking that I’m taking control of the situation.

Still, the nature of my mind is such that I’m so easily diverted from this path of serenity and contentment.  Perhaps others also see me as content.  Know ye this:  I must forcefully turn my mind in that direction.  It takes an act of conscious will for me to center up and get content.  I must remind myself to get perspective (“How much will this matter in 5 years?) before I have any perspective at all and the alternative is that I’m all excited about someone else’s problems. I must take an active role in reminding myself of all my blessings in order to calm down and be secure in my surroundings.  I must sit down and tell myself the truth others intuit effortlessly:  most people are just doing the best they can at the time and almost always with the best of intentions.  It’s very likely not about me at all.

Shakespeare wrote that “there is nothing good nor bad but thinking makes it so.”  Perhaps you prefer the more modern and perky “attitude is everything”.  Whatever.  In all events, I think myself content this morning, thanks to James’ nudge in that direction.  Now, don’t fuck with me, I’m where I want to be.

I watched the Bill Murray movie, Groundhog Day, last night.  Not sure that was the best film for my present circumstances.  bill goes to the groundhog day festivities and gets caught in the small town by a blizzard and caught in a Feb. 2 timewarp in which he repeats the day over and over.  Sounds a little familiar.  Can’t get out because of the weather and every day seems like the one just before.

I’ve been on a journey to the most dangerous place in the universe:  between my ears.

Talked to Little Miss Sunshine today about sex, love and relationships.  During this confab, I noticed that I’ve dated women in every age category from 20 to 60 except one:  age 35-40.  I wondered if that was just chance or if there were another explanation.  LMS says it’s because women that age are interested in children, marriage and career and a guy like me just is not on their agenda/radar.  Plausable and interesting response.  I wonder if other readers agree.

Seems like some female OCU night law school aspirant would snap me up.

I don’t know.

I also have been radically rethinking my relationships.  I wonder if I’ve been dating similar women, even if I’ve focused on their differences rather than their similarities.  I wonder if the bubbly younger women, the desperate divorcees in their 40s and the accomplished 50 somethings might all be the same wounded girl on her arc from youth through middle age.  What do you think?

Again, LMS’s input:  John’s wounded and only wounded women will be interested; unwounded ones want nothing to do with those of us who are wounded.

Again, not the most optimistic and hopeful response from Little Miss Sunshine and a little insulting even if true, but I wonder if anyone/everyone else agrees.  Nevertheless, an interesting and plausable response, LMS.

Then there are questions about relationships that only I can answer:  what are you looking for?  what do you want? 

I’m not sure I’m even asking the right questions at this point.  I wonder if I’ve accepted a cultural paradigm of coupling up and living some kind of happily ever after without questioning this as a premise.    To ask that question implies putting a lot of things on the table: celibacy, bigamy, polygamy, profligate promiscuity, for example.

At this point, I’ll admit that it occurs to me that part of my problem with relationships is that I overthink the hell out of every damn thing.

If I’m honest with myself, I’m not easy.  I’m not easy to live with and I’m not easy to put up with.  I’m demanding and thoughtless both at the same time.  I can be both unforgiving and relentlessly resentful.

On the other hand, I can be exceedingly kind and thoughtful, funny, a great partner for conversation and coffee, sexy and a lot of other really great stuff.

Knowing this about myself, why am I surprised when some victim/hostage gets frustrated and conflicted?

As to the best of my relationships, I must admit my own part:  I participated fully in the sabotage/denoument of each one.

Put another way, I have not demonstrated the ability to build a longlasting and fulfilling relationship.  I think it’s fair to say relationships are not my strong suit.

I also think it’s fair to compare myself to an acquired taste.  Scotch, for example, and perhaps an apt comparison.

I told you going between my ears is making danger the destination.

 

I have a sinus infection and bronchitis.

I have another large medical expense deduction for this year’s taxes.

