greetings from beautiful bethany beach delaware, where improbably enough "mr small" and i are vacationing, and celebrating our 23rd month together.

and this post confirms we have internet access down here. not from mr small's home, since he cut off his telephone landlines and doesn't have cable/internet (he's too cheap for that. as he often says, he only uses this place 20 days a year, max). rather, i'm stealing wifi access from some nearby neighbor.

amazing revelations made in this vacation blog. mr small has a son i didn't even know about. he's 24, and the progeny of his 1st wife. turns out the woman i thought was the 1st wife is really his 2nd. i hope she's only his 2nd. 3rd time's the charm right? or is that a strikeout? in any case he's never going to propose, and i told you he's getting cheaper every month. why buy the cow when the milk is free?

but i digress. "son24" is here with his girlfriend "resin". mr small left me alone with them this morning to go play golf, thinking i would be safe. hardly. "son24" is only 9 years younger than me, and i doubt if any girl is safe with him. not in an evil sense - he just spends waaaaaay too much time looking at me. you are all too acutely aware when you're being looked at, even when your husband or boyfriend is oblivious to it. are you with me on this one, girls?

anyway, no sounds of passion last night - either from our bedroom or theirs. i don't actually like quiet men. not to say that i like exaggerated grunting and groaning, but younger people should put enough energy into it to work up a sweat, is what i think. that's the basic problem with dating an old(er) guy. they want to take it easy, and be babied. i'm too young to baby someone 173% of my own age. and besides, sometimes i miss feeling a guy's weight and energy for 45 minutes as he pounds away, sweat dripping down on my heaving bosom, with a crazed look on both our faces.

okay, enough of that. lets keep it clean, BA.

what's happening in bethany beach? don't come here. really. we parked downtown at 230 in the afternoon on cloudy day in an empty parking lot (the one a block a way from the rib restaurant) and served up 6 quarters to buy 1 hour and 12 minutes on the meter. we got back from lunch 1 hour and 14 minutes later, and had 2 tickets. one written exactly as the meter expired ($25). the other ($20) was for parking a non-compact car in a compact car space. i kid you not. we were the only car in the frickin lot, and this ticket was written 5 minutes BEFORE the meter expired. so you know the meter moron just stood there waiting for it to expire, because NOBODY ELSE WAS PARKED ANYWHERE NEARBY AND THEY HAVE A QUOTA.

so basically we're boycotting bethany beach restaurants and stores, because the local law enforcement types are assholes. take that, bethany blues, the frog pond, the blue crab, and all you other overpriced, mediocre restaurants. parking is free 4 miles away at nicks house of ribs, the fenwick crab house, etc.

i used to work at fenwick crab house. and before that another crab restaurant which the owner burned down so he could put up condos. (that infamous "kitchen fire" while it was closed for the winter).  let me tell you carrying heavy trays of hot steaming crabs and mugs of low alcohol beer to people who are unreasonably drunk and rude and bad tippers is hard work.

thats how i met mr small, truth be told. work in a cheap restaurant, meet a cheap guy.

i'm being unfair. anybody who buys himself a new car after 8 months because of vague dissatisfaction with the old one isn't cheap generically. and he does pay every blessed dime for me (and dani !!) whenever we're with him. and he bought me a bikini, now that i'm on the cusp of not being able to wear one. (gravity is starting to be a problem, not cellulite, if you're trying to envision the problem)

i think mr small enjoys displaying me to strangers. why buy your (almost) pretty and (much) younger girlfriend something more appropriate for rio de janero than delaware, if not for that purpose? anyway, i'm a good sport, and i played along. i can hardly pretend to modesty, since he knows i did the modelling thing in college.

