What Do You Call a Male Buckle Bunny?

In the world of rodeo, the rodeo cowboys are the stars, and there is a set of fan girls that deliberately seek the cowboys for sex.  These specialized groupies are referred to as "buckle bunnies."

Now, as an occasional participant in rodeos, Cowgirl Melinda was aware of these lewd fillies, and it annoyed her something else that a buckaroo would mistake her for one.  No, she was the Real Deal: a honest working cowhand.  And she was adept at roping, herding, and even taming a bronc, if needed.  Melinda particularly liked the barrel races.  She was not too keen on bull-riding, though.  She was more adept at shooting the bull!

One day, she was nonplussed to find that a skinny young fella seemed to hang around where she was, and was making some nonsubtle hints as to what he wanted.  And Melinda blushed.  She was not that kind of cowgirl!
Melinda said, "Go away; you creep me out!  If you don't go away, I'll hogtie you!"  And there was something about the skinny fella's expression that told our cowgirl that she was on the wrong trail with that threat.

So she tried a different approach:  "Look, Dude......Who ever heard of a male buckle bunny?"

But the young fella set her right.  He said, "Now, consider this.  A male rabbit is called a buck, and a female rabbit a doe.  A bunny is a young rabbit of either gender.  Like a male cat is a tom, and a female cat a queen, and a young 'un's a kitten.  And a male dawg is a dog, and a female dog is a bitch, and a young one is a pup.  Okay?"

Cowgirl Melinda thought about it a bit, and said, "Well, I'm not into sharing my bedroll with you or no one.  But stop dressing like a sissy, and up your game some, and you might pass for a sex kitten of the male sorts.  Or you can wear a set of bunny ears.  But I won't make a rabbit of you!"

 

Good Girls and Bad

Good girls loosen a few buttons when its hot.
Bad girls make it hot by loosening a few buttons.

Good girls wax their floors.
Bad girls wax their bikini line.

Good girls blush during sex scenes in movies.
Bad girls know they could do it better.

Good girls wear white cotton panties.
Bad girls don't wear any.

Good girls think they're not fully dressed without a strand of pearls.
Bad girls think they're fully dressed with just a strand of pearls.

Good girls pack their toothbrush.
Bad girls pack their diaphragms.

Good girls will not allow Second Base before the fifth date.
Bad girls allow Second Base before the first hour.

Good girls own only one credit card and rarely use it.
Bad girls own only one bra and rarely use it.

Good girls wear high heels to work.
Bad girls wear high heels to bed.

Good girls think the office is the wrong place to have a romance.
Bad girls think no place is the wrong place.

Good girls expect that romance will last long.
Bad girls expect the guy will last long.

Products for Las Niñas

It's obvious that Americans are obsessed with bosoms.  A magazine cover featuring a well-endowed young woman of whatever skin tone or hair color tends to boost sales.  And lads' magazines regularly feature well-endowed women as part of their page count.  What two words affect magazine sales or hits at internet sites?  Wardrobe malfunction.  This expression, probably coined to excuse some skirting of public mores on national television, is another magnet.

And finally, we have the proliferation of breast enhancements, especially in the Beverly Hills area.  As former Governor Schwartzenegger once was supposed to have commented: "I like Thanksgiving.  It's the only time I can see natural breasts."

Because of this National Obsession, certain products emerged, apparently because of these events:

1.  Someone manufactures a supposed need, and plays it up.  This may generate some possible anxiety in the potential customer base.

2.  They also provide a product that reduces this manufactured need.  And imply that using this deals effectively with this problem.

Maybe I'm generating a few cheap titters by mentioning these two products, but here they are.  Two products for women with extra coins who feel that nothing is too good for her niñas.

First there's Boob Glue.  This is to keep the breasts properly in place in the brassiere or bikini top; and at a pleasing angle of perkiness.  It's marketing is based on generating anxiety regarding swimsuit malfunctions or the effects of gravity.

I can make four observations:

1.  Bras should sufficiently corral the bosoms in a way that produces a pleasing appearance, provided you are wearing one of the right size.

