Shakespeare in Leather

So last night, I was talking to Grayce about my return to blogginess, which she really enjoyed, even if I did totally print a private conversation we had without her permission. She told me she shared yesterday’s post on her Facebook page and was completely gobsmacked (Like that one? I’m all intercontinental today.) when her friend, Mica, “liked” the post. She called me up:

Gray: I’m shocked Mica liked it. You know her husband’s a pastor and she runs that charity for wayward, pregnant schnauzers or something.

Me: Oh, yeah. The seemingly uptight ones are always the duuuuuurty guuuuurrrrlllls. They love the blog. Church ladies are all sorts of nasty under their double-knit sweater sets and sensible pumps. 

Those church ladies are all sorts of duuur-taaay.

Gray: You think? I just can’t believe she “liked” it on Facebook. Her husband probably has her down on her knees praying for forgiveness as we speak.

Me: He probably has her down on her knees, but I doubt there’s much praying going on.

Gray: You did not just say that.

Me: Oh please. If church is your thing, more higher power to ya. But you know as well as I do, the loudest preachers are like Queen Gertrude.

Gray: You lost me. 

Me: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” 

Gray: English. Speak English.

Me: Girl, that’s Shakespeare. It doesn’t GET more English.

Gray: What the hell are you talking about?

Me: I gotta get nerdier friends.

Gray: Your point?

Me: Ok. Backing up. In Hamlet, Queen Gertrude is a raging slut who marries her dead husband’s murderous brother before the leftovers from her husband’s funeral feast are gone.

Gray: That’s cold, dude. 

Me: No shit. But then again, maybe they were Jewish. That Shiva thing they do lasts like a fucking month. So cut a girl some slack. That could be a lot of leftovers.

Gray: You are so going to hell.

Me: Anyway, so these traveling actors come do a play at the court, and Hamlet is giving his mom attitude, being all, “What do you think of this play?” And his mom, Gertrude, who sees that the play is basically about a woman just like her, says, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

Gray: So what does that mean? 

Me: It means like, say someone goes, “I like butt fucking,” and you go, “Oh my GOD! I would NEVER! Oh my God! Who does such a thing?!?!” The more you “protest,” the more obvious it is that you’re trying to cover something up. It’s like the conservative male Republican Congressman who goes on this nationwide anti-gay crusade only to get caught fucking some underage male Haitian prostitute. The louder they preach, the more likely it’s bullshit. It’s more complicated in the play, but then again, it’s Shakespeare.

Gray: How the hell did we get on this topic?

Me: I was saying, rock on for Mica, “liking” the post, because most church ladies I know wouldn’t touch that shit with a ten-foot pole.

Gray: Because they’d be protesting too much.

Me: My work here is done.

Gray: You really think Mica’s a slut?

Me: Girl, she’s a pastor’s wife. They’re all “Rah, Rah, Jesus,” until they’re taking it up the ass in a leather harness, you know?

Gray: <odd strangled noise and spluttering>

Me: Ohhh. What do you know? The lady doth protest too much.

Love Means Never Having To Spackle

Say it with me! Praised Be!

So, once again, I’m sitting outside with my favorite blanket, my iPad, and a steaming hot cup of bean worship (Praised be, Mr. Coffee!), and I’m freezing my butt off (oh, how I wish that were a literal saying) reading what Yahoo! considers to be “news” these days: an actress and a celeb-stitute were spotted wearing *gasp!* the same dress just two months and three continents apart! How will they ever go on?!? Careers ruined! Stylists fired! World ended! Fuck, people. Sometimes, I am really freaking glad I’m not famous. The rich part I wouldn’t mind. But the 24/7 cameras up my ass? No thank you. I’m good.

Anyway, so I’m braving the cold to enjoy the quiet because there is nowhere, NOWHERE in a house with kids that’s truly safe for a parent seeking a little respite. Back me up here, kid-raisers. How far have you gone to sneak in some quiet? I know every single one of you has run to the grocery store for something you didn’t really need or told your spouse you had a coupon that was expiring so you just had to go out right now and use it or it would go to waste. Or, my favorite, you claimed to need to pee when you really didn’t, just so you could get the hell away from the noise for five minutes, only to have little fingers wiggling at you under the door within 45 seconds and hear, “Are you done yet? Can I come in? What are you doing in there? Are you pooping? I pooped this morning. It was brown. And I wiped and washed my hands, Mommy! Did you know bears poop? Daddy says bears poop in the woods. But you told me poop goes in the potty, Mommy. Why don’t bears poop in the potty? Don’t their mommies give them m&m’s for pooping on the potty? Are you still going poopoo, Mommy? What are you doing in there now? Mommy, um, I need to go peepee.”

Hmmmm... I'll have to think about that.

