Ann Leary, author of The Good House
Author of The Good House
I made Denis watch this movie with me tonight, again. Can’t explain why I love it so much. SO corny and dated, and yet…
Comme nos voix ba da ba da da da da da da
Chantent tout bas ba da ba da da da da da da
Nos cœurs y voient ba da ba da da da da da da
Sigh
I know I’ve mentioned that I receive a fair amount of spam on this blog. Usually I deliver it straight to the junk folder, but here’s a quote from a spiffy piece of spam I received this morning: “Best choice of the month about Fetish, Smelling fetish, Fetish pantiehose and Kilt fetish.” There’s a link to a website attached, of course.
I get the whole fetish concept. I can understand a smelling fetish, and the pantiehose [sic] fetish. But “kilt fetish?”. And why would the spammer assume that kilt lust should be thrown in the same pile as the desire to don a pair of tights? Or smell smelly things? And what did fetishists do before the internet?
Usually, before a trip to Europe, I like to reread one of my favorite books – Mark Twain’s classic, Innocents Abroad. Yes, I borrowed this title for my book, An Innocent, A Broad. If you’ve never read Twain’s book, I implore you to do so, (likewise mine).
Today Denis and I drove from NY to DC. I’ve never been to our nation’s capital before. I don’t think I’ve mentioned that. Denis has been to DC many times and has learned that driving is the best way. Four hours door to door. No security checks, no hassles. I made a playlist for the trip, we made a few coffee stops and rolled into the hotel at 2:00.
Rosemary, our amazing travel agent booked us a room in a beautiful and historical hotel with the very best view in DC. This is the view from our window. Yes, that’s Barry and Michelle’s house. We call them Barry and Michelle now. They don’t seem to mind.
When I was a teenager, I couldn’t wait to get my grubby little paws on D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover because I had heard it was banned when it was first published, and I expected it to be filled with very naughty sex scenes. I recall being bored by the book and not finding it naughty or sexy, though I was highly perplexed by this “crisis” that Lawrence kept describing. Lady Chatterley and her lover would cry out as they reached their “crisis” simultaneously or one after the other, or sometimes Lady Chatterley was spared the crisis altogether, and oddly, she was disappointed.
If you don’t like poems, or sex, read no further.
A Woman Waits for Me
by Walt Whitman
The other day I blogged about Salem, Massachusetts and showed a picture of the statue of Roger Conant which is erected in front of the Witch Museum on Salem Green. Because he’s there, in front of the Witch Museum, many think he was a witch himself, but Roger Conant was a very upstanding founder of the earliest settlement of fishermen in Salem, and had nothing to do with the witch trials. My friend Laurie informed me yesterday that an ex-boyfriend of hers pointed out that Roger Conant’s sculptor clearly had a great sense of humor, because when you stand directly in front of the statue it’s very clear that under those vast robes, Roger was, well he was …pleasuring himself. I’m not sure if you can quite get the whole effect in this photo:
VS.
Okay, the coyotes are starting to get on my nerves. The dogs have had me up all night with their barking and whining. Lulu has threatened to hurl herself through my bedroom window at the sound of the coyotes deliberately playing and fighting and mating right on our front lawn. The thing that bothers me about the dogs vs. coyotes thing is that the dogs are reduced to cartoonish levels of stupidity. The coyotes appear to be mocking them for their very amusement.
Well, we’ve come to the end of our Nantucket visit and, as promised in an earlier blog, I will type an excerpt here from Moby Dick. This excerpt is from the chapter “A Squeeze of the Hand” and while I said before that it is quite sexy, the truth is that I see sexual undertones in almost everything, so don’t worry, I think you can handle it. But this chapter is undeniably sensual – I think you could go as far as saying that it’s erotic – and it’s beautiful, so I present it forthwith:
I’m in a Nantucket rental house, and like any self-respecting Nantucket rental house, this one has, upon its bookshelves, a worn, unabridged, slightly soggy-about-the -edges copy of Moby Dick. I always read my favorite passages from Moby Dick whenever I’m in Nantucket.
Being emotionally about twelve years old, I immediately read the sexy, homo-erotic part first – you know the part where Ishmael and his mates are squeezing the whales’ blubber and each other? It’s very beautiful and naughty. If you have a copy of the book, the chapter is called, “A Squeeze of the Hand.” If you’re very good, maybe I’ll excerpt it here in the next couple of days.
