Does Trust Send Lust to the Dust?

In the beginning, a woman, a very wise woman, slept in a chair and in her hands were a pair of perfectly matched steel balls. Whenever she drifted off into the land of dreams, a clank from the now would wake her and she would remember the wisdom she had found. One day she realized that the wisdom didn’t work because no one else had steel balls to wake them up! What does it really take to learn from our mistakes? Is the top-of-the-line truth meter, our intuition, working overtime? Our gut worn out from over use and no longer a competent operating system? If so, what do we have left to work with? What can tell us truth from fiction?

There are times when our reality is a dream and yet we are surprised when there is an ending that even ice cream can’t help. Who doesn’t want a lover with integrity? Like so many things that we can’t actually see, trust, or rather the lack of it, is felt in the pit of the stomach. Bring on all the high fat dairy products. When the trust meter has been fed so much BS, real and imagined, for a lifetime, it tends to malfunction. What if every possible concern was one of those little red balls that fisherman use to let them know something is up. We could watch the red balls and know exactly what was going on. Up is a good thing - take balloons, the stock market and chocolate soufflés.

When flirting with a new relationship we pretend we bring a clean slate and no judgment. Under our fancy feathers, worn to impress is the precious truth detector. Should we give each new person in our life a clean slate? Wake up and smell the rum raisin!

Hopefully experience leaves us not jaded, but wiser. Mr. Miyagi, Karate Kid wise. Hopefully savvy, with a bit more in the perception department to help us in the land of half truths and disclosures on a need-to-know basis. Lies are like the colors of martial arts belts. Do you go up the color ladder as your lying improves? No! Different colors for different infractions. Unless of course it comes down to black or white. Desperate for clarity, you might find a little grey in the mist around your Ouija Board as a last resort.

We could spend time watching the little red balls dancing on the surface. No more wondering, just watching for answers. What a waste of life! If you spend enough time, you might hook something big. It could bite you. Once bitten, twice shy. Of course, you might reel in a mermaid and mermaids never lie.

Have a naughty day!

Tour of Duty or Call of Booty?

We tell ourselves it is a right. For women to have sex like a man and for men to have sex, well, like a man. So is a booty call really just a call of duty to what is hip, cool and apparently a sexual birthright? Hmmmmm, call of duty or booty? “Booty call” came into the popular vernacular c. 1990 and means an on-call sexual relationship, not necessarily between partners who have read the description for said booty call. In other words, an excuse for making like, not love. To dilute something as amazing as a physical connection with another person into the realms of fast food is like going to Italy, and the highlight of your trip is the Pope soap-on-a-rope you bought at the Vatican. You are in the Army boys and girls, if you subscribe to this being anything more than what it is; synthetic vs. silk, canned vs. fresh squeezed. And, speaking of squeezed, if your true feelings slip out at a more than appropriate moment in a real relationship, the potential for wonderful is there. In the BCR (Booty Call Relationship) world, you are more likely to hear the sound of the first nails going into the coffin. Not a bad thing really, since the shelf life of a BCR usually runs 6 weeks to 6 months. Anything else and you should be billing!

It seems that we crave the real deal, but when it comes to companionship we will settle for second, third and fiftieth best. Sandcastles on the beach are a pleasure for the moment. Prime real estate in the imagination, but with the first beckoning of the sea, la la land goes back to the primal building material it really is. If you are not able to see a BCR for what it is, (and I truly wonder if anyone can), maybe it is time to get off the beach.

Because a past BCR can show on the weather front, just about anywhere, and at any time, make sure it is over before you are in the sweaty bliss of a new and exciting relationship (hopefully a real one). Without due and proper warning, you may find yourself without time to batten down the hatches and you won’t be able to ask the weather person for a minute by minute update on Hurricane Patty. If you are going to indulge, for goddess sake set up some rules up for yourself. In fact, read the Monopoly ones! You have to go around the whole thing once before you get anything, free parking will let you down, and you will always land on Park Place when you are broke. Does anyone ever actually finish Monopoly? Nope, we just get bored and move on to the next game.

Have a naughty day!

