Carnivore Causes Depression

     No, not that kind of depression.  Carnivore, and low-carb generally, does in fact greatly alleviate, even completely reverses, what we normally think of the sundry dysfunctional mental states we lump together as depression.  The depression of which I am speaking is the realization that the people of the modern world, and our friends and acquaintances specifically, are in so many cases enduring needless suffering from a wide variety of nasty "chronic" autoimmune diseases while not coincidentally puffing up the profits of big pharma and food.  And there is very little, if anything, that we personally can do about it.

    About all we can do is offer our own experiences as a model for possible emulation.  Which is pretty weak tea, rhetorically speaking.  The concepts of the "balanced diet", the inherent goodness of whole grains, fruit, and vegetables paradigm, and that saturated fat is bad for you, are so embedded in the public psyche that even if near death most people are unwilling to change to a meat based way of eating.  Six decades of institutional, governmental and private, hostility towards animal products, red meat in particular, has seen to that.

     That hostility is getting worse, not better, and is now clothed in the holy vestments of climate change, the histrionics of the "meat is murder" enthusiasts, and the relentless drumbeat of vegan fear mongering.  These malign influences get stronger by the day, and they extend from the WHO all the way down the nutritional and medical chain to your local doc.  That is what is so appalling, frustrating, and yes depressing.  Holding up one's own greatly improved health as an example cuts little ice in the face of such embedded, not to say adamantinely fossilized, hostility.  

Runs In The Family

      An old joke goes:  Doc., "Does obesity run in your family?"  Patient, "Nobody runs in my family".   Funny, but obfuscatory.  Much is made these days about chronic diseases that are hereditary in nature.  A constant refrain is, (insert chronic disease of your choice) runs in my family".  The clear implication is that there is nothing to be done.  Genetics wins out in the end, or if that doesn't convince, you may prefer the unhelpful verdict of "bad luck". 

     This is all, to put it gently, blithering malarkey.  Look at what your family ate and drank in the previous generations.  The degenerative and chronic conditions they suffered were directly related to what they ate. drank, and smoked.  Not bad luck, not genetics, and not the will of the almighty.  It is what they stuffed down their pieholes that was responsible for their many ills and seemingly inevitable cognitive decline.  And more and more frequently the sick aged population is expanding into not only into the middle-aged, but children as well.  No age group is immune to chronic diseases anymore.  Diseases which in large part are the wages of decades of carboholism.

     Obesity, diabetes, epilepsy, autism, and a wide variety of chronic diseases ever more afflict all age groups.  It's entirely fair to characterize this as an epidemic.  Our population is almost violently fatter than our parents generation, and their parents before them.  Walk into any grocery or big box store and behold the numerous parade balloon shaped people, male and female, old and young, galumping through the aisles.  Watch shopping carts fill to the brim with sugary sodas, cookies, crackers, chips, candy, ice cream, bread, pastry, potatoes, mac & cheese, pizza, "skim" milk, and margarine, on and on carbs without end.  Merely witnessing this is liable to spike your own blood sugar.  Those parade balloons did not get that way through "bad luck".

     So America, enjoy your diabetes, arthritis, psoriasis, heart disease, Alzheimers, atherosclerosis, fatty liver, kidney failure, depression, cognitive decline etc. etc. etc.  None if it is your fault because as we all know, those things run in the family.

    

The Big Switch

     There are an increasing number of reports of people switching from veganism to the carnivore diet.  A web search will turn up dozens if not hundreds of such tales.  Switching from carnivore to vegan is much rarer, vanishingly so.  But, doing a web search on carnivore to vegan will turn up just as many or more sites.  After reading a goodly number of such stories I realized that we are dealing with a rather large disparity in defining what carnivore is.  Currently, those on a strict carnivore way of eating limit themselves to animal food products almost exclusively.  In my case, and very many others, I consume only one plant product in quantity, which is coffee.  Fortunately, coffee has had no noticeable affect on my overall health.