some guys are attracted to innocence. others are attracted to those who've experienced a few of life's hard knocks. god bless them - provided they don't become a source of future hard knocks. but there is always the element of "i know you have very few limits" in that sort of relationship, and the micro-kini is one way of impressing that viewpoint on me, without saying so in words. i feeling like a fishing trophy wearing it, as i've been photographed extensively this week. (in case you're wondering, dani is at her moms, and mr small's "son13" is with his mama . . . this was supposed to be a romantic getaway for the 2 of us where i would feel free to work extra hard on convincing him to take me on as wife number 2, er i mean 3.  do i hear a bid of "4"?  going once, going twice . .  . )

i doubt thats ever going to happen, but there's enough unspoken frisson between us that he thinks that i think that it (a proposal) could someday happen, even though i don't think that for a moment. so he sets up these "alone" weekends and buys the bikinis and lingerie and love toys . . . then goes off to play golf. is the right word for this "passive aggressive"? or simply "cognitive dissonance"?

virginia is on fire. its several hundred miles away, to the south, but the wind brings the smell, and makes your own eyes burn too. i can't imagine what life is like for those poor people in california. except that they don't have to wear a micro-bikini to the beach and squint and rub their eyes with the smoke as they get ogled by beer bellied surf fishermen.

i have nothing against fishing. when i was in college i worked (among other things) as the "bait girl" one summer on a charter boat out of the ocean city fishing marina. what's a bait girl? i'm glad you asked. its one step lower than "mate". i'm not allowed to touch the rods (pun alert), but i get to wear a tiny bikini (less skimpy than this one, though) and serve sandwiches and beer and change baits. oddly enough, the tips get higher if you get fish slime and blood smeared on you. is there a porn fetish for this? "fish guts and bubble butts?"

we went to see "the hulk 2" a few days ago. the plot is EXACTLY the same as "ironman 1". in each case the hero fights his evil nemesis (evil hulk, evil ironman) and all 4 of them (good and evil) are the result of secret military programs to develop super soldiers. that stan lee is some kind of genius, eh? oh, and didn't tobey maguire fight that 70's kid as evil spiderman in "spiderman 3, web of boredom"? i have a bad feeling about this - sort of a premonition. will i soon have to fend off "evil baltimore aureole" to prove my worth to the man i (don't) love?

this is the real problem with our relationship. mr small is "beyond" love, as he likes to put it. and the less lovably he behaves, the more i respond in kind, since i'm not an alpha kind of person. i mirror the world around me, for better or worse. i eat when i'm taken to a restaurant, wear what i'm told to (or almost wear, in this case), and "make love" when its "suggested".

some guys (and women) find that enough.

not me.

i keep hoping for a rescuer like nicholas cage in "moonstruck", who reminds me that "playing it safe is the most dangerous thing a woman like you can do".

i just hope his fetish isn't micro-kinis and fish guts, though.

ciao for now, friends.  and remember to boycott bethany beach stores and restaurants!  only you can make it happen.

good luck in the boycott, BA

you're nuts. and delaware too, the cheapest shit beach on the east coast. right there with the Jersey crowd in Raritan bowl.

Wow.

173%  of 33 is 57, right?

you're after his life insurance, eh?

Go back to school .. 100% of anything is just that. 100% of 32 is 32.

If mr small has a 24 yr old son, then he is at most 54 (assuming that he waited until he was 30 to have a kid. And he's been married at least twice so I doubt that he waited until 30 to have the brat.

And here I thought BA was almost as old as I am....

Note that a boycott is no good unless those being boycotted know 1) that they are being boycotted, and 2) why. So send out some letters (or just drop them off).

you go back to school asshole.

She said 173% of my age. That is not the same as 173% older.

100% of 32 is 32 200% of 32 is 64

baltimore aureole:

173% of 33 is 57, right?

Yes.

..yes dear.

i misread it, thought you meant 157% older.

nice to pull your leg anyway.

where's that leave you? I can be alpha, beta, or even gaga. ha!

Suffice to say, B, I think you're a catch. You have a little bit of bad attitude, a little negativity. But, hey.

Now I'm way too busy today to dwell on micro-kinis and sweaty pounding.