Love and trouble

This is a storytelling device, a memoir, a non-fiction recant of the author's teenage years, and her forties; it's sexual fantasies, encounters, wonders, teenage stupidity, her calling herself a slut, joking with friends, being bored with and because of her family. At times the paragraphs look like this:

You’ve always been close with your best friend, Victoria, but suddenly you’re on the phone every day, like lovers: “I had tuna fish for lunch.” “I cried instead of eating lunch.” You’re both married to men who are smart and loving and tall and funny. Even so, you and she travel together like a couple. Why do you leave these excellent men at home? You’re not sure exactly. It has something to do with valves; with escaping pressure. Anyway, she joins you on book tour and you accompany her to openings (she’s an artist); in all instances you drink too much. Speaking of lovahs, you have a slew of inappropriate e-mail friendships with men. They’re not quite romantic but you shouldn’t have to say that. Even sex with your husband, which has always been a point of connection, a relief, a release, has become an escape hatch, infused with the outsiders who are starting to cluster in your imagination. You don’t quite imagine them when you’re fucking your husband; except you do, actually. Sex is changing and becoming dirty again, just now when you are getting truly old and bits of you are lumpy that ought to be smooth. You find yourself over his knee, or with parts of him in your mouth, and you want to sort of rub your eyes and say: How’d we end up here? You know it’s not this way for all women. For every person like you, with this crazed gleam in your eye, there’re three other women who say they’d be happy doing it once a month, or less; they’d be happy with just a cuddle. You get it. You know how they feel. You’ve felt that way yourself. But not now. Now you feel like this: Jesus Christ, we’re all going to die! Get it while you can, you morons!

Other times, it's curt and interesting mini-segues from her diary:

June 4, 1979, age twelve
I wonder if these thoughts of death will ever leave my mind. I wonder what love is like.

November 13, 1982, age fifteen
There is no reason I should be lonely.

October 30, 1989, age twenty-two
I want to fuck, I don’t care who, I want to be fucked in the sink. I want a hand here, holding my world in place with a finger in my vagina. I want my breasts held and my face caressed. I want to feel that just holding still is enough, I want to be something without doing anything. I want to be essential and be fucked as such.

There are little stories in here, there, and everywhere. Altogether, this is a splintered tales, and it's OK, but I wish the stories, the throws of youth, could have been collated and spread out better. As it is, this book feels like a tarot deck that's been moved over a floor: all the bits are interesting, but if they'd been arranged and perhaps edited—I don't know how to do this with a deck of cards, sorry, but that's where my analogy fails the hell out—better, this book would be more memorable and closer to my heart. Still, the best about this book are the seemingly honest descriptions of sexuality, sexualities, and sex, from the author's teenage years to her mid-forties. Humans that don't hide are really interesting.

This is a storytelling device, a memoir, a non-fiction recant of the author's teenage years, and her forties; it's sexual fantasies, encounters, wonders, teenage stupidity, her calling herself a slut, joking with friends, being bored with and because of her family. At times the paragraphs look like this:

You’ve always been close with your best friend, Victoria, but suddenly you’re on the phone every day, like lovers: “I had tuna fish for lunch.” “I cried instead of eating lunch.” You’re both married to men who are smart and loving and tall and funny. Even so, you and she travel together like a couple. Why do you leave these excellent men at home? You’re not sure exactly. It has something to do with valves; with escaping pressure. Anyway, she joins you on book tour and you accompany her to openings (she’s an artist); in all instances you drink too much. Speaking of lovahs, you have a slew of inappropriate e-mail friendships with men. They’re not quite romantic but you shouldn’t have to say that. Even sex with your husband, which has always been a point of connection, a relief, a release, has become an escape hatch, infused with the outsiders who are starting to cluster in your imagination. You don’t quite imagine them when you’re fucking your husband; except you do, actually. Sex is changing and becoming dirty again, just now when you are getting truly old and bits of you are lumpy that ought to be smooth. You find yourself over his knee, or with parts of him in your mouth, and you want to sort of rub your eyes and say: How’d we end up here? You know it’s not this way for all women. For every person like you, with this crazed gleam in your eye, there’re three other women who say they’d be happy doing it once a month, or less; they’d be happy with just a cuddle. You get it. You know how they feel. You’ve felt that way yourself. But not now. Now you feel like this: Jesus Christ, we’re all going to die! Get it while you can, you morons!

