singles – Page 8 – Hopeful Romantics

Sex and the Christmas Season

Nobody likes to be alone. At least most people don’t like being alone. Especially over the Holiday Season. Even more especially during over the Holiday Season during a rotten economy. Because there is nothing like the Holiday Season to make your being alone feel really, truly lonely.

It’s shopping alone for gifts for friends and family but not for a special lover or significant other. It’s tough knowing that families are coming together, lovers coming together, and you are either going alone to Holiday OParties, seeing the family, or watching TV with a quart of seasonal egg nog that you can only share with your cat.

Small wonder that during the holiday season sex becomes a major factor. Reports and studies will tell you so. Single folk have the wandering eye. People feel romantic, want to be intimate. With someone. Even, at times, if it is wrong. The alcohol ingested during the holiday seaon only serves to fan those flames. Normal restraint can go by the wayside. If nothing else, hot sex on a cold night is one of the better ways to pass the time.

I wrote some years back about how I noticed women in particular look at you differently during the holiday season. There is that certain glint in their eyes. They flirt both subtly and overtly. You are a prospect, and the holiday season can be overwhelming. All that sentiment, so much nostalgia floating about, it is small wonder people are looking for a date, someone to do something with.

And then I suppose there is the consideration of family life. Most of us are around families, sometimes more than we care to be. But we are there nevertheless. In an economic downturn it is, for better or for worse, one of the constants, the sense of intimacy and understanding, coupled of course with the usual neuroses and jealousies. We start think about perpetuating that famiily life. Which means having kids of our own. Which means having sex. What better way to have sex than for a worthy cause, the perpetuationof life as we know it.
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So here we are in the midst of another holiday season. A good many of us don’t have the bucks to go anywhere, so we are stuck in our very own version of reality. We are up to here in snow in a particularly cold season. Even the west coast is experiencing a chill. That is a chill for the west coast. So there isn’t much of an escape. Even our shopping this year is probably limited. Gifts? don’t expect many. Still, we must do what we must.

Well, not all that long ago in this country, most people didn’t visit St. Bart’s for holiday vacation. They didn’t go much of anywhere. They stayed where they were, hung out with friends and family. Went to parties. They had a few drinks, and they had sex.

Well here we are back to go in some ways. We are a different country, but we are facing economic restrictions. We can be drinking at parties, but we are a much more sober country. So much for having a field day on our credit cards or home equity loans.

But we can still get together. We can still couple. We can still have sex. It’s free. Well, most of the time.

Democracy for 99 Cents

In most cities you can find one or two places that are in their own way models of democratic activity. I am not talking about voting, or democratic activity with a big “D.” Instead I am point to the unique qualities of a certain location where people from all walks of life come together on a regular basis.

Sports stadiums were once the obvious examples. But the venues are so large anymore they really don’t lend themselves to the sense that it is all one crazy melting pot of people from mixed ethnic backgrounds and economic classes. In fact, sports venues over the years have become increasingly exclusive, with the advent of skyboxes. Then a notch or two below the sky boxes, sports fans in pricey seats are given access to eateries and sports clubs forbidden to hoi polloi. All while those in the cheap seats are relegated to the hot dog and beer stands or the fast food franchises.

But in cities like Philadelphia there are the steak sandwich joints in South Philly where people from all walks of life stand around, munching foot long sandwiches as hot cheese burns the roof of your mouth and hot steak grease runs down your arm. Be it a hot summer night or a cold winter day, there is a line. Same thing with Titos in Los Angeles. People from everywhere line up until midnight for cheap tacos. Pink’s in Hollywood, has patient lines of hot dog buyers. Immigrants, movie stars, rock and rollers, regular Joe’s, all waiting through the night for their turn at the hot dogs.

South Philadelphia had Levis’ Hot Dogs where the parking lot was a mix of junkers and Jaguars. Businessmen and professionals sat at communal tables with truck drivers, chomping down on what was one of the better hot dogs in the western world. It was more than food; it was a tradition with water stained posters listing the members of the 20, 30 and 50 year clubs, respectively. Parents took their kids and as the tradition had it pointed out what was the oldest working soda fountain in the USA. There they served Champ Cherry Soda, a drink all to its own.

