And I’m Off…Again

To one of my favorite places–San Francisco. It’s been four years since I’ve been there, and I can’t wait to wake up to the ding of the trolley again!

TMI Tuesdays–The Traveling Ho Edition

1. Before the industrial revolution, most people never traveled more than 30 miles from their home. How far from your birth place do you now live?

A little over 300 miles. Close enough to get home for the weekend, far enough that “home” can’t drop by unexpectedly.

 2. What is the fartherest distancet from home you have you have ever had sex or an orgasm? What is there farthest distance you have travelled from your home to have a sexual encounter?

 About 2700 miles is the farthest I’ve ever done it from home. I don’t know that I’ve ever traveled more than a few miles specifically for a sexual encounter…but maybe an hour away?

 3. How many states (or Canadian provences or your country’s geopolitical division) and counties have you had sex and/or an orgasms in?

Good grief…let me think…well, only one country. States…WV, VA, NC, SC, CA, KY, IL, FL, GA, PA, and KS. Maybe more, but that’s all I can remember.

4. Have you ever had sex in a vehicle? While the vehicle was moving?

Not intercourse.

5. Do you have any travel related fantasy? If so, share, please.

I wouldn’t mind joining the mile high club.

Bonus: On holidays that honor our military do you tend to rememeber those currently serving or veterans of military service?

I do remember them. I don’t do anything to honor them, but perhaps I should think of a way to.

Was Dick Cheney A Client of the DC Madam?

 I’m bringing you a very special guest blog this morning. The following post was written by Montgomery Sibley, the attorney for the “DC Madam.” Mr. Sibley contacted me a few weeks ago to ask if I would participate in his virtual book tour (His new book, “Why Just Her?” was released last month). I invited Mr. Sibley to submit a guest blog, and assured him that I would post it unedited. Enjoy!

 

Was Dick Cheney A Client of Jeane Palfrey’s Escort Service? This is a question that I have been asked many times. Jeane didn’t know the answer as she never met her D.C. clients as she lived in California and never asked for their real names – unless they were paying by check. Only a few bright men – “Shock and Awe” Harlan Ullman among them – were so clever as to pay the escorts by personal check.

However, we have strong information that Cheney was a client and thus actively pursued that information by subpoena. For if we could prove that vice-president of the United States was a client, I didn’t  think any jury would convict Jeane. On May 7, 2007, I wrote a memo to Jeane’s criminal counsel, Preston Burton stating:

“I had lunch with Wayne today. Basically, he has it from three sources, one Pentagon and two CIA, all of which he considers reliable, that [Vice President Dick] Cheney was a client of the service when he was CEO of Halliburton. . . .Additionally, Bush’s transition team took over the offices of Halliburton in Arlington and hence that number may also be at issue. Last, Ken Starr’s wife, Alice, was the PR person for the landlord. Hence, all those numbers could be quite interesting. Wayne’s take is that GWB wants to oust Cheney, who apparently has many enemies including Karl Rove, in order to put a new VP in place in time to bask in the power of the Presidency during the next presidential election. All this is part of the CIA and Pentagon payback for the last six years of Cheney. Who knows?”

We did confirm later that while C.E.O. of Halliburton, Cheney lived in a townhouse owned by Halliburton at 6613 Madison of McLean Drive, McLean, VA 22101, making him a neighbor of the CIA. Run the address on Google Maps and you will see this address was a few short blocks from CIA headquarters and, thus, subject to CIA CCTV surveillance for security purposes. Hence, I issued a subpoena to the CIA for this information about Cheney.

Of course, the administration was not going to allow me to get that sort of information from the CIA and in short order the judge who authorized the CIA subpoena was removed from the case. Shortly thereafter, so was I. At the criminal trial, this issue was never raised and Jeane was convicted. For more on this issue, please see the YouTube video.

Thus to answer the question of whether Dick Cheney was a client, I have to say we may never know because I believe he made damn sure that information would never surface.