2.  If there is a little settling, this would not be sufficient for males to notice, unless they are carrying vernier calipers.

3.  Unintended swimsuit malfunctions are extremely rare, if you wear a swimsuit that is suitable for vigorous activity or you double-tie your strings.  Have you ever seen a swimsuit malfunction with beach volleyball players?  No, because of their swimsuits' construction.

4.  Boob Glue may have some value if you often untie your band in back or neck strap of your swimsuitou are prone toward forgetting.

Then there's Fresh Body, a powder designed to counteract the dreaded sweatiness of breasts, particularly on the ventral surfaces.  Actually, if this is a worry, baby powder should suffice.  And who can complain about babying your girls?  Possibly some Holy Roller or Puritan preacher, who is sermonizing on the perils of narcissism.

There's another possibility: boob sweat can be sexy.  Pheromones, perhaps?  Maybe spandex is not the only attraction at gyms.

And sweat is our body's way of helping cooling itself.  Don't mess with a physiological process lightly.

Opposite-Sex Friendships

In the sex-charged context of nowadays and the repeated occurrence of the term 'friend with benefits,' it is proper to assert that men and women, or boys and girls, can be friends.  Friendship can exist in a romantic and sexual contact (hopefully, romance and sex go together), or it can be free-standing. 

I deliberately refrained from writing 'just friends.'  Conceptualizing the nature of friendship that way serves to make it be perceived as less than it is or can become.  In fact, friendship can potentially extend between people of the same or dissimilar sexes, ages, races, religions, politics, or other accidents of being human.  Friendship rests in mutual good will, in kindness, in tolerance, in forgiveness, in those blessed ways that allow us to transcend being crass or self-interested. 

A friend is someone who can serve as a sounding board; and you provide one in return.  Specifically, a very close male friend helped me to understand those strange creatures (boys; later, men) and reassured me about something that females often feel vulnerable about.  And, I hope, I reassured him in matters of male vulnerability.

Female-male friendships should not be dismissed as a consolation prize.  You can never have too many friends, and friends come in different forms.  Sometimes this might even occasionally go into "friends with minor benefits," but it's okay to go back.

"Make new friends, but keep the old;
One is silver, and the other is gold."
   -- Old Girl Scout round

 

What University Administrators Want

Earlier, I commented on the term used by college administrators helicopter_parents.  These were viewed by these august staffers as parents who (from their perspective) continue to insinuate themselves into their offspring's university experience instead of fully cutting the ties and showing up at graduation or perhaps to drive them home for Christmas or the summer.

Here's a few more terms that the people in Divisions of Student Life or Services bandy about:

Suitcase college -- An institution where a sizeable part of the student body returns to their home town on weekends, leaving the campus setting largely to the fraternities, sororities, graduate students, and students that come from far away.  (Think LSU, Alabama, Georgia, or North Carolina, where significant numbers of students decamp on weekends.)  And they see this as a bad thing, when instead they could remain on campus and have deep discussions regarding the great ideas of Western or World philosophy:

"I wonder how big is his thing?"

"What would happen if I drank beer through a straw?"

"They must be double D's, at least."

"Do you think Professor Kindly is straight or gay?"

"There's no way that Kentucky will win the NCAA Championship!"

The reality often is, there's nothing to do but drink and watch television on weekends.

Then there's the  commuter college.  These are largely viewed as inferior institutions in which students live at home and drive to campus, sometimes for an hour or two.  Usually, they work part-time as well, as checkers in big box stores, wait staff, baristas, or sometimes heavy duty work.  It would seem to me that these students should be admired for their ambition and gumption to go to such an effort.  But noooooo!  It just doesn't fit in with some outdated, elitist view of what should constitute a higher education.

These student life people have their faculty counterpart in the tenured faculty member who has a distaste for teaching introductory level classes, seeing those as appropriate for the poorly-paid part-time help and teaching assistants.

Whether they like it or not, college and university students have their own needs and agendas in attending their institutions.  Somehow, providing a raison d'être for Student Life staffers is not in their program.  Obviously, there's a lot of self-interest on their part.

