What to wear?

[sebbie]

Old Methods are Still Great fun!

A classic story of mine from maybe 20 years ago was called “Spending a Night in a Cup!”. This story outlined in detail the specifics of how I was having a really enjoyable time wearing a tight-fitting Jockey brand underwear thong under an old school strap and cup as nighttime wear, and spending the entire night in an aroused, “edging” situation, semi-erect and precumming for the entire night, then still feeling horny as all get out when I awakened in the morning.

Although I am older now, my enthusiasm for this form of edging has never abated. But a lot of things have happened to me since I wrote this piece. Thong designs have varied, and finding an old school strap and cup has gotten more and more difficult. Meanwhile, a decade ago, I had to have my prostate removed using what was supposed to be nerve-sparing robotic surgery. The promise was that even if I could no longer ejaculate, I would still be able to get an erection and have an orgasm. But things were not going to ever be quite the same as they were when I wrote my “seminal” paper on edging wearing a thong, strap and cup.

Part of what the doctor told me was true. I could easily bring myself to a dry orgasm (interestingly, still with some precum) but an orgasm without an erection is hardly any fun at all. Still, ever since I was about 12 years old, I had figured out how to do what I call school-boy masturbation, the technique simply involves massaging the penis with the hand to encourage the erection, and, usually, at that age I was just simply enjoying my ability to ejaculate at the conclusion of the stimulation. I am not sure at what age I discovered that a lubricant was helpful in these “hand jobs”, but I was probably already in my late teens, or older. Still, I was to get an erection so quick I did not need no lubricant!

As any of my readers know, I am now 76 years old and have been spending the last decade dealing with issues relating to the prostate surgery. I still love to edge, and being retired now and continuing to live alone, I can devote many hours to what I refer to as “edging experiments”.

Back when I was a teenager, gel soaps for shower and bath were very uncommon, and nearly everyone used bar soap. These soaps have become really popular over the last two decades, and nowadays bar soap is tough to find. I think the public finally concluded that gel soaps made sense largely because they make a great masturbation lubricant—better by far than hand lotion in part because you could soap yourself up with them and do some school boy style masturbation just before entering the shower or bath. Penises generally love to be lubed up this way and reward the guy with all sorts of memorable sensations in the process. No need for an expensive sexual lubricant like Astra Glide at least not if you want to enjoy yourself by engaging yourself and your penis while alone.

Then there are the stimulation aids such as an estim device. These are widely available. Most consist of a small unit that is powered by two AAA batteries and then have a choice of slight electrical shocks in varying patterns. This may sound scary but an estim device can be a lot of fun. There are various “attachments” to these devices but the one I have consists of two adjustable silicone rings, one that fits on the base of the penis and the other at the glans, and the current passes from one ring to the other in varying patterns, and the level of the stimulation (current) is also adjustable.

Let’s say you are not erect currently but interested in getting erect. First, I would start with some plain old school boy masturbation using the gel soap as a lube, lubing up my penis and whatever other parts down there that you want. The goal here is to get yourself into a good semi-erect mode. The gel soap is a good conductor of electricity. Then get into the silicone rings of the estim device, one at the base and the other at the glans. Once the rings are in place, turn on the device at the lowest setting and see how the device feels at the lowest setting, then gradually turn it up to vary the patterns.

You could probably keep doing this until you have an orgasm, but you want to delay that because the next step employs a vacuum style penis pump. If you have never been in one of these, the vacuum pump is a great treat as well. The vacuum pumps have a rubberized sheath at one end. The sheath has a hole in it where your penis fits in. The sheath hole may look too small to fit your semi-erect penis, but it will get sucked in and fit nicely once you squeeze the pump a few times. The gel soap works fine to seal the sheath. For me, the vacuum pump works the best If I am semi-erect from having just used the estim device. Before getting my penis into the pump, I put a blue rubber penis ring around the sheath. This not only helps hold the sheath in place, but at the end of my vacuum pumping session, snaps down on the base of my penis. Once out of the pump, I then add another ring, a clear beaded design to fit at the glans of my penis, fitting snug to the glans. I now have a red penis fully engorged with blood and am feeling way horny having not had an orgasm yet.

Time for a tub bath wearing the engorged penis with the two snug rings. What an enjoyable bath!