We Interrupt Our Irregularly Scheduled Programming

Well, I’ll be burning up the interstate (and my new $600 tires) again this weekend, heading to WV for my youngest brother’s graduation from high school. There must be some mistake, or he must be the next Doogie Howser. Because I know for a fact that he is fourteen years younger than I am, and if he is graduating from high school, that means that I would be much older than I feel. So I think he must have skipped elementary and middle school altogether and gone straight to high school. That would make me about 24, and that sounds much better.

Yeah that must be it.

Hope everyone has a wonderful, fun-filled, and safe Memorial Day. If you have the chance, remember what the holiday is all about, and thank the brave men and women who have given so much for us.

Damned Birds

A family of birds has taken up residence inside the hanging fern on my front porch. They are surprisingly neat…no bird poo on the railings or other evidence of their presence. I wouldn’t even know they were there except when you open the front door, Mama Bird goes whooshing out of the fern and perches herself in the crepe myrtle tree waiting for peace and quiet again. Well, last night, around 9:30, I took Honey outside to praise me for the excellent job I did repairing a damaged porch railing. We must have woken Mama Bird up, because WHOOSH went the fern. Only she went the wrong way–back toward the house instead of out in the yard.

She spent the next three minutes slamming against the porch ceiling, then dropping down, then slamming into it again trying to find her way out. I, of course, dropped like I was in the midst of a drive by shooting and scrambled into the house on my knees while Honey shouted “She’s going crazy! She’s going crazy!” Now I have the knees (and, somehow, elbows) of a seven year old–big oozy scrapes covered in Band Aids and Neosporin. Damned birds.

Ads from The Good Ole’ Days

Wow! I don’t even know where to begin with this one. First, the poor housewife is apparently being ignored in the bedroom because her cootchie pop stinks. And it takes her doctor to make her realize this? And then he suggests a LYSOL DOUCHE?? I’m really hoping Lysol was something else back then, because I can’t imagine that “female parts” that smell like toilet cleaner are anymore attractive. (Not to mention, that doesn’t sound like  a very mild solution to the problem) Then that second picture?? I bet he’s thinking, “Now if I could only talk her into a Pine Sol enema…”

Back in the day you didn’t have to worry about Alli, the Atkins diet, or Jenny Craig. Your weight loss problems could be solved with a SANITIZED TAPE WORM! (wonder if they used Lysol??)

Blow in her face and she’ll follow you anywhere?? (Is there a pearl necklace double entendre in there??) Was there really a time when having smoke blown in your face was sexy??

I’m guessing this one isn’t an early encouragement for exiting the closet. But you have to admire the underlying honesty. “Yeah, cigarettes will kill ya, but we’re all gonna die of something.”

Monday Morning Mish Mash

1. Yes, I know that it is Tuesday. I’m at least a day behind this week. I was originally supposed to join some friends at their family beach house this weekend, but one of those friends is about 80 months pregnant and has been ordered to stay close to home by her doctor. Since I had no other plans, I hopped in my little car and went up to WV for the weekend.

