Category: Suggested Reading

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A good damn night

This is a tale of fiction and fantasy, written to stretch my skills at imagery and also to tease and please the mind. This is not a guarantee of

I had a long night last night. No one was cooperative, nothing got done, and someone in the kitchen left the stove on and burnt some sauce all to hell. Of course no one noticed until the middle of the night when smoke starts drifting into the lobby. Breakfast was late, I missed the bus, and it was Sunday morning so a longer wait for the next one than usual. What should have been an easy night and a twenty minute ride turned into an ordeal by fire. All of these things by themselves are no problem, but everything at once? Come on! The half mile trudge through the rain to get home was the cherry on top of my shitty Sunday. All I wanted was a shower and to sleep.

There’s something about taking a hot, steaming shower that melts the worries of the day away. I’m torn between soaking longer and knowing you are in bed waiting for me. It’s the weekend and while I’m busy every night making sure other people’s vacations go off smoothly, you got to go out and have a good time, texting me all night, asleep by four in the morning, blissful and calm. I can’t wait to join you.

After my shower I’m warm and damp, my skin glowing from the hot water. My skin is smooth and soft, waiting for a kiss of lotion to seal the softness in. My hair is damp and smells like coconut, sweet and buttery, waiting to dry and fall in a soft silken halo around my face. I feel tired and relaxed, unwinding and getting ready to climb into bed next to you, wrap my arms around you, rest my head in the hollow of your shoulder, and twine our legs together to sleep.

Of course you have other ideas…

As I slip into bed with you, you turn and kiss me. Our hot breath mingles a little as our lips meet, caress each other, remove what worries I have left. I can feel affection in the kiss, and sleepy interest… a hint of lust waking up. I know what you have in mind. You tell me all the time how much you love to make me wriggle and moan and breath heavily with your tongue and your hands. Normally after a night like last night I just want to sleep, but the memory of our previous encounters and the powerful orgasms you’ve given me before entice me to stay awake. After so many times together we know each others’ rhythms and you can tell by my smile and the small flirty giggles and sighs that I’m open to a little interlude before slipping off to sleep.

I love it when you’re firm and gentle. Your right hand presses against my shoulder, pushing me onto my back where I can lie in perfect relaxation and enjoy the pleasure you bring as your fingertips brush across my skin. It’s the lightest touch, like a kitten’s fur, a rose petal against the skin… silken. Because I can barely feel it it demands my attention. My skin has such terrible sensitivity I can’t escape feeling that tingle across my skin. Your fingertips start at my lips, taking in the softness and how pliable they are, making use of the millions of nerve endings to send shivers down my spine and out to my toes and fingertips. You trace the curve of my cheek and that silly =dimple in my chin and though my eyes are closed (all the better to focus on the feeling) I know you’re looking at me, listening to me, drinking in the reactions you’re drawing from me. I can feel you brush across my collarbone, then lower, drifting close but not just yet to my nipple which is fast hardening, anticipating the touch.

Thoughts flit into and out of my mind too quickly to follow. Nothing noteworthy, just the assorted confusion of a day of sensory input. All of it is being overpowered by this tiniest of feelings, your fingerprints catching on the goosebumps you raise on my skin. Waves flow under my skin, rippling away from where you touch me, feeling exactly the way the water must feel on a sandy beach, when that top layer of fine, fine sand skitters to and fro just under the waves. It’s as if my skin is the water, the sand is below the surface of my skin, and it tickles and tantalizes and moves in waves back and forth, chasing relaxation and sleepiness before it and leaving dunes of desire and arousal behind. As your hands move up and down me the ripples move ahead of them and farther; I can feel the silken sand in my hard nipples, my thighs, and my arms… between my legs even. You know my rhythms and you keep going just past the point where I want you to touch me harder, denying immediate gratification, forcing me to go just past the point of need but not so far I can’t feel it anymore.

Your lips and tongue begin their work on me, bringing new sensations. Every time you gently wiggle my nipple with your tongue or your lips, there is a fire stoked between my legs. It doesn’t take much. Less is definitely more here. I’m so close to being ready but you know the anticipation hasn’t built enough yet. Your hard cock is resting against my hip, throbbing and leaving trails of slick, sticky precum, but not close enough to where I want it. I want the head of your hard cock, slick with desire and sex, to press against me and slide over my clit. No hands, no tongue, no silicone gadget can ever replace the perfect soft firmness of what has to be the most flattering and unfakeable evidence of your enjoyment of and desire for me.