     What the vegan community considers carnivore is anyone who includes any sort of animal food product in their diet.  This is of course how the bulk of the U.S. population eats, especially the bulky part.  Those on the "Standard American Diet" normally include meat, dairy, and fish on a regular basis, but they also include large amounts of starchy carbohydrates, sugar, fruit, and vegetable oils.  Some consume as much as 80% of their diet in carbs and sugar.  So the vegan idea of carnivore, and the strict carnivore idea are at complete odds.

     In the wild, mammal predators eat only other animals they can kill or scavenge.  Their systems have been fine tuned to digest meat, and plant matter doesn't enter into the picture at all.  Such predators are called "obligate" carnivores, meaning that they must eat meat to survive.  Mammals who eat mostly meat but can tolerate some carbs are called "facultative" carnivores.  Dogs and bears fall into the facultative category.  Cats, even housecats, are virtually all obligate carnivores.  Housecats eat plant foods only at their peril, and the peril of their owners' vet bills.  Many consider humans to be facultative carnivores, therefore capable of eating a wide variety of things.  However arguably true that is, the fact remains that humans eat a huge variety of things that can and do harm them if consumed for a long enough period.  So we are then indeed facultative carnivores, but that does not mean we can just stuff whatever strikes our fancy down our gullets for decades free of consequences. The more of that "facultative" junk food we eat, the worse our health outcomes will be.

        It is my contention that modern humans need to be obligate carnivores to truly thrive and to repair the ravages of decades of carb and sugar consumption.  The older we are, the more imperative it is that we avoid carbs and sugar seeing as how they are the proximate cause of virtually all human chronic conditions, including the bane of the aged, cognitive decline.  Ignore the utterly misguided drumbeat of the anti-meat activists.  Eat mostly meat, and watch it improve your life in ways you never imagined.  In short, you can live to eat, as most people do, or eat to live, as most people most assuredly do not.

My Parents Ruined My Life

      A clickbaity title for sure, but essentially true.  Of course it was not remotely their fault, and in fact they spent large amounts of money, and eons of time, trying to deal with my many childhood and teen-aged maladies.  Obesity, acne, asthma, and severe eczema to name but a few.  Everything they tried, following a "doctor's" advice, failed utterly.  Lotions, potions, creams, pills, shots, dietary interventions, chiropractic, temporary removal to other locations in the country, and even gruesome "Aveeno" baths, which was merely powdered oatmeal stirred into bathwater.  It was supposed to sooth eczema racked skin, and it sort of did, but only while actually sitting in the noxious mixture.

     I was hyper-sensitive to skin infections, including a particularly nasty one called impetigo, which was a routine occurrence.  As an obese asthmatic my ability to exercise was very limited.  All in all it was a miserable childhood for me, and a frustrating expensive nightmare for my parents.  I recall one attempt at a dietary intervention in the early 1960s which involved "gluten" bread.  An odd name for bread that was supposed to be devoid of gluten.  In any case, the experiment was just another failure.  Any benefits were swamped by an otherwise extremely high-carb diet.  They tried cutting out several different foods in the quest for my relief, but oddly they never considered limiting starch, sugar, or fruit.  

     It's not that we didn't eat meat.  We ate quite a lot, but it was always accompanied by mounds of  potatoes, rice, bread, and other starchy vegetables.  And there was an endless parade of sugary cereals, sugary soft drinks, candy, cakes, pies, spaghetti, toast, jams, jellies, oatmeal, pancakes, waffles, syrup, brownies, fudge, cookies, donuts, fried pies, milk chocolate, ice cream, bananas, watermelon, Jello "salads", fried everything, etc. etc. etc, ad, literally, nauseum.  Oh, and barrels of "vegetable" oils of one kind or another, especially Crisco and Mazola corn oil.  All of which were, essentially, poisonous to me.