2. My crazy mama had some oral surgery last week, and since I didn’t see her on Mother’s Day or her birthday, I thought it would be a nice gesture to take her out for some “running around” on Saturday. Since she is “recovering” at my grandmother’s house, I’m nearly certain that my grandmother appreciated it more than mom did. I say “recovering” because mom showed no signs of being under the weather at all until the very moment we pulled back into my grandmother’s driveway–whereupon she announced she was in pain and had most certainly developed a dry socket. You don’t need Scooby Doo to sniff out this mystery, do you? Any-hoo…the plan had been that mom and I would redo the flowers on my sister’s grave, and THAT WAS IT. It should have taken two hours. But, after fetching the vase from the cemetary, mom wanted to visit with a friend of mine who lives nearby and her new baby. So we did for a bit, and mom actually played basketball with her six year old. I haven’t seen her so active and “normal” in years. After that, mom needed a frozen drink, so we went through the Sonic drive through and she proceded to confuse the poor order taking gal by ordering a concoction that resembled nothing on their menu. Then she wanted to look at puppies. She fell in love with some $800 designer (mutt) dog, hinted that “they” (who is this THEY who knows everything?) said she ought to get a house dog for company. The salesman urged her to take it home, saying they now did financing. “If I miss a payment, what do you do, come repossess the dog?” Good point, payments on a living thing seem a bad idea. After puppies we went to the Hobby Lobby, but mom just had to run into TJ Maxx “for a minute”. She picked out a dress, which I bought as a late birthday gift. (Grandma’s reaction upon seeing it? “Well I hope you have a jacket to wear over that, your boobs will fall out.”) Then we went to  her house to assemble the floral arrangement for sister’s gravesite. I really have to take pictures of the inside of mom’s house sometimes. It, no joke, looks like one of those Oprah episodes on hoarding. I had picked out a summery mix of flowers, with some little sparkly doo dads and a few tasteful butterflies, thinking it a fitting memorial for a young person’s grave. Mom brought no less than a half dozen “things” to me–ceramic crosses, baby dolls, a bracelet, to “add to” the arrangement. I rejected them all but she insisted on topping off the flowers with a giant pinwheel. Lord, please let me die after she does. I will come back to haunt anyone who puts something tacky on my grave. The lone task we had planned now complete, I thought my day was done. But no. She had to go by the grocery store. And it took her a half an hour to get about six things. By the time I actually dropped her off, my head was throbbing and I just had to lay down. But, she was as coherent and normal as I have seen her in quite a long time, so it was a good day overall.

3. Things are looking positive at work–quite a blessing given the months of grim business forecasts we have had. It also means I am suddenly very busy–which is an awesome feeling. I hope this economic roller coaster ride is coming to an end.

4. Since I had planned a long weekend at the beach, Monday got to be a lazy day off for me. Well, if you can count washing the car, and mopping down the columns, front porch, and garage door lazy. But I did get to sleep in and go for $1 sushi yesterday, so those things make me a very happy camper. It’s amazing how much more productive I feel when I don’t actually have to do anything.

All In a Day’s Work

I’m quite lucky to have a job that I don’t hate. In fact, there are many days that I LOVE what I do. Now don’t get me wrong, as often as not, I’m watching the clock for quitting time, but sometimes I get wrapped up in a project and almost don’t want to leave the office. And I HATE getting up in the morning, but once the coffee kicks in, I usually don’t mind being at work. But Jason wrote a post the other day that got me thinking about other jobs I’ve had and a lot of memories started coming back to me.

My first job was a part time gig in the billing department of a large system of medical clinics. Many of the patients we served were on Medicaid and Medicare. In many ways, it was a very rewarding job because we served people who might otherwise NOT get quality medical care. My days were spent processing payments, answering our switchboard, and filing. One family sticks out in my mind from those days–the mother always had this look on her face like she was being electrocuted–wide eyed and nervous looking, I suspect she was strung out on something most of the time. Her children were loud, poorly groomed, and had never gotten the benefit of positive discipline. But that’s not what makes them memorable. The mother had named each of her children after what she craved most during her pregnancy. Her eldest daughter was LaZonya, her middle child was Koffee, and the baby was named Alka (middle name Hall, naturally). I wonder whatever came of those kids.

Another patient, who had to be well into her seventies, would come in dressed like a Britney Spears back up dancer…short shorts, low cut sleeveless tops. She had the look and demeanor of someone who had lived a very hard life and loved every minute of it. Visible above her left breast were faded tattoos–all men’s names. Her doctor confided in us that the tatoos continued down  her torso, and she had proudly told him that it was a list of every man she had slept with. He further reported that, even at her age, the list was getting longer–as there was fresh ink during several of her exams.

One summer during college, I worked as a telemarketer. It was NOT as bad as it sounds, even though most of what I did was call to offer credit cards and long distance service. Whenever we made a “sale” we had to record the confirmation part of the call as we repeated the customer’s information and terms of whatever product they wanted. I was on fire one day–it was right when Caller ID was becoming a big thing, and I routinely racked up a couple dozen sales of a new phone feature package during my shifts. Right in the middle of a recorded confirmation, it turned out that I wasn’t the only thing on fire. I heard a loud “whoosh”, a few screams, and stood up to see a cloud of smoke pouring out of our server room and a sea of people running for the door. I calmly informed my customer that our building was on fire and that I would call him back to complete the order as soon as possible. It turned out to be just a malfunctioning chemical fire-supression system, but my recorded escape from the building (and subsequent call back/sale) was a running joke all summer.

