Egg Salad Sensualities (Part 2 of Two: Revised)
JP David McDonald
--
I'll say one thing about this girl--when it came to laying on the egg
salad, she sure wasn't cheap. It was thick and rich and without any
raw onions, just the way I love it. I was having to lick it off my
fingers, where it had been squeezing out of the sandwich.
"You like?" she asked.
"Good," I said. And I thought of that line from Frankenstein, "Good
bread!" Said the Creature to the Little Girl.
It's really a wonder I was able to eat anything at all, the way I'd
been feeling down inside ever since she'd taken my hand, just as we'd
turned down Harvard Street from University Avenue. Had there been any
question about this girl's intentions before we'd crossed at that
light, as to what was going to happen once we'd got to her car, that
was all over now. The thrill of transgression that had then taken hold
was vibrating me head to foot as I went with her round the next corner
bopping and jigging like a wind-up tin toy Donald Duck: I could have
gone up those two flights of concrete stairs in the parking ramp on
sheer excess erotic energy alone.
Man, what a lair she had me in there! It was darkish, quiet, the view
before us through the broad windshield of that '62 Chevy baby blue
Biscayne was of the verdantly treed river bank and sky, and hardly any
people coming through; we had the place virtually to ourselves. I knew
what we were here for, and so did she.
I was just taking a first tentative bite from the second half of my
sandwich when she was already shaking out the match she'd put to the
tip of the Salem that stood stiffly from her lightly pink lipsticked
lips. "Fast eater, huh?" I asked.
"Yes," said she, "And that isn't all." She blew smoke at the dead
match-head, while slightly turning her wrist for a look at her watch.
"Looks like we've still got about 45 minutes till my next class." With
that, she leaned back against the door of the passenger side where she
sat and opened the little chrome ashtray in the handle. She looked at
me through the translucent azure frames of her cat's eye glasses,
suddenly to say, "Oh! My goodness!" She batted at the filmy blue print
of her skirt. "Where'd it go?" She brought her feet up, planting those
stubby little 2" heels against my thigh.
"What is it?" I asked, licking more creamy egg salad from my fingers.
"The match!" She arched her knees, again batting the dress fabric till
it fell away down her stocking clad thighs. "Won't you help me find
it?"
I was getting such a magnificent eyeful, all the way down (or up) to
the prettiest pair of lacy baby blue--dare I say the word? Dare I?
"Johnny? Couldja help me, huh?
"Oh! Wait. I have to put my sandwich down!"
"Ah, just gobble it up. Stuff it right it in, why don't-cha?" I did
as suggested, only instead of gobbling and stuffing, I took it gently
between my lips and started squeezing around the steering wheel.
"Gosh!" she was saying, "A girl could just about burn up by the time
you get done with your lunch." She shifted to one hip, pressing up
against the back of the seat to make room, and smiled, to show me the
match. "What do you think of that?"
"I took the sandwich out of my mouth to say, "Well. There it is!" She
gave it a flick over my thigh to the floor, and then set her cigarette
to the tray. She took hold of my upper arm, pulling me down, down till
my face was within a foot of her face. She let go, but only to take
off her glasses. "Put them up on the dash, will ya?"
I did as ordered, and no sooner than that she had me, pulling me all
the way down to her face. She smashed her lips against mine, while I
held on for dear life to that half of an egg salad sandwich, with just
one bite out of it. She got her hand around behind my back to press it
there and pull me closer. When she came down with the other one, it
was only to take my right hand from her shoulder and pull it down,
down, down to the up-curve of her breast. Oh! My. Goodness, how sweet
that felt, as she arched to press it further home to the concavity of
my palm.
Her lips were so soft that as I kissed them they just rolled and
skidded over her teeth like round rubber bands. And when she opened
her mouth, her lips came over my mouth so she could suck on my lips,
first one and then the other, like she got 'em out a box of Jujubes at
the movies.
I didn't know what to say. What could I say, when a woman's got your
mouth all gobbled up inside her mouth? But I did want to say
something, so with so much strength as it certainly took, I pulled my
head back against the grip she had at the back of my neck, till the
suction gave way, and I was able to say, "Jeez, Baby, I never really
knew you felt this way."
She was trying to pull my head back down as she said, "Well, I do. I
really, really do."
I said, "Here, have a bite of my egg salad sandwich." I put the
unbitten corner to her mouth and watched as she opened her pink
lipstick smeared lips to take it in. It was just a dainty bite. She
wasn't going to be a pig about it. I took my hand from her breast, and
changed hands for the sandwich so I could lick those freed fingers,
which I then applied to the buttons going down the front of her dress.
