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…She’d Have a Beautiful Mind

No, not like the movie A Beautiful Mind… I mean a beautiful mind.  One that’s smart, witty, creative, fun, and sometimes twisted.

There are some TV shows that I watch that are so good, I want to watch them with someone, see her reactions, and then discuss her thoughts on what’s going on, what the characters are thinking, and where she thinks the story is going.  I get some of that with my BFF Kim on the shows Fringe and The Walking Dead, but we’ve only got an hour over lunch every other week or so and there are other things to talk about and catch up on (life, etc.), and the waiting between lunches kills me!

There are movies that are that good too, loaded with subtext, where the characters don’t necessarily just blurt out exactly what they’re thinking and feeling.  The kind of movies you want to talk about with someone who’s just seen it too.

Books are similar, but a little trickier– you’re rarely reading them at the same pace, and once you’re done with the story there really isn’t too much to talk about other than just sharing what you enjoyed about it.  The exception of course are books with sequels that haven’t come out yet… those are fun to talk about too!

The other day I was playing Settlers of Catan with my kids, and I thought about how cool it would be to have a girlfriend who would enjoy playing the game with us.  I don’t run across many women gamers nowadays, but when I was in college I met a whole bunch of them who enjoyed playing Spades, Hearts, Bridge and other card games between classes.  The women who were drawn to those games, who had the drive to play hard and just really loved the games, I found those women incredibly sexy.  I had the pleasure of dating a few of them.  I wrote a blog about Gamer women earlier

While I’d love a woman who’s in synch with me on many levels– sharing a love for certain activities, enjoying a similar sense of humor, etc. — I also want her mind to surprise me, teach me things, to see connections that I miss, challenge my biases, keep me on my toes.  I want to wake up each morning smiling and wondering what she’s going to do today that gives me that rush of new– something I’ve never thought of before, or looking at something in a whole new light.

…She’d Two-Step with Me

The other day my iPod shuffled up “Down At The Twist and Shout” by Mary Chapin Carpenter, and it kind of choked me up.  I’m not sure why– there aren’t any particular memories tied in with that song– but it just overwhelmed me with emotion.  Nostalgia, sadness, joy, hopes and dreams…

Saturday night and the moon is out
I wanna head on over to the Twist and Shout
Find a two-step partner and a Cajun beat
When it lifts me up I’m gonna find my feet
Out in the middle of a big dance floor
When I hear that fiddle wanna beg for more
Gonna dance to a band from a-Lou’sian’ tonight

I first became aware of Ellen Barkin in the movie Sea of Love (with Al Pacino), and was totally blown away by her incredible sexiness, so I began watching some of her earlier movies.  I ran across one set in New Orleans called The Big Easy, and for kicks decided to buy some Cajun food — which I’d never had before — to cook up and eat for dinner while watching the movie on the VCR.

As I ate the spicy food and was marveling at the fantastic flavors (even from the store-bought box version of the food), I started the movie– the opening is an aerial shot of the New Orleans bayou as the zydeco band Beausoleil plays “Zydeco Gris Gris.”  I was totally blown away by the unique sound of zydeco and its high energy.  Something about the food and the music just latched into my heart.  Over the next couple years I found local and nearby Cajun festivals to go to, where I could eat real, freshly prepared Cajun food and listen to wonderful zydeco along with all sorts of other great New Orleans music.

Well I never have wandered down to New Orleans
Never have drifted down a bayou stream
But I heard that music on the radio
And I swore some day I was gonna go
Down Highway 10 past Lafayette
To Baton Rouge and I won’t forget
To send you a card with my regrets
‘Cause I’m never gonna come back home

When my ex and I first got engaged, we talked about going to Louisiana for our honeymoon.  She’d caught the cajun fever from me, going with me to Terrence Simian concerts and the yearly Bayou Boogaloo down in Norfolk, Virginia.  I thought it would be fun to spend some nights in Lafayette, Baton Rouge, seeing cajun country and the bayou before wrapping things up with a few nights in New Orleans.  Unfortunately, this was way before the internet made this sort of planning easy, and talking with my travel agent it sounded like making all the arrangements would not only be very complicated and time-consuming, but very expensive.  The agent ended up talking us into buying an all-inclusive package deal to Cancun, Mexico which was very affordable and damn easy to do.  We had a great time in Cancun, took some trips into the countryside to visit Mayan ruins… but I do still have a tinge of regret not having explored Louisiana.

