I had a moment of peace and repose, last month, in which I achieved electronic nirvana. I actually got to the bottom of my email inbox. Yes, I answered every last email that had been pending, even if they'd been hanging around for a good six weeks or so. It was all gone, gone, gone. I felt productive. I felt efficient. (I wasn't efficient, but hey. I felt like it.) I felt like the king of the fuckin' world!
And then within five minutes, because I have correspondents who are much more diligent about answering email immediately, it all started flooding back in again. (Don't you people know you don't have to fire back a three-page response immediately?!)
So once again I'm at the point of email overload that I need to warn my readers about it. I really do try to respond to correspondence, but there are times in my life like this, when I've got my own work going and I've got busy things happening at home, when I just can't get to your emails all that quickly—particularly those that require more of a response than, "Thanks so much! And eight inches!"
Be patient. You'll get your replies. I promise.
In the meantime, here are a couple of things you can avoid, in order to help me out:
1) If you've sent me an email, don't send me a follow-up email asking me if I hate you now and why haven't I emailed you back. That doesn't really help.
2) It also doesn't help if in addition to your first email, you send an even longer follow-up addressing all the things you should've said in the first email to clarify the things that you think I might be confused about to the point of not replying in the first email. All this really does is give me TWO long emails to reply to.
3) Don't send me emails saying "I just read that you have too many emails and I wanted to apologize for sending you an email!" Because this is the point at which my life becomes an Escher engraving and the universe folds in upon itself.
The short message is that I am one person. I have many, many readers who write me. Please take pity on my being outnumbered, and be patient when you write.
Let's get to some questions from Formspring.me for the week, eh?
Have you ever gone to an adult movie theater where they show the pornos on the big screen?
Only to one, in the Detroit area, when it was still open. The theater was a giant cruising spot where men—and sometimes male-female couples—would meander through the seats looking for sex partners. There were often times that men would shed their clothes completely and wander around the theater naked, looking for guys to suck off or to fuck them.
Sadly, the theater got raided, closed, and razed a couple of years after I started going there. I knew a couple of the guys who got caught in that final raid, and they barely evaded getting their names in the papers.
Now that I think of it, the Bijou in Chicago has a theater downstairs where they show the films on a reasonably large screen. I never lingered in there, however, and always went through to the glory hole maze upstairs. So make that two places I've been of that type.
Which snack food do you go for Savory, Sweet or Spicy?
Salty. I suppose that would fall under the 'savory' category, but somehow that words connotes more complexity than I require in a snack. I want it studded with salt crystals. And maybe covered with some kind of orange-colored dust that is supposed to resemble space-age cheese.
Had any encounters with guys that stored their sperm frozen and used it as lube in their hole?
I have indeed. I have such a horror of ice cubes or cold things touching my bare skin, though, that I'm unlikely to suggest or participate in it. Also, saving up sperm like that just relies upon a degree of planning that is totally alien to me.
How do you feel about sticking an ice cube in someone's hole? Any experience with that?
I've done it, but I hate it. I really just dislike coldness on my skin in any form—and having to do it to someone else makes me cringe.
Ever added food to your sex acts? Any tips on which food would be fun in bed?
I hate to sound like a total crab, but I've always found food sex to be not as fun as it was cracked up to be in 9 1/2 Weeks.
Every food substance I've tried has either been too messy, too cold, too dirty, too smelly, or too sticky to contemplate using ever again. I've done the honey and chocolate syrup on my cock thing before, and I felt gooey even after a couple of hot showers.
If your sex is unsatisfying enough that you're contemplating wasting perfectly good food to improve it, you're fuckin' doing it wrong.
i love ABBA Sir which is Your favorite song?
Probably "One of Us." ABBA's last album was a melancholy and very grown-up work, and "One of Us" is quite a bittersweet song. I can listen to it on repeat for a very long time.
What's your favourite kind of pie?
To make, pecan.
To eat--oh gosh. Probably apple, in the fruit category, and coconut cream pie, in the cream group.
No cream pie smutty jokes, please. I take my pies seriously! (Okay, maybe one or two cream pie jokes.)
How do yo keep your hair style? Harvard Cut, Caesar Cut, Cornrows, Fade, Flat Top, Short Back and Sides, Crew Cut, Mullet, or Shaved?
If Shaggy from the Scooby-Doo cartoons had a child with Kurt Cobain, its hair would look exactly like mine.
At least, when I originally wrote this question, that was my answer. I've had it all chopped off, since. Yesterday I got told I look like Hugh Laurie from House.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
Friday Open Forum: Inclusion
I've loved the author Patrick Dennis since I was a kid, and first ventured over from the kid's side of the local branch library over to the adult section. My mom was an avid reader, and a woman of good taste besides; she made recommendations of three books that more or less formed the cornerstones of my grown-up literary tastes.
One of them was Dennis's Auntie Mame. Even to a twelve-year-old, it was funny. Dennis built his literary style on a foundation of what I instinctively recognized was high camp—frivolous, artificial, exaggerated, and essentially feminine, despite the fact the author had a penis. (That Dennis had a couple of best-sellers under a female pseudonym really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.)
Dennis was a gay man who attempted—at least at first—to live the straight life. It didn't last. His wife knew about his sexuality; his children learned about it at a very young age, during the nineteen-fifties and nineteen-sixties when his popularity was at its peak. His sexuality infuses all his work, manifesting itself in just about everything he wrote. The titular heroine of Auntie Mame is in essence a big ol' drag queen whose escapades are a rush of sequins, Chanel No. 5, and martini vodka. She's the spiritual mother to Patsy and Eddy in Absolutely Fabulous, and hundreds of other strong-willed, don't-give-a-damn fictional females revered by gay men.
And that's the way most of Dennis's books read—sharp, incisive, pungent, and marked by a thoroughly gay sensibility that increases with every title. It reached an apex in Little Me, in which Dennis and photographer Cris Alexander (who passed away last month, god bless him) essentially assembled a cast of dozens of their gay friends and family (including Alexander's hunky husband, with whom he spent most of a lifetime) to play dress-up and write the fictional celebrity autobiography of a D-list has-been talentless actress. Little Me is a total stitch, and was a best-seller. Surprising, since it's essentially thickly peppered with in-jokes that only its gay audience would recognize.
But as gay-inclusive as Dennis's novels were for their Mad Men era, there's an element of self-loathing that runs through the books as well, tangible and unmistakable. The gay men tend to be effeminate lispers who mince through the pages with limp wrists. They pay too much attention to their looks; they groom too well; they fall in love with straight men and are exposed for the silly fools they are. They live on the periphery of the novels, informing—if not forming—the books' tone, but never amounting to anything much.
I was reminded of this strange, but perhaps understandable, dichotomy when I picked up a copy of Dennis's next-to-last novel, Paradise, this week—the story of twenty strangers in a vacation guest house, on a peninsula in Acapulco that becomes an island after a freak earthquake. I'd loved the book in my adolescence. Loved it. I'd read it over and over again—even more than either of the two Mame books or Genius, which is my favorite Dennis title these days. But I'd not read it since I was twenty, because the copy I owned disappeared while I was in college, and I'd not been able since to find a reasonably-priced replacement.
