The Weekend in Memory and Desire

I don't spend as much time in D.C. as I'd like to. Despite the fact that I work in Bethesda, which is right on the border, I live in an exurb, so whenever we go downtown -- usually to see the symphony, the opera, or a play -- it takes an hour and involves driving and parking. Well, b&c drives and park, and I try to pretend that I don't expect him to drive us into a bus or statue at any moment. Anyway, when we drive in, we almost always pass at least two or three places that I remember because I once (or more than once) hooked up with someone who lived there. It's a very pleasant lens through which to view the city, or at least it's far more amusing than dwelling on my imminent traffic-related death.

I tend not to remember boring sex, so if I still have an association of a location with a play session, it's a pretty good bet that the sex was exemplary. I suppose that if I'd had a horrific experience, I'd remember the places where those happened, too, but so far I've never had a jealous boyfriend or wife come at me with a sharp implement. Then again, I'm still young.


I don't always think about past sex in the car; sometimes, I just fall asleep instead. I did this past Friday night when I walked from the office over to Austin Grill to meet b&c for dinner and then we drove down to the Kennedy Center. That's only a half-hour trip, but when we got in the car, I made the mistake of asking what we were going to be hearing, and the following exchanged ensued.

B&c: Mahler's Third
TED: Oh God.
B&c: What?
TED: Well, let's see. Since I've known you, we've seen Mahler's First twice, we've seen Mahler's Ninth, we've seen Mahler's Eighth, and now we're going to see Mahler's Third. This guy must have written like five or six symphonies, at least.
B&c: Actually, he wrote nine. That's why there's Mahler's Ninth. Oh. That was a joke, wasn't it?
TED: Jesus Christ. Have we met? Of course it was a joke. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Leonard Slatkin said that after Mahler wrote the Eighth, he wrote a full-length piece that included some vocalists and that he didn't call a symphony but that Slatkin says really is a symphony, so that the Ninth might actually be considered the Tenth. I only pretend not to be listening. Anyway, what else is on the program?
B&c: Nothing.
TED: What do you mean nothing? You mean it's a forty-minute program. Sweet! Maybe there is a god.
B&c: No. The Third is actually a ninety-plus-minute symphony. So it's ninety minutes without an intermission.
TED: Did you hear that?
B&c: Hear what?
TED: That was the sound of God dying. Again.

And then, because the concept of a ninety-minute symphony is simply too horrible to contemplate, I went to sleep. We got to the Kennedy Center early, as we invariably do. B&c gives a small amount of money to the KC every year, so they let us in a few minutes early, and we went to the minor donor's lounge (they call it something else, I think), where I got a cup of coffee, in the vain hope that more caffeine would allow me to survive the symphony.

I have to say that I'm pretty much over Mahler. I mean, some of the symphonies are great, but all of the conductors/music directors in DC and Baltimore since I've known b&c have had a major hard-on for Mahler to the point where your chances of hearing a nice Beethoven or Mozart (and the list goes on) symphony are vastly diminished. B&c says that we have Leonard Bernstein and a host of gay music graduate students who lived in New York in the fifties to blame for this state of affairs. Whatever. We started chatting about other things we'd seen or were going to see, including Carmen, which is sometime soon.

TED: I'm actually looking forward to Carmen. I've never seen it live, and it's four acts, but it's not unduly long, is it?
B&c: It depends on which version they do.
TED: Do you mean they might do the version where Carmen decides to leave behind her life of sin and emigrates to the new world where she takes a job as a clerk in a government office and lives happily ever after on a defined benefit pension plan?
B&c: No. I don't think Bizet actually wrote that version.
TED: Pity. Her aria about the full funding limitation would doubtless have become a standard.
B&c: Doubtless.

As it happens, b&c was wrong about the program. Instead of the ninety-two-minute (I checked) symphony without intermission, the interim conductor (Ivan Fischer, who has a lovely Hungarian accent and could surely be depended upon to make the trains run on time) was going to give a brief talk before each movement, and there would be an intermission after the long, long first movement.

Oh, the humanity.


Anyway, I slept until nine or so on Saturday morning, then I got up to take care of some chores. We had arranged to travel into town again with some friends to meet some other friends to have dinner at Alero and then see Chuecatown at Reel Affirmations, the DC-area LGBT film festival. B&c had a driver showing up at 6am Sunday morning to take him to the airport for his flight to Managua, so I told him to be sure to be packed by 5:30, when Christopher would be showing up for a pre-drive drink. B&c spent most of the rest of the day muttering about how he should have opted to stay home Saturday evening. I ignored his muttering. Around 1, my buddy J., the Republican, called to ask whether I could change the dinner reservation to include two of his friends who wanted to see the movie with us. I told him I'd try, but that I wouldn't try until he was sure that these guys were definite about coming. I know these guys, and they're pleasant enough, but they're not very reliable. J. said he'd call back "right away." When I hadn't heard from him after an hour, I decided that what I really needed -- because I had a solo at church the next day -- was a haircut. After my last hair atrocity, I was afraid to go back to the place I'd been going to, so I drove down to the local barber shop. On Saturdays, this place has the twin advantages of shorter waits and a staff of non-Caucasian male barbers, all of whom fill out the backs of their jeans just the way backs of jeans are meant to be filled out. They were watching a football game, of course, but there's no pleasure without pain, I reckon. Then I drove home, and, at 3, J. called back to say that his friends had decided not to accompany us for the evening because they wanted to see the earlier movie because the movie I'd selected had subtitles. As I regard reticence to see films with subtitles as a moral failing (even when, as was likely the case here, that reticence is due to an expectation of being too drunk to read), I was unable to feel any regret at their failure to join us, especially since it meant that I didn't have to call the restaurant.

