our place for private messages
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Mar 4, 2009 8:51 am
5465 Views
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Tell me me what you are thinking. Leave a note here if you find any connection between your life and mine. Friends are very important to me. Lust is honored and adored. Nobody else will see your words. This is our private space.
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1
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, 52 Pending
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my name
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Jan 20, 2009 8:43 pm
4571 Views
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My name, my handle, comes from the magnificent poem "To Be Of Use" by Marge Piercy:
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
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11
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I will always return
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Feb 19, 2012 1:42 pm
116 Views
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The Perfect One has been sick for a few days. When I arrived at her front door this morning she greeted me with the tired eyes and slightly limp body of one who has been struggling with her health. I received a weak hug but I knew she meant it to be real.
She revived with juice, a few pieces of bacon and some fresh fruit. She was soon all over me, kissing my diamond earring as if she had just discovered it, playing with my rose tattoo (the other men in her life are ink-free) and stroking my short, tight beard. It did not take long for her to insist that I dance around the house with her while she sang a song nobody else knows, a song she made up on the spot. She placed her head on my shoulder and wrapped one arm around to my back and gave it a slow tap-tap-tap with her hand when she was especially satisfied.
The games continued for three hours, things she does with nobody other than her adoring PawPaw. Her Mom, also sick, remained in the background amazed that TPO was ready to play. TPO wasn't her usual talkative and laughing self but she was and is still more charming than most adults.
She loves me, I know. I did not have children of my own. Two decades ago I married a woman with two fine teenaged daughters who have grown into spectacular women. One has given the world TPO. She is not of my blood but I love her more than anything else. I am blessed by knowing her, by receiving her love, by giving her my love.
I drove for four days to see her. I will fly out tomorrow but return to be with her for one more week in March. I rarely know when I will next see her but I live for those moments. I will return and I will always be there for her.
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6
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my heart is pounding and I can't sleep
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Feb 19, 2012 6:13 am
129 Views
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I can discern the differences between a crush, deep lust and true love. Each one makes my heart race but only one keeps me awake at night and that is true love. I am in love and cannot sleep, because I will see her tomorrow after months apart. When I close my eyes I see endless movies in my brain about us together, what we will do on our Sunday together, so I am out of bed and back to my blog, a release I hope.
She loves fresh fruit, juice, bacon and muffins on Sunday morning so I will visit her bearing those gifts. We can cook eggs when I arrive. We love feeding each other with our hands, much more fun than forks. Anything that falls on the floor is easily cleaned later, if the cat does not get it first. I will bring the NY Times with me but she is never impressed by the paper. Trash TV on Sunday morning is more her style.
The weather is supposed to be kinda' crappy, so we will likely stay in and share the couch. Her couch is pretty small so we will have to cuddle together, but that is not a problem since The Perfect One just turned three years old and fits nicely against me. TPO is going to love my new Sesame Street video with Los Lobos singing a variation on one of their classic songs, "Elmo and The Lavender Moon" (she loves Elmo and me. I love her and anything she loves).
Is it okay for a grandfather who is in love to get sappy here?
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3
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my heart is pounding and I can't sleep
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Feb 19, 2012 4:49 am
150 Views
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I can discern the differences between a crush, deep lust and true love. Each one makes my heart race but only one keeps me awake at night and that is true love. I am in love and cannot sleep, because I will see her tomorrow after months apart. When I close my eyes I see endless movies in my brain about us together, what we will do on our Sunday together, so I am out of bed and back to my blog, a release I hope.
She loves fresh fruit, juice, bacon and muffins on Sunday morning so I will visit her bearing those gifts. We can cook eggs when I arrive. We love feeding each other with our hands, much more fun than forks. Anything that falls on the floor is easily cleaned later, if the cat does not get it first. I will bring the NY Times with me but she is never impressed by the paper. Trash TV on Sunday morning is more her style.
The weather is supposed to be kinda' crappy, so we will likely stay in and share the couch. Her couch is pretty small so we will have to cuddle together, but that is not a problem since The Perfect One just turned three years old and fits nicely against me. TPO is going to love my new Sesame Street video with Los Lobos singing a variation on one of their classic songs, "Kiko (Elmo) and The Lavender Moon". She loves Elmo and me. I love her and anything she loves.
