Profunksticated

Profunksticated usually doesn’t comment on politics or punditry (Lord knows there’s enough of that in the blogosphere), but the recent rantings of one Pat Buchanan has him riled. In a nutshell, this guy says that people of African descent should be thankful our ancestors were dragged from their homeland in chains and brought here to America.

Is this knucklehead serious??? I’d like to think Buchanan writes this bullsh*t just to get paid and appease his right wing audience. I can’t believe he really believes this nonsense. I’m being charitable, I guess.

Fellow blogger Brother Peacemaker isn’t nearly as forgiving. Dude believes Buchanan is something less than human. You’ll love the illustration of his post.

Peace.

The Hostess, one of Profunksticated’s favorite bloggers, has a discussion going on how she’d like to be a stay-at-home mom (SAHM).

Me? Early on in my marriage, I would have reveled in being a stay-at-home dad (SAHD) if The Spouse had brought home six figures worth of bacon. Stop snickering. I’m serious. This is when I was in my late 20s and otherwise very status-conscious. Hey, I could take care of the kids and freelance write from home. Damn straight.

Come to think of it, I still wouldn’t mind being at home with my youngest son even today if The Spouse could work. And at 48, I really, really, really wouldn’t give a damn what anyone else thought about our arrangement.

Peace.

Profunksticated on occasion plays the lottery although he knows the odds of winning are longer than a trip to Mars, the planet pictured on this blog. (I do much better at blackjack.) But how about a lottery where the winners get — are you ready for this — health insurance???

I kid you not. This lottery is brought to you by the great state of Oregon (which by the way is one of two states that don’t allow drivers to pump their own gas. New Jersey is the other). But I digress.

Read it and weep. This is awful.

Peace.

Profunksticated wishes you a blessed Resurrection Sunday. (In recent years, The Spouse and I have resisted calling this holiest of days Easter.)

Here’s an interesting take on why Resurrection Sunday carries little, if any, of the crass commercialism of Christmas.

Again, be blessed, y’all.

Peace.

Old Profunksticated has been hammered by a couple of readers for dancing along the edge of the abyss that is marital infidelity, adultery or whatever you want to call screwing around with someone other than one’s spouse. (See the post Too Close for Comfort.) At least give me credit for posting that crazy-azz story.

Yes, I’ve fallen into that chasm on several occasions in the past years but at least I admitted it to The Spouse, which was one of the hardest things I ever did. (Some of my male friends to this day believe I was crazy for doing so. That’s their problem.)

We all know modern-day humans, specifically Americans, make public pledges to commit themselves spirtually, emotionally, financially and of course, sexually, to one person. But should we be really that surprised when men find they really don’t want to spend their lives having sex with only one woman and end up having sex with some other woman?

Check out this article, of course pegged to the recent pecadilloes of New York’s erstwhile governor, Eliott Ness, er, I mean Eliot Spitzer. It alleges male humans are simply hard-wired to want to have multiple partners.

I found interesting these quotes:

Even in human societies, Americans are relatively unique in their expectation of lifelong fidelity, said University of Texas psychologist and author David Buss.

“Historically, most cultures are polygynous, meaning men are legally entitled to take multiple wives, and so mating with many women is very common across cultures and perfectly acceptable in many cultures,” he said from Austin, Texas. “Our culture is somewhat unique in that we have presumptive monogamy or legal monogamy — men are only supposed to have one woman.”

And this:

“If you look at marriages, in fact, more than half of them — in America anyway — do remain monogamous,” Buss said. “I think it’s important to keep in mind that although we do have these biological impulses to stray, we also have inhibitions against straying, for example, reputational damage. When people get caught straying, they incur reputational damage, and we are very concerned about our social reputations.”

I think this article captures a great point. I’m not defending what we call extramarital sex, cheating, adultery or infidelity or whatever you want to call it. Just that for me, Christianity’s strictures notwithstanding, the article provides biological evidence for men wanting to stray. While many don’t, some actually do.

I should be a marriage counselor, ‘cause I would give women advice from a former adulterous man’s point of view, straight with no chaser. I would tell a woman that she needs to assume the man she marries is, at the very least, is harboring fantasties of sex with other women whether that guy wants to admit it or not.

If he has already been having sex, those fantasies are only that much stronger. If your man is a virgin, (highly unlikely) you might have hit the lottery — he has no prior experience with which to compare yours to. The only thing you have to battle maybe is the dreaded seven-year itch.

This is stuff that a woman and her intended needs to discuss before the marriage. And after you’re married, he needs to be free to tell you he’s attracted to a specific woman or women, but doesn’t want to carry out the ultimate dirty deed. And ladies, please don’t trip when he tells you of such attraction. Be thankful he’s willing to be honest, and then you two can work it out.