     The utterly clueless doctors in our town, and everywhere else for that matter, told them I might grow out of all the problems in time.  Some of the problems did ease up after puberty, but many did not, and in fact got worse.  Suffice to say that doctors were not my favorite class of people, and they still aren't.  And now doctors who are clueless about the healing powers of low-carb eating are even more deserving of my disdain.  They receive little nutrition training, and what there is, is just the old tired mantra of recommending low-fat, low-cholesterol, low red meat diets filled with vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and "healthy" vegetable oils.  It's all a huge crock of debunked doody, and it was no less so sixty years ago.  It has to be counted a near miracle that I did not end up a diabetic with a missing foot, have a fatal heart attack, a stroke, contract cancer of some kind, or already be in cognitive decline.

     It took me seventy years to work my way around to realizing the benefits of low-carb eating, losing a wife to the ravages of sugar and carbs along the way.  Seventy years in distress and difficulty because virtually the entire medical establishment was/is dead set against nutritional sanity.  Annnd, the increasingly shrill propaganda of vegan kooks and the PETA-philes affects docs no less than the public.  Propaganda that is aided and abetted by a welter of corporate and governmental interests.  In short, if you break an arm, or have another traumatic injury, the doctor is your huckleberry.  If you have an autoimmune condition, they won't help worth a damn, and very likely will make things worse.  

     This disgusting state of affairs is changing, but at a glacial pace.  Unsurprising considering that real change in this arena is battling entrenched social headwinds.  Every time a doc recommends the government food pyramid, they are violating their Hippocratic oath.  They don't know they are doing it, but as they say in law, ignorance is no excuse.

How Do You Know?

    How do you know which autoimmune diseases can be significantly improved or reversed by an ultra-low carb way of eating?  Easy answer.  All of them.  Diabetes Type 1 and 2, Chrone's, IBS and IBD, SIBO, psoriasis, eczema, epilepsy, rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, MS, Parkinsons, lupus, myasthenia gravis, celiac disease, pernicious anemia, and Alzheimers.  Not a complete list by any means, but you get the drift.  Some are harder to control than others, with T2 diabetes being one of the easiest, and MS one of the hardest.

     Going beyond the world of auto-immune, technically speaking, are such conditions as obesity, fatty liver, gout, atherosclerosis, gastroparesis, asthma, periodontitis, severe acne, and osteoporosis/osteopenia.  An even more incomplete list.  Then there are mental conditions such as depression in all its many variants, schizophrenia, cognitive decline/Alzheimer's, and very nearly the rest of the mental disability list in textbooks that respond very well to very low-carb eating.  Scoff as you will, but emerging research, and by now millions of anecdotal successes dealing with those many ailments are ever more coming to light.  Which makes the increasing drumbeat of the deluded plant people, and their demonization of animal products, red meat especially, ever more dangerous to public health, and evermore makes our population sicker and beholden to big food and big pharma.  As Professor Harold Hill said, "Makes your blood boil?  Well I should say!"     

 

Fate Train

 

      Hi-ho Chickweed fans.  How's about another little ramble about our favorite cartoon characters.  I felt moved to write this short scribble after seeing Mary's humiliation during her visit to Amos and Edda last winter.  I, irrationally perhaps, thought she didn't deserve what happened, so I thought and thought, then in alternate Chickweed world I fixed it.  It was written in a great rush, so don't be too hard on me.  Warning: semi-X-rated

