I saw a great commercial a few years back. It was a public service announcement by the government of Singapore, picturing a young, nubile Singaporean woman walking the streets, being visually assaulted by man after man. As she walks by, you see a guy in a business suit pause in the middle of a phone conversation and stare wistfully. She passes a construction site, and the banging and clanging ceases momentarily as each guy in those nifty navy-blue overalls stops to trace her curves with his eyes. The escapade proceeds for the better part of a minute featuring crossing guards, street-booth chefs and cab drivers all gaping at her pleasing shape. The commercial ends with the phrase, “If women paid as much attention to their breasts as men do, we would have beaten breast cancer by now.”

There have been many scholars (mostly men, oddly) that have attempted to put a reason behind the male’s obsession with those jiggly fun-bags that the fairer sex has attached to their rib cage. Freud thought it was Oedipal, in that the breast-mindedness is supposed to be a throwback to our early stages of development when we received passive comfort as we were nursed by our mothers. Masters and Johnson take another perspective with their simple contention that breasts are the most easily identifiable zones of arousal, in that erect nipples and full, swollen breasts betray the same level of sexual excitement as a “full-on robot chubby.”

Funnily enough, and very much off the point, there are many cultures where breasts are viewed as being about as erogenous as an elbow. Carolyn Latteier, in Breasts: the Women's Perspective on an American Obsession, says that when anthropologist Katherine Dettwyler "told women in Mali that Americans think breasts are sexually arousing, they were horrified," and amused: "'You mean men act like babies,' they shrieked, collapsing in laughter."

In any case, we like boobies. I know this thesis is not going to get me that doctorate in behavioral science from MIT, but this my own friggin’ blog and I’m allowed to state the obvious.

I was in the Portland airport last week, meeting some friends flying in from New York to show them all that the city of roses, rain and Tonya Harding had to offer the wayward traveler. As a force of habit, I always arrive at airports far earlier than I intend to, even when I’m not flying out, I always arrive a full hour earlier than necessary. I think it has something to do with the fact that I really like airports. I like the bustling crowds, I like finding a quiet corner and reading a book, I just like the way they feel. The feeling is rooted in an association I have with airports in that I’m generally there when I’m going on a trip, and I only go on fun trips.

So I’m wandering around PDX, people-watching as I love to do, waiting for the status of their flight from Detroit to display on the screen (I told you I was early) and out of the corner of my eye, I see something that makes me stop in my tracks. It was a young woman, perhaps 25 years old, very much enjoying the massage chair outside the entrance to Brookstone. The pulsing rhythms of the chair were massaging the arch of her back in such a way that her shoulders were being pushed forward right, then left, then right, then left, etc. So, for all the world to see (or at least all those boarding for the flight to Albuquerque) this woman was shaking her major-league yabbos with gusto, eyes closed with a look of ultimate pleasure on her face. I was transfixed, not only by the sight beholden, but by the fact that there were about ten other guys within my field of vision that were having trouble not stepping on their own tongues.

Back and forth, back and forth. I almost expected her to start doing that awful porn soundtrack, “oooh, baby, yeah, that’s sooooooo good!” It didn’t take long before the gaggle of guys with the x-rays eyes started their motors again and went on their merry ways, certainly counting the singles in their wallets on their way to one of the many exotic dancing clubs offered in this great town.

Once again, off topic, I’ve heard tell that Portland has more strip-clubs per capita than any other place in the United States. To those that believe that, I suggest a trip to Providence, Rhode Island. I’ve also heard rumors of a place here in town called “Xotic Tan” where a lonely, (and admittedly pasty) guy can rent a room with a pretty girl, where she performs an erotic strip-tease while the gentlemen receives a treatment from one of their top prefessional quality tanning beds. Strange, but true.

Every morning when I put on my pants, one of my cats will inevitably make a grab for the dangling belt. It’s irresistible to them; much like boobs are to men. We can’t help it, and you have no right to think less of us for merely caving to our own nature. You’ve got plenty of other reasons to think less of us, individually, without having to pile that on as well. I think Steve Martin put it best in the film L.A. Story, “I could never make it as a woman. I would just stay at home all day and play with my breasts.”

