billcoe

yes-just live the dream Life is short...avoid the stingrays.

spray deleted

not:-)

I'd hit it. Well, 'xept I'm married.....27-28 years now????? Wow. Been a while. ...... ......... ............. sigh ........... Ok Yeah I'd hit that.

Full text: "Sorry, but marriage and sex DON'T go together By SADIE NICHOLAS - More by this author » Last updated at 11:25am on 25th January 2008 Comments Comments (11) Carrie Jones hasn't had sex with her husband Hal, a City banker, for the past four years. Nor does she want to. Sex is something she can no longer summon the effort to endure - with the man she married, at least. She admits she stays in her sexless relationship for the sake of her children, aged nine and 11, and will remain celibate until the day they are grown up and she feels able to leave. At which point, she confesses, she will probably abandon her husband and begin a sexual odyssey to find the satisfaction that eludes her. An unusual case? A sorry lack of libido? She insists not. "If I thought I was unique in my sexual disappointment I'd probably be suicidal," muses Carrie, 45, a publishing executive, who lives in North London with Hal and their children. "I remember the first time my girlfriends and I admitted that we all felt the same about married sex as parents: we couldn't be bothered with it and felt guilty for not wanting to sleep with our husbands. It was a revelation. I remember thinking: 'Thank God! It's not just me!' Scroll down for more... Carrie Jones: 'Providing a stable home for children is totally incompatible with having an exciting sex life' "Now I believe there are thousands of other married women who would love to admit sex isn't all it's cracked up to be. But, if the constant cliches in women's magazines and chick-lit are to believed, we should all be enjoying prowess in the boardroom and swooning every night in the bedroom. "It's the great taboo that no one dares admit - that sex is often a let-down." So convinced is Carrie that her experience of sex in marriage - initially pleasant, dwindling to nothing at all after having children - is a universal one that she has just written a book, under an assumed name, highlighting the disappointment of her sex life. "It's a sort of 'Frigid Jones' Diary'," she laughs, though she is not joking. "I want to break the taboo. Sex frequently isn't the chandelier-swinging experience that certain authors would have us believe is every woman's rite of passage. "For me, the sense of being special to Hal faded away just as it did with previous boyfriends. I became obsessed with agony columns, poring over letters talking of boring marriages and the temptation of affairs and willing just one agony aunt to advise someone to run off with a lover. "Of course, they never did. It was always: 'Go and work at your marriage.' But I didn't want to work on mine. I wanted someone to say: 'Actually, perhaps nothing will make you want to sleep with your husband again,' which is how I feel. "I've made my choice. For now I'm caught up in marriage's net, bound up with responsibilities to my children. My interest in sex with the person I was supposed to be closest to has died. I could leave but for now I'll wait because of the desolation it would wreak on my family. "I want to maintain the family unit because it makes other things possible, like doing things together with the children. But one day, when they are older and I can think about my own needs again, I may leave and start all over again. "In the meantime, I want to tell other women that they are not alone in not wanting to have sex with their long-term partners. I don't think it's possible to maintain the passion of the initial chase. But it doesn't mean you won't experience those feelings again with someone else." She may be considering an extreme - some would say distasteful and selfish - course of action for the future but Carrie's upbringing was very conventional. A Cambridge graduate, she was raised in Yorkshire, the only child of teacher parents whose marriage, she says, "was pretty dull". She and Hal were introduced by friends when they were both 33, and she admits that they "clicked brilliantly". They had sex up to five times a week before having children. But like her previous experiences, the longer the relationship lasted, the more disappointing it became. "The problem is that sex in a long-term relationship inevitably becomes less alluring as domesticity sets in," she says. "Hal and I were very well suited in terms of our personalities and common interest in books, music, art and films but we never had the kind of wild, passionate sex that leaves you wanting more. "Like most successful long-term partnerships, our relationship wasn't built on sex or passion. At best, sex was simply fine." But even the "fine" sex Carrie recalls was soon replaced by despondency once the couple's first child was born. "I did the middle-class mother thing in a big way," she says. "I gave up my career, breast-fed each child for a year and spent my days in a dizzy whirl of playgroups and coffee mornings. "I'd flipped from wife to mother, and it gave me excuses - often genuine - to cold-shoulder my husband's sexual advances. He knew I was tired from the children and was always very understanding. He's an unusually kind and tolerant man." Indeed he must be. Certainly, once the first flush of love and lust gives way to familiarity, domesticity and parenthood, few would argue that making love is the wanton adventure it was. But Carrie goes one step further. She believes that marriage and motherhood are simply not conducive to having a sex life at all. "Providing a stable home