Then You're Wrong

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Snoogle Up Close

Pregnancy, I'm told, does funny things to a woman's body.

"Things just aren't in the right place," my wife is fond of saying. And I suppose I know what she means, but only sympathetically, not empathetically. I can guess what she means, is what I'm saying. Like, there's two babies in there, pushing up against her bladder or whatever, taking up room, being weird and turny and tumbly and shit in there.

They're shitting. in. there.

Gross.

And her breasts are huge-- they're not where they're "supposed to be" either. They're everywhere, actually. Her belly isn't where it's "supposed to be".

Nothing is where it's supposed to be.

This makes things like reaching for a glass in the upper kitchen cupboard tricky for my 5'0" wife, because her belly is round and it goes up against the counter and it gets in her way because, you know, it's not where it's supposed to be. The counter or the belly-- more the belly, though.

Sleeping's kind of a biatch, too-- for my wife and, consequently, for me, too. It's a bit of a shit because, during this time of pregnancy, while the children are all ensconced in amniotic fluid and plasma and Jell-O or whatever it is, we're supposed to be getting all the sleep we're not going to have again for the next fifteen-or-so years.

And yet, at 21 weeks, we're not sleeping.

There was little sleeping in Ireland, because my poor wife is besotted by body parts that aren't where they're supposed to be. If Mrs. Apron could go back in time and star in a Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch, she'd be in the "Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things" because, in her life as a pregnant biddy, things are most definitely on top of other things.

And she can't sleep.

And, consequently, I can't sleep.

So, on the recommendation of several of our friends, we went to Babies R' Us on Friday afternoon to purchase a maternity sleeping implement, called "The Snoogle".

It looks like an enormous tapeworm. Or a big, white, turd.


Don't ya think?

It set us back $64.99 (plus tax) but, hey, I reasoned with myself after spending approximately $3,000 in Ireland, if it helps Mrs. Apron sleep, it's going to more than pay for it on its first night.

And it sure did.

Mrs. Apron passed a snoozeful night's rest on Friday night. I, however, had a terrible and fitful night's sleep. See, I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but this Snoogle is gigantic-- and we have a full-size bed. And we have two dogs-- fortunately one is elderly and arthritic and can't get up on the bed anymore. But the smaller, agile one sure can, and does. So, there's six of us up on this bed:

Mrs. Apron
Molly, the dog
Mr. Apron
Twin A
Twin B
The Snoogle

So, while Mrs. Apron was wrapped around the Snoogle, Molly was pressed up against me, and I was jammed up against the Snoogle. I woke up constantly, which was problematic for me, because I had to work on Saturday, and the alarm was set for 5:15am.

I didn't make it that long.

I woke up at 3:31am, with a bladder so full I'm sure my eyeballs were yellow, so I peed. Then I got back into bed and, eventually, I fell asleep.

And, apparently, it was at some point between that moment and 4:25am when I had sex with my wife's Snoogle.

I wish I could deny it, but there was copious, um, DNA evidence to suggest that's what happened.

I was dreaming about this Jamaican girl, who wasn't really Jamaican, but was a wizard, and, if I had sex with her, she would lose all of her magical powers and become a regular Jamaican, non-Jamaican human or whatever-- and, evidently, I got it into my head that freeing this woman of her wizarding powers was a good thing, so I balled her.

More accurately, I balled my wife's Snoogle.

I never thought of myself as the kind of guy who'd be unfaithful, the idea of cheating on the woman I love more than anyone else in the world is unfathomable to me-- the callous disrespect and disregard for her emotions and for the vows we made to each other on October 22nd, 2006 would be unthinkable to me. And yet, on Friday night, I cheated on her. In our own bed. While she was lying there, in a blissful, heretofore fleeting sleep, only a snoogle away.

"Nice Job, Mom!"

For those of you benevolent, wide-eyed folks out there who think that sexism went out of style with large lapels, microwaved meatloaf, and the Ford Granada, think again. While our great nation is, admittedly, preoccupied with discriminating against homosexuals at the moment, we're still pretty proficient at gender-bias, too.