Dr. Feelgood says I will stop smoking NOW or spend the rest of my life with an oxygen tank strapped to my back. He says oxygen tanks are not sexy and I will never again get laid.  Why didn’t nobody ‘splain it to me like that before?  I thought I smoked BECAUSE it was sexy.  That’s what all the commercials on TV said back when I started at age 15.

I am a sad man with stopped up ears, a running/stuffy nose and a hacking cough.

whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune …

 

I’m restless, discontent and irritable and that’s no place for a recovering alcoholic.

I’m also lethargic, isolating and just about autistic with hypervigilant anxiety and that’s no place for someone who’s chronically depressed.

In other words, it’s a full moon, folks, and John’s werewolf side is coming out.  I can’t stay awake during the day and I can’t go to sleep at night.

(Hum it along with me now, folks … “I saw a werewolf having a pina colada at Trader Vic’s…his hair was Purr-fect.”)

I guess I won’t know until the sun goes down whether I’m homicidal, suicidal or just nuckin’ futs.

Aaaaahhhhhhh-ooooooooohhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

I didn’t go to work today.

I’m home with the double ugly triple inverted Ickky Yuks.

Or, at least I think that’s the technical name for it.

Not to be confused with the “yaks”, which is merely an onomatopoeic substitute for the more precise “technicolor yawn.”

I am queasy, though I’m so empty that a nonchalant dry heave is all I could expect to muster up.

I went to the office to get files to work on, but you know how that goes.

Meanwhile,  I can’t get my contacts in my eyes because they are so red, itchy, scratchy and running.

I can’t breathe through this throbbing proboscis.

My hacking dry cough contributes to the queasiness.

And, most of all, I feel like that coifed Nickles Bills-ite in the black Lexus who almost ran over me yesterday and then just sat crossways in the parking lot while she talked on her cell fucking phone actually DID run over me.  SOMETHING ran over me, of that I’m sure.

I only got 11 hours sleep yesterday, so I’m tired.

shut the fuck up.

 

No “Girly Show” for me last night.  I stayed at home.

Didn’t even go to dinner with my Paseo crew.  Actually, I was headed home about 5:30 p.m. and stumbled into an AA meeting.

I’ve been going to night-time AA “speaker” meetings lately to accommodate a new sponsee and I thought a regular meeting by myself would do me good.  It did.

Unbeknownst to me, this was the third Friday of the month and that’s when the Western Club has a pot luck dinner and social hour.  So, just by inertia, I ended up having dinner at the AA meeting.

It was very much like the Wednesday night Baptist church prayer meeting dinners I used to be dragged to by my sainted mother back when I was a kid.  Long tables, plain food, women bustling around getting everything just perfect and guys circling around trying to get a taste of this and a flirt with HER.

About 8 p.m., I came home to the cat.

My house can get very quiet when it’s just the cat and me.

Sinatra showed off, played, thundered up and down the hallway and climbed over all the couches and chairs.

However, eventually, he calmed down and climbed up in my lap for a thorough petting, nose to tail. 

A warm cat on your lap, purring loudly, is a soothing thing.

I tried watching some television, but I seem to have lost the knack of it.  It just didn’t engage my attention.

God forbid that I do any of the chores around the house that need attention: laundry, dishes, cleaning the toilets.  On Friday night?  Ugggghhhh!

I thought about getting up and putting on my boots and hitting GSpot about 10 p.m. to hear the band.

I fixed a cup of hot chocolate instead.

By the time I’d re-checked the political webpages and read some international news and sipped the cup of hot milk and chocolate down to the black dregs, it was definitely bedtime.

At home in bed before midnight on Friday night, accompanied only by a mongrel feline.

My dashing playboy bachelor image will just have to take the hit.

My interpersonal skills dropped off the low end of the scale yesterday.

Not once, but twice yesterday someone was a good enough friend to call me on my bullshit and say that a remark of mine was out of line.

Guilty as charged, your honor.