Soon the whole Maidenform Wonderland of bright white brocade and
taught thin straps lay exposed, and I feasted my eyes as I took
another bite from the egg salad sandwich this wonder girl had made for
me.
Her hand was at the small of my back urging me closer. Her left knee
had fallen against the back of the seat; the exciting contrast of
creamy white thigh and beige trade-marked hosiery was working its
mystic magic on me as her breath came hard and fast, bulging her
breasts against their restraint, and blushing bright as big begonias.
This was not a sight to be passed over at a glance, but savored,
leisurely as I let my gaze linger, if only for so long as to take
another bite from my egg salad sandwich. And oh, just so rich and
thick and creamy as it was, somehow my finger had slipped between the
slices of the sandwich, right into the egg-salad. "Oh my!" I said.
She looked at her sandwich, the one she'd made for me and saw what had
happened, and said, "Do you like that?"
'Yes!" I said. "I do."
Her eyes remained on the sandwich, nested in my hand where it rested
over the blue expanse of nylon or rayon, whatever they were using to
make ladies underpants in those days. She waved her left leg a little
to say, "I like it, too, Keep doing that!" So I did, and she loved
it. She said, "Why don't you try two?"
I wiggled my forefinger at her. "This one?"
"Go on ahead," she said. "Please do!"
And oh, you've never seen a boy and girl so enjoy the sweet sin of
sharing a thick and creamy egg salad sandwich as we did, up in the
front seat of a Chevy Biscayne, while "Crystal Blue Persuasion" played
over our kisses on a lovely spring day.
--
JP David McDonald
Hikari
A definite Johnny Mac feminine Type emerges: (Mme Librarian whips out
her pencil & pad)
1. A little slutty . . .I believe you used to call them 'forward'
back in the day.
2. Favors skirts , garters and kitten heels, so a feminine dresser.
Apart from showing leg, provides easy access for those automobile
making out sessions. Struggling out of jeans is so inelegant.
3. Smokes Salems. My brand! How did you guess? But smoking is not
fashionable anymore. I don't know as the combination of Salems and
egg salad would be particularly kissable for me, but this is your
fantasy.
4. Stacked
5. Bossy. Definitely bossy. You enjoy complying to a forceful woman
who knows what she wants, don't you?
6. Orally fixated. Or is that you?
A few other observations:
1. I will never look at egg salad quite the same way again. I think
the smell alone would probably spoil the mood for me! But you put a
unique spin on 'thick and creamy' I gotta say.
2. I've always wondered how men feel about kissing lips that are
gooped up with lipstick. Never mind how they feel about chewing on a
sandwich that has lipstick on it. I don't like lipstick much. Looks
great in pictures; hard to sustain in real life. I'm more of a Burt's
Bees lip balm girl. If there's kissing or eating to be involved, I
want to be lipstick free! Fewer traces that way.
3. I think, a rayon/nylon blend.
4. Please clarify: where exactly did that egg salad go again? What
interesting places these humble sandwiches end up!
5. I'm getting the feeling "egg salad" stops being lunch and starts
being code for something else altogether. Ditto 'slices of bread'.
Am I anywhere in the ballpark?
6. Ah, the garters. An article of clothing I have never had occasion
to wear. No one under 60 who is not a prostitute wears garters these
days, I'm afraid. Unless they are French.
7. Lovemaking in an automobile is not very comfortable for the
ladies, even if it is a '62 Chevy and therefore a bit more roomy than
average. Many places that are considered sexy and often filmed or
written about as unconventional amour locations tend to be really
uncomfortable in real life, particularly for the party on the bottom.
These include: kitchen floors, carpeted floors (rug burn); outside on
the lawn (you'd be surprised at how many bumps, stones, sticks,
hillocks and insects there can be in a smooth-seeming patch of grass;
sand; the shower, or any vertical position generally; tile floors,
particularly if one's head is bashing into the commode; stairs,
particularly uncarpeted ones, phone booths; public transportation;
airplane toilets; department store dressing rooms . . .any of these
locations require a great deal of stamina, flexibility, tough skin and
a sense of the ridiculous. Sorry to rain on any parades. In the land
of fiction, all physical laws are suspended, so feel free to use any
of the above as many times as needed.
8. Johnny Mac is a bit of a tease . . .unless there's gonna be a Part
3?
9. I will leave you to work out how many of the 5 qualities above I
possess.
I'm knackered and must postpone any original fiction writing to a less
fatigued time.
Pour ce soir, adieu!
MM
JP David McDonald
of Ms. Hikari's queries. Hence the former copy of this reply has been
deleted and replaced with this, including the needful amendments. Once
again, my replies as set apart from the original text by double hymens
-- or that is, like this: (--) and this . . .
