奥の細道 (Oku no Hosomichi)

Redolent of Matsuo Basho's haiku narrative of his journey on a "narrow path to the interior" this will be a journey through my innermost ruminations.

Breakups
Posted:May 30, 2020 1:25 pm
Last Updated:Oct 11, 2023 8:01 pm
21076 Views

How do you handle breakups?

I don't do breakups well, but I keep at it anyhow.

Most of mine have been involuntary, which is to say they were a product of my lifestyle and profession, which has involved moving all over the world. Hard to maintain relationships when you pop off to another country every few years and circumstances conspire against taking her with you.

In view of my record, I can probably offer some approaches not to try. Some others I could suggest may actually be good, but once it's over you seldom find out if you did it well or not.

Don't just fade away, unless she does too. It leaves too much unsettled. You fret about it, even if it's mutual. She may too, but you never find out. Better to clear the air, but do it gently, over a nice meal and a few glasses of wine in a restaurant (you do remember restaurants, don't you?). And don't stick her with the check lol and don't try for one last quickie just for old times sake.

I used a carriage ride in Central Park for the girl who followed me halfway around the world when I had to relocate after only one year of seeing her sporadically (it was a 220-mile commute for her to come visit me by train... I only visited her once or twice... once to end it). That may have been the weirdest combination of circumstances I ever encountered, but that's another, very long, story.

Don't try to reignite it once you've ended it, no matter how reluctantly you did so. I went back to an old relationship after a couple of decades thinking that after so much time we could just be friends, or even friends with benefits. Fuggedaboudit!! She became clinging and insecure. It took forever to deal with all her hangups... which she probably wouldn't have had if I had just left it at friends and left off the benefits part.

Don't make promises that you're not sure you have the guts to keep. Especially don't make them if you're not totally sure of what you're doing because other parts of your life are in turmoil. My life is usually not in any kind of turmoil I can't handle. There have, however, been times when I was off trajectory and wasn't aware of it. On one such occasion I was so far gone that I traveled several hundred miles just before a somewhat tumultuous departure from one part of the world to a place completely on the other side of the planet with only a very clever but somewhat unorthodox plan to sustain me. Not the best circumstances to re-start a relationship that I had idealized and let expire despite lengthy long-distance correspondence, only to try to reignite it in the space of two frazzled months. Dumb. I had to renege on promises that I suspect caused a lot of heartache. The worst part is that I'll never know how much damage I caused. A lot I suspect. Better not to try to revisit past conquests.

3 Comments
Memorial Day... The 442nd
Posted:May 25, 2020 9:14 pm
Last Updated:Oct 30, 2020 9:35 am
7492 Views

To movie goers of a certain age, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was a US Army Regiment in WWII that rescued a Texas Division that was encircled by the Germans.

The movie was "Go For Broke", the motto of the second-generation or Nisei Japanese-Americans from Hawaii, who love to shoot craps. It means let everything ride on a single roll of the dice. The 442nd was used to doing the impossible, but it proved costly. They fought their way up the entire Italian peninsula taking on every dirty job that was thrown at them, becoming in the process the most-decorated military unit in American history... but that was not the end of their story. They still had a lot to prove. You see, they were unique. They were a Japanese-American unit at a time when Japanese-Americans in California had been rounded up and herded into relocation camps, their property and possessions bought up at fire-sale prices by the Americans who had instigated their imprisonment. They fought to prove their loyalty while their families were treated like traitors. How many of us would do that?

The veterans of the 442nd I knew as a college student from 1956 to 1960 taught me valuable lessons about being an American. I worked with them at Honolulu International Airport. They took their work as seriously as they took their annual trips to the crap tables in Las Vegas. I also met another set of 442nd veterans. I was lucky enough to become the first University of Hawaii student to be awarded an internship with the first Hawaii State Senate after Hawaii became a State. A large number of the members of the Finance Committee, which I was assigned to, were veterans of the 442nd.

When the war ended, their willingness to sacrifice for America didn't end. They went to college, got their degrees, and went into politics. They were determined to make their sacrifices mean something by making America live up to the principles of "liberty and justice for all" that are enshrined in our pledge of allegiance to the flag they carried with such sacrifice into battle. I never forgot the stories they shared with me or the example they set. I never will. I did my best to emulate the spirit they manifested. I know I fell short... but I'll never stop trying.

