Rebekah del Rio – Llorando (“Crying” cover, Mulholland Drive)
Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001). This track is a haunting, a capella, Spanish language cover by Rebekah del Rio of the Roy Orbison song “Crying” (Orbison, Melson 1961). Some screencaps are from here, some are from here, and some are from TK on the lj. Some I took myself from the sneaksters who have managed to put a bit of this up on the youtube. Thanks to all sources.
Yo estaba bien
por un tiempo
volviendo a sonreír I was all right
for a while
I could smile for awhile
Luego anoche te vi;
tu mano me tocó
y el saludo de tu voz
But I saw you last night,
you held my hand so tight
as you stopped to say hello
Y hablé muy bien
y tú sin saber
que he estado
Llorando por tu amor,
llorando por tu amor
Oh, you wished me well
You couldn’t tell
that I’ve been
Crying over you,
crying over you
Luego de tu adiós
sentí todo mi dolor
Sola y
llorando, llorando, llorando.
You said, “So long,”
left me standing all alone
Alone and
crying, crying, crying.
No es fácil de entender
que al verte otra vez
yo esté llorando.
It’s hard to understand
but the touch of your hand
Can start me crying.
Yo que pensé
que te olvidé
pero es verdad,
es la verdad
que te quiero aun más
mucho más que ayer
Dime tú que puedo hacer.
I thought that I
was over you,
but it’s true,
oh, so true
I love you even more
than I did before.
But darling, what can I do?
¿No me quieres ya?
Y siempre estaré
Llorando por tu amor
llorando por tu amor
For you don’t love me,
and I’ll always be
Crying over you
crying over you
Tu amor se llevó
todo mi corazón
Y quedo llorando, llorando, llorando
Llorando por tu amor
Yes, now you’re gone,
and from this moment on
I’ll be crying, crying, crying,
Crying over you
Purchase Mulholland Drive, a StudioCanal film, from amazon online or in person at some big, dreadful electronics discount store where they make their employees dress all alike and discourage self-expression while simultaneously crushing their professional ambitions and private dreams, or even someplace mind-numbingly similar but with a wider range of products to assuage your human misery at the altar of merciless soul-raping capitalism, Walmart or Target; whatever, I don’t care. I am just encouraging you to do this consumer bullshit so I don’t get sued. If it were up to me, David Lynch movies would be showing at most theaters everywhere always, so it’s tough for me to recommend virtually profitless small screen shenanigans. And by tough I mean I am going to go chew light bulbs now.
This movie will come up again, these are a really small handful of caps compared to the rest. I’ve just been blue and listening to this song a lot lately.
Well I have to say, when I heard about the GaGa and Beyonce collaboration I did think it should have been Rihanna.
Rihanna and GaGA are both trendsetting at the moment with very individual and defined styles, and they are both considered to be ‘out there’ so can you imagine the track, the fashion, the VIDEO!!
Check out Rih Rihs interview with Miss Info where she talks quickly about GaGa and the Grammys:
Marley Shelton played Wendy Peffercorn in The Sandlot.
Marley Shelton
Apparently she’s come a long, long way since dropping Squints’ jaw in 1993. Shelton was #98 on Stuff Magazine’s “102 Sexiest Women in the World,” and now appears as Dr. Dakota Black in Planet Terror. She also appeared in Sin City.
The Sandlot is a 1993 American comedy-drama sports film about young baseball players. The film was directed by David Mickey Evans and was released with the title The Sandlot Kids in Australia and the United Kingdom. Here are some more Wendy Peffercorn Pics There are even a couple of nudes.
So I’ve been totally busy today getting things on the site and finally letting know the customers we’re back up and running! I thought I’d take some new cheeky snaps of myself just for you guys for being so patient with me whilst I’ve been getting things sorted! The body suit I’m wearing is one of my favourites and not technically up for sale, but it does pull so tight on my pussy I’m practically wet all day when I wear it, so one of you may be able to tempt me to share!
Yes everyone, just like a certain talk show host I think it might be my time. I mean the daily grind has really been taking it’s toll on this gal and I’ve been weighing my options. I’ve had a great run and a lot of fun making such great friends. Make no mistake, this has not been an easy decision. I know I can still do this and probably better than most of my younger counterparts, but I think this could just be the right time to go out on top! With the way the economy is, I just might be able to find something else that can take up my time! Well of course, I won’t quit without the opinion of my clients. After all, I work for them.
Wait a second, what did you think I was talking about? Are you kidding? Don’t you know who I am?! If you don’t know what I am talking about you better come into my office and have a little chat with me! I’ll set you straight!
Rihanna did alright with that Umberella song a couple of years ago didn’t she? And thanks to shacking up with off-the-rails boyfriend Chris Brown and becoming celeb best mates with Jay-Z and Beyonce in the last few years she’s done alright for herself song-wise. But Rude Boy? WHAT is going on??!!
I’ve never really been a Rihanna fan, I don’t know what, she’s just not my cup of tea, I don’t feel any warmth from her, so I just tend to skip over her when it comes to listening to my Now That’s What I call Music CD’s… but she DID catch my attnetion with this, quite frankly, rubbish song that’s just been on Radio One.
Now, I know everyone is trying to be different for the sake of it at the moment, but Rihanna, I thought you’re mantra was making accessible pop music – NOT pretending to be a ghetto princess and talking like R From The Block and that naked single cover… leave that to Lady Sovereign yeah?
I mean; I’ve just found a selection of these literary marvels on Google, and now I start to wonder if Rihanna’s Umberella-ella-ella’s repetitive, short and unimaginative lyrics would be the key to another successful single. The answer is, No.
Come here rude boy, boy, Can you get it up? Come here rude boy, boy, Is you big enough? Take it, take it, Baby, baby, Take it, take it. Love me, love me…. Number one, it should be ARE you big enough, not that you’d want your kids to be singing that on the way home from school.
Do you like it boy, I wa-wa-want, What you wa-wa-want? Give it to me baby, Like boom, boom, boom, What I wa-wa-want, Is what you wa-wa-want, Na, na-aaaah. Like Boom boom boom?… Well done Chris Brown.
Tonight, I’mma give it to you harder, Tonight, I’mma turn your body out, Relax, Let me do it how I wanna, If you got it, I need it, And I’mma put it down… are we having song porn now?
So giddy up, Time to giddy up, You say you’re a rude boy, Show me what you got now… could you clarify what a rude boy is please Rihanna, you seem to have missed that out amongst all out claptrap lyrics.
Whatever happened to making songs that actually don’t make you sound like a wannabe gangsta chav slapper these days? Bring back The Beatles I say!
So if you watched Frank The Entertainer’s show this morning, then you already know that Jenny Jones, yes that’s her name, was elminated this morning. After pushing Jenny for weeks to make an effort to get to know him, The Entertainer, finally eliminated her.
If you saw the show, Frank held up a blurry picture of Jennifer at the end of the elimination. None of the audience knew what kind of picture it was, but judging from the Oohs and Ahhs from the other girls, we all thought it was pornographic.
Not the case… Take a look at the so-called picture that led to Jenny’s elimination. It’s a provocative picture, but it wasn’t pornigraphic. However, Jenny did seem like the type who was a little more conservative than this.