--
On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 2:38 PM, Mary Wenzel <hika...@yahoo.com>
wrote:
<Respectful snip toward purpose of getting down to the . . . egg
salad . . . of the matter>
A definite Johnny Mac preferred feminine Type emerges:
1. A bit slutty. Think you called them 'forward' back in the day.
--
Or "fast". ;-) My wife's impression as well, which then is nobody's
fault but my own. It means that I must devote a bit more space to my
initial description of her, which I see is entirely limited to her
physical characteristics. To look at her you would have seen what you
would surely have taken to be a "good girl" (hence my astonishment
over her actions on that day, all the more in view of the fact that
I'd never thought of her in "that way") of solid middle class
upbringing, without a salty word on her tongue--but a virgin who had
chosen, in Johnny, the instrument of her deflowering.
Jan being the "can do" sort of budding career girl she was, she worked
out her plan, every detail for the event far in advance of the day.
So, what comes off with an appearance of considerable sexual
experience is in fact quite the opposite, being rather a conscientious
application of natural feminine wiles to a 'steely' (thanks for that
word!) determination for getting the job done. The auto-makers of
Detroit, with all the efficiency of Henry Ford's assembly line had
nothing on this doll when it came to putting out the product of her
own fully completed, bright and shiny, hot off the line womanhood.
--
2. A bit bossy. Or at least very decisive about what she wants.
--
Exactly. And yet ever so sweet and soft and caring. While still a
"designing woman" to the letter of the phrase.
--
You said before you like the shy and meek miss, but it seems like a
gal who isn't afraid to give you direction is not unwelcome either. 3.
A feminine dresser. Skirts, kitten heels and garters. Unfortunately
for you, garters are hard to find in America on anybody who's under 60
or not a prostitute. They look rather complicated! My guess as to the
undies question is a rayon/polyester blend. 4. A smoker. Salems are my
brand--how did you guess? Mme Librarian indulges occasionally, but
really should be packing up. There are so few vices in her life,
though, dang it. 5. Stacked. No stick insects for you. 6. A creative
thinker. At least, she has come up with some unconventional uses for
sandwich spread. 7. Orally fixated. Naturellement!
Now, a couple of things I wonder about: 1. Is a combo egg salad/Salem
breath really a turn on?
--
For a girl and boy who both smoke and love egg salad? REALLY a turn
on. ;-)
--
2. How do men really feel about lipstick? Like it? Scared of it? It
looks nice in repose, but is imminently impractical in daily life. Mme
Librarian foregoes lipstick most of the time, especially if kissing or
eating are going to be on the agenda. Don't like the feel or the taste
of it. Worries that it will go somewhere it should not.
--
Though the taste is beyond tart nearly to the acrid, perfumed and waxy
to the tongue--it is nonetheless exciting to the taste because it is
so not male, so exquisitely and exclusively female, and anything
female the male wants to taste!
--
Enjoyable installment #2.
--
Well, I thank my lucky stars for that.
--
Is that it for egg salad, or will there be a #3?
--
There may well be, though these two parts will form one short story,
all to itself--i.e. after I've done the aforementioned preliminary
descriptive work to spare Jan the 'brazen hussy' appearance I have so
unjustly given her. I would most certainly not want to see her picking
up a copy of Esquire someday (you never know) to find herself so
unfairly caricatured in that way! She really was such a dear girl.
--
I feel like there were questioned unanwered like, where exactly did
the egg salad go? Did it go all the way or just skate around the
perimeter of third base?
--
Um . . . let's see. I think, in your previous missive . . . yes--you
put it like this . . .
{{I'm getting the feeling "egg salad" stops being lunch and starts
being code for something else altogether. Ditto 'slices of bread'. Am
I anywhere in the ballpark? }}
But as to the further implication of your question: be assured, that
for this first foray in the Chevy and the University parking ramp, it
never went any further than the "egg salad".
Thing is, when I told this story once before, or i.e. wrote it for an
on-line "writer's group" so-called, there was much strenuous objection
to what was in that rendering, a literal, graphic portrayal of this
particular portion of the love play, or "heavy petting" as it were. I
was universally condemned for a "pornographer"!
That has since given me pause to consider that they were right. There
are certainly times when literal graphic description is an enemy to
art, and this is a time for metaphor, even allegory to be employed. In
its original version I should never have dared come up with the
thought that it might be something that could pass muster with the
fiction editors at Esquire. With this rendering, fully in view of the
fact that you, an actual librarian, a Marian Librarian, DID, bless
your heart, catch the meaning without overmuch offense, why then
should not they?
