Occasional Ray of Perversity

Ergo and I were discussing our blogs this morning - a topic that we revisit on a fairly regular basis: do our blogs reveal the kind of people we are? Since we know each other both on and offline, we seemed to be the best people to answer this question for each other.

me: "Your REAL quirkiness comes out a bit, here and there..."

Ergo: with yours, "an occasional ray of perversity shines through. but you are very subtle. it's your spy geisha thing"

I suppose the big takeaway is that I see Ergo as quirky, and she sees me as perverse.

True enough.

Sex, Sex, Sex

"I've always felt that a happy sex life kills a person's sense of humor about himself remarkably quickly."

- Stephen McCauley

I've been thinking lately of resurrecting my trashy novel. It is November, after all - National Novel Writing Month.

And so, of course, I've been thinking about writing sex.

Elizabeth Benedict, in her book, The Joy of Writing Sex, outlines five principles to follow when writing a sex scene:

1. Sex is not an ATM withdrawal
2. Hire a decorator
3. Your characters don't have to speak to each other, but don't forget that they can
4. You need not be explicit, but you must be specific
5. Surprise me

It occurs to me that these principles apply equally well to having sex. Not that I remember sex, but I think there's a certain fungibility there. And since I'm supposed to have sex next month, I've been reading this how-to-write-sex book and thinking about how it applies to having it.

Benedict divides her book into chapters which deal with different kinds of sex:

• losing your virginity sex
  
• wedding night sex
  
• married sex
  
• adulterous sex
  
• recreational sex
• illicit sex
• solo sex

But what's on my mind now is recreational sex - particularly in light of the mandate I've been given to have sex in December. On one hand, I get it. The physical closeness, the endorphin release, having a sandwich afterwards, no emotional demands to counter. It's all good. But I get all of that (minus the first) after a good session on my yoga mat. And I don't have to wash my sheets afterwards.

There's also the pizza argument. Even cold, bad pizza is still pizza. But given my rocky relationship with carbs, I can masterfully avoid pizza, unless it's REALLY GOOD pizza that I really really want at that moment.

But this is my thought... it's what might be inconvenient or deemed "unnecessary" with sex that makes it interesting. And that's exactly what is, for the most part, lost with recreational sex.

Anais Nin said it best:

Without feelings, inventions, moods, [there are] no surprises in bed. Sex must be mixed with tears, laughter, words, promises, scenes, jealousy, envy, all the spices of fear, foreign travel, new faces, novels, stories, dreams, fantasies, music, dancing, opium, wine.

But now that I've just typed that, it seems like an awfully tall order. And, oddly enough, makes me think of going down to Ray's to get a slice, with everything on it.

Life Aspirations

I have two:

1. By day, to write trashy novels
2. By night, to be a lounge singer

My sexless trashy novel will never see the light of day. But my second aspiration might just be achieved - at least for one evening, if SK has anything to say about it.

Mid summer, SK told me that she wants to do a cabaret night sometime in November, starring herself, VH, and me. I immediately enthused about the idea and then promptly forgot about it until she came over one evening last week for wine and girl-talk and reminded me about it.

VH, if you read this post, consider yourself reminded as well.

Since SK is appalled by my karaoke song choices, she wrote up a list of songs for me and told me in no uncertain terms that the list is non-negotiable and that I will have to learn them.

Not only does SK know music, she also knows my voice. So her choices for me are spot on. I did try to be helpful by volunteering my karaoke favorites - all of which she rejected out of hand by telling me, "what you like to sing at karaoke and what you can actually do justice to don't have much in common."

True enough.

So we sat at my little kitchen table while she searched for various songs on youtube, muttering to herself, and I sat opposite her, drinking my wine, swaying along to whatever she was playing on my computer, and pretending that my remote control was a mic.

What do we need to make this cabaret night happen? I'll make a list:

1. a pianist
2. mics/speakers/piano/assorted other equipment
3. a venue
4. a date
5. an audience

But for now, I'm off to download Whatever Lola Wants from iTunes.