Risky Place Names

During the settlement days of the United States, there were several opposite tendencies in choosing what to name a town.  There was the safe strategies, either naming the place after older European cities (Paris, Rome, Syracuse, New Orleans, Moscow, etc.), naming after some historical figure (Washington, Lincoln, Franklin, Houston, Jackson), or giving some commendatory, appealing name (Happy Valley, Pleasant Grove, Golden Meadow, Oakland), or others of this type.

But there's the occasional accidental (Nome, AK) or risky choices.  Consider Placerville, CA.  It was originally known as Hangtown because of some hangings there; and I don't mean etchings or oils, either.  Well, Placerville does not help in selling real estate, but it's not as bad as Hangtown.  Or take Baton Rouge.  somehow, the French name passes for mildly exotic, while Red Stick lacks something entirely!  Surely some people in Deadwood, SD wish the place has a less stark name!  In general, these less discrete place names were probably adopted during the time in which the frontier was in flux; and large numbers  of irreverent young men were participants in the naming process.

To use some risqué examples, a number of locales, especially geographical features, bear names featuring feminine body parts, especially breasts: Grand Tetons, Teton River, Maggie's Nipples, Brassiere Hills (near Juneau Alaska), and so forth.  At any rate, more boob than butt fans were involved in the naming process.  Butte, MT is not a misspelling.  Frontier mores were ill-disposed to honor male features.  A locale in Eastern Oregon was once known as Whorehouse Meadows (according to the Bureau of Land Management) because frontier working girls pitched their tents there.  It's also known as Naughty Girl Meadows (according to the U.S. Geological Survey).  Such is the modern tendency to put lipstick on the pig or socks on the rooster.

And, most notably, there was an absence of present-day real estate developers, who lean to the safe and secure choices.

Boston vs. Merrymount

The conventional evaluation of the trends in American history see contravalent forces as dichotomous in impulse, and have been described in terms of sectional (North vs. South), political (Republican vs. Democrat), voting pattern (Blue State vs. Red State), or degree of religious involvement.  Nevertheless, what is often overlooked is orientation toward how life should be lived.

Consider the implications of these two views:

"Life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is not the goal."
                             -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"We'll sing in the sunshine; we'll laugh every day."
                             -- Lynn Anderson

The first views the person having to account for her or his life; it is something to which proper stewardship is required.  And shame be to the one who fritters his time away in pursuit of pleasure.

And yet our Declaration of Independence asserted that among common rights of all men is the pursuit of happiness.  The Declaration was not perscriptive as to how that can be obtained.

So here is another dichotomy:  There are some people who see life in terms of adhering to the straight and narrow, whether it is how the liberal or the conservative defines it, and deviance from that is to be discouraged.  The nature of this deviance is incidential; whether it be alcohol or marijuana or hunting or wearing plaid or being opposed to federal regulations.  Fussbudget HOAs fall in this category.  The bottom line: social solidarity and rule adherence trumps the carefree pursuit of self-referenced pleasure . . . .

And there are others who see it okay for someone else to pursue pleasure in his own way.  These types may be geographically dispersed: Nevada and some parts of Florida seem to be amenable to this view.   On the other hand, there is the Bible Belt and other equivalents to it.

I got the impression that this has been a 300-year struggle for the psyche of America: the conflict between the tightly rule-bound and the loose.  Maybe it has to do with our history: the region that is today the United States had been settled by people who had in their own time fit in poorly with whatever society they originated from.  True, sometimes they demanded more stringency.  After all, the Puritans came here to establish a City on a Hill; not a place to do whatever the hell you pleased.  And they were not for freedom of religion as an abstraction; only for their own brand.

But there were others who had a different view.  Maybe it was simply to quietly worship in their own way; maybe they wanted to carouse a bit; maybe they just simply wanted to sleep late on Sunday and not be hammered with two-hour sermons!  These were the original dissenters.

