When Lee gets personal, her writing is more interesting than ever. This weekend, she explains something it took me longer to learn: "ex-girlfriends are always rather sensitive subjects."
"But when the ex is also the mother of your man's child," Lee adds from 'Odessa Street', "it obviously complicates the issue quite a bit. (...)
"It's funny: when confronted with uncomfortable situations, we still have the same fight or flight mechanism as we do when in the face of life-threatening danger. The last two days have given me the chance to face some of my fears, to talk to people I had some serious problems with. (...) Amazingly, by opening myself up a bit, both situations are considerably better now than were 48 hours ago."
What annoys me particularly about that "fight or flight mechanism" is that, if the psychologists' work I often delve into is right, that choice is so inbuilt into our neurological circuitry that there's almost nothing we can do to switch it off. Being rational is quite simply almost never an option.
"Today’s saber tooth tigers consist of rush hour traffic, missing a deadline, bouncing a check or having an argument with our boss or spouse. Nonetheless, these modern day saber tooth tigers trigger the activation of our fight or flight system as if our physical survival was threatened," says Neil F. Neimark (Mind/Body Education), a family-oriented doctor in California.
A friend recently sent me Neil's way, strongly recommending the updated version of a book about IBS he co-authored with William B. Salt. I've not read it yet, but probably should.
This has been a quiet weekend with the Kid, once again spent trying to catch up on things undone. She didn't want to go out to see 'Kill Bill 2' and I couldn't raise much interest in 'Troy'. Even when I suggested we watch a DVD, we couldn't agree on which one. She wanted 'Underworld', for about the fourth time, and was in no mood for anything high-minded.
In the end, that's what she did, while I discovered that one way you might try to deal with the past and unresolved relationships that gnaw at your insides might be to kill yourself for a minute or five and find out what happens then.
While I certainly wouldn't put Joel Schumacher's 1990 sci-fi film 'Flatliners' ('Rotten Tomatoes') about the often alarming adventures of a bunch of medical students in any Top 50, I didn't regret buying it. Of the reviewers who liked it, I felt pretty much the same as Chris Hicks, whose opening comment gives me a good category for half the escapism in my life: "file under guilty pleasures."
In a recent trackback, Norm at 'One Good Move' surprisingly warns that this place of mine will leave you "with a smile on your face, or a tear in your eye" -- I'd hope far more of one than the other -- but he's dead right about one thing.
Lately preoccupied by curiosity about Lady E., I've steered clear of most matters political like the plague. Where controversy goes, I have no plans right now to discuss anything apart from religion and sex. My appetite for the latter is growing in inverse proportion to my amusement at what politicians are doing, and I'll save my spleen for the other poor sods at the Factory.
I like to pretend I'm deeply cynical, but we all know that almost every cynic is a frustrated romantic and dreamer, and most major news stories of the past week, let alone the past six months, have revolted me beyond further comment. The most you can expect from me in the foreseeable future is a link or two to people like Norm and Felber's 'Fanatical Apathy' where Adam suggests "Operation Enduring Oops."
I was led to that by 'No Cash Value!', following the mutation of 'The Sesquipadelian', which has long been blogrolled among the "playfully weird".
I may have to change the label for that part of the blogroll, since it's increasingly obvious that nearly everybody there is far healthier and more balanced of mind and heart than those regularly covered in the preceding part of the list, where I've excised the word "politics" from the title.
It's already a dilemma choosing whether people like Augustine, Nathalie and Lord 'No Photos Please' Segdwick are pundits, playful, pisstakers or weird. They are all, in any event, "remarkable" and have stronger stomachs than mine.
All this reminds me that I was ticked off at the Factory (again) last week for sending a correction to a story with the explanation that it removed a "tautologous word from the title". First, I was informed that "tautologous" would mean nothing to the Kansas City milkman's news editor, then that the word didn't exist.
I should've bet on it...
The next link is for people like Donald, who recently bought his first "word processor" to write a bestseller to keep him in pocket for the rest of his old age, looked almost suicidal a week later and wanted to throw the machine out of the window because he'd failed to understand that people remain far more intelligent than computers, and then discovered broadband as well as the Internet.
PublicRadioFan features "program listings for hundreds of public radio stations around the world. Follow the audio links to hear your favorite programs and discover new ones."
This splendid list comes to you courtesy of Joe, who has forgotten so far today that the main subject of his "book" is sex and offending unscrewed(-up) feminists.
This in turn reminds me that, since there's no pleasing everyone, I don't write enough about sex for the Wildcat, who has requested that I get even more personal than Lee and Venomous Kate rolled into one. The latter, poor love, may have "a bad attitude and a great pair of breasts", but was reduced to painful silence by learning that it is a mistake to rub the sleep out (Electric V) of one's eye. If you insist, you should either remove jewellery or bite your fingernails more often.
Kate neither said "a pair of great breasts" nor mentioned silicon valleys. Anyway, I find small breasts every bit as appealing as bouncing boobies, but what provoked that demand from the Wildcat was a recent entry here.
Darling, that inadequate tribute to Lady E. little fable was but a dream, a fantasy! And I got in trouble with Marianne yesterday when she could bothered enough to get off her backside and walk into the bedroom rather than sending my e-mails or press me again to install MSN Messenger (I refuse to have any more to do with Microsoft than absolutely necessary and in any case if I want to shout at her I can always use iChat).
She's glad I've ordered a second-hand copy of the 'Final Fantasy' video, but cross about the desktop pic of Aki Ross.
"Why do you have to look at a perfectly good scientist in a bikini?" she asked, apparently failing to realise that the two can be perfectly compatible.
Nor did my answer satisfy her: "I'll try to take the bikini off then, in the name of pure research."
On the model for Aki's body, I have forgotten what I read at the time. Some say an "Asian Bridget Fonda", but Michael Rechtshaffen at 'Hollywood Reporter' tickles my balls bells with Lara Flynn Boyle. Possibly...
Where was I (don't you ever get lost here)? Oh yeah, about to tell you how Lady E.'s mind-blowing about to remind the Wildcat that as a general rule, I think women write about sex better than men. If it's dreams and fantasies she's after, I can furnish those by the bucketload -- just as long as she's the one who goes around mopping up afterwards, not me.
As for truly erotic writing, you could do worse than embark on the new ERA.
I'll leave you at it since I've got a wonderful dinner engagement week in the Factory to look forward to. No pix.
7:51:20 PM link 
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