                                                              Fate Train

      I have just spent the most humiliating day of my life.  And I've spent several hundred dollars I can ill afford to boot.  Right now I can't remember what possessed me to come to the city and look up Edda and Amos.  But also right now I'm in the middle of an absurd elemental depression.  At this moment it seems that my entire life has been one failure after another.  Which isn't strictly true since I'm a fairly competent Physician's Assistant, but in just about every other personal metric, especially those of a romantic nature, I'm a dismal failure.
     Humiliation sounds like a strong word, but I can't characterize what has happened any other way.  It kicked off when Amos didn't seem to know me.  I say "seem" because it's entirely possible he was pretending not to know me.  I can't decide which is worse.  Then, after I'd gussied myself up in my hotel room to at least a minimally glamorous level, I went to the tango parlor they and their friends frequented.  I encountered two other couples, friends of Edda and Amos, who appeared to be wildly happy in their relationships.  So happy, and apparently so besotted with each other, they both promptly escaped back into the night bent on delightfully dissipating the libidinous tango parlor ambiance.  Even the van Hoesen's were in no mood to tango, so we retired to their apartment.  Then after a quick meal I was sent on my way.  Not exactly the bum's rush, but close.
     Edda seemed quite cool to me, and Amos entirely indifferent.  I was dressed to the nines, my version of it at least, and I suppose it's possible she thought that I was trying to attract Amos' attention.  That was certainly not true.  That ship sailed well over a decade ago and I am resigned to it.  I just wanted to take advantage of an excuse to dress up, something I very rarely have an opportunity to do.  As the saying goes, I still have my figure, which these days is indeed an accomplishment for a thirty year-old.  Not that I was ever voluptuous, but I've managed to maintain my senior high school weight for twelve years.
     After I left the van Hoesen's Brooklyn digs I scooted back to my hotel room, crammed my belongings into my bag and headed for the train station, where I caught the last train headed to New Hampshire and points northeast.  The car was nearly empty, the only occupant was a guy sitting close to the back reading a book.  I sat somewhere in the middle on the window seat.  As I glumly watched the lights flash by, the whole wretched affair of the evening, and most of my adult life, crashed down around me.  Tears blurred my eyes and in less than a minute I was heaving in sobs.
     I've never cried in public before, but I was past caring about such niceties.  I also don't think I've ever cried that hard at all.  At that moment my life seemed nothing but missed chances.  What had I been thinking coming to New York?  I no longer have the slightest connection with the van Hoesen's lives, and this night has driven that home in sledgehammer fashion.  Yes, I was feeling sorry for myself.  Crushingly sorry, so the tears rolled, and rolled.  Crying so hard I could hardly draw breath.
     Abruptly, through my swimming tears I saw someone plop down beside me, put their arm around my shoulder, then say,  "Mary Louise, lean on me, sweetie.  Let it all out."
     So I did.  I hadn't the slightest idea who had their arm around me, but hearing my name I couldn't resist.  I melted into the person's, guy's, suit clad chest and sobbed on.  He gently stroked my hair, but didn't say a thing.  Some minutes later I ran out of sobs, and had soaked his shirt with tears.  The fellow put a handkerchief in my hands. Who carries a handkerchief any more?  I blew my nose and wiped at my eyes with the hanky, but didn't lean away from him.  I didn't want to abandon the warm solid presence of him, even if his actions were pure pity.  After a couple more minutes of leaning on his chest, I slowly pushed away from him and asked,  "You know my name.  Do I know you?"
     He smiled.  It was a very nice smile in a very nice face.  Not an especially handsome face but a nice face despite that, with big brown eyes that were boring into mine.
     "You do know me, or of me at least.  But, I look a lot different than when we were at St. Camilla's.  I'm Del Taylor."
    "Oh lord, Del.  Sorry I didn't remember you.  And so sorry we had to meet like this.  I must look like pure hell."
    "Yes, you do, but I can make allowances because I've had a major crush on you since tenth grade.  The prettiest girl at school, in my considered opinion.  And you still are, present circumstances notwithstanding."
    I gaped at him.  "Del, this is a really bad time for someone to be hitting on me."
    "I'm absolutely not hitting on you.  I'm just providing a handy shoulder to cry on.  Anyway, I'm not surprised you didn't recognize me.  I'm about eighty pounds lighter than I was in high school.  And I was shy beyond words back then."
    "Why didn't you ever ask me out?"
    "That whole shyness thing I suppose.  I was an overweight geek, and you seemed way out of my league."
    I snorted.  "Out of your league?  There's a laugh.  Del, I've never thought I was out of anyone's league.  I hardly dated at all back then."
    "Amos never asked you out?  I know he was crushing on you really hard for several years."
    "No, he didn't.  There was a very strange dynamic going on there.  I didn't like him at all at first, despite him being Edda's best friend.  I spent a lot of years at St. Camilla's treating him like dirt because he kept pursuing me.  But, I eventually realized that Edda was his soulmate and even if I had thrown myself at him it wouldn't have done any good.  Unfortunately, I'd fallen in love with him.  Really stupid of me I know.  Listen, we're almost at the station.  I know it's late, but I could use someone to talk to, if you don't mind.  Are you up for coffee at my apartment?"
    "I'll be glad to do that very thing, but are you sure about this?  You hardly know me at all."
    "Maybe not, but at least I remember you now, and you seem like a good listener, and that's what I need right now, desperately.  But, a listener is all I need right now.  Understand?"
    "Yes, I do.  I'll take a hands-off approach."
    "Thank you, although I have to say that your arm around my shoulder was exactly what I needed at that moment."

