What was I thinking? And why?

Random thoughts on a hot summer day. (Seriously—I thought all this stuff in just one day.)

• Why is it okay to wear a bikini to the beach, but wearing a bra and skimpy underwear could get you arrested? What’s a bikini but a bra and skimpy underwear?

• A weed whacker becomes a weapon of mass destruction when you’re trying to trim grass without ripping the blooms off of moss roses.

• Moss roses?

• The fully dressed women on AccuWeather.com are way hotter than the naked ones in Cinemax soft porn movies.

• Kate Middleton made Ask Men.com’s list of “women adult men are most sick of hearing about.” I’m like, “Kate Middleton…Kate Middleton.” So I Googled her and, oh, yeah. I’m not sick of hearing about Kate Middleton because I never paid any attention in the first place. In fact, I’m in favor of more Kate Middleton in the media because, frankly, that’s one less thing to think about.

• Who made it an Immutable Law of the Universe that the first chapter always needs the most revision and is the most difficult to revise? And why would I rather spend a whole afternoon trimming the damned crabapple trees instead of revising the opening to Fast Lane?

• One more thing about Ask Men’s list: Wouldn’t a man who wasn’t an adult be a boy?

• In Fast Lane, Lara says, “Mmmmm.” I couldn’t adequately vocalize that to my writing group, but every woman said it perfectly. Hmmmm.

• Sophia Vergara.

• When someone wants to sell magazines to men, they put a hot woman on the cover. So why is it that when someone wants to sell magazines to women, they also put a hot woman on the cover?

• What are the job qualifications for the guy who spots women in the stands for close-ups during baseball game broadcasts?

• If evolution works the way I think it does, and if for the past three million years men have been obsessed with big boobs, why are there still small-breasted women? If women are so enthralled with six-pack abs, why do so few men have them?

Okay. The trees are trimmed—and so is the sidewalk, the hedge and the forsythia. Time to stop thinkin’ and start rewritin’.

If he seems too good to be true…

A Marie Clairen blog post pretty much concludes that nice guys should finish last. Deserve to, even.

Why?

Well, take this guy named Dave who’s mentioned in the post. He had the audacity to go to a New York subway station to pick up a woman on their first date.

“We were none too pleased with this,” says writer Rich Santos, a guy whose name suggests he’s a saint but whose use of the royal case reveals higher aspirations. “Maybe we are not old-fashioned enough, but we figured if a girl makes it out of the New York subway, she should easily be capable (and independent) enough to walk five blocks to a bar.”

Other problems?

A nice guy might be ruining his chances by being “too easy.” By seeming too much like “a friend.” By creating an impression he’s a "closet psycho."

Think my paraphrase of that last one is over the top? Here’s the full quote:

“Sometimes people are so nice that it seems like they might have sinister overtones. I always see it on Lifetime movies: the guy comes into the woman's life and he is just perfect. Then he slowly disintegrates into a psycho freak. Perhaps a guy can come off as so nice in the beginning that he appears to be covering up for something bad.”

So…being openly bad is a good thing? Any kind of bad? Or just a kind a specific woman likes?

I’ve known guys who were “too nice.” One even thought he would look more sophisticated and sensitive by moving certain records to the front of his collection when he thought a woman might see them.

Talk about psycho.

Here’s what I say. If I brought a girl back to my place who thought I was a cretin because I liked the Sex Pistols and The Who, well, then…goodbye.

Marie Claire Dave's fault isn’t that he's too nice. It’s that he’s being the wrong kind of nice to a woman who wants something else. That doesn’t make her a bad person. But I don’t think it makes him one, either.

The post appeared a couple of years ago. I hope Dave, like my buddy who put his Supertramp and Steely Dan records up front to impress women, has found a girl who appreciates him for who he is.

On the other hand, a guy who came on like a psycho and slowly disintegrated into a decent person? Now that would be a movie I’d watch on Lifetime.

She's got legs. But does she know how to use them?

Quick! Somebody don't tell Nicki Minaj this isn't done any more!


I have been informed of many things while writing this blog and Fast Lane. Crazy things. Things my man-brain could never have conceived of. But now I have been informed of what may be the craziest thing, which is—and I quote:

“No one wears stockings with heels any more.”