For two more college summers, I also manned the phones–but as an order-taker for a sporting goods catalog. It was a fun atmosphere, low stress, and very low pay. I often worked the overnight shift, usually with only one other employee. We had been warned that the “Bike Pervert” frequently tormented the night shift, and that we were free to terminate any call that we felt was inappropriate. My overnight coworker was a good little church girl–somewhat sheltered and timid, but with a great sense of humor. And we had many run ins with the Bike Pervert. He would generally begin the call under the auspice of a legitimate order–filling his cart with bike shorts/supplies/etc. before turning lurid. One night, I got a few hang up calls–a sure sign that the bike pervert was calling (he would call until he got a female). My coworker got a call, and after a few minutes, let me know with a wink and a nod that it was indeed the bike pervert. She switched the call to speaker phone so I could listen in.

“What’s the inseam on those shorts?” he asked, “I wanna make sure I don’t hang out the bottom.” Always the professional, my coworker didn’t miss a beat.

“These are our best sellers, sir, so I imagine they must work just fine for most men.”

“But I’m almost nine  inches long.” he insisted, clearly trying to get a reaction. She wasn’t giving him one.

“Oh, well, I’m sure you’d find these satisfactory, sir. We sell thousands of pairs a year, and I’ve never heard any complaints about the fit of them.”

“You realize that’s quite a bit bigger than most guys?”

“No, sir, I didn’t.”

He laughed, “Well how big do you think an average man is?”

“Gosh, sir, I don’t have much experience where that’s concerned. But I’d probably say about twelve inches, so you shouldn’t have any problems with these shorts. Now, would you like us to send those out regular or express?”

Click. Dial tone. We died laughing.

Attack of the Parking Lot Pervert

I hesitate to even tell this story. I can’t make up my mind if it’s funny, disgusting, or sad. Ultimately, it’s a combination of all of it I suppose. Yesterday afternoon, I stepped outside of my office to take a phone call. (For some reason, my old cell phone sounded like a  bowl of Rice Krispies inside my office.) Now, let me set the scene a little. My office is in a semi-circle of five or six buildings, who all share a large but wooded parking lot that faces one of the busiest streets in town.

So as I’m chatting on the phone, I walk to my car–which is parked right against the main street. I grabbed something from the car and stood there for a moment while I wrapped the call up. When I turned to walk back to the office, there is a car stopped behind me. There’s a young guy behind the wheel of the filthy, rundown looking car, with his arm resting on the window. He mutters something, but I can’t hear him over the roar of the cars that are speeding by a mere ten feet away. I stepped closer to the car and said “Excuse me?” I assumed he was asking for directions. (There are a number of somewhat poorly marked businesses in the immediate area, so two or three times a month I find myself helping confused motorists as I come in from the parking lot.)

At this point, I’m only a foot or two from his window, and he says, “Are you Patrick?” At least that’s what I thought he said. “Patrick?” I repeated, “No, I’m sorry.”

“No, are you packin’?” he repeated. I leaned in closer, sure I still wasn’t hearing him correctly.

“Packing?” I said.

“Yeah”

“Packing what?” I was wondering where the hell he was going with this, but got the feeling that maybe he was mistaking me for his drug dealer or something. But this is where it really gets weird. Kids stop reading now.

“Packing a big dick.” I’m pretty sure my jaw hit the pavement at this point.

“EXCUSE ME?”

“You’re real damn cute.”

And then he grabbed me. Keep in mind, I’m still standing pretty close to his car, his arm is resting on the door, and it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out where exactly he grabbed me. I jumped back.

“Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Can I suck it?”

“Hellllll no.” and I took a few steps away. My mind was racing, I didn’t want this freak show to see which office I went into. My car was right there, but I didn’t want him to know which one was mine either.