But that is gone, a victim of someone’s idea of gentrification. Levis’ is not the only victim. There are places of similar tradition around the country that have been lost to the franchised world and overpriced storefront bistros. Chicago has its places. New York. Name the city and there is always someone to list the places. Even if the list gets smaller every year.

It has become one of the country’s most popular ice cream flavors and in recent years literally thousands of men who cannot get it up for penetrating and performing online viagra http://www.4frontimports.com/wines/los-haroldos during intercourse. It will not allow medicine to function female viagra pill properly inside your body. Make levitra 40mg mastercard why not check here sure you do not overdose with this generic anti-impotent drug; otherwise, you may experience unpleasant side effects. The good news is that treating hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism will usually reverse the symptoms order generic levitra 4frontimports.com of ED. But today there is a new model of democracy in action. The 99 Cents Only stores. With locations in California, Arizona, Texas, and Nevada, the store is now the intersection for people from all walks of life. You can thank the economic downturn for that. With the economy so lousy, everybody needs to save money. What better way to save money than to buy everything from food and cleaning supplies, to health aids and reading glasses for less than a buck an item. Often it is the same brands as you would find in the supermarkets or department stores. Often they are not the same brands, but the off brands or the once popular brands you knew from childhood that have fallen into obscurity over the years. Or it is laundry powder from Mexico, something like that.

But with the economy as rotten as it is, the parking lot has taken on a whole new visage. Broken down junkers are mixed with the German and Japanese thoroughbred motors so prominent in Southern California. People in funky threads, mix it up with people who are dressed in the latest fashion. Supercuts meets Umbertos of Beverly Hills, and the thing is no one seems to care. A bargain is a bargain.

So there is a perfect cross section of much of the country, well, Southern California in this case, anyway, pushing baskets up the narrow aisles and plucking items from the well stocked shelves. There are men alone, single women, married couples, dates, winos, and of course the proverbial couple who just moved in together and debate in every aisle over what they need for their new arrangement. It’s cute, really, in an obnoxious sort of way.

But the point is, they come from everywhere to visit any one of what seem like thousand stores in the city. With some of the more affluent shoppers you can determine how new they are to the experience by the way they navigate the store. The experience shoppers tend to breeze through, while the novices stop and examine every item. Why not? I mean where else do you have open access to everything from frozen food to colored condoms? Where else can you find the $20 reading glasses you saw a year ago in the department store for 99 Cents? Tools. Eggs. Notebooks. Toothpaste and furniture polish.

So democracy has returned as the mixed income bargain seekers all wait patiently in the cashier’s line for a recent immigrant to check out their items. Twenty things. Twenty bucks. Plus tax, of course. People pay in cash; people pay with credit cards. People are there who have always needed to watch their budget. And people who had really no budget at all.

The whole interaction is surprising orderly. You don’t really experience the usual rancor you find in a great many Southern California parking lots. Perhaps the economic meltdown has everyone in shock and not in the mood to do battle over a parking space. Talk about shock and awe. But the orderly aspect in interesting all to itself. A true democracy may be messy, but there is order. More importantly there is respect for the other individual, even if it is grudging or even obscure respect. The meltdown, like the larger earthquakes and other disasters hasn’t resulted in chaos and a breakdown in order. If anything, order, like water has found its own workable level. For less than a buck.

Bad Economy–Even the Hookers are Hurting

A year ago the world’s hookers were being pinched by their flush clientele. Now the same prostitutes are feeling the pinch. Life is a lot tougher out on the streets and in the bordellos of the world. The economic downturn is hurting the world’s oldest profession.

In Prague, long known for its post-communist bohemian scene and plethora of prostittues, business is bad. There aren’t enough tourists notes a recent article in the International Herald Tribune. Not long ago, because of its low prices and high number of prostitutes, there were sex junkets to Prague, where businessmen could sow their wild oats for a carnal weekend. But prices are up and money is tight. Some still come to cheer themselves up and to forget about the global meltdown. Just not as many as there was a while ago.

In Berlin, known for its bady night life, the sex business is down by 20%. As for the other cities of the world, one has to presume business is off as fewer men are paying to get off. Perhaps sex is on the increase in dating and with partners. But I doubt it. Sex junkets are special. It is the alternative to golf and other escapist weekends that men use to bond. Sex junkets are for distraction. Sex with spouses and partners require more focus.