Someone was offering a low-cost, good-condition first edition on Amazon, though. So I splurged, and settled in to revisit an old favorite. And immediately I was astonished at what a nasty book it was. The characters are mean, and vicious, and seemingly have not a good quality between them to squabble about. The book's lone lesbian is a sexless creature whose only purpose is to spout art-school nonsense and be verbally bitch-slapped by men for her pretentiousness. The gay men are all silly little queens who fall into hysterics over a chipped nail, and who snipe and bitch at each other in ways that aren't just stereotyped, but have been so heavily trod into the ground over the years that they're practically interred. The other characters sneer at them and murmur about 'tatty little faggots' and 'small-town faggotry.' The main gay character attempts suicide after his boyfriend leaves him.
It's depressing, and the book is so cynical and ugly that about a quarter of the way through I found myself thinking, I used to love this book? What the fuck? It's horrible! Why?!
Well, part of the reason is that the book's about who can and can't prove himself in the face of adversity. After the earthquake that strands the book's characters from the mainland, it's up for the cast of unpleasant characters to fend for their lives. Some rise to the occasion and ennoble themselves. Others don't, and have to face the specters of their own failures. It takes some establishing of a bunch of nasty people before that happens, though.
But the real reason I liked the novel so much, I remembered, is because it contained the first gay sex scene in a novel that I ever encountered. Yes. Typical, no? I encountered better sex scenes in John Rechy's The Sexual Outlaw not very long after. But the gay sex in Paradise was the first. When I ran across the passages this last week, I nodded with a rush of memory and nostalgia, "Ah, yes."
Now, Paradise's sex isn't that explicit. It's not explicit at all, in fact. Basically what happens is that there's a wealthy gay guy (runs a boutique decorated with pink silk, acts in exquisite productions in his community theater, worries about his manicure when he attempts suicide later on), who is sugar daddy to his cheap whore of a boyfriend (former bus boy, muscular, dumb, predatory). While the sugar daddy is showering, the cheap whore comes on to a Mexican room service waiter. He lets his robe slip off him, slowly. His hand traces over his skin, flushed warm from the Acapulcan sun. "Hhhhhot," he says.
The waiter places his hand on the whore's skin. "Si, señor," he agrees. "Hhhhhhot."
And that's about it for the sex scene. No, really. The whore then gives the waiter a Hershey Bar as a promise of things to come, and nothing more happens.
But for twelve-year-old me, reading that scene for the first time? I was like, GOD DAMN!
There's also a scene later in the book in which the wealthy faggot (hey, if everyone in the book can call him that, so can I) picks up a pornographic novel that's all the rage among his 'artistic' friends. It's about a romance between a cowboy and an Indian (not a Native American . . . we weren't there yet in 1971) and the glimpses we get from it are all about a thick shaft rising from between copper loins, and the heroes declaring their love for each other. That kind of thing. It's very brief, and now I realize it's obviously a parody of Gordon Merrick novels (Merrick had come out with his first breakout book just the year before Paradise hit the shelves) but still. To a horny twelve-year-old? NICE!
Now, I was actually having sex at twelve, and I don't recall whether that took place before or after my reading of Paradise that same year. It didn't matter. What was not so important to me as a kid, encountering these brief glimpses into gay sex in novels, was not the sex itself (though I do remember masturbating over it, hhhhhot as it was), but the fact that for the very first time in a book, I kind of saw myself included.
I read a lot as a kid. I've been a lifelong reader. I read a lot about kids who stumbled on magic objects, in my youth, or kids who had fantastic adventures when their guardians were absent from the house for weeks and months at a time. I was not one of those kids. When I ventured over to the adult side of the library, I started reading about grown-ups whose only impulses were male-female relationships based on true, 'normal,' heterosexual love. I sensed rather early that I was not one of those, either.
The gay characters in Dennis's novels might have been tatty, and small-minded, and more obsessed with their ascot scarves and manicures that I like today, but boy, in an era in which gay men got very little representation at all, I was ready to take what I could get. Even if it was Uncle Arthur in Bewitched. And that's why I thrilled to those sex scenes, brief and silly as they were. For the very first time ever, I could see some reflection of my own life, my desires, perhaps my future, in the pages of a published book. That meant a lot to me. And hey. Maybe it meant in the future that I, too, could have my own hot Mexican waiter.
Of course, these post-Will and Grace days, we take representation for granted. We have task forces that chide networks when they don't have enough gay characters on their TV shows. We have an abundance of excellent literature aimed at gay and lesbian youth, and all kinds of literature for all kinds of young adults in which non-heterosexual relationships are accepted and common. For someone who grew up with only a few glimpses of 'small-town faggotry' and copper loins as a guidepost, I think the change is remarkable—and welcome.
I'm curious about my readers, though, since I know I have a wide range of ages who check in. Whether on TV, in the movies, or between the pages of a book, what was your first childhood or teen encounter with fictional gay characters, and how did they affect your own vision of yourself? Were you happy to see them? Horrified at the way they were portrayed? When you revisit that material now, how does it make you feel? Let me know how you feel in today's open forum—I'm really interested in your experiences.
One of them was Dennis's Auntie Mame. Even to a twelve-year-old, it was funny. Dennis built his literary style on a foundation of what I instinctively recognized was high camp—frivolous, artificial, exaggerated, and essentially feminine, despite the fact the author had a penis. (That Dennis had a couple of best-sellers under a female pseudonym really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.)
Dennis was a gay man who attempted—at least at first—to live the straight life. It didn't last. His wife knew about his sexuality; his children learned about it at a very young age, during the nineteen-fifties and nineteen-sixties when his popularity was at its peak. His sexuality infuses all his work, manifesting itself in just about everything he wrote. The titular heroine of Auntie Mame is in essence a big ol' drag queen whose escapades are a rush of sequins, Chanel No. 5, and martini vodka. She's the spiritual mother to Patsy and Eddy in Absolutely Fabulous, and hundreds of other strong-willed, don't-give-a-damn fictional females revered by gay men.
And that's the way most of Dennis's books read—sharp, incisive, pungent, and marked by a thoroughly gay sensibility that increases with every title. It reached an apex in Little Me, in which Dennis and photographer Cris Alexander (who passed away last month, god bless him) essentially assembled a cast of dozens of their gay friends and family (including Alexander's hunky husband, with whom he spent most of a lifetime) to play dress-up and write the fictional celebrity autobiography of a D-list has-been talentless actress. Little Me is a total stitch, and was a best-seller. Surprising, since it's essentially thickly peppered with in-jokes that only its gay audience would recognize.
But as gay-inclusive as Dennis's novels were for their Mad Men era, there's an element of self-loathing that runs through the books as well, tangible and unmistakable. The gay men tend to be effeminate lispers who mince through the pages with limp wrists. They pay too much attention to their looks; they groom too well; they fall in love with straight men and are exposed for the silly fools they are. They live on the periphery of the novels, informing—if not forming—the books' tone, but never amounting to anything much.
