Peace, Cum, and Understanding

Toe,
That was one beautiful post. I love your stories--the details about the nails pointing out around his dick. This is awesome. You also capture really well the sound of someone telling a story--it doesn't sound like a guy writing it, but a guy talking it. Jeez, you have to write more stories.

OK, and one particular passage from an earlier post had me laughing so hard I almost cried:

"I don't like baring myself for folks to slap my dick. I just want loving caresses, E-word, do you understand what I'm saying? Or slaps that are done with love."

Oh, I understand.

Things are good here. Work goes on. People tell me good things about what I do, what I have done. Work is absofuckinglutely peach-like in both its tastiness and the way its juice runs down my chin.

Thanks for writing so much. I have to write more, too, but now is not the time for me. Keep it up, though. I'll write more soon.
Love,
E-word
----------------------------------------------------
The little religious boy inside of me is having trouble with the heading I just gave this entry, but that's probably all the more reason to keep it the way it is.

words and guitars

E-word,

Hey man. I had a moment of inspiration and wrote down the previous thing. Hope it wasn't too weird.

Anyways, hope all is good.

Love,

Toe

Letters and Sodas

Q. When did you first cheat on your wife?

A. No small talk, just going straight at it?

(silence)

Okay, I guess it first happened about a year ago. Cathy was out of town for a business trip. Work was blowing my fucking head off, you know? I mean, that shit was just killing me, managers breathing down my neck constantly, I'm getting my ass kicked every minute. I wanted to blow off some steam, just, you know, cool the fuck down, so I went to Nudies.

Q. The strip club.

A. Yeah, the strip club. I mean, I don't think that looking at titties and getting lap dances is cheating, I mean, do you?

(silence)

Anyway, I didn't go there to get my dick wet, it was just like, I was just blowing off some steam, you know? So I'm sitting there really waiting for anyone to come sit on my lap and offer me a lap dance, and this girl comes by, this Puerto Rican girl, real fucking hot, and I ask her for a lap dance. While we're waiting for the next song to start, we're just making idle chat, like stupid shit, and I asked her if dudes ever get off from lap dances, and she says of course and then asks me if I want to.

Q. And?

A. And, and shit, it wasn't even on my mind but then she starts in on her lap dance, and I'm getting horny as fuck, this bitch had nice titties and I could smell her fucking pussy, it was fucking killing me, and I'm like groping every inch of her body and I'm thinking, ah, fuck it, and I told her that I wanted to get off, and, and, while she's grinding away at me we're like negotiating and shit, like, I didn't even know she was a ho, and while I'm running my fingers across her stomach I feel fucking stretch marks and I'm thinking this bitch has a kid and I'm like negotiating a handjob with her but I don't care, I want to get off. We settle on $120 for the hand job, and like, I have no idea if this is too much or a good deal or anything, I mean, she could have charged my $1200 and it would've been just fine.

So the song ends, and I pay her for the lap dance. I tell her what car I'm driving and where I'm parked, and she agrees to come out to the car after I leave the strip club. So I walk back to the Volvo and wait for her, my dick hard just from the fucking anticipation, and it's crazy, I can feel my heart beat in my fucking temples, I'm like fucking shaking and I can't even think, I can't even recognize that this shit is a boundary that I can't come back from, and she comes out, and she's smoking a cigarette, taking a cigarette break, I guess. She puts the smoke out by the car and she gets in the passenger seat next to me. I unzip my pants, and she reaches down and starts working it, I'm already hard, and sorry for this bit of info but I'm like already dribbling on her fucking hand, and she's just working it, and her fake fingernails are pointing out around my dick, and I reach over and grab her tits, her tits were just fucking fantastic and I'm not thinking that this is a fucking mom jerking off some dude for money in his Volvo in a strip club parking lot, none of that shit is registering in my brain, and before I knew what was happening, literally I'm like blinded with white light and I splattered come all over my shirt and pants, and it's on her hands and on her fake nails. Fucking ridiculous, it took like a minute. I'm just so unprepared for this shit, I'm like, how am I going to wipe this shit off, but thank God my gym bag was on the backseat so I give her a towel and I wipe myself off with a t-shirt.

Q. Then what happened?

A. Man, it was just anticlimactic, I pulled my wallet out, and gave her the money. I might have said something pathetic like thanks or something.

(silence)

Pretty fucked up I guess. I mean, it's like I'm a pretty thoughtful guy, like self aware I guess, I mean, like, it's fucked up, right?

And one last thing

Another difference is that generally speaking life is a lot more tragic now. Bad shit just happens more often. So not only are we less optimistic, but there is less to be optimistic about. I guess we have to battle pessimism?

