Loose Associative Links

"I've been thinking about a problem." Moneypenny and I are sitting in his living room, while I'm on my visit to larger Midwest City from Smaller Midwest City. "If you are working from a many worlds theory, where everyone's life is their own world, then you basically create your own world. What do you think people would do differently if they realized that they created their own world?"  I wasn't sure if this was a poke at how I had been feeling all weekend, so mired in the lack of a clearly, overwhelmingly good decision that I feel unable to make any, or was coming from his own place of wanting to make a better life for himself. Either way, it still put me on the defensive and I went on a five minute rant about how no matter what changes in life or attitude people may make there would still be things in their life that they couldn't change and that would still suck anyway. Then I felt guilty for not being able to add anything to his conversation. I ended up leaving an hour earlier than I might have originally because I couldn't stand to sit there anymore as I fought both being angry and wanting to cry.

These kinds of thought experiments used to be fun for me. Even when I couldn't completely understand or envision them, the seemingly kooky ideas that pop up in quantum mechanics always blew me away and I loved thinking about the possibilities they presented. When I was studying Buddhism and how we create our own realities, I could easily get carried away in those possibilities as well, the ability to unravel so much of the suffering that we have created in our own lives. Stone-cold sober, he and I could have the kind of conversations that people are only supposed to be able to have when they are on some sort of mind-altering substance.

But in recent years, I've drifted further and further away from those kinds of discussions and, on the drive home, I was plagued by the question of why. I used to love those kinds of thought experiments, would come up with at least half of the places we would start on my own. Now it rubs me the wrong way to even things of them. I'm trying to work out why. I'm going to try to arrange my thoughts as best as I can, but I'm not sure how good of a job I'll do, so bare with me.

I think part of it is that with the stuff that has happened in my life, it has felt less important. Who cares about the possibilities of the multi-verse or unravelling the cycles of suffering in our lives when we're caring for ill and/or dying family members? Or even when we are just trying to get by, paycheck to paycheck? When you're spending all your time trying to figure out how to pay the next bills or how to afford to move out or you'd be able to someday go to school to be able to get a better job so you don't have to worry as much about paying the bills, you don't have as much, if any, room in your head for thinking about more esoteric things. Or at least I don't. We had all these conversations when I was 21 and in college. Yes, I only had a part-time job and I had to think about my schoolwork and being able to pay bills, but there were much fewer of them and I was convinced that soon I would have a decent enough job that I wouldn't have to worry as much about paying bills. I was convinced that my near future looked brighter so it wasn't as much of a chore to worry about the bills then. Now I'm 32 and I'm hitting this wall where my future doesn't look any brighter, where my best case scenario is having a future that is this same shade and not a shade darker. As much as I might want to, I just don't have it in me to give a shit about that stuff any more.

But I think that a big part of it is the crazy. I read this article last week from the Atlantic's website that was about the link between creativity and mental illness. Near the end of the article, she writes about talking to another colleague about creativity and schizophrenia (emphasis is mine): "Heston and I discussed whether some particularly creative people owe their gifts to a subclinical variant of schizophrenia that loosens their associative links sufficiently to enhance their creativity but not enough to make them mentally ill." Her end conclusion in the article is : "Some people see things others cannot, and they are right, and we call them creative geniuses. Some people see things others cannot, and they are wrong, and we call them mentally ill. And some people, like John Nash, are both." This really hit home with me. Now, I do not have schizophrenia, or a family history of it, nor have I ever been a creative genius, but I do think that the ways in which I think of things that many others might not come from a different way of associating things. But I think that that much of this is tied to letting the crazy drive the train more. Now that I am not letting her drive the train as much, the less I have that. It is not as bad as I had hoped that it would be when I first started down this road of improving my mental health, but it is there and it is enough of a difference that i notice it. I also have to deal with the long-term side effects of psychiatric medications. My memory has never been the same after I took lithium. Being on a mood-stabilizing medication that wards against the brain chemically induced suicidality as well as bringing up the low parts of the low side and down the up side of the ups means that I don't have those periods of creative hyper-energy anymore. (You know, mania.) As we speak, I'm also having weird things happen which I'm not sure are mental illness or medication related (or neither), like spacing out and losing time, and increased light sensitivity and black floating spots in my vision occasionally. But if you take this and add it up what you get is less memory to cull from, less energy to make associations, and a quieter and more orderly brain with less loose associations. And a woman who is very sad and more than a little angry that she has to make the decision between living life at all and having an interesting brain, though she is pretty sure what decision she will keep making day after day, even though it means she doesn't get to have those conversations anymore.

What I Wish I Could Tell Work

I really don't want to have to look for a job right now. What I want is to be looking for an apartment, to be applying for housing assistance on the off chance that I qualify, and/or to be looking for a roommate situation for awhile. What I want is to find a cheap but airy studio or one bedroom apartment that is just mine, where my cats and my stuff can live, where I can settle in, where I don't have to be anything to or for anyone.

But to keep my job, you want me to be able to tell you a designated person who I will be able to tell when I'm starting to not do very well, so that they can call you and tell you "Hey, she needs a bit of a break, even if she isn't in a place to ask for it herself." I get it. You want to make sure that the clients are taken care of, that I don't no-call no-show and leave everyone wondering what happened to me. And I even understand that you do care for me and you want me to take active steps in dealing with my mental illness, in making sure that I go through an easier time next time that I go through a difficult time.

Just two things.