Besides, I'd just had my hair cut, which almost invariably means that I'm a) covered with hair, and b) horny, so dealing with J.'s friends' (and J.'s) whinging about subtitles was the last thing on my mind. I almost felt bad about taking b&c away from his packing, but I figured I wouldn't have another chance before he flew off to Nicaragua, so after I got out of the shower, I lay on the bed and read for a few minutes until he came to join me. He was still grumbling about the packing, but there's always a sure way to shut him up. I was considerate enough to only take forty-five minutes of his time, though. What can I say? I'm a giver.


Because of a traffic incident and a miscommunication with another friend, we were late leaving the house to head into DC. Fortunately, Christopher and I had each consumed a martini, but I was still feeling unduly tense, as happens whenever I fear being late for a dinner reservation. Still, we drove down sixteenth street, and when we got to the place where fifteenth street runs into it, I couldn't help noticing the apartment building of a guy I used to hook up with occasionally a few years ago. He was twenty-four and a very eager bottom. He was completely unreliable, but heavens he was limber. He moved to L.A. back in '02 or '03, I think. And not much later, we drove by a larger apartment building where lived (and likely still lives) a very hot Latin bottom whose ass I would eat until he begged me to fuck him. Sadly, he was very enamored of both drama and self-righteousness, and seeing him became untenable, but what an ass he had. And I'd just stopped thinking about how much I used to love rimming him when we parked and walked briskly to the restaurant.

Dinner was fine, and despite an incredibly slow ticket-buying line, I managed to get our movie tickets between the arrivals of the Margarita and the entree. My friend Custer was due to show up with a date, but he was coming later, so we ended up leaving his tickets at the will call. Chuecatown was an entertaining indictment of the real estate development profession. I thought that Victor (the real estate guy) was far too sympathetic a character, but that may have been because he was played by Pablo Puyol, who may have the world's most photogenic ass. In fact, the last time I'd gone to a movie at Reel Affirmations, I'd seen Sr. Puyol's ass (and the rest of him) in 20 Centimeters, and when said ass made its first appearance, my FWP Bing, who was sitting next to me and who had had perhaps two drinks too many at dinner, cried out, "Oh my God." The ass was certainly worthy of the exclamation. For reasons that were never entirely clear to me, Bing soon afterward lost interest in hanging out with me (with or without privileges), and I grew tired of having my invitations refused or not answered and stopped contacting him. So I hadn't seen him for going on two years when he showed up at the end of the movie as Custer's date Saturday night. It felt a bit awkward when Custer introduced him to me, but I just said that we'd already met and left it at that. He didn't seem interested in talking to me, and it was already 11, and b&c had an early flight to catch, and I had to sing the next morning, so we all headed home. Bing and Custer actually seem very well suited to each other. I suppose that if they start dating, I'll see even less of Custer than I do now, but I see precious little of him now, so it's no great loss.


I half woke up to kiss b&c goodbye the next morning, but then I went back to sleep, not rising until after 8. I got dressed and arrived at church around 9:25, in time to see YFU rehearsing with the youth ensemble. Then I ran through my piece (Bobby McFerrin's gorgeous version of the 23rd Psalm) once, and then the service started. Our Director of Religious Education was leading the service yesterday morning, and she'd specifically requested the song, and I of course sing any time I'm asked, so I said I'd sing it. I spent most of the time before singing reflecting on the words, and when I got up and sang, I thought it went pretty well. Nobody applauded, at least. And then the DRE got up to give the sermon and bowed in my direction and said from the pulpit that she had never heard the song sung as beautifully and then she said some other very kind things, and I was grateful for the praise, but it was all a little much. And when the service was over, there was a great deal more praise from a great many other people, and I remember thinking that I would have enjoyed that a lot more if it had been spread out over a month or so because I was getting a little bit overwhelmed.


Fortunately, I couldn't hang out at church because I'd invited Logan over at noon, so I hurried home, showered, and changed into something less appropriate for a worship service. When he showed up, we stood in the entryway and made out for what seemed like a very long time, and then I took him upstairs, and we did other things for a very long time. He left around 2:30, but we only fucked until about 1:30. It was awesome, as usual. At some point I hauled him into the shower and fucked him under the running water, but mostly we had extended foreplay followed by an extended fuck in the bed. I had him bounce up and down on my cock and jerk himself most of the way to orgasm, and then I grabbed his cock, stroked him quickly for a bit, and pulled the trigger. Then I put him on his back and on his side and, finally, on his stomach, plowing him hard in all positions until I shot. He was purring throughout. He jumped in the shower again, and then we lay together, not speaking, never speaking, intertwined for an hour or so. Then we got dressed, I kissed him goodbye, I did a few more chores, and I went to get YFU from her mother's, and we spent the rest of the day together. Every weekend should be so pleasant.

First Annual Rant Day

Greetings, readers, and welcome to TED's first annual Rant Day. Normally, I do my best to eschew negativity and attacks, focusing instead on tales of personal sluttishness and/or meandering meditations full of sound but no fury, and signifying nothing. But I've decided to give myself one day a year to write about the things that really bug me. And the Friday after the extended U.S. individual income tax filing deadline seems as good as any. I'd try to tie it into a lunar and/or solar calendar somehow, but I can't be bothered trying to figure out whether today is the first Friday after the first full moon after the autumnal equinox. Anyway, I think Rant Day is a fine idea, and I encourage you to celebrate your own, though perhaps on a different day. Of course, for some of you (I don't mean you, of course: I mean the other guy) every day is Rant Day, and in that case, I'd encourage you to lessen the frequency a bit. Maybe try only doing it whenever there's a fifth Friday in February.