Some went to nearby Merrymount with Thomas Morton, erected a maypole, dispensed beer, and invited the nearby Native American girls.  Governor Endicott was having nothing of that: he sent the militia to disperse those offenders.  "Put your clothes on, sober up, and we'll see you in church next week for you to do some serious repentance.  And stop wearing those infernal beads!"

 

The Dirt Road Sports Pull a New York Writer's Leg

It's something of a cheap story for the writers looking for a new angle: ask some nonmainstream lout his opinion on something that is generally regarded as commonsense or accepted beliefs.  Sometimes they will surprise you with some really strange, not commonly-received viewpoints!  Thus it befell our two Dirt Road Sports to fall prey to a magazine reporter from New York, no less.

It was entirely by accident, as it happened.  Said reporter got lost on the road to Nashville, where the movers and shakers in Tennessee congregate, and wound up on some secondary road in the Tarheel State.  He stopped for gas, and Bubba and Billy Bob were sitting on a bench trying to avoid work, as usual.  Ole Billy Bob and Bubba decided to stretch the truth a mite when answering this inquisitive stranger; after all, they had lots of time on their idle hands, as usual.

The writer, named Quentin, decided to ask these idlers what they thought about Obamacare.  Billy Bob offered that it sounded like a good notion, but he tended to avoid doctors since one stuck something up his butt and it hurt right smart!

He asked the guys what they liked to eat.  Bubba said that he preferred chicken, but would not say no to some possum stew.  He kept a straight face while telling this.  Quentin turned a little green at the thought.

So Quentin tried some softball questions about religion.  Did our guys believe in the Bible?  Bubba spoke for the two of them: "Yup."

Did they believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible?  Billy Bob said "Sho nuff."

"How old a woman or girl should be before she gets married?"  "Wall, now......Mebbe old enough to support her husband as most of my friends are shiftless."

This was a twist of practicality that Quentin did not expect.  Still it fit in with his Weltanshauung of mountain types as shiftless and indolent.  (William Byrd II described Tarheels as lazy in his description of Lubberland over two centuries ago.)

He followed it with other questions about religion.

"Does your church use snakes in your worship service."  "No, Sir.  Sometimes the preacher sees snakes but it's too much of that old high-octane Mountain Dew.  No, we just get straight preachin' and singin'; but now and then we have some entertainment to draw the crowds in."

"Oh, Sir, you mentioned entertainment......what sorts?"

"Well, the more liberal members can play Bingo.  Any game named after a dog must be okay.  And sometimes the readheaded schoolteacher entertains at Sunday night services."

"What sort of entertainment does she do?"

"Well, she clogs, and can play a mean kazoo.  And sometimes she strips.  That's popular, as we don't want the young guys getting drunk over in Charlotte and coming home in the nighttime fog over the mountain."

Billy Bob and Bubba kept a straight face the whole time.  They were accomplished liars; they know that it can work as long as you don't get too far-fetched.  [Like they would have a fine future in the legislature in Raliegh.]

Quentin was totally impressed.  He felt like he was a journalistic pioneer, discovering hidden dimensions in mountain life.  He knew the editors of the Gothamite Reporter would be impressed.  Here he was, in western North Carolina, finding out something new.  It just goes and shows, the natives are so guileless!

Cool Names for Genes

It's an often-enjoyed practice in science that, if you discover something, you get to name it.  Or, sometimes you get it named after you.  Thus, Down's syndrome (chromosome #21 trisomy) was named after Langston Down; the Farad, or unit of capacitance in electricity, was named after Michael Faraday, and so forth.

Sometimes playful geneticists come up with clever names for genes.  These make them easier to remember than their long, drawn-out biochemical names.  Here's a few that have been so named by geneticists who work with drosophila melanogaster, the common fruit fly:

Ken and Barbie -- a gene in which the fruit fly does not develop external genitalia.

Cleopatra -- a gene that is lethal if the Asp gene is also present.

Dunce -- Involved in memory and learning.

Snafu -- The fruit fly starts out normal; but becomes progressively abnormal over time.

Breathless -- Affects the development of the trachea.