One: You don't know what I already do for my mental illness and I don't really feel like it is any of your business. While the manager who has dealt with mental illness in her family is sympathetic, the boss ended up throwing out a bunch of the stigmas about mental illness in our conversation and I don't really feel like talking about it with her. Shit, sometimes I have a hard time talking about it with people I am close to, people I love, people I am living with. I sure as hell am not going to tell you. I'm not going to tell you that I've been on medications for 13 years. I'm not going to tell you that I picked out my health insurance plan, which you contribute nothing to by the way, specificially so that I could go to the mental health in-patient hospital that I liked the best of the three I've been to. I'm not going to tell you that I go see a psychiatrist every couple of months to tweak my meds, except that until recently I couldn't afford to think about adding another one because I didn't have health insurance to help me afford anything other than barebones generic medications. I'm not going to tell you that I've been in a therapy program for over two years where I see my therapist once a week and go to an educational therapy group once a week. I'm not going to tell you that my girlfriend, who I live with, works in mental health, understands my illness, and I still couldn't tell her. I'm not going to tell you that I didn't tell my therapist how bad it was because I didn't realize it was that bad until everything blew up because I was trying so hard to keep everything under control that I almost thought I would be able to keep it all under control long enough for things to settle down again. I'm not going to tell you these things because I'm not sure that I think it's any of your fucking business. I'm also not going to tell you these things because I worry that you'll think "Well, damn, if she's this bad with all this help, how bad is she really?"

Two: It never works like what you are wanting. It is not like I don't know that this is a chronic illness I have. It's not like I don't say the same things to other people about mental illness, that it is like any other chronic illness, like say diabetes, that must be managed and evaluated in a realistic light. But when I am bad, I am lucky when I can express to someone else that I want to hurt myself, that I have hurt myself, when I'm starting to feel suicidal, when I'm feeling full on suicidal, when I've already attempted. Hell, I had one attempt that no one knew about at the time, that no one knew about until months or maybe a year later when I was joking about it. It doesn't work like that for me. You are right that maybe it should. But guess what? That's something I don't have the head space to change right now. Right now, all I can manage to do is to keep moving, to keep getting up each day, to keep doing chores around the house, to keep going to appointments, to keep taking my meds, to keep eating, to not just decide to fall into a bottle until the money runs out, to keep applying for jobs since it doesn't look like I'm going to be going back to this one. Right now, there are moments when it is all I can do not to harm myself or start drawing up plans, so I can't really promise that I'll  make this thing that I've never been able to do in the 13 years that I've been dealing with this mental illness happen.

I have until Friday to figure out if I'm gonna lie and say that I can do it and name a person or be unemployed.

"All the things I wish I'd asked"

Well I finally read through them. It only took me 3 years to the day after your death, several months of them in my possession,  sitting accusingly on my dresser or in the bottom of a bag.

I read them laying in my bed in my new home, still naked with dripping hair after a late afternoon bath, since I was too depressed this morning to get up with enough time for a shower. I laughed and cried to myself, alone as I always seem to end up on these difficult days. I know its not planned but he always seems to be asleep or not feeling well or both on these days that are so super hard for me amd I end up crying alone. 

I am not sure what I was expecting when I read them. Maybe I thought they'd be full of the minutiae of every day life, and there is a little of that. Maybe I thought there'd be poetry, and there is quite a bit of that too. I think I was selfishly hoping for more about myself,  though what there is touched my heart and made me laugh. Well, one thing made me say "fuck you" but you were probably right. I think what I didn't expect was to read about the darkness. I wish now more than ever that I had talked more to you about my own struggles with depression.  I guess in my alternate history you would have confided in ne about your own and we both would have recognized that maybe it was as much a problem in our head as with our brains, another little fluke of genetic inheritance.  I knew you'd had some issues, seen therapists and been on a med here or there, but nothing serious. And I guess when you view our medical (psychiatric) and employment histories side by side, yeah, whatever issues you might have faced seem much less severe than mine. But when I read your words, the darkness & depression,  occasional mentions of suicide, and your up & down moods, energy levels, and spending habits... wow, brother.

But our journals are where we are free to say anything, our worst and deepest and darkest. Hell, for those who think I overshare here, you'd really be shocked at what's in my journals. Realistic me suspects that you never would have told me a quarter of how similar our struggles were, even if I'd told you everything.

But I'm thankful to have these and I will honestly fight tooth and nail to keep them, not give them to any other family members,  if that's what I have to do, even if those people are mentioned more often. Fuck them. These are mine.  They both confirm things I already knew and have opened up to me parts of you I never would have seen before. I really enjoyed getting to see you come out, even as I wept with how painful it was. It gave me a new appreciation for your two longterm partners and the relationships you shared with each of them. It makes me feel kess alone in how scared I am about doing this whole grown up thing, feel solidarity in our struggles over housework with our partners, and shows me that some battles with ourselves, with drinking & smoking & weight, over purpose & identity & belonging, we will fight our whole lives.

I wish there was more.  Both that you had written more then and that you were still writing now. I miss you so much.

Vicious Voice in my Head: Bad Date Edition

There's no reason to love me. And no sane man would trust me. Who wants to have and to hold what's been bought, what's been sold, just to love me? There's no reason to know me. And what good man would need me? Who wan'ts to peer through the dust and forget all the lust, just to love me?

What does a girl like you expect would happen?  The things you want, the things you like, putting it all out there like you do, do you really think any man is going to treat you with respect or kindness?  I mean, how could he? You were lucky that this one talked to you like you were a real human being.

what kind of paradise am i looking for? i've got everything i want and still i want more.