If you only knew how much I’d like to avoid personal responsibility and blame this on last night’s full moon.  Alas, no can do.

From my personal and interior point of view, the matter is made worse by the fact that my mouth and brain were disconnected by my worry over a case in which I bear personal responsibility for bad lawyering.  That’s actually pretty rare for me over the past 20 years and I’m not happy with myself or the situation.

I let my personal disappointment with my professional performance spread bad juju to my personal relationships.

And, it wasn’t even merely the two friends who confronted the situation.  The lovely Juliet took some poor behavior in stride, forgiving me without ever saying a word, but clearly disappointed in my behavior.

I’m sure there are others who had the misfortune to encounter me — store clerks and other anonymous souls — who put up with my moodiness.

So, this OU-TX weekend, I’m thinking about this out loud on this blog.

As many of you know, I’ve made some changes in my life lately.  Principally, I’ve put a much higher priority on my work and devote much much more time to my law practice.

I haven’t done so quite as thoughtfully as I might, it occurs to me.

When working expanded in my schedule, other things took a back seat or disappeared from my day altogether.  I haven’t given any thought until today what was left in and what was left out.

One of the things, I now realize, that has been absent from my life that once was a focus of my life is “getting centered”.  Formerly, there was a time every day (or nearly so) that I read, prayed, got perspective, meditated, or just was quiet and undisturbed.

I knew that I had lost my daily blogging and journaling and thought little about it, but it’s now more clear that those things helped me keep my perspective and articulate what was going on with me internally.  Those things were in my life for a reason: they help me understand what my place is within the universe and what my own role is in life, especially my own life (whether I shall be the hero or the villain in my own life, Charles Dickens).

When I’m thinking about how I messed up my case and what I can do to escape the consequences, I’m not in the now, I’m in the past and the future.  When I’m thinking about how I can cover my own ass, I’m not considering how I affect others, what they will feel if I unleash my cynicism and bile.

One of the things I said yesterday for which I was called down directly implicated my sobriety.  One of the many reasons I quit drinking was that alcohol destroyed my filters and I very often awoke with a sense of dread and remorse about something I’d said the night before.  Over the years, I’ve destroyed many relationships by the simple expedient of being an asshole with a penchant for vivid language and hyperbole.

I’ve also today had occasion to remember that my estrangement with one of my sisters is about how much like me she is and how much I hate to see my own character flaws reflected in her (“you spot it, you got it” is the AA aphorism).  She does not seem to be able to be happy and feel good about herself unless she’s tearing me down and it wears on me.  Now, I must confront the idea again that I sometimes leverage myself up by pushing others down.

This redeployment of my time and energy seems to have exacerbated this problem.

Another way of looking at the problem is that I’ve been so concerned with my own stuff that I’m inconsiderate of others’ feelings.  This is particularly piquant personally because I’ve gone so far as to break off romantic relationships because I was so important that some woman’s inability to pay 100 percent of her attention to me 100 percent of the time offended me — how could they be so inconsiderate? 

What is most distressing for me about this is the sense of hopelessness and despair that I will ever be free of these character flaws.  I have the sense that I can be made aware of the problem and that I can analyze the problem and can even mitigate the behaviors, but that it’s such an integral part of my character that I’ll never be rid of it.  It’s a neverending fight for truth justice and the american way, Superman.

I’d like to just stop here and say, OK I have a problem with my mouth and I’ll try to be better and I’ll make sure I have a time every day to reflect and that will help with the problem.

I can’t do that.

The reason I can’t just stop at that point is that the problem is metastic. 

I’ve not written, composed a poem, painted, done sumii for a very long time.  I know that I do those things not just to express my creativity, but also because it feeds and nurtures my soul and enhances my life.  I’ve let my time budget get out of control and I’ve been thoughtless about my priorities.