Stranded at Second -- This gene leaves the fruit fly stuck in the second stage of larval development.

Cheap date -- a gene that results in drosophila becoming increasingly sensitive to alcohol.

Kenny -- a gene which causes the fruit fly to die in an average of two days.  Named after a character in South Park who dies in every episode.

I'm Not Dead Yet (INDY) -- A gene for longevity in which the fruit flies live twice as long, on an average; from The Holy Grail.

Out cold -- A fruit fly that loses coordination when the temperature drops.

Tinman -- The fruit fly embryos have no heart.  (From the Wizard of Oz.)

Brainiac -- Gene results in larger brains than usual.

Lilliputian -- Gene produces undersized fruit flies.



However, there have been some criticisms of this carefree practice:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100468532

In my opinion, this is entirely wrong-headed.  The giving of amusing names makes them easily remembered, and injects some needed humor into science.  Contrary to popular belief, scientists can be interesting and fun; they should not be harnessed by a neo-puritanical ethos that discourages this playfulness.

Besides, do you really want to make science less appealing for millenials, a group known for irreverence?

The Running Girls and the Track Film

A tale from my high school days for a cold January:

It was a rainy winter day, and a group of us track and cross country girls spent an hour watching a video of female runners performing their sprint or distance running feats. 

Our coach looked in, and was apparently very pleased at our diligence in trying to pick out the finer parts of these talented runners' performances.

Actually, we were looking at the runners' hair styles, and trying to determine which looked best when one was running.  We all had longish hair and didn't want to go with a shag or a buzz cut. 

Obviously, big hair was out, except perhaps in Mississippi.  But we were trying to decide whether a Dutch braid, a chignon, a bun, pigtails, or a pony tail looked best on a runner.

We decided unanimously that pony tails were the way to go.  It was the swaying motion that did it.  After all, for running, scent is out.  And so is makeup.  Some of the styles considered were high maintenance, and not very practical.

.



Funny thing, Michelle Jenneke made a sensation at the Barcelona IAAF Championships last year, and her ponytail flip didn't hurt.  Apparently, in her manic warmup routine she utilized the rythmic sway of the ponytail as an attention-drawing strategy.  She runs a great 100 m. hurdle race too.

The Sensuous Nebraskan

Meredith Farnsworth, free-lance writer, wanted to do a piece for Cosmo; but needed to refine what the topic was to be about.  Judging from the content of the magazine, the editors tend to favor articles with a mild to moderate degree of lustiness, as in "Forty ways that are guaranteed to turn him on!" that might be read by readers who have no one in question to practice those skills on.  Yes, if the truth be known, for each of those truly sensuous women that are favored by appearance, personality, occupation, and even geography, there are others: 18-year-old virgins whose foray into sensuality is largely within the confines of Cosmopolitan!

Still, reading about sensuality is better than no sensuality at all.

Meredith made a risky logical leap in her creative process:  Many of her potential readers work in humdrum occupations, live in nonexotic settings, and do not have the clothes or occasions to appear as wanton as an article of this type may warrant.  Obviously, wearing a thong at South Beach is okay; but on how many occasions can you wear one on the streets of Montgomery, Alabama?  So, she reasoned: why not choose to write about a sensuous protagonist in an occupation not normally associated with sensuality?  Hmmm....The Sensuous Bureaucrat?  Wielding Governmental power in an authoritative manner:

"Clarice became so intent in studying the document that she felt warm -- and unbuttoned not one, or two, but three buttons on her blouse, sighing longingly while indistreetly flashing a glimpse of her bra!"  This gambit failed because it strained the imagination too much to conceive of even lobbyists being so turned on by that spectacle.

Or the Sensuous Dental Hygienist?  Sometimes even dirty minds can't handle the truth!

So she tried a different tack.  What is the most unlikely state to be associated with sensuality?  After giving it some thought, Meredith decided that it was probably Nebraska; but Connecticut was close in second place.  By writing about sensuality in such an unlikely place, she thought that readers might take courage to timidly put their toes in the waters of sensuality in other unlikely places as Washington state, South Dakota, or Ohio.

