Rock walls

Some impassioned exchanges this afternoon re-emphasized the disparity in at least one of our top (non)priorities, and brought very close to the surface my belief that I will never be truly happy --whatever that means, in addition to 'something that I'm definitely NOT'-- with my wife. That doesn't suggest that I sense any assurance of being happy with someone else, or even being able to be happy with MYSELF, for starters, because I don't. But I really don't see anything resembling a path toward real happiness in this marriage, even a path that's covered with some undergrowth and just needs a good weed-whacking. Were it not for the kids and my paycheck, I'd almost certainly be referring to my "wife," to her in that title, in the past tense.

Tonight as I drove alone down one of the canyons, I thought at length of how easy it would be to slam my car into the face of one of the cliffs that stand just a few yards from the shoulder, and make it look like a slip-off in the snow. My ridiculously-bloated life insurance policy would take care of everyone comfortably.

Accountability

Several nights ago, I had a dream in which the entire management team at my company, including spouses, was on vacation. Seems that it was at Cabo, but visually didn't strike me as what I've seen of Cabo. Somehow I ended up going through the contents of my wallet with our head accountant/controller. It was more in the spirit of show & tell than that of an audit. Interspersed among the dozens and dozens of photos of my kids were occasional wallet-sized shots from your typical Victoria's Secret catalogue. "Hey, nothing wrong with a little Victoria's Secret -- nothing 'showing,' you know..." I'd shrug as I'd continue, unfazed, through the stack. She didn't say anything, but I could tell she was disappointed.

Monogamy isn't easy, naturally

This article makes the interesting case that just because there may in fact be scientific merit to the old assertion that monogamy isn't natural, "natural isn't necessarily good."

Is King Benjamin op-eding for the LA Times now?

Bad news for bikinis

A study by the University of Leeds in England found that women who reveal 40 percent of their skin attract the most men. "Any more," said researcher Dr. Colin Hendrie, "and the signal changes from 'allure' to one indicating general availability and future infidelity."

Just ask Julianne Hough, who says "Modest is hottest."

My wife's dream

My wife was pretty angry at me first thing this morning. I asked her why, since I hadn't yet been up long enough to upset her. She narrated the following dream to me last night: "We were shopping together in an upscale department store, and I turned and you were walking around in a thong, erect, taking pictures of everybody. And then suddenly you were in Las Vegas, and although I was still in the store, I could see what you were doing, still walking around in your thong, taking pictures of people. But there was more stuff that you were doing, bad stuff, and although I couldn't see it, everywhere I walked around the store, the cashiers would hand me printed receipts listing everything you were doing in Vegas, as it was happening, like real-time field reports." I suggested to her (and not in jest) that these might represent angels recording my acts in the Book of Life.

Condom Row

Late last night, while looking for a hair product with my daughter at the Target pharmacy, we passed a couple comparing spermicidal lubricants. He was somewhat ordinary looking, while she was predominantly Asian with a fair Caucasian strain, and smoldering hot. My thoughts of the ensuing while were, "They're going to be having sex tonight. More specifically, she's going to be having sex tonight, and probably within a matter of minutes from now. I wonder what she looks like naked? I wonder what she feels like naked? I wonder how she and I would feel, naked, together?"

My boss's son's girlfriend --a pleasant enough face but a breathtakingly statuesque, not waifish at all but instead a strong-fit 5'9" figure-- wore a dress to our company Christmas party tonight that had me failing to focus on much else, including my beautiful wife, whose own body is large and aching with our forthcoming son, any time she entered my field of vision. Hard to describe this dress, except that it was more or less similar to those shown here, except of a heavier, winter-weight knitted fabric, fitted at the waist and tighter on the chest and trunk, and barely reached mid-thigh. And the heels were almost vertical, which tended to accentuate everything as intended. When we got home, I said to my wife:

"I need to apologize to you. Tonight there were lots of women dressed for the party and showing a lot more than they normally do at work, and, to put it succinctly, I didn't do a very good job of averting my eyes. In fact, I didn't really try."

"Yeah, there was a lot of cleavage there. I didn't avert my eyes either, and wondered how these girls really felt about showing so much of themselves."

"Well, it wasn't exactly the cleavage I was noticing, and your thoughts when you're not averting your eyes are probably a bit different from my thoughts under those circumstances."

"So you were checking out there legs and wondering what they'd feel like in your hands."

"Something along those lines, yes."

Sigh. Nod. "Yeah, I know."

These boots were made for gawkin' (and stalkin')

5'10" lust object described in a recent post. Couldn't concentrate throughout our activity, wondering how I'd get another glimpse.

Night before last, thought glad married. Then had dream involving several previous close-encounters and wife.