Something about being really sexual, even when it feels so great… is often frowned upon. But why?
Most societies are very confused about sex. There are all these taboos about sex that cloud up real understanding about it and actually make it very hard sometimes to enjoy for what it is. Here are a few reasons why:
We don’t talk about it nearly enough. It’s much too hard to talk about. One big reason is because…
Bad sexual experiences are extremely traumatic. If bad sex were as bad as falling off your bike, it wouldn’t be such a serious, taboo topic. But a bad sexual experience can leave emotional scars for years, even if no violation is involved. Kind of like being a witness to/part of war and murder is often too traumatic to talk about.
There is no consensus on what sex really is. Think about it: conventional wisdom says “if penetration occurred, it was sex,” following from the traditional “sex makes babies” school of thought. But there are all kinds of sexual acts that do not involve penetration which would still be considered sexual… if your significant other french-kissed another and fondled their genitalia but no penetration occurred, would that not be considered cheating [assuming you are in a monogamous relationship]? The vast majority of people would say it is cheating–because it is sex. Or is it? Tough to try to talk about something you can’t even nail down.
Sex can lead to life… and life changing. Penile-vaginal sex, throughout history, was not generally protected, and if a child was born, that was a big deal in terms of the families involved. Nowadays, though we have protection, we don’t always use it, and it’s a bigger deal than ever, in some ways. But moreover, the intermingling of people from all over the world has meant that STDs have also become ubiquitous… and, of course, life-changing, in many cases (and not in a good way). With all this complicated and very critical info out there, many societies feel that it’s a whole lot easier to just promote abstinence [until marriage] than to bring up all the messy details. This sets the stage for almost never talking about it.
We are vulnerable when we have sex. We are usually naked. We are bare. We are weak. For very masculine types, this is something you do not simply do. Naked weakness is thought to be unmasculine. A man often feels a pressure to hide the weakness part of sex, which is impossible… so you have to hide the sex act itself. Feminine types face many of the same questions, though generally in different ways; femininity involves a balance of strength and weakness, and in sex, that balance has to be shared with the other partner. All autonomy of control is given up. Just talking about being willing to be vulnerable can already be too suggestive for anybody, for these reasons… so it’s often considered best not to be too open about it. Plus…
The genitals are sensitive, physically. You don’t just let anyone touch you there. But there is also this implicit thinking that if you are so insensitive in these sensitive parts that you can just screw at the drop of a hat, you will lose your cultural sensibilities generally and become more brusquely animalistic/less refined, because…
Our thought processes are often sharply altered when we lust. This is a big one, and I think gives a lot of insight into the widespread fear of sex and sexual desire. It’s like a demon just takes over… like the bogeyman comes and possesses you, and you lose control and all hell breaks loose. And you do things that you shouldn’t do, that you would never do otherwise… (this isn’t how it has to be, especially if you have some good sexual guidance and education; but without the education, this perception tends to become very prevalent).
The organs and secretions involved in sex remind us of human waste. It’s more than likely that you make a complete and utter distinction between ejaculate and vaginal secretion on the one hand… and urine, on the other. Nevertheless, both kinds of wetness happen in the same place, coming from more or less the same organ, and it actually makes a lot of sense that this association would pop up and aid the growth of cleanliness taboos, if you think about it.
We attach so much value to it, in spite of not talking about it so much. When you get a new car (or other valuable object, take your pick), you are extremely careful, and you don’t want to ruin it! Sex is the same way for many of us. It’s such an ultimate feelgood experience that we often attach a hell of a lot to it and take great care to make it right. The same way we don’t want many people handling our new car (or other valuable object), we don’t want too much to muddle up our sex. So we privatize it. But still…
There’s so much about sex that we can’t control. Funny how something that felt so good last time doesn’t feel the same… or how you desire something very different this time than last time. Is there any way to predict this with certainty? Generally… no! And what if we’re inadequate? What if we don’t do/have what the other one wants? This can all be scary to think about, let alone talk about.
Just as we can handle sharp kitchen knives and never stab anyone, we can talk about sex and get past the negative things associated with it. If we know why we have the hangups we do, we can call them out and deal with them, rather than letting them make us miss out. It’s ok to do what feels good–just be safe, honest, and responsible, and nobody can have any grounds to stop you.
It was funny how that day started out. Tom had been doing what he was used to doing. His new job was to spread the word about Jesus. This had become a passion for him. Anyone and everyone had to hear his story. Most people already knew it but he could not help but share it anyway. You see, most people had known Tom when he was known around town as “the crazy naked guy.” For years Tom and been totally out of control. They had tried chaining him up so that he would no longer hurt himself or anyone else and yet he broke out of those chains repeatedly. It was horrible to watch him whip himself with those chains until he bled. People would cover their children’s eyes and ears when they saw him anywhere near, which was rare since he tended to spend most of his time roaming among the tombs. He would wander along the cliffs and howl and shriek at the top of his lungs. The sound coming out of his mouth would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up and cause your body to be covered with goose bumps. The only thing that people knew was to give Tom his distance and to keep away. Then again, people only had to encounter him when there was a funeral and someone had to be placed in the burial caves since that’s where Tom chose to live. And this made people feel at ease most of the time.
Then, one day, his life was completely changed. Jesus showed up along the shore with his disciples and Tom had charged at him. A totally unnatural voice started to beg with Jesus and the next thing anyone knew 2000 pigs were drowning themselves in the sea. The pig farmers were more than just a little upset, and so was the whole town, since the pigs had been a very big part of the economy. When the town showed up to see 2000 bobbing pigs for themselves they were all stunned by the sight of Tom. He no longer looked crazy and he was definitely no longer naked. The people were so upset over the death of the pigs that they pleaded with Jesus to leave and some even threatened him with bodily harm. Jesus just shrugged and told his disciples to get back in the boat and they would go somewhere else. That’s when Tom approached the boat and asked if he could come. Jesus very kindly told him that he needed to stay where he was and share what had happened to him. Tom was disappointed but knew what Jesus wanted him to do so he said good-bye and waved to Jesus as he and his disciples rowed out of sight.
That’s when Tom went to work, not for money, but for God. He told everyone who would listen, and many who wouldn’t, about how he had been tormented by demons until Jesus showed up. He told the people how he used to cut himself with rocks and pottery and how he used to sleep in the tombs along side of corpses. Word began to spread about Jesus and when he returned to the region a few months later Jesus could hardly move from place to place for all of the people brought to him to heal. Tom took his job seriously and the news of the messiah being present was welcomed throughout the region.
All was going well until that day during Passover. Jesus had insisted on going back to Jerusalem and ended up dead. This devastated Tom. What would he do know? He had told all of the people that Jesus was the messiah and yet he was dead. People had seen him breath his last breathe. People had seen him laid in the tomb and the stone rolled across the mouth of it. They saw he wax seal applied to the tomb to ensure that no one messed with the body. Tom wept along with many of the people who had looked to Jesus to be the promised messiah. Then, the rumors started to circulate that people had seen Jesus alive. Somehow, a miracle had happened and it seemed as if Jesus was really alive. Tom even made a trip to Jerusalem to see the empty tomb and his heart leapt with joy. But now what? What was he going to do? What should he tell people? These were the thoughts that swam circles around the inside of his head as he made his trek back to the Decapolis.
