Dangermond.org

A friend read my entry on going to the strip club and asked if I had read Norah Vincent’s book about going undercover as a man. Here is one synopsis of the part where she speaks about men and strip clubs:

Vincent said strip joints are about pure sex drive — completely empty of any meaningful interaction, even when a woman is gyrating on your lap.

Even though Vincent is attracted to women, she said she was never aroused during her visits to the clubs. “I really ran smack up against the difference between male and female sexuality. It’s that female sexuality is mental. … For a man, it’s an urge,” she said.

“At its core, it’s a bodily function. It’s a necessity. It’s such a powerful drive and I think because we [women] don’t have testosterone in our systems, we don’t understand how hard it is,” she said.

Vincent even dabbled in the art of picking up women and agreed to wear a hidden camera for “20/20” during her exploits.

She was quickly reminded that in this arena, it’s women who have the power, she said.

“In fact, we sit there and we just with one word, ‘no,’ will crush someone,” she said. “We don’t have to do the part where you cross the room and you go up to a stranger that you’ve never met in the middle of a room full of people and say the first words. And those first words are so hard to say without sounding like a cheeseball or sounding like a jerk.”

Vincent encountered some pretty cold shoulders in her attempts at the bar, but she did manage to go on about 30 dates with women as “Ned,” mostly arranging them on the Internet.

Vincent said the dates were rarely fun and that the pressure of “Ned” having to prove himself was grueling. She was surprised that many women had no interest in a soft, vulnerable man.

“My prejudice was that the ideal man is a woman in a man’s body. And I learned, no, that’s really not. There are a lot of women out there who really want a manly man, and they want his stoicism,” she said.

***

Amen. Of course, women want manly men, we like the difference of men, and while I empathize with the difficulty of the man’s position to be the initiator, it just is what it is and it goes hand in hand with the other manly qualities – stoicism, testosterone sex drive, and in the type of men I’m attacted to, taciturn, stillness, laconic, a certain shyness – all of these qualities make men very desirable.

***

The question is what do men want?

I stopped Blue at the end of the bayou today when three men were fishing there and asked them if they were catching anything – yes indeed, they said, perch. I asked if they were using a cricket or a worm and they said, bread. Just bread, I said, astonished. They said, just bread.

I’m going to go get a junior rod and reel for Jake and maybe even Louie (Tony’s kid, the waitress at LaVita) and take them fishing. Now I just need to know how to fish first. I asked Ham tonight if he knows how to fish and he said, you’re asking a Southern man if he knows how to fish? I said, well I just want to be proficient enough to show a kid.

Victory Development is gobbling up tracts of land. The first rendering they showed the MidCity Neighborhood Organization was for a Neiman Marcus or Macy’s – the next time they showed a plan it was for Target and Bed Bath and Beyond. Why are developers snakes in the grass? I learned at the FSJN meeting tonight that Carrolton’s corridor could have come back already if not for the fact that Victory has its paws on the properties and is driving up real estate prices.

It made me think of the project in Hawaii that my ex-father in law worked on – where they got a cultural protection agreement that stopped the development. Something can be done to stop Victory from doing what the community does not want – but what will make them do what the community does want?

The day’s foundation has been shifting underneath my feet – visibility into the future looks cloudy – is it ever clear? Why is it that you cross one hurdle and the next mountain – glacier – appears on the horizon, actually it was always out there but so far in the distance and now suddenly you are right upon it – like your life is some video game and you are navigating through jello or something. I told G on Saturday morning that I felt as if I was in some sort of Tennessee Williams play – you know how Eudora Welty said us Southerners live our narratives – and I felt like we were in the thick of it, the meat so to say of life, and what we know is to celebrate life and in doing so life gets divided into fun and fear – fear the fun will end – I asked the Magic 8 Ball if everything would be okay and the reply:

Without a doubt

Wow – not a moment for a breath, a pause, a swirl or jiggle – just nonstop, freight train, Monday.

Mom made me waffles for brunch yesterday and then we both took a nap on the couch. I came home and put up some hooks, and did some laundry, and got some work done, and then began the pull. R called from the bar at LaVita and said she had spent most of the weekend alone and was in need of social contact. G said she had no food in her house. I walked in with F behind the bar and a table full of young lesbians making a raucous noise – F said what am I going to do? – I said I’ll go talk to them since I know a few of them. They said they had been at their respective family houses all day and they needed to cut loose. I said I understand that. So I went back to the bar and told F that when other patrons came in and if they were still acting up, I’d go talk to them again.

Then J came in with B&K and we all got a big round table – and M and D and Y came back from the Noodle House – F brought out a big pizza on the house – and we opened Sangiovese and ordered Fatma salads of roasted vegetables and white beans. And then D turned up the music – from Spain – with an infectious beat – and we were all up dancing – everyone – a couple at a table was eating but then they got up to dance – and then the cooks came out of the kitchen – a young Spanish boy who moved his hips as if they were a weapon – and T with her furry pony tail holders whose young son L has been at the restaurant a few times when she couldn’t get a sitter and I gave her my number and said if you run into a snag again I’m down the street and can come get him – and we danced – and we just couldn’t stop dancing.

La Vita – here we are on Sunday night dancing to our graves – makes all the sense to me.

reprinted from the Times Picayune

Charles Darwin would delight in the social experiment called New Orleans.

This lovely city was shaped by nature and attracted a particular variety of human suited to endure heat, bugs, disease, and pirates.

Now, after Katrina, those hardy souls who stay endure rude and impudent government workers, robbers and murderers and unfriendly business rules.