Playing off a theme near and dear to a lawyer’s heart, that time IS money, it’s like I’ve needed clothes and bought an Armani suit and needed to eat, so I went to Coach House for steak au poive, but meanwhile, I can’t pay my electric bill and the lights are off at the house.

Lately, work has overwhelmed all other time priorities.  Lately, my relationship with the lovely Juliet (whatever the hell that relationship is) has been a high priority.  Lately, politics has consumed my interest and I spend an inordinate amount of time on the internet pouring over polls and commentary.  Then there is the immediate shiney object on the ground that distracts me like the cat barf I just found on the carpet that caused me to stop this blogging and reach for the cleaning materials and the mental note to talk to MCARP about same.

I have not been very good in my life with monetary budgeting and now I find myself forced to confront the consequences of that and pay attention to financial priorities and I am very much struggling to do at 57 what others learn much earlier.

I am not very good at keeping to a schedule and a schedule is very much like a budget, except for time rather than money.  Now, I find myself forced to confront the consequences of that and pay attention to my priorities and I am very much struggling to do at 57 what others learn much earlier.

I know I’m not the first one to struggle with a budget or a schedule and that there’s wisdom out there so that I don’t have to invent the wheel all over again.

However, after one says “here’s how to make a budget” or “here’s how to make a schedule”, there’s still a problem:  what, after all, ARE my priorities, either financial or timely?

I would like to have some balance because it seems that having balance would ameliorate other problems, like running off my mouth because I’m so feckless and inconsiderate when I don’t pay attention to getting centered or running up credit card debt because I’m so hedonistic I go to coffee and ride around with the top down instead of billing files.

Once one is budgeted, scheduled and prioritized, where is the spontaneity and surprise?

I bet I’ve seen, scanned and dismissed a thousand stories about women trying to balance work and home.  That’s their problem, I thought.  How is that problem different from my problem?

My reality is that I can budget, schedule and prioritize, but eventually will simply tear all that down because I so hate being regimented that I despise even my own authority to do so and blame the world for that regimentation rather than myself.

All at once, it seems, a minor problem of a social slip — a gaffe directed at a friend — becomes a psychological crisis of conscience.  All at once, it seems, a simple task of making a budget and a personal schedule becomes an existential crisis and a philosophical question of what is important in life.

Hell, I’m not sure I have the time and money to budget, schedule and prioritize because I’m on my way to a sports bar to watch OU play Texas and then to an art studio tour and I’ll hook up with Juliet for a party after that and …

 

been writing this blog for months now and the biggest written response ever is to a piece about my kitten.

“chickpeabree” who are you in real life? I may already be in love with you.

you be like Sinatra and I’ll be like your puppies.

Chinese proverb:

A fish and a bird might fall in love, but where will they live?

Sometimes I wish English had the 14 different words for love the Greeks used. Brotherly love, patriotic love, god-like love, lots of different words for love. Agape. Perfect love.

After it’s all said and done, aren’t a lot of us just looking for that love we will NEVER get — the love we didn’t get when we were kids. Can’t go back in time and make us feel loved as children. No matter who loves the adult us in the here and now, it won’t substitute for that childhood love we missed. It’s the wound in the soul that just won’t heal, the slash across the heart we can’t forgive or forget.

As I age, the difficulties of love compound. I have my baggage. About a ton of it. Steamer trunks and makeup cases, two suiters and overnighters. These bags naturally accumulate with experiences and experiences naturally accumulate with age. So it also is for everyone I meet. Every single woman I ever will meet for the rest of my life will have experiences, some good and some bad, with men. No virgins at my age. And, therefore, the difficulties get more complex. I get less trainable and more brittle with every passing day. So does everyone else, especially the eligible women in my age brackets — they have children and hot buttons and have learned ever more effective methods of manipulation to get their way. It’s not a gender thing, kids. I’m not being a misogynist. I’m learning how to manipulate better and better every day just as they are. The more immutable my boundaries, the more I want perfect forgiveness and flexability in YOUR boundaries.