I was reminded of this strange, but perhaps understandable, dichotomy when I picked up a copy of Dennis's next-to-last novel, Paradise, this week—the story of twenty strangers in a vacation guest house, on a peninsula in Acapulco that becomes an island after a freak earthquake. I'd loved the book in my adolescence. Loved it. I'd read it over and over again—even more than either of the two Mame books or Genius, which is my favorite Dennis title these days. But I'd not read it since I was twenty, because the copy I owned disappeared while I was in college, and I'd not been able since to find a reasonably-priced replacement.
Someone was offering a low-cost, good-condition first edition on Amazon, though. So I splurged, and settled in to revisit an old favorite. And immediately I was astonished at what a nasty book it was. The characters are mean, and vicious, and seemingly have not a good quality between them to squabble about. The book's lone lesbian is a sexless creature whose only purpose is to spout art-school nonsense and be verbally bitch-slapped by men for her pretentiousness. The gay men are all silly little queens who fall into hysterics over a chipped nail, and who snipe and bitch at each other in ways that aren't just stereotyped, but have been so heavily trod into the ground over the years that they're practically interred. The other characters sneer at them and murmur about 'tatty little faggots' and 'small-town faggotry.' The main gay character attempts suicide after his boyfriend leaves him.
It's depressing, and the book is so cynical and ugly that about a quarter of the way through I found myself thinking, I used to love this book? What the fuck? It's horrible! Why?!
Well, part of the reason is that the book's about who can and can't prove himself in the face of adversity. After the earthquake that strands the book's characters from the mainland, it's up for the cast of unpleasant characters to fend for their lives. Some rise to the occasion and ennoble themselves. Others don't, and have to face the specters of their own failures. It takes some establishing of a bunch of nasty people before that happens, though.
But the real reason I liked the novel so much, I remembered, is because it contained the first gay sex scene in a novel that I ever encountered. Yes. Typical, no? I encountered better sex scenes in John Rechy's The Sexual Outlaw not very long after. But the gay sex in Paradise was the first. When I ran across the passages this last week, I nodded with a rush of memory and nostalgia, "Ah, yes."
Now, Paradise's sex isn't that explicit. It's not explicit at all, in fact. Basically what happens is that there's a wealthy gay guy (runs a boutique decorated with pink silk, acts in exquisite productions in his community theater, worries about his manicure when he attempts suicide later on), who is sugar daddy to his cheap whore of a boyfriend (former bus boy, muscular, dumb, predatory). While the sugar daddy is showering, the cheap whore comes on to a Mexican room service waiter. He lets his robe slip off him, slowly. His hand traces over his skin, flushed warm from the Acapulcan sun. "Hhhhhot," he says.
The waiter places his hand on the whore's skin. "Si, señor," he agrees. "Hhhhhhot."
And that's about it for the sex scene. No, really. The whore then gives the waiter a Hershey Bar as a promise of things to come, and nothing more happens.
But for twelve-year-old me, reading that scene for the first time? I was like, GOD DAMN!
There's also a scene later in the book in which the wealthy faggot (hey, if everyone in the book can call him that, so can I) picks up a pornographic novel that's all the rage among his 'artistic' friends. It's about a romance between a cowboy and an Indian (not a Native American . . . we weren't there yet in 1971) and the glimpses we get from it are all about a thick shaft rising from between copper loins, and the heroes declaring their love for each other. That kind of thing. It's very brief, and now I realize it's obviously a parody of Gordon Merrick novels (Merrick had come out with his first breakout book just the year before Paradise hit the shelves) but still. To a horny twelve-year-old? NICE!
Now, I was actually having sex at twelve, and I don't recall whether that took place before or after my reading of Paradise that same year. It didn't matter. What was not so important to me as a kid, encountering these brief glimpses into gay sex in novels, was not the sex itself (though I do remember masturbating over it, hhhhhot as it was), but the fact that for the very first time in a book, I kind of saw myself included.
I read a lot as a kid. I've been a lifelong reader. I read a lot about kids who stumbled on magic objects, in my youth, or kids who had fantastic adventures when their guardians were absent from the house for weeks and months at a time. I was not one of those kids. When I ventured over to the adult side of the library, I started reading about grown-ups whose only impulses were male-female relationships based on true, 'normal,' heterosexual love. I sensed rather early that I was not one of those, either.
The gay characters in Dennis's novels might have been tatty, and small-minded, and more obsessed with their ascot scarves and manicures that I like today, but boy, in an era in which gay men got very little representation at all, I was ready to take what I could get. Even if it was Uncle Arthur in Bewitched. And that's why I thrilled to those sex scenes, brief and silly as they were. For the very first time ever, I could see some reflection of my own life, my desires, perhaps my future, in the pages of a published book. That meant a lot to me. And hey. Maybe it meant in the future that I, too, could have my own hot Mexican waiter.
Of course, these post-Will and Grace days, we take representation for granted. We have task forces that chide networks when they don't have enough gay characters on their TV shows. We have an abundance of excellent literature aimed at gay and lesbian youth, and all kinds of literature for all kinds of young adults in which non-heterosexual relationships are accepted and common. For someone who grew up with only a few glimpses of 'small-town faggotry' and copper loins as a guidepost, I think the change is remarkable—and welcome.
I'm curious about my readers, though, since I know I have a wide range of ages who check in. Whether on TV, in the movies, or between the pages of a book, what was your first childhood or teen encounter with fictional gay characters, and how did they affect your own vision of yourself? Were you happy to see them? Horrified at the way they were portrayed? When you revisit that material now, how does it make you feel? Let me know how you feel in today's open forum—I'm really interested in your experiences.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Sunday Morning Questions: Junction City Edition
One of my all-time favorite songs—okay, probably my all-time favorite song, if you were to attempt to nail me down and I wasn't giving you a smart-ass answer—is probably "Wicked Little Town." Do you know it? I loved it first when I heard the original cast recording for Hedwig & the Angry Inch, and then loved it all the more a few years later when the movie came out.
John Cameron Mitchell gave such a touching performance in his movie that I've always loved it, and him. And when it comes to this particular song—well, I find him truly tender and moving.
I know that many of my long-time readers are still cherishing hopes that somehow I'll come to my senses and get back together with Spencer, the young man with whom I exclusively spent several months before my move across the country. It's not going to happen. But I would like to say that in the middle of this week, when I was having a particularly bad day, I got an email from out of the blue from Spencer. And he was singing this song for me.
I remember that the two of us had expressed our affection for the movie. We hadn't watched it together, though. I might have told him how very much I loved that song. It was in passing, though, and I wouldn't have expected him to know, or to remember.
And yet there he was, in his darkened room, turned a quarter away from the camera and basking in the light of his monitor, singing for me my favorite song.
Oh, how wet was my face when he was done. Before he was done. Before he'd even finished the first chorus. It broke my heart, and it made my week.
So readers, in the next few days, do something unexpected for someone who's meant something to you. They'll love you all the more for it. We need that in our little lives.