We still love to hire the girl with the biggest tits, and we also are pretty infatuated with paying her less than we would pay a man with comparably-sized bitchtits to do the same amount of work. We still call women "dear" and "sweetie", we still have women showing us to our tables at Friday's, we still think they're unpredictable and not-to-be-crossed when they're menstruating, and we still aren't wholly convinced that they really need more than 6 weeks to appropriately bond with their infant spawn. And every good ol' boy or schoolteacher or Junior Executive Vice-President worth his salt can come up with a Dumb Blonde joke that'll knock your socks off in a heartbeat.

However, in this society, in this day and age, we're also pretty adept at discriminating against men.

Yeah. That's where this is going. Sorry if you don't like it, you dumb fucking blonde.

I had the good fortune yesterday morning to sit down to breakfast with my wife-- something we really don't get to do very much anymore due to our conflicting work schedules. I glanced over at our soy milk carton and I cocked my head and squinted my eyes. With typically tactful pre-coffee grace and aplomb, I asked,

"What the fuck is this shit?"

Nice job, Mom? You're laying on congratulatory affirmations to the moms of America for shelling out $3.49 on a carton of your fucking soy milk? That's great that you want to blow smoke up people's asses, but why does it have to be not only centered around the asses of women, but women who just happened to have reproduced?

Want to make us feel good? Okay. How about, "Nice job, You"? Or, "Way to Go, Buddy!" I would be fine with that. The mom-centered-ness, though, really bothered me. So did the accompanying paragraph:

Are you fucking kidding me? Who was this written by: Robert S. McNamara? C. Everett Koop? Calvin Coolidge? It smacks of a time when America moved around at a higher rate of speed, and in black-and-white and everybody wore hats. (Except when they were indoors, of course.) I thought we had come so far but, apparently, we're still stuck in the 1950's where dad stays home, sucking on his pipe or the babysitter's clitoris while dutiful little mother scampers off to the supermarket, piloting the Buick's massive, chrome-emblazoned steering wheel with her dainty, white gloved fingers.

The only difference is that now the milk comes from a fucking bean instead of a fucking udder.

I got to thinking about 8th Continent's view of the world, and indeed Jif Peanut Butter's (they're STILL peddling that awful "Choosy Moms Choose Jif!" slogan) and it became patently obvious to me: men should not even be permitted in supermarkets.

Let's face it-- these products are not being marketed to us, so we clearly have no business buying them. Not only that, every sitcom and commercial ever produced on the subject of a man in a supermarket would have you believe that sending a male to a supermarket is just as advisable as sending a semi-retarded panda bear to do your grocery shopping. We're always buying the wrong thing, constantly calling our wives, girlfriends, mothers, tax-law advisors for advice/spiritual guidance from our cellphones in the aisles, we're breaking things or buying things impulsively or not reading or understanding labels and we buy diet soda when we're supposed to be getting caffeine free-- I mean, let's face it: it's a fucking mess and we of the be'penised sort should all just be banned.

EXCEPT, of course, on 4th of July, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Super Bowl Sunday, and World Series time. Then we're allowed in, but only to purchase grill-related items/accoutrements. And nothing else.

For every other day of the year, there ought to be Protection From Abuse orders filed by supermarket chains against men. Supermarkets should have bouncers, clad in the store's color aprons to man all the entrances and exits to prevent men from entering the market. And, in the event that a male is dispatched to the supermarket on direct order from, and as proxy for, an ailing, incapacitated, emotionally unstable and/or otherwise physically unavailable female, the male in question must present a signed note, which must be notarized by an appointed official, stating the precise reason why a female could not be present at the supermarket on this occasion, a list (written in female handwriting) detailing exactly what the man is supposed to be purchasing, as well as an envelope containing any and all coupons the man is to utilize in procurement of these aforementioned comestible items. If said male attempts any unauthorized "male behaviors" such as purchasing a foodstuffs because of the tantalizing nature of the picture on the box or any product bearing the product name "Hungry Man" or "Dinty Moore" or "Bubba Burger", he is to be immediately and forcibly removed from the premises, and his affiliated female will be notified at once.

Nice job, Mom.

Magnetic Pride

A few weeks ago, I was engaged in a lively dialogue with a co-worker about something or other that was wrong with this country. I think it might have been political correctness. Actually-- yes, that was it. My co-worker, a psychologist, who also happens to be Israeli, was railing against people who take issue with the term "mentally retarded" to describe people who are, well, mentally retarded.

