Google gives you a neato-keen link to the statistics for who reads your blog. I have a smattering of people who are reading in Europe and Asia. I get a huge kick out of that. I think it must be because I sometimes use words like pussy, cock and squirt, and they’ve done a search. Whatever their prurient reasons (it takes one to know one), I’m tickled that 10-15 people on those two continents are reading me. Hi you guys! VAGINA!!!

An old friend was urging me to get back into therapy a few weeks ago. Her intentions were spotless. She wants me to keep living, and to rediscover my passion for living. I maintain I never lost it, and that I know what’s in my head and my heart. She told me I was arrogant to believe that. No doubt she’s right. I told her she was. And I love her for saying that. She came knocking on my door with a bag of food and a bunch of determination to get me to a shrink (after I had emailed her to tell her not to visit and bring lunch on that particular day). She said she’d be glad to pay for the therapy. How can you argue with an intention like that? A sweetie. An arrogant sweetie, but a sweetie. Well, it takes one to know one. For hours we talked about lots of things besides my assertion that therapy would surely do the opposite of what she intended and hasten my demise. She stuck her nose in where and how she could. After we talked, she smiled at me with warm affection while I gobbled up the food she brought me, along with 2 of the 3 desert choices. When she left I felt not criticized. I felt loved.

But of course I was raised in the school of Stick-Your-Nose-In love. People are great aren’t they? The ones that love you. They listen, and argue, and laugh, and reveal themselves in all their nutty humanity. If only I had a buck for every time someone said to me: I’ve never told this to anyone else. I know some great, juicy stuff about people that would flip your frosted sugar cookies right out the window. I’ll never tell any of it (unless you’re my dead father), but so many people have told me stuff nobody else knows. Mainly, I think, because I ask. Specific questions. Specificity is key.

I was driving my (then 85-year-old) Dad to an outpatient procedure in downtown Cleveland about 5 years ago, which was a bi-annual check of his pacemaker, and as we turned a prominent corner he said: “Hey! This is the corner where I used to pick up girls.” He was referring to behavior that took place in the late 1930s and early 40s.

Me: Girls? You mean prostitutes, right?

Dad: (with a smile that means duh!) Sure, what do you think.

Me: Good girls wouldn’t do anything right? Regular girls.

Dad: No. They didn’t do much.

Me: They’d hang out on this corner?

Dad: (warm smile) Uh-huh.

Me: How much did it cost?

Dad: Two dollars.

Me: Wow, that’s a real bargain.

Dad: You think?

Me: (offended) Don’t you?

Dad: (sheepish) I guess.

Me: What did you get for the two bucks?

Dad: Huh?

Me: What did they do for two bucks?

Dad: (again, duh!) What do ya think? They’d screw ya.

Me: Anything else?

Dad: (momentarily distracted, looking out the window) What?

Me: Would they suck your cock?

Dad: Sometimes.

Me: Sounds good to me.

Dad: Yeah. But you couldn’t ask for it.

Me: Oh.

(Dad shakes his head signifying it would have been a terrible faux-pas to ask for it)

Me: Why not?

Dad. They’d do it if they wanted to, but it was up to them.

[Needless to say, I absolutely LOVE the notion of the prostitute being offended by the request for a blow-job. Who says things never change?]

Me: That makes sense. Did they usually do it?

(Dad looks pensive)

Dad: Sometimes. Yeah.

Me: So it was a real compliment if they did.

Dad: I guess.

Me: Well if they didn’t have to. That meant they liked you.

Dad: I don’t know.

Me: Then you’d screw em.

(Dad throws shade meaning What else?)

Me: Did you kiss em?

Dad: (surprised) Yeah. Sure. Of course.

Me: Oh, I rarely kissed a guy if I was having casual sex. Sometimes but not usually.

Dad: But you kissed your boyfriends?

Me: Well of course.

Dad: I thought so, yeah.

Me: That was love.

Dad: I know.

Me: Were they pretty?

Dad: Oh yeah.

Me: Did you see the same ones more than once?

Dad: I think so.

Me: Did you have a favorite one?

Dad: Oh…

Me: Yeah?

Dad: There was one girl who was beauty-ful…she had red hair…I think...

Me: Did you date her too?

Dad: (startled) Huh?

Me: Did you ask her on a date?

Dad: (an Are-you-crazy? look) Noooooo.

Me: Why not?

Dad: Victor. They were whooores.

(pause)

Dad: But she was a real nice girl. She was real friendly.

(pause)

Me: Where did you do it?

Dad: (thinking) They’d take you to a room.

Me: What was the sex like compared to sex with mom?

Dad: None of your business.

Me: What do you mean?

Dad: You speak English.

Me: You’re not offended?

Dad: Why should I be offended?

Me: Then tell me.

Dad: You want to know everything.

Me: Well that’s not news.

(Dad laughs)

Dad: You’re too nosey. I’m not talking anymore.

Me: If you don’t tell me I won’t feed you anymore.

(Dad gives his trademark matter of fact laugh with a shrug)