This is why I don’t hide in the bathroom. Instead, I hide outside on the back porch where it’s quiet and freezing and no one in his or her right mind would go. Like I said, perfect for me, because, as we’ve established at great length, I am most definitely not in my right mind. Case in point, I’m starting to feel like a not-quite-40-year-old virgin…even though I have two kids. I mean, how long can a woman go without getting laid without kind of needing to be shown the ropes all over again, figuratively speaking? (Although, according to Mr. Northman’s dirty mouth, he’d like to show me the ropes quite literally, and that’s just fine with me.)

I am fairly apprehensive about dating again. That alone is a new thing for me. I am not the apprehensive type. I make a choice and I do it. But this is different. I feel like sleeping with someone new now would be tantamount to losing my virginity. The First Guy After The Divorce. I don’t know, somehow that seems like a really big deal and not something to be taken lightly. I was thinking about this last week when the topic came up on The Big Bang Theory, which you should be watching. Seriously. If you don’t know the characters, just replace their names with Nerd 1, Nerd 2, Nerd 3, and Nerd 4 (Super Nerd). That’s all you really need to know.

Howard: Hey, did either of you guys know that three dates with the same woman is the threshold for sex?

Raj: Actually, I’ve never had three dates with the same woman.

Leonard: With Penny and me, it took two years. Now that I think about it…that was three dates.

Howard: Okay, well, before you and Penny hooked up, did she ask for any kind of commitment?

Leonard: No, she was pretty clear about wanting to keep her options open.

Sheldon (arriving): I have something to announce, but out of respect for convention, I will wait for you to finish your current conversation. What are you talking about?

Leonard: The cultural paradigm in which people have sex after three dates.

Sheldon: I see. Now, are we talking date, the social interaction, or date, the dried fruit?

Now you just have to have three dates. WTF?

Here’s the deal. I may not be so oblivious to current dating norms that I’d be astounded if a guy thought three dates meant sex, but I am so far out of the dating realm that I still think this “guideline” was most definitely generated by a man and perpetuated by a gigantic secret-man-code conspiracy. Three dates means sex? How did we go from “No sex before marriage,” to “Lunch, dinner, fuck,” in three generations? How can you get to know someone well in three dates? And would you really want to fuck someone you don’t know well? Wait, ok, see, there’s the point: you can fuck someone you don’t know well pretty easily. But you can’t connect with him on a meaningful level after knowing him for only a matter of hours during which you’ve both been on your “new date” behavior. So, yeah, I can see being so ridiculously attracted to someone that I’d want to jump him in the restaurant bathroom. But I’m pretty sure that would result in meaningless sex that might last a few weeks or months and then the whole thing would fizzle. And I want more than that. I think.

It’s just been so damn long since I was with someone new – and let’s be honest, so fucking long since I’ve been with anyone at all – that I just don’t even know where to start. I mean, yes, there’s Northman and there’s Jerry. And they are fucking awesome…but they’re not fucking me. They’re fun to spend virtual time with and there’s always the chance of a weekend away with one (or the other, or both…) of them, but the odds of my having a long-term, committed relationship with either of them are about the same as the odds of me getting to pee uninterrupted when my kids are awake.

So, I guess I will start dating eventually, but then there’s always the chance I’ll end up meeting some guy who’s even more of a sex freak than I am in bed. Someone like my friend, Sheldon, for example (Yes, I named him Sheldon for the blog before thinking I might ever quote the Big Bang Theory as I did above. We’ll get through it, web dwellers.). For Sheldon, a massively overactive sex drive, coupled with the ubiquity of porn, has inspired him to try some things that make for really incredible stories, and they culminated in this conversation I had with him last week:

Sheldon: So Amy and I had crazy-ass-sex last night. (Amy’s his girlfriend.)

Me: Asshole.

Sheldon: Sorry, kid. I can’t help it. I’m serious. We had circus freak barnyard clown sex.

You don't even want to know what Google gave me when I searched for an image of "clown sex." Seriously. So I'm going the opposite direction here and giving props to Amy's vagina for handling Sheldon's Sexy Sideshow. (Thanks to reader Karen B. for the submission!)

Me: I’m going to regret this. I know it. But, what the fuck is “circus freak barnyard clown sex”?

Sheldon: It’s fucking awesome, that’s what it is. Let’s see. Vaginal, oral, anal, clamshell, DP, doggie, fisting, sixty-nine, spoon, standing, some new positions from this porno I rented…we fucking demolished the bedroom. I may have to spackle.

Me: Wait. I need to…wait. You…nevermind. You know what? You are a circus freak.

Sheldon: And you love me.

And I guess that’s the thing. I do love Sheldon. As a friend. And I’d really like to find a guy I can date and get to know and maybe even love enough to consider having circus freak barnyard clown sex with. Because, in the end, isn’t that what we all want?

No, me neither. Sheldon’s a freak.

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