Is it okay for a grandfather who is in love to get sappy here?
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3
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my heart is pounding and I can't sleep
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Feb 18, 2012 10:30 pm
155 Views
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I can discern the differences between a crush, deep lust and true love. Each one makes my heart race but only one keeps me awake at night and that is true love. I am in love and cannot sleep, because I will see her tomorrow after months apart. When I close my eyes I see endless movies in my brain about us together, what we will do on our Sunday together, so I am out of bed and back to my blog, a release I hope.
She loves fresh fruit, juice, bacon and muffins on Sunday morning so I will visit her bearing those gifts. We can cook eggs when I arrive. We love feeding each other with our hands, much more fun than forks. Anything that falls on the floor is easily cleaned later, if the cat does not get it first. I will bring the NY Times with me but she is never impressed by the paper. Trash TV on Sunday morning is more her style.
The weather is supposed to be kinda' crappy, so we will likely stay in and share the couch. Her couch is pretty small so we will have to cuddle together, but that is not a problem since The Perfect One just turned three years old and fits nicely against me. TPO is going to love my new Sesame Street video with Los Lobos singing a variation on one of their classic songs, "Elmo and The Lavender Moon" (she loves Elmo and me. I love her and anything she loves).
Is it okay for a grandfather who is in love to get sappy here?
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1
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my heart is pounding and I can't sleep
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Feb 18, 2012 9:50 pm
153 Views
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I can discern the differences between a crush, deep lust and true love. Each one makes my heart race but only one keeps me awake at night and that is true love. I am in love and cannot sleep, because I will see her tomorrow after months apart. When I close my eyes I see endless movies in my brain about us together, what we will do on our Sunday together, so I am out of bed and back to my blog, a release I hope.
She loves fresh fruit, juice, bacon and muffins on Sunday morning so I will visit her bearing those gifts. We can cook eggs when I arrive. We love feeding each other with our hands, much more fun than forks. Anything that falls on the floor is easily cleaned later, if the cat does not get it first. I will bring the NY Times with me but she is never impressed by the paper. Trash TV on Sunday morning is more her style.
The weather is supposed to be kinda' crappy, so we will likely stay in and share the couch. Her couch is pretty small so we will have to cuddle together, but that is not a problem since The Perfect One just turned three years old and fits nicely against me. TPO is going to love my new Sesame Street video with Los Lobos singing a variation on one of their classic songs, "Elmo and The Lavender Moon" (she loves Elmo and me. I love her and anything she loves).
Is it okay for a grandfather who is in love to get sappy here?
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1
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pour down like silver
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Feb 12, 2012 3:56 pm
269 Views
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The best songs communicate as much with the music and the performance as with the lyrics. The lyrics re-inforce what the music already says. The intensity of it all can surpass the physical.
Great music has a capacity to draw a person in. Richard Thompson wrote the classic song "Night Comes In" almost thirty years ago. Henry Kaiser gathered five great musicians to record it for a tribute album called "The World Is A Wonderful Place." It is some of the most gorgeous music I have ever heard, brilliant musicians playing stringed instruments from around the world, like the best sex in its eroticism.
Imagine notes sharply picked on a Vietnamese guitar, exotic and attention grabbing like fingernails running jaggedly across your belly. A lush slow baritone guitar enters like a strong gentle hand reaching up to your face and neck, embracing you softly. The notes roll through your chest and soothe your body. A dulcimer signals something more urgent, a mouth exploring your body. Two voices enter, a man slowly singing in a plaintive voice and a wild woman matching his words two registers higher, like the sounds of long deep kissing, two people exploring each other. "Night comes in, like some cool river..."
Two more acoustic guitars join in and play together the way two lovers would meet and stroke each other, fingers fluttering across skin, lips exploring each other. Pivot, now, as a piercing distorted guitar slices though the soft backdrop of the dextrous acoustic picking in the background. First it is slow and the volume even but it is undeniably urgent. You must focus on it, as its intensity pulls you in. This is the music of penetration, slow but deep. It is passion at a low volume but high intensity, electricity breaking bounds. Notes break and shatter, it spasms out of control. It sounds and feels unplanned. You know that feel in your own body when your partner has taken control and you are at their mercy.
