No thanks, I just had a banana

Had a dear friend and kindred spirit named Bob Bresler, aka Breeze. Incredibly talented musician, brilliant dude, former Marine with service in Viet Nam, seminary student. What attracted me to him was our shared love of science fiction, and his zany sense of humor.
His standard response to any unexpected question was "No thanks, I just had a banana."

"Are you going to Ethics class at 11:00?"
"No thanks, I just had a banana."
"Do you know what time it is?"
"No thanks, I just had a banana."
"Can I borrow your blue shirt with the penguin on the collar?"
"No thanks, I just had a banana."
"Wanna cut class and go get a beer?"
"No thanks, I just..wait, what? YEAH, let's GO!"

He would also initiate conversations with total strangers by saying, "So, how WAS China?" It's not a bad conversational gambit. He told me that in all his years of using it, he actually had run across one person who had recently been there. Since my association with Breeze came to an end around 1981, that's pretty impressive.

He also collected and shared gonzo theories. For example, the idea that a light bulb is not a light emitter, it's a dark absorber. Each bulb has a certain capacity for dark. You turn it on, and it starts absorbing dark. And when it's full, it signifies that by going dark itself. You carefully remove the full dark absorber from the lamp, and place it in the trash.

Somehow, his love for all things gonzo and science fiction combined to make him an ENTHUSIASTIC fan of horror movies. He LOVED those things, the way my 4 year old grandson Heath loves Spiderman cartoons, and the way my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, loves those depraved love stories on the Hallmark Channel ( and Christmas movies).

Now, I cannot now, nor have I ever, been able to tolerate horror movies. It all goes back, I believe, to the terror I experienced as a six year old seeing and hearing the banshee in Disney's "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" in 1959. So I don't know WHY I agreed to go with Bob to see a horror double feature at the drive-in. It was awful. I hated it.  I wish I had just kept saying "No thanks, I just had a banana."

I was thinking about Bob yesterday, because I took a banana with me to church. I thought I might need a snack before lunch, and our entire building is set up so you can drink your coffee or munch your breakfast if you need to; ya just have to be courteous of those around you, but that hardly needs to be emphasized. (Although I have asked 12 year old Kenneth not to get Doritos again as his half-time break snack. Crunch Crunch CRUNCH!)

I didn't eat my banana, though. I hope one of the kids or Vanessa picked it up; I hope I didn't leave it in the car! Instead, I was caught up in considering my identity.

It's something I've touched on a couple of times recently, most coherently in "Fat Old Crippled Bikers and Book Covers," in which I talk about not being what I look like. But yesterday, it  was brought home to me that there were two significant issues in my life that I wanted to change, and that both of them were hugely aggravate by the fact that I am about 100 pounds over weight. Those two issues were: pain in my life, and weariness in my body.

I have stubbornly refused to take serious, dedicated action on my weight; I peaked at 300, but I am down to 280. That's still 100 pounds over something I'd feel comfortable with, and all of my doctors have told me repeatedly that my pain level would drop, my breathing would improve, and my energy level would increase, if I just lost weight. My primary care physician told me years ago that I was in a pre-diabetic state, but that if would diet and exercise, I'd get better. I didn't diet or exercise, and now I have diabetes.

It is TRUE that I have some significant medical issues that are impairments. But it is also true that I have LOTS of reasons to get fit, and only EXCUSES why I don't.

So, I sealed it. I wrote out my repentance on a piece of paper, signed and dated it, and gave it to Vanessa. And I grabbed the leader of the small group we attend, and asked him for help. As it happens, older adult fitness is his passion. He  is my age, very trim, and he gets that way by getting lots of exercise. He plays senior league softball, and instructs Tae Kwon Do, and in consultation with him, we came up with a short program of things I can do to gradually return me to a state of health.
I stopped by Walmart yesterday afternoon, and today I am wearing a 'FitBit' which records my steps and activity level, and send the data to my laptop or tablet.

TRUE FACT: I did not get in this shape overnight. I will not lose the weight overnight, either. BUT, if I follow the program, I WILL get better.

Oh, yeah: I took  my cane, and I hung it on a nail in the wall of my man-cave. I wrote yesterday's date on a piece of duct-tape, and I stuck it on the cane.

It's what we call "a stone of remembrance."
 
Peace.

