and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

One of my old roommates used to say he couldn't masterbate without porn. He'd gotten so used to the internet and all it's resources that he quite literally couldn't conjure up a babe, a badgurrrl, even a boob.. at least not enough to get him a good pudge on.

For a long time I thought that was a real shame. One of my favourite passtimes is a game I like to play called picturebook in which, in your mind, you flip through all the real and imaginary people you've had in your life that really get you going. This was sort of a once a week excursion since it takes some time and patience, and it's a real tour-de-force.. not your everyday wank. At one point I had so many girls in there I didn't know what to do with them all. My head was a mumbo-jumbo pile of photos, polaroids, undeveloped negatives, and lightly-scented scarves and handkerchiefs left over from some meeting or another. It would take me a good hour to get through it all and by then I was too tired to get up and go to work/school the next day.

Now, though, the picture book is pretty sparse. Like one of those sad little photo albums with lots of empty plastic windows just waiting to be filled with someone's memories.. I just don't have any. I walk down the street and people blur by like big streaks of paint in the corners of my eyes and when I do stop to smell the roses their season has past or just not yet come. People: it would seem I am picky.

Used to be I'd throw just about anyone in the picture book, just in case yah know, and later on, during one of my marathon sessions, I'd weed through all the riff-raff and toss out the uglies. Sometimes there was just something about a girl on that particular day that I saw her which tickled my loins and later on, in retrospect, I'd toss her photo right out. Other times a girl might stick around in the book for weeks - months even - for no obviously correct or right reason, but just cause there was something there, something inexplicable, that spark my fat.

I used to say I put my friend's girlfriend in the picture book - we all had picture books back then - and I'd tell him just to get a rise. It was a big joke. One summer out on the water hanging out on the sailboat we talked about it - had a sort of summit meeting on the state-of-the-girlfriends - we sort of agreed we'd never cross that line with eachother, bros before hos or something? It wasn't about the girls really, or about stepping on toes, but about solidarity with your brother and, well.. you probably know where this is going.

Years later I slipped across the line one night under the cover of darkness. There I was, in enemy territory, taking so many goddamned pictures my book was going to be overflowing come morning. There is something about life - as much as it's one of the worst things I can ever recall doing, I think I learned a little something about myself, about people, and about what a quality person really is. And I learned that there is the slightest bit of desire in every photo taken, no matter how inconsequential it might seem. And I learned that I'm an asshole. Step one, remember: admitting you have a problem.

So my picture book has been cleaned out a bit since the good 'ol high school days when every girl was a potential snapshot. The women, I think they're just as hot now as they were then probably, but my tastes are getting more fickle and my priorities have less to do with certain physical features now and more to do with certain mental stimulation. Sometimes, nowadays, it's just as easy to pick up the remote or type in sublimedirectory.com when you need a good fix rather than sift through the back of your mind for a dusty old book.. if all your really looking for, you know, is a quick fix.