Tom returned to his house overlooking the grave tombs. He picked up some cloth and began to sow a new tunic for one of the elders in town. This was a rich man’s clothes so the golden thread showed bright against the purple fabric. The touch of it reminded him of the softness he felt when Jesus had given him a hug and told him to stay behind and tell people what had happened to him.
Ever since that day Tom had two passions in his life. The first passion was the one he had received from Jesus, “Tell others what I have done.” The second was the way he chose to be reminded of his encounter and transformation with Jesus. Tom was a tailor. With every stitch that he sewed he was reminded of the days when he ran around naked. He would see the scars on his arms and legs where he took pottery shards and cut himself. He would remember the weight of the chains that dangled from his arms. But those days were now behind him. He had this job as a way to be daily reminded of what Jesus had done for him.
As Tom sat at his table making another tunic for one of the families in town he heard someone enter his shop. “Just a moment and I’ll be with you.” Tom continued to make uniform stitches in the hem of his garment. As he finished the last stitch her placed the needle back in its holder and turned to address this person. At first, Tom thought the man looked very familiar. There was something in the way that he held himself that caused a flashback to the old days. The days before her had become a tailor. The days when people would run away and he saw himself as though outside his own body. He saw the thing that had hidden in the deep recesses of his heart. There was the man who had changed his life. “Isn’t he dead? Am I crazy? Did I just want this so much that I am imagining this?” No, it was not his imagination. The rumors were true. Jesus was risen and was standing before him. Holes in his hands, wounds visible in his sandals, face bruised but healing and with all of these distractions he was certain it was Jesus. The final nail was struck when Jesus uttered his name. “Tom, how are you?” Was the savior really asking him how he was doing? Did he really care? Were these just words to start a conversation? Tom was pretty certain that there was sincerity in the question and positive of the fact when he looked into the dark eyes of this man who had changed his life.
Then he realized it. He knew it. His heart began to race and it seemed his tongue had swollen o the point of making conversation nearly impossible. “Lord, is it You?” he asked almost afraid of the answer. “What are you doing here?” Tom asked. “I heard the rumors but I was afraid to believe and now you are here in my shop. Where are the people? Where are the crowds? Does everyone know you are alive? Have they all changed their minds?” Jesus just held up his hand and Tom stopped asking questions. He knew that Jesus was here for a reason and he needed to shut up and listen to the words of this man who was dead and now was alive.
“Yes, Tom. It is I. Don’t You remember what I said? I told everyone that I had to die. I told everyone that they could destroy the temple and I would rebuild it in three days. So, here I am. I know I look a little worse for the wear but that’s what happens to a body that is beaten and crucified.”
“I am sorry Lord. I was just so scared. I should have believed. I have been hoping to see you. Every time someone would enter I had hoped it was you. Then I gave up hoping and just decided to do my work and remember what you had done for me. That’s why I do this, you know?”
“I know” Jesus said with a smile and look of understanding. “I knew what you would be doing. The Father told me. “It’s how you stay connected isn’t it? It’s how you are reminded with every stitch, every breath that you were redeemed. Tom I am very proud of you and all that you have done. I know how hard it was when I told you that you could not come with me but look at what you have accomplished.”
“You are right, Lord. I was crushed when you told me to go home and tell my friends and family about what you had done for me. At first they were so astonished by the transformation that they could hardly hear about the one who had made it happen. But, I was persistent. I continued to tell people about you and the truth about who you are. I was so proud when you returned and everyone wanted to see you, to touch you, to hear you teach. I knew that I had a part in it and had done what I set out to accomplish. It’s why I learned to be a tailor, so I could remember what you did for me. Then it became so hard. Every time the needle pierced the fabric I thought about the way the soldier’s spear had pierced your side. I have shed a few tears as I hemmed a tunic. But now that you are here I remember all you said. You are the anointed one! You are the messiah! But why are you here? Why have you come to see me? Is there something I need to do?
“I am glad you asked,” Jesus replied. “I do have a few things I need to tell you. The first thing is thank you. Thank you for following what I told you to do. Thank you for the zealous pursuit of my charge to you. Thank you for all of the people who believe in me because of you and your faith. Next, I want to tell you to keep up your work as a tailor. Your witness to the transformation of your life speaks volumes to others. You were once naked and exposed, wandering and lost. Now you are clothed, in your right mind, and have direction in your life. Share that with others. Lastly, I want you to continue to tell others about me. Share me in your work. Share me with your family. Share me with your community. Share me with the stranger that stops in your shop and knows little or nothing of me. You have a gift and I promise you that the Father in heaven sees it and will reward you greatly.
Jesus then walked closer to Tom and wrapped his arms around him. Tom had never felt so strong and helpless at the same time. He felt the love of the Lord invade his body and it filled him from the bottom to the top as his eyes overflowed with the love imputed in that hug. “I love you and will always be with you,” Jesus said as he turned toward the door.
“I love you too, Lord,” Tom said as Jesus walked through the doorway. “Thanks for everything. I will do my best to complete the task you have set before me. Bye for now.”
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It’s a light question, but it’s been hanging over us the whole evening, heavy and oppressive like the June humidity, and as inevitable as the rain. And, here I stand without an umbrella to keep me from getting soaked.
*
It is amusing, in a sadistic way I suppose, to recall the rapid evolution of my co-worker’s feelings towards me. Within a month of my employment, the house that Yumi’s disgust had built would soon be engulfed in a desperately out-of-control conflagration of unrequited love.
At the beginning, I was happily ignorant of both the powerful forces of nature at work and my influence upon them. Each morning, I would arrive at the office to find Yumi in comparatively high spirits, grinning from ear to ear with those dreadful Chicklet teeth of hers. The tide was high, the sea calm, the harbor bathed in the inviting light of another lovely dawn. But, as another morning passed awkwardly and silently, the tide would start to recede, and by the end of the day all the emotional garbage embedded in the heavy black silt would be visible.
But really, how could I have known the impact I had on Yumi’s frail emotions when I was completely absorbed in the struggle to keep my own insanity in check after the debacle with Mie? I was no Mother Teresa with infinite compassion to dish out to just anyone. Yumi, I decided, was going to have to deal with her own infatuation herself, and with the best of intentions, I hoped liked so many others who are cornered that the problem would go away, were I to ignore it.
My other co-workers, like me, had initially hoped that by turning a blind eye to Yumi’s mood swings, everything would work out in the end. But Yumi, I would learn, wasn’t the type to let her misery go unrecognized. She didn’t merely dabble in the art of suffering; she was a ham and demanded an audience for her Passion play.
As she suffered upon a cross to which she had nailed herself–no help from me, not even to steady the nails as she drove them in–rather than ask God to forgive those who did not know what they had done, she chose instead to spread the suffering around. And so, driven mad with jealously, Yumi imparted her wholly unsubstantiated, though correct, suspicions to our boss, Abazure, that Reina and I were having an affair.