Yet More On Writing Sex

I've started yet another blog. But this new one is devoted to retelling all the best first kiss stories that I've been collecting for the last many years.

After enough cocktails, people are always very willing to root through their pasts, pull out a story, and share.

A couple years ago, I was in NYC for a month long stay - I needed to get out of Beijing. I had met WC at a bar near her office and we had lunch and multiple cocktails. At the time, we were both going through some serious man hell so we were alternating between hysterical laughter and equally hysterical tears. She stumbled back to her office for a conference call and I stayed behind to wait for her return.

Three off-duty fireman were sitting at the bar so I joined them. Many more cocktails later, we were all fast friends. They had seen us crying and once they realized that it was because of men, they got very upset and "heroic".

"Where do the assholes live? You tell us right now, and if we ever get a call from their apartments, we won't f*cking answer it! Let the f*ckers BURN!"

I was so touched that I teared up a little, but assured them it wasn't necessary.

By the time WC returned, I was sitting with three VERY DRUNK off-duty firemen who were all unabashedly weeping as they recounted to me their stories of their best first kisses.

Unfortunately, I don't exactly remember their stories, and my notes are completely illegible. But I DO remember that their stories were astonishingly sweet. The focus was on romance, not sex. Granted I haven't collected many stories from men, so statistically I can't draw any valid conclusions, but EVERY SINGLE story I've ever heard from a man about his best first kiss was romantic. With the women, the stories were significantly more varied. And many were highly sexual. So I'm trying to get it all down - not just notes scribbled into notebooks over the years, but all in a single place.

And while I remember the individual voices of the story tellers, and I'm trying to be faithful to that, it's proving to be difficult.

A big part of it is my own block when it comes to certain vocabulary.

The sex-ed program in my school was very... innovative. It started in third grade. The first day of sex-ed, our teacher went around the room and made each of us say two words: "penis" and "vagina."

Half the room giggled helplessly. The other half sobbed. I was in the latter category.

Lord, did I weep! But I finally squeaked out, in my most miserable voice, "penisvagina."

The class was successful however. As an adult, I have no problems saying or writing those words. Penis! Vagina! Even in all caps: PENIS! VAGINA!

Of course, now I wish our teacher had included additional useful vocabulary such as: "cock, "pussy", and "cunt." If he had, perhaps I would have finished my trashy novel long ago.

Rats, now I'm blushing and feeling the urge to apply anti bacterial gel.

Scary Sex Toys

SK and I went to the Erotic Love Letter Workshop tonight. I was so worried that I would be late, that completely inadvertently, I was fifteen minutes early.

That was a bad thing.

The workshop took place at a sex shop in the lower east side. I showed up and the door was locked. I was convinced I was late so I did the natural thing - I banged on the glass door mercilessly until someone came to unlock the door and let me in.

"Am I late?" I inquired breathlessly.

"No, you are early, but that's ok," I was informed. "Look around the store until the workshop starts," the salesperson suggested.

I claimed seats for myself and SK and wandered around the store. Since I am very methodical, I started at the beginning, and perused the bookshelves closest to the front door. Books do not frighten me. Even book with titles such as: Dick: A User's Guide and Nice Girls Don't... and Butt and The Beauty of Fetish and even The Definitive Guide to Anal Sex for Women.

Next I went to the display of hand blown (I'm not even trying to be funny here) glass dildos which were VERY expensive.

But as I went deeper into the store, I grew more uncomfortable.

I picked up a rubber ducky and was surprised at the weight of it. I squeezed it in the wrong way and it started to vibrate. I squealed and dropped it and then looked around furtively to see if anyone noticed. I wandered further and saw the usual assortment of dildos and vibrators and so forth. These were immediately recognizable as such and didn't startle me. After all, I've watched Sex and the City; I know of the "rabbit." After all, I own 15 "Hello Kitties."