for children is totally incompatible with having an exciting sex life. The two things are violently at odds," she adds. "After umpteen years with the same person, sex is bound to get boring. Some people put themselves first, have affairs or simply leave their marriages in search of sexual adventure. "I've chosen to sacrifice sexual thrills in order to do the right thing by my kids." But a martyr Carrie isn't, and surely Hal does not feel she is doing the right thing by him. The couple still share a bed, though physical contact is strictly off limits. "We've never discussed the demise of our sex life," she says. "It was more a case of reaching a low ebb of energy on my part. "For a long time I didn't even realise it was the end of marital sex for us. But when years have passed, you realise it ended a long time ago." Unbelievably, her poor, unsuspecting husband is not only unaware of her plans to leave him. He also, she insists, has no idea that she has written a book or posed for these pictures. She seems as confident of him not finding out as she is that he is understanding of her feelings. For when asked whether she worries that Hal may seek sexual gratification elsewhere, she says: "I'm not concerned. I don't think that would happen. It's not Hal's fault that I wish to remain celibate; it's nothing he's said or done. He's a good man and a great dad. It's just that I don't want to be intimate with him any more." Such cold words must leave her husband reeling? She insists not. "There's a general understanding between us that I'm keeping the family unit together," she says. "Children need to be brought up by parents in a monogamous marriage. I wouldn't want to blow that apart, and I certainly wouldn't want the burden of being a single parent. "I know from taking the kids on holiday on my own once when Hal was working that having sole responsibility for them is exhausting." So what of her sexual history? It seems that Carrie wasn't always this uninterested in sex. She admits to having 23 lovers before she married. "Ten were proper boyfriends," she recalls. "I regretted having sex with six of them, loved three of them but only one of the 23 ever gave me an orgasm. "As I entered my thirties, it was obvious my sex life had a recurring, rather depressing pattern: intense desire to begin with followed, if the relationship survived long enough, by a slow winding down into indifference. "Only an affair with a married man called John bucked the trend. But that was doomed by its very nature." Five years ago, Carrie almost cheated on her husband after regaining contact with an old flame on the website Friends Reunited. "I nearly lost my virginity to Mark when we were 17, but my mother arrived home as we enjoyed a fumble in my bedroom," she recalls. "He was gorgeous, looked like a man even back then in his school uniform, and remained in my consciousness for all those years. "When I looked on Friends Reunited, it was an enormous thrill just to find Mark's name. I e-mailed him immediately. He replied with an update on his life and said he was single - I was intoxicated. "We began to exchange flirtatious emails, then text messages and phone calls which became increasingly fraught with sexual tension. "After a few months of tantalising cyber sex, I booked a flight to go and see him in Germany, where he was living, over Easter 2003. But between booking the flight and the departure date, Mark found a girlfriend. I was distraught, my hopes of sexual adventure dashed." Did Carrie not feel an ounce of guilt about her plans to cheat on Hal? "I had been feeling so sour about my sex life with Hal. "But, back in contact with Mark, I suddenly discovered that my sexual urge wasn't dead as I had feared, just dormant. "It was glorious to feel aroused again, and those feelings blocked out any guilt I might otherwise have felt about Hal. "For the few months that Mark and I flirted online, I had two existences: one where I cooked and cleaned and went frigidly to bed at night. And another where I had butterflies in my stomach and stole off to write sexy, flirty emails and text messages to a man I hadn't seen for more than 20 years." Eventually Carrie was forced to confess her feelings about Mark to her husband after he discovered the email exchanges between the two on her computer. Astonishingly, Hal comforted her while she sobbed and, she says, for a short time the pair were closer and more able to talk. "But as time went on, it became clear this was just an interlude in our marriage rather than a permanent change," admits Carrie. "The old coldness returned and, since then, I have been unable to have sex with my husband." Such a sorry tale of a sexless, unfulfilling marriage is in stark contrast to the current throng of writers littering the Amazon book charts with jaw-dropping memoirs of lurid sex lives. Carrie admits that part of her envies those authors who claim to be having lots of sex and, more significantly, love it. The other part of her just doesn't believe them. "I do wonder if they are just writing what they think the audience wants to hear," she says. "I read their accounts of wild sex lives and then ponder my own sexual encounters and wonder: 'Where was the fun, the screaming ecstasy, the fireworks?'" Perhaps when her children are grown up, Carrie will do as she intends and leave her marriage. Only then will she know whether the fantasy of taking in multiple lovers and never committing to one man is a greater thrill than being in a monogamous marriage. • Cutting Up Playgirl: A Cheerful Memoir Of Sexual Disappointment, by Carrie Jones, published by Old Street on February 15, £8.99. "

