R: I’ve been making that sex/food/pleasure connection for, like, EVER, mang, and writing my own smut since our halcyon college days! (Remember the “grunge buffet?”) The newest thing I got from Sarah was what some men are willing to pay for. (And I certainly didn’t know about what-all lives in people’s colons, but then I didn’t really need to know that.)

C: I think maybe YOU should read Sarah’s book. But you might just think she was majorly messed up or something. I don’t know why I get from you more than anybody that you’d like to somehow “fix” me…Lord knows my coach has spent many an hour convincing my tireless, nitpicking inner critic that I don’t need fixing.

The late Caroline Knapp wrote a great book called “Appetites,” part of the thesis of which was that women become anorexic and other equally compulsive things because they’re basically starved for pleasure, and not given societal permission to want what they want. I liked that a lot. I think to some degree it’s totally true, regardless of what Eastern (and New Age) thought says about the pointlessness of desire and how it just indicates that we have a craving for the forgotten Divine within us and et cetera and et cetera ad infinitum.

All: Russ is right, my buddy Rick is wildly unpredictable…but I was surprisingly OK with his being red-eyed and flushed and moody and leaving early today. I think he might have drank as well as smoked. Clearly he’s going through his own changes, and I felt a sort of loving detachment toward him that surprised even me. I guess I’m getting better at enjoying his delightful presence and lucidity when it’s there, and staying even-keeled when it’s not. I know he doesn’t exist to give me what I want or need…I do find him beautiful and irresistible (when he’s present), and I still want very much to touch him absolutely everywhere and with impunity, if I may. Not only that, he’s just fricking lovable in who he is, with a childlike curiosity and playfulness that’s unbelievably endearing and a fertile mind that just hasn’t been cultivated.

He does have his own demons to battle. I know there’s nothing I can do about that (though I wish I could help him feel better about himself) except keep an even keel when he’s out of it or irritable or depressed, and stay kind toward both of us. I love Rick. And I love me that I can love Rick without getting upset about his mood swings or taking them personally.

And you’re right, Schopenhauer was a pain in the ass. Yes, you’ll just be hungry again tomorrow, but that doesn’t invalidate your appetite. I think the recurring opportunity to satisfy your appetites offers a perpetual state of satiation, not misery. (Well, misery in the short term, perhaps. That’s the trade off, I guess.)

I’d say you’ve internalized the lesson of SEX AND BACON very well indeed.

Anyway, bless your heart for the collegiate admiration, and about your horrible flameout! I’m so sorry that happened to you. Believe me, I understand. To answer your question, there’s one more (final) Centro chapter, and then one each on Rome, Florence, and Milan. The latter three are very travelly, but still pretty introspective.

C: The dark-mother thing is certainly a FEAR of mine, although my own coach insists it’s not a reality but a negative belief I’ve long carried about myself. What you’re talking about with the emotional (ego) and spiritual (lacking awareness) need for a feeling of completion is definitely what Trebbe Johnson is addressing head-on in her book. But I think my close girlfriend (married happily and passionately 20 years) “got” my thing here when she sighed, listening to my tales, and said, “Isn’t attraction the best thing EVER? It’s better than any food you could have.”

I know whenever I eat I’ll get hungry again, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to enjoy the HELL out of this three cheese lasagna dripping with cream sauce. And I would much rather eat this lasagna than a baked potato, which might dispense with the hunger but wouldn’t be such a PLEASURE. Mmmm…

As my coach friend might say, we may be boundless spiritual beings, but we’re still having a decidedly physical experience. Sex is an important aspect of physical experience, and goddamn it, I’m hungry for some good lasagna.

I bet Russ is totally with me on that. Can I get an AMEN, brother?

I say this because I’ve noticed a similar kind of issue (or wound) in myself, although mine has more to do with being seen and acknowledged (“Look at what I wrote! Listen to what I say!” and so on) than with sexuality.

What I have begun to see is that other people’s attention can’t really fill that hole. The hole actually does not exist, and it is just a manifestation of the fact that I am not fully conscious of my own essence. I have had experiences now in meditation when I’ve seen the truth of this. Anyway, maybe that is overly woo-woo but I wonder if it resonates with you.

In a way, you make me glad my sexual peak was half a lifetime ago. It’s a lot to deal with, and the frustration can be horrible. I’ve had nothing but disappointment these last few years, even with laughably low expectations. The last two efforts I made resulted in me not just getting shot down, but having the corpse of my libido decapitated and set on fire, seemingly. Nothing beats your own sexual cremation.

As regards Stoner Rick, he does sound like a case of arrested adolescence, but that can work both ways. Like I say, Heads like him can be very hard to predict, depending on the depth and quality of his high. Getting in sync with someone like that can be a real trial, best of luck there. Sounds like you’re opening up to all the other possibilities around you, though, which in its own way is kind of wonderful.

I wish I had a better understanding of why any mention of actual sex seems to make otherwise friendly folks cut and run. Believe me, happens to us guys ALL THE TIME. I remember agonizing about this around ten years ago. I used to think that it meant that the desire wasn’t mutual, and there may be that element, but I think it has more to do with the game changing on someone, and they don’t know how to adjust so they pull away. I vacillate between admiring and resenting those who make it look so easy.

Your travel diaries remain intriguing. How many entries do you have?

I was trying to use a good metaphor involving hunger that was also somewhat anatomically analogous! Don’t we all have that hunger? I actually hesitated to use it as I had a feeling that’s where you might take it, in keeping with a theme, but I really like the word “belly.” Chris Whitley used it similarly in a very sexy song I’ve been listening to lately. (Take you in my belly/sure as night is black/take you for religion/like this skin across my back…)

My good friends are well aware of (and celebrate) this side of me…as are a fair number of gentlemen who (as I have talked about here, it’s my whole point!) took rapid flight after encountering it. It’s not a problem getting interest when I’m not interested, when this stuff doesn’t even SURFACE and I act like so many women with no apparent desire of their own, but when it DOES…

One reason why it was so hard to let go of S. is that he heard it all and DIDN’T flee. I poured out reams of purple prose and fantasy on him, DIRECTED at him, and he actually LIKED it, God bless his heart (and other key parts of his body). It’s amazing I was still willing to persist with the self-expression after the violent, shaming reactions I got over and over again from guys like Greg and Tony.

So yes, I’ve definitely been “out there” with this stuff in my personal life, but I’ve usually paid a price for it. Shit, look at right now. I miss Rick! Hence my hesitation to act or speak.