Sex

Well Dearies, I must confess that spring is in the air, and eve your dear Auntie has removed the hairpins from her bun and gone dancing barefoot through the grass this weekend.
Which is why this post will be done in Stream Of Consciousness style!
Spring always finds a way to make you feel youthful, and a desire to celebrate the joy of life bubbles up in the hearts of all but the most dour and repressed of us. Sorry James Dobson!
Still even I must maintain a sense of decorum….Oh, that Reminds me! My dear friend Spencer called me his Madonna this week! Ok, well, not in those exact words. And no, Sweet Ones, he's married. So he's not "Uncle Spencer" (I'll post the rules on who gets the coveted title of "Uncle" to my Auntie another day, Dears! The process is lengthy and I'm afraid I must take the time to make a Diagram to explain it all!).
But still, he basically said I was a Madonna! See, Auntie has been having an eensie bit of tummy trouble of late (never take the red pills at the same time as the white pills. They don't work the same as the pink pills!) Anyway, for whatever reason I have been having an upset tummy. So Spencer helpfully suggested, in front of my boss I might add, that I might be pregnant. So, since I'm a chaste priestess of knowledge, (no hanky-panky!), that means he thinks I'm divine enough to give Virgin Birth! Thank you, Spencer! That meant that he also thought perhaps I might have a wee bit of swelling in the tummy region! Now, a lesser woman might have taken that as a statement such as "Gosh! You look fat and Hormonal!" But as we all know, your beloved Auntie tries to be special! So I thought carefully, and I realized he meant that he thinks I'm Divine! Which is good for him, because if I thought he meant the other thing then he WOULD become one of your Uncles, earning the title through Uncle-Trac™ # 36A, or what we like to call the "Path of Pain". But I know that's not what he meant, so instead we Celebrate Spencer today!
So what does that teach us Dears? Just say no to dirty ole' sex, and you have to go through one of several intensive and exhaustive rituals before I will introduce you to the kiddies as "Uncle" somebody or other.
Well anyway, so what would a Librarian/Computer Programmer do when she feels the pull of the seasons, and experiences a desire to have some well formed men in her life? I went to see the 300 of course!
(Note to the movie marketing team. You totally missed the boat on a promotion. Imagine the buzz you would have generated if one lucky winner had received the right to grime all those Men up everyday for filming! You KNOW someone had to do it! Ok, I'm not greedy: TWO lucky winners!)
Anyway Dears, anytime there is a well-orchestrated attack on Persian Culture you know your Auntie has got to be there! So I of course took your Uncle Dear Roommate (Uncle-Trac™ # 13F) to go see the 300.
Now, one thing I must mention is that of course your Uncle Dear Roommate is not gay. Oh, I'm sorry! I forgot that you are too young to understand what that word means! Uhh, you'll have to ask your Mommy and Daddy what that means. Just say something like "Mommy, Daddy, I'm curious. I want to know why Uncle George Michael is so Tan?" or maybe "Why does that man in the Village people wear Leather Pants without a seat to them?" Or possibly "I want to be just like Richard Simmons when I grow up!" I promise you they'll explain that word to you!
But for right now, you'll just have to trust me: We're (pretty darned) Sure that your Uncle Dear Roommate is NOT gay!
But there's a funny thing about being NOT gay that he shares with many other NOT gay men. That is the desire to watch other muscular men sweat and do MANLY things! That's right dears, men who spend a lot of time with beautiful women, touching them and holding them closely for hours a day, are considered gay. Men who spend a lot of time with other sweaty, grimy mean touching them and holding them closely for hours a day, are considered "straight". Which is why, for example, a male figure skater like Brian Boitano is considered Gay, but a professional "Athlete" like Tim Hardaway is considered straight. Because Brian Boitano spends most of his days putting his hand on Kristy Yamaguchi's and Katarina Witt's crotch, while Tim Hardaway spends his evenings showering with 20 other guys. So male Ballet dancers are "gay", but professional wrestlers are "straight". That's why people don't get tattoos of Rudolf Nurayev, but WWE fans will spend 50 bucks to watch a guy named "ultimate warrior" wrap his legs around another man's hips. It's ok dear, they're "Straight".
So anyhow, I took Uncle Dear Roommate to see the 300. There was so much testosterone in the movie that I needed to shave afterwards! Which brings us to an attack on Persian culture. Which I didn't really see. I mean yes, the Spartans could fight and all, and they were tall and manly, with rippling pecs, six-pack abs, tight-leather loincloths and nothing else……uhhh, right. Let me get to my point before I need to take a moment alone. So anyway, these Spartans were certainly, ahem, attractive, but I mean they weren't as attractive as your pallid ole' Uncle Dear Roommate! Or any potatoey type people who might or might not have said I looked fat and hormonal this week (no names)! Or any lumpy type people who listen to their i-pods during an evening meal (no NAMES!). Or even florid little dumplings who laugh at the trousseau that I wore for them! Hmmm, where was I, Oh Yes!
So the Persians DID win the battle and all! I mean, they like kicked their asses. Sure, the Spartans killed a lot, but I mean, come on, when you're outnumbered like 2000 to one, of course you'd bring your "A" game (a sports metaphor for all my little guys out there!). And Dearies check the score at the end: Persians 1, Spartans 0….. Now, some people were upset by the way that Xerxes was portrayed in the movie, but I must confess, when I saw that massive platform that they carried him on, and watched those men Hop down so that he could walk on them, I was thinking "I've gotta get me one of those." And that PARTY in his tent! Where do I go to get on that guest list? By contrast the Spartans weren't exactly "Dinner Date" material! I mean, their grimy, sweaty thing totally works out in spring, but eventually he has to take a bath, right? Apparently not so much in Sparta. I'm supposed to go to a nice restaurant and get Sushi with these guys? The leather loincloths are nice on Saturday Nights, but hey….That's ALL they had in their closets! Really, do you think they'd let him escort me to the Opera in that? Sorry dears, chances are that I'd party during the afternoons with the Spartans but after that it's a quick shower and Xerxes' pad by 11:00 p.m.! Musn't arrive TOO early, you know. Plus, I'd be carried over there on one of those giant portable thrones. Carried by Spartans (they certainly seemed to have the stamina!).
And, of course, your Uncle Dear Roommate, who really enjoyed the movie!