As for the good ol’ United States, who knows what this economic downturn will mean, sex-wise. As for the changing of administrations, from a conservative to a more liberal government, often that means added sexual congress. But between all the people whose libidos are reduced by anti-depressants and the depressing state of the economy maybe there just isn’t the sex there used to be. It may no longer be a matter matter of “just say no.” Maybe no one wants to bother.
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The article indicates that the lousy economy discourages adultery. No one could afford that expense of the illicit romance, the wining and dining and the ancillary upkeep. When you can’t afford to go to dinner with your spouse or partner, it’s hard to justify spending money for the sole purpose of spreading the seed. Even dating has tapered off, at least on the grand scale and the big splash. You know the illusion of life would be if the two of you got together in a more serious fashion. Now, with cheaper dating habits, you tend to see what you are getting.

Driving through one section of Long Beach, California, one eyes the hookers working the corners in other desperation, the disease it seems practically dripping off of them. Not to pick on Long Beach, or even Sunset Boulevard, where a similar scenario plays out day and night. I am quite sure most cities in this country have its streets where prostitutes ply their trade between heroin benders and sessions at the crack house. One has to think while driving by that in this lousy economy the usual trade for this layer of girls is unemployed or really hurting for money. Times must be really tough.

Crime must be up here and even among the upper class hookers. On the upper level your pockets get rifled, while here the unsuspecting trick may be lured to a remote spot where he is set upon, beaten and robbed. As for what the higher class call girls are doing, that’s hard to say. Most are probably working. Just not as much.

Well it goes to show that when times are tough, times are usually tough everywhere. No one can escape the belt tightening operation. Most are shocked it all came down so fast. Talk about shock and awe. It’s tough to feel libidinous when the world is collapsing all around you. Tough to pay for sex. Tough, even when it’s free.

When Your Mayor is Dressed in Drag

Stu Rasmussen used to be a guy. Now Stu Rasmussen is best known as Carla Fong. Stu as Carla wears plunging neckline dresses and mini-skirts. Stu or Carla is sixty years old, so even on a good day and with movie star looks being sixty and wearing mini-skirts is a questionable strategy. Especially when you look like Stu, who also happens to be mayor-elect of Silverton, Oregon. Talk about “change.”

According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, Stu had been elected Silverton’s Mayor in 1988 and again in 1990. He just won again. Looking at his photos, augmented breasts and notable cleavage or not, Stu has radio looks. Stu/Carlas photo reminds me of the quote now deceased and noted author Truman Capote issued when appraising the now equally deceased and noted author, Jacqueline Susann. Capote declared, “she looks like a truck driver in drag.”

While Capote’s quote elicits certain emotions about Stu/Carla, I really don’t regard his image as the truck driver in drag. He is more reminiscent of one of the more senior English actresses in one of the uptight, upright, Merchant-Ivory Victorian costume dramas. Or he could be the gracious Earth Mother emanating from the Hippie Period of Stu’s generation. But then again I don’t live in Silverton and see Stu on the street on a regular basis. If I did, I may have other opinions.

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I will assume until better notified that Stu must find it tough to shop for the wardrobe he prefers in the tiny town of Silverton. Shopping for high fashion in Portland is tough enough, yet alone Silverton. In the past, for transgenders and drag queens alike, this would be a problem resolved only by scheduled trips to the larger cities. Today, with the Internet, shopping for the heels, plunging necklines and minis is just a click or two away. Thanks to ecommerce, even buying for the odd-sized is made easy.

As for the important stuff, Stu ran on the promise he would help stem the rapid growth in Silverton. Perhaps his serving as the leader of the welcome wagon would serve to cause many potential transplants relocation to Silverton. Not everyone is tolerant as we last saw in California’s recent proposition to ban gay marriage. But then, perhaps Stu will draw a crowd to the city. You never know.

While I’m sure some are upset about the new mayor’s fashion statement, let us not forget that Stu was elected to office with an overwhelming 55% of the vote. Politicians would kill for that margin. Some have. So it is understood that people in this former lumber town not only tolerate Stu, but they like him. They not only like him, but they trust him. Which is more than most citizens can say for their local elected officials. And that says a lot. About Stu. And Silverton, the town where he serves as mayor.

