put it to paper
I stay up at night
and wait for you to call
but you don’t
and that’s okay
for really, what would we talk about –
except that.
And still I stay up
and wait for life to unfold
and it’s okay that I miss you
’cause really, I’m a seeker
and there’s got to be more –
than that. – pn
photo credit: catholicjournal.com
In trying to find the right emoji for my previous post on disappointment, I came across an article in the Inquirer that Oxford Dictionaries had named an emoji as the word of the year for 2015 (yes, I’m late to the news). Pretty pathetic…or as the subhead of the Inquirer article states…“Words cannot express the disappointment.” It is the emoji above, tears of joy. Minus the middle finger—the middle finger coupled with the tears of joy emoji was found elsewhere (more later).
Say whaaat? I like emojis, I use emojis, but cultural significance? Like pet rock cultural significance? First, an emoji is not a word (a single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing, used with others, or sometimes alone, to form a sentence and typically shown with a space on either side when written or printed, New Oxford American Dictionary), and second, why that particular emoji? I’ve never seen anyone use that face—when does some half-assed text or email bring you to tears of joy? Why not pile of poop or sun blowing a kiss? What about glass of wine? The overuse of the wine emoji might actually be culturally significant—but not with regard to communication. I suppose I would use tears of joy if I got an email that said I had won the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes, or maybe if a loved one’s bad health did a sharp turn for the better. I would love to know the demographic of that judging panel—could be stupid young or ancient Aunt Betty. Either way, a cop out if you ask me. A far more important announcement regarding emoji’s in 2015 is on the death and taxes page where I found the above picture—and just in case you missed it, the middle finger emoji has been on your iPhone for some time now.
photo credit: deathandtaxesmag.com
I have always struggled with disappointment, that wave of let-down and dispiritedness. I find it terrible to digest and forgiveness a long time coming, to the point where I can find myself sitting and steaming in self-pity. I know that everyone in my circle of friends and family will eventually disappoint me–husband, children, girlfriends, boyfriends—and I have undoubtedly disappointed myself. In a way, I expect disappointment from my husband and children, a built-in emotion of family life, like love or anger, and because I know disappointment in a family member will eventually surface, it’s a little bit easier to swallow, easier to move away from. And I also expect disappointment in myself—I know I will fuck up time and time again, it’s growth, it’s learning, I hopefully will disappoint myself less as I mature. But disappointment in friends, in my girlfriends, is very, very hard for me to accept and get over. They are the ones I look to to soothe the disappointment of unfulfilled expectations, not the ones to deliver the blow. Girls should not disappoint girls—but they do, all the time, and I really need to buck up.
So, in trying to understand disappointment, I researched some and found mostly articles that were all so zen—you know, tiny buddha stuff, let it out, acceptance, breathe, etc. The quotes served me a little bit better – I wasn’t so much looking for a way out of disappointment (I get that), I wanted some understanding as to how I got here in the first place. Maybe a good place to start is to stop thinking that others should think and behave as I would or do. Hmmm…
“Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.” – Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper
“It was one of those times you feel a sense of loss, even though you didn’t have something in the first place. I guess that’s what disappointment is- a sense of loss for something you never had.” – Deb Caletti, The Nature of Jade
“Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy – the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.” – Eric Hoffer
“I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
“Disappointment
Can do a couple things.
It can drop you into a giant
sucking sinkhole of
depression,
a place you have to fight
to climb out of. Or it
can trigger an epic
mania
to overcome the odds
and transform failure
into success. Say you
swing
as high as the chains will
take you because you seek
the thrill of flight, and on the
up-
kick, you lose your seat.
Injury is likely. But if you
worry about falling
down,
and never chance “up,”
the sky will remain
forever out of reach.” – Ellen Hopkins
photo credit: emojipedia.org There seems to be some disagreement as to whether or not this is a “disappointment” emoji–I saw it dubbed as “confusion” or “boredom” as well. I liked it because it didn’t have tears—I don’t feel like crying, I’m just disappointed.
Las Vegas in your living room. What’s not to love? A belated congratulations to Nyle DiMarco and Peta Murgatroyd. Truly inspirational, well done!
photo credit: tvline.com
I guess I just lost my husband
I don’t know where he went.
So I’m gonna drink my money
I’m not gonna pay his rent (nope).
I got a brand new attitude
And I’m gonna wear it tonight.
I wanna get in trouble,
I wanna start a fight.
So, so what
I’m still a rock star
I got my rock moves,
And I don’t need you.
And guess what
I’m having more fun
And now that we’re done
I’m gonna show you tonight
I’m alright,
I’m just fine,
And you’re a tool,
So, so what.
