The Beautiful Kind

Dear god I have a new favorite restaurant. I’ve been to Meskerem Ethiopian restaurant on South Grand three times now, and each experience is more orgasmic than the last. I have to keep from screaming when I eat the food. Instead I just squirm in my seat and keep thinking about how you could kill me right after I finished eating and I would die a happy and content woman. It makes me positively delirious.

Get the veggie combo platter. They have this whipped chickpea and jalapeno dish that you’d swear contains cream or eggs, but it doesn’t. Vegan delight, baby.

I went to my friend’s baby shower last weekend. She’s due next month. I’ve come to realize that any event that requires a gift registry makes me uncomfortable. Thank god they had cocktails and chocolate truffles, as that eased my nerves a bit.

The party game was to guess the next line in songs with the word “baby” in them, and since I’m a musical dunce, I decided to make up my own lines.

So instead of:
“Baby face…”
Correct Answer: “You’ve got the cutest little baby face!”
Boring!

I went with
“Yes sir, that’s my baby,”
My Answer: “The DNA test proves it.”

“Come on, baby, rescue me…”
My Answer: “This sea water is 32 degrees and I’m suffering from hypothermia.”

“Baby, baby, I’m taken with the notion,”
My Answer: “Let’s go ahead and use the lotion.”

At one point I went out on the porch with a friend of the pregnant woman (pregnant women = goddesses btw) to keep her company as she had a cigarette. The friend, Lacey, asked what I did, and I told her I was a sex writer. That perked her up and she asked a few questions and by the time I finished answering them she was fanning herself and saying, “I need to go home and have sex with my boyfriend!” Now how awesome is that that I can make women horny at something as sweet and innocent as a baby shower?

Granted, it was the dirty deed that caused the baby shower, but from glancing around the party, you’d never know any of these women had ever had contact with sweaty, grunting cock-wielding men. It was all so pastel, green and purple, soft, feminine. They even had an adorable guest baby on hand to give everyone an extra surge of progesterone. (Shh, when no one was looking, I surreptitiously pulled my birth control pills out of my purse and kissed them.)

Later my pregnant friend emailed me:
“Thank you for coming! Lacey now understands why I want to make out with you all of the time!”

Just look at Louis‘ blank stare - he can’t see a thing. But he knows how to read Braille, which is very cool, even cooler than knowing sign language.

And don’t his shorts go well with my friend’s truck? (My friend claims the truck CAME with that “splash!” detailing, but I have a sneaking suspicion he had that custom added.)

The sock monkey gang greeted him cheerfully, and little Ellen has taken it upon herself to guide him around the place. She’s his little seeing eye monkey. And she even gave him a handsome boutonniere!

We interrupt this blog to bring you….

HOT CHICKS WITH DOUCHEBAGS!

YESSSSS!

I wonder if he just harvests pictures from myspace. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this guy on there.

On Tuesday I went to Raj’s Rasoi, a great little vegetarian Indian hole in the wall restaurant in Maryland Heights. Their buffet is awesome, and I always get a “Thums Up” cola (Indian version of Coke) to go with it. And they have these odd little yellow candied round dessert things that ooze sugar and taste like popcorn balls.

Then I saw The Namesake, which was gorgeous. I mean boo hoo goddam Taj Mahal gorgeous. It did a pretty good job of capturing the book.

Then I stenciled henna designs on my friend’s breasts, which are 10 times better (and bigger) than mine. Good canvas to work on, let me tell you.

It’s hard to find henna in this town! We had to go to three places. Henna is a natural, non-permanent plant dye that goes on like a paste and lasts a couple weeks.

And boy did her breasts look beautiful decorated - something like this, only you’d have to turn her around…

The NYTimes ran this amusing article titled “It’s Not You, It’s Your Apartment” about how a person’s decor can be a dating dealbreaker. For instance, this one guy featured has a stuffed baby seal in his apartment. This other guy has forty year old jungle sheets on his bed.