The next step is to crawl out of the bath, still horny and still lacking an orgasm, and think about how to spend the night. Hmmm. How about spending the night in a cup? I find a really snug-fitting thong in my dresser drawer, and an old school boy style strap with one of those flat cups that provide minimal space for an erection. I quickly crawl into these items and fall asleep still aroused and precumming. What a great situation to be in!

I have sometimes complained that the Magic Wand style massager works well, but at least for me bring on a near instant dry orgasm. And that is not fun. But, what about touching the vibrator massage unit not to a cloth covered penis but to the school boy strap cup? This technique still gives excellent sensations, but without the uncontrollable urge to go into orgasm mode. I view the Magic Wand as another useful item in my arsenal of arousal aids.

I woke up this morning still feeling really good down there and still feeling horny as all get out. My condition this morning helps me write this story. Being 76 years old and missing a prostate is not the end of the world for me. Getting a little “help” from an estim device and a vacuum pump is good and not a problem for sure.

I hope that you find my story here both interesting and useful in your own quests to get aroused.

[sebbie]

On Sizing Straps and Cups

I was watching a Reelz video where the son was complaining to dad that he was desperately in need of a bigger cup! I have been unable to find the video again to link it, but I thought it was interesting and my mind got to wandering on the subject of sizing straps and cups. This is a subject that I have written about many times in the past, but the interesting part is that whenever I run a new “experiment” I invariably come up with something that makes for an interesting observation or two, and these observations might prove not only interesting but also useful for others

If I was going to write accurately this morning on the subject of sizing cups and the straps that hold them, I needed to have some practical experiments to write about. So, what about putting on a suitable strap and cup this morning, so that I could write with greater accuracy about the subject of course, one idea that is most interesting is the observation that many straps and cups are designed to hold some sensitive parts securely, although in recent years many cups have grown in size and shape so a guy's penis just flops around inside rather than being held securely in one place. I have often complained that such designs that merely confine the penis to an open space are not fun to wear at all, or at least not nearly the fun of a flatter and smaller old-school cup that is sized small enough to restrict the penis from moving around inside the cup, and the sensation of the walls of the smaller, flatter cup surrounding the penis is an important part of the “fun” of wearing the cup. But maybe guys are concerned that if the cup fits too snug, this will distract them from the athletic endeavor at hand because the mind suddenly is focused not on the game but on the interesting sensations emanating from down there.

Years ago, I bought what I call an old-school strap and cup at a local drug store. I really liked this one in that the strap was made to not only hold the cup securely but the elastic was strong enough to make certain that the cup pressed snug against my groin, and once on my penis was held in an essentially fixed position with me being very aware of the cup walls. In my mind, this is the perfect cup, the guy in the Reelz video complaining about needing a bigger cup notwithstanding.

Over time, the elastic in the cup leg straps gradually got weaker and weaker, and, as a result, the leg straps kept getting longer and longer which meant that the cup was gradually fitting looser and looser to my groin. One day I decided I could remodel the leg straps by shortening them and resewing them together. I did that and got the leg straps to about the same length as they were originally, but with the leg straps now less elastic, they fit not only with the cup bearing down on my penis and groin more securely than when the strap was new. This modification to the strap is not only interesting but fun.

That brings me to today. Like so many guys did in the 1960s, I wear the strap over an undersized pair of tighty whiteys, pushing my penis forward and slightly upward in the brief before adding the strap with the shortened leg elastic over the top. My mind is already in arousal mode as I think about this situation and what will be happening.

Once the strap is in place I am immediately thinking that I would like to touch my penis with my fingers. But the cup bears down so snugly I cannot do this. Besides, I have just pulled on a really tight pair of Nike Pro compression shorts over everything, so the cup is really secure to my groin and my penis is stuck in one place with the cup bearing down and further held in place with the Nike shorts.

At this point there are two ways of looking at the dilemma I have created. Either this is a really uncomfortable situation or a really fun situation. Or, oddly enough, maybe this situation is actually a goofy combination of both! I can’t touch my penis and do any masturbation, but I am stuck trying to deal with the situation my penis is in, and there is an odd combination of being in an uncomfortable situation along with what I can only describe as pure erotic pleasure. At a basic level, I really like where I am at as I am writing this, and for good reason.