You’ve made the decision, I can tell. You look at me with a mischievous twinkle in your eye and move yourself down, settling between my knees as I spread my legs eagerly. I remember last time, and the time before, and the time before. Much like good food, I can’t get enough of great sex. You pause a moment, heightening the tension, then use your soft fingertips to open me until you can see how wet I’ve become. The scent of a clean, healthy young woman is one I personally enjoy. I love kissing my lover right after you’ve spent good time on me. I can smell and taste the wetness from my pussy on your face. I can tell you got into it because it’s on your chin, and you have to take a moment to wipe some of it off before you kiss me again.

Your tongue touches my clit and I spasm. It’s so gentle it’s almost painful. I want you to lick me, hard, press yourself into me, but you know that after only a moment of that I can’t take anything else so you don’t allow me what I want, you instead dole out what is best for me, for this sex. I have the image in my mind of you entering me, sliding inside me after you’ve made me so wet I’m dripping and at the same time I have the feeling of your tongue and lips stroking and sliding all over my clit and around it, sending sensations rocking through my body. You use your fingers gently but firmly to stimulate me as if you were sliding inside me, causing even more desire. Your hands are slender, soft, and warm, but they are not enough; they are not your cock. I want you inside me and you deny me while at the same time pleasuring me. I have to remind myself to be careful with the spasms that bring my legs together around your ears, I don’t want to hurt you but it’s hard to control. The backs of my knees are on your shoulders, my hips heave, and you ride my shudders. Your hands wrap around my legs and hold onto my hips. I draw you as close and as hard into me as I can for long seconds. A string of gasps and epithets, a series of words like a sex mantra drawn from the base mind that has no words for what is happening, and no attention to spare for finding them. Images flicker through my mind as fast as sensations flood my body. I like to call these my little orgasms. There is no discernible climax, only a flood of heightened sense and a feeling of needing more, more, more. An addiction that can only be satisfied by full, firm penetration. I’ve passed the point where I need to be fucked but I can’t being myself to ask you to stop your work on me. There’s not enough thought left to make a decision until finally I can’t take it anymore. I break my catch 22. I need you.

I sit up, interrupting your enthusiastic, thorough tongue fucking, and you know. You’ve known, but with part sadistic desire to push me, part selfishness, part single-mindedness you didn’t want to give up so easily. We both know I need you to fuck me, but not yet. It’s my turn.

I draw you up next to me and push you down on your back so I can reach your erection with my hands and my mouth. At this point I lack the finesse and restraint you have displayed. I’m already holding back on impaling myself on your erection so that I can take it as deep as I can and pleasure you with my mouth and my hands. Being penetrated turns me on, even if it isn’t exactly where I really want it, so while one hand is grasping what I can’t fit in my mouth, stimulating you as firmly as I can, my other hand wanders to where your mouth just was. The more I slide my mouth up and down on your cock the wetter I get until I’m past the end of my rope. I’ve fallen from it and my only option is to fuck you.

The moment of first penetration is incredible. It’s what I’ve been waiting for for half an hour now while we teased and licked and sucked on each other. We’ve been pleasuring each other for what seems like forever but this is what I needed. You sink deep inside with no resistance. At this point we’re both so slick and wet it’s almost frictionless. I can feel the ridge at the head of your cock pressing into the soft yeilding walls of my pussy as I sink down, lower, until I can’t take any more of you. The pressure inside me feels so satisfying. I want it again. I lift myself up and down again, savoring the feeling of penetration. I love it. Your cock is hot and firm and slick and velvety. Your face as I fuck you is ecstatic. I feel like a goddess bringing unexplainable and powerful feelings to my worshiper. I love the way you put your hands on my ass and pull me into you, like no matter how deep you push into me, we can’t be close enough. I love how you sound when you moan how much you love the way I feel.

I’m completely focused on your cock in my pussy and my hand on my clit. Between the two sensations I can feel an orgasm building. I’m leaning over you, panting into your ear and thinking about how much I want to feel you come inside me. I want to feel you filling me. I want to hear your orgasm on your breath and in your voice. My mind conjures images of cum spurting from your cock and into me, onto my clit, hot and salty and sexy. Between panting and swearing I tell you I’m close. You grab my ass and it send me over the edge. I bury my face in the pillow and yell. I’m swearing to God and crying out in pleasure. With my hand I can feel the muscles in my pussy contracting around your cock as the waves make me shudder and yell. I feel release. I’m not done yet.