Now if you take a look at these guys, maybe it is them. They’re odd looking eccentric fellows, and most women can’t handle that. I have to admit that the guy with the sheets has an impish Spock thing going, and the sheets ARE awesome - you should go to the article and view the bigger pic.

The tips the article suggested to make yourself date ready are:

- No stuffed animals (at first I thought they meant taxidermy, but they meant stuffed toys - sock monkey, anyone? I’m DOOMED!)

- Don’t live with your mother. The article points out that James Bond wouldn’t do such a thing, so maybe you should have a WWJBD? (What Would James Bond Do?) checkpoint in place.

- Don’t live with your ex.

- Don’t have bad lighting.

- Don’t have high-tech marijuana equipment.

- Don’t have a perpetually partially restored home.

- Don’t have trite art prints like Klimt’s “The Kiss.”

We all have our personal dealbreakers. Like I can’t stand slobs who have clothes piled all over the floor. Or all black furniture paired with a big screen television - I’ve seen that many times. It’s so bachelor pad, but alas, not bachelor pad royale.

Do you dare me to go in and ask if they have any Jesus porn?

My new niece was born today! A month early. I guess just like with Amazon, you can request rush delivery.

My brother is fair like me, and his wife is dark complected (Cuban Spanish) and the baby was born as blonde as Hulk Hogan. On the phone my bro told me in a mock hushed tone, “We’re not sure who the mother is.”

And the call ended with me telling him, “Congratulations, motherfucker!”

One last stop in Alton before hitting the fabulous Beall Mansion Bed & Breakfast - The Hayner Children’s Library. Just look at the place - they took a church and converted it into something USEFUL - stocking it with a huge array of books and media. It’s beautiful, with cathedral wood-beamed ceilings and a green glaze tile fireplace, and smells so good - like a university library. I was totally turned on.

And best of all, there were no kids there, so the place was quiet, serene, and I could sit and flip through the books in peace, as well as stare at the gangly teenage boys in button down shirts as they unsmilingly shelved carts of books. I wonder what they do for fun in this small town when they’re not working in a children’s library, what music they listen to in order to get the quiet out of their heads…

It was a hot, bright spring afternoon in Alton, IL, and we decided to have a cheap, cold beer. So we looked for the seediest hole in the wall we could find. We entered the dark cave of a biker bar called The Pub Room, right on Broadway. It reeked of strip club.

At the bar we ordered Stags, and were amazed at the bartender’s costume. She was a plain, pale chubby woman, and she wore a barely there, flammable Christmas green negligee. Her breasts spilled sloppily out of it, and the matching g-string also failed to stand up to the challenge of being considered “clothing” (to dress or cover). The spaghetti straps kept falling off her rounded shoulders, so between serving drinks she spent a lot of time nudging them back up and smoking cigarettes, which made me very nervous. I didn’t want to see her go up in flames, and I didn’t want to have to use my beer to put the fire out.

The bar offered snacks like Slim Jims and pork rinds, as well as a pizza menu that looked something like this:

PIZZA
Sausage - $6
Pepporini - $6
Supreme - $6
Deluxe - $6
Meat Luvas - $6

I finally couldn’t help myself and asked what the difference between “Supreme” and “Deluxe” was. She lumbered over to the freezer and yanked one out and stood there in her lingerie, squinting, examining the ingredients. Finally after a couple moments of turning the pizza this way and that, she looked up and announced, “Green peppers.”

And then she flashed a departing patron and stuck her tongue out, which in Biker language means, “See you later - Do come back!”

In Alton, Illinois, there’s a used bookstore called Second Reading Book Shop. The place’s most remarkable features are the proprieter, John Dunphy, and his two bookstore cats. The place smells like it has bookstore cats, and John is a total trip.

