But seriously
Karen’s family is up this weekend, which means I had a busy day baking bagels, making raviolis, and teaching Jake’s 7-year-old cousin how to use a pasta maker. Our digital camera’s battery went kaput so I’ll have to wait until the fam emails me photos. Stay tuned.
Blue Gal at The Aristocrats sent me this piece on Bill “Shocker” O’Reilly and the Minnie Mouse Gang Bang video. Every other starlet releases porn videos, so why not Minnie?
And if Minnie gettin’ done doggy by Goofy doesn’t make you grin, then check out the fine art of pussy massage.
Pussy massage video #1
Pussy massage video #2
The second video in particular is a hoot.
Work safe. Really. Unless your boss gets upset by loud shrieks of laughter.
D.
Mean tagine
Before I give you food, meet the newest member of the Nekkid Blogging Club: ~d.
***
Tagine.
Oy.
I can’t emphasize enough the wonderfulness of this recipe. It has everything — it’s delicious, beautiful, texturally interesting, hearty, filling. And nutritious, too. It’s also a robust recipe, meaning you can make substitutions and still have a great result. You like chickpeas in your tagine? Cook ’em separately and throw them in towards the end. Prefer fish to chicken? Simply figure out how long your fish needs to cook and add it in at the appropriate stage.
Dates, prunes, pearl onions, olives . . . the variations are endless. Is this a complicated recipe? The ingredients list is lengthy, but the preparation couldn’t be easier. Try it and you’ll see.
Here we go.
Thirteen incriminating statements
One of the problems with being shameless is that I have no chance whatsoever of (successfully) running for political office. My opponent would skewer me with my own words — as, for example, when I said yesterday, “I am no longer a sexual predator.” (So, Dr. Hoffman, when did you stop being a sexual predator?)
But I feel bad for my future opponent’s research team. I mean, on this blog I’ve written so much, it will take them days to dig up the necessary dirt. In kindness to them, I have assembled the following thirteen incriminating and/or embarrassing items (that ‘sexual predator’ one? That’s a freebie).
Hmm. Just thought of something.
Jake, you reading this? Stop.
Now we can get started.
The fruit: looking vs. squeezing
Well, Karen liked my post yesterday (Alchemy) but I think I worried her.
“I’m afraid you’re bipolar,” she said last night. I’m waiting for me to fuck up, and she’s waiting for me to plummet from my high. Neither of us have experience with this optimism thing.
One of the best things about our new relationship: I am no longer a sexual predator. (Yet another sentence which will ruin forever my chances to be elected to political office . . . which, hey! gives me an idea for a Thursday Thirteen.) Lemme ‘splain. I have Male Roving Eyes, and in the gym or in grocery stores my brain and my legs tend to wander, too. I don’t exactly stalk these women, but I have to go down that canned vegetables aisle one more time to —
Well, for no good reason, that’s why.
But, now? Beautiful women still show up on my radar but I no longer feel like a missile tracking system locking onto a target. I see them, I appreciate them, and my mind lets them go. It’s nice. I no longer feel like I deserve the adjective creepy.
I look at the fruit but I don’t squeeze it. Well. I haven’t squeezed it for a long, long time, anyway. Back in 10th grade Algebra/Trig, the cheerleader who sat in front of me must have realized those were my knees digging into her ass, but she never said anything about it and never rearranged her furniture so that I couldn’t do that to her. (It took me about twenty years to realize just how easily she could have avoided my knees, which meant, omigod, she liked it. Am I wrong? But at that stage in my life, I was so used to girls ignoring me that I figured she didn’t even realize my knees were there.)
Karen knows about my roving eyes (the spittle hanging off my chin is a good clue) and tolerates it. She’s an ultra-realist, so unless something has a negative effect on her or Jake, she doesn’t mind it. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if either one of us were seriously tested . . . you know, if for example I were out of town and an aroused Russell Crowe walked into her bedroom, or if Jacqueline Kim walked into mine. What would we do? How much can we boast about our 24 years of faithfulness (counting courtship) if we haven’t been tested?
Eh. It’s not likely to happen any time soon. Neither one of us is a knockout and we’re both shy, especially around strangers. We’re not the kind of folks who attract seducers.
But I was talking about looking vs. squeezing. A long time ago, we were on a road trip and had stopped at a gas station to fuel up. Karen went to use the bathroom while I scrubbed the windows and filled up the tank. While working at this, I noticed a small woman with long, dark hair and immediately thought, Nice. My type. I saw her from behind, which is one of my preferred views of a woman, and I watched her for as long as I could, always in that low-key predator mode, a looker but not a squeezer.
Karen turned around.
I had to explain to her why I was laughing so much. Surprise, that’s all it was, but also a measure of delight, since for once I knew I’d be squeezing me some fruit.
I often wonder how she feels about her body — a body which has betrayed her and robbed her of so much. She can’t possibly view it with as much joy as I do.
And now I had better shut up before she accuses me again of being manic.
Now, if only I could get her to pose nude for a few photos. I wonder if nagging would work. Imagine me whining, “But SxKitten poses for Dean!”
D.
A public service announcement
As a doctor, I often forget that what is common knowledge to me may not be common knowledge to my patients, nor to many of you. Information of vital importance doesn’t always get the attention it deserves.
Thus, I’d like to draw your attention to the following study on reducing the risk factors of prostate cancer (Journal of the American Medical Association, April 7, 2004):
Men who ejaculated most often actually had a 33% lower lifetime risk of prostate cancer, and this relationship grew stronger as men grew older.
For example, men who reported 21 or more ejaculations per month in their 40s had a 32% lower risk of prostate cancer later in life compared with those who reported between four and seven ejaculations per month. Men who reported more than 21 monthly ejaculations in the previous year had a 51% lower risk of prostate cancer.