And why are you put there slutting it up anyway?  Don't you have a lovely boyfriend and girlfriend at home who love you? And doesn't he give you sex how you want it but still manage to love you and care for you and be tender with you? A girl like you couldn't expect to get that anywhere and you've found a home where you do, so why are you going outside of it? Oh, because everyone is feeling off right now and no one is up for fucking? It hasn't even been a week, wasn't even half a week before you started seeking out ways to slut it up. You can't wait that out? What is wrong with you?

Because I revenge myself all over myself. There's nothing you can do to me.

"Show Me How To Fight For Now"

Weekend with Moneypenny & his new gf, taking my cats to live with him.  Visited with friends of my uncle's,  ppl I grew up with.  Cried on the way back to Moneypenny's house from the suburb I grew up in, knowing it would never be home again.  I can't even drive by gram 's old house.

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it, this brokenness inside me might start healing. Out here it's like I'm someone else, I thought that maybe I could find myself. If I could just come in, I swear I'll leave, won't take nothing but a memory from the house that built me.

But going back only tells me part of the story.  An important part but still only part. The part that is who I was and where I come from.  The part that with each mile under my wheels I'm getting farther and farther away from as I get closer to who I will be, to who I am becoming.  In many ways the person I thought I would be someday, the person I couldn't figure out why I wasn't yet when I was in my 20's. I didn't know then that what I needed was more pain, real pain not just suffering. And time. And hard work. So much more hard work. Hard work that I have to remind myself to do everyday if I can ever hope to get what I want. Well, all that and a little bit of luck.  

I also never knew that the pain would change the color of whatever joy would come. Or that all that "being an adult" that I always wanted would be so hard.  You know it's funny how freedom can make us feel contained when the muscles in our legs aren't used to all the walkin'.

But this weekend, spending time with my bestfriend and his new girl and having an amazing time, feeling that joy for him, for them, something I'm sure neither of us thought I'd ever be able to do as his ex, and thinking about Ginger and the Professor and how lucky I was to have them and how I wanted to work harder on being a better partner brought so much joy to me as I was driving home, when I heard this:

'Cause with your hand in my hand and a pocket full of soul
I can tell you there's no place we couldn't go
Just put your hand on the glass, I'm here trying to pull you through
You just gotta be strong

'Cause I don't wanna lose you now
I'm looking right at the other half of me
The vacancy that sat in my heart
Is a space that now you're home
Show me how to fight for now
And I'll tell you, baby, it was easy
Coming back here to you once I figured it out
You were right here all along

It's like you're my mirror
My mirror staring back at me
I couldn't get any bigger
With anyone else beside of me
And now it's clear as this promise
That we're making two reflections into one
'Cause it's like you're my mirror
My mirror staring back at me, staring back at me.

I just want to hold on to that joy and hope to reflect it back to the people I love.



"House that built me" Miranda Lambert
"Waste" Foster the People
"Mirror" Justin Timberlake

"I want all the things"

Let's start with some common cultural narratives:

• That people will have a "slutty" period in their lives, especially when they are experiencing a new-found freedom and just getting their footing, like when moving out of their family home to go to college or when they are just out of a long relationship.
• The idea that even good girls (and guys, but mostly girls) will end up doing something (or someone) sexually that they did at the time because they thought that the person involved cared for them, but regret later when they find out that the person was just using them sexually.

To this, let's add something that I've posted here before, several years ago, during my own slutty period:

I've always been one of those people who, theoretically, wanted to experience everything. Growing up surrounded by mostly conservative and reasonable people, I mostly got incredulous, despairing, or at best slightly weird looks from my friends and significant others when I talked about any of the wild things that I wanted to do. The current truth of the matter is that I haven't done half of those things, partly because reason prevailed and partly for want of a partner to do them with.

But the summer that everyone started to get sick, though maybe out of the desperation felt from my family situation, I did as many wild things as I could make myself do, though mostly in the sexual realm. I had spent the year before that summer timidly exploring my bdsm sexual interests which I had tried to turn off for the five years previously, when I was in a relationship with someone who made it clear that there must be something wrong with me for wanting to do anything of the kind. While I also hooked-up a few times with a secretive douche of a "nice guy," I was still in "sex is for relationships only" mode and not very confident about my sexuality or my body. But I'd lost quite a bit of weight over that year and, with some help, emerged from my cocoon that summer. It probably also helped my confidence that my orgasm switch got flicked early that summer.

I decided to use the above flowchart to guide my choices. Honestly, I don't really regret anything I did and I don't think that the choices I made or the things I did were all that bad, with maybe one exception, though it certainly wasn't any of the hook-ups with strangers. (Yes, if you're reading this and wondering if I mean you, I probably do.) But I did do plenty of things that weren't really all that fun for me. Though most men that I hooked up with were pretty vanilla, I did tons of stuff that wasn't really my cup of tea, for the orgasms that would come with the sex I was hoping would happen eventually and the sense of adventure that I felt. (Yeah, I know, bdsm stuff doesn't squee me out but someone who wants to make out in their car and have me flash a little boob seems really weird.) But I did it, right? That's what you do, isn't it? Despite feeling good enough about my body to show it to strangers, I still felt that, if someone is willing to ignore your weight and imperfections and that you live at home and don't have a job, then you do lots of weird things that they want you to do. What, you mean that's not how it is supposed to work?

So, why am I telling you this?