Well Dearies,
I'm back.
Sorry.
I can't tell you where I've been, but you may have spotted my handiwork here and there (took one for the team on that last assignment!).
I know it's not been the same, and I've missed you all something fierce!
But it was a kind of a grown-up thing that kept me away.
Like, hunger.
Yes, being a programmer again is not as rewarding as being a librarian. If by rewarding you mean that I get good Karma Points for suffering and starvation. But in another very real sense it is just as rewarding, if by that you mean tripled my salary by serving mammon instead of knowledge.
But as much as you missed me, so have my beloved SQL servers. They've been clamoring for so much attention lately that I haven't had time to post.
I promise on the grave of my not-quite-yet-deceased ex (but given his eating habits, it's only a matter of time) that I will not abandon you for this long again. Even though posts might not be put up until I get off of work, about 3 am your time.
Which is good! Thanks to daylight savings time, I now get off work only a few hours after sunset as opposed to many hours after sunset. And, since sunlight was making its way into the six o'clock time period, I was in danger of having my milky-white skin exposed to its dangerous rays!
And what a great idea the whole daylight savings time is! Now the companies I work for get to burn their bright banks of fluorescent lights through an extra hour of daylight each day! Maybe in factories they don't use electric light, but I know that in offices, computer rooms and libraries they have to keep them burning in order to keep that incessant hum barely at the edge of your hearing. Otherwise we might use more windows, and then we could open them in the spring and fall and get fresh air. Oh well, never mind, your Auntie is talking that crazy talk again!
And what a uniquely American way to solve the problem, too! Just think…other countries would do something stupid like just tell everybody to show up an hour later. But we are too smart to fall for such a complicated ploy….We KNOW it's simpler to just change every clock on every device in the entire country! But as with all other things the outgoing Republican Congress was on the lookout for us! Lawmakers were scared that the terrorists had managed to decode a pattern in our behavior (That's just what they expect us to do!). Also, they were worried that merely giving untold billions to the richest companies in the world in the form of tax credits to keep them afloat during a time of record windfall profits wouldn't be enough to combat the hoax of global warming. What's the only solution? Why of course, change the date that everyone changes their clocks!
So, at what is normally an improbable time of the morning, now made an impossible time of the morning by the time change, your Dear Auntie was starting up with her normal routine of visiting discipline upon this weekend's "special friend". Of course that was followed by the inevitable "Well I guess it's time for you to go downstairs and get your pants out of the alleyway," made all the more poignant by the fact that my new lair hideout love den apartment is a highrise in an urban area. I tell you that's one republican who has a better appreciation for the plight of the poor! Now that he knows the heartache of walking barefoot down an alley behind a methadone clinic, hopping over empty needles and fighting a wino for a pair of pants! By the way dears, save your money. It's not true that a penny thrown from a great height can kill someone, I know I hit Hizzoner like three times with loose change, and he was still able to flee the alley when the cops that I called came charging in.
I guess you're right. It is still possible to have good times, even in the unnatural twilight of daylight savings time.
So do you forgive me dears? Can you? Do you still love me if I'm not the sadist of the study carols, just another computer programmer spanking republicans for fun? I still have my ALA card, after all! And when my new personal taser (in hot pink, natch) shows up, won't that remind you of the old days, just a little?