They got a alligator stew and a crawfish pie
A gulf storm blowin’ into town tonight
Livin on the delta’s quite a show
They got hurricane parties every time it blows
And here up north it’s a cold cold rain
And there ain’t no cure for my blues today
Except when the paper says: Beausoleil is coming into town
Baby let’s go down

If you’ve never been to a genuine cajun festival I’d heartily recommend it.  They have one in Norfolk Virgina, the Bayou Boogaloo and for a stretch there we used to go every year, and even brought the kids a few times.  The food was dynamite, featuring cajun cooks from Louisiana who’d set up a culinary wonderland right there in the grass, you’d literally just wander through trying to make up your mind.  There was one booth in particular that’s always there that I had to hit at least twice during the weekend, and get just a slice of heaven:  a huge Cajun crabcake over dirty rice with Shrimp Etouffee ladled generously over top of it.  Can’t beat it, cher!

Beausoleil holds a special place in my heart as the band that first hooked me into Zydeco music with that awesome “Zydeco Gris Gris” that was on the Big Easy soundtrack.  I never got to see them at a Cajun festival but I did get to see them once when they played a music festival in Shockoe Bottom years ago.  They do a great job backing Mary Chapin Carpenter on Down At the Twist and Shout.

Bring your mama, bring your papa, bring your sister too
They got lots of music and lots of room
When they play you a waltz from 1910
You gonna feel a little bit young again
Well you learned to dance with your rock’n'roll
You learned to swing with a do-si-do
But you learn to love at the fais-so-do
When you hear a little Jolie Blon

I love the strong pull of nostalgia in this part of song even though I wasn’t sure what a few of the things she mentioned were.   It turns out that a fais so do is a cajun dance party and Jolie Blon is the Cajun Waltz.  Sounds like a good time to me :)

Dance with me, cher!

Today I spend Fat Tuesday working two jobs with remnants of snow on the ground, but I hope one year I’ll be spending it down in warm Louisiana, enjoying Mardi Gras with my honey, eating authentic Cajun food, drinking margaritas and dancing the two-step at a fais-so-do.

Tobacco Kisses

Recently finished Stephen King’s latest novel, 11/22/63 and I have to say I enjoyed it more than I’ve enjoyed his books in a long, long time.  While I loved the interesting fantastic twist that the story hung on, it was the romance at the heart of the novel that really hooked me.  The love between the protagonist and the girl he met in his travels was deliciously romantic and yet felt so real and visceral, I almost felt like a voyeur.

Then we were together, first fumbling, then holding on tight.  It was kissing, but it was more than kissing.  It was eating when you’ve been hungry or drinking when you’ve been thirsty.  I could smell her perfume and her clean sweat under the perfume and I could taste tobacco, faint but still pungent, on her lips and tongue.

One thing that really resonated with me was the protagonist’s description of kissing his lover, and the taste of cigarettes on her breath.  It’s funny, our modern day sensibilities dictate that cigarette smoking is bad, that people who smoke have “ashtray breath” and kissing them is nasty– you see it in the anti-smoking advertising… and yet, even though I don’t smoke, in my experience when you kiss a smoker the taste of tobacco on her breath is sweet and erotic.

Of course, the bulk of King’s book is set in the early 60s when smoking is something that everyone does, and often quite a bit.  Reading it though made me realize both how long it had been since I’d really read a description of kissing and tasting tobacco… and how I kinda missed that taste myself.

I sat up and embraced her without even thinking about it.  She hugged me back, as hard as she could.  Then I kissed her, tasting her reality– the mingled flavors of tobacco and Avon.  The lipstick was fainter; in her nervousness, she had nibbled most of it away.  I smelled her shampoo, her deodorant, the sweat beneath it.  Most of I touched her: hip and breast and cheek.  She was there.

On a broader note, King’s description of those kisses reminded me of what I really love about kissing, the tasting of flavors in her mouth, whether it’s tobacco, or tequila, or chocolate, or steak… mmmmm…

I know a lot of people who’ve gone through a major breakup recently, or are just not digging being single and unattached, really hate Valentine’s Day.  There are even people who have significant others but find the holiday dumb or trite.