Overall, an average of 21 or more ejaculations a month during a man’s lifetime decreased the risk of prostate cancer later in life by 33%. And each increase of three ejaculations per week during a man’s lifetime was associated with a 15% reduction in prostate cancer risk.
Hmm. Let’s do the math. In order to achieve a 100% reduction in risk, I need to average only 35 ejaculations per month for the rest of my life.
That’s a lot of sperm.
In order to get the word out, I’m thinking of selling some merchandise through Cafe Press. If you’re interested, let me know.
D.
PS: YES, I know it’s Breast Cancer Awareness month, which is a buttload of controversy all unto itself; but I’m not feeling emotionally or intellectually ready to say anything intelligent about breast cancer. I have my reasons.
Prostate cancer, though . . . something I could get . . . I can work with that, particularly if it means getting out the Sex Is Good For You message.
PPS: Do you think the caption (Ask me how YOU can reduce my risk of prostate cancer) is too subtle? I dunno, maybe this would be better:
REDUCE MY RISK OF CANCER.
FUCK ME.
Yeah, no one would get confused by that.
Alchemy
Karen and I met and courted while studying in the College of Chemistry at Berkeley. Surprisingly enough, at the wedding we didn’t have to endure any hokey comments about “chemistry.” Thank God. Bad enough getting facial cramps from smiling for hours on end; it would have been far worse if we’d had to laugh at dumb jokes, too.
Our courtship ended far too quickly. My feeling of optimistic satisfaction from being around Karen, our hours-long kissing sessions, our talks into the wee hours, the simple joy from knowing I had finally clicked with someone, like finding something I hadn’t even known was lost — Karen’s illness scoured all of it away, and we hunkered down together, converted over to a wartime mentality, us against disease.
After that, we loved each other, but I don’t know if we were in love. Reality had kicked our asses and (MS being what it is) continued to kick our asses with such regularity that we came to expect the boot. Optimism has no place in such a relationship. Stubbornness, commitment, resolve — all ways of saying the same thing — those were the things that nourished us, all of it thin gruel. Now, I’m not knocking commitment. It has kept us together through things which would have sundered a lot of marriages. Commitment is a good thing, but it’s not necessarily a joyful thing.
I’ve never been a soldier, but I imagine those folks have their share of pleasure mixed with terror. The mere act of surviving together creates a bond. Time on leave together, they must enjoy those precious moments of respite, but the pleasure would always be tempered by the knowledge they must return to battle eventually. Even in the thick of it, humor counts for a lot. The two of you laugh, make a joke out of it as much as you can. You make the best of the good moments and try your best not to get crushed by the bad moments.
All of this is my half-assed way of explaining the rut we had gotten ourselves into. Honestly, I don’t know that either one of us saw any other way of being. We’d been that way for so long — over twenty years. And that whole time, we were there for each other, giving each other strength, doing what was necessary to survive, yet not really finding much joy in one another.
I never would have predicted the odd combination of events that has caused a tectonic shift every bit as profound as Karen’s illness. My birthday, our subsequent heart-to-heart, a friend’s health scare — hopefully no more than a scare, but we’re still waiting — all of that doesn’t sound like much, but I guess you never know what sort of potion will transmute lead to gold.
Now we’re in love, and it’s like courtship all over again. Crazy, huh? I’ve been hesitant to say much, pessimist that I am. I’ve been looking over my shoulder, hoping to catch sight of the boot before it kicks me in the ass; I’ve been watching myself, too, thinking, Okay, Hoffman, what are you going to do to sabotage this? But it hasn’t happened and it isn’t going to happen. I guess that’s optimism.
The only question remaining is whether a happy man can still write humor.
D.
Conversation on WoW
Slow lazy day today. And hot, too, hotter than a typical Southern Oregon summer day. We all vegged at the computer today, Jake spending hours on Wikipedia, Karen and I taking turns playing World of Warcraft.
A guy who goes by the name Theprofessor came through Felwood and gave me a couple of Druidic buffs. I thanked him, he np’d me back and moved on, like Clint Eastwood drifting through the High Plains. An hour later he reappeared and buffed me again. My character, Shewitch, whispered to him, “Thanks.”
Theprofessor: np
Shewitch: Are you a professor in real life?
Theprofessor: lol no. Are you a Shewitch in real life?
Shewitch: No, but I married one.
Theprofessor: Hah!
Shewitch: But I used to be a prof.
Theprofessor: Really? What did u teach?
Shewitch: med school. I’m an ear, nose, throat surgeon.
Theprofessor: ur doing this to relax
Shewitch: Yup. I write stories and I play WoW.
Theprofessor: cool
Shewitch: but I’m too tired to write. Rather kill stuff. Sometimes as a doc it’s fun to kill stuff for a change.
Lest you feel like reporting me to my State Medical Board, I hasten to add I’ve been killing beasts, furbolgs, and naga. No humans.
Here’s a furbolg. Wouldn’t you want to kill it?
I felt it would be worthwhile to post this so that the less technical of you would realize, not all instant messaging consists of have u stroked it 2nite?
D.
It’s not me. Really.
| Disorder | Rating |
| Paranoid Personality Disorder: | Very High |
| Schizoid Personality Disorder: | High |
| Schizotypal Personality Disorder: | High |
| Antisocial Personality Disorder: | High |
| Borderline Personality Disorder: | Very High |
| Histrionic Personality Disorder: | Very High |
| Narcissistic Personality Disorder: | Very High |
| Avoidant Personality Disorder: | High |
| Dependent Personality Disorder: | Very High |
| Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: | High |
— Take the Personality Disorder Test — — Personality Disorder Info — |
|
But I’ll bet my sis knows who this is.
D.