When you think the electric guitar has explored every note possible, scattered showers of sparks across the room, mined every beautiful chord and hit nasty dissonant places, all of the guitars resolve in one long graceful chord, an orgasm of music better than the end of "A Day In The Life".
This is one of the songs of my life. I could listen to it over and over.
Night Comes In
Night comes in
Like some cool river
How can there be
Be another day
Take my hand
O real companion
And we'll dance
We'll dance 'till we fade away
O the songs
Pour down like silver
They can only
Only break my heart
Drink the wine
The wine of lovers
Lovers tired of being apart
Dancing 'till my feet don't touch the ground
I lose my mind and dance forever
Lose my mind and dance forever
Turn my world around
Turn my world around
O this night
Is like no other
And this room
Is ringing in my ears
And these friends
Will never leave me
And these tears
Are like no other tears
Dancing 'till my feet don't touch the ground
I lose my mind and dance forever
Lose my mind and dance forever
Turn my world around
Turn my world around
Well I may find
That street tomorrow
Leave the shadow
Of my lonely room
See my one
My one and only
Heart and soul
I'm coming soon
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4
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you can't measure it
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Feb 11, 2012 8:11 pm
305 Views
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The panicked alarms of weather forecasters calling for six inches of snow today proved false as is so often true. Yesterday everyone was buzzing about the possibility of a big storm, nervous but excited. By the end of the day we had nothing worth talking about.
Last year by this date over 80 inches of snow had fallen, a record large amount. We are on course this year to hit a record short, as only eight inches of snow have fallen so far. The contrast between the big snows of last year and the short stuff this year is causing anxiety around here. People were afraid of the possibility of getting six inches, but excited too, hoping it would come.
When was the last time you were excited about six inches you were promised but it just did not measure up? 
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5
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do I sound like a girl?
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Feb 8, 2012 8:51 am
348 Views
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In the thirty years since college days I have eaten robustly, sometimes in amounts that shock people who are polite  and not gained any weight. Inexplicably I gained eight pounds over the late winter and early spring of last year. It took five months to drop that extra weight last summer and fall.
Then something happened to my body and I lost much of my appetite and with it another ten pounds I did not want to lose over the next four months.
The good news: the little sag I was starting to develop on my belly is gone. The bad news: I used to have a nice butt and it has shrunk just before I head for a Mexican beach.  I used to like the compliments I got when I strolled the beach in my tight bathing suit.
I had a mild case of food poisoning over last weekend (take out Chinese from a place I have not used in the past) but once I recovered my appetite returned. I have been eating with gusto since and my weight is slowly climbing.
Any advice on how to make sure it goes to my butt and not to my belly?
Do I sound like a girl?
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4
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me
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Feb 5, 2012 12:29 am
443 Views
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For the last forty years, I addressed my parents by their first names, not the traditional "mom" and "dad" equivalents. We were not just family but friends, best friends. I am lucky on that count. It continues with my sibs.
I cook and I garden not because my parents told me, but because they gave me the opportunity. Likewise, they never obliged me to help others, but I learned it through observation and participation.
On the other hand, my sexuality rages in my head and body, something I never saw in my family. I do not know how to express in words the contrast, but I do lust, deeply, even though I do not act on it.
Once upon a time I was the most social of beings, six thousand people on my cell phone. Now there are fewer than 100. I like that.
I used to have two meetings every night and three or four every weekend. I now leave my house every other day. I would prefer something halfway between the two.
When I was young I was flamboyant in behavior and appearance with long hair, boots, denim and leather. Then I went legit and did things like removing the diamond earring a girlfriend gave me thirty years ago. I have dozens of suits and three tuxedos in my closets. Yup, three tuxedos: a standard, a shawl collar and a double breasted I had hand tailored for me in Bangkok. I now like being able to wear my leather pants and my great collection of hats without worrying about my reputation. OTOH, I look okay in a tux but do not have enough opportunities to wear one. The earring is back, always the diamond. Call it partial liberation.
I did not care about people who thought I was gay back in the old days. I still don't care. If somebody is questioning my sexuality, it is probably because they are questioning their own.
