Reading: help wanted

August 28, 2008 at 1:15 pm · Filed under art

I’m coming to the end of my current story book: the New Testament of all things: been reading it for a month, dunno if my posts suddenly got really freaky. I’ve got the Old Testament and the Qu’ran lined up but I think I’d like to read something a little lighter first. Help me sleep. Also A & B are slightly worried that I might turn into a religious nutter.

This seems like a good time to have another go at getting into American (US) literature. In the past I haven’t done too well: I don’t get on with that macho/ironic journalistic style. I loved Huck Finn, but didn’t really go for Tom Sawyer; I thought The Scarlet Letter was going to be good but I couldn’t stand the prose style; “You can’t go home again” by Thomas Wolfe seemed v relevant to me but again the style kept jarring.

I went through a phase of being mad about Jim Thompson, and I think American Psycho is an absolute masterpiece, but I don’t think that kind of thing would be helpful for me right now.

Loved Toni Morrison (Jazz, Beloved); hated Alice Walker (Possessing the secret of joy). Loved Sam Delany (Babel 17), Ursula Le Guin (Dispossessed). Loved Pynchon (but Gravity’s Rainbow is by far his masterpiece) & used to love Robert Coover, but I’m out of postmodernism these days.

My literary “home” is European Realism: Walter Scott (Heart of Midlothian), Jane Austen (everything), Balzac, Stendhal, Tolstoy (W&P), Dostoyevsky, Gogol (but I’ve kind of grown out of D & G I think), Joyce, Proust, Pasternak. Also Rabelais and Sterne are important to me. Can’t think of anyone alive who I rate.

BTW my favourite living poet is American: John Ashbery.

So, questions:

  • What am I missing with US literature? There must be something I’m not getting that makes say the Scarlet Letter important.
  • No doubt there are major works in the US canon I haven’t heard of. Like what? I do want to read Tom Paine and political stuff, but later already for all that. Just now I want a story book.
  • Can anyone (esp US readers) recommend anything by anyone living or dead, black or white, male or female? Doesn’t have to be ‘classic’ or famous or serious, although I don’t get on with violent thrillers (A loves Sara Paretsky — I also like — and whatsisname Carl Hiaasen — I haven’t read).

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Sleep update

August 28, 2008 at 12:49 pm · Filed under dispatches ·Tagged

Date Day Notes
18 Mon 2300-0600; but v broken; up 8
19 Tues 2300-0630; v good, previous day’s exercise
20 Wed 2400-0500; solid sleep, awake early
21 Ths off quickly 2300-0430; up till 0700 then doze till 0945; previous day’s exercise
22 Fri 2300-0400; bad - not allowed to relax in bed before lights out
23 Sat no data
24 Sun 2300-0500 ok sleep
25 Mon 2300-0700 disturbed sleep - terrible bed
26 Tues 2300-0330; up till 0500, dozing till 0700
27 Wed 2330-0530 solid sleep no evening blogging

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The return of the libido

August 28, 2008 at 11:45 am · Filed under analysis

A in pyjamas at the breakfast bar. I want to crawl up behind her and sink my teeth into her buttocks. Run my hands up her legs, between them.

A eating baklava sitting on a low comfy chair, about to brush the crumbs off her lap. I want to do it instead: I want to hoover up the crumbs with my mouth; kiss all round her lap; part her legs gently and kiss and nibble my way up inside her thighs; kiss the taut linen over her crotch.

Awake in the morning erect, A beside me, sleeping on her side turned away from me. I want to nuzzle in behind her, my hard pain finding a comfortable home between her legs; my legs following hers, my chest to her back, my arms curling round her, my breath full of her hair; sink my whole body into her yielding flesh, its underlying strength.

Why don’t I? Fear. My attempted kiss or caress at the wrong time rejected I feel such pain.

Ironic of course, and I deserve it. How much pain have I given her over the years?

A’s birthday is coming up. I’ve bought two bottles of massage oil. The “official” present from me & B is “relaxing” (lavender, etc.). The “ulterior” present is “sensual, arousing” (jasmine, ylang ylang). I’ve also got her a secret birthday card with a more personal message (jocular and light but felt quite emotional to write). These presents (especially the ulterior) are kind of promises.

Just occurred to me now: all the birthday presents between me & my wife since B arrived have involved him in some way. I’m constantly being reminded how far I’ve blown myself off course. Well, now I’m re-engaging.

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Joni

August 26, 2008 at 10:57 am · Filed under art, history

Listening to Joni en route to the British Library (recently put Blue and Hejira onto my phone). Big mistake. By the time I’m at the BL I’m an emotional wreck. I have to listen to random Chinese pop to flush it out of my system.