The thought of your orgasm keeps me wet while I up the pace. You’ve given me a body shattering orgasm and I’m hoping to return the favor. I tell you not to hold back, it’s your turn now. I know I’ve only got a limited amount of time before I can’t take the sensations anymore so I take full advantage of my endorphin high to fuck you like a porn star. Our hips come together as I ride you, your hands on my ass pressing me harder, faster, until I can feel that moment right before your orgasm when your cock gets rock hard, your breath shortens, you break your focus and concentration and start swearing along with me. I can feel the spasms of your body as you come inside me and I grind my hips down to yours so your pelvis presses on my clit. It’s almost like I get to have two orgasms. I love everything about this. My body tenses with you and relaxes with you. I start rubbing my clit again, gently, with your cock spent but still firm inside me. It feels good but I can’t last.

I lay down on top of you, still entwined, sated, happy, sleepy. I suppose it wasn’t such a bad night.

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If a picture is worth a thousand words…

…then here are a thousand words.

 

I’m sitting at the bar in my favorite coffee shop, sipping hot chai. The sun shines on my face, blocked by a building for now, but already filling the shop with warmth, almost enough to make the chilly morning commuters start sweating. The room is a little muggy, but it smells like hot milk and steam, boots and denim, pastries and the scent of sweet spices all fill my lungs (the scent is technically in my nose, but lungs are sexier, because they’re under my breasts ;-P). My book is open before me but I’m not currently reading it, choosing instead to think about the way my skin feels when the rays of the rising sun begin to slide down my face and onto my freckled shoulders. I watch the people walking by, boarding buses and nursing hangovers. Of course I just got off work and I’m looking forward to an hour or two of morning productivity before I crash… and I’m waiting for someone. I have a description but I never need it. I’m always early so I’m ready when you walk in the door, checking you phone for that last email and looking round surreptitiously. You’re looking for someone, too. I catch your eye and it takes a moment for you to be sure I’m the one you’re looking for. I always forget to tell you what I’m wearing. I’ve never made a mistake finding the man I’m to meet, so I simply forget how nerve wracking it can be. You haven’t seen my face before, so while you were prepared for the rest of me (until my clothes come off. You’ll be re-surprised) you weren’t quite ready for my face. It’s in the shape of an acorn or a heart, well proportioned, with natural eyebrows, light brown without today’s popular exaggerated arch. My hair is swept back from my face so you can easily see my eyes, their size accented with a touch of eyeliner and a wisp of mascara, but true to themselves. The left one has a small dot in it that, if you look closely enough and the light is good enough, is a discernible ‘x’ marking some sort of spot. There’s probably a clever remark about treasure being behind the eyes to be made, but I’ll leave that for you to supply 😉 My nose is perfectly average. It doesn’t turn up, nor down, or to either side. It is neither too large, nor too small, the most unusual thing about it is a freckle right at the tip, easily ignorable unless you have a thing for freckles. Then it may even compete for your attention with my lips. By far my favorite facial feature in many people, not just myself, my lips are soft… I mean really soft. Like the bottoms of the feet of toddlers. Like the feel of rose petals when you rub them on your lips. If you’ve never done htis you’re keeping from yourself a delightful sensual input that never gets old. They are pink and light, complemented perfectly by the creamy, barely tanned complexion of my face, shoulders, and arms. They are topped by that little dent just below my nose and it adds a flair to the curve of my lips as it deepens, anticipating this new experience. I have a small, soft dimple… not in my cheek where it would be cute, but on my chin, matching the men in my family and balancing the eyes, the lips, and the laughter to make me a special kind of ordinary. There’s nothing exotic about my face, with its freckles and soft cheekbones, but there is something real. Something genuine that draws people out. Some people walk around with what we like to call ‘chronic bitch face’ where your regular “I’m thinking and in a neutral mood” looks like “there’s a giant pile of bonfire wood in my soul and you’re holding the match. Light it. I dare you.” I seem to walk around with a cherub behind my eyes. Strangers tell me I look nice, people I will never see again smile at me and say nice things to me. Part of it is simply that people can be very good. Part of it is that I, all of me, not just my face, invites it. I’m so not exotic that I almost shouldn’t be pretty, but I am, and you notice. You’ve seen this face which surprised you, and the dark, dense freckling across my shoulders and down to my wrists. You can see just a peek of cleavage, firm, young, with a visual texture of… well, I can’t think of anything that looks and feels like a soft, pert bosom and isn’t that jell-o salad mom used to make from green pistachio flavored jell-o and cottage cheese. Even that is a poor comparison. I’m open to suggestions. Regardless of what it looks like, what it is is irresistible. You behave like a gentleman and keep your eyes above my delicate collar bone, but not without difficulty. I greet you like an old friend, with a hug and a big warm hello. You sit down with your coffee and we chat. We talk about what your day looks like and what my plans are and we talk about what we like to do in our free time. We exchange funny stories and thoughts on the NSA scandal and I forget myself for a moment while I get angry that no one, myself included, seems able to do a damn thing about it. Before long, you know which books I just finished and I’ve added a few to my list and as I look up from my list, you can see in my eyes that something is on my mind. I’ve made the decision. Your effort at wooing me, making me feel safe, has paid off. I’m asking you with my eyes and my words if you’re ready for another first time.

