For some obscure reason I woke up thinking about one night stands, but to be perfectly clear I was not experiencing one at the time. ‘One night stands’ probably deserves a definition to those not elderly. One night stands were a phenomena taking place in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. We shall now make this our word of the day, it is a noun, the plural of phenomenon: 1 a fact or situation that is observed to exist or happen, especially one whose cause or explanation is in question:.2 a remarkable person, thing, or event.
So back in the good olde days you would meet a guy, take him home with you, bed him without the expectation you would ever see him again and it was OK and fun.I realize that sounds pretty unbelievable but those were the days before rampant sexually transmitted diseases, massive pornography and women desperate for husbands. Clearly the good od days where you might try out positions from Joy of Sex – when sex was joyful and fun. Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end but they did. Did I ever participate in one night stands? I ain’t talking but I do not think so, not very much. Why do I say that? It because one day back then I vividly recall counting the men in my life – I was ‘dating’ nine guys at the same time – now how one could manage that and one night stands defies imagination as I was working full time at a professional job (although prelaw school). This may be a case of too much information but as I do not have children it is possible to share what I feel like. It is possible to be a racy grandmother but keenly embarrassing for children to have a racy mother.
We shall now move to the present moment. I indulge in one night stands these days but without the sex and usually do not take people home with me. I meet people readily and instantaneously, bond with them for perhaps hours but then we go our separate ways. I do this in Vancouver, on visits to San Francisco and Marin County and did it in London (England not Ontario). I am ambidextrous – I can bond with both men and women and sometimes both at once. When doesn’t it work? When men pursue me afterwards but cannot keep it up (so to speak). They retreat after a couple of weeks or months claiming they are too busy to keep up the correspondence when it was THEY that pursued it in the first place. My heart gets sort of broken but I pick myself up and dust myself off. I do not plan to start all over again. My encounters with women are different and do form lasting relationships with them. I think Flower Girls Wife will be such a pal, we met on a tour bus in Iceland. Perhaps the Adam met in Iceland will be the ‘women only’ exception to the rule but it is too early to tell as I am not in London at this moment. Friend Tracey is another example, we briefly met in a restaurant and went on to have a great friendship. She is now in New Zealand but we keep up with one another. I am the antithesis of lonely. Oh goodie, lets look up antithesis. (complete) opposite, converse, contrary, reverse, inverse, obverse, other side of the coin; informal flip side. (Friends of the actress say she is quite the antithesis of her giddy and frivolous character:) So I am the flip side of lonely and if everyone followed through there would be no space for the new friends. When you are old it is best not to depend on old friends, because they are going to die. I am in a different category because, honest to Gawd, my beloved doctor told said that I was going to live forever. Factually, I always tell the truth but sometimes I exaggerate, however, this is not even an exaggeration. People ask me how to get in touch with this doctor. .
They: Tell me his name and how to get in touch with him. I want to live forever.
Me: I am not telling! His practice is crowded enough already.
They: I don’t care! I don’t want to live forever anyway.
Me: Well I have my doubts, however, r it is dirty work but somebody has got to do it.
But now onto something serious. NPR Books, in my Inbox, left word of a fascinating new book. Albert Woodfox’s Solitary which reviewer Gabino Iglesiias writes, “is a candid, heartbreaking and infuriating chronicle of these years —as well as a person narrative that shows how institutionalized racism festered at the core of our judicial system and in the country’s prisons.” I am drawn to this book because of the solitary confinement I experienced in King’s County Jail. My solitary confinement was brief compared to Albert’s but it was a strange gift. Cut off of everything (no phone, no computer, no internet, no people) only a pencil and the walls of the cell to write upon; it became a time of intense self reflection, a total learning experience. I am white so the racism does not apply in typical fashion. I was confine illegally because I am a feisty, old, uppity lady. We are an endangered species but I am going to live forever, apparently,
Woodfox’s is an amazing story of a spirit unbowed and is “required reading in the age of the Black Lives Matter Movement.” Is my blog required reading? But what is the movement I represent? Do not ask me.
Attached is a picture of the socks I wore yesterday. I bought these socks as a joke to give to a man in Great Britain but I broke up with him instead. I could not find my other socks and my shoes reacquired socks. I was desperate. I was slightly afraid that they would not let me back in this country wearing those socks – but they did. Phew!