You’ve been awake for hours, and are already beginning to feel the day slip away. You put on your coat that reeks of cigarettes and scold yourself for not quitting. You walk down the stairs, onto the cracked and trash-ridden streets, and go to the convenience store on the corner. As you pour scalding coffee into the Styrofoam cup, you remember an incident only days earlier when you heated a pin under the flame of a cigarette lighter and pierced a blister on your thumb, a blister your got when you touched a pot of boiling pasta. Single-serve packets of cornstarch and powdered whey, single-serve packets of white sugar, coffee that’s so hot you can’t taste it anyway.

You count the cracks in the sidewalk and momentarily consider scavenging for aluminum cans for extra cash, and somehow see your dignity getting in the way. You smirk at the idea. You sip the nuclear coffee and hope you don’t have to heat another pin and pierce a blister on your tongue. Single-serve discomfort.

You try to remember all the things you promised you’d look up at the library today, and can’t remember a single one. Your right shoe squeaks, not because it’s old, but because it’s so poorly made and the canvas has scraped off the inside, causing your heel to rub on smooth plastic.

They won’t let you into the bookstore anymore because you never buy anything, and you once tried to steal that copy of Gulliver’s Travels. You see the shop approaching as you contemplate that horrible turn of events, when you cried as the store manager picked up the phone to dial the police. A sip of not-quite-so searing hot coffee and you flip up the collar of your coat as you pass the window, even though it’s not cold.

The schwarma stand three blocks away is already busy and the sweet smell of unidentifiable meat with garlic and onions causes your stomach to churn and rumble, and the burnt coffee funk in your mouth to turn sour. You can actually feel the little glands in your mouth begin to pump saliva under your tongue, but you don’t want to swallow, for fear it might get worse.

You walk into a movie theatre lobby and head straight into the bathroom and spit into the sink. You look deeply into your eyes and are simultaneously convinced that you are both beautiful and vile. You exit the bathroom and are glad to see the smell of fresh popcorn does not exacerbate your condition. Single-serve satisfaction.

As you continue to count the cracks and sip your now lukewarm coffee, you ignite a cigarette and it seems to help assuage the vertigo you are beginning to feel. You take a seat on a park bench and dig into your satchel for your current paperback. You forgot to mark your place again, before you went to sleep, and you must randomly flip through the book looking for familiar words and phrases from last night’s adventure.

Frustratingly, it seems your eyes will not cooperate and your legs become itchy with jitters, your arms and shoulder restless. You get up to again, burying the paperback in your satchel once more. You think about the mouse your found in your oven once, and how you were off frozen pizzas for weeks, not just because you didn’t want to have to see it again, you didn’t want to kill it by turning the oven on. Then you think about the cat you had as a child, and how she once given birth in your lap while you were sleeping, the mewling of the kittens waking you in the early morning to warm moisture, making you think you had wet the bed in the night. There were five of them, six if you count the stillborn, but you never do.

The freezing cold coffee tastes like the rim of an ashtray and you trash it in a curbside bin, fearing the acid tang might remain in your mouth forever. You find another park bench, and this time your limbs allow you respite to engage in your tattered book, but now your mind is reeling, and your stomach sour. You think about all the books you’ll never read, about all the pleasure you’ll be denied, just because you could never live long enough to read them all. Contemplating all the masterpieces sitting on the office shelves of their disappointed authors, never to be published, and even the multitude of stories not yet committed to paper, make you sad. Single-serve discontent.

You think about time wasted working shitty jobs, worrying about money, worrying about love, cleaning, eating, fucking, shitting, shaving, and everything else. Even if you had all that time back, you could never read them all.

You stand and walk, keeping a rhythm with your breath and your feet, exercising physical control, concentrating on your heart beating to soothe the buzzing between your ears.

You fumble for your keys, and open the heavy oak door that stands at the entrance to the lobby of your building. You unlock the door to your apartment and think calmer thoughts of peanut butter and honey and fresh cold milk. You sit at your desk and begin to type, hoping the day has not gotten away from you.