I am not one of those people.  I love Valentine’s Day and always have, but then I’m very much a hopeless romantic and a holiday dedicated to hopeless romanticism is right up my alley.  It’s one of my life’s greatest ironies that I’ve hardly ever been with a partner on Valentine’s Day who appreciated romantic gestures… but yet I still hold out hope.

For me, love is what living is all about.  When it comes to religious belief, I consider myself Agnostic, which I know some people consider a cowardly Atheist– someone too chicken to fully admit that there’s nothing after death.  Me, I’m pretty sure there’s gotta be something there, something spiritual that we don’t understand, something that gives us this spark of life and intelligence that’s more than just the end result of collisions of random molecules over a millennium.   I’ve always believed it, but having experienced the miracle of having children, of seeing them born and watching them grow, I’m convinced that it’s true.  However, I’m also pretty sure that none of the major religions have “got it right” either.  Thus, I’m truly Agnostic.

I have this magnet on my fridge

The closest thing that felt right to me was a theory I learned about in college, that our souls were all part of a force (God, what have you) that are put on this world to experience emotion while we live, and then to bring back those experiences– a recording if you will — back to that force when we die.  It sounds weird… but yet it sounds *right* somehow.  Emotions have such an impact on our bodies and our thoughts, while also being so nebulous, odd, irrational sometimes, they’re the “flavor” of life… and the very best flavor has got to be love.  So, it’s my belief that we’re here to experience the flavor of life, and if the best flavor is love, then love is the ultimate reason for being here.

Is it becoming clear why I’m such a mushy hopeless romantic?

Now, I love letting someone know that I’m crazy about them, each and every day, whether it’s little things said and done daily or for the big events dedicated to love and giving like Valentine’s Day or Christmas.  Even after time passes, and the rush and heat of the initial attraction and excitement is replaced by comfort, trust and stability, I think it’s important to keep that romance alive.  Let your partner know she crosses your mind often, that you savor past memories and scheme future encounters.  It ties into one of my early posts …She’d Be Compassionatebaby once in a while… think about me…

It makes me wonder… are Hopeless Romantics compatible?  Does it create an awesomely mushy romantic loop or does it eventually collapse into annoyance?  I’m not sure… I mean, My Ideal Woman might be a Hopeless Romantic, but since I’ve not really experienced that I might be hoping for something I’d be better off without ;)

Mass romantic fool, separated by sheets when the curtain calls you,
speaking on the themes of stolen virtue
missing from the radio, radio

On Valentine’s Day, for more of my musings on love, check out:

I love this quote... but it's context is pretty nice too ;)

Shelter from the Storm, by Kendra Baird

I was in another lifetime one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness a creature void of form
“Come in” she said
“I’ll give you shelter from the storm”.
–Bob Dylan

Most people I know consider me a pretty optimistic, cheerful person; a “glass half-full” kinda guy.  But there was a time I wasn’t like that.  I had a lot of anger, a lot of hurt, a lot of self-esteem issues.  When life handed me a steaming pile of shit, my main response was “well of course, that’s just my luck.”  The world was out to stomp me at every turn and people, in general, were selfish, unreliable, petty and mean.

Then at one point, in my early 20s, I had a revelation.  A revolution of sorts in my attitude.  I wasn’t a musician or poet or a darkly handsome hipster, so being sullen and angry was not at all attractive.  It wasn’t attractive to women, it wasn’t attractive to friends, and it wasn’t attractive to teachers, employers or potential business contacts.  What good was giving in to my dark emotions doing for me other than making me feel horrible, and repelling those around me?

Now, that’s not to say I was 100% sullen and angry back then.  There was a big part of me that was kind, sympathetic, and found pleasure in soothing and healing other people’s pain.  It’s just that for too long I let the dark side dominate my attitude and something needed to change.  I made a conscious effort to pack away the anger, the hurt and the self-esteem issues and let the other side rule my life.  It made a big difference in my enjoyment of life and made me someone who was a lot more fun to be around.  I’ve done a pretty good job keeping those positive thoughts and feelings in the forefront of my mind for 20 years now, even through the tough times of a disintegrating marriage and subsequent divorce.

But sometimes it gets really, really hard.