I am a rock star.
I got my rock moves
And I don’t want you tonight. – pink
photo credit: rollingstone.com
In Maryland, political discussion has recently taken a back seat, and all anyone seems to be talking about is the excessive rain we’ve had in the past month. Here’s my spin—shut up, already. I love the rain. My father was a wanna-be farmer, and in all my years of growing up with his gardens, there was never too much rain. Yes, flooding is a problem for some farmers, but not in the Garden State. That’s right, New Jersey, Garden State, deal with it. My father was buried in the rain. It was perfect, a man so dedicated to the earth that it had no choice but to comply and let him rest in the mud. And who doesn’t benefit from a shower, doesn’t look prettier, feel better? And I bet you shower every day. So there ‘ya go. It’s raining, it’s beautiful, I am very content.
photo credit: gardeninginadrought.com (ha!)
I never planned nor imagined writing pornography, erotica, whatever you care to call it. I lived the most mundane and suburban existence possible—I owned no sex toys, no sexy lingerie, I had never even rented a pornographic movie—putting porn to paper never crossed my mind. And then letters, emails from a man I had never met started pouring in—long, dirty letters of offensive and often violent sex acts, letters that included an unfamiliar vocabulary and an unfamiliar sensation in my groin. And for whatever reason, be it loneliness, frustration, an overall malaise or hunger, these letters thrilled me, and I saw them as the catalyst behind a story, The near Transformation of Claire. I wanted to include many of these letters in that story, but on the advice of my mentor (and correct advice, I believe) I tried to appeal to a larger audience and chose to include only the tamer pieces, plus, I didn’t want my first writing effort to forever label me as a porn writer. There literally hundreds of letters unread by all but three people—I have more than 700 pieces of correspondence.
I’m not sure what has spurred this new sense of sharing, but I’m introducing some of my dirty letters. Some may find them offensive, amateurish, ugly and certainly not sexy, but the agents of intoxication are many and varied, and a fantasy born never, ever seems to go away. Some of my dirty letters are stand alone scenarios, a paragraph or two as to how this gentleman would take me. But many are continuing stories that went on for weeks, each of us adding a longer, dirtier element. The excerpt below is not my writing, but I did write several contributions to this story that we call the stranger.
She awoke in the arms of the stranger, groggy, seemingly floating on air despite her soreness—a reminder of what had transpired that evening. The light was low in the room, and reaching for her lover, saw him sitting on the upholstered chair. He smiled at her, and held out a joint from a mile away, it seemed. She gently pulled away from the still sleeping stranger, and made her way to the outstretched hand, falling to her knees and placing her head in her lovers lap. He stroked her hair and she lifted her face to him. He placed the joint between her lips and she took a long toke, feeling her whole body lifting, feeling their come running out of her. She took another toke and laid her head on his thighs, gradually becoming aware that her face was not far from his flaccid penis, and she felt again the invasions they had made on her. The thought led to details and she felt herself becoming turned on. I am a wanton, she thought, but I cannot help it. In fact, she was more like a skilled woman from a harem, a houri, a professional of pleasure, and she realized that was why he called her his whore. She loved it, demeaning while elevating her to a new plateau, permitting everything and honoring only pleasure. She also realized that her lust extended beyond her lover, and felt a twinge of guilt. She had become an addict to physical pleasure, but was only led there by what her lover felt for her. Sometimes remote and aloof, sometimes soft and loving, she followed his lead, sometimes wishing he would be more forceful, other times wishing he were more gentle. She was pleased, however, at her ability to arouse him by words or gesture, by teasing or demand. She felt his cock stirring near her head as he stoked her disarranged hair. He held the joint again to her lips and she inhaled deeply, his nails on her scalp beginning to make her aware of an aching in her loins, the trickle of dried juices from her stretched and now empty cunt, and the stirring of desire. His hand began to massage her neck. They had removed her bra to fondle her taught breasts and she felt her nipples against the silk slip she still wore. A shudder coursed through her as he parted his legs and guided her head to his groin. She felt his cock stir against her cheek and turned her face to him. He smiled and watched as she encompassed his member with her lips, feeling its life in her mouth as she licked him, sucked him, and she moved so that she was between his legs, his dick coming to attention in her mouth, his hands now tangled in her hair, his head thrown back, relishing the warmth of her mouth. She also felt the warmth in her abdomen as she sucked him, aware of her power, of his loins slowly thrusting. She thought about how they had used her last night and how she was becoming open to everything, the soft haze of marijuana contributing to a surge of lust in her as she teased and sucked on his rapidly rising cock, feeling it touch and slide against the roof of her mouth as she took him in. He looked down on her. “Baby, I want you to do this to our friend over there. We still want to take you places.” He reached out to fondle a breast through her silken slip and watched as she rose to her feet. He grabbed the silk as she turned, and held her in place as he shaped her ass through the flimsy fabric before releasing her. He watched as she bent over the nude sleeping form of the stranger, lifting his limp member and placing it in her mouth, tasting herself and his come on her tongue. He struggled, moaning out of the cloud of sleep, his penis begin to stir in her warm mouth. Soon his hands went to her head, and his hips began to undulate as he became erect, feeling her take him more deeply. She sensed, rather than heard, her lover rise from the chair and then felt his hands on her, rubbing her buttocks, lifting her slip to expose her. The strangers dick still in her mouth, she reached behind her and parted her cheeks for her lover, another sudden rush of warmth surging in her as she realized what she was doing. She felt her lovers hands on her waist, then the sudden stab of his erect cock pushing into her still moist bottom. There was a sharp sting as he entered her to the hilt, then a slow thrusting in time with her ministrations to the strangers dick in her mouth. She felt helpless yet powerful, and very, very sexy.
