a) date someone relatively close to your same age who already has children?

or

b) date someone younger (late 20s/early 30s) who can still have children without [...]]]> Here’s a question to ponder: when you’re in your 40s, but you’d still like to be a parent someday, do you think it would be better to:

a) date someone relatively close to your same age who already has children?

or

b) date someone younger (late 20s/early 30s) who can still have children without significant health risk?

In my mind, there are pros and cons to both the insta-family and “natural” family approach, which I’ll elaborate on in as I get comments … but I really want to hear your thoughts on this one before expressing my own.

Of course, since I’m not currently dating anyone, and really don’t see any likely prospects for either of the options above, the whole discussion may be moot …

Raven was in a deep sleep, dreaming the world. He saw things and they happened, He dreamed things and they came to life. He hardly knew where to begin or what to do

once the world was. At last He understood Fodder’s dilemma. It troubled Him, made Him restless, disturbed His [...]]]> RAVEN’S LAST DREAM

Raven was in a deep sleep,
dreaming the world. He saw things
and they happened, He dreamed things
and they came to life. He hardly knew
where to begin or what to do

this woke Him up.
He looked up, He looked down, He
looked all around.
Don’t know, He say and
He couldn’t get back to sleep.

  — Robert “Red Hawk” Moore (b. 1943), Native American professor & poet.

When you are trying to help someone, you have to have humor, self-existing humor, and you have to hold the moth in your hand, but not let it go into the flame. That’s what helping others means. Ladies and gentlemen, we have so much responsibility. A long time [...]]]>

KEEP THE MOTH OUT OF THE FLAME

When you are trying to help someone, you have to have humor, self-existing humor, and you have to hold the moth in your hand, but not let it go into the flame. That’s what helping others means. Ladies and gentlemen, we have so much responsibility. A long time ago, people helped one another in this way. Now people just talk, talk talk. They read books, they listen to music, but they never actually help anyone. They never use their bare hands to save a person from going crazy. We have that responsibility. Somebody has to do it. It turns out to be us. We’ve got to do it, and we can do it with a smile, not with a long face.

From “Helping Others,” in GREAT EASTERN SUN: THE WISDOM OF SHAMBHALA, page 180.

As you set out for Ithaka hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians, Cyclops, angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them: you’ll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit [...]]]> ITHAKA

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

  — C.P. Cavafy (1863 – 1933), Greek poet and journalist. Translated by Edmund Keeley

Spontaneous me, Nature, The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with, The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder, The hill-side whiten’d with blossoms of the mountain ash, The same, late in autumn—the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and light and dark green, The rich coverlid [...]]]> SPONTANEOUS ME

Spontaneous me, Nature,
The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with,
The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,
The hill-side whiten’d with blossoms of the mountain ash,
The same, late in autumn—the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and light and dark green,
The rich coverlid of the grass—animals and birds—the private untrimm’d bank—
      the primitive apples—the pebble-stones,
Beautiful dripping fragments—the negligent list of one after another, as I happen to call
      them to me, or think of them,
The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,)
The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me,
This poem, drooping shy and unseen, that I always carry, and that all men carry,
(Know, once for all, avow’d on purpose, wherever are men like me, are our lusty, lurking,
      masculine poems;)
Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding, love-climbers, and the climbing sap,
Arms and hands of love—lips of love—phallic thumb of love—breasts of
      love—bellies press’d and glued together with love,
Earth of chaste love—life that is only life after love,
The body of my love—the body of the woman I love—the body of the man—the body of
      the earth,
Soft forenoon airs that blow from the south-west,
The hairy wild-bee that murmurs and hankers up and down—that gripes the full-grown
      lady-flower, curves upon her with amorous firm legs, takes his will of her, and holds himself
      tremulous and tight till he is satisfied,
The wet of woods through the early hours,
Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep, one with an arm slanting down across
      and below the waist of the other,
The smell of apples, aromas from crush’d sage-plant, mint, birch-bark,
The boy’s longings, the glow and pressure as he confides to me what he was dreaming,
The dead leaf whirling its spiral whirl, and falling still and content to the ground,
The no-form’d stings that sights, people, objects, sting me with,
The hubb’d sting of myself, stinging me as much as it ever can any one,
The sensitive, orbic, underlapp’d brothers, that only privileged feelers may be intimate where they are,
The curious roamer, the hand, roaming all over the body—the bashful withdrawing of flesh
      where the fingers soothingly pause and edge themselves,
The limpid liquid within the young man,
The vexed corrosion, so pensive and so painful,
The torment—the irritable tide that will not be at rest,
The like of the same I feel—the like of the same in others,
The young man that flushes and flushes, and the young woman that flushes and flushes,
The young man that wakes, deep at night, the hot hand seeking to repress what would master
      him; The mystic amorous night—the strange half-welcome pangs, visions, sweats,
The pulse pounding through palms and trembling encircling fingers—the young man all color’d,
      red, ashamed, angry;
The souse upon me of my lover the sea, as I lie willing and naked,
The merriment of the twin-babes that crawl over the grass in the sun, the mother never turning
      her vigilant eyes from them,
The walnut-trunk, the walnut-husks, and the ripening or ripen’d long-round walnuts;
The continence of vegetables, birds, animals,
The consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find myself indecent, while birds and animals
      never once skulk or find themselves indecent;
The great chastity of paternity, to match the great chastity of maternity,
The oath of procreation I have sworn—my Adamic and fresh daughters,
The greed that eats me day and night with hungry gnaw, till I saturate what shall produce boys to
      fill my place when I am through,
The wholesome relief, repose, content;
And this bunch, pluck’d at random from myself;
It has done its work—I tossed it carelessly to fall where it may.

  — Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892), American poet, essayist, journalist and humanist.

EELS – THE LOOK YOU GAVE THAT GUY

I never thought that I could be so bold, 
 To even say these thoughts aloud. I see you with your man, your eyes just shine, While he stands tall and walking proud.


That look you give that guy, I wanna see … Looking right [...]]]>

EELS – THE LOOK YOU GAVE THAT GUY

I never thought that I could be so bold, 

To even say these thoughts aloud.
I see you with your man, your eyes just shine,
While he stands tall and walking proud.

That look you give that guy, I wanna see…
Looking right at me.
If I could be that guy, instead of me…
I’d never let you down.
I’d never let you down.

NEW PORNOGRAPHERS – BLEEDING HEART SHOW

I leapt across three or four beds into your arms Where I had hidden myself somewhere in your charm Our golden handshake has been smashed into this shape. It’s taken magic to a primitive new place Watch ‘em run, although it’s the minimum, heroic

We hunched together [...]]]>

NEW PORNOGRAPHERS – BLEEDING HEART SHOW

I leapt across three or four beds into your arms
Where I had hidden myself somewhere in your charm
Our golden handshake has been smashed into this shape.
It’s taken magic to a primitive new place
Watch ‘em run, although it’s the minimum, heroic

We hunched together in one chair out on the deck
In snow that froze and fell down on the modern set
It looked as if I picked your name out of a hat
Next thing you know you are asleep in someone’s lap
Watch ‘em run, although it’s the minimum, heroic

We quit the room
Quit so our thoughts could rest
Rest them, I’ll never move?
That’s when we grab a hold
Of whatever it is we fell into
Lousy with your content
With what the majestic cannot find
In business of your lives
The perception, it is wrong, mile after mile
The phantom taste drinking wine from your heels

We have arrived too late to play the bleeding heart show

THE 88 – COMING HOME

Won’t you be safe Won’t you be true I lie awake just thinking of you I’m all alone Honey, come home

‘Cuz when you’re here I feel like myself And when you’re not I’m somebody else I’ve got it bad Honey, please come back

Because you need a place [...]]]>

THE 88 – COMING HOME

Won’t you be safe
Won’t you be true
I lie awake just thinking of you
I’m all alone
Honey, come home

‘Cuz when you’re here
I feel like myself
And when you’re not
I’m somebody else
I’ve got it bad
Honey, please come back

Because you need a place to stay
And I’ve been feeling dead since you went away
You better believe what I tell you cuz you’re coming home

Won’t you be good to yourself
Don’t you feel like coming home
It’ll be good
It’ll be like coming home

And tell me that you wanna be
With nobody else but me
It’ll be good
It’ll be like coming home

Send me a letter
Pick up the phone
Make me feel better
Don’t leave me alone
Because I’m feeling sick
Honey, please come quick

Because you need a place to stay
And I’ve been feeling dead since you went away
You better believe what I tell you cuz you’re coming home

Won’t you be good to yourself
Don’t you feel like coming home
It’ll be good
It’ll be like coming home

And tell me that you wanna be
With nobody else but me
It’ll be good
It’ll be like coming home

Blend all your days into weeks
Keep all your thoughts to yourself
It’ll be good
It’ll be like coming home

Because you need a place to stay
And I’ve been feeling dead since you went away
You better believe what I tell you cuz you’re coming home

Won’t you bring light to my day
Won’t you be somebody new
It’ll be good
It’ll be like coming home

And tell me that you wanna be
With nobody else but me
It’ll be good
It’ll be like coming home

Because you need a place to stay
And I’ve been feeling dead since you went away
You better believe what I tell you cuz you’re coming home

But oh, it’s not a joke
It’s got a butler, and a maid, and a stove
It’s nothing new
It’s up to you
And when I feel it
I hope you feel it too
Did you hear it
Yeah I heard it
And I think she’s coming home to me

La la la la la la la…