Lion’s Journal (Page 3)

I have been online longer than I would like to remember. I’m an early adopter and dived into online chat when modems were horribly slow. I learned (the hard way) a lot. Over the years, I had many adventures both good and bad. Mostly, they were good. I met some interesting women and discovered my kinky side.

One of the most important and painful lessons of online communication is what I call the false image. If you are exchanging text with another person, there is a lot of missing information. You can’t see their face as they type. It’s easy to misinterpret what is said. But that’s not the dangerous part. Our minds tend to fill in the blanks when chatting online. We devlop pictures of of people that are more what we want them to be than who they actually are.

It’s very easy to fall in love online. Lonely people are vulnerable to building rich images of the people they meet in a chat room. It isn’t difficult to feel deeply touched by the words typed on the screen. People who fall in love this way define their infatuations fiercely. Some even create blogs to breathe life into these half-real loves.

I met Mrs. Lion online. I found her profile on a dating site. I loved her picture. It was a closeup of her smiling face. We exchanged messages on the site. She sounded great. I knew that the longer we went without physically meeting, the more likely we would build false images of one another; images we could never live up to. After only a day or so of messaging, we went to the phone and met three days after first contact.

It was the right thing to do. We didn’t have time to develop mental images of one another. We had just enough time to decide we wanted to meet and have sex. We met at a motel  halfway between our homes. We were naked within ten minutes of meeting. Neither of us expected more than sex. It was why Mrs. Lion put her profile on the site. I wanted sex too.

Seems rather shallow, right? Maybe. It was all we wanted right then. I don’t think either of us wanted to have larger expectations. After all, it felt good to be so close to someone. We were both horny, and there was no pressure to fall in love or do anything more than give each other fun.

I’m still unsure what Mrs. Lion got from our first few meetings. For reasons I can’t remember, we agreed on anal sex for the first meeting. Mrs. Lion said she liked it. I was fine with it, too. We repeated that for the next two or three times we met. She didn’t have an orgasm any of those times. Obviously, she was happy with what we did.  We branched out to more conventional sex and orgasms were had by all.

We met at least twice a week. At one point, she started coming to my house and we would spend a llot of non-sex time together. She had to leave each night to go to work. We never discussed it, but each of us was finding it harder and harder to say goodbye. We ended up living together. A year or two later (I’m horrible with dates), I asked her to marry me. It wasn’t because either of us felt a strong need to marry. Nothing was going to get between us. We both knew that. I felt that if we legally tied the knot, it would be easier to handle illness and legal matters. So, nineteen years ago we got married in a tiny village hall.

I am positive I did the right thing by making sure we met in person very soon after we started exchanging messages. Maybe it wouldn’t have made any difference if we corresponded for a long time. I suspect it wou ld have hurt if we did. There’s no doubt that we are perfect for each other. We are very happy campers over 20  years after I found her picture online.

A few days ago, Mrs. Lion brought up a subject she thought would upset me. It was about death, my death. She’s quite a bit younger than me, and I guess she was thinking about my , inevitable demise. I don’t think too much about dying. It’s going to happen sooner or later. I’m not immortal. It’s almost certain that she will outlive me. No, I’m not sick nor am I aware of any reason I could croak soon. Still, it will happen. [Mrs. Lion — I was only thinking about it because when my friend’s stepfather died, she said they took some of his ashes and scattered them different places he loved. Up till then, I never thought about what to do with ashes. My father was cremated and buried in his cemetery plot. My mother was too. My sister had a coworker who carried her husband’s ashes around in her purse. Lion always jokes that I should put him in a big plastic bag and put him out with the trash. It doesn’t make any sense for either of us to have funerals. No one would come. Funerals are stupidly expensive anyway. Cremation makes the most sense. But what then? Do the ashes just “live” on the mantle? It just seemed fitting to take Lion back to some of the places he loves. I have no desire to go to Italy or Africa. So Lion will remain an American Lion after death. Assuming he goes first, of course. If I go first, I don’t care.]

The thing about dying is that it won’t matter to me when I go. I don’t believe in the afterlife, so when my heart stops, my brain shuts down, and I am no more. Mrs. Lion decided that she would cremate me. I’m OK with that since no one would visit my grave if she buried me. Funerals are expensive. We aren’t rich, and I would rather see Mrs. Lion conserve what savings we have.

The conversation she started was about where I might want some of my ashes spread. She knows I love Yellowstone and Disney World, so she figured they would be good places to start. I also love Greenwich Village, Venice, and Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania. Other than New York City, she is unlikely to visit those other places.

Since I won’t know where my remains end up, spreading ashes is more of a tribute than anything else. It’s nice to think that part of me will end up in places I love. But, let’s face it, I won’t know the difference. While I’m alive, I do find the idea romantic. One thing I would really like is to see this blog survive me. That will be problematic. It costs money each month and Mrs. Lion would have to be sure the payments are made. The site itself needs occasional maintenance, and she’s never looked behind the technical curtain. I considered moving to Blogger, a free service run by Google. There would be no technical work required. To do that now would be a monumental task. There’s no way to migrate from WordPress to Blogger. Each post would have to be copied and republished. We have nearly 6,700 posts and over 50 pages of other content. Even if I managed to do that, the site wouldn’t be as pretty or accessible, and we would lose many features.

I’m pretty sure that maintaining our blog would be a very low priority for her. So, either it will be shut down for nonpayment or die of technical failure. I consider this blog to be one of my major successes, and I want it to survive. That means more to me than putting my ashes in places that I loved. Maybe one reason I want to get my novel published is to claim a small slice of immortality.

