Category: Four Minute Read
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Protected: My Annual Birthday Selfie: A Celebration of Embodiment
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
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My One-Year Journey with Tantric Massage Therapy
For the past year, I’ve been experiencing tantric massage therapy here in Barcelona, and at 65 years old, it’s the first time in my life I’ve ever done anything like this. What began as a completely serendipitous encounter has become a profound healing journey that has transformed my relationship with my body and myself. I…
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The Mountain Where Time Stands Still: My Secret Retreat from Barcelona’s Bustle
Each year, I escape to Montserrat for a solitude retreat that renews my spirit in ways no other place can. Just an hour from Barcelona by train, this mountain sanctuary feels like stepping into another world. The magic truly begins after 5 pm, when day-trippers board their buses and descend to the city. Suddenly, the…
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Barcelona: The Muse Behind “The Purging Room”
In the labyrinthine streets of Barcelona, where Gothic spires rise above modernist masterpieces and ancient Roman walls embrace Mediterranean shores, I found the perfect muse for my transformative novella, The Purging Room. The idea was born in the Appalachian wilderness, but it needed Barcelona’s unique blend of architectural time travel, artistic rebellion, and sensual atmosphere…
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Unholy Yearnings
My tender and urgent longings as a sensual adolescent soon clashed with the harsh reality of a prudish religious upbringing. And for over forty years, I suppressed my gnawing hungers, my incessant desires, and my carnal fantasies. But a single touch of a friend sent courses of electricity through my being and cast a hot…
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I Survived Hell
As anyone who knows post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) will tell you, days and nights can be unpredictable. It can be the brightest day, in the loveliest place, or the most cozy night, nestled in cotton sheets, and you still feel like your being is sucked dry. I fight a relentless battle with shame, fear, guilt,…
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Writing and Painting the Hidden Things that People Dare Not Face or Say
Ah, the secrets we keep, the longings and desires we hide. We are afraid to be honest with others (and sometimes, rightly so); tragically, we are scared to be honest with ourselves. If you dare, play a game with me. Look, in your mind, at this photograph. Is it of a nude (or would…
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My Raw Thoughts A Few Minutes After the 2024 Presidential Election Was Called
Shock. Horror. Disbelief. Disappointment. Hollow vindication. These are a few of the violent emotions that swept over me this morning when the Associated Press confirmed that a psychopathic criminal filled with hatred has been re-elected President of the United States. Surreal. I would never have dreamed this would happen after the traitorous attempted coup and…
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My Most Controversial Art Yet. Why?
I grew up smothered by religion. My father and both grandfathers were preachers. Sexual pleasure never came up in family conversations or sermons. To this day. And I’m 66 years old. Never will I forget, at around age eleven or twelve, waking up with wet white stuff covering my sheet. I had been dreaming about…
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Loreena McKennitt In Concert (The Backstory)
Last night, Gina and I saw Loreena McKennitt for the first time in concert. I have loved her music for over thirty years, particularly her vocal clarity and quality. Afterward, I told Gina the backstory of the song The Mummer’s Dance, which helped her understand why I was so moved last night as the stunningly…
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Impromptu (and Candid) Thoughts
(A Four-Minute Read) I retired at the age of forty-eight. Which caused a few years of tumultuous adjustment—tears shed over this self-imposed exile from the stage; once applauded by audiences, admired by peers, and stopped by strangers in the street; how could I not feel some bereavement over the waning of my celebrity, the weekly…
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My Culture Survey (Spain Edition)
**I saw this survey in The Atlantic and loved it. I adapted it slightly. The upcoming event I’m most looking forward to: Visiting the Costa Brava of Spain. The sun-kissed land, a rugged coastline lined with pine-edged coves, golden untouched beaches, and crystal clear water. Its beauty extends inland with important Greco-Roman ruins, and quiet Medieval villages,…
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Sex is a funny little concept, isn’t it?
Traditionally, a male puffs up or hardens his sex organ and physically mounts another human, animal, or sex toy, shoves it into an orifice, and then moves it vigorously in and out as the penis hopefully remains stiff (for many, thanks to Viagra) until it contracts and spews out a whitish substance that inexplicably can…
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Thoughts After One Month In Spain
It has been a fast and furious thirty days in Barcelona, preceded by an extremely busy September through December, evaluating neighborhoods, selling most of our earthly belongings, estate sales, obtaining our visas, getting our vaccines, and so much more. We have not stopped for five months—no wonder we feel exhausted. When we settled into our…
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I Read Banned Books as a Child and am Better For It
During my elementary school years in the early 1970s, I read everything. Books about Roman gods and teen detectives (male and female) and gruesomely martyred saints, but also ancient encyclopedias bought at Goodwill, used Reader’s Digests and my grandmother’s Penny’s catalog. In the time-honored tradition of nerds everywhere, I read the backs of cereal boxes…
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I Defy You, Oh Church (Notes from a Rebellious Ass)
08/31/2023 And now I, at long last, know why I can’t stand religious people. They try to take away my wholeness: my sensuality, my curiosity, my intimacy, and my freedom. For how can any person be free without an illimitable life? Yet religion tries to imprison me in a sterile sanctuary and make me sing…
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Search for Best Sandwich in Tampa Bay (#2) Next! The second tasting is the Montreal Beef Sandwich at Dunedin Smokehouse. I had a difficult time finding a place in Tampa Bay that had this sandwich and to my surprise and delight, it was literally in my hometown. Thanks to my neighbor Charlie Flately for reading…
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Breaking Taboos
I know (from private messages, emails, and texts) that others share my quest for freedom from religious, political, and cultural censorship and taboos. Thank goodness, I am not alone, not the only one! This post is about those in the second half of life who have radically transformed our lives. And for those who secretly…
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TASTING Tampa Bay: 26 of the World’s Best Sandwiches
If you’ve known me long, you know I LOVE trying new things. So I’ve asked Gina to join me as we seek to determine my world’s favorite sandwich in the Tampa Bay area. I was able to locate 15 of the CNN “World’s Best” 23 Sandwiches. 1.) Katsu Sando Sandwich (Japan) — Pin On Cafe,…
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Fulfilling A Disappointment (The Backstory)
I was the first person in my family to graduate high school. As I prepared for that momentous day, the guidance counselor (whom I had never met) summoned me to her office. She told me I had made the highest grade on the American College Test in the school’s history. I was then given two…