As soon as I walked in, he promoted his slim volumes of poetry. In general, poetry scares me, especially the poetry of someone alive and standing in front of me, so I politely acknowledged the fact that he is indeed published and made my way into the stacks. Um, some of the books were more like Fourth Reading After Being Dropped in the Toilet, but hey, it added character. And mold.

John turned his attention to Brisket, the cat pictured. He announced it was time for her brushing. He rolled around on the floor with her for several minutes, cooing and baby talking, “Oh yes Miss Brisk, does that hit the spot? Daddy’s doing the best he can, Miss Brisk! You are a very demanding kitty! Yes, I will try harder. No, I won’t brush you all day Miss Brisk, Daddy has work to do! There, your coat is all shiny now!”

He called over to me from the floor to make sure and buy something, since it would benefit the cat children. I couldn’t bring myself to buy his book of poetry, and I passed on a 1940’s copy of The Trials and Tribulations of Mr. Bowser since it was falling apart, but got a book on magic ghost tricks for kids instead. And then I vanished, poof!

I love my dad the way some people love Jesus. He’s so fucking good, so honest, loves people and animals, and best of all, loves me for who I am.

Have you noticed that just as people think their own kids are so cute, they think their parents were so handsome or beautiful when they were younger? I’m the same way - I look at this pic of my parents taken in 1966, and see my dad as an Elvis rockabilly type. My mom looks like a blonde Shelly Duvall.

I call him “Daddy-O.” He proves his love for me by offering me a cocktail within 10 seconds of walking in the front door of his house without fail, even if it’s 10am. He makes the best margaritas.

When I was a little girl, he was the one who took care of me whenever I was sick. He’d put a spell on me every night to ensure good dreams.

He has over 100 antique radios littering his house, stacked in clumps throughout. He has a thing for convertibles, new age music, electronic gadgets and Mexican food.

He’s one of the Helpers of the world. He says something nice to every person he meets, and can get along with anyone.

One time he found an envelope stuffed with cash in a hotel bathroom, and he turned it right in to the front desk without a second thought. That made a huge impression on me.

When a guest leaves his house, he always gets up and walks them to the front door. To me, that gesture is as sweet and old-fashioned as a man offering you his cloth hankerchief.

And speaking of hankies, when I’m feeling bad, all I have to do is give him a call and just hearing his voice can prompt me to cry and get it out of my system.

Whenever a 20-yr-old dude drops me a line on myspace with this grunting query:

“u into younger guys?”

I always want to write back:

“Yes, good looking ones.”

I’ve always considered Dan Savage to be “on my side,” in that he’s a sex columnist who speaks frankly about kink and anything that will upset conservatives, but let’s face it: he’s not perverted enough for the job. He USED to hire high-end escorts and hang out with them in hotel rooms asking them questions and feeling their muscles, but those days of field research are gone. He’s just a wannabe married monogamous gay guy who goes annoyingly off topic and is losing his sharp edge.

I, on the other hand, am a female midwestern sex goddess who practices what she preaches. I’m non-monagamous, bi-tri?-sexual, do the orgies, eat the pussy, suck the dick, take the fist, and don’t think people are freaks if they’re married to a woman and still want to give the occasional blow job, or want me to pee on them (sigh, I do draw the line at scat and grown men wearing diapers though.)

His latest misinformed rant on women’s low libidos prompted me to speak up. Yeah it pisses me off! Good lord he can be heterophobic and hateful towards women! Or at least, seriously not know what he’s talking about. Anytime someone asks him a question pertaining to women (eek!) he has to consult a book. Or just a book review! Lame. Or maybe what started out as a mockumentary column still is?

And I still haven’t quite forgiven him for the stupid comment he made years ago about how female genitals look like a canned ham dropped forty feet. Eat my SPAM, Dan.

Move over Savage, and let a woman who knows what she’s talking about (and if she doesn’t, she’ll go try it firsthand) steer the sex cruise ship. And as for his quip about Sex and the City’s portrayel of women’s voracious appetites being a hoax - I am Samantha Jones and Carrie Bradshaw combined, buster.