Let's get to some Formspring questions before I get too maudlin.
Do you have a library card and use it, or do you purchase books that you want to read?
I use my library card regularly, for both the check out of traditional and electronic books. i purchase books I wish to have for my permanent library, however.
These days, I do a lot of electronic book reading, whether from the library or purchasing from Amazon or Apple. After my move last summer, I learned that it is too easy to have too many books.
Do you consider yourself pragmatic?
That's a question that requires too much theory for me even to begin grappling with, so on that basis alone I'm pretty certain I have to say no.
Have you ever made a conscious effort to stop swearing/cursing? Why did you do it? And what strategies did you use to help you? Did you substitute "non curse" words for the "bad" words?
Why, do you think I curse too fucking much?
I curse quite naturally and freely thanks to parents who, despite having PhDs, both swore like longshoreman. My sibling's first word was 'shit,' thanks to them.
While I don't really give a rat's ass about cutting down the amount of swearing I do privately, I am very conscious of editing out bad language when I'm in an office situation, around kids who aren't mine, in professional gatherings, and around people I don't know. When I'm in those situations, I tend to say things like, "Oh my goodness!" instead of "Holy shit!", or "Gosh!" instead of "Fuck!"
It makes me sound like one of Wally and The Beaver's childhood chums, but there you go.
If you have a day off, and you have to spend it only around your home (not going out and shopping, eating, visiting, or whatever else you may otherwise choose to do), what sort of things would you do to fill up your day?
I'm likely to spend the morning making something in the kitchen like bread or jam or some kind of baked dessert, the afternoon reading and writing, and then the evening watching a movie or some kind of television.
Have you ever looked up a old flame online? Did you rekindle that relationship/friendship or just stalk them? How did it end up?
I don't rekindle old romances online. I do, however, stalk old boyfriends. I enjoy Googling them or finding them on Facebook and enjoying how old they look when compared to myself.
I did accept the friend request of a my old college boyfriend on Facebook. We had something of a tempestuous relationship when we were together, my junior and his senior year, but now we've both mellowed, he's gotten fat and jowly, and I get to preen when he says of my photos, "You haven't changed a bit!"
Having spent a long time in the midwest, what are your impressions of guys in the northeast? Different? Same? Do they have more attitude?
It's kind of tough for me to answer that question, because I see a lot of differences between guys even in very different regions, in this area. In the wealthy county where I'm currently living, the guys tend to be very preppy, very closeted, and really quite ashamed of putting sexual desire, even for a moment, as a priority over their careers and five-year plans. Outside this county, throughout the rest of the state, the men I've met are kind of approachable and friendly.
New York City isn't that far away, and I've actually found the men there more friendly and open than where I live. The men of New Jersey that I've talked to, on the other hand, tend to think pretty highly of themselves, but never really make a move to connect.
There are a lot of people in this congested area of the country. I'm not surprised at the diversity between them.
I am curious, are you easily embarrassed or does it take a lot to make you turn red from embarrassment? Only one thing really embarrasses me, and that would be direct, to-my-face praise. It makes me become very flustered. The rest of the time, I'm pretty much unflappable.
I do, however, turn red very easily. I turn red when I laugh, when I get angry, when I'm flustered and in a hurry. I just have that kind of complexion.
John Cameron Mitchell gave such a touching performance in his movie that I've always loved it, and him. And when it comes to this particular song—well, I find him truly tender and moving.
I know that many of my long-time readers are still cherishing hopes that somehow I'll come to my senses and get back together with Spencer, the young man with whom I exclusively spent several months before my move across the country. It's not going to happen. But I would like to say that in the middle of this week, when I was having a particularly bad day, I got an email from out of the blue from Spencer. And he was singing this song for me.
I remember that the two of us had expressed our affection for the movie. We hadn't watched it together, though. I might have told him how very much I loved that song. It was in passing, though, and I wouldn't have expected him to know, or to remember.
And yet there he was, in his darkened room, turned a quarter away from the camera and basking in the light of his monitor, singing for me my favorite song.
Oh, how wet was my face when he was done. Before he was done. Before he'd even finished the first chorus. It broke my heart, and it made my week.
So readers, in the next few days, do something unexpected for someone who's meant something to you. They'll love you all the more for it. We need that in our little lives.
Let's get to some Formspring questions before I get too maudlin.
Do you have a library card and use it, or do you purchase books that you want to read?
I use my library card regularly, for both the check out of traditional and electronic books. i purchase books I wish to have for my permanent library, however.
These days, I do a lot of electronic book reading, whether from the library or purchasing from Amazon or Apple. After my move last summer, I learned that it is too easy to have too many books.
Do you consider yourself pragmatic?
That's a question that requires too much theory for me even to begin grappling with, so on that basis alone I'm pretty certain I have to say no.
Have you ever made a conscious effort to stop swearing/cursing? Why did you do it? And what strategies did you use to help you? Did you substitute "non curse" words for the "bad" words?
Why, do you think I curse too fucking much?
I curse quite naturally and freely thanks to parents who, despite having PhDs, both swore like longshoreman. My sibling's first word was 'shit,' thanks to them.
While I don't really give a rat's ass about cutting down the amount of swearing I do privately, I am very conscious of editing out bad language when I'm in an office situation, around kids who aren't mine, in professional gatherings, and around people I don't know. When I'm in those situations, I tend to say things like, "Oh my goodness!" instead of "Holy shit!", or "Gosh!" instead of "Fuck!"
It makes me sound like one of Wally and The Beaver's childhood chums, but there you go.
If you have a day off, and you have to spend it only around your home (not going out and shopping, eating, visiting, or whatever else you may otherwise choose to do), what sort of things would you do to fill up your day?
I'm likely to spend the morning making something in the kitchen like bread or jam or some kind of baked dessert, the afternoon reading and writing, and then the evening watching a movie or some kind of television.
Have you ever looked up a old flame online? Did you rekindle that relationship/friendship or just stalk them? How did it end up?
I don't rekindle old romances online. I do, however, stalk old boyfriends. I enjoy Googling them or finding them on Facebook and enjoying how old they look when compared to myself.
I did accept the friend request of a my old college boyfriend on Facebook. We had something of a tempestuous relationship when we were together, my junior and his senior year, but now we've both mellowed, he's gotten fat and jowly, and I get to preen when he says of my photos, "You haven't changed a bit!"
Having spent a long time in the midwest, what are your impressions of guys in the northeast? Different? Same? Do they have more attitude?
It's kind of tough for me to answer that question, because I see a lot of differences between guys even in very different regions, in this area. In the wealthy county where I'm currently living, the guys tend to be very preppy, very closeted, and really quite ashamed of putting sexual desire, even for a moment, as a priority over their careers and five-year plans. Outside this county, throughout the rest of the state, the men I've met are kind of approachable and friendly.
New York City isn't that far away, and I've actually found the men there more friendly and open than where I live. The men of New Jersey that I've talked to, on the other hand, tend to think pretty highly of themselves, but never really make a move to connect.
There are a lot of people in this congested area of the country. I'm not surprised at the diversity between them.