IF	THEN
Both Parties Consent. Even if both parties want to make a monogomous lifetime committment.
One Party Doesn't Want To. Especially if the unwilling party is a prisoner, prisoner of war, suspected terrorist, or "unlawful enemy combatant".
One Party is a an Entire Country. Best if you can keep the Country from understanding what you are doing.

You know that Auntie Willow doesn?t like to talk about her personal life, Dearies.
But the truth of the matter is that I have been distracted of late. You see, I am going through what Grownups call ?A Divorce?.
No, it doesn?t mean that I don?t love all of you. It is just that sometimes two grownups have to move apart, and divide the Wedgewood China (MINE!). Hopefully it is something that you won?t ever go through, but if you do, remember it is not the end of the world.
I couldn?t tell you any stories yesterday because I had to read some important papers, and make a lot of jokes about lawyers in front of my ex?s attorney (Why did the attorney cross the road? Because he was an evil, blood-sucking slime. Still working on the punch line to that one).
But that is all behind us now, Dearies. Auntie has signed some important letters using her full legal name ?Patricia Concepcion Chastity Faith Rhythm Method Willow xxxx?. XXXX stands for my last name, which I lost the right to use in the settlement. It?s ok, I got the Barcolounger, and won?t my ex shed tears when I send the video of me burning it as part of an anti-football party! (Whacha gonna do, sit on the china that you cheated me out of and watch the stupid Falcons on the black and white I left you!).
You see children this is why we have attorneys. They are a necessary evil, just like barbers named ?Earl? (if they didn?t give stupid haircuts, how would we know which men were Republicans?). Attorneys are there to be nasty to each other, for money, so Auntie Willow doesn?t have to face another assault charge. Thanks to their intrepid action, it is all over except for signing one more piece of paper (a mere formality, my attorney said. I thanked him, and handed him a handkerchief to wipe the pepper spray out of his eyes. Sometimes Auntie Willow does not take bad news with the proper etiquette).
Well, that unpleasantness is basically all behind us now. I still have my beauty, wit, health, and collection of ancient measuring sticks (My favorites are the yardstick from back when they first invented the yard, and the ?Cubit Club?, which is a lot like a yardstick only more biblical and more painful when it hits).
Auntie Willow is now free to spend more time with her ?Special Friends?. Not too much time, mind you! (I don?t another incident like San Francisco, where I woke up with a hangover and a tattoo on my inner thigh that read ?measure punishment? in Chinese characters. Apparently that is the closest phrase the Chinese have to Ruler Justice. Another hint, if you are close enough to read said tattoo, you can listen carefully and hear the whistling sound as the yardstick descends in a bright arc towards your backside.)
No, Auntie is doing a series of graceful Arabesques and Pirouetting her way into her new life. Right after I set fire to this reclining chair.

Although Auntie Willow is a chaste priestess of knowledge, dedicating my life to helping people learn at a public library, I do occasionally allow someone special to take me out and attempt to woo me.
It always starts out the same way, in the generically engineered ?intellectual atmosphere? of one of a number of multi-million earning national book chains. Latte clutched in hand (its delicious warm creaminess soothing my ravaged throat), I wander the aisles to see what the people who don?t realize you can get Danielle Steele books for FREE at the local library are reading.
As I peruse the books, sometimes other people try to initiate conversations with me. Since I?m not at the Library, I sometimes allow it.
As with everything in life, I have some stringently enforced rules. The first test depends on the section that these gentlemen were browsing in. Learn from your Auntie, these were culled after many youthful missteps.
If they are in the Science Fiction section, they invariably profess before the night is out that they have a desire to study ?human sexual interaction?, because on their world and so on. Men from the Automotive section are right out: rough experience has taught me that motor grease stains DO NOT come out of silken underwear! Men in the Relationship aisles are so obviously desperate that they will require me to give them too much ?extra discipline?. The ones with European hair wandering through the Film Studies books or through the Photography section always seem to wind up trying to ?Make Art?. After nearly a dozen hastily shot ?Art Films?, your dear Auntie has yet to see one make it to a reputable local theatre. Take my advice and be suspicious. I won?t get into the men you find in the Poetry area! Auntie Willow is relatively young, but I don?t have days to waste listening to a man in a blousy shirt recite Shakespeare to me!
So when I am bored with making various men feel inadequate, I glide towards the Current Affairs shelves. Men with liberal tomes are usually the right mix of inquisitive and able to learn. I don?t automatically dismiss men carrying republican screeds, though. I find that usually by the end of the night I will have them bound and be performing ?attitude adjustment? with a very special ruler. Don?t worry; you know that most conservatives crave this sort of treatment. Which is why they all love Condoleeza Rice.
After that is the new American version of the back seat of a 64 Buick: the ?movie viewing?. People that show up with a copy of There?s Something about Mary because it?s a ?chick-flick? are to be promptly pepper-sprayed. I have noticed that if they stay, my arm is invariably sore the next day from the amount of ?behavior modification? that such men require. It is best not to deal with it.
Fast forward a few hours and I?m on a couch with some man humping my leg like a poorly-trained Lhasa Apso. That is usually the point where Willow loses her sense of humor, which is why the next day some of these men find out that the library thinks there is a copy of The Complete Guide to Overcoming Erectile Dysfunction Naturally has been checked out to them. I?m sure they love receiving all the overdue notices!