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“How can you do it?”

Originally published

7/28/13

I am a chameleon. I am adaptable and eager to do so given the opportunity.

I am a non-Newtonian fluid. When pushed I resist, but when given the atmosphere and opportunity to explore, expand, envelope, encourage I do so with abandon.

When we are together, you are my world. You are the center of my affections, the commander of my attention, the focus for us.

I’ve been chatting with close and professional friends about my side of the experience. On occasion it’s a simple exchange with not nearly as much intimacy and care as I had expected based on our email exchanges. The witty banter and mild innuendos, followed by lively repartee during our meet and greet leave me surprised by a businesslike or prideful encounter. The vast majority of the time, however, it is a truly transformative experience.

We are intensely social creatures, we humans. We crave acceptance and love and if we can’t get it we demand respect or fear. If none of those come naturally, we generate power and use it to create the illusions of love, fear, or respect. One thing I never could stand when I worked as a dancer were people who used cold hard cash as a replacement for personality or kindness. They got what they wanted: a facsimile of the specific interaction they failed to command in their own right.

When I meet with someone who has both need and appreciation for genuine, honest, thoughtful connection, it’s almost as if we fall in love for a few hours. It begins with a spark. Perhaps it’s awkward chat about our lives, or a nod to pop culture references. Perhaps we hit it off from the very start and the banter just flies. It doesn’t matter, because one of my gifts is that ability to just chat. To open myself up in order that you feel more free to do so yourself. I will bare some personal details about where I grew up and what I love; my family and friends; my dreams. In turn I will encourage you to tell me more about your life, likely vastly more varied than mine. I want to know what you’ve always wanted and what you like. I want to hear your funny stories and your opinions on today’s world. When I’m with someone who appreciates themselves and me the possibilities are endless. I often find it difficult to tear myself away from an interesting conversation or an intense intimate experience or a leisurely cuddle.

About the experience: there is a wide range of emotions that are all good, all different, coveted, enjoyed, treasured, and craved. I’ve shared many of them with established friends and the relationship continues to deepen. Recently I had an experience that we both described as almost spiritual. I felt like the female was being worshiped with my body as the vessel. I was the glass through which this young man was able to look, unashamed and accepted, into the beauty of female. I don’t know how he felt, but I can imagine based on an experience I had earlier this year, and based on what I learned as an exotic dancer.

It takes ultimate safety and comfort to allow yourself to be the gateway through which male or female is observed. I can picture in my mind’s eye that slow, warm early summer afternoon lying in bed, freshly showered and warm, just looking and touching in a way I hadn’t been able to before. I was curious to explore the bits of him that were different from my own. It was innocent and playful, like children who don’t understand why they’re in trouble for ‘playing doctor.’ It simply doesn’t occur to either of you to be ashamed. Looking and touching the long strong muscles of his thigh, comparing my girlish, rounded knees to his blocky, masculine ones. Watching the muscles of his shoulders move as he leans over. A woman rarely has opportunity to explore a penis in a nonsexual atmosphere and that hour, lying together and touching each other, careful and curious, will always make me feel good. Safe. Thoughtful. As I would imagine Eden was like before ‘sin’ and what I’m sure our ancestors experienced before shame and ritual governed our sexuality.