                                                                     ...........

    "How do you like your coffee?"
    "Black, with a pinch of salt."
    "Really?  Never heard of that before."
    "Just a personal quirk of mine.  Salt helps to take the bitterness out of black coffee."
    "No sweetener?"
    "Nope.  I swore off.  I swore off a lot of things.  It's why I don't look like the Pillsbury Doughboy anymore."
    I put a salt shaker down next to his cup of coffee, then he shook it a few times and stirred thoroughly.  Odd.
    He said, "Okay.  Before we get started, could you do me a favor?"
    "Such as?"
    "Could you change into some jeans and a shirt?  That dress is incredibly distracting."
    "Distracting?"
    "Yeah.  You are just scorching hot in it, especially in the décolleté department.  I just want to focus on what you say, not how delightfully enticing your lovely bosom, and your shrink-wrapped derriere, is."
    I chuckled.  "That may be the weirdest compliment anyone's ever given me, but I'll take it.  Give me two minutes."
    More modestly attired, I sat back down across from Del at my little kitchen/dining table, still a bit numb that Del had called my rather indifferent not quite a B-cup bosom "lovely".  It's still firm and doesn't sag at all, I work out often, but honestly there's just not all that much to sag.  At least his comment meant that he had been looking at my top and bottom, which ordinarily would put me right off, but in this case it didn't bother me at all because I had glanced several times at the way his chest and arms filled out his shirt.   
    As I sat he said,  "Okay, much better.  Thank you.  So, just how did you get to such a state on the train?"
    I laid it all out for him.  It didn't take but a few minutes.  Dell sat, a hand on his chin as he listened.  After I wound down he was silent for a few seconds, then said, "That totally sucks, Mary, but that still doesn't add up to why you were so distraught on the train."
    "Oh, that was just the trigger.  Del, I have just not been able to make a relationship work, at all.  I mean two divorces in five years for heaven's sake!"
    "And you blame yourself for that?"
    "Not entirely, but I do blame myself for having seriously bad judgement when it comes to men.  Del, you can't imagine how ashamed I am.  I shouldn't be telling you this, but  I... I've been married and divorced twice, and believe it or not I'm still a virgin.  Still a virgin!  Even the affair I had during my brief second marriage didn't involve sex.  What does that say about me?"
    He sat back in his chair, his mouth open in shock.  Then, "Good God, woman!  How is that even possible?  No, scratch that.  Obviously it's possible, but how on earth did that happen, or uh, not happen?"
    "Do you really want the gory details?  Or how much I think all that's my fault?"
    "Um, when you put it that way then no.  I'll take what you said as a given and go from there.  I am however having trouble wrapping my head around why a beautiful sexy vital woman like you is still a virgin after two marriages.  As for myself I'd be delighted to alter that doleful circumstance.  Assuming of course that you want to be a virgin no more.  If that is not a goal of yours then that's fine.  But, I don't think that's the case."
    "No, it isn't.  Wait a minute.  You think I'm a beautiful sexy woman?"
    "Now you're just fishing for compliments.  But yeah, I absolutely think you're beautiful and sexy.  You fueled my teenaged fantasies because I thought you were smart, pretty, and sexy.  And if I'm being honest, you're fueling my adult fantasies right this minute.  I'm afraid that you changing outfits didn't affect those fantasies at all.  To me you are downright hot, even with red eyes and a sniffly nose.  You are a highly intelligent woman, sweetie, and to me that is one of your sexiest attributes.  Sure you have your share of neuroses due to a turbulent romantic life, who doesn't?  That does not diminish your innate attractiveness, on several levels.  I'd like to bask in your intelligence, and conduct a thorough inspection of every square inch of the rest of you."