“Wait, wait! I’m sorry.”

I turned my head over my shoulder, “You need to get out of here.”

“Can’t you just stand there and talk dirty to me?” My first reaction was to punch this kid in the face, but I quickly reasoned that the sort of person who would make such a parking lot overture was likely crawling with all manner of blood-born cooties. So I just started laughing and walking.

“No, I couldn’t. Now get out of here.” I waved him off.

“Wait, wait!”

“Nope…” I kept walking.

“Just…one…second.” His breathing was labored. Was he doing what the hell I think he was doing? I heard a grunty-gaspy noise. By this point I was on the other side of his car, several feet away. I just kept walking til I was about halfway back to the office. I looked over my shoulder, and see his hand moving feverishly–yep, he was doing exactly what I thought he was doing.  I picked up the pace. I made one last glance over my shoulder when I got to the door, and the parking lot wanker was gone.  I wasn’t sure if I should die laughing or call the police. I decided on the latter, but realized I couldn’t tell them what kind of car it was, only that it was filthy, or what he looked like other than he was white and probably in  his 20′s.

“Um, police department? I’d like to report a white guy driving around with a sticky steering wheel.” I figured I’d be making a fool of myself calling that in–but it was basically all I could have given them.

I spent the next hour in shock–what the hell kind of person approaches a complete stranger like that? What kind of sicko does THAT in broad daylight in a parking lot on the busiest road in town?? But what freaked me out the most was that he (at least at first) seemed like a perfectly  normal person–he didn’t LOOK like a freaky pervert. I had no reservations about walking straight up to his car when I thought all he needed was directions. I felt like a naive fool…he could have just as easily stabbed me as groped me. By the time I left the office an hour or so later, I was freaked out…looking out the window before I went to the parking lot, and carrying the only weapon I could find on the way out–a pair of scissors.

TMI Tuesdays

1. Which traits from your parents do you see in yourself?

Physically, I look a lot like my father. I guess I look like my mom too, or at least I did before she let herself fall totally apart–we all have basically the same complexion. I have my dad’s build, although he is thinner and in better shape because he’s a runner.  Personality wise…well the older I get the cheaper more frugal I get (dad), I like to think I’m honest and non-judgemental like dad is, I don’t mind working hard (dad), but when I get a chance there’s nothing better than just being lazy (mom). I sure as hell hope I take more after my dad than my mom, he’s one of the best people I know and he kinda makes up for her shit show.

2. Which traits from you/your partner do you see in your children (if you don’t have kids, which would you like to see)?

 I’d like the child to be as much a clean freak as honey is, but I’ll settle for it being as much a clean freak as I am. I’d want it to sleep a lot and like naps the way I do, as well as being self-entertaining the way I am. (I don’t get bored easily at all). I’d want it to have honey’s blue eyes and my dark hair, because I think that’s a very striking combo. Honey is more a social butterfly than I am, so the kiddo should have that trait.

3. How did you get the birds-and-bees talk?

I don’t recall ever really getting THE TALK. I do recall having to watch some dumb cartoon that was available from the Community Service section of Blockbuster called “Where Did I Come From?” Which showed a little cartoon boy and girl stand up from the tub, and as a voiceover explained all the changes that puberty would bring, the soap would fall off of the appropriate body parts as they transformed. Can you imagine anything more horrifying than seeing an instant pair of cartoon bosoms pop out, followed by a man-sized tallywhacker, pubes, etc?

4. What was your favorite childhood book?

I have always loved to read…so it’s hard to pin down any one favorite. I do recall enjoying the Chronicles of Narnia, the Laura Ingalls Wilder series, and Hardy Boys mysteries.

5. What is your favorite piece of erotic literature?

Does the Penthouse Forum count? I honestly can’t think of any erotic literature I’ve ever read…

Bonus: What is the one thing you wish you could go back and tell yourself as a child?

Just one?? Probably to loosen up, enjoy life, be yourself, and go to med school. OK, that’s four, but it stays.

Double Bonus: If your life were a book or movie, what would the title be?

What’s The Punchline?