This Fall and Winter has been hard.  Yes, there have been good things that have come my way, blessings from special people in my life and a few lucky breaks, and I’ve tried hard to focus on them, to let those things light my path.  But there have also been a steady stream of bad breaks, bad news, and stress that have accumulated and left me in a general funk lately.  And it’s made me realize just how awesome it would be to have a special someone in your life that you can turn to in times like these, to give you that shelter from the storm, who can share in the burdens and soothe that pain.  Yes, family, children and friends can offer some level of comfort, but nothing beats having a lover that can wrap you in her arms, give you warmth and kisses, to be not only shelter and shield but your comrade-in-arms, our love the swords beating back and conquering the negative forces that surround us.

let's whoop some ass

In times like these, not having someone like that leaves a great gaping hole that threatens to let all those dark forces I’ve kept put away come pouring back out.  But I know that giving in to that will do nothing to help my situation and, indeed, likely just make it worse.  So no need to worry—my positive attitude remains the dominating force in my life, but right now it’s just really hard, and has left me with a serious case of the February Blahs.

One day she’ll come into my life, someone special who will be shelter, shield and sword for me, and I will offer her the same, and together we’ll handle anything that life throws our way and come away smiling.

February Blahs

After such a productive writing month in January, it seems I’m having trouble cooking up worthy topics to write about in February.  Anyone else feeling the February Blahs, or have any topic suggestions?

February Blahs

Finally meeting Alena

[I first wrote this post on Livejournal some years back about finally meeting a woman I'd gotten to know online.  I loved her writing, her sense of humor and her smarts, and one day we made plans to get together and hang out one evening (she lived in nearby Charlottesville).  Given that she turned out to be quite amazing both in person and online, I thought made it appropriate to repost on MyIdealWoman as an homage to a wonderful woman.  We hung out another weekend for the Virginia Film Festival and had a great time, but she now lives in San Francisco so I haven't seen her in a while, but keep up with her on Facebook.  

NOTE:  I mention "my wife" in the post, this was originally written before we split up.  -- Bennie]

On June 25th, my birthday, I knew I wanted to go see Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. Now, I typically go see movies by myself for several reasons: first, my wife  is the polar opposite of me in terms of being a fan of movies– she doesn’t hate them, per se, but she can take ‘em or leave ‘em. Movies come out that she finds interesting, but not enough to make any sort of effort to work in time to see them. It used to drive me crazy when we started dating, because when a movie came out that she’d expressed interest in seeing, I’d hold off seeing it myself trying to get her to go with me and typically weeks would pass with her rather doing other things than going to the movies, and I’d eventually give up and just go and see it myself. I can’t remember the last time the two of us went out to the movies together– it’s been years.

Second, the rare nights when I might be able to slip out to see a movie, I have no idea when I’m actually going to be able to hit a theater. Getting my son home, helping to get both kids fed, bathed, and ready for bed is typically a variable affair dependent on how ornery either or both kids want to be. I can step out the door anytime between 7:30 and 8:30 or even later, which means I really can’t commit to a time and place. This makes it tough to meet friends to see a movie. So basically I hit the car, check the time, look at the paper and try to find a show that fits for a solo movie run.

June 25th was going to be different. It fell on a Friday, when I’m typically going down to the game shop to hang out with friends and I don’t usually get home until very late. So swapping “hanging at the game shop” for “going to see a movie” was pretty easy. What was really cool was that when Alena found out I was wanting to see the movie, she suggested meeting me there. I was finally going to meet Alena!

Some of you may not know, but I’m pretty deep into a collectible card game called Magic: the Gathering. You’ve probably heard of the Pokemon trading card game, Magic was the first and is a much deeper game and is steeped in fantasy images and flavor. Anyway, I’ve been playing the game for 10 years now, and been a semi-serious player for much of that time, attending various Magic tournaments in and around Virginia. I even won the Virginia State Magic Championships in 1999! One thing that’s cool about Magic is that many Magic players are quite active online, and I’ve made lots of friends through various Magic forums, newsgroups and egroups. One such friend was The Ferrett, who enlightened me to something called Live Journal that sounded quite interesting. I gave it a try about the same time another friend of mine, Ted did. I’d gotten to know Ted quite well on the Virginia Magic circuit, with him living in nearby Charlottesville, we often attended the same events. Ted’s wife Alena jumped in on Livejournal around the same time, and since I was hungry for friends to add to my infant friendslist, I added her too.