Well,
I got it today.
A runner's high.
I've heard about it, but I think most people have never experienced it. I experienced it today.
I'm a librarian. Before I became a librarian I was a computer programmer. To say that I lead a sedentary existence is an understatement.
The gist of that story is that I constantly battle weight. I try to eat a healthy diet, but from the words "try to" in the previous sentence you have probably guessed that I don't, or at least not all the time.
The last two weeks had a trip to a conference that had free food, and a return to a blazing hot Arkansas.
To counteract for the food, I try to walk. Again with the try to. I've been really good this summer, even with the mind-blowing heat, and I ususally log around 4 miles a day. But since I got back from the trip, I couldn't. I needed to wait for the heat to dissipate.
I am also increasing the speed that I walk from about 3.5 miles per hour when I started (oh, about 100 pounds ago) to about 4.1 right now. Well, I'm trying to go faster. Today I was making about 4.6 miles per hour on my lunch break. I hadn't eaten, and I was listening to some good walking music (good beat, no complicated lyrics, etc.). Then it happened. "IT". It. Was. Great. No, I mean really great. Like better than most orgasms I've achieved great. Sheen of sweat, wobbly knees, last for a minute great. Like that, only probably a little better. Stagger back to my desk kind of great. I MUST HAVE MORE.
Really.
It was that good.
I don't know if it is the combination of hunger and speed, or if the wind was just in the right quarter, or what. But I must get there again. I'm actually considering bagging walking for running now. I might quit smoking for this (although I SURE needed a cigarette afterwards). It was mind-blowing, soul shattering, limb-tingling, awesome. Really.
That's how I know most people have never experienced it. If they have, I would have to elbow beautiful, well-toned masses of people out of my way to try to hit that magic stride. EVERYONE would be doing it. Don't believe me? Try it. Really. Go as fast as you can for as long as you can. Then it will hit. Endorphins. That's right, your body's own neruochemical heroin, only more powerful. The same stuff that puts the O! in the big O. Right there. And it is moral and legal. Two things I rarely worry about but that do have some passing consideration when you are on a city street.
Why have I never had this before? I've walked, long distances. I even thought I walked fast before, probably faster. Was it just my weight? Or smoking? Or the heat? I don't know, but I WILL find again, and soon. Once I get a reliable recipe for it (5 miles, temperature between 50 and 70 degrees fahrenheit, no food for 3 hours but have eaten in the last four, pink shorts, green shoelaces, whatever I have to do) I might post it. Then again, I might keep it all to myself so that my joy isn't dissipated in the middle of a throng of runners, but kept to myself, witnessed only by the blank, tinted windows of Giant SUV's as the drivers blow by on their cell phones, oblivious.
Empowering. Epiphinous. Illuminating. It was GREAT! Ecstatic. Expansive.....

I don't actually have sex, but I have read that it is sometimes fairly enjoyable.
What are your thoughts? (On sex, not on whether or not I ever have any....)

Well, it's my website and my blog. So I get to talk about what I want to talk about.
But what to start with?
There are three subjects that are forbidden in polite discussion: Politics, Religion and Sex.
Easy! I made a section for all three!
Oh, of course I'll add a section on some of my other varied interests; programming, artificial intelligence, crpytography, writing, psychology.
But for right now, I thought I would start with the three forbidden subjects.
Although a great deal of this blogging exercise is designed to get me back into writing, it is an interactive medium. Post a comment. Please! it will spark a conversation that we can all learn from. Hey, we can even learn from snark, if that is your preferred method of communication!
In a year, there is a chance that nothing will have come of this, that no one will have commented or posted. But maybe, who knows?
Give it a shot, no one else is watching! Write something down! And exercise that thing between your ears (no, not your tongue. Dammit, not your nose, either! Hey! Stop that with your eyebrows! DAGNABBIT! I MEANT YOUR BRAIN!).
So read, write, post, relax.
No subject is taboo, just please be kind to the others that post.
XXOO
Willow Anne