My wife and me? We didn’t have those discussions prior to our marriage, which I entered into somewhat reluctantly. I got married because I believed I was expected to. After all, I had spent several years with this person. But I had gotten the taste of other sexual partners long before I met her.

To me, sex was like a drug, which is why I habitually messed around even before the marriage. Telling the truth was the farthest thing from my mind. Most guys of my age cohort behaved similarly. I wasn’t unique. Looking back, perhaps I should been honest about what I was doing, and let the chips fall where they may. I don’t know how my life would have been different.

As I entered my teen years, the extent of my discussions with my father about sex consisted of his saying, “Keep your peter in your pants.” (Yeah, right.) And the church I attended taught young men virtually nothing about premarital sex. As a matter of fact, I was 18 and already in college the first time I heard that God didn’t like people having sex before marriage. I thought it was the biggest crock of shit I ever heard. My thinking was, “If God doesn’t want me to have sex, then why am I feeling horny all the time?”

Churches today are better today at encouraging young people to wait until marriage before having sex, but I still believe that two things are gonna happen: Either these folks are going to get married early like back in the old days, or they’re going to break their virginity pledges sometime in their mid-20s while they’re building their careers and have premarital sex anyway. The urge is simply too strong.

If American society wants to preserve the sexual sanctity within the institution of marriage, it’s going to take more than Biblical admonitions of fire and brimstone to stop men from doing what comes all too naturally. It’s going to take from-the-cradle counseling of boys as they grow into men of the idea that it’s better to wait until marriage to become one with the women they truly love — regardless of their biological urges.

Peace.

Profunksticated, where it comes to his younger brother, is believing that “it” is starting to happen.

“It” is the unofficial, unspoken competition among women of our age cohort for the affections of my 46-year-old brother now that his wife is deceased. Right now, it appears that the sole early contestant is a woman in her late 30s who is a childhood friend of our sister. She is the granddaughter of a now-deceased neighbor, and the woman’s mother is a close friend of my parents.

This chick also has a 13-year-old son. She even served as a hostess in mine and The Spouse’s wedding 21 years ago.

She’s been at my brother’s house every night this week, performing various tasks such as uncluttering his house and even helping to write the obituary.

Another male friend who visited my brother also noticed her presence, and we talked about it. I told him I was somewhat suspicious of her motives partly because I had heard that after a professional athlete friend of ours died some years back, said woman was apparently too obvious in her efforts to get herself noticed by teammates attending the funeral.

My friend said, “Damn, I never heard that. Now I can see why you would think that (she might be trying lay the groundwork for my brother’s attention).”

We agreed that she has the advantage in that she’s got history with my family. But we also agreed my brother is going to have way too much on his plate in the coming weeks to even think about dating seriously. Not the least of which is adjusting to life as a single parent dealing with two sons — a soon-to-be 19-year-old and one that’s 13 who seems to have a little too much swagger for his own good.

Now I could be wrong about this woman. But I cannot help but wonder how many other chicks are gonna try to get up in my brother’s grill once he’s alone.

I remember once posting a comment on Hostess’ blog asking the hypothetical question of what would happen if a 40-something male became a widower. As I recall, Hostess replied in part that women, especially the church women, would be offering to clean the late wife’s stuff out of his house with the quickness.

(Hostess, if you’re reading this, I looked for that exchange in your blog but couldn’t find it. Did you delete it?)

At the time I posted the query, I had no idea my sister-in-law was turning for the worse. Turns out my question was sadly prophetic. Take care, y’all.

Peace.

Profunksticated, after posting some bad news in recent days, wants to go a different direction.

I’d like to pose this question: Are obviously married men really viewed by single women as “off limits?” I ask because for some strange reason I decided to hit a club in Maryland one recent Saturday. I asked a woman to dance. OK, nothing wrong with that. I am wearing my wedding band, so I don’t believe I’m trying to hide anything.

But then this chick suddenly decides she wants to get too close for comfort. I should have gently pushed her away, but being a man, I instead allowed her to get close and myself to get caught up in the moment. After dancing, I bought her entire party drinks (a friend was celebrating a birthday). And even when we talked she put her arm around me and mine around hers. We pretty much spent the entire evening on the floor, of course, too close for comfort.

I told her I’d liked to talk with her at a later time, my intent being to tell her my unorthodox work arrangement. Then finally she asked the question: “Have you ever been married?”

“Yes, I’m married now. My family is in New Jersey.”

She give me a weird look. “Well, is a divorce in the offing?”

“No.”

“Then why are you here and your family there?”

“Because I’m working down here.”

“You mean the only thing separating you and your wife is a job?”