During my short stint as a dancer my opinion of female sexuality made a dramatic shift. Watching young women who absolutely did not fit today’s model of beauty turn the heat up on stage and become elegant, sexy, sensual, charismatic goddesses in their own right was a slow but lasting experience. At first I was hypercritical, always comparing my own form and talent to theirs. Then I began to realize that each woman here had a different sex appeal. Thick thighs and buttocks that at first turned me off began to look sensual and sexy. Tiny, lithe, straight hipped bodies took on a catlike quality with surprising twists and smouldering eyes. Loud, abrupt personalities took on languorous grace as they twisted and turned and moved in interesting ways. Mothers with soft bellies turned into acrobats with incredible strength and precision. After a few months of watching it for hours at a time my tastes have permanently changed. Women of all types and shapes and sized interest me. And it doesn’t stop there. I’m now easily able to look past superficial nonsense to discover at least one thing sensual about each person I meet. It might be the way you smell or the feel of your skin or the way we kiss or your obscure interest in origami but there will be something that gives us that connection that allows for one of those coveted, needed feelings that we allow ourselves to indulge in for a while before we’re forced to return to the real world with its demands and taboos.

I hope and believe that this eager, nervous young man with whom I was able to explore my own Goddess was able to experience the same feeling of non-judgmental exploration. I hope I was able to facilitate his discovery and satisfy his curiosity, or at least slake it until the next time we meet. I hope to provide that atmosphere of safety and acceptance for each person I meet in whichever circumstances we meet in.

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Sexual Evolution

Originally published 7/16/13

It is 4:30am and the chef walks through my doors. They are large and swing freely, never locked in over eighty five years. There was a time when the less savory ladies of a shared profession used to wait about here, drinking cocktails and waiting for phone calls for a few minutes of ‘service.’ I imagine them in flapper style dresses, but old ones, Gatsby’s hand-me-downs. Perhaps the liquor holds them together, perhaps ambition, hard to come by in such a man’s world. A million moments have passed since then, all with a unique place in time, full of people’s experiences of which I will never know. It sounds profound, but really it’s simply a series of words with only the meaning given them which varies from person to person.

The night has passed uneventfully. I’ve read my favorite web comics and caught up on funny pictures and photos of cats for the night. Now I’m free to write in my sleep deprived state of things that make me feel smart, regardless of the truth therein. I am mocked by the book I intended to read, having been writing about myself all night, my imagined readers a poor substitute for real human interaction. I’m not alone here. I have others through the night, the same weary few who stand watch through the night against vagrants and fire and the insidious fingers of tiredness.

I have a good friend, my best friend, with whom I have long and involved conversations about sex. I have conversations about sex with all my friends. I am, in fact, the one who has to be reminded that loudly extolling the virtues of the cock in a family friendly restaurant is inappropriate and I should stop. I usually do. For a while. I can’t seem to help myself. Human sexuality is incredibly fascinating. The mating dance we have created over the years that becomes more and more complex though we don’t know why. The loud complaining from both sides of the gender spectrum about ‘oppression’ and ‘friend zoning’ and all those misinterpreted behaviors. I recently did a Q&A session on a popular website and had several different types of reactions, mostly what you would expect. A few people telling me what an awful person I was, that I would do what I do, regardless of the fact that I love it. Others trying to make jokes or dismissing me as a second class person for whatever reason. A few souls asking genuine questions for the answers, not the rhetorical effect. Overall I was pleased that it was done, but I wished there were more opportunities for it. I feel as though there’s something great we do here as providers and I wish more people were open minded enough to consider the possibility that it isn’t as wrong as they think it is and that some of those were malleable enough to accept and flow into the new mindset.

I have learned so much. During my time as a dancer, I learned to appreciate beauty in all shapes and sizes. That’s not some cliche to allow for people who fall outside today’s parameters of physical attributes to be attractive, it’s truly something i discovered when I watched a clumsy single mother who looks unhealthily out of shape slither onto the stage and turn men’s bones to water (except that one, of course) with the way she moved and the was she held herself. I watched a girl with comically short, neon hair and a little round belly shimmy to the top of a pole in a surprisingly athletic maneuver and twist herself into a knot of lush sex appeal. These women knew something about themselves that empowered them. There are such complaints from women about how unfair the world is to us. We get paid less, we’re expected to live at home, our options are narrower than men’s and we’re in constant danger from sexually charged and frustrated men. You wouldn’t imagine that these young, and not so young, women who could demand the attention and respect of the room could be trapped. They knew who they were and why they chose this life. Until they walked out of the club. All that surety and command over their sex went out the window when they reentered the ‘real’ world and gave away all that power and sex because they’re told to. It opened my eyes to a way of looking at oneself and others that saw unconventional attributes as sexy and sexual. It was a critical step in my ability to see the roguish young chap in every man who seeks me out. He has spirit and fire. The twinkle in his eye and his almost childish desire to please makes him sexy and sexual. He has a desire for me and that makes me feel sexy and the sexier I feel the more eager I am to make him feel the same way. It’s a positive feedback loop that ends in a tangle of limbs and sweat and sheets and panting breaths.