Most definitely I did not want children because I was a workaholic and a raging feminist who thought the two were incompatible - I could never ask the mother of my children to stay home while I raised hell in the professional world. Now, with two step-daughters, I am madly and passionately in love with my three year old grand-daughter.
I try not to wonder what I missed.
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5
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venting v. caring
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Feb 3, 2012 8:49 pm
478 Views
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For the past 48 hours I have been venting here and on my other blogs about the Komen Foundation de-funding Planned Parenthood's breast cancer services. Mid-day today I remembered that my next door neighbor returned from the hospital yesterday after a second round of surgery for breast cancer. Why had I not offered ToBeOfUse? I called and left a message asking about her condition and if I could do anything to help.
She is her late 60s, her husband in his late 70s. They have money, lots, definitely in the 1% but they don't live an extravagant life. They act like most aging suburban couples, no glitz attached.
He can be both both cranky and a very giving man. She is preternaturally sweet. They love everyone, especially kids. When they remodeled their house they put a bathroom in their hall near a special door which is always unlocked so that the neighborhood kids can slip in rather than have to run home to go to the bathroom. They like people.
He has given me at least twenty thousand dollars for various charities we both like, two hundred thousand dollars worth of his property for environmental conservation and on occasion his primo season tickets to the Red Sox at Fenway. They are really nice to me.
In return, I am nice to them, help them with tiny chores, advise their gardener, and go to political battle on their behalf. Other than the Red Sox tickets I don't get any material benefit from our relationship but they are my neighbors and my friends. I will do anything for them.
Four hours after my call I received a return call from him. Thanks for the offer of help he said. She is doing really well. Can you cook dinner for us and our best friend and bring it over tomorrow night, he asked. He said he had plenty of wine for all four of us, all very casually. Of course, or course I will cook. That is what friends do.
We need government to do for us the things we cannot do for ourselves. We need non-profit organizations for the same reason, with fewer constraints than current political fads impose on government. We most need friends and family who will do anything they are asked, no questions.
Tomorrow I will cook a seafood risotto with lobster stock and shrimp. A side dish of fennel and onions wilted under a little heat. Bread. A coffee ricotta pie with candied clementines for dessert. I want ToBeOfUse. Tomorrow I will. This is where I find meaning in life.
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enraged
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Feb 2, 2012 10:36 pm
581 Views
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I try hard to keep my politics off of my blog. Today I cannot. The Susan Komen Foundation decision to de-fund breast cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood has me raging mad.
Planned Parenthood is one of the country's largest providers of women's health services, three percent of whose services includes abortion. PP also provided contraception to 2.2 million women, 3.5 million tests for STDs, 1.4 million emergency contraception kits, 1.1 million pregnancy tests and 1.6 million cancer screenings, including Pap smears and colonoscopies.
Asshats on the radical right are trying to kill Planned Parenthood completely, including their programs that provide breast cancer screening, reproductive health education and contraceptive services. Extremists on the radical right are too stupid to know that there is no other organization that does more to reduce the need for abortions than Planned Parenthood. Contraception is a good thing. Likewise, health screenings for poor women. Poor women should not have to suffer an earlier death from breast cancer than well-to-do women.
Conservative and fundamentalist fucktards want to make women second class citizens. When the Komen Foundation appointed Karen Handel, the former Secretary of State of Georgia who tried to defund Planned Parenthood, we should have anticipated the worst. It came. She is bad news.
I have spent thirty years working for women's reproductive rights. One of my neighbors was murdered in a Planned Parenthood clinic by a nut-case because of his ultra-conservative religious beliefs. I spent days dealing with the fallout because the staff could not handle the tragedy (see the reference to crisis management work I mentioned in a previous post). I literally walked over the blood stains of two women who were murdered because they worked for Planned Parenthood and believed that women deserve the right to control their bodies.
Komen has always been a blow-hard organization more about name promotion than funding either research or direct services for women with cancer. Now we know their politics suck also.
Send money to Planned Parenthood or to the American Cancer Society. Fuck Komen. Women who are working class and poor deserve quality health care.
I am pissed off.
(now stepping off of my soap box)
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To link to this blog (ToBeofUse) use [blog ToBeofUse] in your messages.
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