One of the new Rant Day traditions is that I attempt to post especially pleasing pictures. So enjoy those if nothing else. Herewith a list of some of the things I despise.


Preemptive apologies. If you know something is likely to be objectionable, either don't do it or own it. Saying "I know this is bad, but I'm going to do it anyway" makes you a pussy. If, for example, you know a video's been all over the Internet, but you still want to post it, then post it. Or don't, but don't post it and say, "I know this has been all over the Internet, but I'm going to post it anyway." Knowing that you're doing a bad thing and doing it anyway is worse, not better, than simply doing the bad act. Isn't that why manslaughter gets you an extended stay in the big house and premeditated murder gets you the chair? I'm not, by the way, saying that if you post a popular video on your blog and apologize for it at the same time, you should get electrocuted. I much prefer lethal injection.

I know that the preemptive apologies are meant to avoid (or even preempt) negative comments, but just take them like a man. In fact, feel free to savage me for hypocrisy because I'm sure you can find a preemptive apology somewhere on my blog. A quick search indicates that I have used the term "apologize in advance" in three posts. One of the usages was ironic and another was not really an apology, but I promise to punish myself for the third. No braised cabbage for me this week. I'm sure you can all feel my pain.


Misspellings that are meant to be cute. They aren't cute: they're stupid. There may have been a time when using "teh" instead of "the" was funny, but that time was six years ago and it lasted somewhere between eight and ten nanoseconds. Any misspelling is objectionable, but any intentional misspelling is much worse. Refer to the above discussion about premeditation and getting the chair. Also: there is a special place in hell for people who attempt cutesy misspellings of sexual acts. I think instead of being held in Satan's claws or mouth, you wallow in Satan's smegma. Of course, if that's one of your fantasies, then have to.


Andrew Sullivan. The man is a fatuous, self-important blowhard. I have never been able to read very much of his blog, but during this year's primary season he went from being an insufferable bore to being a full-on douchenozzle. You can't on the one hand hold yourself out as someone who believes in reasoned discourse while on the other hand all of your opinions are based on your emotions. Especially when you have the emotional volatility of a crack whore going through menopause. I actually agree with many of Mr. Sullivan's opinions, though our areas of agreement are largely those that are not especially controversial (torture is bad, yep). And I hear that he's savaging Senator McCain the way he used to savage Senator Clinton, but the sense of personal affront he brings to political disagreements means that it's easy to dismiss what he says as the irrational ravings of, well, a crack whore going through menopause. What a tool.


Metablogging. If your blog started out as a place where you posted your own original content and transformed into a place where you started posting things from around the Internet, I have probably already lost interest in it. Linking to some original content on another site is cool, especially if you add some original commentary. Linking to a site that you found linked to on another site is pointless unless you're adding a significant amount of your own content to the discussion. It's especially pointless to post something that you found on a site with a much wider readership than your own. Anything that's really great on the Internet will eventually find its way to metafilter anyway. If you think you've found something that no one else has, then just post it over there.


Bottoms who don't kiss. I don't really need to say more about that one, do I? If you weren't expecting that one, read through the archives a bit.


Political discourse. I am referring both to what our politicians say to us and the way we talk to each other about politics. I routinely refuse to listen to anything said by or about politics on television (I made the mistake of going to the bathroom the other night, and when I came back, b&c had snuck into the living room and changed the channel from Top Design to the PBS after commentary of the last Presidential candidates' debate. The horror.) because it's almost entirely dishonest. Listening to a politician being interviewed is like buying a car: you know the guy's lying to you, but you have to act like you don't know. You go in with the expectation of dishonesty and you thereby give tacit approval to liars. I think that people have a responsibility to inform themselves on the issues and to vote, but trying to get information from the candidates or their surrogates is an exercise in frustration. Journalists are not much better. Television and print journalists seem to think that they've done their job if they let both sides of an argument or election present their arguments. They don't appear to feel any need to point out obvious or not so obvious deceptions, and they present both sides of an argument as if they had equal merit, even when they clearly don't (like, say, in a discussion of global warming). This is pretty much the journalistic equivalent of kill them all and let God decide.

As for the rest of us, I have no desire to squelch anyone's right to talk about politics, but so many people are so horribly misinformed and illogical when they do so that they really would be better off keeping their mouths shut. You have a right to your opinion, sure, but if your opinion is based on false information and faulty logic and mine is based on clear evidence and sound reasoning, then guess what? Mine is better. I occasionally discuss politics with b&c, mostly because I can't avoid it, but otherwise I avoid the topic socially because otherwise I'll end up rolling my eyes, like last night when one of the guys in the bass section would not stop talking about how Kerry actually won the election in 2004, but the Republicans stole it from him in Ohio. Puh-lease Maria. I wanted to give the guy a roll of aluminum foil so he could make himself a hat. I do read a lot of political web sites, and I may even read some of them obsessively, but I avoid the comments section. Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo is brilliant, but the people who comment on his blog need to get lives. What especially bugs me is the pretense that these people are somehow more serious than other people because they spend all their time writing comments on political blogs. You know what? If you get out there and knock on doors or work a phone bank or staff the polls on election day, then you have earned my great respect. But if you think that you're strengthening the fabric of democracy by commenting on a political blog, then I laugh at you. Ha! If you find arguing with folk on the Internet about politics enjoyable, then go for it, but you're not any more serious than someone who obsessively follows Madonna. (By the way, did something big happen with Madonna this week? I saw something on a blog that made it sound like there was a major event, but I couldn't be bothered to follow up. Where does one go to obsessively follow Madonna, anyway?)