9 Comments
Never Interrupt...
Posted:May 23, 2020 2:49 pm
Last Updated:Oct 11, 2023 8:08 pm
6645 Views

...Your adversary when he's in the process of destroying himself.
__Napoleon Bonaparte

Fox News nationwide poll May1 7 -20
Registered voters, margin of error +/- 3
The Economy
Biden..42%
Trump.45%
Managing the China Problem
Biden..43%
Trump.36%
Handling the Corona Virus
Biden..46%
Trump.37%
Health Care Policy
Biden..59%
Trump.33%
Women’s Rights
Biden..50%
Trump.27%

..............Men..Women
Biden....41%.....54%
Trump...48%.....34%

African Americans
Biden..76%. + from April
Trump.%... +2 from April (that's 1 2% or twelve, for the benefit of the alt monkeys)

....................,,..Biden Trump
Below Age 45 50%....35%
45+..................47%...44%

According t o Fox News. , Biden makes inroads in two key groups: Independents prefer him by 1 3 (thirteen) points and voters age 65+ by 1 7 (seventeen) points. In 2 0 1 6, Trump won Independents by 4 and seniors by 7.

In response t o this Trump has nothing say. Instead, during a mere years of the most corrupt government in the post-WWII era, rife with indictments, he bleats about "Obamagate" as if it was a magical chant that would ward off the corona virus. He cries out about unmasking Michael Flynn's name in intercepted phone conversations with the Russian Ambassador and demands t o know who was responsible, apparently blissfuly unaware that Flynn's name was never masked in the first place. His supporters, meanwhile, are oblivious t o the fact that in the entire 8 years of the Obama Administration, nobody in the Federal Government was ever indicted, much less convicted, for anything.

Is this a great country or what?
9 Comments
Don't Waste This Crisis (Update)
Posted:May 9, 2020 2:27 pm
Last Updated:Oct 30, 2020 9:40 am
9783 Views


At least some news keeps getting better. Apparently of the polls I had intended t o post didn't make it into my last blog post [post 186].

So here they are. Joe Biden, sitting in his basement with barely a signal call his own, is kicking Trump's ass. Even Texas is a toss . Okay, everybody knows Texas is fools gold for Democrats... but now Trump has spend t o keep Texas fools golden.

Okay, they're just polls. But if Trump is freaking out, and he is definitely freaking out like he never freaked before, then he must think they're accurate. He takes his own polls, and he's reportedly super pissed at his pollster.

My main point remains... it's data, not airy fairy hand wringing. The bed wetters will tell you that Hillary was ahead in the polls before she was behind... and she was. But she was Hillary. She had too much baggage, too many negatives (thanks to an incessant pounding by the Republican spin machine) and, though she could dance circles around Trump policy, she was never worth a damn as a campaigner.

Still, as I said before, the virus has showed us that models and data can change if circumstances change. But this election is our chance make changes of our own. Too long we've had a government that denies science... in every form... that doesn't believe in data unless it's to Trump's political advantage. Trump's cronies are gonna go out keep their snouts in the trough, so it's gonna be a long hard slog. But saving our Republic is worth it.

Joe Biden is a good, decent guy, and he knows what the hell he's doing. What follows indicates that America believes in him:

Monmouth U poll
Biden..50% +2 from April
Trump..41% -3 from April
April 30-May 4 +/-3.6

Monmouth U
April 30-May 4 +/- 3.6
..................men women
Biden 50% 44% 56%
Trump 41% 46% 36%

Montana, US Senate race
Montana State U poll
April -27 */- 3.6 points
Bullock (D) 46%
Daines..(R) 39%
*(Trump winning by 5

Arizona US Senate
Mark Kelly (D)..........50%
Martha McSally (R).44%

Colorado US Senate
April -19
Hickenlooper (D) 48%
Gardener (R)........31%

North Carolina US Senate May 2-4 Civiqs poll
Cunningham (D) 50%
Tillis (R)...............41%

CBS News/YouGov poll
April 28-May 1 +/- 2.5
Biden..49%
Trump..43%
.
Texas General Election Dallas Morning News
April 18-27 Texas voters
+/- 2.85
Biden..43%
Trump.43%