I suspect that most guys faced with a situation like this would almost immediately start to feel horny, and this would be quickly followed by persistent dripping precum from the cowpers. What else can a guy do to deal with such a wicked, nearly unbearable predicament? Still, there is nothing inherently “wrong” with being in such a dilemma, in fact, from my perspective this is terrific fun. I am greatly enjoying my predicament moment-by-moment as I keep getting more and more horny even without a growing erection.

Here I am this morning, writing this, my laptop in my lap, with the weight of the laptop also bearing down on my seriously confining strap and cup. I cannot think of a nicer place to be, and my cowpers is going bonkers in dealing with the situation.

I hope my readers find my story this morning interesting, and are encouraged to try some experiments on their own employing straps and cups. It is truly great fun to be a male!

[sebbie]

Coping With Reality: Fear and Longing

Masturbation is commonplace for both males and females. For both sexes, averaged over a life time, masturbation us probably happens several times more often than partner sex, whether the individual is gay or straight. This no number no doubt varies substantially depending on the relationship a guy finds himself in over a lifetime, and those who do not have sexual partners likely masturbate more frequently than guys who have regular sexual partners, but the same may also be true for women.

Guys start to learn about the pleasure and the fear of masturbation at an early age. The fortunate ones learn that masturbation is OK but it should not be done in the presence of others. Learning about masturbation is thus intertwined with the need for privacy. In particular, there are various “rewards” from having uninterrupted time just to be alone and this is going can get intertwined very quickly about the idea that sex is best (the most enjoyable) when done with a sexual partner. That connection between the two is unfortunate.

Real guys do not talk to other guys about a great masturbation session that happened the night before unless perhaps if the other guy himself is gay. But straight males never bring up the subject with their female partners, either. From this viewpoint, a solo masturbation session is so inferior to partner sex that talking about something like that simply does not happen. Many females like to believe that they are and should be the sole source of sexual pleasure for a man, and any talk of this other stuff that might be happening in a guy’s mind and body that is inconsistent with this view and should be avoided. Never mind that given an opportunity, say a business trip away from home, a guy may take advantage of the situation he finds himself in—and not necessarily sex with a female at the trip location, but simply using the privacy as an excuse to get horny and engage in some masturbation in private!

I have had lots of time to think about what all of this has to do with a male who wants to wear a swim brief. The male may not be concerned about wanting to actually wear a swim brief for swimming, but somehow, he has come to the conclusion that a snug-fitting swim brief would be a great item to use in order to masturbate. The basic problem a straight guy in a relationship with a female has with getting and using a swim brief as a masturbation aid is how to do so without the female partner quickly figuring it all out. This has led to men’s underwear manufacturers designing briefs sold as underwear that look and feel very similar to a swim brief, many of which might be fun to masturbate into as well. If this comes up as a topic, the guy in a male female relationship who purchases these can simply claim that this is simply a sexy pair of underwear that can be worn as a prelude to having partner sex.

Still, a real pair of swim briefs has some real advantages over a swim brief-like pair of sold as underwear, in part because the real swim brief tends to be made of heavier-weight material, a distinct advantage for a guy trying to put his penis in a particular spot within the swim brief. Why this is important is because a guy’s penis is not uniform with respect to arousal sensations. The glans area and tip are obviously ultra-sensitive to touch, but also, the underside of the penis is significantly more fun to touch and fondle than the top side, so the trick is to wear a swim brief in a small enough size that when a semi-erect penis is positioned forward and upward inside the brief. That way, in that position, just a gentle touch along the underside will be extremely pleasurable. Combine this with some tapping or touching at the glans area, and the guy is quickly off into masturbation nirvana, just a great place to be.

Of course, in such a setting, the guy will likely start to drip fluid from the Cowpers. What happens is a wet spot soon forms on the brief right at the penis tip. Every guy should be aware that such dripping is not necessarily a prelude to a full-blown ejaculation, and with practice it is possible to drip fluid for hours at a time without ejaculating. This worries some guys, who get fixated on the idea that, if in a public setting everyone is suddenly focused on what amounts to a dime-sized wet spot of precum on the front of the brief. Let me assure you that dripping like this is something a normal, healthy male does when he is even slightly aroused, and if the guy did not want to be aroused then perhaps he should have refrained from wearing a snug-fitting swim brief, but that would be no fun at all.

Personally, I tend to see these precum drips as “proof” that what I am doing to myself is working, and dripping is almost invariably linked with pleasure pang sensations coming from down there. To me, this is way up there on the list of things that make it so much fun to be a male, and I think the wet spots should be viewed as simply part of what it means to be a male.