Now, in-company romances are nothing new in Japan, they happen all the time and are celebrated in Japanese television dramas. And, if you ask anyone where they think the best place to meet a prospective spouse is, they’ll probably reply, “At work”. But, what might have only raised eyebrows or inspired some snickering in an ordinary office was cause for opprobrium because Reina was still married. And, unlike in large companies where such dalliances ensured that female staff who met heartbreak or their future husband in the office would resign allowing a new cohort of nubile women to fill their shoes, I was the one who was dispensable. Indeed, unbeknownst to me as so precious little was at the time, Abazure was always on the lookout for any grounds, however trivial, to can me and replace me with another gaijin, once my contract was up. This was how the bitch operated.
*
Once the cat was out of the bag, Abazure wasted little time in setting the Inquisition into motion. Should I have expected any different? Once again, I was asked to follow Abazure to the small room she used for her interrogations. We sat at the second-hand dining table facing each other.
There was a fascist vein in my boss and Freon flowed in it. She reminded me of a gregarious, yet sadistic POW camp kommodant, who’d befriend the prisoners one moment only to put a bullet in their head for a laugh the next. Abazure could be charming if it served her to be so. The business she ran was testament to this. But, she was also a sociopath, and an alarmingly unpredictable one at that. A volatile gas, the tiniest spark would set her off n a bat of the eye, and she could go from fair skies to tempest, reasserting her authority over our us with the delicacy of thundering jackboots.
I was on pins and needles my first few months at the school, and if the woman hadn’t been AWOL for days at a time, I seriously doubt my employment would have extended beyond June when my contract was up for review.
Not one to mince words when she was fuming, Abazure had little use for the Japanese tendency to hem and haw, to crowd out the message with pleasantries. No sooner had my butt settled into the electric chair than the juice was flicked on.
Rumor were circulating that Reina and I were having an affair, she began with her usual fevered irritation. I was getting used to seeing her like this, all tensed up, her knuckles white and her hot breath hissing out of her flared nostrils. She demanded to know the truth, leaving me with no choice but to give her anything but that. It would have been foolish to appeal to her sense of fairness and reason, because it was becoming obvious she had none. I looked at the woman I’d grown to despise, at the closely cropped, unnaturally black hair that never ever seemed to grow, at the deep lines etched into her furrowed brow and engraved like parentheses around the scowl. I looked into the steely eyes she had fixed upon me at the contempt therein and began to weave a bold tapestry of shameless lies. I had nothing to lose.
*
It seemed to work. The sun shown again on Abazure’s fickle mood and I soared upon that flying tapestry of deceit through cloudless skies.
I was in the doghouse with Reina, though. For all her usual cheerfulness and blithe indifference to the office politics, Reina was reduced to a smoldering cauldron of vitriol in her apartment later that evening when I told her what had happened.
“I hate those bitches!” She stormed around the small living room, banging her clinched fists against her thighs and kicking up a cloud of dust and cat fur.
“I hate them! I hate them! I hate them! I hate them! I hate them!”
It surprised me how personally she took it. There was no consoling her and anything I said or tried to do just added fuel to her fire.
“I’m going to quit!” she finally decided before breaking down and crying.
It would take a full week before she’d show any signs of having calmed down. Even still, she was adamant in her refusal to talk to Yumi, except when necessity made it unavoidable. After several days of this, Yumi finally came to me and asked with grave concern if something was the matter with Reina.
Oh, Yumi could be a nasty piece of work herself, alright! The audacity! The callousness! The ruthlessness! I could have wacked her, but then I had to be the rare voice of reason in the office, a remarkable position for someone who has a habit of spouting off unthinkingly.
So, I met Yumi in secret after work.
It was a warm May evening. The sun had already set, but the sky was filled with a beautiful soft pinkish-orange twilight that made everything seem more distinct and within reach. We walked the perimeter of the small lake in Ôhori Park talking about what Reina and I had been accused of. Yumi feigned innocence of the matter testing my patience again. I took a deep breath, and told her I knew it was she who had spread the rumor, stopping her in her tracks.
“I’m . . . sorry, Peador,” she began. All the air had gone out of her; the words having nothing to carry them were all but inaudible. “I, I, just thought that . . . “
With all the reserve I could muster to keep myself from strangling Yumi, I touched her shoulder gently and smiled. “It’s alright. If anyone should apologize, it’s me. I understand how you could have misinterpreted Reina and my friendship. At any rate it’s behind us, and I want to keep it there because I want the three of us to be friends again.”
I damn nearly vomited. But, it had the desired effect on Yumi who promised to make it up to Reina the following day.
The next day, Yumi bounced into work beaming those bad teeth of hers and greeted me with a rare cheerfulness. While I was out in the afternoon, she and Reina mended fences.
My problems with Reina, however, were only just beginning. When Yumi apologized to Reina she also admitted that she had misunderstood me all along. It was a realization, which would only serve to fan the flames of her love for me anew.
It sent Reina through the roof, and, as the two of us were closing the office down for the night Reina accused me of leading Yumi on.
“What the fuck you talking about?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing at all!” she said. “It’s just that, everything you say is like the word of God to stupid bitch! ‘Peador’s wonderful! Peador’s perfect! Peador said this and Peador said that . . .’ You like it, don’t you? You’re leading her on because you like it. Well, you can fuck her for all I care.”
“Get outta here! I’m not interested in her at all. God, all I wanted was for a bit of normalcy to return to the office.”
“Jus’, just . . . don’t talk to me ever again!” she said pushing me away.
I watched her walk away towards the parking lot wondering if she’d come back, apologize and make it up to me on top of my futon, but she didn’t. So, I walked back to my apartment alone where I tried to untangle the knot of emotions inside me with a large bottle of sake.
*
The following week, it was my turn to be ignored by Reina. If I spoke to her, she’d pretend not to hear. If I needed her assistance, she’d suddenly be caught up in frenetic activity. As for communication, the most I could expect from her was a nod, a shrug or a finger pointed in the general direction of what I was looking for. And that was when she was feeling generous. The rest of the time, all I could do was sit at my desk and silently observe her from behind. The muscles between her shoulders and along her neck were still tense and screaming anger five days on.
After a week, I couldn’t take it anymore and forced her to break the vow of silence by dogging her with invitations to dinner. Naturally, she refused at first, so I asked again politely. When she snubbed me, I asked again. And again and again and again. I pleaded when asking became useless. Begged when pleading didn’t work either. I begged until she relented, relented with conditions: she chooses the restaurant; I pay. With payday still a few days off, my postal savings account was like a wishing well drained of it’s water with a handful of nickels, pennies and dimes lying in the slime.
*
We walked to a nearby motsunabe restaurant after work. While a miso-based stew of pork haslets and god only knows what other piggy odds and ends wasn’t quite at the top of my list of things I wanted to eat, let alone flip the bill for, I was happy to have finally plied Reina’s rigid mouth open.
After a few pitchers of beer the words, which she’d been so reluctant to part with, finally started to flow. And, the things I would hear!
Reina was jealous. Jealous of Yumi’s feeling for me, jealous of the time we had alone in the office each morning, jealous of how careful I was not to hurt Yumi’s feelings and so on. Jealousy is an ugly disease disfiguring everything in the most grotesque manner and it was my grave misfortune to have two co-workers stricken with it.
It was so absurd, I was about to throw in the towel right then and there and quit. I wanted out, Out, OUT, but having nowhere else I could go and no money to get me there anyway, all I could do was give Reina the same soft sell that I’d given Yumi earlier in the week.
