The Walk of Shame

Well, once again Friday is upon us, in this case Good Friday. We are a bit light on holidays here at the Salt Mine, so I am here at the office, even though my customers are pretty quiet. In some ways I like working on the optional holidays..It makes for a quiet day in the office to catch up.

Today the Fiance picked up the rings, we are now on a 43 day countdown to the Aisle Walk, as opposed to the Walk of Shame, or the Perp Walk.

"Walk of Shame", now that is a fascinating concept. I have heard several bloggers refer to it, and the Fiance' filled me in one day, in her set it is the "walk" that a gal makes back to her apartment the next day, hair disheveled, last night's party outfit and "come fuck me" shoes on at 10:00 am, all the outward signs of a gal who got lucky. (or maybe not, depending on how drunk she was and how mortified she was when she sobered up).

Now I know that there is an aspect humor to the concept, but I also think it speaks to deeply held attitudes, feelings that compose some of the starkest differences between men and women. We live in a liberated age, regardless how hard the Jesus Rapture Cult (thanks for that from the blog "Running With Lawyers")tries to turn the clock back, and women are very free and empowered to express their sexuality. I find this especially to be true for women in their 30's and younger. There is a stark difference in how younger women approach sex vis a vis their older (40 and up) counterparts. They are open, up front and genuinely much less inhibited than my generation, they feel empowered to enjoy, to experience and to not feel guilt. Conversely, try as they may, women of my generation cannot shake the sense, deep in their psyche, that only "bad" girls like sex, that somehow it is "wrong".

I know I am generalizing, and there are I am sure plenty of exceptions, but I think I am on safe ground in saying that on average, these younger women have been spared much of what we called the "catholic sex guilt."

So why, then, would a generation of educated, empowered, urban women refer to the logical aftermath of a well deserved night of fun as the "walk of shame."?

Curious.

My sexual life has been one of great variety, some by choice and some not by choice. Before I was married, and in the first "between" period I was a major poon hound. My first wife put me on the once a quarter program, so I was a bit of a hound then too. Nothing was better than waking up after a night out in some gals bed, smelling of her. I have done that walk so many times, and the only feelings I ever had could be best expressed by Howard Dean.

Yes, yes, I know, I am a guy... that is what we guys do. But I though that women's attitudes about sex were cultural, they felt that way because the culture trained them to feel that way. So, in my simple world, women today, freed from the cultural bullshit, should also be doing mental high fives on the ten am walk.

The answer is, I think that things are not that simple. We are complex creatures, driven by nature informed by nurture. Boys denied toy guns by well meaning liberal parents will find a way to play army, much to their parents horror. I lived in the East Bay for a while, I can assure you it happens.

This matters to me because I have daughters, and it is pretty clear to me now that no matter what the cultural norms, at the genetic core there is something that tells women that sometimes sex, no matter how appropriate the context, can be bad, that the act in of itself is somehow, shamefull. Just the same, there is something genetic that informs men that making a score is always good (just don't get caught).
I think as my girls get older and become young adults, this is key to keep in mind.

Well, well, back on sex again. Hmm, me thinks the next several posts will deal with this hot button topic.

Maurice is Back !!!!!!!

Hard Night

It happens sometimes, no matter what you do to avoid it. Tonight, in no particular order:

1. My mom calls to tell me that she will not be making the wedding. My Piece of work father is incapable of traveling and will not agree to a weekend of home help. If he cannot go, she cannot go.

2. My eighteen year old live at home son is being a bit of a pill as well. He is in college, living at home and being a bit of a slug. His class load is light, so he spends a fair amount of time just sitting up in his room playing video games and watching TV. I have been pushing him to get a job, gently at first, but more stridently of late. Basically he needs a part time job to pay for his car ( I pay his bills and tution) and fun money, and also to contribute at some level. Things have progressed to the point where I need to start getting a bit more forcefull, read ugly.

Tonight he was going to make us dinner. Work got wild and I tried to call him to tell him that we would be late. Did I say that he is also lousey about picking up the phone. So we get home late and he is pissed at me. This does not sit well, particulary given the fact that he is throwing a guilt trip smack dab at his well used meal ticket.

3. Number 2 above sets off the fiance, hence she is upstairs trying to calm down and I am down here typing. We are not fighting, she is just decompressing, but is has made for a crappy evening.

4. Did I say that work got wild? As usual right at 5:00 pm.

5. My youngest daughter is having struggles at school, in this case it is pretty clear that her divorce issues are resurfacing, along with those around he mother who is anything but consistant.

6. This of course, forces me back into more frequent interaction with her mother, a woman who is at best a difficult emotional rollercoaster.

So we have a quiet night. The plan had been to pratice dancing, getting ready for the big day. But this is not to be. Its ok, not every day will be sweetness and light, into every life a little rain must fall, etc etc. Everyone has retreated to their particular sanctuary to recover, decompress and reconnect with center, so to speak. Problem is, I am very tired, and so it is unlikely that I can focus on any of the six projects or stack of work in front of me.

So I blog it out, bleary eyed and drained. Well, that is the value of the blog, a place to express what no one else may want to hear, cheap group therapy, or the worlds longest running twelve step meeting.

Hi, I'm Maurice. (Hi, Maurice!.