At Wal-Mart You Can Shop Till You Drop

By now most of the known world has read in the New York Daily News or elsewhere about the tragedy at a Long Island Wal-Mart, where an employer died after being trampled by a couple of hundred people. Apparently, he made the mistake of trying to hold them back and paid the price with his life. Other people were also injured and there was a controversial report that a pregnant woman miscarried.

If this episode wasn’t so tragic we could find it funny. There have been numerous comedy scenes in television episodes and feature films, comic strips, even, where overzealous shoppers trample each other in search of the ultimate bargain. The old comic strip, “Dagwood,” comes to mind. The artist had regular strips depicting women fighting each other, playing tug-of-war for bargain goods.

But the fact is it is pretty tragic. It is also very telling. It is telling on different levels. On one hand we can view this as a reflection of the bad economy where the need to save money has driven people to wait outside the doors of a department store for it’s special opening at 5:AM. Some stores even had special midnight openings. For a country that goes to bed after the Jay Leno or David Letterman monologue, it says something about the need to find a bargain.

It also says quite a lot about consumerism. I have to wonder, what are people doing out there at five A.M.? How much can you really care about buying something that you would stand there like cattle waiting for the doors to open so you could fight you way under fluorescent lighting to get something for your wife and kids, girlfriend, whatever? What does this really say about us, and the fact we cannot cure that disease, that we are consumer addicts.

Seventy percent of this economy if built on consumerism. We buy stuff. We buy a lot of stuff we don’t even need. We buy stuff to impress our friends. We buy dumb stuff, and in good economic times we pay a lot of money for overpriced, status seeking stuff that has the requisite branding. We don’t save; we spend. We buy. We don’t buy things that last, most of the time, anyway, we buy instead things that are fashionable. Things that we buy are built to be obsolete. We even buy quality cars that were built to last and trade them in because we are bored with them.

We are so obsessed with buy, apparently,we don’t mind elbowing and even trampling a few people to buy more stuff. Okay, so it’s the holiday. It is a holiday in the worst economy in perhaps 100 years, and here we are buying. Hang out Santa Claus and a few pretty lights, and we kick into buying mode like so many Pavlovian Dogs.
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Of course others have a different take on the incident at Wal-Mart. Some are blaming the greedy retailers for having the temerity to open their doors in the wee hours of the morning. At least for me it is a wee hour of the morning. Some are more racist in tone and issue forth deplorable comments that the writers don’t even bother couching in more acceptable, or polite, racist content. Pretty amazing.

As for the consumerism itself, it would seem a bit obsessive to be buffeted around by crowds at pre-dawn hours, waiting for a store’s doors to open. I would think you have to be nuts, but then there were so many standing there, they couldn’t all be crazy. Just sick. Sick with what, I’m not sure. And if not sick, not real logical.

The fact when the stores are stuck with unsold merchandise, say three weeks from now, they will practically be giving it away. You can waltz in, make a better deal, and walk out without fear of getting trampled. Or if you are really smart you can wait until after the holiday when they may be paying you to take this stuff out of the store. You could buy on line and save gas and sanity, life and limb. Or you can be really, really smart and be more discriminating and not get so caught up in shopping it becomes a major distraction.

Whatever you do for the holidays, this is certainly not the way to do it. If you are that bored with your life, and your life is that stale that mobbing the front of a store, in cold weather yet, seems like a good idea, perhaps you should seriously consider ceasing to populate the earth any further. We really don’t need more people, and we certainly don’t need more shoppers.

You may see the light. Or the only lights that may penetrate the huddled masses are the twinkly lights of Holiday Season. I would say Christmas, but it really has little to do anymore with the birth of Christ, Winter Solstice or whatever else you celebrate. It is about you and how much you can shop. It is about shopping, and not really so much about the giving. You shop till you drop. Or kill someone.

No matter how you see this, there is one thing you definitely won’t see standing in the middle of a department store, either at 5 A.M. or any other time where getting frazzled and frustrated is considered part of the experience. Definitely one thing you won’t see. Me.