Love,

Toe

And another thing

How in the world did we get so old? I mean, criminy, whatever, crap. Young people have their futures, and we're living in that future. Or something. And we're old. I'm not saying that it's all bad, it just is what it is, I guess, we all get old, like I said we're just living the future so I guess the only difference might be the level of optimism between the past and the future? It also seems a lot harder to make friends, so I've decided that since I'm not going to make close friends like I used to, I may as well try to make superficial friends, and just accept that for all that it is worth. It must be worth something, because everyone does it. I've always been really bad at small friendships, I guess because I don't like baring myself for folks to slap my dick. I just want loving caresses, E-word, do you understand what I'm saying? Or slaps that are done with love.

I- I don' t know where I'm going with all of this. The day is quickly coming to an end. I haven't had the most productive day of all time, but at least I've posted thrice (that's three times, baby) today.

Love,

Toe

Maybe I'm too young

E-word,

I'm listening to the album 'Will You Find Me?' by Ida right now. Part of enjoying life involves listening to Ida and reading through something called the MMPDS, which is the Metallic Materials Properties Development and Standardization. What an oddly named document. Anyway, I'm looking through this to understand all of the nomenclature, and in the meantime my mind is wandering. Ida is one of those bands that has a small following; I'm assuming that the following is so small that it's not actually enough to support the band, but they somehow keep keeping on, going on tours and writing and playing music. I imagine that they are constantly skirting disaster financially, yet this is the life they've chosen, the life of artists. Do you think that is something that you and I could have ever considered? The life of a novelist at best must be one of constant fear and scrounging for magazine gigs to keep afloat writing. While there is something amazing about choosing a life like this, how in the world is it sustainable? Is it possible to love something so much to forgo comfort for passion?

It got me thinking about another thing lately. At church we always hear about people who have received a 'calling'. These are the people who become so convicted that they live their lives in service to God, and take on all the poverty and difficulty that entails, either trying to become pastors or long-term missionaries. These people put their faith in God; do those whose calling is art put their faith in art?

Anyway, I'll get back to work.

Love,

Toe

I want a boyfriend

E-word,

Work has chilled out quite a bit, at least for this week and the next. I talked to one of the senior guys on the project about what I should do now, and he said 'Enjoy life!'. Sweet. I'm going to do that right now.

I love how you play with phrases. Reader humilis, I am reader reader futilis.

I'm glad you're posting back on our log here, and that things are going fairly well. You also got me really excited about that Joseph Heller book. I'm still in the midst of reading 'The Grapes of Wrath', but I'm planning 'Something Happens' to be my travel book. Besides (probably not) traveling to Pune this winter, we are definitely flying out to Seoul and Tokyo again this fall. I'm really looking forward to it, but I must say I have similar concerns about having enough money to do both this trip and the one to India. As I mentioned, El has started freelancing, so we might be able to bring home enough from those jobs to pay for our trips. However, during these economically uncertain times, perhaps we should put all of that money toward savings?

A surprising thing (at least to me) that has happened recently is I joined a gym. The reason this is surprising is because I had decided that I had spent enough time in gyms when I was younger, and recently thought I didn't have patience to actually spend time in a place where I literally feel like a hamster running around one those hamster wheels. I've lost patience with running, even, like all this stuff lately just bores me to tears, I'd much rather play tennis or go for a hike or something. Anyways, I joined a gym, and it's actually not so bad. I try very hard not to stay longer than 45 minutes at a stretch. Actually I don't have to try, it's more like I try to stay in the gym for 45 minutes. Yesterday I did some exercises that I hadn't done in years; bench press and squats. I have to say, it felt pretty darn good. I wasn't doing anywhere near what I could do in the past, but at the same time I don't want to be an absurdly muscled person anymore. I ran a mile (I think for treadmill running my max will be 2.5 miles, I just don't have the patience for this shit any more), and overall it felt pretty good.

Anyway, I'm going back to enjoying life.

Love,

Toe

Cumulus futilis

Toe,
It's a bit of a dreary day here, with a layer of stratus clouds obscuring the sky. I recently developed a fixation on cloud classifications, and am trying to memorize all the different species. I don't know why this fascinates me. I've always liked looking at the sky. I am not a total weather nut like some people, but the fact that I can now identify from the look of certain flattened cumulus clouds (cumulus humilis) that a warm front may be moving in excites me a little. However, I am more humbled by the whole field in general--I really can't identify these clouds very well yet without my handbook, and when I do, I still can't claim any special understanding of what they portend (reader humilis).

In other news, I am also developing a depressing obsession with the economy, and see all sorts of portents of doom. A part of me does not want to buy any plane tickets to India because I can't see going further into debt in this sort of economic climate. We have work to do on the house, and we don't have a gigantic pile of cash to draw on. I don't want to blithely march into economic ruin. Then again, if the economy truly tanks, what difference does a few more grand in debt matter?