"What dee fack?!" he screamed in the chart-room, in his charming dialect that I know all too well, "mentally retarded eees mentally retarded! It's not a facking insooolt! Now, if you are saying it to put somebody down, okay, fack you, you're an ess-hole, but der eees nathing wrong wit 'mentally retarded' as a clee-nee-cal term!"

And I agree. Slower processing. Slower cognition. Retarded. Nothing wrong with that. However, in this country of ours, where everybody is so petrified of saying "the wrong thing", we are content to seek shelter behind euphemisms and politeness and couching. It's funny, because I think, if you asked most foreigners if Americans were a "polite" society, they'd laugh in your face. No, we're not polite, because politeness really means graceful and considerate, it doesn't mean not speaking the truth. We're rude and brash, and we're generally socially unacceptable, but, don't worry, we won't dare call someone with an IQ below 70 "retarded".

I can remember feeling slightly bad during this conversation with our Israeli psychologist, and he said to me, "Don't worry-- you're not American, you have a dee-freent perspective than these other morons."

And I remember finding that funny, because I've never really thought of myself as not American. Sure, my father is Israeli, but he moved here eight years before I was born. My mother is American-- so American that she used to flirt with life guards in Atlantic City when she was fourteen, lying about her age. I mean, what's more American than that?

On paper, I'm American. In my heart, I'm... whatever. I don't know. Israel seems to think I'm Israeli, at least that's what they told my father when he was planning a family trip for us there back when I was seventeen. They told him that I would be taken into custody at the airport and inducted into the army. Oh, but there was some paperwork that could be filled out to avoid this happening.

"No thanks," my father told the consulate.

I don't know if my views on America have been more shaped by the fact that my father is Israeli or the fact that I'm a cynical, skeptical bastard. Of course, I may very well be that because my father is Israeli. Chicken. Egg. Israeli. Falafel. Who knows?

I like this country well enough, I suppose. Sometimes, things that our government or some of its citizens do embarrass me, or make me ashamed, or make me want to pretend I'm from Oxford, but I expect that citizens of other countries can't help but feel that way about their homelands, too. Sometimes my family members say and do things that embarrass me, too, but it's not like I can say, "Oh, see that goy family eating ham and swilling zinfandel in that big stone house with the Mercedes 550 in the circular driveway over there? That's my family," because we all know it's not.

We all know.

I look at peoples' cars sometimes, with their "Proud to Be An American" bumper-stickers and I can't help but envy them sometimes. I wish I could feel that way all the time. Maybe I could have a "Proud to Be An American" magnet, that I could take off and put on according to the behaviors and statements and actions of our government-- and its citizens. Like, if I'm in line behind a boorish, petty, obnoxious, ornery American at the bank, I could go out to the parking lot and take the magnet off. When we devote humanitarian aid to a foreign country (one where we have no special interest), I could slap that puppy back on my trunk.

I would be okay with that.

I think.

Yesterday morning, I was in a doctor's office waiting room while my wife went in for an appointment. On the television, some crazy-ass network I'd never heard of called "HLN" was featuring coverage of the Casey Anthony murder trial. It brought me back to the heady days of 2002, when I would sometimes skip class in college if a particularly good trial was being featured on "Court TV," and it made me remember how much I can't stand Nancy Grace. But what was far more interesting than anything the prosecutor was saying in her laborious opening statement, was a small graphic in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen that said,

"Justice for Caylee"

And I thought to myself, Wow. If I had that magnet on my car, this would be one of the times where I'd take it off.

General Order

In the interest of full disclosure, as I write this post, I am eating Chinese food. And I am fully clothed. I do, however, think I need a shower. This post, however, is going to relate more to the Chinese food and less about my state of dress/cleanliness.

Being an American Jew, I am hardwired to love Chinese food. I didn't ask to be born this way, and it isn't necessarily fair, but it's the truth of the matter. I like all kinds of Chinese food. I like Cantonese and Havanese and Szechuan and Youbetchuan. I'm just as happy getting take-out from some shitty hole-in-the-wall with actual holes-in-the-wall as I am sitting at some fancyballs Asian fusion joint with orange cloth napkins and sleek, raven-haired waitresses sprinting around the place dressed in black from their headbands to their toenails. I'll try pretty much anything, and I'm just as likely to order mussels and pork in Hong Kong garlic sauce as I am to order Lo Mein.