In the time since then, Ted barely posts at all, while Alena is much more prolific. I’ve enjoyed all of her posts, which are well-written, thoughtful, and often quite funny.  I try to be good about commenting on her posts, and she’s commented on many of mine, so along the way I’ve gotten to “know” her in some ways. Enough to feel that she’d be a great person to hang out with sometime in the real world.

It’s always a tricky thing to finally get to meet someone face to face that you’ve gotten to know through other means, whether it’s letters, email, phone calls, chat rooms, what have you. It’s a pretty common thing actually in the work world, where you might talk with someone from the IS group a lot when you’re first trying to set up your computer, and not actually meet them face to face for months later. I remember at my previous company meeting a project manager for the first time after talking with her on the phone for several months; she worked from her home in Chicago but would fly out to Richmond periodically for meetings and such. She had a low sexy voice and flirty manner of speaking that evoked a mental picture of her that completely clashed with the short, stocky grandmotherly reality when I met her (she even said, laughing “I’m not what you expected, I bet!” when she first shook my hand).

Outside of work, though, it’s rare that I’ve gotten a chance to meet someone whom I’ve developed a relationship with remotely. Mostly it’s been Magic players. There were two women I met through a singles line way back in my bachelor days, both of whom I got along fabulously over the phone, but when we met for our date things fell flat.

So I wondered: what would Alena be like in person? So many people develop “online personas” where they are more of this or less of that, a created personality that only reflects the parts of the person they want you to see. Which is fine– to each their own, but it makes meeting them in the real world a bit jarring. One thing I’ve always tried to do in my journal is to be pretty honest and straightforward in what I present here. I use Live Journal to interact with a wider group of people than I otherwise would have the opportunity to talk with. I try and give you “the real Bennie” here, so if and when you actually talk with me in person, there shouldn’t be any major surprises. Maybe Alena can let me know whether that’s true or not! :)

At any rate, I kinda felt that Alena does much the same thing in her journal. I didn’t get the feeling she was faking or exaggerating anything, so I was pretty confident that I would enjoy the words coming straight from her mouth as much as I enjoy the ones that flow from her fingers.

The first trick would be to find each other on the opening night of one of the biggest pop events of the summer. Not necessarily an easy task when we’ve never set eyes on each other. I had seen a picture of her and Ted when they were in New Orleans, dressed up quite nicely! But it had been a while and she was in costume. She’d seen the picture that’s put up on my online Magic column that I post periodically, but that’s a tiny close-up of my face. Luckily, we both rather stand-out physically– she tells me she’s only 5′ even, with short black hair. I’ve been described as a big teddy bear– I’m certainly big, round and huggable– and I’ve got black hair and a moustache. I tell her I’ll wait by a street sign across the sidewalk from the movie box office.

As luck would have it, as I wait I make eye contact with two girls with short black hair and each of them very short even with really tall heels. Neither of them are Alena. One of them yells out to some friends right before I say anything, and the other looks at me like I’m a freak when I call out “Alena?” Finally, I see another small woman with short black hair hurrying along the sidewalk, catches my eye and smiles at me. “Bennie?” Ah, the real Alena is here! Hopefully she won’t mind me saying so, but she’s even shorter than I expected! Five foot even is quite small, and while some of the other girls I saw tried to make up their height with heels, Alena wore just regular shoes. She doesn’t come across as petite, tiny, or fragile. And while so many women of her stature evoke the description “cute girl,” Alena projected differently. This was a lovely woman, dressed attractively and comfortably, at ease standing in a semi-strange city meeting someone for the first time. Unfortunately, we were running a bit late for the movie, which has already started, so there wasn’t any time for small talk. We nabbed our tickets from the box office (thank you Fandango and Alena!) and rushed to find two seats in the packed theater.

One of the things we’d found out about each other over Live Journal was a mutual affection for bourbon, so we had hoped to be able to have a drink or two afterwards and talk about the movie and whatever else moved us. There was a bar next to the theater where I’d last drank a few bourbons after seeing Lost in Translation at this very theater, but they’d closed by the time the movie let out, so I had Alena follow me over to an O’Charley’s restaurant/bar that was on the way to the interstate and her eventual return home. Here we actually got to the getting-to-know you stuff. We drank our bourbons, hers over 7-up, mine over ginger ale, and talked about the movie, politics, life, love, friends and family. At midnight I lifted a toast to her birthday, which was on the 26th. We closed the place down at 2:30am in the midst of a pouring rainstorm and parted with a hug.

