How To Keep A Man Happy
December 28, 2006
I am asked many things: how do I know if the differential on my Olds Cutlass is an open or closed system? Can I wear a pencil skirt if I have an ample behind? When removing the entrails from a catfish, do I start at the anus or the head? My favorite question of all is one I receive frequently: how do I keep my man happy? I’m somewhat of an expert because I’ve managed to keep the same man deliriously, blissfully happy for twenty years. I’ve gathered my compendium of knowledge and, as a public service to you, provide it by way of a vade mecum of sorts. The first installment of this online handbook follows, with successive chapters to appear in the days to come. After all, I shouldn’t overwhelm you with too much information at once. Like spiritual guidance, it will be metered out slowly, a chapter at a time.
Part One - Personal Hygiene
The most common error women make is laboring under the mistaken impression that they should share with their men certain information about hygiene and routine aesthetic maintenance. Do not talk about such things with your man. It confuses and frightens him. Moreover, it is at odds with your man’s belief that you are a vessel of rose petals which does not perspire or go to the bathroom. Let him persist in this fantasy, and don’t talk to him about your water-weight gain or over-tweezed rows. When you’re tempted to complain about your aunt flow arriving a week early, keep your pie hole shut or discuss more pleasant matters such as your man’s muscular forearms or his lovely golf swing.
Reticence should be the rule of the day when it comes to sharing information about financing the investment that is YOU. If your man has hair, he likely goes to Supercuts or, if he’s like my man, makes you cut it with a pair of electric shears. If he thinks you’ve paid more than twenty bucks for a haircut, you’ve undoubtedly got an argument on your hands. Imagine the firestorm that would erupt if you were to discuss how much you spend on a bikini wax or a mango-buckwheat body wrap? Why argue when you could be gazing into each other’s eyes and singing Into the Night by Barry Mardones? Avoid discussing how much you spend on waxing, bleaching, cutting, styling, shaving, pulling, pinching, and filleting yourself into the package that the world sees; you MUST keep quiet about these transactions! If necessary, open your own checking account, drive past the Starbucks on your way to work each day and deposit the five bucks you’ve saved into this account. Take a C-note out of your paycheck if you need to and stow it away. Use this account to fund the routine maintenance and upkeep of the investment that is YOU.
Demand privacy! I know of couples who share everything – EVERYTHING – with each other including their bathroom time. This is simply wrong. A woman must have her private time. When at home, keep the bathroom door shut and locked while you’re using it. This includes keeping the kids out as well. What you do while inside the bathroom must remain your own business. This means that you should expend any effort necessary in order to shield from view any grizzly implements or devices used in the commode. Steal away tweezers, shavers, razors, orange sticks, Q-tips, and any and all cosmetics. Not only to such objects create clutter that is jarring and offensive to the senses, they run afoul of the theory that you require no assistance whatsoever to enhance your God-given beauty.
Next Installment: The Trunk Of Your Car Is Your Best Friend.
Dean Martin & Foster Brooks
Should I be concerned that my husband affectionately refers to me as Foster Brooks?
The 2006 Blogger Christmahanukwanzaakah Online Holiday Concert
December 20, 2006
Glass Bath
December 19, 2006
Back in the 90’s there seemed to be a rash of books whose authors had been “clinically dead” for a time, then were revived. The stories follow the same pattern, more or less: the author “dies,” floats above his body where he witnesses a medical scene, draws near to a white light, and is greeted by spirit guides who give the dead person a life review. In the life review the dead person experiences the effect of every decision made during his lifetime, good and bad. Then the dead person is informed that it’s “not his time yet” and he’s sent back to his injured or sick body. The dead person doesn’t want to go back because “it’s so peaceful here,” but has to because there is unfinished work ahead. The dead person, upon recovering, has an entirely new lease on life and isn’t upset by daily problems because he knows that “everyone is here for a purpose.” Well.
After reading a half dozen of these accounts, I told my Mom:
I want to have a near death experience.
Oh, please don’t wish for that, she said.
I want to find out what my purpose is and live the remainder of my days sereneand aware, free from worry or fear. Only I don’t want any permanent injuries and I wouldn’t want to worry you.
Well, thanks for thinking of us, is what I think she said.