    I felt my face heat as he continued.  "If I was a smidgen less civilized, you'd be in my arms and I'd be marching smartly to your bedroom.  Unless you find me repellent, that's exactly what I would do."
    I sat there, stunned, for at least two yawning minutes, then said.  "First, I don't find you the least bit repellent, and second, what are waiting for?"  It might have taken as long as five seconds before I was being carried in his arms with our mouths plastered together.
    There was no sleep that night.  It was replaced by a carnal extravaganza of extremely non-virginal activities.  It was glorious.  All the more so since it was ten years overdue.  I discovered that I was highly orgasmic, and Del discovered a delicious variety of ways to make that happen.  During "intermissions" we talked ourselves silly until by means oral, digital, and plain horniness, he rose to the occasion.  I lost count of how many times that happened.  

     He was initially afraid he would hurt me, but I had put paid to my hymen with a dildo some years ago.  Therefore, his lovely fat member had free reign to do what it so beautifully did.  I luxuriated in the feel of him inside me, with an idiotic grin plastered on my face.  We were both insatiable.  Not surprising since we both had a lot of celibate years for which to atone.  I'm sure it was my imagination, but I swear I thought I could feel myself getting pregnant.  Or maybe it was just my desperation in hoping that would be the case.  Either way I fancied I could feel the same thing as he impregnated me five times in the next ten years.

    

                                                               *********

    Ten A.M. on Sunday morning, after a sleepless night of frantic, wonderful, debauchery, we had showered together to get the near overwhelming, and exquisite, stench of sweat and bodily fluids washed off.   Now I was pouring coffee.  "What would you like for breakfast?"
    "You.  Failing that, some bacon and eggs would be perfect, if you have 'em."
    "I do.  How do you like your eggs?"
    "Thoroughly scrambled with lots of butter.  No toast though."
    "Got it."  Ten minutes later I sat our plates down and we both dug in.  Our reserves needed replenishing, to put it mildly.  A smile kept creeping in as I ate, thinking fondly of our night together.    We were both a bit sore, and not regretting it in the least.
    Strangely, we hardly talked during our late breakfast.  As I began to wash the dishes, a hard insistent form enveloped me from behind, undid my robe belt, and warm hands slid from thighs to belly to breasts.  My robe hit the floor and he spun me around to press me against his now robe-less body and began to smash kiss me.   With my eager help he rapidly hardened, broke our tongue battle, then bent me over the kitchen table and entered me from behind, thrusting hard and fast.  In only a couple of minutes I felt his warm flood, and that goofy smile appeared on my face again as I clamped around him and shuddered.
    Afterward, he grabbed both our robes and wrapped me up in mine then did the same for himself.  He pulled out the chair, guided me into it, sat across from me and said, "Now do you believe I think you're the sexiest thing on two legs?"
    I grinned.  "Oh yes.  I think it was your relentlessly hard third leg that convinced me."
    Now he grinned.  "Good thing you're a leg woman.  And by the way.  For about the tenth time, I'm in love with you.  Have been for donkey's years."
    "Del, I love you back.  You know, I can accept that fate put us both on that train, but where the devil were you ten years ago?  It's almost painful that we weren't together, and even more painful are the wretched mistakes I made."
    "Sheer perversity of the universe, my darling girl.  And the fact that ten years ago I wouldn't have been even remotely considered by you, or anyone else, as a fit romantic partner.  I was eighty pounds heavier, marshmallow soft, and church-mouse poor.  Now I'm none of those things.  I thought of you countless times those years, but never had the courage to approach you.  That's the neurosis that crippled me, and then you were married and my dream began to fade, until that usually fickle bitch fate had mercy on us and put us together on that train.  If that isn't kismet I don't know what is.  I should send Edda and Amos a thank you note for giving you the cold shoulder.  Unless it pains you to answer, how are they doing anyway?"
    "By all appearances, absolutely splendid.  And they have twin girls that are spooky smart."
    "I see.  Well, um, how'd you like to start catching up with them?"
    "Does that mean what I think it means."
    "If you think it means us making babies, then yes."
    I grabbed both his hands and almost yelled, "Yes yes yes!  Are you asking me to marry you?"
    "I am, if the m-word isn't too painful to hear."