But then I came upon a display of... well... flaccid penises. I was a bit confused. What does one DO with something like that? I had it in my mind that they were made of hard plastic. I knew it was a bad idea, but I reached out and poked one with a single finger. It wasn't made of hard plastic. It was.... LIFELIKE. That disturbed me immensely. I got terribly confused and poked it again, rather expecting it to grow and harden. It didn't. I got more confused and wished I had anti-bacterial gel. I was so confused that I backed away and ran over to the other side of the store where I found myself standing before a display of whips. To make a long story short, some whips don't hurt. Others do. I now have a new sensitivity regarding the crop I use when I am on horseback.

Bottom line, I was incredibly relieved when SK finally showed up and I could make her poke the flaccid silicon penises as well before taking our seats.

We were told that the workshop was about to start and that this was a good time to "set our phones on vibrate and put them in our pants." I chose to turn my phone off entirely.

I had hoped the exercise of going to this workshop would help me get over the block I have about writing sex scenes. It failed. "Cock" this and "suck" that and "rank cunt" this just doesn't seem sexy to me. Am I alone here? Is that actually SEXY?!? If anything, I walked away from this workshop thinking not only will I never WRITE about sex, I will never HAVE sex again.

But, being the dutiful student that I am, I completed the workshop assignment and wrote an "erotic" love letter. It's not good. It's the exact OPPOSITE of sexy. All the frighteningly enormous dildos and flaccid silicon penises and painful whips just chased the "erotic" right out of me. But here it is, because I promised myself that no matter how humiliating, I would post my literary efforts on my blog:

I was in a strange and foreign place this morning - the grocery store. I heard this is where one goes to find food which isn't delivered to your door or served at your table.

I stood alone in the frozen foods aisle, and suddenly I felt your hand on the small of my back. You were nowhere near me, yet clear as day, I felt the heat and pressure of your hand on my skin through my clothes. You touched me there the first time we met. You didn't touch me with intent then - that would come later. That first touch was just a casual gesture on your part, although it affected me quite differently.

I cook four times year - the end of every quarter, that's it. But there I was this morning at Whole Foods, only a month into Q2, consulting the grocery list I had emailed to my blackberry. Why? For the express purpose of making dinner for you. It was difficult enough to concentrate on navigating the complexities of cilantro versus basil, or the question of whether sea bass counts as a firm white fish, but then I felt your hands on me. Your hands on the small of my back, my face, my breasts, my thighs, between my legs. Your hands EVERYWHERE.

Standing alone, contemplating the frozen vegetables (I know, I was taking liberties with the recipe), I was flushed and shaking. I didn't care how fresh was the bread, or how juicy the peaches, how tender the meat. Nothing feels as good, smells as good, tastes as good as you do.

I'm home now and you are on your way to me. The fabulous restaurant around the corner that you love so much is delivering their sea bass special. I considered pretending that I had prepared it myself, but nothing in me is capable of lying to you.

Your hands... I still feel your hands on me.

HURRY.

I think I have to draw an inescapable conclusion: I am simply incapable of writing anything erotic. *sigh*

Writing Desire

Well, that didn't last long. I had one good, non-craving day, but today, The Craving is back. I would happily betray everything and everyone important to me in return for a grilled cheese sandwich. What makes it worse is that this is usually boozy brunch day.

In fact, it is so bad, I got on the phone and signed up for a 5 hour yoga workshop for this afternoon - it was the longest one I could find online. I have to get myself far away from anything I can eat or drink. Unfortunately, it is the kind of yoga that involves a lot of chanting. Despite being a certified yoga instructor, I am about as spiritual as my Amex card, so the chanting/spiritual elements of yoga usually just piss me off. But I suspect I am just so damn weakened right now, I will EAT IT UP.

And while we're on the topic of eating, it has been brought to my attention that I have been writing about sex. Or, rather, that I have been writing about food in a highly sexual way.