I am curious, are you easily embarrassed or does it take a lot to make you turn red from embarrassment? Only one thing really embarrasses me, and that would be direct, to-my-face praise. It makes me become very flustered. The rest of the time, I'm pretty much unflappable.
I do, however, turn red very easily. I turn red when I laugh, when I get angry, when I'm flustered and in a hurry. I just have that kind of complexion.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Fuckin' Redcoats
In my checkered sexual history, I’ve many times orchestrated the fulfillment of a particular type of sexual fantasy for a particular type of man.
I’ve made black men whimper at their request by whipping out the N-word. I’ve made Middle Eastern men shoot by calling them towelheads. I’ve met Asian guys who reach the peak of their arousal only when I growl down at them that if they weren’t already slanty-eyed little faggots, their eyes would be crooked once I finished fucking their chink asses (which for some didn’t technically make sense, since they were Korean or Japanese).
I laugh to think about it, but I once made a Latin guy—a Los Angeles television executive who was far, far better off than I—highly, highly excited a few years back when he showed up at my house hot to fuck, and I made him strip off his Hugo Boss dress shirt, address me as sir, and weed my back garden for a half-hour while I kicked back on the deck with a Mike’s Hard Lemonade.
No, really. That was the best day ever. I got laid, he came a bucket, and I didn’t have to weed the garden.
I’m used to the sounds of protest from some men when they hear I engage in this kind of play. Dick pigs who are usually mopping the floors of skanky bar back rooms with their testicles sudden become prim Mrs. Grundys as they clutch their Sunday best pearls and mouth words to the effect that they are shocked, shocked that anyone would have so little pride that they’d degrade themselves that way.
Whatever, cocksuckers. What gets a man off, gets a man off. If in my bedroom or between my toolshed and back garden plot my partners like to flirt with a type of roleplay ordinarily taboo and forbidden to them, so what? It’s not hurting anyone. And my hostas really needed dividing, yo.
I encountered a guy this week, however, who kind of threw me for a loop. I’m looking for a guy who’s all top and dom, he wrote. Is that you?
Yup, I wrote back. Because it was more diplomatic than, Sure, why not?
The guy wanted me, basically, to be a big butch American man who denigrated him based on his nationality. He was from the United Kingdom. Could I do that?, he wondered.
I typed back, I don’t understand a fuckin thing you’re saying with that annoying accent, asshole. Did you step out of a goddamned Merchant-Ivory flick or what?
He signed off immediately after. I assumed he hadn’t gotten the joke. But no. A couple of hours later I got an email saying that my (intended-to-be-flip) remark got him off immediately. He sent a phone camera shot of the proof.
Well, okay then.
It really doesn’t take much to get the guy off. A couple of general, short vulgarities, followed by one practiced insult. And while I’m not at all into cybersex, I find this guy kind of amusing. God DAMN, I’ll type to him, for the money shot. Do American guys really let you suck their big dicks with those nasty-ass English teeth of yours? I wouldn’t let that dental tragedy you call a mouth anywhere near my Grade A dick, you little shitstain poof.
Instant orgasm for him, giggles for me.
Or, All your pasty ass is good for is taking big U.S. dick, you piece of crap Limey. What do you expect from a country where all the men sound like fuckin faggots? That went over well.
Or, Don’t come at me acting like you can backtalk a red-blooded American real man. How the fuck did you people even get the Olympics, when you couldn’t tell your pansy asses from your boots in the Falkland Islands?
Pure comedy gold, frankly, and every time as a reward I get in my email box a photo of the huge loads he’s splattering across his desk at my insults. He’s enjoying himself, though I don’t think he’s getting that I’m treat the situation like a joke. Usually I take requests for domination and degradation seriously—I think it’s an honor when a guy can open up enough to admit he enjoys that type of roleplay.
This guy, though, isn’t in on the farce. Or maybe he is, and my utter amusement at the crap I say to him is part of the thrill?
Either way, it’s working. I’m trying to craft something with a Downton Abbey theme for the next time I encounter him, but after that, I’m not exactly sure in what direction I should go. I’ve discarded the Spice Girls as too outdated, Shakespearean quotes as too literary, and puns on Dickens as too obvious.
And Chaucer is too much of a boner-killer, right? Yeah, I think so too.
I’ve made black men whimper at their request by whipping out the N-word. I’ve made Middle Eastern men shoot by calling them towelheads. I’ve met Asian guys who reach the peak of their arousal only when I growl down at them that if they weren’t already slanty-eyed little faggots, their eyes would be crooked once I finished fucking their chink asses (which for some didn’t technically make sense, since they were Korean or Japanese).
I laugh to think about it, but I once made a Latin guy—a Los Angeles television executive who was far, far better off than I—highly, highly excited a few years back when he showed up at my house hot to fuck, and I made him strip off his Hugo Boss dress shirt, address me as sir, and weed my back garden for a half-hour while I kicked back on the deck with a Mike’s Hard Lemonade.
No, really. That was the best day ever. I got laid, he came a bucket, and I didn’t have to weed the garden.
I’m used to the sounds of protest from some men when they hear I engage in this kind of play. Dick pigs who are usually mopping the floors of skanky bar back rooms with their testicles sudden become prim Mrs. Grundys as they clutch their Sunday best pearls and mouth words to the effect that they are shocked, shocked that anyone would have so little pride that they’d degrade themselves that way.
Whatever, cocksuckers. What gets a man off, gets a man off. If in my bedroom or between my toolshed and back garden plot my partners like to flirt with a type of roleplay ordinarily taboo and forbidden to them, so what? It’s not hurting anyone. And my hostas really needed dividing, yo.
I encountered a guy this week, however, who kind of threw me for a loop. I’m looking for a guy who’s all top and dom, he wrote. Is that you?
Yup, I wrote back. Because it was more diplomatic than, Sure, why not?
The guy wanted me, basically, to be a big butch American man who denigrated him based on his nationality. He was from the United Kingdom. Could I do that?, he wondered.
I typed back, I don’t understand a fuckin thing you’re saying with that annoying accent, asshole. Did you step out of a goddamned Merchant-Ivory flick or what?
He signed off immediately after. I assumed he hadn’t gotten the joke. But no. A couple of hours later I got an email saying that my (intended-to-be-flip) remark got him off immediately. He sent a phone camera shot of the proof.
Well, okay then.
It really doesn’t take much to get the guy off. A couple of general, short vulgarities, followed by one practiced insult. And while I’m not at all into cybersex, I find this guy kind of amusing. God DAMN, I’ll type to him, for the money shot. Do American guys really let you suck their big dicks with those nasty-ass English teeth of yours? I wouldn’t let that dental tragedy you call a mouth anywhere near my Grade A dick, you little shitstain poof.
Instant orgasm for him, giggles for me.
Or, All your pasty ass is good for is taking big U.S. dick, you piece of crap Limey. What do you expect from a country where all the men sound like fuckin faggots? That went over well.