The woman who put me on to Joni told me I was “brilliant, bitter and brutal”. That was before we got bored of everything except the sex. Then she called me “a virtuoso lover.” A mistress of the barbed compliment. One night she asked me where I thought our relationship was going. I didn’t know what she meant so I just said, “Nowhere, why?” She suggested we split up. I suggested we split up in the morning, which is what we did. Leaving the city I arranged a big restaurant dinner for my main friends. When she (then my ex) left after the meal my flatmate said, “So, was that the love of your life?” I don’t think he liked me much, but he could see deep into me, and he seemed to care. She said “A case of you” made her think of me.

I love Pasternak but I disapprove of the way he (e.g., in Doctor Zhivago) uses women to represent moral ideals. — but I’m just the same! Maybe Pasternak is my lodestar after all and not Proust.

Maybe I should write a kind of rakish In Search of Lost Time using all the women I’ve ever loved as agents of recollection. A sort of travelogue of moral ideals. I could call it, “In my dreams, Mamma I’m coming home.”

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Domestic Discipline Daydream 1: The bouncer

August 25, 2008 at 5:57 am · Filed under men

Apologia

This story is a kind of thought experiment, to test whether I understand the “Domestic Discipline” (DD) idea. After I started talking to Constance and reading her blog, the story grew inside me as a daydream and I found I couldn’t leave it alone.

So it’s a thought experiment, but not one that I’ve consciously constructed up to test a pre-existing theory. I’ve tried to write a story that speaks to my needs, and to which I can have the right kind of emotional response, and which at the same time gives a sympathetic picture of DD as far as I understand it.

I hope the story is explicit enough in presenting my emotional needs (at least as they were at the time the story is set) that these can be assessed objectively to some extent; and explicit enough in its depiction of DD that failures in my understanding can be identified.

If there are any pro-DD types reading this, I’d be very interested in their judgements of the story along these lines.

Background

At one of the main bars where I used to hang out, there was a very cool, smart black bouncer. If it was busy he’d be on the door, otherwise he’d be at the bar.

I don’t know how I first got acquainted with him, but he would always say hello and more than a few words. We had one of those intricate multi-part handshakes. He never had to show me how to do it, but his hand would guide mine through the manouevres (pardon the pun) like the man guides the woman in ballroom dancing.

If he was at the bar, we’d chew the fat and talk for much longer than was strictly necessary. I had nothing to say to him, but I think I did feel he wanted to prolong the exchange.

Of course, in these kinds of bars, the bar itself is a kind of stage, attracting the attention of the clientele. At least part of the intention of our prolonged cool dialogue was to be decorous, and to play our parts as prominent members of the scene.

I knew all that but I still always wondered why he seemed to take an interest in me. “Now that years have passed and I am old,” I tell myself he was interested in me. It was technically a gay bar after all, although not exclusively.

He fits the bill of an authoriative yet caring figure, and he’s the punisher in this first Domestic Discipline Daydream. It’s set in the early 90s. I was drinking far too much and acting slightly crazy at the time, and I could have done with some help.

Story

1

I wake up in a strange bed. Alone, but it’s clear that I shared the bed for the night. Badly hungover but otherwise not damaged. I look round wondering who she is. It doesn’t look like a girl’s bedroom. By the bed there’s a bathrobe and a glass of water. I drink the water, put on the bathrobe and start to explore the flat. Come to a bathroom: freshen myself up a bit. Doesn’t look like a girl’s bathroom.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Sublime laboratories

August 25, 2008 at 5:31 am · Filed under this

Love and life Laboratories
Beautiful Sublime
Classical Romantic
Haydn Schostakovich
Joyce Proust
Georgia O’ Keeffe Louise Bourgeois

As I’ve said before the blogs under love and life comfort me. I think it’s a healthy comfort, progressive. My feelings for these blogs, and by extension for the women who write them, are clear.

The blogs under Laboratoires upset me. I can’t say whether my feelings are healthy or not, but I keep going back. I’ve talked about My Dabble and my interest in the use of force before. Castle might be relevant as well. Maybe Secret Confessions speaks to that too.

Anyway, I keep skulking back, and I don’t want to have secrets here. I think my interest is more than just titillation.

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Shower again

August 22, 2008 at 1:43 pm · Filed under dispatches ·Tagged

My exercise regime is starting to kick in: I fell asleep quickly last night and, although I had to get up at 5am for a couple of hours I got back to sleep quickly from 7am till about 9.

I woke while A was getting dressed. She’s coy about putting on her knickers, but she’s not coy about putting on her bra. I drink in her curves, smiling to myself. We chat pleasantly.