In conclusion, I have long thought about why it is that so many females seem to be adverse to guys who wear a swim briefs, whether fit or not. The reason that stands out to me is that at some level, many females realize that a guy wearing a snug-fitting swim brief is going to experience some sensations by himself that the female believes she should be responsible. More generally, the entire idea of a guy experiencing any sexual pleasure that is not directly connected to the experience of having male-female partner sex should not be permitted, and if a guy engages in such activities that even inadvertently leads to sexually-exciting sensations poses a threat to the control the female has over the male with respect to permitting or denying copulation. At some levels, this seems silly, but it is an explanation.

[sebbie]

A Tight-Fitting Thong, Strap and Swim Brief

All my readers know how fond I am about clothing items that fit snug in the groin, and I am always in search for something that fits and feels a little snugger and tighter in just the right spots.

Being in my 70s, over the years, I have accumulated a large number of items that work for me in this regard. I suspect that many guys manage to build collections of this sort of thing fairly early in life and that my readers are always enthusiastic about learning if other guys secretly do the same thing.

As my readers also know, I love to edge. Edging gets a guy into a state of mind that is extremely pleasant, and often for an extended period of time as in maybe several hours (or even longer). Edging and the article of snug-fitting clothing that helps sustain the edge go hand in hand. Even as a young guy, I frequently enjoyed myself edging ultimately more so than ejaculating. Well. The ejaculation part is intense fun but the real excitement in an orgasm lasts only for a minute or two... I much prefer feeling horny and aroused over a much longer period of time. I can go a month or more without having an orgasm, for that matter, at my age I can go that long without even edging.

Still, I love to edge and when my mind is focused on the task at hand, the intensity of the edge and the sheer enjoyment builds rapidly, and that is what just happened to me. I have two homes, a permanent residence and a vacation home 1,200 miles away. Of course, I have tons of Swim Briefs and Straps. Thongs, Lycra gear and other stuff that I use on a regular basis for the sheer fun of it all at my main res. But at my vacation home, I have collected a few items to play with as well. There is a small dresser drawer I can dig into at my vacation home, and I was at my vacation home for the past three weeks. As I searched to find a few items I could use there, three of them stood out.

1. The Thongs: Several years ago, I had purchased a box of Joe Boxer Thongs, the ones Kmart sold when they were still in business, size SM (of course, who does not like a really tight thong fit?) The particular thong that stood out was a patterned one, gray and black, with an allover pattern of barbed wire. It was essentially brand new and the elastic was in perfect shape, snug and tight. These were much better and snugger fitting than the Target Merano thongs I have here at my main abode. I crawled into the barbed wire thing and almost immediately I was climbing the walls from the sensations I was getting as the thong pressed my penis upward and forward and the back cut smartly between my glutes. What fun!

2. The Strap: This was another of my beloved Duke straps, a simple discount house item with no cup. The elastic was in perfect condition, as the strap had hardly even been worn. And it seemed really small As in smaller than a men’s small. It might have been a Boys large. The pouch is that rough-textured rubberized stuff made famous by strap wearers in the 1960s or even earlier. The leg straps were really snug as I pulled it on over the barbed wire thong. In a word, this felt terrific. My entire body was filled with a crazy pleasure that is tough to describe unless you have actually experienced it yourself. My penis was pointed forward and slightly upward, and just a gentle fingertip touch on the underside of the pouch sent streaks of wonderful pleasure coursing through my entire body. WOW! WOW! WOW!

3 The Swim Brief. The one that somehow landed at my vacation home is made by Tyr. I think the waist size on this one is 26”, well below my normal waist size of 30-32 inches in swim briefs. A 26” inch size is going to be really tight, if I can get into it at all. I have a picture of me clad in this brief that I took several years ago, but somehow it flew with me to my vacation home. I had not been in this brief for probably 7 or 8 years or so. Could I still get into a 26-inch Tyr Brief like I did for the photo I took back then? Turns out, the brief was still in great condition and the fit, once in, a simple black with orange-red sides. It was really super tight. Just how I like my Swim briefs to fit. As my readers know, I have been struggling with my recent Speedo purchases to simply get into a 30-inch Speedo, as the new fabrics seem to have no stretch at all. But once in, the Tyr was really tight, actually really, really tight, but it covered all the places that might need covering. It felt really good, as you might imagine with the tight fit. All in all, a great experience. With the Tyr fit, a swimmer could easily downsize not only one waist size but two waist sizes, and have a very enjoyable time in the process!