How to Make Your Wife Cackle Like A Hyena

My gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, works as a legal parapro in the heart of downtown Atlanta. She has a 20+ mile drive to work every day, and in order to beat the worst of the morning commute, she has to leave the house at 6 AM every weekday. If she leaves at a REASONABLE time, say 7AM, then the 45 minute drive turns into 90 minutes or more. So: early to rise.
And the other half of the instruction is : early to bed. We were discussing this last night, as we went lights out at 8:30.

Parenthetical note: we are ONLY able to do that because our kids are older, capable, and cooperative. Alicia Ann, who is 10 almost 11, is in the fifth grade, her last year of elementary school; she has to get on the bus at 7 AM, so she has a bedtime of 8:30 PM, and gets up at 6:30 AM, or 6-ish if she wants to so something lovely to her hair. Kenneth, age 12, is a 6th grade middle schooler, and they start the school day later. He gets on the bus at 8:30 AM, and so his bed time is 9 PM. They are both responsible enough that they put themselves to bed on their own, after appropriate earlier kisses. They understand Mom has to hit the bricks early.

We were comparing our current 8:30-ish bed time with the life we lived as young stupids. Back then, the night hadn't even started at 9:00 PM, and it was REQUIRED by the code of the stupid young to continue our revelry AT LEAST until 1 AM, with 3 AM being a more usual ending point, followed by a trip to the Waffle House.

Alas (or fortunately), those days are LONG gone. While Vanessa hasn't achieved my length of years, we WERE born in the same decade (you can do the math on your own), and our bodies need sleep. Our routine is to go to bed at the same time, and she drifts off first, and I read or watch something on Netflix for a while, then put on Dragnet at the Internet Archive, and let Jack Webb's monotone lull me into Dreamland.

Vanessa doesn't have Dragnet. She has me. She turns her electric blanket on, and we snuggle, and I wrap my arms around her, and we tell each other how much we love each other and appreciate each other, and usually, she starts to snore (softly, and in a very lady-like way) in just a few minutes. When we were first married, and were in the process of establishing our routine, she'd ask me to tell her a story. It was always about a little girl who grew up to be a beautiful lady, in a cottage in the woods, and the handsome young man who came to rescue her and seek her hand in marriage.

Yeah, it's corny. But look: we found each other late in life. We went straight to romance, and stayed there, because we've already both DONE all the miserable we needed. My best friend from high school, Billy Doniel, has named his retirement farm "Best For Last", and Vanessa SQUEALED when she found that out; that's pretty much the theme of our relationship.  Based on my family history, I've got AT LEAST 20 years of good health before my brain turns to mush, and we are determined to make our latter years better than the former; best for last. "Grow old with me, the best is yet to be."

So, last night, we turned out the light, and we snuggled close with her in my arms, and she said "Were you always this sweet?" or words to that effect.

And I got to thinking, and I tried to be precise in my words, as I was in my thoughts. What kind of man was I at 19, or 35? Certainly there have been enormous (and I use the word advisedly) physical changes. To be specific, I weigh almost twice what I did then, and I am no longer lithe nor limber. Has that contributed to my sweetness? I have learned so much about being a giver, instead of a taker.

And as I was sharing these deep thoughts from my heart, pouring out my soul to her, I slowly became aware that it had been a while since she had said anything.

And then I realized:

SHE HAD ME MONOLOGUING!

And furthermore,

SHE HAD DONE IT ON PURPOSE!

Yes, that sweet woman of mine, that precious treasure, that DECEITFUL WENCH, has purposefully set me off on one of my long, intense, (boring?) rambles,

JUST SO SHE COULD GET TO SLEEP!

Oh, the horror. 

"You did that on purpose! You set me off on this intense introspection, just so I would talk long enough so you could get to sleep!" 

And she cracked up. Because it was TRUE!

"Next time, why don't you just ask me to recite the technical specification of my motorcycle?" (hysterical laughter) 

"Why not just have me sing The Alphabet song?"

(chortle, cackle, guffaw)

She didn't even TRY to defend or deny. And the only way I could get her to stop shrieking with laughter was to remind her that our young lady guest was sleeping in the bedroom right underneath ours, and what MUST she be thinking hearing the noises coming through her ceiling?

But it still took her a while. She had to progress down to giggle, snicker, and titter before she could finally drift off again. Because I was not ABOUT to tell her another bedtime story!

Sigh. I will tonight, though. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things; including the knowledge that the old lady can play me like a two dollar harmonica.

