not work related

Well work is still kicking my ass, I go through my night rotation this week and next so I'll be particularly logy but I'm not writing anything work related in this post. No I've been reading guilty pleasure books, my reward for stuffing so much oncology related information into my brain it will surely herniate from amount of information I'm trying to understand. So I decided to read Hunger Games, devoured that in a night, and then Catching Fire. I've got Mockingjay on my nightstand and started that but it's a bit slow going. And then I kept hearing about this Fifty Shades of Grey book. When I first heard about it I thought it was yet another young adult novel that had taken off with older adults. Oh how wrong I was. I finished it in a couple of days and I'm just so confused. I don't understand what all the hype is about (and there is a lot of hype, Newsweek has a cover basically related to the popularity of this book) because it's supposed to be a book about this guy being all into dominant/submissive relationships but, I don't know, it seemed really tame to me. And frankly insipid. I mean the writing is at that Danielle Steel level of perfect people although, to be fair, the author does make reference to Tess of the d'Urbervilles numerous times and I'm sure if you graded it on the Flesch-Kinkaid reading index it would be a level or two above Steel and Sidney Sheldon. But the protagonist in the book is named Anastasia Steele, honestly could you be more cliche you've got Danielle Steel's last name with an e added to it, why not pick a protagonist with a name like Ramona Lipschitz just to add some zing. And everyone is too perfect in this book, perfect looking, wealthy, oh and the really pushing the limits of suspension of disbelief, not only is Anastasia Steele a virgin, she has never touched herself. I think if I had read this in seventh grade it would have blown my mind with the sex stuff, but even back then I would have questioned the virgin who has never touched herself. And now I'm middle aged, divorced and I read Dan Savage every week. I guess I thought that this book would be racier, more of a book equivalent of a David Cronenberg film or the movie Secretary but for all the BDSM implied it's really pretty vanilla. I kept waiting for it to get to a really steamy passage and it never did and the main character is so fucking sanctimonious. The dominant lead, who is falling for her so he's falling short on his dominance and power play stuff, quickly doing these all these firsts for him, like sleeping, just sleeping with Anastasia, and letting her use his first name, blah blah blah. And this protagonist is such an annoying twenty two year old self righteous twit; she's all I can't take these first addition books that you're giving me, the audi, the clothes. Honestly this is like a completely unrealistic dream come true, you get a hot, young, insanely wealthy and powerful guy that's showering you with gifts, telling you how beautiful you are, that you bewitch him, plus he plays piano, speaks fluent French and can drive a helicopter. Oh yes, and he's great in bed?! I'd let him brand my ass if he wanted to. People settle for much much less. I guess this is what forty-three plus years and two kids turns me into, a pragmatist. If it's mind blowing sex I think I could very quickly become nonjudgmental about this fellow's kinks. Spoiler alert: The main character gets spanked, blindfolded and has her wrists tied (with a tie and cable ties) the climax of the story (oh my God reading about all this girl's many earth shattering orgasms I wanted to scream 'enough already', well that and her constant peppering of interior monologues consisting of 'holy crap' but the I don't know controversial/steamy end is when this girl is spanked with a belt and she ends the relationship because this fellow's way too fucked up for her if that's what he's into. Really? I mean I'm sure it hurt but um this is the shocking end? Okay, truth be told my sex life has been very vanilla so I don't have any idea what a truly dominant/submissive relationship is like. I've never been spanked (I think I would laugh if someone spanked me) or had my hands cabled tied or anything like what this female lead gets. But I'm like what's the big deal? I want to read about characters more flawed, more human and therefore infinitely more relatable and sympathetic. I'd prefer that this main guy was into something really dirty or weird aside from what I'm thinking are probably more pedestrian kinks, at least in the BDSM community. I mean I don't know I'm not a part of that community but I'm sort of curious what they make of the popularity of this book. I'm just confused by what shocks people (this book?) and what doesn't (how many people are unemployed/uninsured yet people watch the Kardashians?).

I tried to watch a porn film with a guy I was seeing once and we both had to stop it fifteen minutes in, it was that bad. There was nothing hot about it, at all. The people were unattractive and fake looking with teeth impossibly white, they were like Ross's teeth in the episode of Friends where he bleaches them and they're so bright they glow in the dark. And yes I get that it's odd that I would watch a porn film and focus on peoples teeth rather than their privates. I just don't find that stuff erotic at all. Nor this book. I find James McAvoy very erotic. And Hugh Laurie, mon dieu, House is ten times more erotic than this book. Oh how fucked am I that I think that? And watching Sigourney Weaver and Mel Gibson make out in The Year of Living Dangerously, that was insanely erotic to me as a teenager, not so much now that Mel Gibson became such a nutter. What else? the INXS video for 'The One Thing' that was a huge turn on to me as a middle schooler, it just seemed to epitomize debauchery. I guess reading the book made me long for those times when the blood courses so quickly through me it makes my whole body hum. For someone that makes me flush so readily (although I talk to anyone with MD after their name and I seem to blush- ugh!), who causes my breath to catch just by seeing them. I would love to have a relationship with someone who makes me physically feel like a teenager, who wouldn't? I think it's why there's so much infidelity, you meet someone who seems to notice and appreciate you and makes you feel young, that's heady stuff. Especially compared to the banalities of the everyday. I guess the real trick is to find someone who makes you feel that good but who you can share the banalities of everyday with. I haven't found that. In the interim, before I become a crazy spinster with cats, I'll lust after my guy at the gym, who I would readily let spank me. And if he bought me an Audi like Christian Grey does for Anastasia Steele (can you believe the names?) who knows what my hard limits would be, or if there would be any.

Ha, I write with much bravado but in reality, I wouldn't even let a man, a very distinguished older gentleman, buy me strawberries when I was in the checkout line at the Giant Eagle and they were some ungodly price when I thought they were on sale and I started turning bright red (like said overpriced strawberries) as the checker took forever to remove the strawberries from my bill and the man was insisting he'd buy them for me, 'Come on, they're good for your health.' And I'm pretty sure he was flirting with me but I'm like Temple Grandin when it comes to flirting, an anthropologist on Mars, and I was mortified taking so much time in the express lane and I kept getting more and more nervous and could not look at this man, who was like sixty but very kind. I just said thank you after declining his many offers to pay for my strawberries and ran to my car.