Last night was a Lo Mein night (and eight fried, fan-tail shrimp dumplings). My wife is away visiting her family and I needed Asian comfort food. That's Lo Mein, baby. House Lo Mein, to be precise: chicken, pork, beef, shrimp, all kinda mixed together, having a fucking crazy surf-and-turf orgy amongst the bed of noodles.

Oh, yeah. I broke Passover. D'oh.

Anyway, just to humor me-- take out the takeout menu from you favorite Chinese restaurant. If it's a traditional menu, with the red, green, and black colored type, there's probably dozens and dozens and dozens of things to choose from. Variety is, after all, the spice of life-- especially when lovingly doused with Kikkoman.

When I went to pick up my dinner last night, there were four people ahead of me in line. And, do you know what?

("What?")

All four of these motherfuckers were picking up General Tso's Chicken. How do I know that? Because the Asian schoolgirl behind the counter did everyone the kindness of reciting their order to them off the receipt, so the one douchebag in the orange sneakers could whine, "What about my General Tso's Chicken?" when that was not amongst the list of items she rattled off.

"Oh, sollie!" she said (I'm not making fun, that's actually what she said. I don't know who "Sollie" is-- "Solly" is my mechanic, though.) She darted into the kitchen and instantly reappeared holding a container that she shoved unceremoniously into his bag, probably crushing all of those oily little fried noodles that real Chinese people have probably only ever seen in movies. I was amazed at how fast she entered and came out of the kitchen with this schlock-o's General Tso's. It leads me to believe that Chinese food restaurants probably keep at least a hundred tubs of that shit in the kitchen at the ready every night starting at around 5:30pm.

Why?

Because everyfuckingbody in this stupid country orders that shit. I mean, really? Four out of four fuckers in front of me in line at the restaurant last night? That's all the statistical significance this amateur researcher needs.

Now-- this is America-- land of the free, home of the brave, alleged birthplace of General Tso's Chicken (which is kind of funny, if you think about it, and even if you don't think about it) and I acknowledge that people can eat whatever the hell they want as long as it isn't, like, someone else's pet or a cop's nose or something, but I just wish people would branch the hell out a little bit, you know. However, since American's cannot be trusted to venture out of their comfort zones, we need stricter action:

Here, on My Masonic Apron, I am calling for a NATIONAL MORATORIUM ON AND ABSTENTION FROM GENERAL TSO'S CHICKEN FOR ONE YEAR.

Fuckin' Mao would be proud. Especially since no one named fried chicken McNuggets after his dead ass.

You So Sexy...

Sex makes people bananas.

(See what I did there?)

Some people have sex with bananas.

I wonder how the bananas feel about that. I wonder how I'd feel about that if I were a banana. Would I like it, or would I be all like, "Hey-- this isn't how it's supposed to be for me. If I'm going somewhere wet and warm, why is my peel still on?"

Mrs. Apron and I were watching an episode of "Teen Mom 2" (hey-- nobody's perfect) and the shithead Adam is like, "Hey, everybody cheats. I only cheated on you, like, five times. That's not a lot."

Clearly, this is young man who has been made bananas by sex. Clearly, this is also a young man who ought to be forced to have sex with an armor-plated banana.

Everybody finds different things sexy. Of course, there are some things that I think are probably universal-- like, um, hot chick in a white tank-top with the nipples poking through the thin fabric. This is probably the one time that I appreciate GAP and Old Navy for making poorly-constructed, paper-thin clothing. I can't imagine that there isn't a man alive who doesn't appreciate the inherent virtues of the gauzy tank-top-wearing attractive female.

Nipples. They're kind of funny if you think about them too much. But I still find them sexy, and probably think about them too much, which just goes to show you that things can still be sexy even if they're a little bit funny and are consequently thought about too much.

Then there are things that I'm not sure are so universally observed to be sexy. Like boots, for example. There are guys who go absolutely bonkers over a girl who is clad in some extreme-looking boots. The higher up the boots go, the more intense the heel, the more zippers and buckles there are the better. To me, I don't know what's so sexy about a chick who, from the knees down resembles like a New Jersey State Trooper. Maybe it's that whole Jewish/Gestapo thing, but I'm thoroughly uninterested in that.