I never planned it this way, three kids from two broken marriages. All kids have to adapt to something, no family is truly a Cleaver Heaven. But this situation...oy vey. My son has had to deal with two divorces, his birth mother and then his step mother, both in his mind abandoning him. My youngest is saddled with issues that will keep a therapist very busy someday.

I am not sure where this is going.

Like I said, a hard night.

Surface the boat, Surface, Surface

Hi everyone. Sorry, I have been running silent and deep for the past few weeks. A combination of:

A ton of work
Accelerating wedding plans
Renewed focus on Sword work (adding Tai Jain to the rennanisance fencing)
Lion taming the Red Hat Beast

I know, and the dog ate my keyboard.

Read the last post, Bubbles. It was started ten days ago and was meant to be longer. Still, it gives you the general flavor of my thinking.

Average Joe and Kathy have vanished from Blog space. Joe I will miss most of all, he was a facinating counterpoint to my life, the similarities were scary and the differences instructive.If either of you are reading, you are missed.

Kayten has been struggling through her own demons, as has Bad Girl, and as always I wish them well.

This weekend will provide opportunities to post, I promise some more thoughtfull stuff.

Cheers everyone, it is Spring!

Bubbles

Each Human Epoc has its defining symbols. For example, the first century AD was all about the Roman Eagle spreading itself across the known world. Most of the Middle Ages, well we have the Cross and the Crecent, Christian and Muslim. 3000 B.C., think Pyramads, early 20th century, Hammer and Sickle, Swastikia, American Eagle.

The 60's, tiedye, beads and bongs.

For the twenty-first century of the Common Era (or in the Year of Our Lord, for you traditionalists)I propose the Bubble.

Yes folks, the bubble. It blows way up, causes the kids to oooh and ahhhh, sparkles in the sunshine with subtile liquid colors, oily rainbows to delight the senses. It floats above us, inspiring us.

Then it pops, evaporates, as if it were never there, except for maybe a drop of soapy water on the ground.

This century began with a Huge Bubble in the Stock market, the kind that never will end and always will increase, except it doesn't, and as it pops the last to join are sucked into the vacumm left behind, lives and fortunes disappering overnight like dreams dying in the cold dawn.

We are currently riding the Great Real Estate Bubble, pumped to dizzing size by easy credit, relentless hype, greedy middlemen and the ever present heard mentality that causes all of us to forget what we learned in the last bubble. At some point it too will pop and a new generation of people will learn the hard way that a three bedroom shack is still a shack, regardless of the price tag. I used to wonder with all the million dollar homes, how can there be that many millionaires in the country. There aren't, just a lot of money chasing investment, some pretty "creative" financing and an interest rate environment that is driving one bubble to mitigate the effects of the last bubble popping.

When that one goes it's going to be painfull, people. Don't say it cannot happen, Japan has been in one for the past ten years.

Bubbles, the symbol of the 21st century. There is a guy over at UCLA that predicts accelerated economic growth to resume by the end of the decade, to corespond with accelerated population growth that will reach an unsustainable peak some time around 2050, plus or minus. Really, he calculated it baised on models derived from Stock market bubble behavior of the past two centuries and corelated it to non linear behavior in animal populations and earthquake ruptures.

According to this prognosticator, the bubble that he is predicting is the end bubble of at least 5000 years of population growth and at least two centuries of Recorded world GDP, of which the last bubble ( and in fact all other bubbles) can be explained as a predicted osciliation in the larger overall trend to the BIG BUBBLE.

Now, he will not say what will happen on this date, only that the date exists, and that on that year plus or minus, somthing VERY BIG will occur. It may suck, or it may be great.

Murphy's law, however, tells me that for most of us, it will suck.

One other factoid of this guy's theory, as you get close to a bubble (and its predictible crash) the log of the indicies (GDP, stock price, opulation) is decorated with a periodicity, it goes up and down around the central increasing trend, with an increasing frequency.

In layman's terms, as things get close to the crash, volitility goes up, one day the market is up, one day down, with wider and wilder swings, until the big one hits.

Or in other words, he expects more and bigger bubbles and crashes as we continue to see increasing growth in population and GDP.

Till 2050, when the "transition event" occurs.

He says a lot more, way beyond the scope of this little blog.

I find this both frightening and facinating. Rumors and predictions of the apocalypse have been with us for millennia in all cultures. Krazelic, Raganok, Armegeddon, the typhoon battle at the end of time. For the most part, thinking people ignore bearded unwashed nuts as they prattle on, clothed in cardboard signs, about the coming end of time.

Yet, I believe in bubbles. I have lived through at least three of them, and have seen the impact.

And now the bearded nut with the sign is no longer a bearded nut, but a very accomplished mathematician and geophysicist with a lot of graphs and numbers and what seems to be a way to predict stock market bubbles.

And he is pointing to a blip on a graph that might just be the end of time.

D. Sornette, look him up.

I am The Terrible Dark Lord of Geekdom

I have mastered the Linux Box! Yes Yes Yes. Fear me, mere mortals. I have doned the Ring of Power and now can come to you UNAIDED by Microsoft Products (may there smelly hindquarters be taken to the places of lamentation where they will weep and knash there teeth under the all powerfull lidless eye)!

More importantly, there are now TWO terminals in the house, which means we can both have email access without having to schedule time on the family computer.

More later, it has been an interesting week. Simply wanted to crow!