Hunting: It's Just a Natural Instinct

If you had a bulldog with a black leather collar and lots of spikes, carefully guarding your weary and recently stepped on heart, would the sneaky little invaders of spite still escape? Whether that heart was pinned down by 5 inch shiny black stilettos or construction boots, why is it when it is over there is so much overkill? Couldn’t we just shake hands and wish each other well, instead of trying to drown each other in one? I think it comes down, as does most of modern life, to packaging. Everyone looks better rolled in chocolate and covered with slivered almonds, but eventually that candy coating is going to have to come off and hopefully you are left with something of substance in the middle of all that come-hither, yummy stuff.

If expectations are premeditated resentments, aren’t we just setting ourselves up from the beginning? It has been said that the very things that draw you to someone are the things that bring you down. And speaking of bringing down, Miss Kitty, in her Prada lab coat, has discovered our brains are wired to hunt, like it or not. We pretend, as we put heavily cellophane wrapped meat in our shopping baskets, that our spear wielding days are far behind us. Well, pull my hair and knock me down with a club, it’s hard wired right next to the lizard bit that tells us who is safe and who is not. Of course that bit no longer serves us well and it isn’t surprising. How smart can lizards really be if they end up as bags and shoes?

So, darling pre-programmed boys and girls, no apologies are necessary here and it isn’t really dangerous anyway. Ladies, you aren’t going to be dried and hung, like beef jerky next to the cases of beer for football season, well, not unless it is a slow season. The interesting part comes when the party is over, be it 4 months or 4 years. That is when the hunter regrets the chase and just might bite. When the investment no longer pays off in high yielding gains and the prey escapes the carefully constructed web of constraints, all that is left is a tepid pool of old almonds and rancid chocolate.

Wash off the sticky remnants of resentment and enjoy the way the rough nuts polish away the last roll of the blame game. Then get over it! To seek fulfillment of ourselves through the possession of other people will always end in an empty shopping cart. To find fulfillment that is as good inside as it is outside, means covering yourself in chocolate and slivered almonds and feeling really good under all that candy.

Have a naughty day!

Everlasting Love - Does it Really Exist?

Its rose tinted glow is everywhere. The haunting and elusive idea of a love that lasts forever. Why are we willing to give so much to find something that may or may not be real? We say “I do” so easily. I do what exactly? Would someone please clarify just what I am getting into here? May I see the whole list, including what was erased? While you are at it, I also need 3 years’ tax returns and a psychiatric evaluation, since your friends aren’t talking. What if we agree that there are no guarantees and only promise what we really can? Otherwise isn’t it a bit like shopping in a store without price tags? Like making a bed with 50 thread count sheets and expecting to be comfortable?

Let’s start out at the top of the spiral staircase of good intentions. You try on various accessories from the fabulous “L” collection - like, lust, and love. You get beyond the “sign” phase. You know, when EVERYTHING appears to be a message from the Hallmark Gods that you should be together. The fact that you both really like chocolate milk at 2 a.m. is cute, but it isn’t a sign that you should sell your furniture. Besides, in a few years when one or both of you is lactose intolerant, the party is going to be over. Chocolate milk amour aside, you took a right turn after meeting “the family” and arrived at the altar of “Oh my God, what have I done!” The next thing you know, you’re sleeping with a business partner. Instead of après sex pillow talk it’s hashing over the utility bills and who leaves the lights on. Personally, I have never found the sound of an Edison envelope being torn open all that sexy.

No one is born knowing how to cook or be in a relationship. To be a good cook, you are either lucky enough to learn from a master at a young age or you study, take classes and experiment. Want a great relationship that lasts? Study, take classes and experiment! If you believe in true love that lasts a lifetime, you are going to have to commit to some serious fun.

Endless hours and hard work are the norm to be successful in the grown up pay-and-play world. What if we took the time it takes to order a chai latte soy no whip low fat drink and said or did something as sweet and creamy to our beloved in the early morning light? Maybe the day would actually start out hot and steamy, maybe it would even stay that way long after the fancy drink was gone.

Science can’t guarantee that there will be a tomorrow, but we have faith that it will come. Everlasting love is punching the same ticket and it’s a beautiful ride. No baggage allowed, a passport to anywhere and common sense to get you home alone, just in case.

Have a naughty day!