Tag Archives: Eiffel Tower

Centerfold

Centerfold: (n) the two middle pages of a magazine, typically taken up by a single illustration or feature.

Warily, I share. Why? Because I don’t think anyone will believe me.

I have only looked at one Playboy centerfold in my entire life.

I don’t know if this makes me under-sexed or virtuous. Hopefully, it makes me who I am. I just never had an interest in pictures of good
things.

For instance, I’ve also never looked at photographs of the Grand Canyon or gazed at a glossy of the Eiffel Tower.

Although people insist a picture is worth a thousand words, it usually barely gives me a sentence.

I like to experience.

So the one time I did peruse a totally naked woman in a centerfold of Playboy, I had two sensations:

  1. I was intruding.

Even though this lovely young woman signed on the dotted line to have her image splashed throughout the world, I felt it was not my business.

  1. I knew I would never get that image out of my mind for the rest of my life.

I can still bring it up on the old brain screen today.

So when I’m told that pornography does not affect how people think, feel or react, I must gently scoff. Of course it does. It’s why folks look at it–to be affected. To be stimulated. To be seduced by their own thoughts.

So the notion that this “romantic LSD trip” in the mind will not return when we least expect it is ludicrous.

There is a power in purity–not because it is more righteous. It’s just that purity grants us a clear head to have our own “trips”–instead of those which are photoshopped for us.

 

 

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Abroad

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abroad: (adv.): 1. in or to a foreign country or countries: we usually go abroad for a week in June 2. in different directions; over a wide area: the seeds were scattered abroad.

I always wanted to say “abroad.” Unfortunately, you must have a certain amount of money, clout and look good in an Ascot to be able to mutter the word. I once tried wearing an Ascot, but it ended up looking like I had tied a fancy piece of cloth around my neck to cover up an ugly goiter.

“Abroad” is one of those words people used when I was a kid to refer to countries that were not nearly as freedom-loving as America, but had much prettier stuff. It amazed me that the United States was the greatest nation on earth but you had to go to Greece to see the Parthenon, Paris to check out the Eiffel Tower and London to hear Big Ben ring his chimes.

Maybe that’s the whole problem–we settle for mediocrity in our own lives while maintaining comfort, but yearn to go “abroad” to check out the really cool stuff. I don’t know when “abroad” became “overseas,”  or then changed to specifics like Europe, Africa, Australia.

But I still think if I ever became wealthy, I would be tempted to rub it into people’s noses by telling them I was going to the ambiguous nation of “abroad” so as to make them wonder for a longer period of time, exactly how exotic my destination might be.

I did try it once. I was going on a trip to Toronto, Canada, and informed some friends that I would be out-of-pocket for a few weeks because I would be “abroad.” Looking at me like I had just registered a really loud belch, they inquired exactly where “abroad” was going to be.

I wanted to lie. I really wanted to make up some country that none of them would be familiar with, but frightened to question lest they appeared ignorant. But my nasty penchant for telling the truth, mingled with my lack of creative spontaneity, caused me to blurt out, “Canada.”

They all thought this was hilarious. For after all, EVERYONE knows–Canada is not abroad. It’s attached.

There’s the rule. You can’t say you’re going abroad if where you’re going is hooked to your homeland.  So “abroad” is anything that requires you cross a body of water.

And I think that would mean an ocean instead of a creek.