Though it's taken me almost a full month to write about it, this recent  episode of Girls really struck a chord with me. It aired on February 10th and was called One Man's Trash. Now, I know there are many detractors of this show, and I acknowledge many of the points made. In fact, I didn't watch the first season of the show when it aired, despite all of the critical acclaim, because of the criticisms. But when I watched it, I could relate. In the February 8, 2013, Entertainment Weekly article about Lena Dunham, the creator of Girls, who also stars as the main character Hannah, Melissa Maerz wrote, "People watched Carrie Bradshaw and thought, 'I want to be her!' People watch Hannah and think, 'Oh my God. I used to be her.' Or worse: 'Oh my God, I am her.'" When I watch Girls, I think, "Yeah, I am working really hard on not being her, but sometimes I still am."

Anyway, in this episode, a handsome neighbor to the coffeeshop where Hannah works comes in to complain about the coffeeshop putting their trash in his cans. Though the manager denies it and has an argument with the man, later Hannah follows him to admit that she did it and explain why. In what one recap writer calls a "classic bold-absurd Hannah move," she kisses him and they quickly start to have sex. Played by Patrick Wilson, he is a 42 year old doctor, named Joshua (don't call him Josh), who renovated this beautiful brownstone and is in the process of divorcing his wife who left him because she doesn't like the city. (As opposed to Hannah's 24 year old who has been cut off by her parents, thinks she might be the voice of her generation, and wants to be a writer, but isn't, as of the start of this episode, doing much about it.) When she goes to leave that night because, according to her, that's when you give people their space, he asks her to stay. He takes off work the next day to spend with her. They are shot in soft light and Hannah lounges around either naked or in clothes of his that, like his house, are neutral shades of gray and brown and white. I think this is the most mainstream-tv attractive Hannah has looked in the whole show, both in terms of her presentation and how it is shot. Dr. Joshua even has a little terrace where they both sit and languidly read the paper. It seems so idyllic and the music reinforces that feeling. But after Dr Joshua saves Hannah after she faints from the steam in his huge shower, she starts crying and goes into confession mode (emphasis and transcribing is mine):

"You said nothing. Honestly you didn't say anything or do anything besides just be so great and perfect and ...Please don't tell anyone this, but I want to be happy. [Joshua: Of course you do. Everyone does.] Yeah, but I didn't think that I did. I made a promise such a long time ago that I was going to take in experiences, all of them, so that I could tell other people about them, and maybe save them, but it gets so tiring- trying to take in all the experiences for everyone, letting everyone say anything to me. And then I came here and I see you. And you've got the fruit in the bowl and the fridge and the stuff and I realize that I'm not different. I want what everyone wants. I want what they all want. I want all the things. I just want to be happy. [Hannah sobs.]
And there's all these experiences that I just feel like I've asked for. Things like who in their right mind would want that. You know, like one time I asked someone to punch me in the chest and then come on that spot. Like that was my idea, that came from my brain. And it's like, what makes me think that I deserve that? [...] I think what I didn't realize before I met you was that I was, like, lonely in such a deep, deep way. And, you know, I was reaching for all this stuff when all I needed was to look at someone and go, That person wants to be there after I'm dead, you know?
You think I'm a crazy girl? [Joshua: No, no, I wasn't thinking that.] I mean, if anything, I think I'm just too smart and too sensitive and too not crazy, so that I'm feeling all these big feelings and containing all these feelings for everybody else ....And I just want to feel everything. I just want to feel it all." 

And the idyll is broke. He has to go to bed because he has to get up in the morning. She's brought all her trash to his house and he doesn't want it, though he's too nice to really say so or to just kick her out that night.

Man, oh, man, have I ever been there. The moment that you hook up with an older person, who has all their shit together and you realize that you want something like this, but you can't have it because you are still too fucked up to be really be a grown up. And, unlike all the non-grown-ups you've been with, they're too nice to kick you out or throw that back in your face. Of course, Hannah's fantasy lasted three days before she saw it for what it was and left. Mine lasted three years and I never really did leave.

When I read some of the online recaps about the episode, most people talked about how unrealistic the whole thing was, a hot guy who has it all together fucking this weird, ugly, fat chick that he just met and then letting her hang out at his house for days and days. Well, I'm here to tell you, it happens. If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone. Though I wasn't a complete stranger off of the street when he first had me over at his house, I feel like things went similarly. He was going through a divorce, (I think) lonely and sad, and living all alone in a big house that he had thought he would get to share with someone. He lived much more comfortably than I ever had while living on my own. He had had a stable career path and job since he was 18. He wasn't demanding. He was so much more accepting than anyone that I had ever met, though sometimes, when I was revealing my crazy and my damage, I did feel like I was getting that same "I don't want to react badly but I have no idea how to process this information or how to help this chick" blank look that Joshua has during Hannah's confession. And when I met him, I feel like I was in much the same area of my life as Hannah is.

But being with him changed me. One of the big changes post-him for me is that now I look for someone who is stable, mostly in their personality, but also in their lifestyle, and preferably both. I never thought I would want that. Another big change has been a focus on getting my own life stable. I know I haven't done the best job of that, but it is something that I'm working on. The next time I meet a real grown up that I click with, where we both would like to have a relationship with each other, I would like to be able to bring something to the table that isn't just my sex drive and superior pop culture knowledge.

I know that not everyone goes through this, these growing pains that Hannah goes through on the show and that I see myself in, which is probably why some people love the show and others think that she's a self-centered, clueless narcissist. But I know what it's like to be floundering, to be struggling to find where you belong, to feel like your place is to experience everything only to have that turn out to be not very uplifting things and then have a sexual relationship with a real grown up show you what you're missing but aren't yet ready to have. I also know that I have been just as stupid and self-centered and ignorant to my own privilege as she often is.