The closest I ever came to pushing some kind of life-death envelope was when I was in car accident years ago. I was stopped, waiting for oncoming traffic to clear so I could turn left. Behind me was a blind curve. I looked in my rear-view mirror a fraction of a second before a pickup truck going between forty and fifty miles per hour hit me from behind without stopping. (I know this because the driver came up to my window right after the impact and said I was going between forty and fifty miles per hour and hit you without stopping.) A fraction of a second seemed like several, which should be enough time to have your life flash before your eyes, to silently say goodbye to your friends and loved ones, and ask forgiveness for your transgressions and whatnot. But none of these things happened to me. I didn’t think of anything or anyone.
Then the rear windshield shattered into a sheet of tiny glass pebbles which popped into the passenger compartment then wrapped around my head without touching me as the car spun. Sunlight turned the glass beads into tiny prisms that hung in mid-air then fell into my lap and onto the floor. It was quite simply one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Despite suffering a nasty case of whiplash for several days and back problems that would come and go for years, I wasn’t seriously hurt. Yet what I remember the most about that accident is the curtain of beautiful sparkling glass.
Any wisdom I’ve obtained thus has been more a Sisyphean task and less a conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus. Besides, if I’m really honest with myself, I can speculate fairly accurately what a “spirit guide” might say to me upon arrival in the hereafter – I’d been too hard on myself, didn’t think enough of others, was not responsible for the weight of the world and didn’t eat enough green leafy vegetables. They might also say that I’d seen prisms of light in nothing more than shattered windshield. I’ll take that.
Legs
December 13, 2006
Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and sigh.
- William Butler Yeats
In MSN News yesterday, this report appeared suggesting that women who drink two glasses of wine a day and men who drink four may live an average of eighteen years longer than non-drinkers. Duh. Wine drinkers are more fun and so it’s only fitting that they should live longer, thereby enabling us to bring merriment and joy to teetotalers and other dull, staid individuals.
This is not to say that there aren’t some good reasons for eschewing alcohol (gesundheit). If you’re an alcoholic or have had the misfortune of witnessing first-hand the tragic effects of alcoholism, by all means, don’t drink. Or if you’re like Moparman, who had some wild times in his salad days but now develops a raging migraine with the slightest taste of the stuff, then it’s probably best to avoid it. But if you’re a teetotaler for religious or moral principles, then you’re the sort who needs a drink more than anyone else. I’ve yet to meet a teetotaler who has a logically sound argument; rather, they use teetotaling as moral imperative with which to bludgeon everyone else and therefore feel superior. I put these people in the same category as those who don’t own a television set. Give me a break. Like love, forgiveness, spankings, or an evening in front of “Dancing with the Stars,” wine is what these people need the most but, ironically, are the least likely to accept.
If there is a God in heaven he or she surely meant for us to enjoy wine in moderation. Other than bacon or pomegranates, I don’t believe there is a more perfect food. I don’t follow that crap about how smoky or fruity or farty or oaky a wine is, either it’s good or it isn’t. It can be a cheap bottle or a frightfully expensive bottle. For me, if the wine has legs, it’s good. Legs are the residual streaks of wine left on the glass when you tip the glass sideways then return it upright. For some reason, I have found that wine with good legs is generally butterier than wine without good legs, which tends to be watery and alcoholy. (Not very scientific, I know, but neither is my method for betting on a horse – I always put my money on the one that takes a dump on the way to the track. I figure he’s lighter in the step and more likely to perform.)
I inherited my love of wine from my Mom. All the Swansons are great drinkers, not an alcoholic in the bunch. Unfortunately, I also inherited most of Moparman’s traits, both physical and temperamental, which means that I go through phases where I can’t take a sip without developing a headache. Thankfully, the phase usually passes. I miss wine when I don’t have it, and my favorite part of the day is after I’ve put my daughter to bed, tidied up the house, and poured myself a leggy glass of Pinot Noir. The first glass is like water to a thirsty man, and the second is better. By the second glass the flavor has settled and I’m feeling warm and fuzzy all over, like I’m wrapped in a blanket. When I noticed that two glasses a night made me gain weight, my Mom asked, “Gee, have you thought of having just one glass?” But one glass doesn’t let me drift into the zone. The zone is where the blanket wraps around me and I don’t have a care in the world. At least not until tomorrow. And there’s always enough to worry about tomorrow without letting interfere with today.
Speaking of wine, my dear friend Margaret and I went to Leezerslawpartner’s swanky Christmas party last Friday night. Here is a picture of us before the party. I think I have a little too much makeup on and perhaps resemble a drag queen up close, but on the other hand, how many times year can you play with way too much makeup and get away with it?
