Italy is for Lovers

Apologies for my absence but I have been getting fodder from my travels.  Yes, I was in Italy exploring the world of sex and love, food and wine and vista's and scenery with my husband David.  ans our college age son, Matthew. All of those I listed are aphrodisiac's in one way or another.  You can't help feeling sexy after devouring plates o mushrooms, stretching mozzarella with your teeth, while sitting on a terrace overlooking a castello. The Italians know this; there are condom vending machines even next to the Vatican. Even in the small Village my family lives in, the condom machine is mounted on a wall in the piazza.  From our window, during the last week of our stay I kept count of all the local lovers, whose twist of the handle caused a ratchet sound which echoed off our walls.  I counted 52 in one night, and that is in a village of 350.  Then there is the wine.    

Italy is wasted on beer drinkers.  Wine is truly the best Viagra. After a bottle I felt sinfully sexy, nixed any idea of plastic surgery.  I began fluffing my hair, batting my mascaraed eyes and speaking with a slight Italian accent to my suave husband, in his fedora and banana hammock- by the private pool at our rental. Actually I bribed him to wear my black jockey microfiber hipsters.  Yes I did and as soon as I can bribe him for the photo evidence it will be posted.  Anyway, David agreed about the wine thing, said it was an airbrush.  I was insulted because he never noticed I shaved my legs and prepped (you know what I mean) for our adventure.  My kid noticed it.  "Look," he exclaimed. "Mom shaved!"

We went with our two best buddies, Cristiana and Laurie and their kids- they noticed our absences a couple times a day.  But Matt shared our room.  Of course it was really hard and we couldn't act on all our impulses with him in the next bed.  By the way, I did mean that pun and if you don't get it re-read the last sentence.  Nevertheless, the car, shower, rolling hills of Tuscany, my aunts bathroom and the swimming pool all provided opportunities. Wine loosens tongues and bras, lubricates the mind and opens up all sorts of fantasy.  We had a ball.  Best of all, the night I found him in the bathroom showering, and slipped in, telling him I was a hooker, from Rome, I blamed on the bottle of Chianti the following morning.

My theory is this: The test of a great relationship is the vacation.  If you can leave the stress of life behind, devour the pleasures of their company, enjoy, your relationship is sound.  We came home soo happy....  Oh, have I told you all the things Italians do with olive oil?

I missed you-  Dr. Dawn Marlena Hopper. ..or Donatella ...my new name.
Tell me about your love holidays- ---

Match.com: Plenty of Fish in the Sea

It seems all my friends are trawling these days on dating sites and I have a lot of chum to chew about.  I’ve vowed that if I ever have a single life, I will never go out to sea.  Take Bob, by far the best fisherman out there and my gf’s ex.  She left, he wasn’t ready, and with a broken heart, a heavy dose of sexual rejection,  he did exactly what men do to heal—they fish the sea of women.  He’s not into the catch and release program and he’s floundered the last month with at least a dozen fish,  some still on ice, in his walk-in-cooler.  I know he’s not exaggerating; my cousin, an experienced fisherman has told me many times the lure can be a phone call, a cheap dinner and a bottle of wine.  “Dawn,” he said, “there are so many women out there!”

So when Bob showed me his line and hook, and made his cast, I had no doubt they’d feast on his bait.   He listed his income in the 99% that most of us 1%er’s despise yet covet and then characterized himself as loving, generous and out for a long term relationship with a woman who could travel the world with him and visit exotic places.  They swarmed.

Bob responded, and with a heavy heart telling them he was still in love with his scornful wife and terribly lonely.  Men, he cast the perfect line.  This wounded guppy created the perfect feeding ground for bottom dwellers.  Woman #1 responds.  He tells me she is self-made, a professional gambler,  living with her aged parents, who she lovingly tends to and runs an internet business on EBay. I’m sitting right there when she sends him a picture of her at that moment in her panties. A Black lace piece of dental floss.  I look down at my crotch imagining what my husband might think if I sent him my shot, right at that moment—jockey microfiber granny panties.  I tuck away the idea of doing something fun for David and  went back to Bob’s plight.  Hi mind was wound in the Black lace but my logical prefrontal cortex was screaming.  So I translate: Compulsive gambler, lost so much money she has to live her parents basement and sell her garage sale finds to fill her gas tank.  I add that she might be selling her used underwear.” 

“But she doesn’t drink,” he retorts.