I’ve finished Domestic Disciple Dayream #1 (will upload soon) and I’ve been thinking about DDD#2. The female punisher from this one is based on the woman I mentioned in Son. The emotional content is much more complex than that of DDD#1; it has more relevance to my current situation; and there’s more grey area between the ‘discipline’ and the plain old sex. I’ve been enjoying it.

A & B go out to market and I get into the shower. My feelings after yesterday have been troubling me, and I feel different today. I clean myself like I used to, deep massage and scrubbing with my nails: my body looks like a forest after a nearby volcano has erupted. I turn off the shower and lean against the wall again, look down at myself. I want to be more mindful today, so I conjure up images of DDD#2 while I call myself forth, images of my wife dressing.

The tide comes in more gently. I’m left feeling slightly deflated — of course —, but it hasn’t dented my good mood. In fact, it feels more like part of the good mood’s building itself up for the day. I’ve merrily shooed my DD thoughts tidily away (not into a closet), and my mind feels open. As I shave I notice my eyes, brown or green I can never tell.

A & B return just as I’m finishing the dishes and I’m ready for 2nd breakfast. They’ve bought me not one but two nice fat saucissons secs. They do love me!

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Shower

August 21, 2008 at 11:12 am · Filed under dispatches ·Tagged

In the shower, I’ve finished cleaning my body and I notice I’m half hard. I lean against the wall and start stroking myself. I point the shower head at my chest. No good. Into my face.

Going at myself in more earnest. With plenty of spit I reach round and stick a finger up my arse. I’m attacking myself with both hands. The shower is driving into my face. I can’t really breathe properly.

The tension builds and bursts and the shudder rips through me. I look and the evidence is being washed away. Did it happen? Has it happened?

I shave over at the sink. I notice that I feel sick.

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

It’ll be alright. This is a long summer.

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Philosophical

August 21, 2008 at 11:08 am · Filed under dispatches

When a domestic cat is stalking a bird, it crouches very still. It crawls forward smoothly, imperceptibly. It seems completely focussed and absorbed by its prey. Behind it, safely out of sight, the cat’s tail flails about wildly, thrashing.

You could say that the cat’s tail expresses how the cat is really feeling. Another thing you could say is that the mad thrashing of the cat’s tail allows the cat to work so well, to get on with its life, to be a good cat.

In a similar way, my hope is that all the mad thrashing on this blog is letting me focus properly on my real life: especially on my central current project of ressurrecting my love life with my wife A. I think it’s working, mostly, although I have to beware of complacency and of fetishising the blog itself.

We’re camping at various friend’s houses while our own house is being fixed up. The place we’re at now is a place where my petty resentments against A tend to bubble up. I stop myself and give her as much physical attention as I can. This summer is really dragging on.

My special challenge is to remind myself that my wife loves me. I know this really, but for some reason it never penetrates the rest of my system. I’ve found a couple of blogs written by women who are full of love for their husbands and, frankly, I find a lot of comfort in these blogs. I think it’s healthy comfort in that I think it can help me break down whatever’s inside me preventing me from accepting my own wife’s love.

What I’m trying to get round to saying is that I’ve put The Philosophical Femme back on my blogroll. I’ve been too hard on myself and I think I should be allowed to have things that are just nice.

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Le regime, le jogging, …

August 19, 2008 at 9:27 pm · Filed under dispatches

Yesterday I bought myself a skipping rope (one for B too). Before I go back home I want to be in the habit of skipping for a couple of sessions a day. Very good aerobic exercise. Once the winter sets in I’ll get out my bike.

Obviously I’ve had inspiration from the blogosphere, but the sleep hygeinists recommend exercise, and it’ll probably help my general rather other-worldy state.

Some targets:

I’m reasonably happy with flab (I’m 5′ 10″ and just under 11 stone (say 150 lbs); OK, I could lose a couple of inches round my waist) and general strength (i.e., arms, shoulders and legs). What needs work are: aerobic and cardio-vascular system; core/abdominal strength; flexibility and stability. So it looks like it’s skipping, pilates and yoga!

Skipping

At the moment, I don’t get far beyond a couple of dozen skips before tripping. Get up to a hundred. Today managed skipping backwards, too. Get that up to standard.

Pilates

I like the way the movement makes me pay attention. Doing Pilates I tend to be much more engaged and alert than with any other kind of exercise I’ve tried. Usually I just mentally drift off.

I haven’t done a lot of Pilates, so my target is just to build up a repertoire of half a dozen exercises, and learn to do them properly. Find a way to let the engagement I enjoy in Pilates start happening in the rest of, like, my life.

Yoga

Did some of my old asanas this morning and my flexibility was atrocious. Choose half a dozen important asanas and get them back up to scratch. Also, I want to be able to put my hands flat on the floor (when I’m standing up).

Let’s see if some of this blog magic can work here.

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