India and Bangladesh are facing off. India is batting first. They have 133 runs for 0 wickets Rohit Sharma just hit another 6. I don’t know what to say. This is a remarkable partnership with Rahul. Both could have centuries.

I got up way too early. I shall go back to bed. But watching cricket is like eating salty snacks like peanuts or a bag of crisps. “Just one more ball, one more over.” “I’ll turn it off when they take the first (next) wicket”. Pretty soon the morning has evaporated.

I have come to think of India and Bangladesh differently from watching Cricket World Cup. Prior to the tournament, I thought of these nations in terms of their problems and little else. These nations have their competitiveness and sportsmanship on display. They have every right to be proud.

There is something evocative of the Nineteenth Century reflected in this match. Sure the technology is much advanced. But spirit of the Empire lives on.

“Sleep with your head elevated.” They told me. It has been quite a day. I’m tired, a little emotional. It isn’t a big deal to get these particular teeth yanked.

And now. I will try to sleep.

What do we really know? How do we know it? What narratives do we accept as true for history?

What does this have to do with it getting late? I’m watching a documentary produced maybe 35 years ago, La Belle Epoque. It is an admirable presentation, but it presents a bias, a bias that we think exposes the Truth, rather than obfuscates it.

The premise is that there were, at that time, incredibly wealthy people, and then there was everybody else, living lives of material desperation. That there was a middle class, who owned houses, bought life insurance, educated their children, both sons and daughters. From these educated women, came the suffragettes. It was a middle class phenomenon. That is but one example.

My point is that the narrative exaggerates the class differences and class struggle, by ignoring the sizable bourgeoisie.

The authors and producers of this work, along with many other scholars pay inordinate attention to Freud and Marx. Other figures given attention, Darwin, Nietzsche become the other figures in the pantheon. Were no other scholars and thinkers at work then? Were there other artists besides the ones championed by Gertrude Stein and her brothers? Who else was writing music besides the favorites of the avant garde? There is an assumed narrative that we readily accept.

In the next few years, people are going to challenge the narrative of that age we call The Twentieth Century. You heard it here first.

NSFW. Erotic Fantasy. Move along, if under 18.

For Mrs McDaddy

Nothing special about today, I guess. Her lunch is packed. L took her shower, dressed in her store T-shirt and jeans, brushed her teeth with the fancy electric toothbrush. She sort of kissed me, told me to be a “good boy”, and went to work.

I must admit I was a “good boy”. I did not torture small animals. I picked up pet waste left by an inconsiderate neighbour and took out the garbage. But I did masturbate into her soiled panties before I laundered them. And a prodigious load it was, I must confess.

Oh well, another mortal sin, another sacreligious Holy Communion if I ever bother to go to Mass again, let alone Confession. But I digress..

Housekeeping can be pretty damn boring. And certain activities are just plain destructive. Don’t watch television, avoid social media. Just clean and be done with it. So the day went. Until….

As I made the bed, I noticed her book,the one she read in between watching some show about a single mom stalked by a serial killer who works at her daughter’s day care center. Something like that. The book had a plain cover. The title, Where Angela Fears To Tread. , seemed incongruous from her usual selections of Pat Conroy, Maeve Binchey, Patricia Cornwell.

There was the page she had dog-eared. I could not help but look and read.

“So Angie, you have again neglected your duties at the Manor in order to amuse yourself, by frigging your clit like a parlor maid. What have you to say before you are chastised?”

“Sir there is no excuse. My urges are my Mistress, and, I fear my ruin, unless they are corrected by the sternest of courses .”

“Then we should begin. Fetch the strap. Remove your skirt. Lower your drawers. Present yourself to me.

That was all I needed to read. Somehow I had been reading L with complete inaccuracy. She had a certain need, a need I had not seen, nor prepared myself to deliver.

How could I shift gears, to move from housekeeper to Master Of The House?