“Oh,”  I say, “she’s a recovering alcoholic too.” 

A week later he tells me I was right. His revelation came after he found himself eating alone in the casino dining room and after she swiped the tip off the table for “just one more game.”  The evening was topped off with wild sex after she beat him at strip poker and out of a couple hundred dollars.  “How did that happen?” I asked.

“Every time I lost a piece of clothing I had to pay her fifty dollars.”

By now he’s got a new one on the line.  “She’s really down to earth,” he tells me. He describes her life:  She doesn’t care about money— which was a revelation after her near-death experience, after the bus hit her, and after the state took her four kids when she woke from the three month coma, couldn’t recall her own name but had to start again by working in a soup kitchen and living in a studio.

“How old is she?” I ask.

He responded but all I processed was “still fertile.”

“Did you use a condom?” I asked. 

“Oh my God,” he said. “I never thought about that.”

Somehow my mind conjured up the predatory image.  Nothing more juicy than a fat wallet and a desperate man. 

“Bob, it’s like the food chain.  You think your landing plenty of fish but they have to feed too.”

As the weeks went by  Bob got tired of his expedition. “It’s like a full time job,” he told me. “Depressing as hell.”  

He turned the iPod towards me so I could read it. 

All the right words were there; Attractive, divorced, financially secure, wanted honest long term relationship, loved to travel to exotic places. . . .”

He scrolled up to the photo.  It was his ex.

In Case you Didn’t Know, We Baby Boomer’s Invented Sex, Drugs and Rock n’ Roll

In Case you Didn’t Know, We Baby Boomer’s Invented Sex, Drugs and Rock n’ Roll 

When I said that to my college class, they applauded.  I know I invented the first two.

I could roll a joint with my toes when I was 16.  I perfected the art of sex with my first husband in his mother’s basement. Although he got carded when he bought condoms, we managed to make a love nest in an old coal bin.  We bought a kerosene heater for the cold winters and of course, a cot.  Little did we know that the fumes went upstairs and his mother ended up calling the fire department who busted through the tiny window above our heads—finding us naked under a moth-eaten army blanket.  I was grounded for a year and sent to a shrink.

It didn’t stop me from growing pot, a need that grew from my grounding and the weirdo I was forced to meet with once a week.  So, in between my mother’s tomatoes the tall plants thrived.  After I ripped out all the males (you can tell them by their tiny balls at the crotch of a stem) I harvested the five pounds of heavenly weed, with Krissy, my best friend.  We hung the plants in my basement, in the closet that my mother’s wedding gown and honeymoon ensemble were in.  They never smelled the same again.  Krissy ended up getting busted at a concert when Stewie Savolinsky narc-ed her out.  I buried my stash in my grandmother’s yard and then I drove to the jail with her father and we bailed her out.  In the car she pointed to the tiny vest pocket where she revealed a rolled joint.  It’s amazing how clever we were.

Do any of you have those memories?   

We were the Woodstock generation, primed by the mantra “if it feels good do it.” We protested and rocked.  We made love and fought to end the war that took our young men to Vietnam,  battled to end segregation and spread the seeds of tolerance for gay rights.  I even stopped shaving my legs—for about three years, then I burned my bra in Philadelphia with a woman who wrote Sisterhood is Powerful.  I’ve often wondered where she is now.  However, I can hardly think of another generation that did as much.  Tell me if I’m wrong. 

Of course if you’re younger you might not believe your parents did these things.  Perhaps they weren’t as wild as I was but the air of the era was contagious.  If they had a Bob Marley album in their vinyl collection, or if they know who he is, they rocked.  But time rolled on and most of us left those lives behind when we faced babies, mortgages and car payments. I shaved my legs, bought a support bra when I saw what my grandmother (who never wore one) looked like in the nude.

  

I never told my own children what we did—at least not until they got through all their adolescent temptations.  I stopped the smoking—you can hardly get a PhD being stoned all the time.  My attitudes towards sex have changed too—we are having way too much with too many people and for all the wrong reasons.  Who ever thought you would be able to flip a switch on the computer and have streaming porn.  In our time my bothers thought the Sears catalogue was the deal.  After it arrived, the bra ads would be missing.  They swore they could see though the fabric. 