Or, Don’t come at me acting like you can backtalk a red-blooded American real man. How the fuck did you people even get the Olympics, when you couldn’t tell your pansy asses from your boots in the Falkland Islands?
Pure comedy gold, frankly, and every time as a reward I get in my email box a photo of the huge loads he’s splattering across his desk at my insults. He’s enjoying himself, though I don’t think he’s getting that I’m treat the situation like a joke. Usually I take requests for domination and degradation seriously—I think it’s an honor when a guy can open up enough to admit he enjoys that type of roleplay.
This guy, though, isn’t in on the farce. Or maybe he is, and my utter amusement at the crap I say to him is part of the thrill?
Either way, it’s working. I’m trying to craft something with a Downton Abbey theme for the next time I encounter him, but after that, I’m not exactly sure in what direction I should go. I’ve discarded the Spice Girls as too outdated, Shakespearean quotes as too literary, and puns on Dickens as too obvious.
And Chaucer is too much of a boner-killer, right? Yeah, I think so too.
Monday, April 2, 2012
A Fuck-You List
I’ve been feeling a little scattered this last week and a half. I haven’t been able to concentrate. My libido has been zero. All I’ve really wanted to do was turn on my music and curl up with some of the books I’ve been reading, away from people, isolated. This urge to insulate myself from the world happens late in every March, and I pretend that I don’t understand it.
Then April first rolls around, and I have to confront what’s been getting me down. It’s the anniversary of my mom’s death, you see. It’s been eighteen years—Jesus. But it still creeps up on me. Every year I manage to fool myself into thinking I won’t be affected. Every year I find out that I am just kidding myself.
So if my entries haven’t been particularly sexy this last week, I’m explaining why.
My mother was a woman with a deep and perverse sense of humor, and April Fool’s day was one of her favorite holidays. Every year she used to plan her one good trick, weeks in advance; she’d conspire with me on one really good trick to play on my friends. I’m kind of convinced that during her last long illness, she held off on expiring until April first because in a very, very twisted way, she knew it’d be her last and best joke ever.
One of the things my mother used to do, particularly during my teen years, was to make what she called Fuck-You Lists. Now, I’ve known people, particularly those in recovery programs, to make lists of things for which they’re grateful, at the end of every day. These vaguely inspirational lists are always filled with things like I’m grateful for the touch of warm sunshines on my shoulders this afternoon, telling me that spring is on the way, and I’m so grateful for the love of my husband because he keeps me on my path, and other similar sentimental Hallmark sentiments.
I kid. It’s good to be grateful, and to be aware of what’s good in one’s own life. My mother’s Fuck-You Lists, though, were kind of the opposite of these; if she was having a particularly frustrating day, she’d grab a sheet paper, a pencil from one of her crossword puzzle books, and sit down at the kitchen table with a cup of black coffee and a cigarette. She’d scrawl FUCK YOU at the top of the page, and then jot down the four or five frustrations uppermost at her mind. Then she’d tuck the paper in the napkin holder, or behind the telephone, or beneath a paperweight, and go about her business.
I think the reasoning behind the exercise was that her troubles and irritations didn’t seem so ponderous when they’d been reduced to writing on a coffee-stained slip of paper. She could get them out of her system, then leave them behind and head off to work or to one of her hundred political activities. I think it astonished relatives, neighbors, and my friends when they’d come over, wander into the kitchen, and see hundreds of slips of paper in my mom’s exquisite handwriting labeled FUCK YOU! at the top, but hey. It’s what made our home the popular place to be.
All this preamble is simply in order to say that in honor of my mom and her passing, I’ve decided to come up with a Fuck-You List of my own today, so I can get a few things off my chest and hopefully move on to better things in the coming week. So. Without further ado:
1. Dear Manhunt Guy who hit me up last night begging me to drop everything and drive thirty-nine miles to fuck him: I’ve got about ten public photos on Manhunt, all unlocked. Your only visible photo was a shot roughly the size of a postage stamp of your chest, in which you’ve used some kind of graphic program to scribble out your face with black pen. Given that imbalance, it’s perfectly reasonable for me to ask you if I may see your locked photo before I commit to a drive, and frankly, I was pissed off by your response of lol you haven’t earned that honor yet. I don’t have to ‘earn’ anything from you, kiddo, especially when it was you hitting on me. And thus I say, fuck you.
2. Dear BBRT Guy who unlocked his photos for me very late last night, and who then mocked my grammar when I commented on how good his photos were: Dude, really? On a sex site? I wrote in complete sentences. How often are you getting that on BBRT? And you know what? When it’s two-thirty a.m. and I’ve got insomnia, I really don’t care if I’ve used the subjunctive correctly or not. What’re you getting out of coming at me so aggressively, anyway? I think I’m heartily justified at giving you a hearty fuck you.
3. Dear woman who runs a local artist’s league where I was investigating a teaching opportunity: I should’ve known something weird was up when I mentioned my involvement with three of the biggest professional organizations for our particular craft, and you looked at me blankly and made me explain what the acronyms were. I’ve got more teaching experience than anyone else leading workshops in your podunk little guild. I’ve had more national exposure, and have a longer track record than you or your other instructors. Why you’ve ignored my several polite emails and phone calls suggesting you let me take you out to coffee so we can discuss me perhaps teaching a couple of courses for you is beyond me, but I’m not chasing you any longer. Fuck you, babe.
4. Dear reader who collected our handful of times together like some kind of prize he could brandish before his buddies: I was astonished at by how very hard you chased me, and I am astonished at how very hard you dropped me once you had what you wanted. You know, I’m not even angry about that, in particular. I’m upset because you never bothered to read the lovely entry I wrote about you—not because you were apprehensive about what I might’ve said, but because you were ‘too busy.’ I’d tell you fuck you, but I’ve already fucked you. So I’ll just say this, though I know you’re ‘too busy’ to read it: you let me down.
5. Dear other reader who devoured my blog from start to finish and initiated a real-life friendship with me on the basis of how well you thought you knew me, afterward: Your infatuation with my life was fueled mainly by the fact you read so much of my journal so quickly, in such a short period of time. I knew that when you were attempting to convince me that you could be my new best friend. I knew that your fascination would cool a little when you reached the point that you’d have to read my entries one at a time, when I wrote them. What I didn’t expect was that the start of that friendship would freeze altogether, and that you’d simply stop speaking to me altogether when you were forced to slow down to my everyday mundanity. You don’t read me any longer because of it, so you too won’t see this, but I was hurt by the way you broke stuff off by trying to make it seem like I was the one who was after something unreasonable, just because I’d say hello and ask how you were doing. It’s with regret that I never got to fuck you, but hey, that was never on the agenda anyway.
