From: [email protected]
Subject: Nurse Jones' ordeal continues...
Date: 29 Dec 92 23:18:11 GMT
From Nurse Jones,
A quick note before I go back to the Annual Trial By Inlaws. (They are
sleeping in front of the TeeVee at the moment. It will be the Night of
the Living Inlaws Part II again when they wake up.)
(1)
averti writes that he bets he has
> a better sex life than Stephen King and Anne Rice together.
I don't doubt him for a moment. I just haven't been able to get past
the concept of Stephen King and Anne Rice together. Jay says the
relationship might be multiplicative rather than additive. Whatever
that means. I think the two of them might turn out to be more than the
sum of their ... um... parts.
(2)
There has also been a thread on erotica vs pornography.
It's clear from the Maplethorpe/2-live crew/first amendment debacles
that all such terms are subjective and personal, so I can only give
you my favourite definitions:
PORNOGRAPHY n. Whatever gives a federal judge an erection.
EROTICA n. (1) What turns me, a person of good taste, on. (2) Well
written pornography.
(3)
It seems I owe someone an apology. They described my annual Christmas
post as a
> vicious and unwarranted attack on religion.
Sorry, sorry. You know how I get. My fingers can do zero to vicious in
three seconds while my brain is still waiting for the starting gun.
Someone else described the same post as an
> insight on religion.
Thankyou. I wasn't really trying to be satyrical. I really *do* like
the Catholic religion. I've always envied Catholics -- I guess because
I felt excluded from the club. Apparently you have to really search
your heart and genuinely believe things to join.
This has always been a problem for me. I've tried, really. I just
don't seem to be able to make myself believe more than is naturally
and easily acceptable to my mind. In fact, I sometimes wonder if it
would be moral to do so even if I could manage it.
There's been a thread on honesty in relationships, too. I've always
found it's best to tell the truth about everything except the
essentials.
The thing is, some people are so ... well ... stupid ... it's SO much
easier to lie than to take all that time to explain things. I think
lots of people understand this principle, and when someone lies to
them they are more offended by the implication that they might be too
stupid to understand the truth than by the actual mendacity.
(4)
And a public thanks for the recipe on what to do with the angelfood
cake that I baked in the shape of an enormous angelfood pie. The
advice came too late. The Father In Law had already fed it to the Dog
In Law, who promptly threw it up in the form of an enormous angelfood
pond which seeped into the cracks between the sofa cushions. Clearing
his palate for the turkey tasting, I suspect.
The Father In Law's contribution was to scowl at Tinkerbell (aka
Tinks) and say, "Bad Dog," while yours truly tried to scoop copious
angelvomit from between the sofa cushions. Fortunately we have a
lifetime supply of latex gloves. Also fortunately, the sofa came from
Good Will. It's going back, I'm afraid.
(5)
About a zillion kind electronics whizzes have responded to my problem
with the digital bathroom scales -- which still seems to be going bad
on me. The consensus seems to be that there are stress sensors and
other thingies that can fail gradually. Someone suggested I weigh
myself at work, but that one is beginning to read heavy, too. They
just don't make 'em like they used to.
Gotta go. Inlaws arising from the dead and walking the earth. Hell
must be full.
I think Christmas is God's revenge for the crucifiction.
Nurse Jones,
recovering
chocaholic.
averti has said pornography is easy to write because it pushes buttons
that are easy to reach.
At the risk of offending him by suggesting that what he writes is
erotica instead of pornography, I'd like to ask him which he considers
himself to write.
This is dumb. I know perfectly well that if there is an answer it will
be meaningful rather than sensible.
Which violates my own definition of erotica, because he gives me the
feeling that when he sits down at his terminal he opens his subject up
like a pomegranate and tucks a large napkin in his collar. He hasn't
left a single hormone producing (or consuming) organ undissected, and
he still manages to give me That Feeling every time. Ergo Eros.
But if I tried to imitate what averti does it would end up
pornography. What he does is erotica. What explains this? It's not the
vocabulary. averti isn't shy in that regard. One might even call him
explicit.
Since I write nonfiction (and since I am a midwesterner) I'm too
embarrassed by what I do to be anatomically explicit when I write
about it. If it was fiction then maybe it would come out as
pornography, but I keep it clean (by my standards) out of a desire to
not offend (read embarrass) myself. I'd like to think I write erotica
instead of pornography, but a judge might not see the distinction.
Y'all might not either.
The last time we e-talked averti averred that he writes about personal
real.world experience, too. Maybe that has something to do with it.
Maybe if you know it really happened you make the effort to understand
it and that stops it from being pornography.
Also: I love Anita and Jay. I'm very fond of Tom. I can tell averti
cares about Toby/Joker. Maybe caring about the people can temper
writing until it becomes erotica instead of pornography. I dunno. I
bet averti does.
Doing it is easier than writing about it. Usually.
And more fun. Usually.
Nurse Jones,
with some medical advice:
writer's block cures
writer's cramp, and
doing it
cures writer's block
and being done
causes me to write about it
and that
causes writer's cramp
and before you know it,
you need medical advice again.
On to the next posting
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