Dirty-talk is often thought to be sexy, a real turn on. "I'm gonna fuck you till the cum spurts out of my pores," or whatever scintillating sentiment your copulatory partner might dream up to say. I kind of just find dirty-talk funny, and the risk of laughing during such an event would probably be the termination of sexy-times. In pornographic entertainment, I find dirty-talk absolutely pathetic, and immediately cease viewing anything where a woman attempts to be sexy by engaging in the dirty-talk business. It just sounds awful. I mean, I'm not asking for the late Harold Pinter to come back from the dead and start writing porn dialogue, but seriously. A little quality wouldn't kill anybody.

It might even make it sexier. If, you know, you find that sexy to begin with.

I can remember back in high school, the heady days of exploring my burgeoning sexuality and the base of my shaft. I had a dear old friend with whom I spent a significant amount of time, and we were very close. But not, you know, like that. Of course, because I was always "too good a friend."

Vom.

Anyway, my friend one day developed bronchitis and I called her to see how she was doing. She answered the phone in a raspy, throaty voice and, after several minutes or so of chatting with her while she was probably lying on the floor of her bedroom in agony, I began to get aroused.

"Hey," I said nonchalantly, "would you mind saying, 'I want to ride you like a bucking bronco?'"

After she got done laughing, which sounded a lot like what George Burns sounded like when laughing, she said it.

It was everything I thought it would be. It was then that I realized that I found sick women sexy. Interpret at will.

Lots of guys think that chicks sucking on certain food objects is sexy. You know, like lollipops or ice-pops-- anything really with the word "pop" in it, I guess. Except popcorn. Girls don't look particularly sexy while eating popcorn-- unless they're doing it whilst wearing a revealing tank-top, that is. Or boots, if you have a thing about State Troopers or SS officials. I can remember one time my wife was sitting across the kitchen table from me working on a pickle. It was rather chilly and she happened to be wearing a thick wool cape that her uncle had purchased for her and she was rather enthusiastically attempting to make the pickle devoid of auxiliary pickle juice by inserting said green, bumpy object into her mouth, removing it, and repeating the process. Taking it out of her mouth, she inquired,

"Do you find this sexy?"

"Nope," I said, "it's not sexy, because you look like a super-hero blowing Kermit the Frog."

In the Key of Porn

Leave a thirty-year-old guy at home for any period of time greater than one hour, and he's going to look at porn. At least, I hope he is because, if he isn't, than I'm abnormal-- and we all know how much people dislike being abnormal.

I hope that what I do is normal. And, when I'm alone for more than one hour, T.W.B.P.

Yes, that means, "There Will Be Porn."

There will also be blogging, of course which, for me, is like porn. A little bit. I am wearing trousers right now. I swear to God.

Some people say that married men who look at porn are essentially cheating on their wives. I do not subscribe to this rather narrow and puritanical school of thought. If I did, I would be even more overcome with guilt than I already am-- about lots of things. About nothing in particular. I even feel guilty about feeling guilty.

I do not, however, feel guilty about looking at porn.

My wife knows. I am transparent. When the internet history has been cleared, she knows. She jokes with me about it. Thank God we have this kind of relationship, or I would have to be all secretive about it, and I hate secrets. When people tell me secrets, I keep them, but I'm not very enthusiastic about it. In fact, I'm kind of hoping I slip up and say something to someone about the secret, but I never do. Because then I'd feel guilty about it.

And then I'd have to punish myself for that guilt by, you know, looking at some porn.

They say that porn objectifies women. I think it celebrates them. When I see a really good streaming vid online, I sometimes nod my head and make that, "Wow, I'm impressed" face at the monitor which, to me, is akin to pinning a medal on a soldier's wool coat. I mean, these individuals are providing an excellent service. They're going all out. They're taking those money shots and donning their pearl necklaces with pride. And the ones who are really good at what they do (you know who I'm talking about and, if you don't, well, you should) are skilled artisans. And not just the performers, either. The camerapeople, too, are to be credited. I'll never forget the first porno I watched. I was probably twelve or so, and I was at a sleepover at my friend Michael's house, and one of the first shots of the film was taken from behind some hairy dude's ass, at crotch level, while a pair of furry balls slapped mercilessly into this chick's thighs as she was drilled from behind, and the camera couldn't have been more than two inches away from this guy's bouncies. Everyone in the room, ensconsed inside their polyester sleeping bags, was dead silent. I, of course, broke the silence.