Maybe this is the trick - to write sex scenes while hungry, and not with a man in mind, but instead, a perfectly grilled panini with thinly sliced prosciutto, fresh arugula, melted mozzarella, the slightest touch of olive tapenade, and finished off with a lovely drizzle of truffle oil.

Excuse me, just slid off my seat.

More On Writing Sex

"Release your inner slut," advises the description of the upcoming "Talk Dirty to Me" Co-Ed Sex Ed Class & Social Mixer. And it continues: "From moans and groans, to long sentences detailing what you want now, good dirty talk is about being authentic." Takes place January 26th - birthday party idea?

I am beside myself with joy. I am hopeful this will revive my seriously flaccid trashy novel. Trashy novels NEED sex scenes, and perhaps with my upcoming schedule of events lined up for January, I'll finally be able to put pen to paper and let loose a torrent of steaminess.

January 17th: In The Flesh Erotic Reading Series

January 22nd: Best Sex Writing 2008 Book Party/Reading

January 27th: Erotic Love Letter Workshop

SK is convinced she might just die of embarrassment, but I assured her that death by embarrassment would be far more likely during our pole-dancing classes.

I've spent the past year repeatedly killing off my trashy novel's main characters in the most gruesome ways possible. Maybe now I'll have them talk dirty to each other and get down to business. I'm so excited I'm shimmying in my seat.

I don't need to remember sex, I can find inspiration from the filthy minds of others. I love it. Plus, these are events during which I need consume nothing (my detox fast, in mind).

So while I can barely contain myself, I will approach this seriously, notebook in hand. Because after all, as Samantha Jones said, "Honey, they don't call it a job for nothing!"

I am curious to learn what else will seem like a good idea to me this month when I am teetering about in a state of deprivation-derived delirium.

He Got Rhythm

I was looking for my childhood copy of Wind in the Willows so I could visit with it awhile, when I found Riddley Walker, instead.

It was assigned to us in 11th grade English class. And I don't mind admitting that I had absolutely no understanding of what its deeper meanings might be. On the most superficial level, it's a "coming of age" story set in post-nuclear-holocaust England, where mankind has regressed to an almost primitive, semi-literate state. Huck Finn merged with Holden Caulfield meets Mad Max.

Russell Hoban invented a new language for this book. Perhaps that's what threw me when I was trying to read it at 15, but to be honest, it still throws me now. But that's also the thing I like best about it. You have to read it aloud. You have to read it slow. It's the rhythm which is absolutely infectious - and Hoban maintains the beat of it throughout the entire book.

Hear it for yourself, read it aloud:

On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. He dint make the groun shake nor nothing like that when he come on to my spear he wernt all that big plus he lookit poorly. He done the reqwyrt he ternt and stood and clattert his teef and made his rush and there we wer then. Him on 1 end of the spear kicking his life out and me on the other end watching him dy. I said, 'Your tern now my tern later.'

Makes me rethink what constitutes good writing. Throw out what's "trivial", focus solely on poetry and rhythm. It's like a jazz riff... where certain fundamental rules are followed, but others are broken. And it leaves me in awe and envy. I suppose this is one reason I have such a thing for Bach - I feel comfortable with rules and precision and established patterns. But that doesn't stop me being overwhelmed with admiration for those who can improvise.

And Riddley has his own explanation for why he writes:

Our woal life is a idear we dint think of nor we dont know what it is. What a way to live. Thats why I finely come to writing all this down. Thinking on what the idear of us myt be. Thinking on that thing whats in us lorn and loan and oansome.

Perhaps this means I shouldn't be so hard on boys who can't spell? I will consider it.

Watch More TV

How do you interpret the world around you?

In a recent conversation about writing, BL said that some people have large warehouses of stories and "knowledge" from which they can dazzlingly produce insights and connections between seemingly unrelated things. His example was Stephen Jay Gould.