Another thing that this guy showed me was that close romantic relationships didn't have to be all those things I didn't like and that I could be satisfied in one. When I was doing my recent thinking about monogamy and had a great first date with a guy who only wanted monogamous LTRRs, when wondering if I could be monogamous, MP asked me if I thought I could have been satisfied and happy in a monogamous relationship with this previous man I'd been involved with. I'd never asked myself that question, because that was never a parameter of our relationship, but I think the answer is yes. And since then I've looked forward to being happy in a LTRR built on honest and keeping each other sexually satisfied, though it is yet to be seen if that involves being monogamous, open, or poly.

Two Fridays ago, I posted an ad on CL to get laid. I had an unexpected day off work, with no plans. I hadn't had sexual contact in months and I'd recently passed the 'year and a month without intercourse' mark. I was also just really horny that day. I fucked one guy that day. Meh. It was ok, but, after the horny was sated, I wasn't interested in him at all. I talked to two other guys over the weekend and into the next week, both of whom wanted friends with benefits, but who I had intensely mixed feelings about, though I ended up meeting one of them in person last Friday and giving it a shot. Ugh. Knowing more about the guy meant I had more to not like. I wouldn't really want to be this guy's friend and the benefits were not good. I'm starting to think that I need to focus on finding another grown up, one who also wants a grown up relationship, now that the horny isn't intruding on everything I do. I just need to find another grown up who's not a racist, homophobic bigot, who can host and doesn't mind that I can't, who's dominant in bed but not in the relationship, who likes at least some of the shows that I do... . Yep, no problem.

(Sorry if I posted this recently to the blog, but it seems kinda appropriate.)

Faith- George Michael
Well I guess it would be nice
If I could touch your body
I know not everybody
Has got a body like you

But I've got to think twice
Before I give my heart away
And I know all the games you play
Because I play them too

Oh but I
Need some time off from that emotion
Time to pick my heart up off the floor
And when that love comes down
Without devotion
Well it takes a strong man baby 
But I'm showing you the door

'Cause I gotta have faith...

Baby
I know you're asking me to stay
Say please, please, please, don't go away
You say I'm giving you the blues
Maybe
You mean every word you say
Can't help but think of yesterday
And another who tied me down to lover boy rules

Before this river
Becomes an ocean
Before you throw my heart back on the floor
Oh baby I reconsider
My foolish notion
Well I need someone to hold me
But I'll wait for something more

Fear of Walking

3:48pm. I'd only been walking 12 minutes. I felt like I should walk more. Wanted to walk more. But where I really wanted to go was near the park area a block down and a block over. It has a really cool lookout over the city, but is always populated by people who looked...well...sort of shady. Why are there always cars parked on the roads on the edge of the park, often with people sitting in them, all day long? Of course, I have some assumptions about why they are there, which might be wrong since sometimes I sit in my car just to kill time. But it is hard enough to enjoy walking on my own just around a few blocks, without having any major anxiety, so I decided to quit while I was ahead and just go inside the building where I go to my therapy and write. Hell, if it had been dark, I might not have been able to go on the walk at all.

When TyRoy was visiting, he would walk from his girlfriend's work to the downtown library, not far from where my therapy center is. In fact, the week after he left, when I had several hours between my individual and group therapies, I walked down there to read. In an email that night, I expressed that, though it was a brisk Midwestern January day, I enjoyed the walk, that I like walking through cityscapes. He agreed, said that he found the walk invigorating. But I'd seen him walking away from my car on his way back to his girlfriend's work, laptop bag hoisted across his back, and I'd seen a confidence, a carefree-ness, a self-possessed-ness that someone watching me, even on a sunny afternoon like today, would not observe.

The only time I've walked alone in my own neighborhood without my dog or a (male) friend was a few times when I walked to the bar a few blocks away and when I used to walk to work, which was only 5 blocks away. When I was a kid, I watched with envy when characters in movies would wander around late at night, whether they lived in a city or not. I envied people living in densely populated cities who could walk where they were going, or at least from the subway. I envied their autonomy, that they got to do this alone, without having to tell a parent or bring a friend or a dog. (Yes, now that I'm older, I realize that most of those people wish they could just drive their own car around and park it right in front of their house like i do.) Whenever my mom and I were out, or even if we were watching one of those tv shows or movies where I was envying a character's autonomy, she would drill into my head that you had to be vigilant while walking anywhere, watch out for robbers or rapists or murderers. Don't go here. Stay in the light. Keep your keys in your hands. Be aware of who is around you and what they are doing at all times.

Even once we lived in a better neighborhood, I wasn't allowed to just be out by myself (or at least that's how it felt.) I could walk short distances alone, like to friend's houses or the bus stop, but only if there was a specific person or people waiting for me on the other end of my journey. When I got the bug up my butt that I was going to get up early and go for jogs, my mom made me take the bigger and meaner of our two dogs. I was not told that this was because the dog needed the exercise, but that she was with me to keep me safe.