Be at peace, and wear RED today if you can. RED = Remember Everyone Deployed, until they all come home. 

Fat Old Crippled Redneck Bikers and Book Covers

There's no POINT to this post; it's just something that happened.

I know what I look like.  I'm a large, hairy white man. I've got a beard and a ponytail, and dark eyes. Except for the fact that I have no tattoos, I look like I'm a classic bad-news biker.
But that's not who I am.
In fact, except for maybe six months in 1971-2, I've NEVER looked like what I am.

This was brought home to me today in a sad way. I was in the parking lot of Publix, and I passed a young mother and her son; the mother was wearing a hijab, which I guess makes her a Muslim. I was wearing overalls and a black biker t-shirt, which I guess makes me a redneck biker. I recognized the look of fear and suspicion the mother gave me; I've seen it before.

Redneck bikers are supposed to hassle Muslims, right?

We made eye contact, and she quickly looked away. As I said, I've seen the look before. But I wasn't thinking about hassling her. I was wishing I could tell her that 100 years ago, my grandfather was in the Army, and that my father and uncles and cousins and self all served, and that we did that, in part, so that she could wear .ANY. .THING. .SHE. .WANTED. .TO. .WEAR.

But I didn't say anything. I just hopped into my vehicle and drove off.

After my hair grew out from my high school ROTC days, and before the buzz cut I got in Basic Training, there was a period of about six months when I LOOKED like a long haired hippie punk doper college student, and I WAS, in fact, a long haired hippie punk doper college student. So, for that brief time, my outer person and my inner person were consistent. Then I was in the Army, and the Big Green Machine has a way of plastering over individual differences. . While I was in the Army, I was awarded  a medal for life-saving (a story for another day), I made E-5, and I was selected as Soldier of the Year for the United States Army, Europe in 1975. I was a doper when I started my Army service, and a Jesus freak when I finished, but I looked the same on the outside the entire time.

As soon as I became a Private Freaken Citizen again in 1975, I started growing my beard out. Can't tell you HOW many times I caught crap over that, from personages as distinguished as a former US Senator, to some elderly gent handing out religious literature. Inside, every time it happened, I seethed; "I'm a veteran, you moron." It didn't stop when I was in my 20s or when I was in my 30s. One of the two main reasons I don't go to family reunions anymore was that I got tired of listening to the older generation give me crap. As recently as seven years ago, when I had 22 years sober, my sobriety sponsor gave me a hard time for having long hair and a beard. (I fired that sponsor.)

You can't judge a book by it's cover, the saying goes. But mostly, that's EXACTLY how we judge books, at least when it comes time to picking one off the shelf. Before I knew anything in depth about Baen, I had learned the little rocket-ship logo meant I was probably going to like the book. So, picking a good book cover is important.

But people aren't books. There are some aspects of my appearance I could easily change, if I wanted to. Cut my hair, shave my beard, wear a suit. Still the same guy. Other aspects, I can't change. I'm white, and I'm always going to be white, and sometimes when I am walking along in the store, holding hands with my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, we get The Look. We have not yet reached the day when we will judge each other based on the content of our characters, rather than the color of our skins.

Oh, yeah: to all of the people I have judged for some visible and trivial cosmetic detail, which includes the young mother in the hijab: Sorry for being such a dope. I'll try to do better.

Our Woman in Havana: A Parent Perspective

This is my drop-dead gorgeous, brilliant, adventurous, and deeply spiritual daughter Tobiyah.

 In this picture, she is pointing to the very first bull's-eye she made at the range, firing a Browning Buckmark Camper .22 LR target pistol. She loved the experience, although at first, she flinched every time someone in the adjacent lanes fired.

She is the second of my inherited daughters to have earned her college degree, a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Kennesaw State University. She was not content with classroom experience; somewhere around here I have a picture of my living room packed with more than 20 foreign exchange students she brought over to the house so they could get exposed to more of the American experience.

Last weekend, she gave me my first surprise; I thought she was going to join the Women's March in Atlanta. Instead, she and her three sisters and at least one sister-by-affiliation took off for Washington. They spent the night before in West Virginia, where we have family and friends, and then on to DC the next day. I didn't really get a chance to talk with her much about the experience; the only (brief) conversation I had with her was to hear her say that they saw a lot of pro-life marchers, but only one Planned Parenthood sign.

I would have liked to have talked with her about it more, but on Monday, she hopped on a plane at Atlanta's Hartsfield International and flew to Cuba.