 

I’ve been asked “how can you do it? They’re strangers.” My answer is complex. Before all else, we become not strangers. We meet, we talk together and learn a little about each other. What do you like? What is your story? Let us begin to learn about each other and find that spark that lights the bunsen burner. We haven’t quite found the chemical reaction yet, but it’s beginning to heat up. By the time we’re in bed together, we’ve formed the rudiments of a relationship. Because there is no pressure, the relationship is candid. It’s interesting: some details are forbidden. Where I live, who your family is, even my name is obscured. Other details are on display, we make ourselves vulnerable. You can see the flaws on my skin. There’s a spot I missed when shaving my legs this morning. Your moles you used to be self conscious about but you’ve lived with them long enough and seen enough other naked people that you no longer give a shit. The faces we make in the throes of passion and the sounds we make in a moment of ecstasy. In the minutes after, when we’re cooling off and catching our breath, my head snuggles into your shoulder and we take comfort in the contact between humans, physical and emotional. So that’s my answer: I don’t sleep with strangers. I make friends and I take care of them.

 

It’s been said, primarily by those who wish to restrict sexuality to parameters defined in the 40th century B.C., that when two people make love there is an emotional bond forged that is sacred. They cite studies that show increases in hormones that cause good feelings and those feeling end up solidifying relationships regardless of intent. I agree that a powerful sexual experience will bring me back for more, and there have been several times when what began as an innocent lay became a much more complicated and demanding relationship. However, provided the sturdy framework of an economic relationship and a degree of professionalism, a powerful sexual experience can retain that pristine, raw power without being diluted by politeness and restraint. A relationship that can handle those powerful experiences and remain honest with itself is rare and valuable. Until recently I was unaware that was even possible. In any case, there is an emotional reaction, but it is tempered significantly by the needs of the two parties. This is also how I manage to sleep with relative strangers: the emotional bonds are so precisely defined that there is no need to worry about who is hurting whom’s feelings or what you’ll do for dinner. You can feel that emotion with no need for guilt or halfway measures, because it is contained and confined and safe.

 

I’ve had few to no negative reactions from my friends. They are as sexually open as I am and heartily approve of taking advantage of my youth and relative beauty. None of them would choose this life, for one reason or another, but they are neither surprised nor upset by my choices. My mother, on the other hand… She is an intelligent woman, world wise, perceptive, and able to read her daughter like an open book. After a few conversations with dangerous and unwitting allusions to my life choices, we were faced with a five hour drive together. We both knew, and I knew she knew, but I hadn’t quite worked up the nerve to say anything. No matter how old and self sufficient you get, Mom will always be scary as shit. “You know you can tell me anything, right? I’ll still love you, always.” she says as in my head I’m repeating the words I plan to say. I never got the chance to say them. For the next hour I listen to what could be the plot of a CSI:SVU episode, starring my mother, the moon of my life who does her best to keep my tides stable but was once an angry runaway who believed sex was all she had to offer. One summer had shaped her entire life. Without it my father would never have met her, they definitely wouldn’t have married, and they wouldn’t have driven each other to infidelity. Repeatedly. Despite their quite reasonable dislike for each other, they stayed together and thirty years later are no longer enemies. You could call this a success story. It could have as easily been a tragedy and in some ways it was. So now I know why she thinks the worst of those I choose to spend time with. I know why I disappoint her. Don’t we all wish our children wouldn’t make our mistakes? I don’t think it’s a mistake. Of course that could simply be the arrogance of youth. The young, naive child who sees the world through rose tinted glasses is headed for disaster and all you, the parent, can do is watch and hope to be close enough to pick up the pieces. One of my resolutions some years back has been to only regret the things you regret while you’re doing them. If I’m in the middle of something and I enjoy myself, in ten years when I wish I hadn’t done it, I refuse to regret it. I choose to learn and move on without tying myself to the millstones of the past. Now if I’m doing something and thinking “this is the wort thing you could be doing in this situation” then yes, I’m going to look back on it with chagrin and perhaps regret. I can count those instances on one hand. Not one of them are the result of my interactions with the kind, solicitous gentlemen I meet professionally. I have been consistently impressed by what we learn together and what I have learned about myself.