I know that my mom was just trying to keep me safe and trying to teach me how to keep myself safe. And I don't know how much it would have been different if my name had been "Christopher Michael," but I know some of it would have been. [Here is where I start to deal in some assumptions and some broad generalizations, but they aren't wild guesses. They're based on my observations and what I've read of/heard from/know of other people. Bear with me and don't be too quick to dismiss it.] You know why TyRoy walks down the city street like he owns it? It's because he does. Though he is subjected to a different cultural narrative as a black man, and I'm sure there are places where he will get a second (and third) look, a street in this part of the city isn't one of them. While I don't know this for a fact, I doubt he has been taught that everywhere he goes he needs to be constantly vigilant for someone who seeks to victimize him. I doubt he was told as a kid that he couldn't walk down his street without his dog or a friend and I know that didn't translate into an adulthood where he doesn't walk around his neighborhood without a dog or a friend.

My belief, deep down, is that I don't have any business walking around by myself, especially if I'm not going from one set point to another set point. If I do choose to do that, I need to be constantly aware (read: fearful) because I am a victim screaming out for a criminal.

Don't get me wrong. I don't agree with this. I don't think that women (or any people of color or gay people or transpeople) should feel any less welcome to walk down the street in safety and confidence. I just know that is not the lived reality for many people. (And, yes, I do know that there are plenty of non-minority cis men who live with these fears, but they don't have this fear because of this cultural narrative.) 

I just know how stifled and constantly fearful internalizing this cultural narrative has made me. Right now, I'm lucky enough to have constant access to a car for any and all transportation I might need to do, ample parking, and a small yard for my dogs to use the restroom in, but I'm not sure what I'd do if I suddenly didn't have those things available to me. Obviously, I'd have to use other options, but how do you switch that off? Just the other day, I mentioned the possibility of going on a walk later in the day to my mom. "Better take the dog" she said. Rrrr, "It might rain. She's such a princess. She hates walking in the rain," I replied. "Who will protect you then?" she asked, sorta joking, sorta not. What happens if I needed to walk to work or to public transportation because I didn't have a car or the money for gas or car insurance/tags? How do I suddenly turn off that fearfulness that doesn't let me leave the house without a friend or a dog? And if I am supposed to be scared enough not to go out alone, does anyone really think that my stupid little Corgi is going to make me feel suddenly safe and secure? As long as this shadowy robber/rapist/murderer petted her, she'd love them.

For me, it's also become bigger than just being fearful of going on walks alone. As I said earlier, that has seeped out, turned into a belief that I have no place on the street by myself which then turned into I have no right to be out on the street by myself. Then to not having a right to my own self. It sucks and it's horrible and I hate it, but that doesn't change the fact that if something bad happens to me, someone will ask why I was there at that time, because it's my job to be constantly vigilant, not that the person or people who victimized me absolutely should not have done it.

***************************

A week later. The weather has turned back to what I think January should be like. It snowed this morning, though the streets are clear now. I bundle up, pop my earbuds in my ears, and force myself to go on another walk between individual and group. I even wore my ugly ass hiking boots, which are usually used for walking the dogs when it has snowed. I walk several blocks farther today. I left everything but my phone, ID, and debit card back at the therapy center. I try to walk with my shoulders back. The few people that I do pass on this chilly afternoon I look in the eye, smile, and say "hey" to. I'm not so much un-fearful today as I don't give a fuck. I don't walk all that long, just long enough for my face to be starting to feel numb. But this day I went for a walk. By myself.

What Christmas Means to Me

My therapist wanted me to write what Christmas means to me, but she wanted me to do it after the holiday. I see her Thursday, so I thought I had better get on it. Of course, I don't really know how to put it in "what Christmas means to me terms," so I'll be doing it my own way. 

First off, fuck this. I fucking hate this because every time I've tried to think about what I might write, since before Christmas and then very much so tonight, I've cried. Quite a bit. Especially tonight. So, just so everyone knows, I fucking hate this. 

Christmas was a lot of fucking work. It was putting up Christmas decorations with my mom, with no help from my step-dad because he's a Scrooge. It was making cookies and food. It was cleaning like crazy because we were having family over and you can't have the least little bit of dirt if family is coming over. It was shopping and wrapping presents and never having enough money. It was final papers and final tests. It was a week of crazy, rapid cycling mood changes. Of having to take breaks from my studying so I could cry for no reason I knew and then of being so hyped up that I couldn't sleep, even when I was done cleaning and studying.

Christmas was always sad. I always felt this sadness, this incompleteness. Even before I had a context, I always knew that "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" was a really sad fucking song. At least half of Christmas tv episodes made me cry. Still do. Christmas is the end, the last holiday of the year. Your last chance to get it right, which I never felt like I did. I got to see so much of my family but it only highlighted that I didn't live with them anymore. But it wasn't all bad.

Christmas was stolen moments. Stealing moments with friends and boyfriends, whenever the two of you could get away from family. It was trying to hang out with my uncle as much as I could. Cold car rides. "We're going out for a soda. Be back in a few minutes," only we were never back in a few minutes because it took us 20 just to find a store that was open. That one year it was searching everywhere for Crystal Pepsi. It was the Saturday Night Live Christmas Special on Comedy Central. It was sneaking a daiquiri or margarita in the kitchen with my grandmas while my mom was in the other room. It was spending the week between Christmas and New Years back in [the suburb of the Moderately Sized Midwestern City] with my grandparents. After Christmas shopping with Grandma. Getting to visit with the other kids I was in daycare with. Staying up until midnight with my grandpa every New Year's Eve. The neighbors shooting off fireworks or just banging pots and pans around in their front yard at midnight.