--
That is, of course, at the author's discretion to show or say just as
much as he wants to and not a jot more. It is the reader's duty to
apply imagination to fill in the gaps.
--
Quite. And I don't mind telling you that it wasn't an easy trick to
keep that egg salad sandwich in the air, juggling it through all the
amorous action like that to the purpose of its ultimate denouement,
which of course had been planned, ever since that moment after lights
out, in bed, when it suddenly took hold on me like a maniacally
laughing succubus in midst of the silliest of all "wet dreams".
C'est tout . . .
--
C'est assez! Et c'est magnifique!
MM
--
J.
Mary Wenzel
The reason I think it will be a grand idea to open another mail box for what I
have christened the "Left Bank Original Fiction Roundtable (LBOFRT)--that sounds
like an acronym the Rainbow Nation might favor, oh, D. Larson, where are
you?--definitely unwieldy and a working title only til we come up with something
better--what was your suggestion, the Green Garter Room?) is the sheer amount of
mail this little enterprise generates. I get every message in duplicate,
triplicate or quadru
Mary Wenzel
.temperamental . . .it's been a long day and right now I feel inclined to hurl
it against the wall . . un moment, s'il vous plait (takes a long pull of Honey
Brown . .) Okay . .
As I was saying before being so prematurely cut off is I tried earlier to set up
a Gmail account, but after 20 minutes of failing to come up with a suitable
username that wasn't taken, I decided to shelve it, come home, have a drink and
try again in the morning. My MO for coping with frustrating situations: Fuck
it, I'll worry about it tomorrow--where's the beer? Call me Scarlett O'Hara
2010.
Actually in the first half of your story you did a fine job of painting the
ladylike nature of Ms. J. So well that I wondered if this was possibly ever
going to get down and dirty or just coast along with Austenian propriety (Austen
as a hep cat, mind you--I detected some cool. Must have been great fun to be a
college student when you were in college. I was a college student at a
Presbyterian school in Amish country during the Reagan era. Just imagine how
much fun that was! (dry campus dry county . . .had to go at least 30 miles to
find a godforsaken drink--not that I did that until I was 21). I really was
square, and repressed, the product of a German-Lutheran upbringing--just ask our
friend Larson. Now, I did not swing quite as far into debauchery as
she--repressed as I was, I always knew what kind of urges I was repressing . .
but as soon as I got out on my own recognizance, I made sure to collect a few of
the experiences I'd been missing out on. It took several years to do it, but,
like your wife, I finally found a candidate to relieve me of the burden of my
inexperience and so set about arranging his seduction, and let him think it was
the other way 'round. It was all a bit pragmatic, actually, but to move forward
as an adult in life, I felt it had to be done. I waited (and waited) for the
proper scenario of courtship and ring and dress and cake, but it never
materialized. Still hasn't. If I had maintained my scruples, I would be that
saddest of creatures, the 40-something virgin spinster with cats. Only trumped
for pathos by the 50-something virginal spinster with cats. You would be
surprised, or perhaps not, by the number of those I run into in my profession,
of both genders. Library folk fall into three categories, it seems: the
married, the gay (both genders) and the asexual. Really, there are so many
celibate librarians across all age groups that live alone (often with cats,
their parents, or both), who never dated, never had sex, don't show the
slightest interest in either gender and seem perfectly content. They go home to
their knitting, their tea, thier microwave dinners, their public television, and
their piles of cosy mysteries, sci fi, romance pulp or whatever their personal
literary crack is.
And then there's me. I fit the demographic in all respects but one: I am NOT a
contented celibate and sometimes I believe I will explode. But I have to sit
there in library conferences with my spectacularly dowdy colleagues and pretend
that all this yammering about the latest in children's picture books is all that
there is to life. NOT. Librarians wear a lot of applique sweaters with holiday
whimsy on them and studiously avagoid hair products and carry bookbags. I
refuse to do any of the above. Clearly I am a mole. The librarian is just my
cover . . .by night I am a cyber geisha with a much less dull life. This is my
Second Life and in it I feel more alive than in First Blah Life.
But back to your story . . .so I take it that the deflowering was not actually
consummated in the '62 Chevy, but that the pot was stirred to a nice rolling
boil. Weren't you lucky, to be the first to dip your spoon in and stir that
pot? Or whatever the equivilent is with egg salad. Hope the denouement was a
happy realization of anticipation for you both. Mine was a bit of a letdown,
but not unexpectedly so. It wasn't with someone who I loved who was going to be
around for the long-term . .I know that going in. Or rather, before his going
in. But he was somebody I cared about who I knew would be gentle and
appreciative and it did get better. Paving the way for the real thing, in emy
mind. I have a friend who's quite a bit younger than me, one of those celibate
librarians I mentioned, but she is still young enough for this not to be her
permanent state. However, rather than trying to meet a man in real life, she
buries herself during every free moment in piles and piles of romance fiction.