The guy driving the acid green Testarossa in the lane next to mine on the way into work this morning. On one level, I'm jealous, because the guy's obviously loaded. On another level: dude, you're driving a Testarossa on Georgia Avenue during morning commute. And it's acid green. Clearly the guy is compensating. He's probably hung like the mouse that all the other mice laughed at in the showers after gym class. But surely there's some sort of enhancement surgery that he could have purchased for a tenth of the price of a Testarossa. I can't imagine having so much money that I'd want that car. Even if it had been in a less objectionable color, say black or silver, I don't think it would have been pretty. I can imagine having so much money that I'd want a vintage Jaguar, but only if my net worth were approaching eight figures.


Homophones. I hesitate to admit this, but the other day, I got an email from a reader of my cooking blog, and I had to look back over an old entry, and I had written "no" instead of "know." You cannot begin to imagine my embarrassment. I am constantly laughing -- to myself, at least -- at people who write "loose" when they mean "lose," but I routinely make typos that a fifth grader would catch. I blame the English language.

The greengrocers' plural. I've discussed this sufficiently in the past, so let me just say this: do not. Also, please learn the difference between "it's" and "its" and use whichever is appropriate for the immediate context. Failure to do so will result in punishment.


Operatic blog death scenes. If you want to stop blogging, then stop blogging. I mean, not everything has to last forever. Tolstoy eventually stopped writing War and Peace, right? Your blog's finished, well, maybe we'll miss it, maybe we won't, and good luck to you in your future endeavors. Just don't make such a fucking big deal about it. And -- I cannot emphasize this enough -- if you indulge in the high drama of any sort of death metaphor with the end of your blog, then stay the fuck dead. In fact, if you say, in any words, that your blog is over, then have the grace not to post again. If readers miss you and if you miss blogging, then start a new blog. If you've been posting regularly and you know you won't be posting for a while, then it's perfectly fine to announce a hiatus, but try to do so without drama. It's also perfectly fine to stop blogging, temporarily or permanently, with no announcement at all.


Log Cabin Republicans. I understand that it must suck to have been born into the kind of privilege that makes you think that the wealth you inherited is something you actually earned and that makes tax cuts more important than people, but stfu, ok? The Republicans don't want you, and most of the gay community wants you even less. You're never going to have a positive effect on the Republican party by identifying as a gay Republican, so either quit the party or go back in the closet and become a garden variety loathsome Republican (redundancy alert!). Finding a small group of like-minded individuals and having meetings with them does not make you or your point of view any more valid. Ten morons are no less moronic than one; they're just louder.


There. We're all done. Do you feel better? I feel better. And now I have a year before I get to bitch and moan again. But that's good, right? I mean, really, what are the odds of anything ticking me off between now and then?

What Passes for Political Discourse Chez TED

B&c: Are you looking forward to the debate?
TED: Oh, don't even.
B&c: Don't even what?
TED: Don't even pretend that there's any chance that I'm going to let you use our one cable outlet to watch Senator McCrankyPants when you know full well that tonight is the season finale of Project Runway.

B&c: Oh. I forgot.
TED: Did you forget how many houses you own, too?
B&c: Don't you think that joke's a little old?
TED: When a line of attack works for me, I stick with it. I run a very disciplined campaign. And don't even try to make a joke about discipline because you know my riposte will crush your lame insult.
B&c: Yes, sir. I can probably pick the debate up on one of the other sets, with the rabbit ears. I want to see whether Shieffer does a good job.
TED: Oh, please. As if he'll be paying attention. When you see him staring at the monitor, you'll know what he's really watching. If you hear him shriek in delight during one of McLame's responses about offshore drilling, you'll know that Korto edged Leanne for the win.


B&c: I hope Obama fights back tonight.
TED: Oh, fight. Fight, fight, fight. Have you heard McSame's new stump speech? It's all about how he's going to win the election because this country is worth fighting for, and he comes from a long generation of fighters. As if the shithole this country's in right now isn't in large part due to the fact that we were being run by people whose first response in every adverse situation is to fight instead of, I don't know, maybe to negotiate. I want the people who are good at fighting to be in the military, and I want them to be governed by people who think that military action is the last, not the first resort. BUT NO, THIS FUCKING IDIOT -- WHO LOST SEVERAL PLANES DURING HIS MILITARY CAREER BECAUSE HE WAS SUCH A FUCKING HOTHEAD -- HE WANTS TO FIGHT!
B&c: I think you'd better have another glass of wine.
TED: WHY?
B&c: Because you're talking in all caps.
TED: Whatever. I will have that wine, by the way.


B&c: Anyway, I hope that Obama has strong comebacks.
TED: He always has strong comebacks. He just holds them until he needs them.
B&c: I just want him to stick it to McCain about the experience issue. He needs to point out, because I went and checked you know, that Abraham Lincoln became President after six years in the Illinois legislature and one term as a Congressman.
TED: Bad idea.
B&c: Why?
TED: "Senator, you're no Abraham Lincoln."
B&c: Oh. Well, maybe. At least Obama's up in the polls.
TED: True. I just hope the Republicans don't somehow manage to get every Democratic vote disqualified by activist judges. I think they may have already won Ohio that way. But perhaps I'm just cynical. I'm so tired of listening to their attacks. Did you read the Times today? People in a WalMart parking lot aren't voting for Obama because he's of mixed race and God says that we should keep the races separate.
B&c: I'm thinking that Obama wasn't going to do all that well with the WalMart parking lot demographic, anyway.
TED: Maybe not.