Now Christmas is, well, shit, I don't really know what it is anymore. It's still decorating, how the lights outside and the tree still make me feel, even if I have to do it alone. It's still making food. It's still buying presents, how it makes me feel when someone opens their presents. It's still Christmas music, even though I tend towards the newer and alternative, instead of the traditional. It's still about the Christmas movies and the Christmas tv shows- Scrooged, Gremlins, Rare Exports, Buffy's "Amends," the House show with "a Jew with antlers," Dr Who's "Christmas Invasion" and each year's new Dr Who Christmas Special. Oh, and the Grinch. It's still a sadness. It's still working over the holiday, this time because we aren't leaving town and Dad is on call, so I might as well. In years to come, it will probably be required of the job.

I don't really know what it means. To me, it is certainly not the celebration of the birth of my Lord and Savior, as I have none. While I try to believe as my uncle did, that it's time off from work to spend with your family and friends, a time to come together and celebrate, even if you're only celebrating for the sake of celebrating, it sometimes seems to fall short of that when I feel like half that family is missing, when the family that remains is so small. I try to keep how he felt about it alive in my heart, however, so it remains something more than just a way to mark the year as it slips by.

A Tale of Two Cats

When you arrived, my older, female cat, already lounging on the couch, was more than happy to accept any and all attention you had to offer. While she spent some time in my lap, it was often only as a gateway to getting back into your lap. When you and I were together, when I lived back home, she knew your touch almost as much as she knew mine. But it has been years since that time and we wonder outloud if she actually remembers you or if she just likes to be petted by someone new.

My younger, male cat, however, is much much more wary. He spends the entire time you are there hiding under the couch where we sit. Just before you leave, because you want to see him as well, we search all his usual haunts, calling his name. He doesn't volunteer his presence. When I finally find him, hold him in my arms, he allows you to pet him, but doesn't offer any affection. At first I wonder if he just doesn't like another male on his territory, but just last week he readily jumped into the lap of my relatively newly-adopted male cousin who he'd never met. I start to wonder if he does remember you and isn't just showing the caution I should have been showing all this time.

I'm reminded again of how grateful I am that I don't have children, especially that I am not currently a single parent, with the responsibility of judging who to bring into their lives and when, and what to tell them if/when that person leaves their life. I'm still not good at judging those things for myself and still seem to tell myself that things will be different this time. Maybe they will be. Maybe they are.

Moneypenny, the Repseudonyming of Sir

Even though almost all people who read this blog are my personal friends who probably have some idea as to who the pseudonyms correspond to, I still like using the pseudonyms in my blog. This post, from 3 years ago, is the last post in which I updated the pseudonyms I use and my current relationship to those people: http://whatsbehindtheeyes.blogspot.com/2008/04/psuedonym-post-vol-3.html. In it, I wrote this:

Sir- Sir is my most recent ex-boyfriend. We were together 5 years. His
pseudonym of Sir is one that he came up with because, whenever he is out with
male friends at restaurants, the waitresses always call his friends "sweetie"
and "honey" but they always call him "Sir." We broke up February 2005 and have
remained good friends since. **Update: I sabotaged that friendship by revealing
what I felt was his hypocrisy on my blog. But I also revealed a secret that I
shouldn't have, largely out of spite and anger that I felt towards any and all
men who cheat.

Now, when I started this blog, when the above person and I were both in our mid-20s, it was pretty humorous that everyone treated him like a much older man. It was also particularly humorous to me because I felt like he was a stick in the mud who never did anything fun (read: crazy, risky) and I've never tired of pointing that out. In fact, I still don't tire of pointing it out, but I guess it now seems cruel to poke fun at his old-ness, now that he's starting to get laugh lines around his eyes, though few people see them because they only show up when he smiles and he doesn't really smile all that much.

As last year turned into the current one, I wrote a post on my lingering regrets about the ending of our relationship, which managed to reel him back into my life. Though it's been a rocky road back, I think we're finally managing to get on steady ground in our friendship. Which means, of course, that, if I'm writing, he's going to show up in it, even though he probably hates that. And "Sir" just didn't seem to fit anymore, so I started thinking about repseudonyming him.

At the time I was contemplating the repseudonyming, I was watching a BBC show called The Hour, about a fictionalized newsmagazine starting up in 1956. The reckless and headstrong reporter Freddy Lyon often jokingly refers to his bestfriend, and now boss, Bel Rowley as Moneypenny, after the levelheaded secretary to James Bond's boss M. Bel usually then points out that it is she who is the boss now, but, throughout the show, the stubborn reporter often makes the tail wag the dog. Now, though the gender is switched, I thought this a great comparison for Sir and I. In a me-centered world, he's the girl-friday in my crazy, wacky adventures, the strictly logical reasonable has-it-all-together homebody to my emotional living-on-the-edge wanderer. He's the Moneypenny to my James, at least relatively speaking.

So there's your newest pseudonym. Sir has been rechristened Moneypenny.