My friend, SuzArt, says she’s no longer seeking a man who is perfect, she just wants someone who can match socks. It’s a bitter joke, of course, because it’s SuzArt. Nevertheless, it’s an important point. If you lower your standards enough, there’s someone out there who is more desperate than you. We become so desperate for someone to understand and put up with our crap that we clasp everyone who seems remotely likely to hang in there for more than a weekend. Then, we’re surprised when we find ourselves desperately hanging on to someone who doesn’t love us and that we can’t stand.

For whatever it’s worth, here’s how I feel about it:

A. The nature of relationships

All love relationships have three overlapping parts (triune brain, Skip?). Each person must be intellectually challenged and challenging. Each person must be emotionally fulfilled and fulfilling. Both must be sexually satisfied and satisfying. If you only have one of those things with your partner, you’ll either not last long or have a very sick relationship. Two of those things can drag out a relationship for a long time, but it will ultimately fail. It takes all three for a rewarding and lasting relationship.

Mind, body and spirit. All three have to match.

Not easy.

B. Passion is key

From my perspective, it’s better to give yourself passionately to the relationship and fail than to never give yourself over to your passion. Yes, it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. For me, I must be led by my hopes and not driven by my fears or I am lost. While it is true that you will not be hurt if you never let yourself be vulnerable, neither will you ever be fulfilled, nurtured and at peace with your nature as a human being. I do not like going from one woman to another. I do not like having to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. I will not die, sleep and have dreams of a real life that I miss out on by staying on the couch watching television. Like Teddy Roosevelt, I insist on getting in the ring and fighting, even failing, rather than be one of the cold souls who never knows what it’s like to fight for anything. More than that, I wouldn’t want to lose the good times I’ve had in several relationships, even if it means I must suffer the heartache of the end of the relationships. I’ve had my share of spectacular failures, but they were made spectacular by the intensity of the good stuff that preceded the end. The pain of the ending does not diminish the joys of companionship while it lasted.

I will never give up because to do so is to turn my passion for life against myself and for me that is a recipe for a slow and painful death.

C. You, me and us

For every couple there’s the three again. There’s you, there’s me and then there’s us; the “us” is like a third character all its own.

This is an incredibly important point.

You can be a very good person. I can be a very good person. The relationship can be shit.

Unfortunately, we tend not to blame the relationship, we tend to blame each other.

My experience as a divorce lawyer has taught me a good lesson there. Blame is the most worthless of activities when it comes to relationships. There’s usually plenty to go around, if it becomes necessary to someone. But, it’s a lose-lose deal. You blame me and I’ll blame you. Then, instead of any good feelings about someone whom you once cared about greatly, one is left with the bitterness of blame.

What about the dawg who runs around with other women?, you may ask. Isn’t he to blame?

Of course, his running around is not good. On the other hand, my experience teaches me that more often than not, whoever is running around it’s because one or more of the three things (in part A.) is missing. The relationship was sick before the running around killed it. It seems to happen most often when one or both of the parties are unable or unwilling to identify and articulate some other problem in the relationship. Does that mean I condone promiscuity? No, but it does mean I understand it for what it is. On the whole, adultery is merely the symptom of a greater problem.

If you think about people you know in relationships, the importance of the “us” third party becomes apparent. You know people you don’t understand how they can be together when you think of them as individuals, but you know the relationship works. He’s dull. She’s silly. As a couple, they are fun and they relate well. He’s a great guy. She’s a terrific woman. Together, they are a train wreck. Fire is good. Gunpowder is good. Together, explosive.

There’s also the “too much of a good thing” phenomenon. It’s like when you were a kid and had your best friend over for a sleepover and try to extend it to Sunday. By the end, you’re both grumpy and at odds. Sometimes, togetherness gets to be too much. Especially at my age. I’ve got times when I want to be alone and clip my nose hairs and trim my toenails and take a large, long crap and read a book. I don’t want company. My oh my but that’s a problem if you need some reassurance just when I need solitude. I love you, honey, I really do, but will you please get off my back? Again, it goes both ways.