So Meredith jotted down a few ideas on how Nebraskan misses might arouse the libidos of Nebraskan guys:

1.  Comment to your guys that you're impressed with the size of his silo.
2.  When offering him some corn on the cob, tell him that some you gave him the largest one because it reminded you of something about him.
3.  Caress that same ear of corn, murmuring "mmmm-umm."
4.  When on a date, wear Daisy Dukes.
5.  This even applies on cool days, as it provides yourself with an excuse to ask him to massage your legs "to help you get warm."
6.  For an instant turn-on, wear a corn cob hat:

7.  A little buttocks décolletage might help as well.

8.  Eat your steak rare and encourage him to do so as well, saying that it's an aphrodisiac.

9.  Wear scarlet and white lingerie, with sans serif capital Ns on the bra cups.

10.  Offer him a sensuous massage with bacon fat oil, and request that he give you one in return.  All over.

11.  Tell him that Republican gals have needs, too.......

12.  Sing this song to him:

For Nebraska and the scarlet

For Nebraska and the cream,
Tho' they go thru many a battle,
Our colors still are seen.
So in contest and in vict'ry
We will wave them for the team,
And 'twill always stir a Cornhusker,
The old scarlet and the cream.

13.  Tell him that you would even go to Lincoln for a dirty weekend with him.

14.  Especially when your idea of a dirty weekend involves cleaning out the pig sty.

15.  Sweat.  Seeing girls sweat turns Nebraska guys on.

16.  Perfect your hog calling.

17.  Have him tickle you all over with a bit of straw, and return the favor for him.

18.  Feed him prairie oysters to insure his proper performance.

19.  Find a sexy way to pronounce "Omaha."

20.  Think "sexy" and "Omaha" in the same thought.

Kind of hard, isn't it?   



Ralphie's Dad's Leg Table Lamp

One of the frequently-televised Christmastime specials is Jean Sheperd's  "The Christmas Story."  Briefly, it recounts the adventures of Ralphie, a preteen boy who wants to have a air rifle for Christmas.  Anyway, one amusing vignette in this much-loved story is the strong desire that Ralphie's dad had to own a table lamp suitable for display in an open window.  Said table lamp had a gaudy base shaped like a lady's leg; moreover, clad in a net stocking.

I thought, at the time of having seen the program, that it was merely a result of the humorist's wry imagination.  And, who knows, maybe it was at one time.  However, there are numerous variants of this lamp actually marketed, ranging in price from $20 to $240.

I must admit to never having seen this lamp in situ.  But I do not have extensive knowledge of New Orleans uptown décor, fraternity house modern, or the contemporary brothel international style.  Furthermore, is this one possible décor item that is either bestowed as a joke, or one whose purchase generates a lot of buyer's remorse?

Very clearly, there are unique stories worth telling.  Like Mama's old silver loafers that she still keeps from her university days, yet neither wears nor allows me to wear.

Ultimate Thule in Louisiana

There's an expression, 'Ultimate Thule,' used historically to refer to some place that it beyond the known world; most often thought to be in Iceland or Greenland.  As a matter of fact, the U.S. Air Force once had Thule Air Base in northern Greenland, less than 800 miles from the North Pole.  So Thule, the concept, evolved into Thule, the place.

When you go to the ends of certain roads in Louisiana you can sort of get that sense: proper dry land is supplanted by a thin road going into the salt water marshes with only fishing shacks or occasional businesses around.  And, if you persist, brave traveler, you may reach one of the two Ultimate Thules of Louisiana: Grand Isle or Cameron.

For the most part, the temperature is warm most of the year; but it may be windy.  Both of these communities are known to be vulnerable to hurricanes when they come.  Tragically, Cameron lost 300 of its residents due to Hurricane Audrey in 1957; today, there are only about 450 persistent souls remaining.  There's still a sense of doom having happened here; but Hurricanes Rita and Ike did their part as well.  All in all, it's sort of depressing, like you have gone to Ultimate Thule.

