This might be a page. This might be a chapter. But this ain't the book.

Lucky Uncle

If you’ll allow me a moment of familial indulgence, I am darn sure that I’m the luckiest uncle in the whole world:  My niece, Dahlia, is blossoming into such a special little girl—just a really good kid who has been through a whole lot and yet remains so grounded and kind and with such a loving, joyous, open heart. She is that child who makes you dream of having children of your own one day. A true sweetheart. It turns out she also has a real flair for comedy, even as a nine-year-old.

In the middle of our weekly telephone conversation last Wednesday, usually about sleepovers and hair braiding and beaded necklaces she made for me in her art class, she asked about my fledging writing career, quickly breaking the tension of my equivocating with a joke of her own:

“Uncle Marky,” she said.
“Yeah, honey.”
“Why does SpongeBob Squarepants live in a pineapple at the bottom of the sea?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. Why.”
“Because he’s a CUNT”

Pussy is Pussy: Healing our connection to the wound that does not heal

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Safe Sex

I'm all for safe sex. But, let me be frank: Condoms suck. Find me one guy who would prefer to wear a condom at any point in his life, much less when invited to insert his most sensitive, erogenous body part into another's moist, silken bloom. "Hold it right there, hon. Let me just unroll this car cover over my Ferrari, and then we can speed around the racetrack?" Okay. My KIA. A car cover on my KIA and then race the kids off to cello practice?

Of course you hate condoms. Everyone hates them. But that's because we've been thinking about them all wrong. You don't wear condoms for sex. You wear them for the DAY AFTER you have sex. Feel the difference as you're going through the Rolodex of offenses: Did I pull out in time? What about overly ambitious precum? Is that a burning sensation? What's that crusty stalamite growing on my shaft?

But wear that condom, and go ahead and kick your feet up. You don't have a care in the world. Sure, you couldn't cum and you kept losing your hard on. You went skin diving in a spacesuit. But, otherwise, you don't have a care in the world. But you don't have AIDS. That's pretty special, too.

No Regrets!

I recently overheard a conversation at a bar between two young men, when one raised his pint glass in encouragement, offering, by way of insight, “Hey, man. No regrets.” The other nodded, responding with an appreciative fist to bump, echoing his consent, “No regrets.”

Hmm, I said to myself, stroking my beard between my thumb and forefinger. No regrets. Live YOUR life with no regrets. Regret ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Let's see:

To have no regrets means you've either not done anything in your life or not thought about anything you've done. Hmm. Well, now. Where did this Buddhist koan come from? Which venerable thinker contributed this little philosophical pearl to the fraternal vernacular? Essentially, "Live your life devoid of risk, meaning, and self-reflection." Thank you, fucking Socrates. Why would anyone seek solace in No Regrets? Can we just cut through the bullshit and start handing out lobotomies? Pretty please?

Me? I've endless landscapes of regrets. Verdant green valleys spotted with spruce trees and wildflowers making crisscross patterns of blue and red, yellow and white and purple, a thin ribbon of pale blue riverscape snaking through the verdure as small, burrowing rodents nestle in the berry bushes. I've wide swaths of rugged, mountainous terrain wedged between my shoulder blades, tiny sherpas scurrying up the north face of my own private Mt. RegrEverest, quietly documenting my each and every misstep, miscue, miscalculation with their Scottish lamentations and Negro Spirituals.