At one time, John and Joy Reed Belt lived side by side in a duplex. That seems at times to be so very smart. As we get older, it seems smarter all the time.

D. Doing the nasty

1. Sex is so problematic.

It’s ruined so many otherwise good relationships and cemented so many bad ones.

Sometimes it really does seem like our parents, grandparents, siblings and all our former lovers are sitting at the end of the bed making comments while we make love.

Make love? Also when we’re just fucking. Yeah, I think that’s two different things, indistinguishable to the observer but obvious to the participants.

Sometimes you want to make love. Sometimes you just want to be good and fucked. Sometimes, it changes in midstream. Sometimes, it’s hard to say what you want, except that you know you aren’t getting what you want.

2. Sex can really kick up some strong stuff in us.

Most recently for me, here’s some observations … .

I understand you want monogamy. It’s a good thing since it tends to promote trust, a vital ingredient for a good sex relationship.

I don’t care about m0nogamy as much as I care about sexual satisfaction. I need monogamy, mostly, to have a sexually satisfying relationship.

However, it gets to be a trap.

If one is promised and determined to be monogamous, your partner has some control over your sex life. He or she can withhold sex and you are left without recourse. To go to another partner destroys the essential trust in the relationship, but your trust is impaired by their refusal to consider your desires plus your inability to make them have sex when you want it.

In my view, some sort of agreement to provide sexual satisfaction 24/7 must be a part of the mutual promise to be monogamous 24/7. In my view, sometimes you should gut up and have sex for the sake of the relationship, even if your heart’s not in it at the start.

Maybe that’s just me.

3. The most important sex act is kissing.

It’s the one we do the most often. It’s the platform from which all other sex acts are launched. If the kissing isn’t good, I won’t be happy. If the kissing is great, I’ll put up with a lot of downside in other areas.

Just about everything else can be worked out or taught or something. I don’t think you can teach good kissing. It’s either there or it isn’t. If I kiss you and leave you, it doesn’t mean you aren’t a good kisser, it does mean it isn’t the kissing I’m looking for and don’t know what else to do. I think it’s a real insult to tell someone they are not any good at kissing. It’s not likely true. Bad kissing for me might be good kissing for someone else. I like my kissing a little on the “dry” side. Not too much slobber, if you don’t mind. I like both light and hard kissing in its place and I like to work up from light to hard and then back off and start the spiral again at a slightly higher level.

I’ve had some great kisses.

I’ll never forget a kiss on an elevator, nor another on a dance floor. Those two women are long gone, but they will always be in my memory. I like the unexpected kiss. I like the highly anticipated kiss, the one you’ve been waiting for.

I rarely like the drunken kiss. It’s too bad so many women (men too?) can’t let go and kiss until and unless they’ve had a few drinks. I understand inhibitions, God knows, but I prefer to believe I’m being kissed because I’m worth it and not because you are out of your mind.

4. Everything is sex

If you’re doing it right in a relationship, everything is sex. Getting up in the morning and having coffee together is just foreplay for the next time. Going to the grocery together is foreplay. Cooking dinner together is foreplay. Quietly cuddling on the couch in front of the television is foreplay.

When the relationship is good, everything you do together is done with love and attraction.

As a result, both parties are getting the emotional fulfillment they need to make the sex really great. It builds the trust and caring and concern and everything else that’s necessary to really good lovemaking. It can also just build the lust needed for a good fuck. Couples should do both. They should make love, of course. They should also just haul off and screw the brains out of their partners every once in awhile, just to clean out the pipes and have fun. Both of those things are made better when everything is foreplay, everything you do together is sex.

5. The one night stand

Ugh.

You can find yourself in a place in your life where it seems like a necessary evil.