I realize that it’s silly to worry about that. It’s not like I will be looking down at the world and counting the blog’s pageviews. I will cease to exist, and my memory will fade from the minds of people who knew me. I realize that I’m a pebble dropped into the pond of life. I made a few small ripples that touched some others. I’m grateful for them.

As for the present, I’ll keep plugging along with my writing. I’ll be as loving as I can to my wonderful wife and partner. I’ll try to keep you posted on what’s happening in my life. If it turns out that I’m wrong and there is an afterlife, I’ll be sure to write some heavenly posts for the blog.

Not too much is going on here. Yeah, I know; every time I say that, Mrs. Lion gets out the spanking bench and paddles my bottom. I suppose I’m due. I keep forgetting to get my pill packs after my shower. It is a rule that I get them each night. I don’t know why she isn’t enforcing that rule. We’re going on a doughnut run on Saturday. Voodoo Doughnuts is a small chain of amazing doughnut stores. We placed a huge online order for about eight dozen assorted doughnuts. We probably won’t eat them all on the way home (about a two-hour drive). The leftovers will be frozen.

We did a little research and learned that almost all sorts of doughnuts can be successfully frozen for a long time. VooDoo makes wonderful and sometimes unusual doughnuts. They are so good that there is usually a long line out the door waiting to get treats. By preordering online we can just pick up our treasure without waiting. If all of this sounds weird, it isn’t that we are crazy doughnut fans. We like them, and good doughnuts, like good pizza and good bagels, are nearly impossible to find in the Pacific Northwest.

While I’m on a food rant, I have to mention delis too. Believe it or not, there was only one “real” New York-style deli in the entire Seattle metro area. It closed a couple of years ago. It’s hard to believe that the biggest city north of Los Angeles has no real delicatessens. None. Nada. Holy crap! You can’t get a good corned beef on rye or other deli delights. Mrs. Lion and I have to import them from Katz’s Delicatessen in New York City. Shipping is free on orders over $100; not an insurmountable amount for us once or twice a year. Their corned beef and matzoh ball soup are to die for.

Pizza is a staple food in New York. That’s where I come from; well, I mean New York City. Mrs. Lion is from upstate New York. Anyway. in my New York, it is nearly impossible to get a bad slice of pizza. In Seattle and its surrounding area,  it’s impossible to get a good one. What the hell! Pizza isn’t that hard to make. Seattle pizza is overdone to the point that the tomato sauce is turned into a solid. The crust is too thick and flavorless. There is one small chain of pizza restaurants that serves true Neopolitan pizza. It’s very good and expensive. It isn’t the same as New York pizza, but is the same as the delicious original I ate in Naples.

Bagels and Kaiser rolls are basic breads in New York. There is only one bagel bakery in the Pacific Northwest that bakes true New York-style bagels. It’s Blazing Bagels. Unfortunately, like Voodoo Doughnuts, they don’t ship. Their product isn’t very popular up here. The locals prefer soft, bread-like bagels in weird flavors that range from blueberry to chocolate. Yuck! Blazing Bagels makes the traditional favorites. I love onion bagels, and Mrs. Lion is fond of “everything” bagels. We can get Philadelphia cream cheese here, and if we search, we can get good smoked salmon–that’s what they call lox up here.

Usually, different areas of the country have specialty foods that the natives love, and us foreigners learn to enjoy. San Francisco has abalone and sourdough bread. I love both. The Pacific Northwest has several species of salmon that are more difficult to find in the East. Other than that, I haven’t found anything special. There’s on “treat” that is the absolute hit of the Washington State Fair. Are you ready for this? Scones! Holy shit, scones! I’ve been eating them for breakfast forever. Folks, scones are not exotic. That doesn’t matter. The locals line up for freshly baked scones at the fair.

There is a good reason we live here: the climate. Western Washington has its own special climate. It’s very much like the climate in Italy. We have mild winters. The average temperature from fall through spring is between 40 and 50 degrees F. Our summers have warm (85 degrees F) days and cool (50-60) nights. It’s the best summer climate in the world. Due to our unique location, we have clouds for nine months of the year. Total rainfall is about the same as New York City. According to climate scientists, we will be relatively unaffected by climate change for the next hundred years. If we could just get a decent bakery, pizza joint, and deli, it would be perfect!

I think I’ve mentioned that I’m trying to become a published novelist. No, the book isn’t about anything this blog covers. It’s a vanilla mystery. Since the last English class I took was in high school, my degree didn’t include any writing classes. Writing fiction has been a challenge.

I’ve written two novels. The first had many problems in my writing and the subject matter, but it was good practice. The second book seems to have commercial potential. Last year, I sent query letters and sample pages to about 75 agents. None were interested in representing me. I put the book aside and just picked it up again. I’m using all I’ve read to sharpen the writing. I’ll try agents again.

The odds are very much against me. The average agent gets about fifty queries a week and requests a full manuscript from about four authors monthly. Of those authors, maybe one gets an offer of representation every three months. Sure, there are hundreds of agents, but tens of thousands of wannabe authors are querying them.

Self-publishing is largely a waste of time. It’s easy to publish a manuscript on Amazon but very expensive to promote. It’s all very discouraging.  I’ve decided to revise my draft and try agents again.  It may be futile, but I don’t believe in giving up. Work on the project is one reason I’ve blogged less frequently.

Another reason is that Mrs. Lion has been too busy with important things that need to be done around the house. She hasn’t had the time or energy for spanking or sex. That means there is nothing to write about here. Of course, things can change quickly when Mrs. Lion decides I need attention. Stay tuned.