B&c: I must have missed that story. But I was reading in the Times today about a conversation between Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin.
TED: How did she manage to carry on a conversation with his dick in her mouth?
B&c: Oh, ewww.
TED: Then again, I guess his dick isn't all that big, so if she can talk and chew gum, she can suck him off and say "You betcha!" Besides, on the rare occasions when he can get it up, he probably only lasts for fifteen seconds, so maybe she was okay.
B&c: That's gross. Do you kiss your mama with that mouth?
TED: No. Mostly you. And of course, I use it to eat the asses of most of my FWPs. But they're very clean. Much cleaner than Rush's member, I am sure.


B&c: Oh my god. You're disgusting.
TED: In other news, the sky is blue.
B&c: What if your daughter hears you talking that way?
TED: She's on the computer, with her headphones on.
B&c: Yeah, but do you talk that way with EFU?
TED: Oh, sweetie. Where do you think I got my foul mouth from? If a sailor's walking down the sidewalk and he sees EFU, he crosses the road to keep from blushing and because he knows he can't keep up with her. My language is posi-fucking-tively angelic compared to EFU's. Compared to her, my smegma-spewing tongue is as clean as a surgical theater. Compared to her...
B&c: Stop. You have made your point. Don't you ever long for the days of clean language and civil discourse?
TED: That depends. Do you ever miss fucking your ex-wife?
B&c: Well, no, but... oh my god. You did not just say that.
TED: You're right. I saved that last line for my blog.

Fiber Is Good for You, Though, Right?

So I'm still reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being because it's just not a book that's very demanding. That's not quite an accurate statement: it's very intellectually demanding (which I love) while you're reading it, but it's not a very needy book. It doesn't really seem to mind that you're off doing other things. It doesn't cry out, "Read more of me! Find out what happens!" It just sits there and waits, utterly charming when you're in its company, happy by itself when you're not. In that way, it's a lot like Logan, really. If I want to fuck Logan, I just send him an email. He emails back that he'll show up at the time I suggested, and then he shows up, and then we have very engaging and engaged sex for a couple of hours or maybe overnight.


Other FWPs require some maintenance: Judd, for example, regularly sends me text messages, and they're usually messages that require at least a full sentence to reply to, and given that my average sentence length is, well, long, and given further that my cellphone doesn't have a full keyboard on it, and given further still my general abhorrence of text-speak abbreviations and how easy it is to push the number keys one time too many or too few, well, calling receiving a text message from Judd traumatic would be hyperbole, so let me just say that receiving a text message from Judd is traumatic. The sex is phenomenal, though, so I should probably just upgrade my phone or acquire some carrier pigeons. Judd is like the book that you can put down but you need to pick up again before long. Something very well written that provides a significant reward but would not be considered a great work of art. Maybe an Anne Tyler novel.

And then there are the young'uns. Nike sends more text messages, and he always needs to be picked up, but his messages are easier to answer ("No" is usually sufficient.), and he doesn't live very far away, so he's more work to maintain than Judd, but not by too much. Torless is significantly more demanding but on a much less frequent basis. They're both like plot-driven guilty pleasures. Anything by Michael Thomas Ford.



All of that was off topic, by the way. I'm never a disciplined writer, but I'm much less disciplined when I've been working a lot and sleeping not so much. I initially mentioned The Unbearable Lightness of Being as a lead-in to talk about how I ended up not having sex last night. Someone gave me a tax return to review last night around 6, and I fixed it up and gave it to one of the partners at 7, then I quickly left the building before anyone could give me yet another piece of work that should have been handled by someone else. I stopped at the grocery store to pick up some chickpeas and cilantro, and got home around 7. Then I took a nice shower, dried off, put Johan on the TV, picked up The Unbearable Lightness of Being from the bedside table, and began reading, watching, and waiting.


B&c's and my sexual rhythms are very different from those that I have with anyone else. In part, that's because I deal with b&c on many levels whereas I deal with most other men I fuck only on a sexual level. But also, it's because there's nothing submissive about b&c. There's nothing dominant about him either, but he's very clearly not going to put up with or be turned on by being ordered to do anything. In fact, some people might go so far as to call him stubborn, mulish (but lovable!), or even Italian. Similarly, if anyone, especially he, tried to tell me how to behave sexually, I would probably injure myself laughing. So normally, I initiate sex either by reaching over and grabbing him (if it's the morning) or by taking a shower and lying on the bed naked, idly playing with my cock and perhaps reading and/or watching a video, until he comes and lies beside me, and then I grab him.

Usually, this process (the pre-foreplay) doesn't take very long. He usually appears within a couple of minutes, and if he doesn't, and I'm feeling impatient, I call out, "I'm naked in here!" or "Can we fuck now please?" or something similarly refined. But last night, he didn't show up, and, well, I was reading a very good book and watching a very odd and very entertaining movie, and, more to the point, I was feeling somewhat beaten down (though still very tumescent, go figure) by the work day, so I just figured that he'd show up when he showed up, and I'd fuck him then.


As it happened, though, he didn't show up because he wasn't feeling very well. When he did show up, at almost 9:30, he said that he was sore all over, which I would normally attribute to either a virus or a particularly ardent pounding administered by a mystery third party while I was busy stimulating the economy, but in this case, he'd just overdone it, so while he wasn't up for a particularly ardent pounding administered by me, he was good for a half hour of osculation-intensive erotic play. And that was very nice. And I hadn't been all that horny, anyway, so it was all good.