General Election Registered Voters
Suffolk U/USA Today poll
April 21-25 +/- 3 points
Biden..50%
Trump 40%

Economist/YouGov
April 26-28 +/- 3.2 points
Biden 47%
Trump 41%

Emerson College poll
April 26-28 +/- 2.8 points
Biden 48%
Trump 42%

New Hampshire
Saint Anselm College
April 23-27 +/- 3.4 points
Biden 50%
Trump 42%

WRAL News
North Carolina likely voters
April 23-26 +/- 5.5 points
Biden 50%
Trump 45%

Public Policy poll
Texas
voters April 27-28
Biden 47%
Trump 46%

New York voters
Siena College
Registered voters
April 19-23 +/- 3.7 points
Biden 65%
Trump 29%

Fox News poll 4/18-21
PA Biden 50% Trump 42%
MI Biden 49% Trump 41%
FL Biden 46% Trump 42%

20 Comments
A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste
Posted:May 7, 2020 9:10 pm
Last Updated:Oct 30, 2020 9:41 am
9476 Views

Feeling Depressed? Cheer u p! Help is the way.

Do you wonder if the madness will never end?
Do you wish people who know what they're doing were in charge?
Have you noticed that China has been a country for five thousand years and they had their best years since Donald Trump has been president of the US.

Do you wonder why Donald Trump is now actually behaving more erratically than he ever has?

If so, that glimmer of light you see below may not be a freight train barreling toward you. It may be morning, instead of mourning.

Take a careful look at some real data, instead of loony tunes:

Monmouth U poll
Biden..50% +2 from April
Trump..41% -3 from April
April 30-May 4 +/-3.6

Monmouth U
April 30-May 4 +/- 3.6
..................men women
Biden 50% 44% 56%
Trump 41% 46% 36%

Montana, US Senate race
Montana State U poll
April -27 */- 3.6 points
Bullock (D) 46%
Daines..(R) 39%
*(Trump winning by 5

Arizona US Senate
Mark Kelly (D)..........50%
Martha McSally (R).44%

Colorado US Senate
April -19
Hickenlooper (D) 48%
Gardener (R)........31%

North Carolina US Senate May 2-4 Civiqs poll
Cunningham (D) 50%
Tillis (R)...............41%

CBS News/YouGov poll
April 28-May 1 +/- 2.5
Biden..49%
Trump..43%
.
Texas General Election Dallas Morning News
April 18-27 Texas voters
+/- 2.85
Biden..43%
Trump.43%

General Election Registered Voters
Suffolk U/USA Today poll
April 21-25 +/- 3 points
Biden..50%
Trump.40%

Economist/YouGov
April 26-28 +/- 3.2 points
Biden..47%
Trump.41%

Emerson College poll
April 26-28 +/- 2.8 points
Biden...48%
Trump.42%

New Hampshire
Saint Anselm College
April 23-27 +/- 3.4 points
Biden 50%
Trump 42%

WRAL News
North Carolina likely voters
April 23-26 +/- 5.5 points
Biden..50%
Trump.45%

Public Policy poll
Texas
voters April 27-28
Biden..47%
Trump.46%

New York voters
Siena College
Registered voters
April 19-23 +/- 3.7 points
Biden..65%
Trump.29%

Fox News poll 4/18-21
Pensylvania.Biden 50% Trump 42%
Michigan..... Biden 49% Trump 41%
Florida..........Biden 46% Trump 42%

No wonder Trump is more unhinged than ever.

That is real data, not fantasy. Remember data? We used to rely on it. Now all we hear is yelling.

But data can change, just like the models for the virus change. We can change the data. If we stay home on election day without casting a -in vote, we can change that data into four more years of insanity. It's on us.

Ask yourself... How much more of this can I take?
If the answer is... No more! then don't rely on this data not changing. Remember the rage you felt in November of 2018 and seize a future of hope and promise.

A crisis is a terrible thing waste. We could use this crisis save this planet and the air that is now so clean by helping strengthen renewable energy sources instead of bailing out Oil companies. We could use it protect a woman's right choose by voting out Senators who stack the courts with anti-choice judges. We could use it to protect the right to bear arms without flooding the country with weapons that are only useful to kill people in vast numbers. We could use it to vote for a government that has the vision and the expertise to foresee the next crisis and plan for it instead of wasting our tax dollars handing out bailouts to corporations that don't need bailing out.

