Un-Text Me Here…

and fill me from the crown to the toe top- full of direst cruelty.’

Of course Lady Macbeth’s request of the spirits was to “unsex me here” but with all the gender bending woke issues surrounding us I think her meaning would be taken out of context.

Since Stoker and I have been married since 1983, you might think we know a little something about how to keep things interesting. Apparently not; look at the advice I found in the Wall Street Journal.

Sexting—or sending sexually suggestive messages—is a good baby step to relight the flame in a long-term relationship, sex therapists say.

On Brumby Road I’m pretty sure the flames never completely went out. The fire may have damped down for periods of time, but the pilot light never dies completely. But wait, there is more…

It (sexting) can help couples practice communicating about their desire, building erotic anticipation and reinforcing their bond, even when they are apart.

Diane and I are way behind the times on this one. Here are a few of our recent text exchanges. You can look for the ‘building erotic anticipation’ part, but you will do so in vain.

Exciting stuff right? In the first one I’m out on a bike ride and Diane has managed to get Luke the Dog into the vet for the labs that started his $uccessful gall bladder $urgery. She needs me to drive to the vet. That was the morning Facebook crashed, a major crisis for older social media users like us.

In the second one I have been tasked with finding bread crumbs at the store and failed miserably. And in the third we have a most romantic exchange between me at the Honda dealer’s service department and Diane about to walk Luke the Dog well before we knew he needed $urgery. Eat your veggies!

Not only does our ‘sexting’ need improvement, but look at what else the experts advise:

People who use emojis—those little smiley faces and other images you use to express an idea or emotion—tend to have more success in their intimate relationships and have more sexual intimacy, according to research from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University.

I am proud to say I have NEVER used an emoji. Not once. No smiley faces, no thumbs up, or thumbs down, or some other kind of hand gesture which I frequently see live from drivers when I go cycling in Calaveras or Amador Counties. Expressing oneself well using language is what I strive for, not little cute cartoons. But if it means I could have “more sexual intimacy,” I think I might start emojing all the time. Is ’emoji’ a verb? If ‘listen’ is a noun, as in ‘take a listen’ (take it where?), I suppose I can verbify emoji.

But before I go down the emoji/sexting wormhole in an effort to improve our long term relationship, I think I’ll have a discussion with Diane about the matter and make sure she is on board. Because if Stoker isn’t happy….