She reads it all, from the prim and Victorian to the vampire erotica and
everything in between. Says her preferred type is 'cowboy'. I have cautioned
her a little to not expect real life, particularly the first time, to be like it
is in the pages of those books. But youth has to figure things out for itself.
I have a feeling that she is going to be in more or less my shoes in 15 years if
she stays on her current path. C'est la vie.
Did I hear you say your wife is proofreading as you go? She's a sport. ;-) I
Does she get to see all our correspondence? If so, my message to her is: Good
on you! Well done. A lady in the lunchroom and a vixen in the '62 Chevy. You
men, see . . .it's not that hard to figure out what will push your buttons.
Besides, being a vixen in the lunchroom might get us in trouble with the
authorities. Too much highspiritedness in public in a woman gets us labelled
loose, crazy or dangerous. It's much more rewarding to be an exhibitionist in
private. One is much more in tune with her audience that way.
I'm sure that her determination was not the only thing that was steely that day,
either. Quite a memory. The degree to which paper memory adheres to real-time
memory is the author's little secret. It's not really fiction if it happened as
you say . . .then we are verging into memoir. But memoir is to me a preferable
form because it means that somebody actually did those things. I have been an
apiring writer since I learned how to write, but I guess I am a writer in search
of a genre. I used to think that fiction was my natural fit, but the older I
get, the less I want to make things up and the more I seek to make my own life
worth writing about instead. Ironically, the two pursuits I love more than
anything (well, OK, the two pursuits in my top 3 that I love the most)--reading
and writing are two things which require solitude and a bit of a remove from
human interactions to do well, or at least to apply the discipline required.
I've had enough of such loneliness, isolation and escapism and really want to
jump in and tear the meat off the bones of life, and pursue my #1 passion.
Which can be done in solitude and isolation but is much more satisfying with
someone else in the room. I think if I had that, I could never read another
word or write another sentence and still be more content than I am now. All
this deluge of wordiage that I leave in my wake everywhere I visit . . this is
sublimation. I am frustrated, therefore, I write. A lot. And writing does
really mean writing and is not code for anything else. ;-)
Perhaps my fate is to be that most loathed and courted of creatures--the
critic. You see how I procrastinate on actually sending you an original work.
In time, in time. The ideas have to marinate until they are properly seasoned
and ready.
Here's wishing you happy tequila dreams--
MM
----- Original Message ----
From: JP David McDonald <jpd...@gmail.com>
To: Original Fiction <original...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sat, August 28, 2010 5:49:19 PM
Subject: Re: Egg Salad Sensualities (Part 2 of Two: Revised)
NOTE: Upon further review, I found that I had omitted answers to some
of Ms. Hikari's queries. Hence the former copy of this reply has beenak
JP David McDonald
On Aug 28, 7:48 pm, Mary Wenzel <hikari...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Dammit! Sorry--technical malfunction. My laptop is, how shall we say .
> .temperamental . . .it's been a long day and right now I feel inclined to hurl
> it against the wall . . un moment, s'il vous plait (takes a long pull of Honey
> Brown . .) Okay . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN38vED24Eg
Ah-hah . . . . .
--
J.
Mary Wenzel
**********************
NOTE: Upon further review, I found that I had omitted answers to some
of Ms. Hikari's queries. Hence the former copy of this reply has beenak
deleted and replaced with this, including the needful amendments. Once
again, my replies as set apart from the original text by double hymens
-- or that is, like this: (--) and this.
***********************
Hahaha! Well, 'tis OK. I know why this happened--because you had deflowering on the brain, that's why. Just another of my questions for God when I get upstairs--like an apprendix . .there to no apparent purpose except to cause pain and aggravation. Did you spot what I'm talking about?
--- On Sun, 8/29/10, JP David McDonald <jpd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> From: JP David McDonald <jpd...@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Egg Salad Sensualities (Part 2 of Two: Revised)
John McDonald
> Skimming through an earlier reply of yours, I realized I missed quite a gem in your opening paragraph. Can you spot it? Put your Freudian spectacles on . . .
>
> **********************
> NOTE: Upon further review, I found that I had omitted answers to some
> of Ms. Hikari's queries. Hence the former copy of this reply has been
> again, my replies as set apart from the original text by double hymens
> -- or that is, like this: (--) and this.