Of course, Gould was in a class by himself with an Amazon.com-sized warehouse, but we all have our warehouses, albeit smaller and filled with less interesting things. And the stories we've collected, the stories we've "written" ourselves, provide a basis for understanding the things that happen around us. It's pattern recognition - but in order to see a pattern, we need to RECOGNIZE it, it needs to be familiar. This is why you can always identify the women who've read too many Harlequin romance novels or the guys who've watched too much porn, because there's always the desire (or habit) to mold things into familiar patterns.

IC and I, in starting this business together, have had many a conversation about our respective strengths and weaknesses. Conventional wisdom as touted by self-help books and job performance reviews would tell you that you should identify your strengths and weaknesses and work on improving your weaknesses. We disagree. Our stance is that you should work on getting even better at the things you already do well and COMPLETELY IGNORE your weaknesses. You can always find people who do well what you can't.

SK and I discussed this in the context of IQ tests. I've taken three in my life - IQ tests administered by someone trained to do so, lasting HOURS. The first was when I was very young, and the hungrier I got, the more my answers involved food:

"What's the answer to this?"
"Ice-cream."
"And this?"
"Fried SPAM with rice and kimchee."

The second was in High School, and the third was part of a job interview process (also involving countless sessions with shrinks, polygraphs, EKGs and MRIs and blood work, and sessions where I was instructed to wear comfortable clothes and I showed up garbed in my Juicy Couture sweatpants and matching hoodie and wedge sneakers purchased in Florence. But I'm not really allowed to talk about it so maybe I'm lying to make this post more titillating and as an excuse to type "titillating" again.)

There's a common thread throughout all my results. There are certain things I'm very good at: pattern recognition and production involving numbers and puzzles, in particular. And there are the things that I am VERY BAD at: essentially everything requiring an understanding of what motivates other people - my scores for those sections confirm my mother's worst fears that I am retarded.

This explains why I am constantly asking SK and IC why so-and-so did this or that, and what will so-and-so do next? However, they're not particularly good at this either, so we usually end up just making shit up, or trying fruitlessly to apply game theory, or going to facade.com's yes/no oracle.

WC and KK are far better resources for me. They both have vast warehouses of stories illustrating the calculus involved in interpersonal relationships. And just as people very fluent in a foreign language no longer have to translate when they speak or listen, WC and KK have internalized these patterns and pieces of patterns so that their analyses don't have to involve overt translation from a particular story. In contrast, if I haven't read a book or watched a movie that describes that exact interaction, I am at a loss.

So I guess my big take-away from this is that I should read more. And possibly watch more porn, or at least watch movies other than slasher flicks. Maybe the Lifetime Network?

The Tragedy of Being Earnest

Waiting to Exhale was on television a couple hours ago.

Didn't watch it because I'd rather shove a hot poker in my eye than watch most chick flicks, and I eventually settled on Blood Rayne II on On-Demand.

After I graduated from college, I worked for a literary agent for about 5 minutes, and one day, when going through the "slush pile" of unsolicited manuscripts, I came across one that was written in response to Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale.

Brilliantly, the manuscript was titled: Struggling to Inhale. Tragically, it was written with total sincerity.

The Demon Eel

I know what job I want. I want to be a judge for the Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award. How fabulous would that be!?! Get to skim through books looking for the nasty bits - rather like being in 6th grade all over again, flagging the choice pages of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. Here's my favorite entry from a couple years ago, replete with alarming images.

...the hot grip of her mouth, triggered his orgasm, which was not juice at all but a demon eel thrashing in his loins and swimming swiftly up his cock, one whole creature of live slime fighting the stiffness as it rose and bulged at the tip and darted into her mouth.

Paul Theroux, Blinding Light

*COUGH*

Excuse me, something in my throat.

Writing Sex

I once watched infomercials and re-read books after losing the fight with insomnia. But there are only so many flowbees one can buy as gag gifts for friends you don't like so much, and there are only so many times one can re-read a trashy airplane novel. Even Nabokov begins to suffer on the 127th read at 3AM: "She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line".... blah blah blah, I get it Humbert, you had a pervy thing for a little girl, SHE seduced YOU, you still loved her even when she grew up and became all gross with heavy breasts and arm hair, you killed for her, and now you are in jail because of it. I GET IT!