Grand Isle has been hit by too many hurricanes to remember them all.  It's primarily a place for people to go for fishing and to drink beer.  Some partygoers even report seeing mermaids.  Then it's time to lay off that Bud Lite stuff.  Grand Isle is interesting and festive, but ephemeral.  It's best to consider that, if there's threat of bad weather, you bail out and head for Houma.

Coastal inhabitants understand this as a fact of life.

Finding True Love, Brit Style

I'm an incurable romantic as well as a statistics fan, and naturally I was gravitated to this article in the Daily_Mail which reported on the average number of happenings that U.K. misses had on their way to TRUE LOVE!  I'm assuming this is the once-in-a-lifetime, we'll have our fiftieth anniversary type . . . .

Anyway, the poodyheads that wrote the article gave the raw numbers:

Women typically have 7 relationships beforehand, men 8.

Both men and women typically chalk up 4 disaster dates.  Sorrowfully, no juicy details.

A woman gets stood up once; a bloke twice.

Women have 4 one-night stands; men 6.

Women typically kissed 15 guys; guys 16 women.

Women typically have 7 sexual partners; men 10.

Both men and women have lived in with the other sex once.

Both women and men have fallen in love twice before the real deal!

Apparently, there's a lot of ground that must be covered in the meanwhile.  Anyway, the process is not easy.

I'm concerned.  I've exceeded my kiss quotient a bit: does this make me Easy in Training, or is there a statute of limitations on kisses more freely engaged in high school or before?  And here's something else: the so-called public displays of affection.  In my opinion, these are a species-specific pattern of marking territory; of claiming the one kissed as one's own. 

And what about friends with benefits?  Or. friends with minor benefits?  Do our Brits go in for this?  Likewise, what about risqué selfies?

Disaster dates, while painful while going on, often provide grist for the same-sex conversation mill.  "Can you believe that he was so rude as to drop me off at the Morning Call and pick up with someone else?"  "He went to sleep during the movie."  "He took another girl out at the same time as me.  I wondered, is he thinking of a threesome?"

Anyway, a caution with respect to statistics like this bandied around: don't assume that the good ole normal distribution is in play: 

Very often, a skewed distribution might be the true one.  That is, a smaller number of overly active individuals might drive the mean (arithmetic average) higher than would be due to a normal distribution, but the larger number (the mode) are considerably less active on that dimension.*

I suspect that Brits are just a little more circumspect about affection.  For example, Mr. Darcy might kiss Lizzy on their fifth anniversary, if he was inclined to be forward and both felt daring after a bracing evening of whist.  Heathcliff, ever impulsive, was quicker on the mark with Cathy.   Becky Sharp?  Your call on that.   And I've about exhausted my recall of English novel characters for now.

*Some people call them "sluts" or "skanks."

String Bikinis and Slurpees

Okay, if you have the figure for it, you can really look sharp and sexy in a string bikini.  But . . . . there's the necessity of having a ultratrim figure.  This leads to doing certain things that would then allow you to wear one without anxiety.

Usually, it's the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition that gives that "it's past time" warning to those who had gotten overly comfortable during the winter.  The bad news comes in the form of wondering where did those eight extra pounds come from?  And also from the realization that dressing warmly during the winter allowed you to be more casual about your grooming.

Megan, fair of skin and red-headed, decided after some encouragement from her friend Tanya to get herself a string bikini and she found she didn't quite "look neat" when she first donned it.  Here's a dialogue of what happened:

Megan:  "Oh my God, Tanya.  I'm all pale and, well, I am showing all this extra hair!   What do I do?  I can't wear sweatpants to the beach.  Maybe this was not a good idea, after all!!!!

Tanya:  "Okay, no big deal.  Just shave your legs and get a waxing from  the spa.  Okay?  And use lots of sun screen."

So Megan visited the neighborhood spa, but she was still dissatisfied.

Megan:  "No it ain't!  I put on that skimpy ol' little swimsuit and I still had some excess showing.   Seriously, I looked like a Michigan female philosophy major down there!  Now shaving your legs was easily accomplished; but dealing with the extra posed a bit of a problem."

