Leftover sex…things I didn't have room for in my last post


First, there were some words by Schopenhauer (pictured), whose thoughts about most things reflect my own better than anyone else I know. He was looking back when he wrote:

“…after sixty, the inclination to be alone grows into a kind of a real, natural instinct; for at that age everything combines in favor of it. The strongest impulse—the love of women’s society—has little or no effect; it is the sexless condition of old age that lays the foundation of a certain self-sufficiency…


Then there was this poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, a woman who had her own share of loversof both genders. I memorized two of her poems, including this one. It too was written while looking back.  

“What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh

Upon the glass and listen for reply;

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain

For unremembered lads that not again

Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,

Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,

Yet know its boughs more silent than before:

I cannot say what loves have come and gone;

I only know that summer sang in me

A little while, that in me sings no more.”


Finally, there was a song by Shakira. Nobody celebrates sexuality like Shakira. I wonder what she will have to say, looking back.