Love,
E-word

Post haste, most waste

Toe,
It has been an awfully long time since I last wrote, it seems. I am feeling lately a little overwhelmed by life, although that's not to say I haven't been having moments of calm and relaxation. Work had been crazed, but is now a little more peaceful, primarily because I have chosen to stop taking extra work for a while (at least until September) and just do my main long-term projects.
As C said, she hates me when I have extra work. It takes time away from us.

I went on vacation, which was nice, and I haven't really felt as stressed since returning as I had been before we left. Isn't that the sign of a good time away? On the downside, back home, I found my surroundings to be kind of strange, like I had lost some familiarity with our house and yard. I haven't really experienced that before, and took it as a result of aging or something. Or it could have been all the brain cells I lost while drinking on the beach.

Dude, we are planning on going to India over Xmas, too. How cool would it be to meet up somewhere? A friend is getting married, and we are trying to swing a trip over to see it. It will be expensive, but how many times do you get invited to a full-on Hindu wedding in India? We'll be up in Delhi, with side trips to Agra and another town whose name is escaping me.

Went out drinking the other night with C and some friends and acquaintances here in town. I can't drink anywhere near like I used to. I had paced myself on vacation, and was not once hungover, amazingly, while we were with my family (who, I've mentioned before, drink like fishies). The other night, however, I had perhaps 6 drinks over the course of 7 hours, and felt blotto before going to bed, and woke at 6AM unable to go back to sleep because of a headache.

But there I go getting lost in the negative. I love drinking, and I don't think being ambitious and drinking are mutually exclusive. It just requires balance. Having a job that allows or even requires you to drink periodically also helps. Anything in moderation is all right. It's when it causes you to be late for work or detracts from your work that it becomes a problem.

I am sorry I haven't written. A lot has been happening. Some things I do not even really want to write about. Nothing bad happening to me or C, but stuff going on with friends that has been weighing on me a little. It has kept me from picking up my keyboard and jotting an entry.

I wish you and El well. Keep at it, man.
Love,
E

There's a prison on Rte. 41

E-word,

In the cubicle over, folks are chatting about hunting. It's funny, actually, they're flipping through a Cabela's catalog talking about bows, arrows, shotguns, and camo. It's like listening to a couple of women talk about shoes, bags, and shopping while flipping through a 'W' magazine, excepting the fact that they are actually concerned about accidentally killing their neighbors with a stray shot.

Love,

Toe

He slept soundly while I lay awake

E-word,

What do you do at work to make your day go by more easily? Lately I've been addicted to NPR podcasts. Fresh Air, Talk of the Nation, This American Life, Marketplace, Science Friday, the list goes on and on. The work I'm doing lately is severely left brain kind of stuff, really engineering type crap, and I find that I can focus on both interesting radio articles and work on engineering stuff very well. It's come as quite a surprise, because I never really did that before. It could be that I've never had an engineering job that required so much pure just sitting down at the computer and making models. It actually helps my work; there seems to be a lot of chatter in my brain, so when I have two things to concentrate upon I can do my actual job better. While I write this, however, I've paused itunes- I really can't listen to podcasts and write at the same time.

Hope all is well, Wordy.

Love,

Toe

With rosy cheeks and ruby lips

E-word,

It's been a while, man. We're settling into the doldrums of marriage and getting older, and the steady dullness that is life generally, I think. I still plot and scheme for the future, but they seem like small things compared to just having my wife around, and that's not to say that we even get along all the time, because we don't. We still have bitter and terrible fights and moments of gentleness, and they eclipse any ambitions I have otherwise.

There's this great old song that the Pogues cover called 'The Parting Glass' that really reflects the way I feel about life. Like, I sometimes trick myself into thinking that I'm ambitious, but at my core I think all I really want to do is drink and laugh with friends and strangers. I guess that now that I'm married, my goal should be growing and nurturing my marriage, but I must say that a simple life of hard work and drinking is often more appealing.

What I'm trying to get at is is that I don't quite understand 'ambition'. Who really needs that much more money? Money doesn't buy friendship and camaraderie, and alcohol doesn't cost that much. Money does buy getting laid, but if you're married, then what motivates?

I don't know. It's the same old thought, the same old reflection I have about my life. You know, there's a good chance that I'm going to India this coming Christmas. My good friend B's brother in-law is getting married, and he's inviting us to Mumbai and Pune. It reminds me of the trip to India you took years ago now. I'm pretty sure that it's not going to be nearly as rugged as your trip was, but I am looking forward to it, I've always wanted to go to India.

I am going to try hard to update this thing more often. There are enough small moments in life to collect. I hope that there are small things that you want to write about as well- don't feel that you necessarily have to respond to everything I write, I'd just like to hear what's happening with you.

Love,

Toe