Category Archives: wanderlust

Masturbation Monday No. 132

Nichy looked out of the window of the train, her heart raced as fast as the train did. Andrew’s hand was on her thigh, and that soothed her. Since they had been together, they touched each other constantly. It was more a thing of survival than anything else. They needed each other right now–if never again.

Paris.

They were headed to Paris, and Nichy clutched Andrew’s thigh. His surrogate thigh, because she remembered being in Paris with Tyler. Another friend, another time, but still Paris.

Andrew’s hotel room looked out onto every crevice of Paris, and Nichy pressed her face to the window because she could not see the Eiffel Tower.

And then she could.

And then she felt Andrew behind her, the press of his erection behind her parallel to the Eiffel Tower. He pulled her close to him, his hands squeezed her breasts as he clutched her to him and kissed her neck.

She heard the song, “Paris” by the Chainsmokers in her head dully. Her body was on fire from his kisses and the press of his shaft against her. Both scalded her, and he had not even gotten her to the bed yet.

Nichy did not want to go to the bed, she wanted him to take her right there…

…as Paris took her in.

More Masturbation Monday here:

paris via wikipedia

Big City

Growing up, I always heard people say they did not want to raise their children in the city. Like city kids were wild animals left loose. I grew up in the city, and I think I turned out okay! There is so much ingrained in me as a result of being a city kid.
Brooklyn is as close to suburban as I ever want to live. It is a borough of New York City, but mostly residential. Even as New York feared its Manhattanization, it is still nothing like Manhattan. Sometimes I like to spend an entire day in Brooklyn, and never get on a train. I love days like that, though they are few and far between these days…
I have sick wanderlust, mostly I seek other big cities by water. Even when I am in another big city, sometimes it seems dwarfed to me because I am so used to New York. I feel like this is it? It is not a cliché if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. Nothing has ever been like New York to me, as big and overwhelming…
But I love to leave it, don’t forget that. And not every return is so home sweet home feeling either. Traveling made me discover there is so much out there, and as great as New York is it cannot embody everything. I remember recently having a horchata latte, something I have never seen in New York.
Often I walk the streets of New York in race-like fashion, and wonder why I cannot stop it when I am elsewhere. I am
always the fastest person unless I make a conscious effort not to be. In New York, I have to move.
But New York is the place I feel the safest, I know so many of its nooks and crannies. New York is the gritty place I went to high school, and rode the subway to places I had never been just to see what they looked like. Where parts of Manhattan feel as familiar to me as Brooklyn, and yet I am surprised almost every day by some person or place. Tall buildings contain me. Sometimes all I think of is the next place I am going to go, or try to learn another language or explore a new cuisine. I take refuge in museums, taking in their immeasurable beauty. Or sit in the lobby of a hotel to write during lunch–my writer’s space.
New York is a giant examination of contradictions, but ultimately home. Living here makes me philosophical and dreamy. Once I only wanted to live here, now I see other places maybe I could live in. But New York is written on me, and indelible.

photo by f dot leonora

a hell of a town…

I left New York for a few days, which I love to do because I have severe wanderlust. When I said I was from New York (City), it was an event. Most people want to visit New York…and I am always trying to escape.
New York is the kind of place that makes you want to travel. Since every culture is represented, you can have a conversation with someone from another country and learn about it. It was in a Starbuck’s with a luscious view of the Empire State Building, that I met a gorgeous Ethiopian woman. As a foodie, I had to ask her about the cuisine there. She told me to order the doro wat in an Ethiopian restaurant, which she said was eaten for special occasions.
Traveling dwarfed New York a bit for me. There is an entire world out there and though a lot of it is represented in New York, it is not all here. It is my mission to seek it out.
Savannah where I wrote this post on its waterfront, is nothing like New York. The Savannahians responded to me nicely, and very proud of their city. Some thought I expected more as a New Yorker, because Savannah is not a “big” city. My response was that I loved the calm, and the smaller size. Since it would have been cool and raining in New York, the heat there was refreshing. The smaller size is nice for a person like me who has wanderlust, but no sense of direction. Honestly my New York life was, and will continue to be so fast-paced, I was more than happy for the break…
The irony of my severe wanderlust, is that I saw Rockefeller Center on weekend Today as I was getting ready for the day and thought that is where I live. My favorite restaurant near my hotel, reminded me of a place in Brooklyn I love. Home is home, it is inside you. I could live somewhere else–I know a few places offhand!–but I will never lose New York…it’s a hell of a town as the song says!

