Not Enough #17

A few spaces opened up on one of the couches, and we crammed ourselves onto one of the divans, Debra sandwiched in between Amalia and me. In a rare and unusual gesture, she held my hand, interlacing her fingers with mine, and I could feel her trembling with fear and trepidation, unsure of where the evening was going and what would be required of her. I looked straight ahead, observing the parade of black leather and vinyl, women in sexy dresses and men wearing tight pants. Debra had that deer-in-the-headlights stare, as Amalia turned sideways and started to whisper into her left ear. The trembling persisted, her fingers remaining intertwined with mine, as Amalia continued to speak to her in a muttered undertone, her lips never stopping in their whispered oration, her eyes widening as she continued without stop.
I leaned forward far enough to enter her field of vision, and asked her what she was telling Debra, and she turned slightly away from Debra's ear to tell me it was none of my fucking business what she was saying, reiterating as always that this was her night with Alice, and that I was just along for the ride, a guest. She reached up to Debra's face and turned her head sideways. "It's time right now," she said, and reached over her lap to separate her hand from mine, taking first her right hand, and then her left, puling her to her feet, leading her away through the crowd of people milling around, taking her to who knows where. I sat in shock, my heart beating in my chest, my throat closed in the fear and apprehension of the moment, frantically trying to figure out where they had disappeared to, when I found my field of vision blocked by a woman in a short black dress, a kind of throwback disco dress left over from the '80s, cut well above the knee and decorated with tiers of fringe, spaghetti straps holding it up, the front cut well down on her breasts, which I could see where unencumbered and floating loose. I looked up to a smiling face framed by a full head of cascading curls, reaching well past her bare shoulders, her moist lips curled upwards in a sort of sassy smile, eyes twinkling in a mischievous manner, her eyes flashing a combination of bemusement and concern.
She leaned over, placing her hand on the back of the divan, and I reflexively looked towards her boobs, which swung free of her body as she bent forward. Her breath was warm and moist as she whispered in my ear.
"Ya look lost here, and just a bit confused...am I right here?" I could only mutely nod my head and continue staring at her boobs, which were barely restrained by her dress.
"Want some help?"

Irish Sports Pages

Now that I'm of a certain age, I read what we used to call the Irish sports pages every day in the New York Times, the hometown newspaper. You'd call them the obituaries. Being the national newspaper of record, the Times features famous people on their obituary pages.
Earlier this week, either Monday or Tuesday, I looked at the obits, and was dismayed to see that all of the people featured were younger than me, and were gone from this earth. And I realized that this was what I had to be thankful for this year.
I'm still here, still doing what I've always done, albeit perhaps a bit more moderated in style and excess. I've outlived my father and his brother, and I'm still doing what I want to do in the style that I want to do it.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Just Talking

I've lived all my life in New York City, and, as I found out last week from the NY Times Style Section, we've all grown up here with varying degrees of a New York accent---losing the letter r as in New Yawk, adjusting vowels as in drinking a morning kawfee, and the list goes on. And so I've become sensitzed to speech patterns from other parts of the United States.
Recently, during a CE tax seminar, I encountered two speech patterns that kind of make me fume---one new and one around for about thirty years or so. The lecturer, a woman from Colorado, exhibited both numerous times during the seminar.
The newest speech aberration is the dropped g at the end of a verb. It probably became popular last year during the last Presidential election campaign, when Sarah Palin started goin' places and seein' things. It seems to me to be a feeble attempt at being one with the common man. She's not the only person I've speak who comes from Alaska, and my sense is that the majority of Alaskans speak properly, or as properly as the rest of the country.
The other speech pattern is upspeak, the nasty habit of a rising inflection in the voice at the end of a sentence, when you aren't sure that you've explained yourself well enough to be understood, or when the speaker thinks the listener doesn't understand what's being said. I'm pretty sure it came from Valley Girl Speak a long time ago.

Neither one of these speech tropisms is attractive, neither one is cute, neither one is intelligent, neither one makes us friends, or friendlier. If you speak this way, think about stopping, and sounding more intelligent

I Just Don't Get It

There are some things in this world that I just don't get, and some things that I refuse to get.
There's an extraordinary amount of ED advertising on TV. The ads for Viagra are confidence builders, based on "we're guys who know how to get things done" whether it's a boiled over car radiator (does this ever even happen anymore?) or the lack of physical capability to get an erect penis. But what I don't understand are the ads for Cialis. I understand the concept of being ready when the moment changes on a dime in the laundry room, but what I don't get are the two bathtubs---not even the couple in one bathtub. Sex in a bathtub is extremely uncomfortable, sex in separate bathtubs all but impossible. I just don't get it. And ads for Levitra seem to have all but disappeared---what ever happened to that deliciously slutty milf, who talked about making sure her man was ready.
Over time, baseball leagues have morphed from eight teams each to more than I can count, and so the World Series has changed from The October Classic to Halloween and November. And I live in that city which has won more World Series than any other team. What I don't get here is the whole towel thing---I don't see it at either Yankees or Mets games. Is it just that I live in a non-towel city, the only non-towel city, as far as I can figure it. And I understand that it's one way to exhort your team on to nobler thoughts and deeds. Maybe it's just that we don't do that sort of thing here.