It's us. I'll have a clear conscience because I vote. I voted in Virginia in November 2018 and we tossed the do-nothing Republicans out of every State office and both houses of the legislature.

21 Comments
What does 奥の細道 (Oku no Hosomichi) mean?
Posted:Apr 19, 2020 8:31 am
Last Updated:Oct 11, 2023 8:14 pm
16093 Views

Only one non-Asian person I know of has actually deciphered the hidden meaning of the title of my blog. All educated Japanese and a few Chinese know what the derivation is: a collection of haiku poems by the renowned master poet Matsuo Basho, a haiku narrative of his journey on a "narrow path the interior", a reference the hidden pathways through Japan's north country. A friend I met here, who owns a club in Yokohama, Dragon Lad, sadly no longer on Alt., deduced the hidden erotic meaning as an oblique risque reference a woman's posterior entrance. It could be either her anus or her cunt...the narrow pathway her lovely, mysterious, inviting interior. It is more usually a reference the interior of the house, where the kitchen is. It also refers the practice of men of wealth or power keeping a stable of women at a their beck and call in the inner reaches of their spacious residences for their pleasure. Oku means interior, the back of the residence where the kitchen might be, or the rural, usually isolated or mountainous countryside as in the Australian outback.

I chose it for my own amusement, knowing that educated Japanese women with a strong erotic inclination, such as the writer of the world's first novel, Lady Murasaki Chichibu, would instantly recognize its invitation. That has generally proved be the case, though it did also attract one lovely female Korean graduate of Harvard who now resides in Santa Monica. But that is another story.

3 Comments
The Apartment
Posted:Apr 19, 2020 7:26 am
Last Updated:Oct 11, 2023 8:17 pm
7656 Views

"The Apartment" was the title of a movie starring a hapless Jack Lemmon about a bachelor with a downtown apartment that every married guy and player he worked with was always trying to use to lay their favorite chick in. I own such an apartment, but, unlike Lemmon, I don't have to live in it. A while back I wrote about that small top-floor apartment with a view do die for that I was trying to decide what to do with. Pure Luck A Pied Terre Some folks asked me to let them know what I decided on. I decided to renovate it and sell it. As perfect as it might be for a trysting spot, I don't need it for that. As much as I love the fantastic view it commands of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, I have a country place with a view that I created on the model of my favorite Kyoto garden. So onto the market it went on Friday. I already have a bid at the asking price with another promised at a price I don't know yet. This is apparently unusual, particularly in this unsettled market.

Frankly, I hate to let the place go. It is magnificent, perfect for a view freak with kinky inclinations and a taste for exotic pussy. Posing her naked in front of a seventh story window overlooking one of the hottest night spots in a major city would be a major turn on. My cock hardens at the mere thought. Of course the neighbors might be offended, especially if I highlight her with floodlights. It is a nice fantasy though.

I'm not totally committed to the sale. My contract with the agent expires at the end of the month. If the bidders don't start getting creative with higher bids, I can still reject all offers and take it off the market. I suspect I will have to abandon the floodlight option and just be satisfied with posing her naked pressed against the glass with her legs splayed wide open, relying solely on her own imagination to convince her that the people she sees on the street below her can actually see her, when in fact they probably can't.

What would you do, or if you're a kinky woman, what would you like to have me do to you if you had the opportunity? Inquiring minds I am sure would like to know.
5 Comments
Yes Virginia...
Posted:Nov 6, 2019 7:38 am
Last Updated:Oct 30, 2020 9:44 am
10253 Views

...there is a Sanity Clause...

... and it was invoked yesterday by the voters of the Commonwealth of Virginia in a stunning rebuke for President Moop. Virginia voters overturned Republican majorities in both the House of Delegates and the State Senate for the first time since 1993 and opened the way for sensible gun laws, affordable medical care and sanity in government.

I vote in the county in the northernmost mountainous tip of Virginia, a Republican stronghold. The voters there voted for a Democrat to take a Senate seat formerly occupied by a Republican, one of three Senate seats that flipped to give the Democrats a two-seat majority in the 40-member Commonwealth Senate. Democrats flipped five seats in the House of Delegates for a four-seat majority in the 100-member chamber. That means Democrats control every state-level governing body in the Commonwealth. Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General and both houses of the legislature.