Which raises the question, “If not with heels, then with what would one wear stockings?”

Apparently nothing, if possible. I was also informed that men like seeing women wearing stockings more than women like wearing them.

This was just one revelation imparted to me at my Tuesday writing group. The other is that no woman would have problems running in three-inch heels. A shocker, for sure, since I can barely run if I’m wearing the wrong kind of sneakers.

The demise of stockings, I was told, has come about due to the rise of waxing and something called “spray tanning.” Now, I got nuttin’ against bare legs. But legs with stockings on them? That’s what heaven looks like.

The conversation about stockings and heels quickly morphed into a jeremiad for today’s young women.

“I’d hate to be twenty-five,” ManWARrior and information source supreme Judy said. “Young women have to do so much these days. Nails. Hair. Tanning. Waxing almost their entire bodies.”

I can clearly remember being twenty-five and not being all that concerned about whether a woman did any of this stuff (though legs and armpits that had regular encounters with razors were always appreciated).

With apologies to Cameron Crowe, “You had me at female.”

Upon further research, I’m pleased to find that stockings have not disappeared entirely from the fashion landscape; in some circles they’re considered the perfect accessory for Army boots. Fine. I can imagine that. Already have. A character in Fast Lane does exactly that. I thought I was making up something quirky and clever, but I guess it’s another case of fact preceding fiction.

I will, though, have to go back into the manuscript to expunge the errant reference to stockings in one scene and add this spray tanning thing to another.

The writing group ended with a woman reading a comical lament about how she's getting laid (her words, not mine) with diminishing frequency as her age advances. She posits reasons for this, but I could see the true root of her problem.

“Have you tried,” I suggested in the most helpful, friendly tone I could muster, “parading around the house in stockings?”

Another post about hare

We have bunnies. Not pets in a cage. Wild beasts that prowl our backyard and chow down on the creeping Charlie I’ve worked so hard to cultivate in place of grass over the past decade.

Usually these monsters hot rod into the bushes as soon as we step out the back door, but a couple mornings ago, two of them were too preoccupied with doin’ what comes natchurly to succumb to the flight imperative.

Just watching that courting ritual wore me out. Think of playing one-on-one Kill the Guy With the Ball, only there’s no ball.

But then I got to thinking. What would a bunny romance novel read like? I’m guessing no one’s ever written one. So I did. I call it Love in the Grass.

Jacqui Rabbitson emerged from the garden and drank in the warmth of the day. It had been a long time since she produced that litter with that no-good Bud Bunnye. She hadn’t seen him in months. Probably flew off with some bird, she thought. All males are no good, anyway. Who needs ’em?

And then she saw Lago Morpha sunning himself. What a conceited jerk. Thinks he’s so hot, with that mottled fur, Latin name and, ooh, hairy chest. And such tall ears. She sighed. A buck like him would never see anything in a doe like her. There had been a time when she was considered quite a fluffy piece of cottontail. What giving birth twenty-six times over twelve weeks will do to one’s figure.

But, wait. Was...was Lago looking her way? He approached her, cocky and sly. He was the epitome of sylvagus floridanus hunkitude Quiet…and lean. He sniffed her rear. Jacqui had longed for a male to do that ever since the runt of the last litter finally weaned and made its way into the next yard. That was thirty-six long, lonesome hours ago.

Jacqui dashed two feet to the left. Lago chased her down. Jacqui ducked right. Lago was upon her instantly. Ah, this one means business. Jacqui leapt a full eighteen inches straight up. She couldn’t help herself. Lago was bunny enough for two hutches.

Lago made Jacqui a part of his territory by rubbing the secretions from the scent glands in his chin all over her face. She reveled in the bedeviling heat of his pheromones. Also a delectably sweet hint of partially rotted crabapple. He mounted her, and when his bunnihood entered her, she could feel her heart pounding in her chest and hear carrots crunching in his teeth.

Their bodies became as one. Jacqui’s mind raced back—back forty seconds to when she did not know Lago—and felt as though she had known him forever. Or at least for the entire ten months of her life.