Or a shopvac.

Fuck, just buy the cheap one and don't fall. I've only irrevocably fucked up one helmet in my life, when I was 16 years old, and that was sort of motocross racing on an unofficial trail when I hit rocks and soared headfirst over the handlebars. I had pretty good elevation and landed head first right onto a pointed basalt rock. You're going to be on snow, worst case you hit some ice and slide into or smack a tree. ..Which is wood. Round. People skied for years with only soft little touques and no one got hurt...till Sony Bono anyway. Theres been sooo many hard lines skied by folks with no helmets... Now you are more likely to fall into a tree well and suffocate. BTW, I finally bought a helmet after I was having the run of my life down 2 bowl (short black diamond). The sun was on it, slightly softening the surface, as I turned the corner at high speed where the trail is under the lift (of course:-), I hit snow in shade that was ice.....skis went out from under me and I started sliding down the hill....headfirst.... hmmmm hmmmm hmmmm This went on... and on...people on the lift were clapping and making rude nosies...I kept sliding. Had a ski pole still in hand and was trying to arrest, I was digging it in hard too, had a good grip -but it was ice... and on.. headfirst... I'm thinking...as I'm still sliding down the LOWER angle part of that run....damn, if I did this without a helmet and it didn't have a safe run out.... like on Heather Canyon (double black diamond) And hit a tree...... Bought a helmet soon afterwards. edit: Don't ask about the earlier slid when trying to climb the Avalanch Gully route on Adams in the winter once. Ice was the culprit. That and my stupidity and arrogance in thinking I can ski on ice in the winter. With cross country skis that had no metal edges. A long way from other people. No cell phones. Dumb. Got lucky - that and the snow cushioned my head landing on the rocks. What a friggan ride that was. Shit, what am I spewing, just spend the money, get light and fits good.

Man those pis look great! Is the forecast for tomorrow really rain? WTF? I need to change weather sites.

no, no, that's just good publicity for the clothing brand: "It'll outlast your rotting flesh, sucka!" Holy crap, is that "Made in China" label?

they're everywhere

You can get shots for that you know, sorry you found out the hard way dude.

I just feel old...... You got anything funny you can post?

OMG we look dumber than the dogs. 2 purebred Jack Russells, both used dogs: Sadie is the Puddin' Jack on the left, Hank the dog is on the right. Took the pic of the snow Christmas Day on our front porch steps to show our daughter, who's been living in Hawaii for 4 years (it was over 70 degrees there that day:-), what she was missing. .........slush.... She'd worked up at the ski resort for a couple of years, hoping it brought back memories for her:-)

Well I heard ya John but I wasn't listening.... my bad... Which means I'll really be listening closely next time:-) I don't see an announcement of record profits and increased future financial projections as well resulting or coinciding with a stock dump often, but I'm hanging in for the long haul anyway...as these phones go into various countries, the potential market is huge! Now, not to be a contrarian, but another buddy tells me to NEVER bet on a company who is in a market space Microsoft is getting into. (Google) Intel rules BTW, but Peter Lynch says that a company that is toooooo huge or big cannot get you multiples on investment. So, Microsoft is a great company, Intel is a great company: but..... BTW, own up...besides me, who here jumped on a few shares of Lucent (now Alactel) before Cisco decided to jump in that space and disrupted that company in a huge way? cough*cough* NO investment advise from Moi.