“Yes.”

“I saw the ring, but I assumed you were separated or something like that.” I told her I wanted to talk with her later, but not in the loud atmosphere.

So I give her my number (big mistake), and I leave, somewhat bewildered. She didn’t give me hers.

She said she’d call the next day, but didn’t. I figured she wouldn’t bother.

But no, she calls me the following Tuesday. She starts peppering me with questions about what kind of relationship I’m looking for with a woman. I tell her we can just hang out. She says she doesn’t believe me, because no man can hang out with a woman without wanting as some of you folks call it, chex.

Anyhow, I remained civil throughout the conversation, but inside I became increasingly irritated. Now I cannot remember every detail of the phone convo, but the upshot was this: Despite noticing the band on my finger, she decided to get her grind on me on a dance floor. In her mind, that was OK. But my touching her and holding her OFF the floor was a signal that I might have wanted something more from her. Her feeling seemed to me to be “how dare you lead me on when you know you’re married!”

I must be fair. My flesh would have wanted to jump in the sack with her in a second. But my spirit felt otherwise.

OK, women out there, can someone please tell me why a woman would act in what I regard as an irrational matter? She knew by seeing my wedding band I was attached in some sort of way. Why would she even bother to initiate physical contact with me of any kind? For all she knew, my wife could have been a few miles away rather than 150. Could it have been the “Bahama Mamas” she was drinking?

I felt like she had me sized up over a three-hour period as potential “committed relationship” material and was disappointed when I told her my situation. She also talked about how marriage was important to her, she was married for 15 years, her ex had cheated, she didn’t want to have a relationship with a married man, yada, yada, yada.

I’m to the point to where I either avoid clubs entirely, or when I do go, show my ring to a woman when asking her to dance and say “I only want to get my swerve on, that’s it.”

I don’t think I’m totally blameless, but I do like to go out every now and then.

Any thoughts? Am I crazy?

Peace.

Profunksticated’s younger brother is a widower.

His wife of 22 years, my sister-in-law, passed away Sunday in New Jersey shortly after noon. She had been on a ventilator since last Tuesday, after years of battling lung disease brought on by rheumatoid arthritis. My brother, sister and I did the overnight bedside vigil. My brother decided Saturday he would order the ventilator removed because his wife was showing absolutely no improvement or consciousness.

I’d been holding back, but finally lost it as the ICU staff prepped to begin the ventilator removal. I simply couldn’t bear to watch. My mother and brother had to lead me to the ICU waiting room.

My sister told me that our sister-in-law passed with apparently little discomfort about 20 minutes after being taken off life support. Also hard was telling their two sons, 18 and 13, who were understandably upset. Their mom is gone.

The homegoing service is scheduled for this Saturday. I expect the church to be packed. My sis-in-law was a fiesty little woman, alway teasing and cracking jokes. She rarely complained about her condition, all the while caring for her husband and two sons. She fought the good fight, and now she’s in a better place — with the good Lord. May you rest in peace, sis.

Peace.

Profunksticated used to ponder this question: What are the odds of two brothers marrying women from different parts of the country who both come down with autoimmune diseases?

My wife, or The Spouse, as I like to refer to her in this blog, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2003. She keeps it in check with injections of a drug called Copaxone. My younger brother’s wife came down with rheumatoid arthritis back in the early 1990s, after they’d been married just five years. She’s now about 44.

Both diseases are the result of the immune systems committing treason, to use a political/legal term. Instead of protecting the body from invaders, they attack body tissue. MS attacks the brain, while RA attacks joint tissue.

My sister-in-law’s RA also attacked her lungs. She’s been on oxygen for several years. She was ruled out as a lung transplant candidate a couple of years ago due to the risk of damage to her esophagus.

In the last six months, her condition has worsened. Sis-in-law has been in and out of the hospital fighting various bouts of pneumonia. She’s been hospitalized again last night, and this time, she’s been placed on a ventilator. As I write this, she’s in critical but stable condition. Even if she gets through this, doctors say that, at best, she has one to two years to live.

I think for my brother, the situation is finally hitting home. He sounded to me like he was in a daze when I spoke to him last night. His two sons, 18 and 13, were emotionally busted up at seeing their mother lying in a hospital bed attached to all manner of tubes.

Again, we’ll need your prayers.

Back to my original question. If this article from Tuesday’s Washington Post is true, then the odds of two siblings marrying women with faulty immune systems aren’t all that long.

Meanwhile, my wife tells me our daughter will need at least a month of physical therapy in recovering from her being struck by a car. Our daughter, who’s been a trouper, finally broke down emotionally yesterday. That’s good. Tears are cleansing.

That’s it for now.

Peace.