By herself. And by that, I mean: not traveling with friends or family; not traveling with a tour group. She just bought a ticket, and got on the plane.

No, I don't know why. No, I had no advanced warning. 

This is what happens when you raise independent, intelligent children. They do stuff. They push boundaries. They have adventures. 

And they leave anxiety-ridden parents in their wake, because :

THERE IS NOTHING WE CAN DO ABOUT IT!

If you have adult children of your own, you know what I am talking about. If not, you may remember something you did at that age. 

Me? I joined the Army. Just decided one day. Actually, there was more to the story than that, but that's for another time.

Oh, by the way: this isn't her first foreign experience. In this picture, we see her (far left) when she went to Nigeria last November to meet her biological father's family. Standing next to her is her older sister Jennifer; that trip included both of these gifted ladies.

Sweetheart, all I can say to you while you are in Cuba is to follow the same course of action you took in Nigeria:

DON'T EAT THE GOAT. 

YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE IT HAS BEEN.

Fear of running out of drugs = No Sleep = No post

The physical pain I experience is related to inflammation. The BEST, by FAR, treatment for inflammation is medication designed specifically for that, the Non-Steroid Anti-Inflammatory Drugs, aka NSAIDs.  A few years ago, when I got tired of the side effects of morphine, I was able to manage quite well with a daily dose of meloxicam. I went for nine months with that, and only took about 1/2 tablet of hydrocodone every week.
Then, the bad side effects of NSAIDs manifested, and my guts exploded. I was getting blood in my stool, and awful gastric distress, so I needed to re-visit the Pain Clinic. Unfortunately, when you are destroyed by one NSAID, you will be destroyed by them all, so I can't take an aspirin or an ibuprofen, or anything in that category.

I do have a good solution. There is a long-release patch called 'Butrans,' which dispenses (in my case) 20 micrograms of buprenorphine into my system every hour; I change the patch every week. It treats the bulk of the pain, and I am prescribed three 10 mg hydrocodone per day to manage break-through pain. Mostly, it works.

But we've had very changeable weather, and I've been active, and I've been gobbling down my daily allotment of meds every day. I counted the pills I had left last night, and while I do have enough to last until the next prescription, I'm always certain my car won't start or the snow will fall, and I won't be able to get a refill on time. So, I decided to grit my teeth, and make it on two pills, so as to have something in reserve.

Yesterday was probably not the right day to start that. As far as I know, I felt no pain in my toenails. Everything else? Ouch. Headache. Neck. Upper back. shoulders. Lower back. Knees.
Even my butt hurt.

So, I didn't get much in the way of sleep last night. At some point, I got out of bed, and quietly crept downstairs so as not to disturb my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, and I worked on my book for a while.

Then I went back upstairs at 5:30 so as to be there when she woke up. I stayed up to get the kids off to school; probably grabbed 30 minutes nap.

Anyway, that's why I didn't write a blog post today.

Except for this.

American Rifleman, and Personal vs. Professional

Boo-yah! The February edition of the American Rifleman came today, and I CAN READ IT! The last day of my 21 day firearms-reading fast was yesterday.
I don't feel the need to go on a binge, though. The purpose of the fast was to give me some spare resources that I could use to draw closer to God. And, I think that worked. At least so far. This blog, and book reviews, are my way of reaching out, and helping people. And, since I stopped spending those hours mentally fondling the best self-defense ammo, or examining the workings of the latest (or oldest) firearm technology, I've been devoting my time to writing.
Now, I started to say that I don't know whether or not the process has made me more spiritual. But as it happens, I just had a conversation with Mylon, one of my oldest friends, and I realized that the most spiritual things have their manifestation in the physical world. We talked about the Tommy Nobis Center,  established by one of the most dominant linebackers in the game of football, which provides job training for youth and adults with developmental issues. And we talked about the House of Cherith at the City of Refuge in Atlanta, which provides a long term support program for women escaping from sex trafficking.
Those are big things. My writing is invisible by comparison. However, they are all physical manifestations of an inward desire.

Ah. Inward desire. Yeah, that's also the problem. You see, I realized over the past couple of days that I have an inward desire to destroy. It's based on the chain of events that started when my first born son volunteered to serve his country by joining the Georgia Army National Guard.

Actually, the chain started long before that. It probably started around 1917, when my grandfather volunteered for the Army and went to France in World War I. More links were forged by the service of my uncles, cousins, and father who served in World War II, Korea, and Viet Nam, plus the non-combat service of his father.

