Oh, dear lord. This is odd. Almost awkward. There was a time I came to this site regularly and tried to blog regularly. Now I stopped by because a friend mentioned Will Weaton had reviewed the fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons, a gaming system whose newest iteration is still a source of controversy among gaming nerds like myself and my gaming group in particular even months after its release.
"Really?" I asked, opening a new tab on Firefox. "I'm guessing its on his site?"
"No, it's actually on...um...Suicidegirls."
"Oh, on his Geek-in Review?"
"I think so. Maybe." Answered my friend who had always had a thing for SG, but never joined. "The link was on ENworld, but you can, you know."
I stopped, and it struck me as perhaps a touch sacrilegious that I was going to visit a site featuring naked girls and populated by friends I had not seen in perhaps a year or so to read a column about fourth ed. That, obviously, didn't stop me.
So there I was, back at a site I at one point hadn't been sure my membership had been renewed to because I changed banks and in retrospect couldn't remember whether I'd done so before or after my membership did its annual rebilling. While here I decided to stop and looked around. It was an odd feeling, poking around this old cyber-haunt after such neglect and change. Despite all the changes the site had seen, though, I eventually recognized what drew me to it initially. Going through my old favorites especially, whose numbers, were I to vet them today, would surely decrease, I was oddly struck by something I seemed to almost have forgotten: rather than having much to do with sex, my attraction to the site had been mostly about beauty.
I remember being a younger man checking out porn for the first time and, after the initial thrill, getting bored with it pretty quickly. Sex, I decided shortly thereafter, was not much of a spectator sport. That never stopped me from browsing through porn sites on occasion, though, but none would hold my attention for very long. For a while I didn't get why I kept going back to them, the XXX clips and images of a couple mid-coitus, usually involved in some scripted passionless affair, generating as little interest as they did. I eventually understood as I began to pay attention to the images I found myself most drawn to. More than anything else, it was the female form itself that grabbed my attention. For the most part, though, sites that allegedly focused on the beauty of the female form failed to hold my interest for very long because of their definitions of that beauty. Then I found Suicide Girls and was completely smitten.
Going through those old favorites, I saw much of what grabbed me before. Its not that I had forgotten, really, but that's a digression for another time. Seeing them, I decided to do some browsing. I was sad, but not really surprised, to see Flux had gone. She had always been ridiculously awesome. Q and Rhys are as beautiful as ever, and it was odd to feel nostalgia mixed with the normal emotions that come when looking at a good set. (Yes, I do have favorites among the local SGs, but I daren't say whom) I felt a bit like I was poking my nose into places I didn't quite belong browsing the groups (Except when browsing SGC. Browsing SGC just made me feel remiss.) And then I came to my blog. It's ridiculous to think I haven't blogged here in over a year, but I had just posted a lengthy reply to Will's review. Actually, I haven't blogged at all in some time, but that doesn't help any. And so I went to create a new post, and stream of consciousness took over the update I'd planned to make. So here's the update because if I put it off for later saying I've already written enough, it might never get done.
My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, underwent treatment, and is now in remission. I put just about everything aside to be with her for that time, which wasn't as necessary as I had thought it would be, but I don't regret having done it. My sister has gotten married and my brother is now engaged. Thankfully, they have continued to not comment on the fact that I spend most of my time single. My sister is expecting, which has me looking at baby toys for my first niece. Lamaze's toys, for the record, are brilliant. I was talking to my father when the topic of shaving came up and I mentioned my annoyance with cartridge razors, saying I planned to buy a safety razor as soon as I could find one for less than fifty dollars. (I really don't need the handle to be made with silver, as flashy as it may be.) He apparently misunderstood something somewhere and got me a high-end electronic razor that Christmas. It works fine, but it made me think of cartridge razors longingly on occasion until it broke under warranty, and I had to send it in for repairs. Then I started thinking about my electric razor longingly. I still plan to check out safety razors at some point. I worked as a deputy field organizer for the Obama Campaign in Madison. It was the most enjoyable work with the most awesome group of people I've ever done and worked with. If I worked less than twelve hours in a day I felt like a slacker and enjoyed every day of work. I now find myself completely unemployed, yet I'm somehow not worried about my future at all.
