Date: 2005-02-08
To: ideal marriage and other considerations
Miles today: 0.0

I have not fallen off any (more) trains lately, but today I found this totally amazing book on sale at the library for two bucks. I bought it for a friend but decided to keep it. It's too good to give away. I can¢t do it. It¢s a marriage manual from 1926 entitled ¢Ideal Marriage: Its Physiology and Technique,¢ by ¢Th. H. Van de Velde, M.D.¢ Harry Elmer Barnes of the New York World-Telegram tells us on the cover that ¢This book can do more to lessen conjugal unhappiness and to promote successful family life than all the religious exhortations from Moses to Manning.¢ I¢m not sure who Manning is, although there was a chapel with that name where I went to school, but still, that¢s a pretty hot recommendation, no?This book defies description. I really cannot do it justice. One footnote informs us sagely that the Japanese do not kiss; another says, and I quote, ¢It is now universally recognized and accepted by neurologists that the feminine psyche reacts to every repression (conscious or unconscious) of sexual wishes, with neurotic symptoms.¢ Universally, no less. There¢s another fabulous passage all about how what women really need to learn to do is pee lying down.Then there¢s this mind-blowing little tidbit: ¢The male genitals can be much more briefly dealt with than his partner¢s for the sexual functions do not dominate and set the time to his whole life as they do to hers.        As Byron said: -                Man¢s love is of man¢s life a thing apart,                ¢Tis woman¢s whole existence.Nature has interwoven woman's life and organism throughout with sex and with potential motherhood. But man is primarily responsible for the preservation and support of the woman and children for whom he is responsible. Racially and reproductively, he has only to supply the fertilizing element to the woman. Sex is the essential element in woman; in man it is accessory.This contrast is shown in the relative position and range of the sexual apparatus. In woman they are in the innermost receses of the body; in man they are only an exterior limb. And this 'membrum virile' is far from aesthetically attractive; in fact so little lovely that painters and sculptors habitually represent it as smaller and more insignificant than it is in reality."Ah, Byron. Ever the arbiter of truth.But seriously, folks. You do not find this kind of reading material every day. Speaking of which: what on Earth am I going to do on the Trail? I really need a lightweight paperback with small, small print. I don¢t think I can go entirely without.I brought this book home and I said, ¢Dad, listen to this!¢ and I started reading and he was like, ¢whoa STOP. eNOUGH.¢ Hehe.Ooh hoo, and Dr. Van de Velde wasn¢t all, either. I am now ALSO the proud owner of ¢The Decade of Women: A Ms. History of the Seventies in Words and Pictures, with an Introduction by Gloria Steinem¢ (the hair? is amazing) AND ¢The Berenstain Bears and the Female Fullback.¢ (From the back cover: ¢Bertha Broom is big, strong, and fast. But a female fullback? ¢Let her play,¢ say the girls. ¢No way,¢ say the boys. Coach Grizzmeyer says, ¢N-O!¢¢¦Can Bear Country survive a war of the sexes?¢) Seventy-five cents for that sh*t. I¢m telling you. I¢m dying. It¢s too much. It¢s amazing. God, I love library sales.Man, it¢s enough to make me go knock on my college advisor¢s door. When I graduated she was all ¢I want you to go get a PhD¢ and I was all ¢except I want to go backpacking.¢ Big shout out to Dr. Weed. Hi, Dr. Weed! My very own Coach Grizzmeyer, only, you know, more supportive. (Although at this point, she might pretend not to know me. I mean, girl can¢t even get off a train.) All of which does in fact bring us to a very cogent, Trail-related question: if, as Amanda Luff GA-ME 05 has cogently observed in her own journal, hiking the AT is like marrying the Trail, what is the ¢physiology and technique¢ for that marriage? Perhaps I should refer to the chapter on the Necessity of Gradualness. (Not making it up.) Perhaps to the chapter on Bathing. And perhaps to the call for Tact, Sympathy, and Self-Control.Am I overthinking this? Well, yeah, probably, but still: I am not the one bringing a big pirate flag with me that says ¢surrender the booty.¢ Wyatt gets that honor. Although I will confess I think the booty flag is pretty effing awesome. And by the way, intrepid readers, don¢t think I forgot about what I was writing about two weeks ago, either. I just got too sick for philosophy. It¢s coming back. Suckers.