Other times, it's curt and interesting mini-segues from her diary:

June 4, 1979, age twelve
I wonder if these thoughts of death will ever leave my mind. I wonder what love is like.

November 13, 1982, age fifteen
There is no reason I should be lonely.

October 30, 1989, age twenty-two
I want to fuck, I don’t care who, I want to be fucked in the sink. I want a hand here, holding my world in place with a finger in my vagina. I want my breasts held and my face caressed. I want to feel that just holding still is enough, I want to be something without doing anything. I want to be essential and be fucked as such.

There are little stories in here, there, and everywhere. Altogether, this is a splintered tales, and it's OK, but I wish the stories, the throws of youth, could have been collated and spread out better. As it is, this book feels like a tarot deck that's been moved over a floor: all the bits are interesting, but if they'd been arranged and perhaps edited—I don't know how to do this with a deck of cards, sorry, but that's where my analogy fails the hell out—better, this book would be more memorable and closer to my heart. Still, the best about this book are the seemingly honest descriptions of sexuality, sexualities, and sex, from the author's teenage years to her mid-forties. Humans that don't hide are really interesting.

This is a storytelling device, a memoir, a non-fiction recant of the author's teenage years, and her forties; it's sexual fantasies, encounters, wonders, teenage stupidity, her calling herself a slut, joking with friends, being bored with and because of her family. At times the paragraphs look like this:

You’ve always been close with your best friend, Victoria, but suddenly you’re on the phone every day, like lovers: “I had tuna fish for lunch.” “I cried instead of eating lunch.” You’re both married to men who are smart and loving and tall and funny. Even so, you and she travel together like a couple. Why do you leave these excellent men at home? You’re not sure exactly. It has something to do with valves; with escaping pressure. Anyway, she joins you on book tour and you accompany her to openings (she’s an artist); in all instances you drink too much. Speaking of lovahs, you have a slew of inappropriate e-mail friendships with men. They’re not quite romantic but you shouldn’t have to say that. Even sex with your husband, which has always been a point of connection, a relief, a release, has become an escape hatch, infused with the outsiders who are starting to cluster in your imagination. You don’t quite imagine them when you’re fucking your husband; except you do, actually. Sex is changing and becoming dirty again, just now when you are getting truly old and bits of you are lumpy that ought to be smooth. You find yourself over his knee, or with parts of him in your mouth, and you want to sort of rub your eyes and say: How’d we end up here? You know it’s not this way for all women. For every person like you, with this crazed gleam in your eye, there’re three other women who say they’d be happy doing it once a month, or less; they’d be happy with just a cuddle. You get it. You know how they feel. You’ve felt that way yourself. But not now. Now you feel like this: Jesus Christ, we’re all going to die! Get it while you can, you morons!

Other times, it's curt and interesting mini-segues from her diary:

June 4, 1979, age twelve
I wonder if these thoughts of death will ever leave my mind. I wonder what love is like.

November 13, 1982, age fifteen
There is no reason I should be lonely.

October 30, 1989, age twenty-two
I want to fuck, I don’t care who, I want to be fucked in the sink. I want a hand here, holding my world in place with a finger in my vagina. I want my breasts held and my face caressed. I want to feel that just holding still is enough, I want to be something without doing anything. I want to be essential and be fucked as such.

There are little stories in here, there, and everywhere. Altogether, this is a splintered tales, and it's OK, but I wish the stories, the throws of youth, could have been collated and spread out better. As it is, this book feels like a tarot deck that's been moved over a floor: all the bits are interesting, but if they'd been arranged and perhaps edited—I don't know how to do this with a deck of cards, sorry, but that's where my analogy fails the hell out—better, this book would be more memorable and closer to my heart. Still, the best about this book are the seemingly honest descriptions of sexuality, sexualities, and sex, from the author's teenage years to her mid-forties. Humans that don't hide are really interesting.