We got back to Margaret’s house at 1:00 a.m., and in stroke of celestial cruelty, our kids were still awake – the oldest is nine. We put them to bed, then sat on the couch gossiping like two old hens until 3:00 a.m. when we fell asleep. Margaret’s husband fell asleep in the armchair next to the couch, and didn’t wake up until my sleep-talking roused him. It’s not really “talking,” per se, but more like the sound of an animal being strangled. I heard him say, “what in the hell was that?” Then he went upstairs. The kids woke up at nine a.m. Because I am solidly grounded in my self-worth, I am willing to share with the entire world a picture of the aftermath of the party, taken of me and Margaret when we woke up the next day:
Man, I need a glass of wine.
To the victor, the spoils.
December 8, 2006
If you’ve been following along, you know that I have a bit of a crush on Alexander Hamilton and Vercingetorix. While Alex (this is what he asked me to call him) had the brains, Vercingetorix had the brawn. He lost the brawn after he was kept in a Roman dungeon for five years awaiting execution by Caesar, which confinement gave his complexion a rather bilious appearance and made his breath a little stinky. His muscles would have atrophied had he not demanded a chin-up bar for his cell. He attempted leg-ups but his ankles could not find purchase on the slippery metal. When he was executed, his legs resembled two streams of warm cream.
Vercingetorix was King of the Gauls. During the Gallic Wars (59 – 51 BC), Caesar conquered the germanies and France by exploiting the Gallic tribes’ hatred of one another. He started rumors that one tribe had crabs, and that another’s warrior chief plagiarized his post-graduate thesis. With no unified plan to prevent the piecemeal destruction of individual tribes, the Gauls’ 800 cities were destroyed in eight years. Then Vercinetorix came along. There was a new sheriff in town.
Little did Caesar know that while he was being a busy body, Vercingetorix united nearly 80,000 soldiers and convinced them to take up arms against Caesar. The soldiers were persuaded not only out of a common hatred of Rome, but because Vercingetorix promised that he would see to it that there was a Whole Foods in every village. He also promised each soldier a pair of plaid jammies like the ones he is wearing here:
Caesar was surprised by Vercingetorix’s successful unification of the Gauls and resolved not to attack head-on as he had done before, which lost Caesar time and troops. Instead, Caesar resorted to siege warfare and built two concentric fortifications around Alesia. The fortifications totaled 20 to 30 miles in length and were constructed in only nine weeks. The idea was to trap the Gauls inside the fortifications and starve them to death. The exterior fortification, a “contravallation,” was constructed after a few Gauls escaped, which led Caesar to assume that Vercingetorix’s relief forces numbering 100,000 would follow. The Romans built the exterior wall to keep these relief forces out while the interior wall separated the Gauls from their captors. The Romans’ siege tactics included not only starvation, but hurling diseased corpses into the fortified city and singing Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald continuously until many of the captives killed themselves.
Siege warfare was not for the impatient; the Romans completed the construction of the fortifications around Alesia in September of 52 B.C., and Vercingetorix did not surrender to Caesar until October. He did so with a flourish, but he apparently couldn’t find a comb.
Caesar put Vercingetorix in chains, took him to Rome, and placed him in prison where he stayed until Caesar got around to having his “triumph” in 46 B.C., during which Vercinetorix was strangled to death while the Romans watched. For the triumph Caesar painted his face bright red symbolizing the God Jupiter, but some historians believe he was simply really messy eating a chili dog.
Caesar’s reign lasted only a few months until the Senate grew weary of him saying “it’s all about me” incessantly. On the Ides of March, 44 B.C., the Senate snapped and stabbed him to death in the Senate chambers in broad daylight. Civil unrest and strife followed until Octavian, Caesar’s great nephew, became Caesar Augustus. After Octavian’s death, Rome pretty much went to hell and not much happened until the pilgrims crossed the Atlantic in the Mayflower.
The end.
ceasar alexander hamilton vercingetorix history prison seige warfare gauls gallic romans
Wordless Wednesday
December 6, 2006
Whoever smelt it dealt it
December 6, 2006
Yesterday, a domestic flight was forced to turn around and return to its city of departure because a woman with bad gas kept lighting matches to disguise the smell. Go here for more details. Why turn the plane around? Do the pilots have no discretion to continue forward to the intended destination? I really can’t think of anything else to say about this; the story speaks for itself.