He wasn't expecting it, and neither was his wife, but shortly after they realized they were going to become parents, his unit was designated to go to Afghanistan. He spent the better part of a year getting retrained. His was a Field Artillery unit, but what they needed was someone who could guard an airbase. So, they were re-purposed as infantry, and instead of staying back a comfortable 16 miles and booming a M109 howitzer at the bad guys, he was busting down doors and dodging IEDs. And one day, after weeks of constant rocket attacks, he was blasted into a concrete wall by an incoming shell. When he came to, he didn't think he was hurt badly; his knee bothered him. But he refused medevac until the day he found out he couldn't fall back with the rest of his squad when they thought they were about to come under fire by a company-strength force. I talk more about it here. 

My son carries his own internal scarring, in addition to the scars you can see. But his is not colored with the bitterness that I feel. Here's what he said at the time, responding to something Mad Mike had written in "Tour of Duty":

I call them "those guys"; after working with the locals you get to know them and it just doesn't seem right to call them all Hajjis, RIFs, or any of the other delightfully euphemistic nicknames . And I've never been insensitive enough to call them ragheads or Arabs either. Funny how even in the middle of a fight one cleaves to the honor of refusing to be/sound racially biased. "The Dean" prevails. 

Me? Nope. I'm not there. Frankly, the way I'm feeling right now, I would not shed another drop of American blood in an attempt to resolve that millenials-old mess they have over there. And I didn't know how badly I felt about it, until I read an excellent book called "The Midnight Sea."

I hated the book. It's well written. It has a good plot. The characters are real. And I hated them, and I will NOT be reading any more of the series. Why? Because it takes place in an alternate reality, 2500 years ago, in the same area of the globe where my son bled. And my anger and grief prevented me from feeling sympathy for the characters who undergo horrible torture, including the heroine having her hand amputated. Instead, I found myself thinking: "they were a pack of vicious monsters then, and they are a pack of vicious monsters now." And I purposely did not refer to them as animals, because animals do not engage in the systematic torture and slaughter that wicked people do.

So: I attempted. I attempted to set aside my bitterness and grief, and evaluate the book on it's own merits. I think I succeeded, at least in pointing out that those merits exist. I admitted my own bias. And I hope that my experience does not cause the author any loss of sales.

So, why did I review the book at all, if I felt that way? 1. Because I was asked to do so. 2. Because this WAS so intensely personal, and powerful. that I needed to say it. Perhaps, just perhaps by admitting to my virulent distaste for a people I have never met, I will be able to receive healing of my wounds. I do not expect to receive the grace given to my son; his burden is different, and he is meeting the challenges of life with a traumatic brain injury and a permanent limp with strength that amazes me. But I need to be healed.

And so I wrote the review.

The Group W bench, Crime Fighting, and Psychic Sexpots

A long time ago, there was a song called "Alice's Restaurant." It was written and performed by Arlo Guthrie, and it related the story of the Alice's Restaurant Massacree, which took place in Stockbridge Massachusetts, with a closing which took place in a big building on Whitehall Street where Arlo went for his draft physical.

"You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant.
 You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant.
Just walk right in, it's around the back, just a half a mile from the railroad track,
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant."

If you don't know the story, take 18 -23 minutes of your time, and go listen to the ORIGINAL 1965 version of it here,  or if you DO know the story,  you can listen to the 1996 updated version here. or you can take 40 minutes of yer time and listen to both. It's a good way to spend your time. I'll wait here.......

Okay, yer back. Wasn't that great?

Now, just in case you are one of those folks who DIDN'T click on the link, I'm gonna give you the punchline. Yeah, I guess that means it's a SPOILER, but it's your own fault. You COULD have listened to one of the links! Anyway, Arlo gets arrested for littering, and it becomes an issue when he has to report for his draft screening. Because he had a prior arrest, he had to go sit on the Group W bench with the other criminals: mother rapers, father stabbers, FATHER RAPERS! 

Umm...I should point out, that for gentlemen now of a certain age, the draft was a big deal. There were a few years there in the late 60's and very early 70's where if you got drafted, you went to Viet Nam, or possibly Germany. Nobody worried about going to Germany. (That's where I went.) But if you were a young man during those years, the thoughts of being drafted and sent to Viet Nam was never far from your mind.