EQ

First year of marriage, pre kids - sitting on couch, reading scriptures, discussing world events, testifying -- laughable, unimaginable

Conv w boss re lack of prstd ldrshp in his ward, we're the median

Vivaldi and Jack-o-Lanterns

Ride - mountaintops, snow, "Sposa, son" wife's deep disappointment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr3WNaMJMA8

Italian	Translation in English
Sposa son disprezzata, fida son oltraggiata, cieli che feci mai? E pur egl'è il mio cor il mio sposo, il mio amor, la mia speranza. L'amo ma egl'è infedel spero ma egl'è crudel, morir mi lascierai? O Dio manca il valor valor e la costanza.	I am a scorned wife, faithful, yet insulted. Heavens, what did I do? And yet he is my heart, my husband, my love, my hope. I love him, but he is unfaithful, I hope, but he is cruel, will he let me die? O God, valor is missing - valor and constancy.

Top: Pumpkins, "remember in 3 yrs how you feel right now. You know what they say, 'Until I got married, I didn't know what true love was. But then it was too late."

Worthlessness

Omniture. WalMart
My life
Car going home - anger @ wife, ATM spermbank
death prayer
blew up in morning over bedroom set and bunkbeds, prick/c*nt

Walking down street, thought life insurance, how easy would be to throw under oncoming suburban, but more blogging to do, and the kids...

Mental Failures

I think that, having scored a small but significant personal triumph at April Conference, I’ve seen my surrender to temptation at October Conference as such a setback, that in its wake, I seem to have given up altogether on managing my glances and thoughts. The last week or so has been a rough one. The week+ of woe:

FRIDAY
Friday was date night, which started with dinner at a favorite local Thai place. Good vibes between us, no reason for me to be focusing on anyone in the world but my lovely wife, and yet, wouldn't you know it, just as the host started us toward our table, my eyes locked onto a large table of about a dozen college students on a group date, and I quickly moved to “chivalrously” offer my wife the chair that was nearest them, so that her back would be toward them and I’d be able to look at the girls during lulls in our conversation. Which I did. Afterwards, we watched a movie that we really enjoyed, and I forgot all about the bubbly coeds.

SATURDAY
Early in the morning, I went on a long bike ride with a buddy. We were passed heading up a hill by a gal whose killer kalves I couldn’t resist capturing, both in action and at rest once we all reached the top. (See below.) That evening, I downloaded the shots from my phonecam while listening to Elder Bednar’s latest address.

MONDAY
I heard an ad for a Halloween block party in downtown’s “Pierpont Entertainment District,” which is essentially Pierpont Ave., roped off. Upon hearing that the party will feature a contest for the “hottest” Halloween outfit, I wondered briefly thought about how I could get down there inconspicuously, after spending Halloween eve with my kids. Gads.

TUESDAY
Despite needing to prepare for an important presentation the next morning at work, I spent at least 20 minutes in the evening reading a non-explicit yet fairly descriptive article about how actors in relationships deal with sex scenes.

WEDNESDAY
I learned that two of my company’s 275 employees are also exotic dancers at local clubs, and am fighting the urge to find out who they are – just out of curiosity, just…to know.

My boss also told me a story about when, as a fourth grader, he was nabbed for shoplifting (marbles) and promised the judge he’d never again do anything to dishonor his family’s name. (It’s a great story, which I’ve subsequently used for both home teaching and FHE.) I thought about my family’s name – my grandfather was known across a large portion of the state for being uncompromisingly honest. I’ve wondered at times whether I’ll someday facing the question from my great-great-great grandfather, a somewhat prominent figure in Church history, “What have you done with my name?” As I discussed this notion with my boss, we also considered whether the Lord might ask this same question of us, in that we “take” his name upon us – a concept that jives with my interpretation (perhaps my only original Gospel thought) of the third commandment having more to do with the breaking of covenants than with profanity.

THURSDAY
My Church calling puts me in regular, close proximity to several women. It’s not infrequent that, when the proceedings at hand grow a little stale, I find myself gazing, with two in particular being focal points.

The first you might consider a “prototypical” Nordic beauty of sorts, a striking, blonde cross among Helena Bonham Carter, Florence Henderson, Isabella Rossellini and Deborah Harry (closest to Carter & Harry) just after their respective primes. She’s several years my senior, her age beginning to show on her face. Perhaps a poor man’s Vendela Kirsebom. But not tall (maybe 5’5”), not particularly fit (a bit soft, in fact), and, for that matter, not poor – drives a Benz, which, coupled with a bit of haughtiness that one senses to be a remnant of high school promqueendom, has for some reason made me feel “less bad” when I’ve fantasized about her, fantasies in which (who knows why?) she’s always wearing a navy blue lace bra and panty set, with her soft curves swelling around the various straps.

But more recently, she’s been supplanted in my occasional crosshairs by a lovely brunette – about 5’10”, slender, narrow hips but with a full C cup, and often smiling a full-toothed, sincere, almost naïve smile. She got married just a few months ago (to a recent RM eleven years her junior - ?!), and I’ve wondered what her transition to carnal knowledge has been like, whether she enjoys it or fears it, whether he enraptures her body, what those breasts feel like in her hands. In my mind, when she goes to “that place” in my mind, she wears a black, floor-length, spaghetti-strapped silk slip. On Thursday, we had an activity that required us to climb several flights of stairs – short, open flights with bar railing. She was several paces ahead of me and wearing an ankle-length denim skirt with high slits up the sides, and, yes, I caught a couple of glimpses of Gs on the outside of her left thigh. I guess that’s what passes for a thrill in this town, with most of the guilt, all of the the condemnation, but none of the fun.