Interesting Mikester. Sounds like you weren't in heavy cover. One of the areas I head is original old growth, close growing to the point where everything except for a few Huckleberrys and Hemlocks are gone: and I want good topos too, thats the point for me, to find and climb on things which have not yet been found. The Garmin Colorados came out just today, and REI has an exclusive on the 400t...for now. cough* $599, cough* cough* for the 400t (for topo). I don't see how it's better than the Delorme though. Lets see, USFS quad map... $ 6.99 or something like that, so $599 divided by that = hmmm lot O' paper Topo maps.

I'm keeping out of the financial sector advice and stock tipping industry and maybe I'll do better in the cow tipping industry instead. The other day I talked up Apple. Yesterday they posted record profits and "guidance" of 29 perent qtr over qtr increase in profits and the stock dropped as low as $29.00 a share off the prev days close, or over 15% off today at it's low. I'm in STFU mode. But I'll talk about panties.

Hunchback of Notre dame redux ?

OMG, thats funny and different. Bet he F*ed Miss Piggy more than once.

Oof Da: With 50 lbs of Crisco I could probably "Master" that Couch:-)

Remember the Pueblo? Anniversary January 23, 1968. One day you're in international waters and a couple of fishing trawlers pass too close for no apparent reason. The next day all hell breaks lose and for 11 months you and all your compadres are beaten and tortured daily. Link

Light weight and ease of use sound important. Garmin seems to have the ease of use down. It really sounds like you can easily get the Garmin to download your route onto the National Geographic 1/24000 topos. So before the trip, you upload the 1/100,000 Garmin map and comeback and download your waypoints onto a computer with NG topos. It would be nice to have the actual scanned USFS quad topos and not have to do this rigamorole, but it sounds like you can't read them on the unit anyway....and it doesn't sound like a lot of trouble.... Hmmmmmmmmm

Thanks Blurpe, that looks awesome - you must have been ass deep to snow. I tried the other side of the ditch @ 2weeks ago and didn't get the car higher than 1200' before I got it stuck and all tore up. Luvshaker, totally agree, and a compass with that altimeter for sure. In fact, if marginal weather is possible, it wouldn't hurt if every one in a party had one. I have one of the new school watch altimeters and it was cheap and surprisingly fairly accurate. I wish the watch had the compass too, some of them do. Then I'd have it all the time. Kind of like, I rarely get stuck out without a headlamp any more (unlike when I was young and headlamps were serious affairs) as they are so easy to stuff one of the lil guys in your pocket. Good stuff!

Thats fantastic news Drew~! Awesome stuff!

Well you're no fun! See if you get invited - BTW, how old are you? (good advice on the under the bridge tie off thing.)

(Insert high pitch whining noise here which sounds like Mr Cheswicks whine to Nurse Ratchet that he wants his cigarettes back, listen to the U-tube clip to get the feel for this) B5NyyC-UjBM "Sir... (coming into the REI and addressing some pimply faced teenager): My rope is tangled and it's brand new and I want a new one ..... my rope is tangled and I bought it here and I want a new one....one thats not tangled." "I SAID: MY BRAND NEW ROPE IS TANGLED AND I WANT A NEW ONE WHHHHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!.......I WANT A NEW ONE ..........!!!!!!!!!!! I WANT A NEW ONE WHHHHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHAA !!!!!" I WANT A NEW ONE WHHHHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHAA !!!!!" I WANT A NEW ONE WHHHHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHAA !!!!!" I WANT A NEW ONE WHHHHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHAA !!!!!" And you got one too! Remarkable. Want to get into the office pool for the date they stop selling ropes? __________________________________________________________ Stay tuned for part 2, "Rappelling with an Italian (Munter) hitch", cue "As the World Turns" music and lights out.