And, the song "Alice's Restaurant" was one of the ways we had of dealing with our fear. We listened to it over and over, and in the case of the VERY talented, such as Billy Doniel, my best friend in high school; well, they actually LEARNED the entire song, and played it and we sang along in spots, reciting the parts of the dialogue that we could retain. Billy lived with his grandmother, and she never could understand how he could remember all the words to the song, and couldn't remember the answers on a history test. Obviously, she didn't know what was important to a 17 year old boy.

Time passed, and what with one thing and another, I left Alice's Restaurant behind. I wasn't drafted, I joined, and so that happy little song wasn't quite as relevant. My high school class, that of 1971, had a number of guys drafted, but not to the extent that earlier classes had, and nobody in my class went to Viet Nam.

But today, to the best of my knowledge, at least two of my daughters attended the Atlanta version of the Million Woman March. To the best of my knowledge, they weren't wearing those ridiculous freaken hats; they have a sense of style that I don't see fitting in with that, but who knows? I just hope they don't wind up on the Group W bench. If they do, though, they know Papa Pat will post their bail. And I wish there were singing 'Alice's Restaurant' as they march.

And that's all I have to say about that.

On a completely different topic, Amie Gibbons has written a lovely book about a crime-fighting FBI agent named Ariana Ryder, a cute little smidgen of a woman with psychic abilities. She has appeared in previous short stories, but I missed them. There is enough back story revealed in 'Psychic Undercover' that you don't HAVE to read the previous work, but I will likely go back and read them for enjoyment, time permitting.

I'm not so much writing a book review here, as I am revealing how I deal with the sex scenes. Other than being a psychic (well, and being an FBI agent), Ariana is an average 23 year old young woman. She has some baggage, related to her  family, but she is bright, energetic, and talented. And she is also inordinately interested in members of the opposite sex. She's not sexually active, due to part of the baggage she's carrying, but she has a HUGE crush on her boss. Because she is not a freaken lamebrain, she hasn't attempted to act out, but she does more than her share of swooning and mooning, in private. (But others know.) Those do not feature in the sex scenes, however.

It's a bad idea to get sexually or romantically involved with a vampire. Everybody knows that; it's one of the things they teach you in kindergarten, along with not taking candy from strangers. So, silly person that she is, Ariana gets involved with a vampire.

There are extenuating circumstances! He is wounded by a silver arrow while saving her life, and will die if the silver reaches her heart. She has to suck the silver-contaminated blood out of the wound, or he dies.

Parenthetically: this may be EXACTLY the way to treat silver contamination in a vampire; I do not know. However, despite what Ariana thinks, it is NOT the way to treat a snake-bit wound. With all snakebite wounds except one, evacuate the bite victim to a medical facility; the only treatment is antivenin. In the last case, the bite of the Black Mamba, you have 10 minutes to make a will, because you are going to die.

So: Ariana sucks the wounded vampire's blood, and becomes intoxicated and sexually aroused. Evidently, that's the way it works. So, much later, the vampire shows up on her door and makes his move, and she is receptive. Then follows a chapter of explicit sex, with a few vampire flavors tossed in.

Okay. I don't like sex scenes. The REASON I don't like sex scenes is tied into the same reason I don't look at porn or frequent strip clubs: it's all a tease. I see no point whatsoever in the tickle. And I absolutely want to do nothing that would cause me to create a mental sex scene with someone other than my wife. Now, you may find me a prude, but this is a choice I made years ago, and it's kept me from THAT problem, at least. So, how do I deal with it when the book I'm reading gets explicitly racy?

Well there is some stuff I skip altogether. I loved the 'Ghost' series by John Ringo, but there were entire sections I just skipped.  However, what if it's milder?

My motivation here is to keep myself safe. I am REQUIRED to live a life of rigorous honesty; otherwise, I will fall into secrets, then resentments, and if I stay there long enough, I will become so miserable that I will seek a chemical solution. So, I insist on being utterly open, and that means:

It means I read those sections of a book to my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA.  She understands that reading and reviewing is my job; it's what I do. But if, in HER opinion, a particular scene is over the top, then I accept her evaluation and turn the page. 

I do the same thing with movies and TV.  

We do NOT have the same tastes. And frankly, hers are safer than mine, I think. But I will be John Brown if I willingly watch those stupid Hallmark movies or dorky Christmas special. So, we share some things, and we serve as a check and balance on each other, and it works.

And that's all I have today.