Freshly fucked after a maddening dry spell, I feel emboldened to talk about myself. I do feel that, first, some sort of apologia is in order.
Art, for me, is an uneasy balance between self-expression and self-promotion. Good art reveals the inner experience of another. Bad art is merchandise for consumption. This is true of literature, film, music, painting, photography, etc. It is that tension that gives me reservations about saying too much about myself. An online journal certainly feels like an artform to me, and I don't want to be accused of grandiosity or egotism. I merely wish to explore my insights in a public forum that allows for critical examination of my thoughts (one goal I cannot, surely, accomplish alone.) So if you find my humor, my passions, my opinions shameful (or even worse, incoherent) I apologize. Now fuck off, so I can talk about myself.
Art, for me, is an uneasy balance between self-expression and self-promotion. Good art reveals the inner experience of another. Bad art is merchandise for consumption. This is true of literature, film, music, painting, photography, etc. It is that tension that gives me reservations about saying too much about myself. An online journal certainly feels like an artform to me, and I don't want to be accused of grandiosity or egotism. I merely wish to explore my insights in a public forum that allows for critical examination of my thoughts (one goal I cannot, surely, accomplish alone.) So if you find my humor, my passions, my opinions shameful (or even worse, incoherent) I apologize. Now fuck off, so I can talk about myself.
April 22, 1995. It was the first Saturday after the Murrah Building exploded in Oklahoma City. A horrible time. We think of 9/11 as the beginning of a darker age, but the sorrow and confusion that we immediately associate with it dates back much further. At any rate, it was a Saturday morning. I still lived with my parents as my law school loans came due. My father was dying of inoperable heart disease at the time. His heart was too big, they said. My mother was out shopping that morning. I woke to find my ashen father glued to the television, as usual, but with a particular somberness as the pundits discussed the culprits. He often clutched a pillow to his chest as he sat forward on the couch, the top of his long-healed heart surgery scar exposed by the V-neck of his pit-stained T-shirt.
I asked him if he wanted breakfast, and he was grateful. I made eggs, bacon, rye toast, coffee for both of us, and we watched C-SPAN together with our plates in our hands. Clinton's weekly radio address was transformed by the Oklahoma City bombing into an unusual television moment: He and Hillary addressed a room full of elementary school students, sitting on the floor around them. It was reminescent of a book reading in the library that we'd all experienced years ago. Except the topic of the talk was how to go on in the face of fear and sorrow and death. My father and I cried together as we sopped up the last of the yolks with our toast.
Then, fate and great program choices at C-SPAN, dealt an unanticipated blow. After the anquish of the presidential address, the station followed with Jerry Lewis speaking at the National Press Club. Soon my father and I were howling with laughter at the "Hey, Laaaydee's" and "Oooofs." Lewis was more relaxed and funny then he ever was on those fucking telethons.
My father and I were having such a great time laughing together, that we started crying all over again. I am overjoyed that I shared that particular moment with my father on the last day of his life.
Ultimately, the moment passed. I did the dishes before my mother got home. She never knew about the moment shared, until I told her years later. I went out on a date that night to see the Spanic Boys (twangy father-son alt. country duo) at Wilberts, and came home to find my mother off to the hospital after my father slipped into cardiac arrest while in front of the television. At the hospital, I saw him, dead and warm and incredibly healthy-looking and serene. I thought of the breakfast I had made that was still probably creeping around inside of him.
1) How often do you achieve orgasm, alone or otherwise?
2) Is this number (of orgasms) consistent with your conception of yourself?
3) Do you feel any ancillary benefits of reaching orgasm beyond the pleasure of the moment?
4) What role does the sexual climax of a partner play in your own orgasms?
5) What role do sexual tools such as pornography, toys, body mods, or fantasy, play in your own orgasms?
I don't think I'm talking here about anything more radical than a Cosmo quiz. But it would be helpful to know where everyone else weighs in on these questions, before we judge our sexual selves. The fact of the matter is this: the President is a lying pitch-man for a cabal; CO2 emmissions have gone up drastically in the last year (I actually spit on an SUV in a parking lot the other day); pot is still technically illegal; sexually repressed religious fanatics want to dictate whom I love and how; America has been hijacked by corporations with no interest in my well-being, etc., etc., etc.
The one thing that consistently allows me to rise above the horror and insanity of existence is the sanctuary and communion of a sacred sexual moment. Whether I commune with my own Molly Bloom in the nest of our bed, or I commune with my hand and a naughty DVD, I always find myself right where I need to be. And isn't that really the ultimate question, after all? To be, or not to be?