6. Dear everybody local who feels it necessary to comment about my haircut: I'd totally forgotten how much I absolutely dreaded going to school the day after I got a haircut when I was a kid, because everyone comments on it. Everyone. To the handful of people who say something like, Hey, you got your hair cut—I like it!, I am grateful. However, to everyone who phrases their surprise in a form similar to You cut your hair! It looks SO MUCH BETTER!—and that's a lot of people who simply shouldn't be opening their mouths—I offer a hearty fuck you. You don't see me walking up to you and saying "Ohmygod you look SO MUCH BETTER now that you've lost that extra five pounds you put on eating all those Girl Scout Tagalongs a few weeks back, lard-ass!", do you? No, you don't, because it's fucking rude to tell someone they used to be ugly. Back-handed compliments aren't compliments. Learn it! I liked my hair long. I like my hair short. One way is not better than the other. They're just different. No matter how long my hair is, I still look extra-super-foxy. No matter how long your hair is, you're still an asshole.
Whew! I think that’s all the things that have been bugging me lately. Now they’re off my chest, I hope I can walk away and leave them behind for a little while, to see if it works.
Anyone else have any other Fuck You messages to add to the list? As long as they’re not to me, add ‘em in the comments below, and then we’ll tuck them behind my mom’s avocado-green Princess phone and let someone else stumble on them, down the line.
Then April first rolls around, and I have to confront what’s been getting me down. It’s the anniversary of my mom’s death, you see. It’s been eighteen years—Jesus. But it still creeps up on me. Every year I manage to fool myself into thinking I won’t be affected. Every year I find out that I am just kidding myself.
So if my entries haven’t been particularly sexy this last week, I’m explaining why.
My mother was a woman with a deep and perverse sense of humor, and April Fool’s day was one of her favorite holidays. Every year she used to plan her one good trick, weeks in advance; she’d conspire with me on one really good trick to play on my friends. I’m kind of convinced that during her last long illness, she held off on expiring until April first because in a very, very twisted way, she knew it’d be her last and best joke ever.
One of the things my mother used to do, particularly during my teen years, was to make what she called Fuck-You Lists. Now, I’ve known people, particularly those in recovery programs, to make lists of things for which they’re grateful, at the end of every day. These vaguely inspirational lists are always filled with things like I’m grateful for the touch of warm sunshines on my shoulders this afternoon, telling me that spring is on the way, and I’m so grateful for the love of my husband because he keeps me on my path, and other similar sentimental Hallmark sentiments.
I kid. It’s good to be grateful, and to be aware of what’s good in one’s own life. My mother’s Fuck-You Lists, though, were kind of the opposite of these; if she was having a particularly frustrating day, she’d grab a sheet paper, a pencil from one of her crossword puzzle books, and sit down at the kitchen table with a cup of black coffee and a cigarette. She’d scrawl FUCK YOU at the top of the page, and then jot down the four or five frustrations uppermost at her mind. Then she’d tuck the paper in the napkin holder, or behind the telephone, or beneath a paperweight, and go about her business.
I think the reasoning behind the exercise was that her troubles and irritations didn’t seem so ponderous when they’d been reduced to writing on a coffee-stained slip of paper. She could get them out of her system, then leave them behind and head off to work or to one of her hundred political activities. I think it astonished relatives, neighbors, and my friends when they’d come over, wander into the kitchen, and see hundreds of slips of paper in my mom’s exquisite handwriting labeled FUCK YOU! at the top, but hey. It’s what made our home the popular place to be.
All this preamble is simply in order to say that in honor of my mom and her passing, I’ve decided to come up with a Fuck-You List of my own today, so I can get a few things off my chest and hopefully move on to better things in the coming week. So. Without further ado:
1. Dear Manhunt Guy who hit me up last night begging me to drop everything and drive thirty-nine miles to fuck him: I’ve got about ten public photos on Manhunt, all unlocked. Your only visible photo was a shot roughly the size of a postage stamp of your chest, in which you’ve used some kind of graphic program to scribble out your face with black pen. Given that imbalance, it’s perfectly reasonable for me to ask you if I may see your locked photo before I commit to a drive, and frankly, I was pissed off by your response of lol you haven’t earned that honor yet. I don’t have to ‘earn’ anything from you, kiddo, especially when it was you hitting on me. And thus I say, fuck you.
2. Dear BBRT Guy who unlocked his photos for me very late last night, and who then mocked my grammar when I commented on how good his photos were: Dude, really? On a sex site? I wrote in complete sentences. How often are you getting that on BBRT? And you know what? When it’s two-thirty a.m. and I’ve got insomnia, I really don’t care if I’ve used the subjunctive correctly or not. What’re you getting out of coming at me so aggressively, anyway? I think I’m heartily justified at giving you a hearty fuck you.
3. Dear woman who runs a local artist’s league where I was investigating a teaching opportunity: I should’ve known something weird was up when I mentioned my involvement with three of the biggest professional organizations for our particular craft, and you looked at me blankly and made me explain what the acronyms were. I’ve got more teaching experience than anyone else leading workshops in your podunk little guild. I’ve had more national exposure, and have a longer track record than you or your other instructors. Why you’ve ignored my several polite emails and phone calls suggesting you let me take you out to coffee so we can discuss me perhaps teaching a couple of courses for you is beyond me, but I’m not chasing you any longer. Fuck you, babe.
4. Dear reader who collected our handful of times together like some kind of prize he could brandish before his buddies: I was astonished at by how very hard you chased me, and I am astonished at how very hard you dropped me once you had what you wanted. You know, I’m not even angry about that, in particular. I’m upset because you never bothered to read the lovely entry I wrote about you—not because you were apprehensive about what I might’ve said, but because you were ‘too busy.’ I’d tell you fuck you, but I’ve already fucked you. So I’ll just say this, though I know you’re ‘too busy’ to read it: you let me down.
5. Dear other reader who devoured my blog from start to finish and initiated a real-life friendship with me on the basis of how well you thought you knew me, afterward: Your infatuation with my life was fueled mainly by the fact you read so much of my journal so quickly, in such a short period of time. I knew that when you were attempting to convince me that you could be my new best friend. I knew that your fascination would cool a little when you reached the point that you’d have to read my entries one at a time, when I wrote them. What I didn’t expect was that the start of that friendship would freeze altogether, and that you’d simply stop speaking to me altogether when you were forced to slow down to my everyday mundanity. You don’t read me any longer because of it, so you too won’t see this, but I was hurt by the way you broke stuff off by trying to make it seem like I was the one who was after something unreasonable, just because I’d say hello and ask how you were doing. It’s with regret that I never got to fuck you, but hey, that was never on the agenda anyway.
6. Dear everybody local who feels it necessary to comment about my haircut: I'd totally forgotten how much I absolutely dreaded going to school the day after I got a haircut when I was a kid, because everyone comments on it. Everyone. To the handful of people who say something like, Hey, you got your hair cut—I like it!, I am grateful. However, to everyone who phrases their surprise in a form similar to You cut your hair! It looks SO MUCH BETTER!—and that's a lot of people who simply shouldn't be opening their mouths—I offer a hearty fuck you. You don't see me walking up to you and saying "Ohmygod you look SO MUCH BETTER now that you've lost that extra five pounds you put on eating all those Girl Scout Tagalongs a few weeks back, lard-ass!", do you? No, you don't, because it's fucking rude to tell someone they used to be ugly. Back-handed compliments aren't compliments. Learn it! I liked my hair long. I like my hair short. One way is not better than the other. They're just different. No matter how long my hair is, I still look extra-super-foxy. No matter how long your hair is, you're still an asshole.