Digging around, I also found a rare classic Jockey Elance thong, the one with the really narrow elastic band as a back. Of course I had to try getting into that as well. Jockey quit selling these over a decade ago, but this one remains in very good condition. I never understood why Jockey quit selling thongs branded Elance as simply wearing one would mean a near instant arousal.

In writing this, and thinking about all of this, back at my main residence, I am wearing various Lycra items today, and remembering how much fun this all was on my vacation. Wait a second, just thinking about all of this is making me horny again! I wonder if there are other guys who might want to do something similar.

[sebbie]

The case for Tighty Whiteys

I “came of age” (so to speak) in the very late 1950s. But even before that, I knew I had a “thing” for garments that fit really snug in the groin area. This was a period of time when briefs made of ribbed cotton dominated the underwear market for men and boys. Even the idea of a brief made from nylon, was a “girlie” thing, as in a panty for females not a brief. It was not until the 70s until men's briefs as underwear were marketed to any degree that were not made from ribbed cotton.

Indeed, ribbed cotton briefs totally dominated the male underwear market, and by the time I was in college a decade later, living in a men’s dorm, nearly every male still wore ribbed cotton briefs.

There were alternatives, but they were difficult to find, most notably what was sold as a “mid-length brief” which was basically just a ribbed cotton brief with an additional two inches added to the legs. These were tough to find in any local store, but mom always thought I should wear briefs with longer legs (they were warmer for winter, she said) and she ordered them through “the catalog” (Sears or Wards). Of course, the real winter wear was the long john, which you can think of as an undergarment made of the same ribbed cotton but extending to the ankles (a running tight made from ribbed cotton?) and fitting comfortably under jeans or dress pants in the wintertime.

Me? I still longed to be able to wear real triangular-shaped briefs not the mid-length versions. Swimming suits for guys at the time were typically plaid boxers, but nearly ever boxer suit featured a brief-style “liner” that was made of a loose knit nylon material that was there so body parts did not accidentally emerge from the boxer trunk while swimming. I loved the fact that under the trunk was this snugger brief, and I had lots of wonderful times in my youth taking this a step (or two) farther, enjoying myself in that brief liner under the boxer in other ways that I won’t need to explain further. Let me just say that I did this often, but instead of washing the suit I just put it back in the drawer. Stuff accumulated then dried over and over. With this ongoing process, the nylon liner eventually gave way entirely and was now full of big holes. That ended that, but I was on my way to doing other fun stuff.

Another interesting idea was what the guys who needed to wear a strap as a required piece of equipment for athletics and sport. Around the same time, this was the classic Jock Strap (cupped or not) with the ribbed rubberized pouch, elastic leg straps and three-inch wide waist band. What bugged guys the most about wearing a strap in the locker room was that they would be-butt naked along with the other guys in the locker room. So, in order to deal with this it was common to wear a pair of tighty whiteys as a first layer UNDER the strap. Guys claimed that this was more “comfortable” than just the strap, but I think the fear of being seminude with their male peers really was the main reason.

I am doing exactly that this morning. I have a snug-fitting tighty whitey that went on as a first layer, then I pulled on a traditional “school boy” strap with the wide waist band over the top. I have more layers too including a pair of blue compression shorts followed by a pair of loose-fitting sweat pants.

What can I say? I still love the fit and feel of a somewhat undersized pair of tighty whiteys, the ones I have on this morning fit just tight enough so that I can put my flaccid penis in an “up” position and it stays there. But the rubberized ribbed pouch essentially doubles the fun as the underside of my penis resoundingly tells me it would like some attention. Of course, the snug-fitting compression shorts add another dimension too, and from a distance I simply look like an old dude wearing a loose-fitting pair of sweat pants.

Increasingly over time, I have had difficulty finding tighty whiteys that provide the fit I want in the local department stores. The only ones available are in men’s sizes, and nowadays a Men’s SM is a huge garment and not fun to wear at all. I am much happier (and stiffer) in a Boys LG or even a Boys MED tighty whitey. But tighty whiteys in boys' sizes have all but disappeared in local stores. I do still find them in on-line stores such as eBay, and have a supply stash.