As I drove home, I reflected on how cool it was strike up a friendship virtually, and then have it confirmed in reality. Alena and I had peeked enough into each other’s world through our Live Journals that we could pretty much just leap into conversation like old pals. There weren’t any awkward pauses, or trotting out canned questions or topics to keep the conversation flowing. We’d already staked out a clearing of common ground to which we could always return and hang out. I wondered how our meeting might have been different without Live Journal; being friends with Ted and living relatively close, it was highly likely we’d have met eventually anyway. I’m fairly certain we’d have gotten along well even so, but I can’t help but think LJ made a difference.

The Joy of Shameless

Great effin' show!

I kept hearing the praises of the Showtime series Shameless– TV critics swoon, I’ve got friends that tell me how good it is… so I finally started watching it and man– they are right, what a great show!  I’ve been trying to put my finger on what it is about this show that I really enjoy so much.

Fiona and Steve

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the female lead Emmy Rossum is gorgeous, sexy and half-dressed or naked a lot of the time, or that a secondary character played by Laura Slade Wiggins is also gorgeous, sexy and half-dressed or naked nearly as much.  While I can appreciate that element as a red-blooded male, I find that those scenes don’t feel as gratuitous or exploitative as I was expecting.  The show has set things up in a way where those elements feel organic, a natural part of the story and characters.

Laura Wiggins as Karen

For both Fiona and Karen, the sex and nudity comes organically from their environment, their story arc and character background.  In fact, all the characters feel real, nuanced, and deep, all facing such potentially tricky topics as sex, drugs, drinking, homosexuality, crime and violence.   All of it feels real and natural, with nothing forced and even things that might shock presented as just the way life is for this family and this neighborhood.

Sister Fiona

William H. Macy as alcoholic patriarch Frank Gallagher is amazing, in large part for making such a loathesome, pathetic excuse for a human being into someone you find yourself caring for and rooting for despite yourself.  It’s a tricky thing, because his character is not at all a “loveable rogue” drunken buffoon– no, he’s terrible, a massive negative force in everyone’s life around him.  As the son of an alcoholic, I appreciate Frank’s alcoholism being portrayed as the devastating disease to both the alcoholic and those around him that it truly is.   In a lot of ways, Frank is the antagonist on the show, a hurricane that constantly pummels the shores of his children’s life.  Yet somehow Macy finds some small part of you that wants to like him while not softening his awfulness.  He evokes complicated emotions in the viewer, something not many television shows even try to do.

Effin' Frank

Hurricane Frank has made his children into warped but tough survivors, for whom family — the members you can count on — means everything.  The Gallagher kids (and their adopted extended family, the neighbors Veronica and Kev) have cooked up a family dynamic and routines that may seem crazy or alien to most of us, but to them it’s how they survive and thrive with the hand that Life dealt them.

Magic bus

As an example Carl, the second youngest kid, comes across as seriously troubled, exhibiting alarming behavior that most of us would feel needed therapy and possibly medication to treat.  Yet he and his behavior are accepted as cogs in the Gallagher Kids machine, and even celebrated when he goes violently postal on a guy who threatens one of his brothers.  Therapy and medication would mean outsiders coming in and breaking up the system they’ve created to survive on, so it’s not even considered.

The kids scheme and scam and steal and take advantage of others, but it’s all in the name of taking care of their own and weathering the disaster zone that is Frank Gallagher, so even though you are repelled by a lot of their behavior, you can’t help but like and root for the Gallagher kids.  I find it fascinating how the show’s writers and actors have taken characters and actions that most of us would feel repelled by and yet made them understandable, sympathetic, heroic even… with an overarching message of Family First.

Family first

I can’t believe Emmy Rossum hasn’t been nominated for an award for her honest and powerful performance as the elder Gallagher kid who’s the surrogate mother for a family constantly in crisis while also trying to also find a path for her own youthful desires.  And the actors who play all the other kids give us great moments that have made their characters real and distinctive.  After just a few episodes we know the whole family and their extended friends so very well and it’s a real testament to the entire Shameless team.