    "Del, I feel like my life started from scratch last night.  I love you like crazy and I don't give a hoot about what's happened before."
    "Glad to hear it, Mrs. Taylor.  Um, did you change your name before?"
    "No, and I'm glad I didn't.  But, I'll be eager to change it now.  I swear Del, it's as if you've pumped me full of clean fresh air, not to mention other wonderful things."
    "Mary Louise, I want to be serious for a moment.  This isn't happening way too fast for you?"
    I sighed.  "That's a definite no.  It's very clear to me now that this is the opportunity of my lifetime.  Someone who loves me, holds me, caresses me, has rip-roaring bed-pounding sex with me while burying me in orgasms.  I don't want to look a sweet gift horse in the mouth, especially not a fairly well-hung gift horse."  He actually blushed cherry red.  So cute.
    "I...I..."
    "No argument now.  You have a delightful hard and lean body, and don't deny that you are not only well-endowed, but you know just what to do with said appendage.  It's my body, and appendage, now.  Mine I tell you.  And I'm not letting either, or any of the rest of you, get away from me.  You get me, husband?"
    "I get you, wife.  Well then.  No one can say we didn't have a whirlwind romance.  More like a force 5 tornado.  Say, why don't we enjoy some real romance for a couple of months before we get hitched.  Let you see some of my quirks for starters.  Then let my ply you with gifts, small and large, take you out dressed to the nines to fine restaurants, do the obligatory walks on the beach, gaze at the moonlight, etc.  Let me kiss you, stroke you, entertain you rip-roaringly several times a day.  Whisper sweet nothings and obscene suggestions in your shell-likes.  Take you on wild shopping sprees for clothes and jewelry.  Fly you to the Seychelles for a week.  So on and so forth."  I mutely goggled at him, thunderstruck. 
    He grinned.  "Oh, there's one thing I forgot to tell you.  I'm loaded.  Since you knew me before as a hard core geek, I'm sure it's no surprise to you that I'm a software engineer, but it may surprise you that I work exclusively from home.  The reason I was on that train is that I'd just finished up some biz in the City that had to be face to face.  Five years ago, after two years of intense work, I licensed the sale of a major software package that is used in routing servers around the world.  I collect about four million a year in licensing fees, and I have fifteen mil. in the bank.  I probably only spend a hundred K a year all told, but I can easily afford to spend ten times that much.  As in keeping my wife in the lap of luxury for the foreseeable future.  And I want to build you the house and home you've always wanted."
    I did what any normal woman would do after hearing all that.  I fainted.  Slumped right over onto the table.  I was only out for a few seconds.  I pushed myself up and sputtered at him,  "Why...why hasn't some woman snapped you up by now?"
    "I'm practically a hermit. Don't get out much.  But, I fully intend to get out a heck of a lot more now.  Also I've only been in good physical shape for about two years.  Before that I was a sedentary lump.  I weighed nearly 300 pounds for heaven's sake.  I weigh about 220 now, which for my height is a very good number.  And I am a hell of a lot healthier than I was, to put it as mildly as possible.  All of which enables me to get out and do what I couldn't before."