Except that when we stopped and I got up (and he went to sleep), the growling in my stomach reminded me that I hadn't eaten anything for going on eight hours, so I went downstairs and made some sesame-cilantro vinaigrette. Then I mashed my two cans of chickpeas and mixed in the vinaigrette to make some hummus, which I'd been craving for several days. Then I sat in front of the TV and watched the most execrable reality television imaginable (the season finale of The Rachel Zoe Project on Bravo, followed by an episode of that MTV show about Paris Hilton and the competition to be her new lackey) and ate too much hummus. It was extremely tasty hummus, but this morning I was all, "Whoa, fiber."


The inescapable conclusion here is that I've been in a bit of a lull the past week or so. Work, you know? I would worry about it, but it seems more sensible to take action. In this case, taking action means getting some action. B&c is leaving very early Sunday morning, and I have to sing at church later that morning, but Logan is coming over Sunday afternoon, and Judd will be over Tuesday night. And I think that Monday will be a good evening to play with one or both of the young'uns. Who knows? I might even have a cheeseburger.

Bound

I appear to be pseudo-sexually frustrated. By which, of course, I mean that my current level of frustration seems like sexual frustration but probably isn't. I don't mean that I'm appear to be sexually frustrated but I'm not really frustrated, because then I'd be sexually pseudo-frustrated. The incorrect placement of modifiers is one of the many banes of my existence. Then again, I'm not, by nature, an unhappy person, so if there weren't all of these petty annoyances, I'd likely float away on a cloud of ebullience, and you know how that is: it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Pardon me for a moment while I attempt to re-discover my point. It's not entirely my fault that I'm off topic (actually I'm off the topic that was off the topic, but who's counting, right?): I was up until 2 am last night, which was only partly my fault because I was at the office until after 11 pm due to matters entirely beyond my control. Say it with me, readers: ANYWAY.


Right. The misplaced modifiers. I worry about them too much. I also worry about the modifiers that are just plain wrong. I, for example, have an unfortunate habit of starting sentences with "hopefully," when I don't even want an adverb.

Wrong: Hopefully, I'll pound that guy's ass tonight.

Right: I hope that I'll pound that guy's ass tonight.

Of course, this example may not be the best possible example: I hope that whenever I pound an ass that I do so hopefully, but I'm pretty sure that sometimes I'm too distracted by lust to focus on the hope inherent in every act of pseudo-procreative ass fucking. (Nobody's perfect.)


Which may or may not bring me back to the pseudo-sexual frustration. I would much prefer my frustration to be sexual. I'd really like to be sitting at work all day (but maybe not also all night), thinking about men I want to fuck or men whose limits I'd like to expand. But I've recently had to face the awful truth about working too much: it can rob me of appetite as well as opportunity. That's right: where I used to think, "If I didn't have to work until midnight tonight, I could probably call Torless and fuck him so hard that I'd be fucking his brains out if he had any to start with," (I can be very bitchy in my internal monologue, sometimes.) the last week or so, I've been thinking, "Ugh. Torless texted me again. I don't even want to think about fucking him so hard that I'd be fucking his brains out if he had any to start with."

(Actually, I'm mostly just rolling my eyes at Torless these days. He texted me Sunday night when I was neither free nor interested and whinged a little bit about my lack of availability. Then he talked about how much he missed me. There are not enough whatevers in the world to begin to discuss how laughable that was. But I'll probably fuck him next week, just because.)


It's mostly work that causes this frustration, but work is not the only factor. There's also b&c's intermittent travel schedule. When he's home, there often isn't any point in flirting with guys because following through is, more often than not, logistically impossible. But I think I can solve that part of the problem. I think that what we need is a regular third. Judd has expressed some interest in a threeway. I may not have a chance to set it up before b&c heads off to Managua this weekend, but I can try when he's back. I expect that Judd would be up for such an arrangement (with both of us when b&c's home; with me when b&c's away) every Tuesday night. I'm not so sure that b&c will love the idea, but I think that he'll go along with it for long enough to start to like it.


The excessive work hours should go away, at least temporarily, beginning tomorrow. I'd thought that by coming in Sunday, I was making Monday a relatively easy day, and when I'd left home Monday morning, I told b&c that I expected to be home at a reasonable hour (i.e., before 8), but, well, no, so at 7:30, which was about the time I'd been hoping to get out of the shower to spend a couple of hours having sex with my partner, I had to call home and say, "Nightmare. Late. Very. Bye." Hopefully I hope that I'll be able to get out of work and into b&c's ass at a reasonable hour tonight, but I didn't make any promises.


And then, of course, next week, I'll have little work and no partner around. Should I even pretend that I'm not really looking forward to that? I started the day feeling too stressed to think about sex, but even now my libido is reawakening, and I can't help thinking that one or two days next week would be the perfect time to call in sick and spend my time tying hot married guys to the bed. I'd hoped to do some solo traveling next week, and I may still take a quick trip to Pennsylvania to prune some fruit trees (That is not a euphemism. Yet.), but right now seems like a good time for frugality, and I already have the rope and the sex toys, so the marginal costs associated with tying a man to the bed are very low indeed.