Those who seek New Orleans out and stay are rough, gritty, determined, and find fun and pleasure more appealing than convenience and safety.

It won’t be the same city as in the last century, but it certainly has no chance of becoming a typical American city.

Katrina has assured New Orleans of having a unique place in the world for another 100 years. Thanks for helping us understand why, Mr. Darwin.

I want to sing like Emmy Lou Harris and think like Carolyn Hax.

This is Carolyn’s entry yesterday:

… This is where you hit the first of three standard happiness killers. If you say you’re tired or miss your friends, and if all he hears is criticism of him — even after you give the valid it’s-not-personal-it’s-just-who-I-am explanation — then he might not be mature enough himself to balance individuality with life as a pair.

If you do pass Go, then that’s promising but still not decisive. You’d still need to find out, with the affirmation of time, whether you both can adjust to make each other happy while still being happy yourselves. Wanting to is nice, but it doesn’t count. You either pull it off, or you don’t.

Finally, you test your maturity. Can you face some discomfort in the short term to do what’s best in the long? That covers anything from expressing needs, to resisting pressure, to admitting mistakes, to staying, to going — all components of remaining true to yourself.

Well, several victory laps – because I have had a couple of minor and major victories in the past 24 hours – seeing my ex lover and thinking to myself “poor guy” is one small victory – it’s much better than poor me any day of the week.

Then I had a real live moment of maturation and realization when I woke up on Sunday morning with an unresolved issue circling my brain. It basically goes like this – I have never thought my needs are valid, so I don’t articulate them, and then when a person doesn’t meet my needs, I harbor resentment and shut down, instead of saying something. It’s tough being me sometimes – a very complex drama that gets played out in my head while the rest of the world has no clue.

So my friend Trish, who is want to say that we “train people how to treat us,” was sitting on my shoulder this morning like a good angel.

Wait – this all ties in – in a beautiful package – having realized my needs five years ago and having declared them to S was one step towards progress, and then allowing a man who wanted to take care of my needs in was the next bit of progress – and when he turned out to be a liar liar pants on fire and I said this is not what I need and he exited, stage left, that too was fabulous progress.

But this morning – there has been a certain someone who has been dismissive of my needs for a while now and I have allowed this person to treat me this way. So I woke up this morning and decided to call him and lay my cards on the table – at risk of seeming vulnerable and yes, that adjective I most love to hate, needy – and the outcome was exhiliratingly liberating.

How great is that? To have this real warped way of taking care of other people’s needs all my life and suddenly realizing I too have needs and also recognizing when they are not being met by others – it’s like my own little nirvana victory dance is going on over here.

She has risen.

Friday was a catch up on work day after traveling most of the week and coming back to the closing of the refi. So we went to Swirl and hail hail the gang was all there – Al and Redell, Tommy, Graham, Richelle, Fatma, Moosey, Yasar, Jerri, on and on. Along came a young Turk name B – very handsome – who was chatting me up and asked me for my number – and here starts the fun – suddenly there was Mama Drama when the woman, who he came with, shows up as he is putting my number in his cell phone and she says “Did you just put that woman’s number in your cell phone?” and they get into it and I’m just sitting there observing the drama and actually am quite amused how he is dodging her accusations.

My group reconnoitered and went to LaVita (read: Levitra) and got a big round table and proceeded to eat all the wonderful things there – the flat bread, the Fatma salad of roasted vegetables and wait there’s more – chocolate cheesecake – bottles of red wine – but wait there’s more – then we came back to the LaLa and turned up the music and danced, and chatted, and had a great time.

But here is where it gets fun – TL and G spent the night and the next morning I brought both of them home at 7AM and then G and I went to Elizabeth’s in the Bywater to have breakfast – on the way we were going over the night’s events and talking about the mama drama and G said, “do you think it was a green card thing?” and I said “no, she was black” and we laughed so hard we were sick – G almost had to pull over we were laughing so hard – and then we had a fieldhand’s breakfast – fried boudin balls, I had shrimp with gravy over grits, G had a huge omelet and potatoes – but we wouldn’t stop laughing – and the waiter started laughing because he said it was infectious.

Both R’s had said the day before that they wanted to be part of G and my fun – and while I was laughing so hard I realized why – what fun we have!

Then it was back to MidCity for my Lux visit – not fun but it was interesting because Erin gave me a great compliment that made me feel good – and then we took showers and picked up TL and went to Lakeview Harbor to eat a burger but we walked into a nursery school situation with every young parent with their young child and so we turned and went back to where we started to Bywater BBQ and had fried catfish and a big fat piece of yellow cake with chocolate frosting and fresh from the oven blackberry cobbler – but wait there’s more – then we went next door to the Bazar and G found four giant purple bar stools and I got a wooden elephant hanger and then we went shopping on Magazine – to Urban Loft, to Design Within Reach and finally to Rue de la Course for herbal ice tea. When we were walking back across the street we saw N drive by and I thought to myself – poor guy.

But back to me – then we went to Loa’s in the International House and drank fresh muddled strawberry daiquiris and lounged on the sofas and then hungry again headed over to Meaux Bar to see Jim and Matthew (the fabulous owners) and Debbie (the uber fab waitress, who looks like Debbie Harry only prettier) and have steak salad. While there Beth, Kerry, Daphne, Lisa and Nicole walked in saying they were trying to get away from the neighborhood for a change and of course, the neighborhood was there! Other people came and went – TL’s old neighbor – Harry Connick’s attorney who G knew.

So much fun. What a life.