     "All that time I was, for all intents and purposes, waiting on you, as feckless at that sounds.  Waiting for the chaos of your life to subside.  I was very close to reconnecting with you when fate intervened.  No really, I was.  When I heard you sob on the train I didn't know it was you.  I was so absorbed in my book I didn't see you get on.  I waited a little bit, then went to see if I could help, and there you were.  Heck, I nearly fainted.  I sure wasn't going to let the opportunity to get to really know you regardless of what had elicited those sobs.  What I didn't expect was, last night.  I was determined to be gallant, but you overwhelmed me.  Couldn't resist you, so I didn't.  Sweetie, I don't have any hidden agendas.  I don't want a wife as an ornament or plaything.  I want a partner, an intellectual equal, a wife, and a mother for our children."
    "Del, that's the first time I've ever overwhelmed anyone.  Underwhelmed mostly.  Listen, let's get married and pregnant right away.  We can still get in a few months of what you mentioned before we buckle down to be parents.  It's late enough in the day as it is.  Is it a deal, my love?"
    "Deal.  Say, can you take off tomorrow?"
    "Yes, I can."
    "Good.  I don't want to see that robe, or anything else, on you until tomorrow unless we go out somewhere.  I adore your body, and I want to bask in its bare glory as much as possible.  But, I need to run home at some point and pick up some steaks.  We're going to need the energy.  Hmmm.  You know, you won't have to work if you don't want to.  Can you quit over the phone?  No contract or anything?"
    "No, no contract.  I do want to give notice though.  A couple of weeks at least while I bask in my friends' jealousy.  Is that okay?"
    "Of course, take all the time you want.  And if you really don't want to quit we'll work around it.  I'd view with concern if you want to work more than a couple of months after you get pregnant.  Speaking of which.  Where are you in your cycle?"
    "Right in the middle of it.  Fertile as a turtle I think.  If I'm not already pregnant, I hope I soon will be."
    He smiled hugely and said.  "Look at us.  Making all kinds of plans and things.  Ain't we just the pair.  Now.  Shuck that robe, woman, and head for the bedroom.  There's lots more filling to be done."
"Race you."
   "Deal."  I won the race, and lost my heart.  About bloody time.  From frustrated virgin to phallus worshiping libertine in less than a day.  Sweetest of all is that I became a mom on that same day.  I hit the life, love, and family lotto, and I didn't even have to buy a ticket.  What so many women see as a fate worse than death, a houseful of noisy kids taking up every minute of every hour, I discovered I reveled in that noise and semi-chaos.  It tapped strengths I never suspected I had.  The old phrase "happy wife happy life" works for husbands as well.  And one of the (many) ways to keep a husband happy is plenty of sex, as in once or twice a day at least.  Not always possible in the chaos of life, but regularly worshiping your husband's body is a very good way to keep your husband worshiping your own body.

     I try to keep our sex from becoming pro-forma, but even pro-forma sex is a heck of a lot better than none.  And a reasonable frequency of wife induced husbandly squirting pretty much squelches any tendency towards a roving eye.  Kiss your mate frequently, and no desultory pecks on the cheek please, but rather full-blown tongue battles, even in front of the kids, that are a promise of husbandly, and wifely, orgasms.  Happy satiated husband and wife, happy satiated life.  And oh yes.  Marrying a man who adores you, worships your body and mind as you worship his, and never having any money problems, is the ultimate hat trick of marital circumstances.  A vanishingly rare set of circumstances I admit, but I tend to view it as compensation for fifteen loveless years of loneliness, a doleful lack of physical intimacy, and two miserably failed marriages.  Woe is me no more.


                                                        End.