“There’s nothing I can do about Yumi,” I began. “You know as well as I do that she lives in a fantasy world. No matter what I do or say, she’ll use it as just one more reason to fall even deeper in love with me. If I farted, she’d tell ya they smellt of roses!”
“They do not smell like roses!” Reina said laughing. It was the first time in weeks that I’d heard her laugh and it was a relief to have gotten through at last. She was a damn hard nut to crack, Reina. What in the world could have happened to her in her 29 years of life to make her like that?
Halfway through our third pitcher of beer, she rested her head on my shoulder, wrapped her arm around mine then asked calmly, reasonably, convincingly to do something to make that nut Yumi to stop.
There I was claiming to possess all the powers necessary to douse the fire in Yumi’s heart and, in the same breath, agreeing to let Reina spend the night where she would dig her nails so deeply into my chest I’d carry the scars like the stigmata long after we’d broken up.
*
Several days later, I yielded to the inevitable and invited Yumi out for dinner. Poor Yumi was tickled pink with the prospect and sent Reina up the wall talking about it. But Reina had no right to speak; she was the one who put me up to it. I was instructed to tell Yumi point blank, no holds barred, that she had better graduate from the junior high crush on me because there was no way in hell I would ever be interested in her.
I took Yumi to the “Itarian” restaurant of her choice, a small unremarkable place downtown that had been featured on TV recently. After an insipid meal with sour red wine, I broke it to her.
“You remember that evening at Ôhori Park when I told you that Reina and I weren’t having an affair?”
“Yes, of course I do. You . . . “
“I never told you why.”
“You said that she wasn’t your type.”
I did, didn’t I? Reina wasn’t very happy to hear about that. “That wasn’t the reason,” I said.
“Oh?”
Idiot. If the world were populated with men who only screwed “their type” humankind would have gone extinct a millennia ago.
“Reina and I aren’t having an affair was because I’m still in love with my ex-girlfriend. I still miss her too much to think about someone else.” I wanted to continue, but tears started to flow from Yumi.
“But, I love you,” she whimpered to the table.
Odd that she would have so much faith in those three words as to think saying so could make a difference. Did she sincerely expect me to be moved or to taking a second inventory of the barren shelves of my heart and find that somewhere in the recesses, in an overlooked section, covered with dust was the realization that I, too, had loved Yumi all along? What did professing my love to Mie bring to me? A cold steel door shut on my face, and my hopes and dreams locked and chained behind it. Now Yumi loved me.
To hell with love!
Looking at her, at the black mascara streaming down her cheeks, I never felt less attracted to someone before.
“I love you,” she whimpered once more for effect.
If I were cruel I would have laughed at Yumi, at myself, and at the cynicism and perversity of love. How was it that I could still love Mie whose betrayal had nearly robbed me of my very will to live, who had made me suffer so miserably that I was an emotionally and physically emaciated shadow of my former self, yet couldn’t bring myself to even consider for even a moment loving this miserable girl before me who seemed willing to devote the rest of her life to me on her faith in love alone?
I paid the bill, then suggested we leave. There was no use in our trying to talk through the tears. A taxi came, the door opened, and I said good night to her as she struggled wearily into to back seat. Although I could sympathize with how Yumi was feeling, that sympathy wasn’t enough for me to take her into my arms and kiss the sadness away.
*
As the rainy season approached promising unpredictable volatility in the weather, Yumi’s emotions settled somewhat. While the pendulum still swung with broad strokes, the reach and breadth of her emotions were less and less extreme allowing me to deal with her as one might deal with, say, an adult rather than the lovesick, trouble-making bubblehead she’d been. In the meantime, Reina and my affair continued to bump along, not so much on the strength of our commitment to each other than on the unspoken agreement that we not make too many demands other than sex and friendship. From my perspective it was one of the healthiest relationships I’d had in a dear long time. It was exactly what I needed at a time when, feeling bankrupt of emotions, I had little love to invest in a relationship.
*
But as my twenty-seventh birthday drew near, things started unraveling again. Like most things in life, you never really know what’s going on until it’s too goddamn late to do anything about it.
The fewer the days separating me from the day I came kicking and screaming against my will into this God-awful world, the tighter the noose around my neck grew.
Yumi, who had been painting delicate strokes in subdued tones, was about to start splashing on violently passionate colors onto her canvas and fill our little office once more with a vile miasma of anger and jealousy.
With the days ticking away, and twenty-seven stalking me, Yumi went to great pains to lay out her assault on my heart. Reina, who was irritated to be privy to our co-worker’s machinations, would leak what she knew to me. Though she had never held much more than a dim opinion of Yumi, she had come to harbor such animosity towards Yu that she started to take sadistic pleasure in telling me the details of Yumi’s plan, usually while laying naked next to me and trying to arouse another round of heated, angry sex out my cock.
*
According to Reina, Yumi had prepared a bottle of red wine, glasses and a corkscrew and was now waiting with increasingly obvious impatience for the right opportunity to ask me out. It seems Yumi, having failed to impress me earlier with the depth of her feelings towards me, was now ready to booze me into submission.
To Reina’s malevolent delight and Yumi’s repeated frustration, I avoided committing myself for several weeks. An incorrigible procrastinator at heart, I would have continued doing so had Reina not started complaining that Yumi’s recent dip back into the bleak depths of despair was getting on her fucking nerves.
Full diplomatic pressure was imposed: Reina threatened me with an embargo–no sex–unless I did something about Yumi. The thought of not sharing Reina’s bed and the sex, which was starting to get exciting, was an acid that easily ate through the hardest of intransigence. I gave in and accepted Yumi’s invitation to have dinner on the eve of a national holiday celebrating at last the Crown Prince’s wedding.
*
It was a disaster in the making. Not the Crown Prince’s Wedding, mind you, the date. A date which would go down in the annals of my personal history as one of the very worst, not so much for what occurred that night than for what would come to pass afterwards. It was my own Pearl Harbor Day, after which I could do nothing but grip my sweating brow and mutter a self-pitying, “the horror, the horror.”
I really should have had more sense than to give into to Reina’s demands and accept Yumi’s invitation. And yes, it was irresponsible of me to have drunk myself blind; an unforgivable mistake to let her follow me home. But most of all, it was reprehensible of me to try to fuck her.
The horror, the horror.
My recollection of the night was mercifully nebulous, limited again to an odd collection of memories: sitting at a bar counter slamming shots of god only knows what; standing at the gate of my apartment building not sure how I got there, nor knowing why Yumi had followed me all the way like shit trailing out of a guppy’s arse; inviting her up for a drink; sitting on the floor of my apartment next to her, our backs against the wall; and kissing. Kissing! Yes! Kissing! And groping, groping, groping! God, help me, I groped! My maladroit hands plunged through the buttons of her blouse! They had a will of their own, those goddamned hands of mine, and climbed up her skirt where they found a girdle! A girdle? Yes, a girdle! Good God, a girdle! And, there the rest of the night is truncated by the deepest, blackest absence of recall.
*
Early the next morning, the doorbell rang, jolting me awake and sending a bolt of panic up my spine.
My god, did we fuck? No, no, no! God, why did I have to drink so goddamn much? What the fuck was I thinking?