> ***********************
>
> Hahaha! Well, 'tis OK. I know why this happened--because you had deflowering on the brain, that's why. Just another of my questions for God when I get upstairs--like an apprendix . .there to no apparent purpose except to cause pain and aggravation. Did you spot what I'm talking about?
--
would have made the penultimate of all Freudian slips though, to be
sure.
Bon Soir, ma chérie
--
J.
Hikari
had done that very thing--planted a naughty pun for me to find, like
an Easter egg in the grass. I had my suspicion that it was so, and I
have had my suspicion confirmed.
So, do I get any sort of a prize or a gold star for spotting this egg
in the grass, albeit belatedly? I skipped over that paragraph the
first time, thinking it exposition for future readers of this forum
and not necessary for me to look at. My literary eyes are astute,
yes? I got that bit about the egg salad and the slices of bread too,
so I feel rather proud of myself. I will be sure to keep a sharp eye
out for similar crumbs you drop along the path for me to find in
future.
You should hate to admit nothing--a planned pun is better than an
unintentional one by a mile. With the first, you get to smirk at your
audience; with the second your audience gets a laugh at your expense,
if they have sufficient wit to realize it.
Hmm . . if that one would have been the penultimate, does that mean
that the ultimate one is still your ace in the hole at some point in
the future? I shall look forward to it.
I was just rereading your story in the entirety of both of its parts,
when you rang in with your last message. Now I know why you are so
fond of "Chrystal Blue Persausion" . . it's 'your song'. Every couple
should have one of those. I guess I'll know mine when I hear it in
the company of an appropriate person. . .I hope it's nothing stupid.
That will be just the kind of luck I'd have, to get some dumb novelty
tune as 'my' song.
10 years ago, when I was having my little front seat interlude of
inelegant fraternization, there was a new group just out with their
first album called Vertical Horizon. They were not playing on the
radio at the time of the alleged incident, but they had a hit single
with a chorus that went:
He's everything you want
He's everything you need
He's everything inside of you
That you wish you could be
He says all the right things
At exactly the right time
But he means nothing to you
And you don't know why
If we, this young man and I had a song, this was it. Ironic, since it
really was so apropos to our situation. He was, I hasten to add, not
the object of my seductive scheme . . .no, that had happened some
years prior, and I had to leave him behind in his country when I
returned to mine. The young man in the car was a local who kind of
asked me out in a rather endearing fashion at the public library
(though not the one I currently work in--I have had something of a
peripetetic life, so you will just have to bear with me and roll with
it). An awkward sort of dating ritual followed. I soon determined
that this young man was not, alas, to be the companion of my future
life, being somewhat intellectually-challenged. He was also a
Catholic and had a Catholic mama who was very keen that he marry a
nice Catholic girl. But this young man was so fine a physical
specimen . . .really, the handsomest man I had known personally,
walking around in my daily life and not just an image on a movie
screen, that it would have been a shame to let him go without at least
sampling the fruit. He was amenable. So we had a few meetings in
search of carnal knowledge. He had a very nice cigar, indeed, but
despite everything, the sad, inevitable conclusion I came to was that
I could only enjoy surface beauty so long before I was hungry for
something more substantial. I think I have had my first and last
beautiful but dumb entry in the stable. Lovely to look at, but just
not enough to sustain me. So I have spent my time since searching for
quirky-looking men with personality and brains. Beauty is overrated;
it does not last, but dumb is forever.
So I admit to using this young man for his pulchritude and tossing him
back to his Catholic mama. I don't think this wounded him any,
because he knew this could never be a permanent arrangement. I took a
job across the state, so that made breaking up with him easy and
painless for both sides. Our automotive interlude was not our first
time together . .I made sure of that . .but in the spirit of
experimentation (though nervously looking out the window for the laws
the whole time), we made an approximation of the act in his Honda
Civic. Yes--a Honda. So you can see the kinds of crummy situtations
I get--a Honda and a moody '90s emo song with its ironic lyrics. I am
never attempting gymnastics in an automobile again, unless it's a
stretch limosine with very expansive leather seats and a wet bar.
Mme Librarian has made it halfway into her life without ever having
been in love--does that make me pathetic or lucky? I"m not sure I am
a devotee of the "better to have loved and lost than never to have
loved at all" school. It sounds very romantic and noble . . .but I
have sustained losses, and I know that loving, great while it lasts,
also devastates when it leaves. I have buried half a dozen household
pets and a father . . .I know that love, however great, cannot stay
forever. I am already prone to melancholia, and I know that if I had,
then lost, a great love, there's a very good chance I would not
survive the loss. I don't understand how anyone does. I guess that's
one of the things you can never know until you have to live it. I do
stoicism pretty well, being German . . .what I do not do well is
loving profligately and with abandon. I know that 'nothing gold can
stay'. But how else will I fill all the dreary days between now and
then? So I would like to choose love--but I am still waiting for it
to choose me.