Trunks

Saturday night, I somewhat unexpectedly found myself in Baltimore, at a production of Aida. B&c has a friend (the wife of a former boss) who usually accompanies him to the opera in Baltimore, but she was taking an apparently much needed vacation after having successfully married her daughter off the previous weekend. But b&c didn't find out for certain that she wasn't coming until Friday. On Saturday, I got up earlyish so that I could go to the office, then I returned home around 3:30 to take YFU shoe shopping. YFU is, to my eternal gratitude, very fast with any sort of clothing shopping, so we were home again by 4:30, and b&c had dinner ready around 5:00. Not long after 6, I was sitting at my computer, and I heard, "Shit!" from the living room, followed by "I can't believe they changed the time!" from the dining room, followed by, "It starts at 7:30!" from the door to the office. "Well, go get a shower and get dressed. It's not even 6:15 yet." And then there was some sort of muttering and doors were slammed, and so on, and I calmly went upstairs and put my suit on, told YFU we were leaving very soon, then came downstairs to wait for the loud clomping and histrionic whinging of a partner in panic. In his haste to ensure my daily dose of drama, he'd also mislaid the tickets, but I found them, and we were in the car just a bit after 6:30.


There followed nearly an hour of cursing and questionable traffic choices, but I napped through most of that. I considered telling him to calm down, but a) I hate to give him any attention when he's like that, and b) he might have hit me. He was worried about parking, so even though it was perhaps 7:26 when we got in the area, he parked, badly, a full four blocks away from the opera house in a lot that had been set aside for the purposes, but which no one was using because there was a regular parking garage next to the opera house. Anyway, b&c was so rattled that the attendant seemed a little frightened of him and told him that he could park anywhere he wanted. Then we walked very briskly to the opera house, where there was a lengthy line of other similarly late patrons waiting to sit down. The line was long enough that I figured I could grab my ticket and dash (literally, alas) to the men's room, but I was slowed down by a restroom that was shockingly unclean for an opera house, even in Baltimore. I ended up having to dash again (and again literally) for the balcony, just sliding in as the door was closing and barely making it to my seat before the playing of the national anthem. Not only does every opera season in Baltimore begin with the playing of the national anthem, but most of the residents sing along.


Anyway, Aida was a terrible disappointment. I will take b&c at his word that this was the fault of the soloists rather than Signor Verdi; certainly, the principals were nothing to write home about. The soprano playing Aida at least looked credible in the part, but I kept nodding off during her arias. The tenor did a credible job with "Celeste Aida," but his diction was terrible, and he really just didn't look like the sort of guy you'd put in charge of the Egyptian army. Well, maybe now, but not in the age of the pharaohs. The bass baritone singing the role of the King of Egypt (I was unable to understand why he was called that rather than pharaoh) was tall and handsome, but Amneris looked old enough to be his mother, rather than young enough to be his daughter. Also, he was mostly inaudible, but, hey, it's a very small role. A couple of the solo dancers were very attractive, and one of them danced in a thong covered by a loincloth (or whatever they call the Egyptian version of a loincloth) that was made of net, so you could pretty much always see his very nice ass. I do have to say that the bass singing Ramfis sang well, looked the part, and was not unattractive, but he was wearing way too much.


Anyway, the Baltimore Opera isn't exactly a first-rate company, so I suppose we couldn't expect the best production in the world, but it wasn't until the lights came up at the end of the second act that I finally realized how bitter my disappointment was going to be: there were no elephants. The second act of Aida without elephants is like sex without, um, sex. Granted, this was the first (and possibly last) production of Aida I've attended, but even I know there have to be elephants. The production was done with a fairly minimal stage of ascending and descending screens upon which were projected various graphics with the approximate impact of a Power Point presentation. I'm all about minimal sets, but the set designer (who, it was painfully obvious, must have wet himself with delight when he learned how to use a computer to control graphics; there was all sorts of silliness that would have been impossible twenty-five years ago) couldn't even be bothered to project elephants on the screens. I guess that the costumes were suitably opulent, but there are a lot of cute young guys in the Baltimore Opera chorus who would really have looked better in an Anubis headdress. And nothing else.


Anyway, maybe a first-rate cast and a herd of elephants would have made for a memorable production, but maybe not. My impression was that if you want to stage Aida, you need to go really old school: put everyone in a box with curtains that can be drawn and give three lengthy intermissions. Then everyone can compete to bring the best picnic supper, people can drink a lot of wine, and when Amneris' voice entirely disappears on the low notes, she can enjoy the uncommon experience of a shower of chicken bones and overripe produce. God knows she earned it. Also, it wouldn't hurt if they actually sealed a tenor in a crypt. Really, who would miss another tenor?

The whole thing did, at least, make me think of a joke my brother's first wife used to tell. Actually, that joke is the only thing I remember about her (they weren't married all that long). She used to say, "Tim [my brother] is pregnant! He's going to have a baby elephant. Do you want to see its trunk?"

Freefall

I was sitting in my office yesterday afternoon. I'd just finished sending one of the partners an e-mail suggesting how we might save one of the clients whose return I'd just reviewed about $12K in taxes, and I decided to take a quick look at Yahoo Finance. I saw that the Dow was down about another 7%, and I said to myself, "Huh." And then I moved on to reviewing another tax return because it needed to be done.


My apparent lack of concern about the fact that my retirement accounts are down by more than a third (or they were: now it's more like forty percent) reveals both the good and bad aspects of my character. This past weekend, while sitting at dinner at a wedding, someone I'd only just met told me that I must be a great comfort to my clients because I project a very clear air of calmness. I like to think that's true, but the flip side (There is always a flip side. Anything you like about someone carries within it the seed of something you won't like. Similarly, anything you deplore has a plus side.) is that I often come across as apathetic. It is possible for me to be very animated, but it usually takes something a lot closer to my heart than money. If something pleases or displeases one of my children, for example, my reaction is often stronger than theirs. A discussion about food or music will often banish my placid demeanor. And, really, a discussion of any topic that truly engages my intellect is the best way to engage me. (It is one of my great disappointments with the Internet, as with real life, that true intellectualism is such a rare thing, but that is both a discussion for another time and a problem that is unlikely to yield to any form of attack. Alas.) And I'm pretty sure that there's one other way to really get me worked up, body and soul, but I can't remember what it is at the moment. Perhaps if you read some of the other entries on my blog, you'll get an inkling.