Two hours later, Jacqui lay atop the very fur she had ripped from her own body to line the nest where she would raise her next litter of kittens (or whatever the hell baby rabbits are called). She knew she would never see hide nor hare of Lago again, that she would have to be content with glimpses of his speckled visage in the faces of the four to twelve little darlings that would arrive in about twenty-nine days.

That was more than enough for Jacqui, though. She smiled. Lago’s pungent scent still clung to her fur, but even when it was gone, no one could take away the one-hundred-and-seven seconds they’d shared in the grass that glorious summer day.

* I really do not think our bunnies are monsters. It was just funnier to say that.

Something new every day (Breasts! Sex! Panties!)

One of these is a sheath and one is a shift. Which is which I have no idea.



It’s the first anniversary of ManWAR, and so a good time to reflect on what I’ve learned. I mean, since that’s the whole focus of the blog, and all.

Stuff I learned

• Women will go to the mall specifically to buy panties, but won’t call them panties once they’re wearing them.
• People from all over the world will read your blog if you put words like sex, breasts and panties in the headline. Especially panties.
• Men think about sex every seven seconds.
• Any scene can be improved by simply describing what everyone’s wearing.
• There is nothing subtle about the difference between a full Brazilian and an American wax.
• Never say a woman likes what she sees in the mirror.
• Men think about sex every seven seconds. Wait—oops.
• Women love their sex scenes.
• Writer’s conference attendees will be tickled to receive a bookmark that touts a blog that chronicles the development of an e-book that isn’t finished yet. Of course, writer’s conference attendees are tickled to receive anything that’s free.

Stuff I already knew but had to be told nonetheless

• Women don’t like the feel of unshaven cheeks scraping their thighs.
• Women’s clothing sizes ascend in increments of two, which means you look like an idiot if you say one negligee is twelve sizes larger than another.
• More women will read a blog post illustrated with a topless picture of David Beckham than one graced with a nearly topless shot of Anna Semenovich.

Stuff I’ll always have to look up

• The difference between a sheath and a shift. (And even then I can’t tell. How does anyone?)

Most of all, though, I found out that writing a romance novel is a blast. I’ve also made new friends along the way, and that’s made the experience even more worthwhile.

Fast Lane, an idea conceived twenty-four years ago, is finally a 283-page novel. It’s not the novel I thought it would be back then—and that’s a good thing. Especially since I was originally writing it as a screenplay.

My editor and some other beta readers have it now, which means I’ll have more work to do later. But that’s okay. It’s not really work if it’s fun.

And that’s something I already knew but did not have to be told.

New breasts? New mouth? Noooo way!

Someone thinks Cameron Diaz needs breast implants. That someone is Elizabeth Halsey, the character Diaz plays in Bad Teacher.

To which I say, “Nooooooo- ooooooooo!”

What’s sad is that there are, no doubt, real women who look like Diaz and have similar thoughts about themselves. Sadder still is the notion that Elizabeth thinks implants will help her score the affections of a very rich, very handsome man.

That’s kind of like saying the Mona Lisa would get more attention if someone painted over it to show some tooth.

News flash: Some guys do, in fact, like big ones. But, believe it or not, some guys don’t. And some guys don’t really care, because they’re less interested in the rack than they are in the woman who comes with it.

Spoiler alert for anyone who’s watched only two movies and thinks Bad Teacher should be No. 3: Cameron—Elizabeth—never gets the breast enlargement because she realizes she looks good the way she is.

Apparently, real-life actress Eva Mendes had a similar epiphany about another body part without going through the drama of the three-act structure. She recently told Access Hollywood: “I used to hate my mouth. My teeth were just big and my mouth was big and when I’d laugh I’d go like this,” she said, covering her face with her hand. “About 15 years ago I started accepting things I disliked about myself growing up.”

So what does any of this have to do with Fast Lane?

I’ve already discussed Lara’s insecurities in Whatchoo lookin' at, beach? and Define dowdy. She thinks of herself as being nothing special, but when she’s vying with some of the most beautiful women in the world for the affections of a very rich, very powerful, very handsome man, she confronts issues similar to those addressed by the fictional Elizabeth and real-life Eva.

What are Lara’s solutions? Well, they’re in the book. But I think when you get to the last page, you’re going to say, “Yesssssssssssssss.”