"Wow-- can you imagine being that camera guy? What a job!"

I mean, seriously-- people get paid for that. And, even at twelve, that pretty much blew my mind.

Some people dream about sex. I dream about porn. Last night, I had a dream that I was sitting at my computer, watching porn. That's kind of fucked up, don't you think? I dreamt that I was watching this dude lying face-up on a table and this tattooed chick was riding the squirt out of him. I mean, this chick was doing the reverse-cowgirl thing, just absolutely going to town and she was gritting her teeth as she was saying, I guess to the "camera":

"The trick is to pretend like you're enjoying it!"

And, in my dream, hearing this was like some sort of stunning revelation, and the dream-self of me was thinking, "Oh my God-- you mean it's all an act? She's not really enjoying getting drilled like some sort of highway works project? Jeez!"

Who fucking knew.

In the Mud

I got sent home from work yesterday, not for talking about my dick too much, as the title of this blog may imply, but for being ill. See-- when you work in a hospital, even a psychiatric hospital, they don't like it when you show up to work sick. Of course, being a relatively new employee, I don't have any sick time, so I stayed for three hours, saw some patients, ran a group, wrote some notes, and drove home.

On the way home, I listened to a radio program on NPR, because that's what elite snobs who drive Volvos do, even when they're sick. On this particular program, the topic was sex. This, coupled with the fact that my other two favorite public radio stations were in the midst of mind-altering fund-drives, was enough to compel me to listen.

I listened even though I maintain a pretty rigid policy of eschewing call-in shows. I can listened to any amount of talk radio run by educated professionals who are skilled and comfortable being on the radio, but as soon as some dunder-drawered donkey-dick from West Philly calls, my spine starts to disintegrate-- just a little bit.

I don't understand what it is about having your call get accepted on the radio that turns ordinarily logical, couth, appropriate people into, well, ham-lipped fuckheads, for lack of more florid terminology. People who call in to radio call-in shows just can't seem to get their acts together, and they inevitably end up embarrassing themselves and, consequently, me. They drone on endlessly, they interrupt people, they insist on having the radio on in their room or their car or wherever they're calling from, making it impossible to hear, or there is just dead air which, most of the time, is preferable.

Back in the days when my father had an eighty mile round-trip commute, he would often call in to sports radio shows and generally flip out on people as Israelis have been trained for centuries to do. My father always identified himself as "Frank," which is definitely not his real name. Frank is, in fact, the name the judge who processed my father as a citizen suggested my father adopt to "fit in."

"Frank?!" my father shouted at the judge, "FUCK THAT!"

Clearly, even back in 1972, Daddy Dearest was well on his way to American assimilation.

So, getting back to yesterday. I was sick driving home in my Volvo, with the seatwarmers turned on to help soothe my aching, elite body, and I was listening to this call-in show about a new report released about American sexual behaviors. I thought it was very ironic and annoying that the report studied Americans aged 14-94, and yet, the host of the show was constantly inserting the disclaimer that, "This is an adult conversation" and that "the content of this program may not be suitable for children."

Well, wait, I thought-- you're allowing "children between the ages of 14-17" to be studied, to be asked the most intimate, personal and revealing questions about their sexual status and behavior, and they're discouraged from listening to the fucking show about that selfsame study? Had I been a full-blooded Israeli instead of a watered-down half-breed with asthma, I would have whipped out my cell-phone to vociferously point out this hypocrisy, but, as it was, it was all I could do to keep from choking on my own phlegm and keep the car straight.

So, what did we learn from this study?

* Well, floppy, sloppy, crinkly, stinky, dusty, musty old people are having sex more. Thanks, Viagara.

* Teens are less sexually active than the prudish establishment thinks and, when they are, most of them are using condoms. Thanks, Trojan (who, incidentally, funded the study).

* More "newly-single" people in their forties and fifties are re-entering the dating scene and are not using condoms. Thanks for the herps, aging yuppie assholes.

* And, speaking of assholes, more people across the age spectrum are dabbling in anal sex. A couple of months ago, a former coworker shared with me a euphemism for this particular sex act: "Doin' it in the mud."

Play ball.