FRIDAY
I heard a catchy Lady GaGa tune on the radio on the way home, and later watched the video. Then I knowingly tuned into another of her videos, getting most of the way through before deciding that I needed to turn it off, thinking, "Man, the raciest stuff we had back in the day was Madonna and 'Girls on Film.' How are these kids going to survive?"

SATURDAY
With BYU being blistered by TCU on national TV in the background, my neighbor mentioned to me that our stake president had said at the recent stake Priesthood session, “Brethren, be good to your wives, because they’ll have the chance to choose someone else.” While I can’t recall its origin (although there’s some funky stuff along those lines in Doctrines of Salvation), this doctrine’s not new to me, but hearing it again actually gave me some relief that I’m not going to drag a good woman down. Ahhhh.

SUNDAY
We had Sunday dinner with my wife’s sister and her husband, as well as my wife’s brother and a potential girlfriend to whom he wanted to introduce all of us. Cool girl, good student, clearly very smart beneath the floofy SoCal cadence. She’d just competed in the Miss Utah USA pageant the eve before. Not a face that grabbed my attention, but I struggled (which means that I actually made an effort) throughout the evening to keep my eyes off of her Wow! body. She may have caught me looking chestward at one point – but what did she expect, with the low tank under the open blouse? And any oogling elsewhere was strictly in admiration of the fine fleur de lis embroidery on the back pockets of her jeans. I actually think she could make a good match for my bro in law, but dang, she’d be a distraction at Christmas. She'd received some free six-month gym memberships in the pageant, and wanted to give them to both my wife and my sister in law, but my wife wasn't interested. "But honey, that would be perfect for after the baby..." I began to reason, and then shut up. This was about the low point of the week.

At 3:30 that morning, I awoke abruptly to a dream that my wife’s bike was being stolen. I spent the next 30-45 minutes with the big LAPD Special Issue Maglite in one hand, the minivan fob on the other (thumb poised atop the panic button), walking around the house and the yard, looking for unwelcome visitors. A few days earlier, I’d unwisely watched the trailer of a new Halloween fright flick that was the target of an e-petition I’d received, so my spook factor was running high. The crunching of leaves added to the ambiance, and I damn near scared myself to death when I inadvertently kicked a Tonka truck down the steps in the backyard.

I woke up the next morning feeling that I needed to do a better job of protecting my family, starting with the armor of righteousness and spiritual protection in our home, at which I’m failing outright by any reasonable Latter-Day Standard.

Thou Hypocrite

Bednar's talk almost did it.

Same feelings as porn & voyeurism, two topics I've written or will write about at greater length elsewhere. Power, control, objectification. Benefit of just being lustful & creepy, sin in heart.

Listening to Holland's talk while selecting & editing.

Expiration

Temple yesterday

TBD

TBD

screw you, idiot & a**hole

http://www.newsweek.com/id/202789

Church today - gospel in simplicity, latino branch

Legs by the Bay

I took my wife on a semi-surprise getaway to San Francisco last weekend. A friend of mine had given me two free nights at the InterContinental, which made for a pretty posh base to enjoy a cool city, some fantastic food, and each other. (Curiously, and encouragingly, as our taxis passed through a few neighborhoods that had XXX shops, strip clubs and "massage" parlors, I was wholly uncurious as to what secrets lurked behind their flashing neon façades.)

I'm posting here two leggy pics from the weekend: First, the wacko-defined calves of a street entertainer we passed near the endstation of the cable car as we headed from Market Street up toward Union Square (this guy was a tapping freak -- amazing); Second, the lovely doorknob at the Wolford boutique, where I couldn't convince my wife to buy anything or even pick up a free season catalog for, uh, me to enjoy on the flight home, darnit.

Sister Slight

I've had impure thoughts about a sister missionary I saw on Temple Square today. I'm sure that this one's going to cost me some extra indulgences.

Forever?

Sitting across the table from my wife during our date this past Friday night, picking at the plate of rice, potatoes and miscellaneous meats from the Greek restaurant we'd opted for, it struck me how easily and productively we were conversing about things in which we we both had a vested interest, a shared interest. I looked at her eyes, her cheeks, her lips, and thought, "This is my partner. This is the woman with whom I'm going to work through everything that lies ahead. This is the woman I'm going to be with for the long haul." And it felt good. Natural. Right.

Have I mentioned yet that she's pregnant?

Sweet home

My wife and kids got back from vacation on Monday. I'd so much rather be with them than not. It's just a couple of days, but things have been great between my wife and me, and there's an energy of sorts that this may be the beginning of a "new chapter" for us.

Wolford All-Stars: The Top 20 (plus Others Receiving Votes)