But money? Not so much. That wasn't always the case. The people who have to worry the most about money are the ones who don't have any, and back when I was going through my divorce, I spent an awful lot of time worrying about all the money that I didn't have. But these days I'm more comfortable and secure. Besides, when you've been through a vicious divorce with a custody battle, you learn to focus on what's important and ignore things that matter less. And things that you can't do anything about. I'm pretty sure that the market didn't fall another three or four percent today just because I failed to worry about it enough. And if I'm wrong about that, I really think it's incumbent upon either Secretary Paulson or Chairman Bernanke to call me and let me know. (Or, hey, you're both fit and successful older men, and you both spend a fair amount of time in DC, and you're probably both pretty tense right about now, so just give me a call, and I'll give you some lessons in how to adopt a more submissive attitude while you're taking it. I'm sure that'll come in handy in your dealings with Congress.) Until I hear otherwise, though, I'm just going to keep on working on my tax returns.


But while I'm not going to panic, I certainly don't want to minimize the mess we're all in here. The financial crisis is affecting some people (bankers, financial executives, stockbrokers) more quickly than others, but sooner or later (and probably sooner than we all think), it's going to start affecting everyone. I'm not especially distressed that my retirement accounts are all down by about [Who can keep track, really? They've probably lost another few percent while I've been typing this.], in part because I'm at least twenty years from wanting to get at that money. But if the financial markets don't recover soon, it's not a stretch to think that we'll be dealing with double-digit rates of unemployment. And that means a lot of pain for a lot of people.


None of this is particularly surprising to me. I'm certainly no economist, but for a long time I've had a definite sense that the economy we had didn't make sense. It comes down to a simple question for me: how many people do you know who do something that's truly essential? Maybe you all hang out primarily with ER doctors or farmers, but I don't. I reckon I know a lot of people who were essential to the continued smooth functioning of the service economy, but people that other people couldn't survive without? Very few of my acquaintances leap to mind. Put another way, over the last few years, there has been a great deal of wealth created without anything tangible to back it up. If you can create wealth out of nothing, it really can't be that hard to return it to nothing.


Like I said, the financial system and all that is not something I know much about, nor is it anything that I want to know much more about. It's clear to me that we live in a world of uncontrolled complexity, and my way of dealing with overwhelming and/or useless complexity is to look at the big picture and rely on general principles. In other words, not to deal with it at all. So rather than yammer on about a subject on which I'm inadequately informed (because, you know, nobody on the Internet ever does that), I think I'd prefer to spend some time looking at the silver linings of the end of life as we know it. Because, sure, we all may be digging worms in the dark before long, but every unpleasant situation carries the seeds of opportunity. Herewith, a few of the bright sides.


1. Terrific deals on travel to Iceland! Ok, sure, late fall and winter may not be the ideal time to visit Reykjavik (except if you're all about the nightlife), but while your strengthening dollar is still mighty weak any place they use those crazy Euros, it's a positive blockbuster against the Icelandic currency. I hear that pretty soon the Icelanders will have to return to their traditional industry of fishing, but that just means that primitive cruises will be as cheap as primitive hotel rooms. And if the krona is still in the toilet come next spring and summer, you'll be able to party all night long like it's 1999 for next to nothing. Besides, I like herring.


2. Cheap chic. After decades of glorified excess and relentless prostration at the altar of wealth, parsimony will be making a comeback. This is especially good news for b&c who has long been ahead of his time in elevating cheapness to an art form. Ok, I'm kidding a little bit (but not about b&c's cheapness), but I do think that when people stop idolizing Donald Trump and Paris Hilton, we'll all be a lot better off. Put another way -- out: The Real Housewives of Atlanta. In: The Real Bachelor Farmers of the Northern Plains. It's a healthy realignment of values that's long overdue.


3. Schadenfreude. You know how much you hated those hedge fund managers, but, at the same time, you couldn't help being at least a little bit envious of them? Well, envy no more. The people who used to be insufferable guys with enough money to pay for an army of ass kissers are now going to be insufferable guys on street corners, carrying signs saying "Will kiss ass for food." (Come to think of it, that's a sign that I should have been carrying for the last five years or so. But I digress.) Schadenfreude is an ugly emotion, of course, but, hell, meat is murder, and that never stopped me, either. Besides, soon I might not be able to afford meat, so I'm going to indulge in what's still plentiful and free: laughing at the once rich and powerful. If you still feel guilty about it, then I suggest you consider just how much guilt hedge fund managers used to feel about laughing at those less fortunate than they were.


Anyway, this is a topic that'll be on all of our minds for some time to come, I reckon. And if I were to approach it more seriously, I'd probably say something like: it's time to cut down on your spending; maybe you should think about building your emergency cash reserves from six months of expenses up to nine months or a year; plant a garden; it's not necessarily a bad time to consider a fundamental change (like, maybe, going entirely off the grid and starting or joining an order of the Brothers of Perpetual Extasis); recognize that material wealth is likely to become scarce and work on building your relationships and other non-material sources of satisfaction; and, as always, have another glass of wine and a lot more sex. Who knows whether there will even be a tomorrow? Better to go out with a bang than a whimper.