I live in Woodstock now, a community with one of the largest aging in place boomers.  My kids are grown and I find my life in a sort of pleasant retrograde.   I’m having fun.  I’m not the only one.  Our generation is not taking to retiring in a rocker.  We’re beginning our second act; new careers, new lifestyles and breaking the rules—again. 

eHarmon-erffic! Some Truths about eHarmony and Why it Works

My girlfriend joined a few weeks ago.  I sat by her side and watched the process.  Because I’ve been asked many times about what I think about dating sites, I thought I’d spare the humor and give you a professional opinion.  No, I’m not being paid to say this.  It works because it is based in some rather sound scientific principles.  For those who do not know, eHarmony begins with a series of questions examining your values, beliefs, emotional health and life skills.  It takes hours and in the end, after paying a fee, you are shown some pictures and given limited information about your matches. You have three stages to follow before you get a chance to contact that person.  You cannot lie, you cannot be married nor can you be separated.  They have a way to check you out but that is another blog.  It works for several reasons. 

First, they force you to spend the entire day filling out questionnaires.  If you were not in touch with your feelings, it’s like having five serious therapy sessions—in the end you know a hell-of-a lot about yourself and what you can with or cannot live without.  As a side note, there are scales of mental fitness- it might be worth the effort and money to weed out some wakadoodles.    

Second, this is a fantastic exercise for anyone, especially men, many of whom have little idea what they really want out side of the best looking woman they can attract.  Men tend to go for the looks first and while women weigh attractiveness they tend to balance it out.    

“I want to go out with this one,” my cousin said to me while he was on Plenty of Fish. 

I looked at her picture, in a bikini, at least 20 years his junior.  

“But she says she will not date smokers and you smoke.”

“I’ll quit,” He tells me. 

Third and related to the second, you are not bombarded by hundreds of people.  My poor cousin could not sift the chafe from the wheat; he was stuck on young skinny women, twenty years his junior, that were into rock concerts—he wears a hearing aid.  The more balanced matches faded into the page.  eHarmony whittles the selection process down as the process reminds you what dating is all about.  It’s the time we get to know someone else—and not just physically.  

Fourth, once you hone in on someone it mimics courting.  You’ve see the face, you’ve read the bio, you have some facts and now you get the chance to tell your philosophy of live,  There are three stages of guided communication before you can email them.  The questions are deep and require thought:  What are five things you cannot live without, or what have you learned from your past relationships, or who has influenced you the most in life and why. These questions reveal a lot about a person. When my girlfriend read that her match could not live without cleanliness, organization, good hygiene and nice teeth, she went on to the next person.  Imagine how long it might have taken her to find out he was such a neat freak?    

Fifth, it requires effort.  Anything worth having is worth waiting for.  It’s called effort justification and the more we work at something the more valuable we think it is.  This principle applies the moment you sit in front of the computer and face hours of questions with a meter telling you how far you are in the process.  There were a few times I got frustrated when my girlfriend was answering the mounds of questions.  “But I’m 60% done,” she exclaimed.  The same idea applies when you’ve spent weeks harmonizing with another person.  Now she’s  going on her first date with the man she’s written to for several weeks. I can almost imagine it; awkwardness is set aside. Already they have discussed literature, their careers,  their relationships and he’s already aware that she isn’t ready for the bedroom.

Sixth, the name says it all—harmony—as in in-sync.  As a student of one of the most brilliant minds in the relationship arena (Dr. Donn Byrne) similarity is one of the most potent foundations of liking.  Opposites don’t attract!  We like people who share our views, it tell us we might be right about things.  It also gives us a feeling of control.  I remember some thirty years back when I went on a blind date.  He hated to read, loved heavy metal, chain restaurants and felt no one should leave the county until they had visited every state of the union.  Then there was his life of camping . . . It was a wash out.

Seventh,  familiarity breeds liking.  We like people we are more familiar with the more you talk, the more feel comfortable.  Have you ever had a person grow on you?  It’s the feeling you get when you realize they suddenly look more attractive.

Eight, it’s the timing thing.  You have to ready to love and to commit and anyone who takes the time to do eHarmony is in that place. 

Ninth, no man who is out for a hump and jump, hook-up, pump and run, or whatever you call it these days is going to pay over two hundred dollars, spend the entire day on the questionnaire, then have to wait another few weeks for some woman to respond to questions that he himself hasn’t written but are supplied by some psycho-computer somewhere.  He’ll be on another site. Your pool is virtually full of likeminded people who want to be in with someone.  Finally the most important one of all.

Tenth, You can openly discuss your sexual comfort level via the questionnaire and more important, that fling is going to take a while.  You’ve got weeks of a program ahead of you.