The doorbell rang again, followed by a quick series of knocks. Silence. Knocking again.
Go away, go away, just go a-way!
At that time of the morning and with that kind of determination, it couldn’t have been anyone but Yumi. There was nothing I could do but remain quietly where I lay and hope that she and the spare change of memories jangling in my head would just go away and leave me alone.
After ten minutes of laying motionless in bed, and holding my breath, I could hear the click of her pumps as she descended the steps. After the gate downstairs closed with a loud metallic clash, I peeled the sheets slowly off and discovered to my relief that although I was undressed from the waist up my trousers were still on, belt buckled and, as they say in Japanese, society’s window was shut. I got up, tipped-toed to the door, which was unlocked and looked out the peephole. Finding no one there, I gently turned the bolt and locked the door.
Telling myself, I’ll never make that mistake again, I returned to bed to try to sleep off what was promising to be the mother of all hangovers. I’d miss the royal wedding altogether.
*
A nine-months pregnant silence hung over the office the next few mornings. I should have said something, should have apologized for my deplorable behavior, but then I wasn’t sure what had actually happened. Pathological optimism encouraged me to judge my co-worker’s determined reticence as meaning she would prefer to just forget the whole affair and move on.
The silence didn’t last, of course. Just as I was beginning to enjoy how peaceful the mornings had become without Yumi’s overly rehearsed and pained attempts at conversation, the pregnant silence went into labor. Before long a fat, ugly and screaming baby would enter our lives. But, not quite yet.
Yumi, contrary to my expectations, my hopes, my dreams, and my desires, was not the type to forgive and forget. She had little need for the Lord’s Prayer and its hope that we may forgive the trespasses of others, something which has sustained me through a lifetime of mistakes like an open credit line for a degenerate gambler.
No such luck; Yumi was a Buddhist.
Her imagination had given birth to a fantasy as ridiculous as it was dangerous, and she held it close to her breast, nursing it with a vengeance so that she could get as much mileage out of it as possible. After we had closed the office down for the weekend and I’d gone home, she mentioned off-handedly to Reina that she’d gone back to my apartment Tuesday night.
Reina, it goes without saying, wasn’t particularly delighted to hear that. She was even less amused when I waffled that there was a possibility, albeit extremely small–so small that it wasn’t really worth our time–that in the thick, thick, pea soup fog of drunkenness, I may have tried to–the thought, I must say, ha ha ha, sickens me–may have indeed tried to kiss Yumi. Nevertheless, she took it like a sport: as soon as I’d apologized for my stupidity, she retuned me to a state of grace below her by fucking the penitence out of me
*
The doorbell startled us awake early the next morning. It was Yumi again ringing the bell and knocking on the door like an bill collector. How she managed again to get past the locked gate downstairs was a mystery, but one I could ill afford to ponder when I made the distressing realization that I’d failed to lock the door–again. God, what an idiot I could be at times. Reina, sharing the sentiment, mouthed baka at me.
When the commotion subsided, I made an elaborate series of military hand signals to Reina, who, butt naked, tip-toed as quickly and quietly as humanly possible towards the kitchen where she squatted down in the corner, with all of her belongings bundled up in her arms. I then moved with the silent agility of a ninja to the genkan where I picked up Rika’s shoes made my way back to the kitchen where I handed them to her. When one of the shoes fell to the floor echoing like cannon announcing noon and causing Reina to let out a small yelp, the doorbell began ringing again. It left me no choice: I answered the door in my birthday suit.
It’s not easy to describe the look on Yumi’s face when I opened the door. It was contorted with both delight and horror, aversion and compulsion: she didn’t quite seem to know whether to plunge in and be willingly ravished or run away screaming. And so, she stood before me, her eyes fixed upon my dingdong, speaking in tongues.
“Sorry, I was sleeping,” I said scratching my balls.
She turned abruptly and scurried down the stairs in a panic, a string of gomen nasai’s trailing behind her like a vapor trail. On the landing she had left a large bag containing my birthday present and several well-choreographed hopes.
*
“That stupid bitch,” Reina said as she emerged cautiously from the kitchen. After checking that the door was bolted, she kneeled before me and started to blow me.
I had no complaints with Reina ’s fellatio skills, but as she was sucking me off, my mind wandered through all the muck I’d been through over the year since my last birthday when Mie and I first made love. As attractive as Reina was, as sexy as she was, as full of energy and life as she was, and as good as she was at polishing my knob, I still missed Mie.
Reina stopped sucking, and motioned for me to sit down, and when I did, she straddled me and slipped my cock into her.
“I want you to say my name when you come,” she said as she began moving her hips.
She was wetter than usual. The anger had become built up sexual energy and before long she was off to wherever it is that women like her go to when overcome by pleasure. Between quick, shallow breaths, she’d call out my name, each time louder and louder, each time with more and more violent thrusts of her hips, as if she were impaling herself on my cock.
Distracted by the year-old memories that were filling my head, I just couldn’t come, couldn’t have come were a gun pressed against my temple, so I let her continue screwing with blind abandon. Each time my cock slipped in and out of that dripping, wet hole of hers, I wondered what I was doing and why I was with her and not someone else. Why was Reina moaning above me, fucking me and asking for me to call out her name when I came? Why did I have to pretend that there was any meaning in what we were doing when in fact, after a month of fucking, there still wasn’t anything to it? We were two people who, thrown arbitrarily together, ended up having sex because it was easier to fuck than to feel.
Moving in and out, as natural as the tide, crashing against her crotch like the waves against a breakwater, just as cold, just as regular, just as insignificant. There was a time when the act had made sense, when for sentimentality’s sake I could say that I was making love, but what was I really doing here? Only one thing: each time I drove myself into Reina, I was putting in another nail in Mie’s coffin, burying someone I loved by fucking another I cared less and less for each day.
“I want you to come into my mouth,” she said after yet another monumental “fuck you, Yumi” orgasm.
“What?“
Gasping for air, but not quite ready to give up the fight, she repeated with some difficulty what she had said and for her sake, I acquiesced.
*
The next day at work Yumi apologized sheepishly for having woken me and promised never to go by my place again uninvited. Not that I would ever invite her, but that was besides the point.
I told her not to worry about it then offered to take her out the following evening. I didn’t want to, but I felt I owed it to her for the way I had behaved the last time we had gone out. Besides, she had left her birthday present at my front door and, no matter how irritating I found her, I didn’t have the heart to open her present without her. She flashed her Chicklet teeth at me, and agreed to wait around in the office until I was done.
*
For expediency’s sake, we went to an awful Italian restaurant a few blocks away from our office. God only knows how it had managed to keep from going bankrupt.
I brought along Yumi’s present of wine and glasses. There would be no more returning to my apartment blind drunk and horny tonight. No, enough unspoken damage had already taken place. So, I took the bottle out of the bag, looked at it and smiled. It was one that I liked, one I must have mentioned liking to her though didn’t remember when. She had, no doubt, jotted the name down and gave it a starring role in her scheme to woo me. Returning the bottle to its bag, I thanked her.
“I, I, I thought it would be nice if we might go somewhere and drink it, um, together,” she said.
“Yes, that would be nice, but . . . ” But, then I had no intention of letting that happen. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not in a million years. “It’s been a long day . . . I’m tired. It would be a waste to drink it tonight.”