Whew! I think that’s all the things that have been bugging me lately. Now they’re off my chest, I hope I can walk away and leave them behind for a little while, to see if it works.
Anyone else have any other Fuck You messages to add to the list? As long as they’re not to me, add ‘em in the comments below, and then we’ll tuck them behind my mom’s avocado-green Princess phone and let someone else stumble on them, down the line.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Sunday Morning Questions: Diving Right In Edition
I'm running a little late this morning—okay, a whole lotta late—and I've already accidentally deleted this column once (thanks Blogger!) so I'll keep today's Q&A session rather brief.
A couple of things, though. Thank you guys for the pleasant variety of questions I received at formspring.me this week. You can either see the answers at the website, or check back here in another three or four weeks when they get incorporated into my weekly round-ups.
Another thing—thanks for all the thoughtful answers to Friday's forum about early shame. Some of the stories you folks shared are funny, touching, and thoughtful. If you didn't get a chance to read the comments, take a chance and do. That's what the forums are all about!
If you have a "smart phone", what are the apps you use the most on your phone?
I use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and my email and camera apps the most. I also make heavy use of my web browser, and peruse my RSS feeds with an aggregator called Reeder.
The game I play the most at the moment is Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer.
Do you prefer hairy or smooth asses?
I prefer asses that are on my face, actually.
Do you like to ride roller coasters? If so, what is the name and amusement park of your favorite?
I love roller coasters. My favorite is a sentimental choice—The Grizzly, at King's Dominion in Virginia. It's a wooden coaster that rattles your bones as it takes every corner at breakneck speed.
It's probably my favorite because I associate it with the time I spent working at the park, and the nights after closing when employees could ride the coasters without lines for hours at a time in the dark, until long after midnight. Working in the park was not a great experience overall, but those employee parties were a great deal of fun.
You mentioned that at one time you played WoW...I was wondering if you ever played LotRO? And if so would it be possible to connect with you there?
I played World of Warcraft for six years, since the beginning, and then gave it up last April. I was not a fan of the Cataclysm expansion at all. Giving it up was tough, and I still miss the game, but not enough to go back at this point.
I played Lord of the Rings Online for about six months, after it opened. It was a vast world, but I didn't really enjoy it a whole heck of a lot. So after I bought my hobbit's player house, I let my subscription lapse.
I had a lot of issues with the leveling experience—namely that I'd get a kerjillion quests and they'd all be worthless before I was even vaguely finished with a region—and with the respawn time on trash (way too fast!). I also didn't like the weirdness of the character classes. The archer who was required never ever to move in order to fire at maximum strength was just bizarre.
I believe the game fixed a lot of my concerns later, but by then I was gone.
What do you feel is the single greatest invention of your time?
Plain and simple—the internet. The ability to communicate with parts of the world immensely far away, and on the most obscure of topics, has sparked a change in the way we all live. It's a scope of change that I feel we won't even be able fully to appreciate in our lifetimes, either.
Whenever I've thought of moving to the NY metro area, the cost of housing made it seem unattractive, unless I moved into something close to the size of my college dorm room. What are your longer term housing plans, should you stay about where you are?
Housing is expensive in the NYC area. If you're moving from somewhere with a low cost of living, like pockets of the midwest or south, it's positively obscene.
Originally my plans were to buy a house here. I think now I'm looking at condo options, or I may continue renting for a while longer. To be honest, since I had to sell at an all-time housing depression, the home-owning experience did not turn out to be all-American dream of prosperity I was always promised as a young person.
Grower or shower?
I'm a grower, but I can do some fairly good showing from time to time.
Is there any TV series that miss and wish was still being made?
I really think Firefly was canceled before its time. And Angel, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Oh, just throw Dollhouse in there too and we'll have a Joss Whedon wake.
A couple of things, though. Thank you guys for the pleasant variety of questions I received at formspring.me this week. You can either see the answers at the website, or check back here in another three or four weeks when they get incorporated into my weekly round-ups.
Another thing—thanks for all the thoughtful answers to Friday's forum about early shame. Some of the stories you folks shared are funny, touching, and thoughtful. If you didn't get a chance to read the comments, take a chance and do. That's what the forums are all about!
If you have a "smart phone", what are the apps you use the most on your phone?
I use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and my email and camera apps the most. I also make heavy use of my web browser, and peruse my RSS feeds with an aggregator called Reeder.
The game I play the most at the moment is Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer.
Do you prefer hairy or smooth asses?
I prefer asses that are on my face, actually.
Do you like to ride roller coasters? If so, what is the name and amusement park of your favorite?
I love roller coasters. My favorite is a sentimental choice—The Grizzly, at King's Dominion in Virginia. It's a wooden coaster that rattles your bones as it takes every corner at breakneck speed.
It's probably my favorite because I associate it with the time I spent working at the park, and the nights after closing when employees could ride the coasters without lines for hours at a time in the dark, until long after midnight. Working in the park was not a great experience overall, but those employee parties were a great deal of fun.
You mentioned that at one time you played WoW...I was wondering if you ever played LotRO? And if so would it be possible to connect with you there?
I played World of Warcraft for six years, since the beginning, and then gave it up last April. I was not a fan of the Cataclysm expansion at all. Giving it up was tough, and I still miss the game, but not enough to go back at this point.
I played Lord of the Rings Online for about six months, after it opened. It was a vast world, but I didn't really enjoy it a whole heck of a lot. So after I bought my hobbit's player house, I let my subscription lapse.
I had a lot of issues with the leveling experience—namely that I'd get a kerjillion quests and they'd all be worthless before I was even vaguely finished with a region—and with the respawn time on trash (way too fast!). I also didn't like the weirdness of the character classes. The archer who was required never ever to move in order to fire at maximum strength was just bizarre.
I believe the game fixed a lot of my concerns later, but by then I was gone.
What do you feel is the single greatest invention of your time?
Plain and simple—the internet. The ability to communicate with parts of the world immensely far away, and on the most obscure of topics, has sparked a change in the way we all live. It's a scope of change that I feel we won't even be able fully to appreciate in our lifetimes, either.
Whenever I've thought of moving to the NY metro area, the cost of housing made it seem unattractive, unless I moved into something close to the size of my college dorm room. What are your longer term housing plans, should you stay about where you are?
Housing is expensive in the NYC area. If you're moving from somewhere with a low cost of living, like pockets of the midwest or south, it's positively obscene.
Originally my plans were to buy a house here. I think now I'm looking at condo options, or I may continue renting for a while longer. To be honest, since I had to sell at an all-time housing depression, the home-owning experience did not turn out to be all-American dream of prosperity I was always promised as a young person.
Grower or shower?
I'm a grower, but I can do some fairly good showing from time to time.
Is there any TV series that miss and wish was still being made?
I really think Firefly was canceled before its time. And Angel, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Oh, just throw Dollhouse in there too and we'll have a Joss Whedon wake.
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