photo taken by f dot leonora from her plane before landing in new york city

paris as muse

If I had to write this post as a detailed report of every photographer I saw and what they were trying to do with their work at this exhibition, I would not do it. I did not like doing that in grade school, and I certainly would not write for pleasure that way. Suffice to say that, I went to the Met today to see their Paris As Muse exhibition, and it served me well…

Paris always inspires me, inspiring me for years before I even visited. Once I went, it seeped into me, became part of me. To define how and why, I am not that eloquent. As soon as I became aware of this exhibition (which is closing this Sunday), I knew I had to go. Sadly pictures were not permitted. The photographs were filled with shadowy people, but mostly architecture and streets. There were a lot of Brassais, who I have been obsessed with forever. He captured the dark side of Paris, and made it look bright. A Man Ray photograph of Meret Oppenheimer was in the collection as well.

Some of the photographers were connected with surrealism, which is my favorite movement in modern art. Like Brassai, it captures a dark side of art. It has been tagged often as being misogynistic, but this does not hinder my appreciation of the style. It was this ode to surrealism, combined with the body of forty photographs that comprised Paris As Muse that ended my writer’s block.

I have a short story I am supposed to write, but it was not materializing. I realized after the idea came to me tonight, that I was afraid of settling. Afraid of settling for an idea. Subconsciously I knew what I wanted, but nothing that I was coming up with was it. All my ideas seemed like a caricature of what I really wanted to write, but now I have got it.

All that is left to do is write it, it which of course will be based in Paris…

Paris

New York is the perfect city to live in if you are going to travel the world, it is incomparable to any place else that I have been. I feel proud and happy when it is my destination after a trip somewhere. My love for New York was completely full and undivided…

…until I went to Paris.

I wanted to go to Paris since I was a little girl, doesn’t everyone? I wanted to go, was always planning for the potential trip and finally I went last year after Eroticon 2013. London was another desired destination, but there was no way I was going to be that close to Paris and not go! After the conference, I hurried to bed for an early train to take me to Paris. In my taxi from Gare Nord, with my charming driver who knew very little English, my eyes were so wide. I kept expecting to hear accordions in the background (when I did on a train I would have tipped the accordionist if I had change).

I was afraid to go to Paris in a way, because I was so in love with it already I was afraid the reality could not live up to that sentiment. The first thing I discovered was that it is a real city, not a museum. People live there, and I tried to be very respectful of that even though I was gawking at everything I saw. Paris is smaller than New York City. As weird as it sounds as a native New Yorker, I hate crowds. I cannot imagine living in a very small town, but sometimes New York is overwhelming. Paris meanwhile is not empty, but you can walk down a street by yourself and hear yourself as well.

On every corner there was a cafe, restaurant, chocolate store or art museum. The things I live for…Sadly there are a lot of bookstores too, but my French is very light. I know how to say perfunctory things, but cannot elaborate the way I do well…here!

I stayed at the same hotel for two separate trips to Paris, and I am planning to stay there for the third trip as well. I love the arrondissement where I have stayed, which is bad-mouthed in all of the guidebooks and good! I want it to stay that way. I have barely eaten outside of the neighborhood, and the last time made friends with the bartenders who served me free snacks. There is a cheese store across the street from the hotel, and I still dream of the cheese I bought there…

Paris is for me a lovely place to exist and be hidden at the same time. As a visitor who is not fluent in the language, I am not an active part of the scene so I can be a voyeur. I enjoy it intensely because Paris is beautiful. On my second trip, I started to see how I could walk from place to place instead of taking the Metro. I started to feel like I was getting the hang of things.

Of course, the erotica editor and writer in me had to go to the Musee de l’Erotisme. I went to Pigalle on a rainy Saturday, down the block from the museum is the Moulin Rouge–with Starbucks across the street! You are not allowed to take pictures there, but my best memory was on the third floor I think, with a wall that told the history of prostitution in Paris. I walked that whole floor so intrigued, reading everything that was written.

Someone asked me why was I going to Paris again, and I answered because it is Paris! I was incredulous that a person could ask such a thing. The only thing about Paris that is a challenge for me is the language barrier, but someday it will not be a barrier either. I am a communicator, I cannot let it be a barrier…