(Wow. The BLASPHEMY. I'm waiting for lightning to strike.)

Lately, I've been reading blogs when I can't sleep. And last night, I read a bunch of blogs describing sexual encounters with great attention to detail. This is my big takeaway: It's HARD to write a good sex scene. The mechanics of sex, when written down, are NOT sexy. I'm not saying that it's impossible to write a good sex scene. It's just absurdly difficult and I've read very few descriptions of sex that didn't make me cringe.

In my epic trashy novel, I avoided sex scenes like the plague. Imagine, a trashy novel with no sex scenes! Not everybody can write a scene about a little girl and an apple and make it erotic and compelling and strangely beautiful despite the obvious ick factor. And I gave up trying years ago - my trashy novel sex scenes were like those out of black and white movies - the leading man plants one on the leading lady in a manly, closed mouth sort of way, and then it cuts to trains going through tunnels.

Well, last night I tried again. I ended up using lots of words beginning with the letter "T": turgid, tumescent, tumultuous, torrid, torrential, tango. I know, I know, "tango"? (It sort of made sense though). At one point, delirious with lack of sleep, I tried to alphabetize my "T" words, but it just didn't fit with how I wanted the scene to flow if I used "tango" first.

Instead of referring to the internet, I've gone old-school, back to my bookcase, to end this post with a REALLY GOOD sex scene describing a girl's first time:

"Let's just stay," he said, breathing hard.

"Well, okay." I closed my eyes as tightly as I could. "I'm ready," I said bravely. When nothing happened, I opened my eyes.

He look at me as if he had amnesia. Then he looked surprised, then frustrated. "Okay, okay," he said, half pulling me up. We stood and I saw his erection and was so surprised I walked into the doorjamb on the way out. When we got in bed I was surprised how ready I was, and how easily he slipped in. He moved in and out hard at first, making my head hit against the headboard. I wouldn't have minded, expect I was scared I might get knocked out, and then I'd miss the most important part; but that didn't happen.

- Cynthia Kadohata, The Floating World.

Intimacy

I was told recently that the best blogs are intensely personal, and that with those blogs, there is no effort apparent in the writing because the process is not self-edited or self conscious, it's an unchecked outpouring of one's secrets and true self. This was all a precursor to telling me that my blog does not elicit that voyeuristic thrill of peeping into a stranger's windows late at night.

With my new obsession with blogging, I've been doing my research, studying others' blogs, comparing and contrasting. And I see the point. I find myself drawn to blogs that seem to provide a direct line to a person's deepest secrets. But I also find myself drawn to those blogs that describe the trivialities of everyday life with sensitivity and humor and Good Writing.

(Of course, this person might have been trying to tell me that I am simply not a good writer, but... PSHAW!).

So these are the conclusions I have drawn regarding the level of intimacy shared in a blog, or at least, in MY blog:

1. If people are onions and occasionally (or often) "hide" beneath layers of humor, jokes, bluster, flirtation, or whatever... those outer layers are no less real and true than the more tender layers that sit below. We ARE our layers. Peel back all the layers of an onion and what's left is nothing but a strong smell and tears.

2. I have this belief that I can't shake: that great intimacy shared indiscriminately dilutes the intimacy deliberately shared with people specifically chosen to receive it.

I had a conversation with a priest once, who told me that he loved me, with all his heart. I was a bit taken aback by this. He went on to say that he loved EVERYONE with all his heart, that his love was universal. I understand the point he was making but my immediate reaction was to think that universal love for all, translates into meaningful love for none. Shouldn't love, of all things, be specific and highly discriminate?

"Love consists of overestimating the difference between one women and another."
- George Bernard Shaw

3. I will continue to read and enjoy the blogs written by people far more courageous than I am. And I will continue to do what makes me happy with mine, and right now, that's to type again with all caps: TITILLATING.