One sultry summer night I was with a sexy, wolfish man. We came back from the bar to the bed & breakfast I managed, and we had the place to ourselves. We were standing on the front porch taking in the dark, sprawling landscape dotted with winking fireflies when it began thundering and lightening.

The fireflies vanished, and as if possessed, I wordlessly sank to my knees and unbuttoned his jeans. I took off my top in order to feel the stormy breeze on my skin. I looked up at him and began sucking, devouring. Rain fell all around us but we were sheltered by the porch. A chorus of frogs swelled and he took me by my hair and pulled me into him, pushing deep into my throat. We both groaned. He manhandled me, face fucked me, and the fierce intensity of the whole illicit act shot straight to my pussy. For a moment there, I didn’t need to breathe. And then he pulled out, I gasped, and he came all over my pale, quivering chest.

The other day I was driving with my mom and a school bus driver cut her off. Her reaction:

“Why you pig! I’m going to turn you in for fondling a little boy.”

OK so if you think my sock monkey collection is odd, get this: I have a friend who collects vintage refrigerators.

Well look at these beauties - can you blame him?

When someone asked him why the hell he would do such a thing, he replied in a small voice, “I just want to make sure they get a good home.”

Also in Springfield, IL (conveniently located a stone’s throw from Lincoln’s Tomb) is the Museum of Funeral Customs, whose motto is “Death is only the beginning.” I should have asked them what that meant - the beginning of an exhibit?

I was delighted to see that I already owned about half the books they had available for sale.

Did you know that Lincoln was so upset over the death of his young son Willie that he had his coffin exhumed twice so he could look at him again? Or that after death, nails and hair do not continue to grow, but the skin shrinks, giving the illusion of growth? Or that bodies decompose four times faster in water than on land?

Ooh I’d love to volunteer here.

I visited the Abraham Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois a couple weeks ago. I went with a friend of mine - he’s pictured below with the Lincoln clan. (To protect his privacy, I covered his face, and then thought it would be fun to cover everyone else’s face, too. Doesn’t he blend right in?!) Impressive exhibits included “The Civil War in Four Minutes.” One week per second. Watch that casualty number go up, up, up. Whoah.

Here’s the takeaway message from the museum: Lincoln’s life sucked. Much worse than yours, I might add. They did a great job of portraying his failed relationships, business ventures, all his enemies, the death of his children, the grimness of the Civil War, and his tragic end. Geez, no wonder he got treated like a martyr after his death.

And check this out. They pointed out that if you take the solemn pic of him below (a larger version can be viewed here) and cover up the left side of his face, you can then tell that he smiles on one side.

Whenever I’m at a friend’s house and go in their bathroom and see reading material next to the toilet, I get acutely embarrassed, because immediately I imagine them sitting there taking a shit, and I’d rather not think about such things. Which is why I don’t keep reading material in the bathroom, cuz I don’t want other people imagining ME taking a shit.

But I’m brave and like to try new things, so I’m keeping this book in my bathroom to get over my corpapubliphobia (fear of others knowing you take a shit. I know, I know, Everyone Poops.)

(Sidenote: Yes, that’s a phone jack by the toilet. I wanted soo badly for a phone to be installed there, so I could be like Elvis, but instead it got put by the Liberace tub. Inexplicably, there’s is also a phone in the garage.)

This book features essays on blood, seniorsex, bestiality, sadism, and much, much more. Right now I’m reading about group masturbation. There’s this group in San Francisco who espouses

The San Francisco Jacks offer not only a solace of safety from disease, but better still, an effective new way to meet socially, intimately, physically and spiritually men who are defined by behavior as lusty, visually forward, and generous with their smiles, cocks, hugs, and conversations.

One man’s testimonial:

I remember walking into this amazing environment with a hundred men bathed in this red glowing light, all just jacking off, and I thought, “Wow! This is heaven! This is hell! I don’t care! I’m here! I love it!