They did it by advocating moderate, achievable, common-sense solutions to problems Virginians cared about. Incidentally, the day before the election, while most Democrat Presidential hopefuls were campaigning in Iowa, Joe Biden held a rally in my area of Virginia.

Welcome to sanity.
2 Comments
Women Tell Me the Damndest Things
Posted:Jul 23, 2019 8:55 pm
Last Updated:Mar 20, 2024 4:29 pm
5707 Views

I was on the phone with her today... a girl who had been my FWB for a couple of years a while ago. We used to go together to big social events whenever she needed an and get it on in her apartment whenever we could find the time in our very busy lives.

She said she first fell for my cock, not for me so much, because she had been watching me from behind while I was naked and taking a piss in her bathroom and my cock was hanging down so low that she could see its length and size so clearly that she felt powerfully drawn to it. She described it as suddenly being in love, even though she had not entertained such feelings before that moment.

My reaction on hearing this was disbelief. My cock is not particularly eye catching, at least from my perspective. But she swore that it was true.

So, having no-one else to ask at the moment, I thought I would ask any ladies who might stumble across this blog post, is this common? Have you even heard of such a thing?

Don't get me wrong. I've spoken to many women both here and elsewhere who are crazy about sucking cock. I've even known and trained women to be cock worshippers. I haven't, however, run into someone who wasn't particularly kinky before she knew me who actually copped to falling in love with my cock before she had any strong romantic feelings about me.
3 Comments
Loving Women
Posted:May 27, 2019 6:41 pm
Last Updated:Oct 11, 2023 8:27 pm
5796 Views

Reading Hemimgway's novels can be surprisingly enlightening. Concerning women, in The Sun Also Rises a 27-year-old Hemingway writes in the quaintly breathless dialog of the 1920s "Women make such swell friends, Awfully swell. In the first place, you had to be in love with a woman to have a basis of friendship."

I have often felt guilty about being secretly in love with women who regarded me only as a friend, as I in fact also regarded them. I have also felt conflicted about having women friends who were in love with me and wanted me to be in love with them. This was particularly hard when I was already in a relationship. How could I retain their valuable friendship without betrayal, without lying to one of the two women?

I can resolve it to myself by acknowledging I am polyamorous, but very few of the women I have encountered accept this concept. One may be able to accept polyamory, but two? Not likely.

Apparently, I needn't have worried. Hemingway had paved the way for me before I was born. "you had to be in love with a woman to have a basis of friendship." It was, at least in Nobel-Worthy literature, an accepted concept.

I wonder how many women would accept this? How many would consider the men they may trifle with, whom they regard as "just friends," had to be in love with them to have a basis of friendship?

I've sometimes tried to convince some women of the obverse: being friends and having a sexual relationship was possible, when they insisted on being in love. It's nice to know being in love and being friends are mutually-dependent activities.

Hemingway goes on greater length about this concept. His protagonist, Jake, has suffered a war wound which has left him emasculated. He is resigned to having Brett as a friend, while she wants something more. She seems to be the one who needs to be in love, but is also blocked by their inability to sexually consummate the relationship.

Hemingway goes on to say "I had been having Brett for a friend. I had not been thinking about her side of it. I had been getting something for nothing. It only delayed the presentation of the bill. The bill always came. It was one of the swell things you could count on.

"I thought I had paid for everything. Not like the woman pays and pays and pays. No idea of retribution or punishment. Just exchange of values. You gave something and got something else. Or you worked for something. You paid some way for everything that was any good. I paid my way into enough things I liked so I had a good time. Either you paid by learning about them, or by experience, or by taking chances, or by money. Enjoying living was learning to get your ' money's worth and knowing when you had it. You could get your money's worth. The world was a good place to buy in. It seemed like a fine philosophy. In five years , I thought, it will seem just as silly as all the other fine philosophies I've had.

"Perhaps it wasn't true, though. Perhaps as you went along you did learn something. I did not care what it was all about. All I wanted to know was how to live in it. Maybe if you found out how to live in it you learned from that what it was all about."
6 Comments

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