photo credit: pemonmoirema91.blogspot.com
He comes to me mostly at night,
at least that’s when I came to know him best,
but lately he appears during the day.
I used to be afraid, but not any more,
although it can trouble me
or confuse me
or something when he’s following me around
and people think I’m a little bit crazy,
as if some imaginary friend or foe was with me.
He still makes me jump, you know—
that beast under my bed. – pn
photo credit: playbuzz.com
That’s right—me and Lord & Taylor—we’re through, I’ve given notice. It’s rough out there, and my old bones and brain are struggling to keep up with the pace and level of customer service that the job requires. And, well, I’m moving, but it’s a timely move because I don’t know how much more retail I could handle. Again, I love my co-workers (most of them), but it’s the physicality, the customer and the caliber of customer that’s killin’ me. Pigs. The customers are pigs—and I suspect they’re pigs at Macy’s and elsewhere. They trash the dressing rooms beyond belief, they throw Betsy Johnson to the wall, stomp on Ralph Lauren, they rip the cords right out of all those Free People and leave close to every garment inside out. And then they assume you will give them any discount under the stars, and really, is that the best you can do? I bite my tongue, I smile, I search for the smaller size they will never fit into and the coupon of their dreams.
But there’s more. Lord & Taylor is currently conducting an in-your-face campaign to solicit customers for email addresses and credit card applications, and I’m terrible at it. It’s part bad luck, part aversion to the task (I don’t care to give out my email nor do I want another credit card), and part rebellion as I just don’t like their methods—an updated computer system could solve the email problem, and a credit card with lower finance charges and an awards program would make the sale far more attractive. Bottom line—work performance is now being calculated with credit card success and email captures, and I’m not doing so well. But I have exceptionally high scores in customer service. Go figure.
photo credit: anne taintor
He wore no cologne but he smelled of man—a combination of wool and soap and starch and a slight whiff of sweat around the collar. He pulled her into him and held her tightly. His shoulders and back were firm, his arms long, his hands just a little bit rough, catching on the silk of her dress. She felt each finger as if they were separate from his body, slender little creatures that stroked and pulled at her clothing, that moved slowly across the small of her back looking for a place to burrow into her flesh. His breath was warm and moist at her neck, his lips brushed her skin as they moved to her face to kiss her. She turned her face to his and kissed him hard, but turned just as quickly to rest on the comfort of his shoulder, allowing him to pull her in even tighter. The embrace was everything—the tight, hot melding of bodies that reinforced and renewed their passion, the first touch that took her back to their last, the memory of him, the promise of him, the fire of him.
She smelled of cigarettes and cologne. She was always nervous upon seeing him and smoked too much in the car as she drove to their meeting place, then dousing herself with more scent to cover the smoke. She fit perfectly in his arms. She pressed her breasts and body into him, not to arouse, but in an attempt to be inside him, to connect with his demon. Her fingers moved across his neck and she felt his muscles tighten in anticipation of her touch. Her hips began to move in an involuntary rhythm that matched her need, and she felt his firmness begin to soften and tremble. They clung to each other, they sucked in their smells and desires, they felt the marriage of bodies and wants, and they were once again reminded of the urgency that attended their love making. The embrace was everything, where their fragile connection of lust alone was made strong, and they could imagine being in love. You take my breath away, she whispered. Yes, baby, he replied.
art work: Fabian Perez, The Embrace II