Wasn't there a Greek goddess called 'Hymenia"? I was convinced there
was, so I Googled it just now. No joy, but I did find an organization
promoting abstinence for young girls called IRON HYMEN. I am not
kidding!!! Too much. Wonder if they have any trouble attracting
young ladies to join their clubs or if they are laughed out of the
schools. Surely the name has to make some school administrators
uncomfortable. Besides, there is not an adolescent girl alive who
would want to admit aloud that she was a member of a club with a name
like that.
On a related topic . . I watch a good bit of late night talk show
comedy, and can't get over the hypocrisy of the network censors. One
can say "crap", for example, but not its synonym beginning with
's'---. One can say all the proper clinical names for body parts, and
the censors don't flinch. But one cannot use any of the slang names
for same. Craig Ferguson somehow gets away with saying 'boobies'--it
must be the endearing Scottish accent. But I'm sure he would not be
allowed to say the word that got Mel Gibson in trouble a few years
back--leastways he's never tried it. The granddaddy of all bad words
is still disallowed no matter how late the hour . . .one can say
'sexual intercourse' but not the Anglo-Saxon term for same. Are
people who are up at 1:00 AM really going to object? Hell, no. I for
one say bring on all the familar comfy slang for the scatological part
of life. I'm not a prude (have you guessed by now?) but even so, to
hear the word "penis" blurted out seemingly at random is still kind of
jarring. But alas . . .Craig cannot say the word 'cock' unless he
goes to elaborate lengths to pretend he's talking about a male
chicken. Hence, his fondness for hand puppets onstage. You'd like
Mr. Ferguson, I'm quite sure--he's as balls-out iconoclastic as you
are . . .all in a Scots accent. In an act of defiance against tyranny
he took a Sharpie and drew a penis on the bottom of the mug he drinks
out of every night, so every bottoms up would be like a Fuck you! to
the censors. They put a sticker over it that says "Censored".
CF is a delightful mish-mash of the the Id, the Ego and the Superego
all rolled into one. He gives the Superego the night off when taping
his show. Oh, that we all could do that! ;-P
Bon soir back atcha.
MM
On Aug 29, 10:09 pm, John McDonald <jpd...@gmail.com> wrote:
John McDonald
> Planned, was it? How very you. I did wonder a bit afterwards, if you
> had done that very thing--planted a naughty pun for me to find, like
> an Easter egg in the grass. I had my suspicion that it was so, and I
> have had my suspicion confirmed.
YOU are a muse, dear girl. That is what you are. You tell me that you
have read through this story AGAIN? Well, on strength of that, so have
I, and I see that as you have inspired it to flow forth from my
memory, it's the only thing I've written in years that amounts to a
damn. I'm going to send it to the New Yorker, because they asked me to
do that, after the last poem I sent them which in their view they
could not accept. They said, "Send us something else." Can you
imagine? They wanted to see "something else." Well, thanks to you ma
chéri that is exactly what they are going to get. Something else.
L'amour sans la fin, votre ami . . .
Jean
Hikari
I have a confession to make: Je ne comprende pas en la francais.
Well, not 'pas' . . .but definitely only 'un peu'. I did get all the
way to Side 4 on my Berlitz CDs. I know just enough of a lot of
languages to get myself in trouble. I double-checked your saluation
against my handy Bing translator and well . .Johnny Mac, you are so
effusive that Mme. Librarian blushes. Or do you prefer 'Jean le Mac'?
lol
Trust me, it was no onerous duty to read your story again. It's not
very long at all. I wanted to put the two pieces together and read
them so they flowed. That was a pretty good day, wasn't it? ;-) And
now it is immortalized as a story. Promise me that if you get
published in the New Yorker, you will send me an autographed copy.
Perhaps, like me, over there in the storied story offices of the New
Yorker, they too will catch a whiff of that other John, Updike, who
used to be a fixture there and that'll be your ticket to the Big
Show. I will have my fingers crossed. Perhaps a change of title is
in order? Humble egg salad, though it figures prominently in the
action, might not be a swanky enough sell for them. Keep the story as
is, but maybe a '62 Chevy reference is in order. I dunno. Just a a
thought. I am trying to see "Egg Salad Sensualities" in
bold . . .sounds kinda like a cooking article, or something more
suitable for a gentleman's magazine. Too bad she didn't make you tuna
salad sandwiches that day, or else you could have called it "A Perfect
Day for Tuna Fish". I know how you like your Salinger. I just have a
feeling that they are going to want to see another title. You have a
great nostalgia piece there, but somehow you've got to upscale the
pitch for so that Manhattan snobs that would never deign to eat egg
salad will still want to read it. By the time the egg salad is
actually introduced, you've already hooked 'em in.