Despite our sexual freedoms, nothing can ruin a relationship more than hooking-up.  It clouds who they are and sex too soon is the kiss of death in many relationships. If it’s great sex, you might not notice the fact that they drink too much.  If the sex is bad, you might have gotten to know them enough to work on making it good.  And for your information, casual sex is virtually always poor for women.  It takes time to work it out, and when you do, when there is more caring, your partner is more interested in making it work.  The second problem is that once in the sack you can never go back.  Once sex enters the picture everything changes.  At least when you are on the site, your chances of that hook-up are decreased and all the effort put into hunting that person down might translate into a little wait.   

if you’re looking for a meaningful relationship and willing to put in the time, this is the site.  If you’re looking for quick and easy access join another site. 

Go Bleached

We have Ashley Judd screaming about her face, Rosie yelling about her weight and a lot of other celebrities kvetching about their oppression for not being prefect and judged if they even look like they try.  There is just no winning;  you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.   The truth is many of us are sick and tired of thinking that we are too fat, too thin, too flat, too wrinkled, too saggy and just not ENOUGH.   While waiting in line for my groceries at the Piggly Wiggley I admit looking through the Star tabloid to see those undercover pics of cellulite thighs, obvious boob jobs, enlarged primate-looking lips and plastic surgeries gone wrong.   Oh my God, I could have crawled into their dimpled fat pockets on the backs of their legs and shrieked in joy.  Yes I said that and so did many of you.  Why?  because they asked for it,  they created a standard few of us can achieve, at least after our 30's.   I don't have a plastic surgeon on my calling list, do you?   The closest I come to a personal trainer is lugging six heavy grocery bags in from the car in one trip and my husband and kids yelling to me, "is dinner ready yet?"

Women are angry.  Every f----ing day we have to be compared to  watermelon sized asses and cantaloupe titties- all on a size 2.   I thought that was bad, but now we are totally, and I mean totally reduced to crap.  Because all of us, celebrities included, has to worry about upgrading their vage, as in vagina.  Yes, that sacred vessel, crimped between our thighs, few of us have ever bothered to explore, except perhaps with a mirror and a shaver, before a date, needs to be mangled some more- it needs to be bleached!  

Time Magazine and the Breast Advice for Mothers

     In case you have not gone to a news stand this week, Time ran a cover of a three year old breastfeeding and people are FREAKING.  In a nation saturated with porn, where clitoral vibrators and penis pumps are sold across the airways like TV dinners and where the flip of a channel tells the story about a man with a twenty-something inch penis (who cares), adults who dress up as animals while they screw, Sister Wives who take turns with little Napoleon or a three year old in a thong gyrating her ass in a pageant- we have to get up set because a woman might be doing something with her mammary gland- that it was meant to do.  It's hit a raw nerve in me for several reasons.  You are not wrong if cannot breastfeed that baby!  It does not devalue who you are, nor does your choice to breastfeed deserve criticism- as women, we need to support one another.

I Vote for Love

     “At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” President Obama told ABC News. If I ever told my community college class that I thought gay marriage should be legalized I could have been fired. Opinions are not allowed at the institution and to invoke any critical thinking would be an atrocity. But today our President said it for me. The backlash is yet to come and I am sure gay-a-phobes (mostly religious fanatics) are mounting their sexual offences. I can't wait.
     If there is one thing I 've learned from homophobes it's this: the more anger, the more fear, the more offensive they are the more apt they have homosexual tendencies.  That's the way it is in the world of psychological defense mechanisms.  One of the most famous was Republican Larry Craig a conservative politician who had a record of "family value" endorsement and anti-gay legislation.  He was caught in a restroom sting soliciting sex from a male undercover decoy.  Of course he wasn't gay, he was just picking tissue off the floor and happened to fondle the shoe of the guy in the next stall.  Doesn't every well trained upstanding man clean the public restroom?  We can't forget the Jimmy Swaggerts of our past, the righteous fanatics who keep mistresses, visit their local prostitutes and in his case, get caught jerking off with his local hooker, or taking nude pictures- we still don't know what happened.  He claimed he never actually had intercourse if that means anything to his wife- after all what's really wrong with a pearl necklace. Of course it's between him and God. But to me it's crazy. 
     In a world filled with crazy hatreds, fetid sex scandals, I wonder why we can't  just vote for love- simple love and caring between two people?