Once she realized her plan was starting to unravel she become grew as dark as the heavy black clouds in the evening sky outside. I no longer had the energy nor the desire to try to cheer her up, not when she’d been, as Reina often reminded me, an insufferable bitch.
*
We finish our dinner in silence, and after splitting the bill, walk out into the humid night and head towards the subway station. At the entrance, she pauses before descending the stairs, looks up at me and asks the question that she’s been eager to ask since that awful night at my apartment.
“What do you think of me?”
I inhale the thick air. My arms are sticky with sweat, my back soaked through the shirt. The rainy season started a week ago according to the Meteorological Agency, but today’s the first day you can really feel it.
I look away from Yumi, out at the soft halos around the streetlamps caused by the humidity. A year ago I was so deeply in love, now I am so far from it. I don’t like this Yumi, and not just for the bad teeth, the acne, or the girdle. I don’t like her because in a way she reminds me of myself, forlorn and groping for anything to believe in, anything to give her hope that her heart wasn’t irreversibly broken. I search the heavy mist for the words that hurt the least, but the trouble is they all hurt if they were at all truthful, and she needs to hear the truth.
“Yu-chan, I’m sorry, but . . . to be honest . . . there’s . . . nothing . . . in here for you.” I touch my chest. There used to be a beat there, but now there’s only a dead, cold hollow calm. “I really appreciate how you feel for me and the kindness you’ve shown me, but, but . . . I’m not in love with you. And frankly, . . . I don’t think I ever will.”
Tears collect around her eyes, then fall. That all too common stream of mascara and foundation starts flowing slowly down her cheeks. She smiles, but it’s not the kind of smile that you’d ever want to see.
“I’m sorry, Yu-chan.”
She shakes her head, then waves me off as I step towards her. She no longer wants to have anything to do with me or my sympathy. Without saying goodbye, she turns and descends the stairs. No hug, no friendly kiss on the cheek. She’s gone. Then the tide comes rushing in, washing my ankles and knees and engulfing me with the chill I feel every time the loneliness is palpable.
As I head for my apartment, the heavens open up and the rain falls. It falls so hard that it no longer seemed to be falling, becoming instead a solid wall two hundred yards thick of water that I have to swim through to get back to my apartment. In the two minutes it takes to get home I get so thoroughly wet that there’s not a dry corner on my body. My shoes are soaked through to the socks, the socks soaked through to the skin and undressing is like peeling the linen from a fresh wound. Everything wringing wet with Yumi’s bitter tears.
Today I woke up and weighed myself, like I normally do, and I’m happy to report that in one week I have lost ten pounds. Keep in mind that I’ve done this before. At the beginning weight just seems to melt off because, basically, I’m carrying weight that I’m just not supposed to have on me. It will get difficult as time goes on, which is why I’m doing this, to keep me going. And with almost 150 people reading today, I’m definitely accountable to the 12 that will continue to read on a regular basis.
After I weighted myself I had a breakfast of a crushed up turkey burger from last night with some eggs in a wrap. I love wraps. Normally I love sandwiches, and will try to make anything I eat into a sandwich if some kind of bread is nearby, but since I’m not eating bread I’ve had to resort to wraps. Maybe I just love eating with my hands. Hmm. I just realized that…
Anyway, Abby leaves for work and I get to work myself. After a few hours I have to use the bathroom. I get the idea (okay, that’s a lie, I’ve definitely done this before) to weigh myself beforehand and afterward. Now, I feel like it’s important to note that I weigh myself naked. In my mind, underwear adds like five pounds. So after that, I realize it’s about time for lunch and I head into the kitchen to heat up the last turkey burger. And, yes, I’m still naked.
Hey, when you’re all by yourself, there’s not this rush to put clothes back on. It’s kind of enjoyable to be able to walk around naked for a little bit. Ah, the wonders of working from home. So I’m in the kitchen, the turkey burger is in the microwave… and I hear the door open. For a brief moment I pray that it’s either someone walking in on accident or an intruder and not my wife about to find me naked in the kitchen, microwaving a turkey burger. I was not so lucky. Abby, who was expecting to be greeted with surprise, yet excitement for her being home. She only got the first part.
Me: “Baby?”
Her: “Yeah?”
Me: “Hey, just wanted to let you know… I’m naked right now.”
Her: “Why are you naked?”
Me: “Long story. Let me tell you in a minute” as I scamper into the room to the sound of her laughter.
So there was that. Apparently she had g-chatted me that she was coming home from lunch and I missed it. Once I put clothes on we got to have a very nice lunch together, aside from the fact that she cut herself cleaning a spoon (yes, a spoon) and her thumb bled for the rest of the time she was here and some of the time at work. She must have hit a vein or something. That thing soaked through the band-aid in no time.
After she went back to work I finished working with about 20 minutes to spare before she got home. This time I decided that 20 minutes of working out was better than none, so I went to our very small workout room at the apartment and jogged for that time. Let me just say that I’m not a fan of treadmills. Obviously, I’m a big guy. When women run on them you hardly hear anything. When I run on them it sounds like an angry mob banging on the door, trying to get in, in a very even rhythm.
When Abby got home we ate dinner (chicken, quinoa, veggies that Abby was upset she had made too bland, but I, of course, loved it) and then hung out for a little bit before we went to our weekly bible fellowship. We had this discussion.
Abby: “Are you going to shower tonight?”
Me: “No.”
Abby: (looking at me) Really?
Me: “I mean, I showered this morning and I only worked out for like 20 minutes…”
I trail off as I realize something crucial. There are two types of questions like this: open ended questions where you just want to get the information, and questions that have a right and a wrong answer. Halfway through my answer I realized that this was the second kind of question and that I was giving the wrong answer.
Me: “…but, you know, I’m definitely going to shower. I wasn’t before, but then I thought that I should shower. So I’m going to shower. Yeah, that’s a good idea.”
So I showered, we watched Modern Family (Abby’s favorite show. Her order goes Modern Family, Project Runway, 30 Rock, and How I Met Your Mother. My order is a little more in depth, we’ll go into it later. Basically, we like TV. Some people say you shouldn’t even have a TV your first year of marriage, but it’s something we both enjoy doing together and it’s not like we sit around mindlessly flipping through anything, we have shows we watch together and that’s that. I think it turns out to be pretty good quality time, laughing together. And since I’m married now, I actually have to care about Project Runway and give my opinion. Just making jokes about it is apparently another wrong answer. Wow, this is a long parentheses. I should work on that), then we went to bed. The end.
via igor+andré At the bottom of the ocean lives a Sea King
He was my king
He was so proud, diamonds in his crown
He was so proud, always so proud
The male of the species is the Nokk. He lives in lakes, ponds, rivers, and waterfalls. The Nokk drags people down if they play too close to the edge of the water or attempt to pick water lilies. He is most dangerous after sunset. To see or hear the Nokk means someone will drown. He is often heard shrieking during shipwrecks.
(A Field Guide to Demons, Fairies, Fallen Angels, and Other Subversive Spirits. Mack, Carol and Dinah. 1999. New York: Macmillan. p. 33.)
I’m going away,
I can’t stay
and I pray he finds out someday…
Sea King,
Sea king,
can’t you see that you’re so silly?