Tanya:  Oh?  How so?

Megan:  "Well, I got a Brazilian like you suggested; but the parlor did more like a Uruguayian.  And poor little ol' me was all yanked out and sore in some areas.  Me, I wish I had gotten a granny bikini instead, or at least an all over shave!  The job, to put it candidly, was not a pretty sight.

Okay, here I am, all sore and all, and I decide to neaten things up by using a depilatory.  At first, all seemed to go well. So I decided to clean up a few areas that were apparently missed real quick with more depilatory cream. Soon I started to get painfully uncomfortable but thought that I would tough it out and just deal with it.  Yeah.  Not a good plan.   My skin is so sensitive, you know.  Very sensitive.

Later that morning my boy friend was driving me to the beach and I thought I was going to die in the car on the way over there.  It was, like, a major eruption; no little ol' hissy fit, you see!  I was screaming and caterwauling to wake the righteous dead, and then some!  I yelled at him to pull the car over to the side of the road!!  When we got out of the car I was in so much pain that I took my swimsuit bottom off right then and there, grabbed a Slurpee from the cup holder, and was baptizing my bottom with a Mango Lemonade Slurpee on the side of the road!"

Tanya:  "Was it a king size Slurpee, or a regular?"  What other kind of dumb question could one ask?

Does degradation come any worse than that?  Sometimes strange things do happen on the Redneck Riviera.

Prioritize Your Anger

Let's face it, there are a lot of things that happen everyday that are annoying, upsetting, and downright infuriating.  Indulging yourself by reacting to each possibly annoyer all out, without restraint can leave you angry pretty much of the time.  You have to cut your losses, and stop to smell the roses, or at least the railroad daisies.

Let's stipulate that there are serious, bona fide things to be angry about.  As the old saying goes, "Shit happens."  To my way of thinking, annoyance and anger are deserved, they have a good reason.  But then there's the small stuff.

I think most of us would agree that the frequency of sexual assault in the military is deserving of wrath; but especially if the system sometimes acts to cover it up or to excuse the perp.  And the seeming inertia of government with regard to the budget and health care issues is a major league annoyance.  So are people who crowd you while yacking loudly on a cell phone.  (Some may actually use this as psychologically muscling you out of space you're already occupying.)  Getting frustrated and bothered is legitimate,

But there's the small stuff. Consider the Kardashians.  Yes, they're a tribe of publicity-seeking narcissists; but there's no reason to Keep Up With the Kardashians unless you're idle or read the wrong publications.  And Miley Cyrus.  Yes, she humped her butt against a guy's groin on-stage and appeared naked on a wrecking ball, but it was her party and she could act as dreadful as she wanted.

Those are minor annoyances.

So are some other little things:

1.  People saying "no problem" instead of "you're welcome."

2.  Navigating a telephone network that has several levels of buttons to press before you get your desired service.

3.  The Amazing Race being delayed by a football game and Sixty Minutes.  (God, I find them tedious!)

4.  Sermons and speeches running longer than they should.  Too much logorrhea.

These are occasions to chill to.

Okay?

So here's my deal.  On January 1 of each year, allow yourself some specific number of Anger Tokens.  You choose your own limit.  But, let's say 100 for sake of example.  Each time you feel like being angry, subtract one token from your yearly quota.

And give yourself a limited number of Hissy Fit tokens.  Say ten.  [Guys, you are allowed hissy fits, too.  No sexism when it comes to hissy fits.]

When you spent all your Anger Tokens, you allow yourself no more anger.  Now, you got to be a sweetie.

But the point is, with time, you will learn to husband your Anger Tokens to make them last the year, and not squander them on small stuff.

Keep a rainy day supply of Anger Tokens.

And maybe deliberately seek out things that give you joy, or seem right, to offset these corrosive situations.  For most of us, life is pretty good; but we can enhance it or detract from it by our attitudes toward life.

I think Seneca would go along with that idea.