Devoid of helpful suggestions here, but I'm sure you'll think of
something.
Maintenant, dormir quand à rêver.
Marian
On Aug 30, 12:55 am, John McDonald <jpd...@gmail.com> wrote:
John McDonald
Sorry for the delay . . .
On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 12:33 AM, Hikari <hika...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Those Frenchies really know how to sign off on a letter, don't they?
>
> Too bad she didn't make you tuna
> salad sandwiches that day, or else you could have called it "A Perfect
> Day for Tuna Fish".
LOL!
> I know how you like your Salinger. I just have a
> feeling that they are going to want to see another title. You have a
> great nostalgia piece there, but somehow you've got to upscale the
> pitch for so that Manhattan snobs that would never deign to eat egg
> salad will still want to read it. By the time the egg salad is
> actually introduced, you've already hooked 'em in.
Well, I'll certainly take these thoughts into serious consideration.
If the Muse has a better idea, she'll lay it on me just like she
always does. She's a real honey when it comes to that, ol' Gladys in
the Sky with Glasses.
Tomorrow night, I'll be getting started on the expansion of that
description, which it may be, will include some of the material you
asked about on the forum.
Tonight we watched one hell of an interview with Christopher Hitchens
conducted at the New York Public Library. In case you'd be interested
. . .
http://fora.tv/2010/06/04/Christopher_Hitchens_Some_Confessions_and_Contradictions
The introductory comments by the host are a bit of a bore, but soon as
Hitchens is on the dais it starts to rock.
This was conducted just previous to the bad news he was to get
concerning that malignant tumor in his throat. For that reason, it's
just downright eery, how full of portent of what was coming, the
conversation turned out to be.
By the looks of him in his most recent interview, if he lasts another
month it will be a miracle. Sad. Such a brilliant mind, so tragically
blind to the help he cannot see to receive.
--
Buona Sera, Signorina
Got your speakers hooked up yet?
Mary Wenzel
If you continue to address me as Gladys, I will be forced to withdraw my Muse
services. Savvy? ;-)
Muse is still working her way through the first cup of coffee for the day and is
not feeling very inspired at the moment. I'm thinking something as simple as
"Lunch Hour". "Lunch Hour at the Biscayne"? It'd be cool if you could work in
that righteous automobile (I mean, the chariot of sin) in somehow. You know how
pretentious New Yorker readers are--they do like their metaphors. Playing
around with the idea of lunch hour is good 'cause the story does start out in a
normal lunchtime scenario before going sideways into the carnal direction. Pull
a fast one on 'em, like. They start thinking they are reading a usual campus
tale and then the story becomes something else. If you tip them off ahead of
time that this story is going in the 'sensual' direction, you lose the element
of surprise. And that, my friend, is your ace in the hole.
(Non-accidental punnage.)
Chris Hitchens . . .you're right, what a sad waste. Well, he, Douglas Adams
and Bill Maher can keep each other company in hell. Bet they won't feel quite
so astute and so far and above all us moronic Bible beaters then, will they?
Some say the world will end in fire; others in ice . . . To me, hell must be a
cold place. I've never really bought the neverending always burning fire
argument. Jesus does mention it, so that's a bit problematic. He is
referencing the Old Testament conception of Gahenna. I don't know. Perhaps the
experience of hell is individual, unlike its opposite, where the souls are all
united in perfect joy and community. The punishment of hell is to suffer
whatever it is you suffer completely alone. There are other souls in hell, but
they are each in their own separate misery . . .there is no communion in hell,
even communion in suffering. I have always envisioned hell as a frozen, dark
wasteland where one is completely alone for eternity except with one's regrets
and self-recriminations. If God is Light, and hell is the absence of God, then
it must follow that hell has neither light nor warmth of any kind. Guess Bill
M. will be finding out for himself eventually just how 'Religulous' that all is.
Off for more coffee. Look forward to seeing the expansions. Not TOO expanded .
. .this is, after all, the New Yorker. ;-)
MM
----- Original Message ----
From: John McDonald <jpd...@gmail.com>
To: original...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tue, August 31, 2010 2:50:20 AM
Subject: Re: Egg Salad Sensualities (Part 2 of Two: Revised)