Fiona and V

Have you seen Shameless?  What did you think?

Sis

My sister Rachel was in town today and we spent the day together.  We had a funeral to go to, and then went to visit my very sick grandmother so the circumstances were somber and serious… but it’s always great to hang with my sister.  We’ve had so many good times over the years… just two years apart, growing up when we weren’t fighting we were playing, plotting and having fun.  We rarely get to hang out much any more, so despite the reason it was nice to talk and spend time with her today.  She’s an incredible woman in her own right :)

Kick Ass, Part II

We took some funny pics before she left, this one just cracked me up and I had to share…

Failing the sniff test?

The other day I was listening to the awesome Sex Nerd Sandra podcast and she was talking with guest Dr. Christopher Ryan, the co-author of an  interesting book on human sexuality called Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality [the paperback is called Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships].  Basically the theory is that we human animals have a million years of sexual and social behavior that’s been hard-coded into our bodies and brains, with just a thousand year thin layer of “modern” notions of sexual and social behavior trying — often unsuccessfully — to paper over our natures.  If you’ve never listened to her podcast this is a great one to sample (though she’s got a wide variety of topic and show-styles outside of this interview show).

Among the many topics he touched on was one that kinda blew me away… and really hit home.  Basically he said studies have shown that birth control pills tend to suppress the chemical responses in women that draw them to particular men as mates… and also supress similar chemical responses in women that repel them away from particular men as mates.  After listening to the show I Googled up an article he published in 2010 about the topic (How the Pill Could Ruin Your Life), and here are some of the key things he brought up:

“In 1995, Swiss biological researcher Claus Wedekind published the results of what is now known as the “Sweaty Tee Shirt Experiment.”  He asked women to sniff T-shirts men had been wearing for a few days, with no perfumes, soaps, or showers. Wedekind found, and subsequent research has confirmed, that most of the women were attracted to the scent of men whose major histocompatibility complex (MHC) differed from her own. This preference makes genetic sense in that the MHC indicates the range of immunity to various pathogens. Children born of parents with different immunities are likely to benefit from a broader, more robust immune response themselves.”

“The problem is that women taking birth control pills don’t seem to show the same responsiveness to these male scent cues. Women who were using birth control pills chose men’s T-shirts randomly or, even worse, showed a preference for men with similar immunity to their own.”

Consider the implications. Many couples meet when the woman is on the pill. They go out for a while, like each other a lot, and then decide to get together and have a family. She goes off the pill, gets pregnant, and has a baby. But her response to him changes. There’s something about him she finds irritating-something she hadn’t noticed before.

Now, I think it takes a lot more to make and break up marriages than pheromones and whether someone is on the pill or off, but I’m also a firm believer that biochemical reactions in our bodies and brains drive a lot more behavior than most of us realize.  What blew me away though was that this was weirdly the perfect answer to what had been a rather perplexing ending to my marriage.

My ex and I had a really long, on-and-off-again relationship before we got eventually got married.  I was always under the impression that there was plenty of love between the two of us, but once we had our two kids (nearly back-to-back) it was like a light switched off with her, and everything I said, did, didn’t say, or didn’t do annoyed the shit out of her.  Built up over time, it was pretty impossible to stay together.

In the aftermath, trying to make sense of things and learn Life Lessons from it, I cooked up several theories that I thought did a pretty good job of explaining What Went Wrong… but none of them easily “fit” as a good answer.  That’s okay– life’s complicated, people are complicated.  Sometimes you can’t explain everything.

But… our relationship prior to children, which spanned about 11 years of-and-on, while up and down certainly did not seem to lack passion and love.  I’m pretty sure she was on the pill that whole time.  Stopped taking the pill to have kids… and everything went to hell between us.

Both my heart and brain tells me that such a simple answer can’t be right, but then I think of Occam’s Razor, the pill + bio-chemical responses… and damn if it doesn’t seem to fit what happened much better than my other theories.

I know there are things we could have done — should have done — differently that might have made a difference, but I find it both fascinating and appealing to think that perhaps our bodies just weren’t bio-chemically compatible all along, and we just didn’t know it until we wanted to have kids together.

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