I appreciate that you have read this, just another episode in my long-term essay series on things that are great fun to do by, with and to yourself!

All the best!

[singletlover]

Thank you for the read.

[sebbie]

Originally Posted by singletlover

Thank you for the read.

You are welcome!

[sebbie]

Coming of Age

I grew up in a remote rural area, 60 miles from any store that would have carried boys’ clothing. We relied on mail-order companies for a lot of items that were not available locally, mainly Sears and Montgomery Wards. Most of my clothing I wore in these days were found on the pages of a Sears or Wards catalog. Early on, mom made all the purchase decisions only occasionally letting me express a preference.

Growing up, parents are always thinking about whether or not a child will likely wear out a garment first or, more likely, grow out of it. This concern applied not only to outer garments but to everything else including underwear and (gasp) swimming trunks. Best to order everything a size or two too big, as he may be able to wear the garment next year as well. Children, but boys in particular, need to always buy and wear clothes a size or two too big.

Of course, all of this is happening when a guy is deep into a discovery mode about the excellent sensations that can be experienced in the groin area, and that a lot of these super neat sensations are brought about and enhanced by wearing something snug fitting there. For young males, the groin area is like a candy store of sorts, but an even better candy store if the garment covering it is snug fitting, and optimally made of a super slick, perhaps even stretchy material.

That garment, of course, is exemplified by a swim brief, perhaps then made from a slick nylon, but even more so one made of a blend of fabric materials including the DuPont Lycra. Lycra in the fabric not only guaranteed that the fabric would stretch to fit beven if undersized ut also fit skin tight.

Of course, there was a down-side to all of this. By the time a guy was old enough to realize how much fun it would be to wear a stretchy Lycra-enhanced swim brief he was also old enough to realize that wearing one in public could lead to some embarrassing “appearance issues” as his penis was going to be delighted to just be in such a garment, and the guy soon realized that anything could happen, and that his penis was not easily taken off course even his brain told him that in public that is probably not where any guy wanted to be.

The Summer sale catalogs from Sears and Wards carried an assortment of swimwear for both boys and men, and among the myriad of plaid boxers there was always a brief or two. I desperately wanted one of these briefs, settling for a series of plaid boxers, each with the woven nylon brief-style inner liner, but I never convinced mom of that, and had to wait until college to be able to buy what I wanted, and even then I needed to be somewhat secret.

I have often thought that coming of age for a young male should be at the point in time where the guy tells his parents that he is old enough to be able to pick out the clothing he would like to wear, but in particular the underwear and swimwear he wants, but this never happened that way for me. A lot of this is also related to a young male recognizing that some private time is important on the way to adulthood, but for me, that was limited as well. The upshot for me was that an adult living away from my family home, I have always placed high value on having private time, and the idea of being alone and then lonely does not compute.

For a lot of guys, what I am talking about here leads right into having a relationship with what might become a sexual partner, and this then leads directly into thoughts such as “how do I get my partner aroused?” and then “what shape and size of underwear would my partner like to see me wearing?” On the swimwear front, there comes this issue of whether or not the swimwear will be worn in a place where others might see me in it. And, of course, whether or not the swimwear might reveal a bulge in a provocative place etc etc.

For straight guys, will my girlfriend like seeing me in a Speedo? Or does this question actually have two different answers depending on whether the guy is with his girl in private or if the guy is wearing the Speedo in a public or semi-public place where other females might ogle.

Gay men are generally used to seeing other gay men in tight-fitting swim briefs, so this is less of an issue for them, if at all. Still, I have often tried to rationalize why so many women seem angry at even the thought of a guy wearing a Speedo. After all, women routinely wear skimpy, revealing clothing clothing in public settings, and I am not aware that guys normally would complain and even get angry about that. But a female freaking out because a guy is in a Speedo in public goes against the female instinct that says her guy is her own, not still some target for other women to ogle over.

Somehow I managed my way through a lot of this, and looking back I have no regrets. Ultimately I got to do what I wanted to do even with some obstacles along the way. Unlike a lot of other guys, I never concluded that a sexual relationship is the ultimate path to happiness over a lifetime, in part because I would probably have had to give up a lot of activities that have made me very, very happy. I like things just the way they are, and I am equally happy that so much of what I have written on the subjects have proven to be such popular reads for others.

All is well!