"Really?" I asked, opening a new tab on Firefox. "I'm guessing its on his site?"
"No, it's actually on...um...Suicidegirls."
"Oh, on his Geek-in Review?"
"I think so. Maybe." Answered my friend who had always had a thing for SG, but never joined. "The link was on ENworld, but you can, you know."
I stopped, and it struck me as perhaps a touch sacrilegious that I was going to visit a site featuring naked girls and populated by friends I had not seen in perhaps a year or so to read a column about fourth ed. That, obviously, didn't stop me.
So there I was, back at a site I at one point hadn't been sure my membership had been renewed to because I changed banks and in retrospect couldn't remember whether I'd done so before or after my membership did its annual rebilling. While here I decided to stop and looked around. It was an odd feeling, poking around this old cyber-haunt after such neglect and change. Despite all the changes the site had seen, though, I eventually recognized what drew me to it initially. Going through my old favorites especially, whose numbers, were I to vet them today, would surely decrease, I was oddly struck by something I seemed to almost have forgotten: rather than having much to do with sex, my attraction to the site had been mostly about beauty.
I remember being a younger man checking out porn for the first time and, after the initial thrill, getting bored with it pretty quickly. Sex, I decided shortly thereafter, was not much of a spectator sport. That never stopped me from browsing through porn sites on occasion, though, but none would hold my attention for very long. For a while I didn't get why I kept going back to them, the XXX clips and images of a couple mid-coitus, usually involved in some scripted passionless affair, generating as little interest as they did. I eventually understood as I began to pay attention to the images I found myself most drawn to. More than anything else, it was the female form itself that grabbed my attention. For the most part, though, sites that allegedly focused on the beauty of the female form failed to hold my interest for very long because of their definitions of that beauty. Then I found Suicide Girls and was completely smitten.
Going through those old favorites, I saw much of what grabbed me before. Its not that I had forgotten, really, but that's a digression for another time. Seeing them, I decided to do some browsing. I was sad, but not really surprised, to see Flux had gone. She had always been ridiculously awesome. Q and Rhys are as beautiful as ever, and it was odd to feel nostalgia mixed with the normal emotions that come when looking at a good set. (Yes, I do have favorites among the local SGs, but I daren't say whom) I felt a bit like I was poking my nose into places I didn't quite belong browsing the groups (Except when browsing SGC. Browsing SGC just made me feel remiss.) And then I came to my blog. It's ridiculous to think I haven't blogged here in over a year, but I had just posted a lengthy reply to Will's review. Actually, I haven't blogged at all in some time, but that doesn't help any. And so I went to create a new post, and stream of consciousness took over the update I'd planned to make. So here's the update because if I put it off for later saying I've already written enough, it might never get done.
My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, underwent treatment, and is now in remission. I put just about everything aside to be with her for that time, which wasn't as necessary as I had thought it would be, but I don't regret having done it. My sister has gotten married and my brother is now engaged. Thankfully, they have continued to not comment on the fact that I spend most of my time single. My sister is expecting, which has me looking at baby toys for my first niece. Lamaze's toys, for the record, are brilliant. I was talking to my father when the topic of shaving came up and I mentioned my annoyance with cartridge razors, saying I planned to buy a safety razor as soon as I could find one for less than fifty dollars. (I really don't need the handle to be made with silver, as flashy as it may be.) He apparently misunderstood something somewhere and got me a high-end electronic razor that Christmas. It works fine, but it made me think of cartridge razors longingly on occasion until it broke under warranty, and I had to send it in for repairs. Then I started thinking about my electric razor longingly. I still plan to check out safety razors at some point. I worked as a deputy field organizer for the Obama Campaign in Madison. It was the most enjoyable work with the most awesome group of people I've ever done and worked with. If I worked less than twelve hours in a day I felt like a slacker and enjoyed every day of work. I now find myself completely unemployed, yet I'm somehow not worried about my future at all.