For me, it mostly leaves me feeling used and empty.

Once you’ve made love with someone you really care about, fucking someone you hardly know just won’t get it.

It’s like drinking to forget. It works for a night, but then there’s the hangover. Whatever you were trying to forget is just all that more poignant the next day. The gap between what you want and what you get is too great for me.

Will I do it again? Probably. Hope springs eternal in the human breast.

Right now, however, nope. I’m not in a place in my life where it appeals to me. I’d rather go home to Sinatra than face that “how do you take your coffee” question in the morning.

E. Miscellaneous

1. Talking

There’s a saying heard at times in court that there are some bells you can’t unring. It’s the same with words. You can apologize until the world is level, but once some things have been verbalized, it’s always going to be there in the air between you. Oh, if I could only take back some things I’ve said to someone I love. The oddest thing about this phenomenon is that it doesn’t work the other way. A million “I love you”s won’t be any good if there’s a “I hate your fat ass” floating around.

2. Expectations

An expectation is merely a resentment that has not yet ripened. If you merely expect your partner to do this or do that or understand this or that, you will soon be filled with resentment at their failure.

3. Character flaws

We all have them. Your partner will also have them. Do you really want a partner who is “perfect”? I think the best we can do is look for a partner who has flaws we can live with and hope they can live with our flaws, whatever they may be. I HATE being treated like a second hand car that will be just fine once I’ve been washed, waxed and get a new carb kit. I am NOT a house to be repainted and carpeted and the kitchen cabinets redone. Please don’t treat me that way until you are perfect. Physician, heal thyself. Then, you can start work on me, as long as I don’t mind being hooked up with a saint. I don’t want a saint. I want a live, honest-to-goodness woman. I’m never going to be perfect. If that’s what you are looking for, move along. Start dating seminarians or something.

4. Hold my fucking hand!

I flirt. The lovely Juliet says I “clock” every woman who passes. Maybe so. Try just holding my hand. I’m not going to change some things about me, even if they are odious. But, if you hold my hand, the flirting and clocking is harmless. Let it go at that. Besides, I need the physical reassurance. It’s a two-fer. You take the sting out of my flirting and you also bind me closer to you. Is that so hard? Isn’t it better than a fight neither of us will win?

5. You can’t get it right

You aren’t perfect.

They aren’t perfect.

The relationship isn’t perfect.

Get over it.

Now he’s gone and done it.

Didn’t write about sex at all.

He wrote about love.

The bastard.

Did you know the idea of romantic love is relatively recent? There wasn’t such a thing for the first 150,000 years of human civilisation, it’s only been since the damn French and Italian Renaissance bastards thought it up that it entered popular culture, a mere couple hundred years ago.

Soulmates? Damn, kids. 6 billion people on earth. If you got a soulmate, their name is Chin and they live in Beijing or they are part of the teeming poor of India. No chance whatsoever you’ll find your soulmate in Northwest Oklahoma City. Fuhgettaboutit.

Ask any good shrink. Love is just you projecting your crap on someone else. That’s it. Oh, and a little lust de jour, of course.

Yeah, I know.

I watch movies, too.

Grand and passionate loves at first sight (or, at least within an hour and a half movie).

Crap.

Do you also think there are androids that look like the California Governor walking around trying to terminate people from the past?

Yeah, enough people in enough couplings and maybe every once in awhile, two of them really really hit it off and have a great and lifelong relationship. What makes you think that MUST happen for everyone?

Helluvalot easier for there to be lifelong loves, by the way, when people hooked up at 16 and died at 40, which was the way things pretty much went until World War II and lifespans started getting attenuated to 75.

Of course, all that cynical stuff about romantic love is for the benefit of you guys.

Me, personally, I happen to know for a certain fact that a soulmate is right around the corner for me and that I’m one of the special ones who will find just the right woman to last the rest of my days.

The rest of you, stop being silly.