Sea King,
I know things,
and without love you won’t get far.
The Nokk has been seen as a horse or half a horse, as half a ship, or a gleaming silver coin or ring. The Nokk plays music on a golden harp to lure his victim closer if his precious-object disguise doesn’t work. (Ibid.)
Esao Andrews, “Sweet Wilderness.” In aquatic towns below us,
reigns a Sea King,
he was my king.
Gold and glitter was bubbling all around him,
all around him, pearls in his hands.
I’m going away,
I can’t stay
and I pray he finds out someday…
Sea King,
Sea king,
can’t you see that you’re so silly?
Sea King,
I know things,
and without love you won’t get far.
via sapphoria on the tumblr It was all he ever knew
It was all he ever knew
It was all he ever knew
and that’s sad.
“Oahu 2″ by Allen Birbach, Spider Awards nominee. Sadko entered and pursued his fleeting bride through the endless torturous crypts of four sea-oceans; at least found her in the palace of the Sea-King.
“In sooth, Sadko, thou art a mster-player on the gusly,” smiled the monarch, “prithee, play for me upon thy harp.”
Sadko perceived he could do no other than heed the behest of the Sea-King, wherefore, setting his harp in tune, he plucked the strings.
“Good Bye,” by Esao Andrews The heart of the Sea-King’s daughter beat in tune to Sadko’s playing, so that with sweet blandishment he won her back, whereafter they dwelt in love and felicity in the coral-chambered castle beneath the sea.
(Romance of Russia, From Rurik to Bolshevik, Elizabeth Williams Champney and Frère Champney. 1921. London: GP Putnam’s Sons, p. 178.)
New study suggests, U.S. states whose residents have more conservative religious beliefs have higher rate of teenagers giving birth.
The relationship could be due to the fact that communities with such religious beliefs (a literal interpretation of the Bible, for instance) are stupid enough to frown upon contraception, researchers say. If that same culture isn’t successfully discouraging them from doing each other, pregnancy and birth rates rise.
A researcher speculated on the most likely reason: "Dumb ass communities are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself."
Data was compiled from various data sets. The religiosity information came from a sample of nearly 36,000 participants who were part of the U.S. Religious Landscapes Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life conducted in 2007, while the teen birth and abortion statistics came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For religiosity, the researchers averaged the percentage of respondents who agreed with conservative responses to eight statements, including: ”There is only one way to interpret the teachings of my religion," and ”Scripture should be taken literally, word for word."
Top 10 states with highest teen birth rates: Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, Nevada, Georgia
Top 10 most conservatively religious states: Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Utah, North Carolina, Alabama, South Carolina
Cause and effect?
Adamczyk says the idea that anti-contraception principles could be behind the link is controversial, as studies on the topic have varied results. "The idea is that in the heat of the moment, a young woman who has said, ‘I’m going to be a virgin on my wedding night,’ is with her boyfriend and she says ‘Let’s just do it.’ And since they didn’t plan it, nobody has a condom. And so it increases their chances of a pregnancy," Adamczyk said.
"In the south, there is a higher rate of marriage of teenagers. And one possible explanation is just that in the southern states, which are also more religious, people just get married earlier and have planned pregnancies and those have perfectly good outcomes," Strayhorn said. He added that he doesn’t think the earlier marriage idea explains the religion-birth link.
I texted Frank, just to check in and make things un-awkward, just in case they were – considering a.) I’m an ex, and b.) He has a new girlfriend.
Turns out, they’re not together anymore.
Didn’t I say he moves fast?
So today, he texts me again; Just one of those irritating chain texts:
What three words would I say to him if we woke up naked together?
Reply: Nothing unusual there.
The thing is, Frank loved to be naked, every time I’ve visited the family home or crashed their after a binge-drinking sesh, he would just strip; and not necessarily because I had wanted/asked/forced him too.
There’s something very un-nerving about a grown man you’re trying desperately not to have sex with, who would bare his body and lie over you with it. Mmm sexy.
I first realised that this was to become a real issue when, he slept naked with me and one of my best friends. Who actually does that?
So Frank loves to get naked…
And that is not the only thing weird about him (read earlier post) apart from the things I’ve previously referred too, Frank was a real moaner – a swearing moaner…something I hadn’t come across before.
After talks with my girlfriends, I wasn’t sure it was entirely common either.
Oh…Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
FUCK.
Again. Mmm sexy.
I’d like to point out now; I’ve never actually had sex with Frank. So at this moment, we weren’t even sexing to produce those sorts of groans. Nor, would we be having sex anytime soon, after that performance.
Anyway, he replied asking if I wanted to see him before I head back to uni. I declined, don’t fancy being his rebound fuck or something.
I have been testing climax gem vibrators, and trying to be objective. I’ve learned something… Objectivity in the middle of an orgasm is impossible! I tried, oh how I tried. When I failed the objectivity test, I just tried again.
These are a fantastic vibrator, as they are small and discreet, yet the vibrations are powerful and intense. Each vibrator is a different colour, and a different shape. initially I thought that this was a gimmick, as they look to be built around the same motor unit. However, each one reached a slightly different spot, and felt a little different. I was surprised and impressed by the fit and the feel of all of these.
They are not a huge vibrator, they can be carried in your pocket or purse easily, so you can have them on hand when you want them. I love the colours, and the versatility. Vaginally or anally, all of these are good, with a partner or without (you see the lengths I go to to provide you with information?). As a smaller vibrator these are ideal as a first toy, or as a discreet addition to your collection. The vibrator is a bullet that is actually located in the tip, so the vibrations are more intense than if the motor was in the base. This a great idea, and is borne out through experience.
I find the colours and shapes very attractive, sexy and sensuous. This whole range has earned a place in my bedside cabinet, and I can see them getting more use than some of the others. I think I have a new favourite!
We don’t seem to get all of these in NZ, so I look forward to the rest of the range being available.
Gorgeous 43 year old girl, I present you: Taboo Model.
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Her biography: I am a true midwest girl! I love bodybuilding training, horseback riding, and working on my photography! Modeling has become one of my true passions. I have had the privilege of working with phenomenal photographers and make-up artists that have really captured me. I have also done promotional product modeling in McCormick Place as well as the Chicago area. I am a member of the NPC and NANBF. I did my first bodybuilding Figure Competition the 2006 NPC Mid States Muscle XIX Classic. Placed 4th in the 2007 NPC Grand Prix Natural Figure Championship Tall Division. Competiting in numerous upcoming Figure Bodybuilding Competitions.
“What do you think of me?” she asks.
It was a disaster in the making. Not the Crown Prince’s Wedding, mind you, the date. A date which would go down in the annals of my personal history as one of the very worst, not so much for what occurred that night than for what would come to pass afterwards. It was my own Pearl Harbor Day, after which I could do nothing but grip my sweating brow and mutter a self-pitying, “the horror, the horror.”
“That stupid bitch,” Reina said as she emerged cautiously from the kitchen. After checking that the door was bolted, she kneeled before me and started to blow me.
We finish our dinner in silence, and after splitting the bill, walk out into the humid night and head towards the subway station. At the entrance, she pauses before descending the stairs, looks up at me and asks the question that she’s been eager to ask since that awful night at my apartment.