Sometimes I Feel Cold As Steel, Broken Like I'm Never Gonna Heal

Ok dear readers, no bitching about this being a country song. It's very pop and very...build-up orchestral inspiring. Right now I'm only half way there. I'm at the broken part, still working on seeing the world again. That's part of why I haven't written much at all. I just don't have it in me. But maybe you'll be able to understand this. Thanks for everyone who's stuck by me. I'll try to have more to read soon. Love-Ava


Hello World

Traffic crawls, cell phone calls
Talk radio screams at me
Through my tinted window I see
A little girl, rust red minivan
She's got chocolate on her face
Got little hands, and she waves at me
Yeah, she smiles at me

Hello world
How've you been?
Good to see you, my old friend
Sometimes I feel cold as steel
Broken like I'm never gonna heal
I see a light, a little hope
In a little girl
Hello world

Every day I drive by
A little white church
It's got these little white crosses
Like angels in the yard
Maybe I should stop on in
Say a prayer
Maybe talk to God
Like he is there
Oh I know he is there
Yeah, I know he's there

Hello world
How've you been?
Good to see you, my old friend
Sometimes I feel as cold as steel
And broken like I'm never going to heal
I see a light
A little grace, a little faith unfurled
Hello world

Sometimes I forget what living's for
And I hear my life through my front door
And I'll be there
Oh I'm home again
I see my wife, my little boy, little girl
Hello world
Hello world

All the empty disappears
I remember why I'm here
Just surrender and believe
I fall down on my knees
Oh hello world
Hello world
Hello world

Bomb It and Start Again

All last week, all I could really think was how much I wished I could just start over. Move far away and become a different person. There are so many reasons why my life right now sucks ass.

• Apparently I'm a horrible shrew who nags, never lets things go, and lives to far away for the only sex partner I have (had, who knows). Though I should keep in mind that, if I was a guy, my sex partner would inevitably find me an unavailable, uncommunicative dickhead.
• Other would be dating partner and I finally tossed in the towel, after months of me not making any moves on her. Also, she's *TOTALLY* in love with her new-old boyfriend. Which is funny because she said that she wasn't so keen on dating another bi girl because she didn't want to be a side salad to the chicks main course boyfriend.
• I have a ton of shitty debts, most unavoidable, like medical bills, that I can't pay so I'm leaching off of others for that and always wondering how I'm going to pay for them.
• I can't find a job to save my life. Last week, a corporation where I applied for, tested for, and interviewed for 2 positions at sent me a total of four rejection letters, just in case one letter per job didn't give me enough of a clue that they don't want me.
• Volunteering isn't going much better, as I feel so uncomfortable trying to sell people on the organization who are unresponsive or uninterested that I psyche myself out (not in the good way) for later attempts and then just throw in the town all together. Though today I finally heard from the animal shelter. I think I'd be more fulfilled cleaning puppy and kitty poop.
• Gram has diabetes and is not following the "diabetic diet" for shit. It could be worse. It's not like she was eating sugar and crap before this. But she does eat lots of starch without any balance. And we aren't there, so we can't make her eat, cook for her, etc. Just another health thing to worry about with her. And each time I try to talk to Mom about one of us being out there with her, I just get shot down, which is sort of a relief because I would be the one and most of me doesn't want to do it, but I still feel like it should be done. It's frustrating. It'd be easier to not think about it or deal with it.
• I'm hella tired of my own drugs. I'm tired of the "side effects" that can't be treated with other drugs, the ones that other people seem to just brush off. As MP says, the drugs make me a whole lot less dead, which means that everyone else things they are worth the price paid. But, as I've asked before, when is it not worth it to live as someone else on the meds? I'm tired of being slow, of not feeling like myself, of not being able to even come up with ideas to write fiction stories from, of not being able to make connections between things, of feeling like my IQ is 20 points lower than before, of not feeling creative, of not feeling or wanting to be sexy. I'm tired of the acne, the hair loss, the shakes, the twitches, the change in taste in and of food, and gaining weight at exponential rates.

So, why not go? Why am I still sending out applications for jobs? Why am I cruising CL for a new lover? Why am I making plans for what "homemaker"-y stuff I'm going to do tomorrow?

Well, first, did you read about the job thing? Which leads to a whole "no-money" things?

Oh, yeah, and my uncle has a new tumor. Seems the experimental drug isn't working anymore. He has a broken rib that won't heal because there is a tumor in the middle of it. His oncologist at the Big Cancer Clinic weaseled him into a study they are doing in Slightly Larger Midwestern City, which is good because it is closer to him, but not so great because he has to see Gram everytime he goes. But he's in alot of pain alot of the time and... well, he's not dying this minute or maybe in the next couple of months or maybe even the next year, but it seems like that whole "dance in celebration of remission" the family did was a little premature, if it was even warranted at all. He's 38, for chissakes! He'd just came out and gotten comfortable and gotten a place where he felt at home and now this. (And I guess this is the bargaining phase but) Why couldn't it have been me? At least I want to/have wanted to die.

I just want a couple things to go right at the same time. And for me not to fuck them up.

More freewriting than writing...

Can't sleep because of my "restless leg syndrome". Ok, so it probably isn't that but I don't know what the hell to call it and it sure as hell feels like what the commercials describe. Keep thinking that I should have stolen some of my Gram's meds for RLS when I was visiting last week. And a few Vicoden while I was at it.

Laying here wondering why you called me. St Patty's Day. You were between bars. I can't deny that a part of me envies those who can and do go out to bars, drink, smoke, have a good time, though I also have to admit that I wasn't that wild when I was drinking, mostly due to a lack of designated drivers. But I think I kinda rained on your parade when you called. I didn't have much to say, no recent good news in my life, and I wasn't happy and drunk myself.

But I'm not sure what you expect to hear. I don't exactly feel comfortable telling you about seeing and fucking my ex-bf while I was out of town visiting my grandmother, the one who really dislikes you, the one who just got out of jail and still owes me money that I got from you. And I know you don't want to hear about the only consistent friendship and bed partner that I do have, a man you despise and think stole me from you, among other crimes. And you've known that for the past couple of weeks I've been too depressed to really do much of anything, including hang out with most of my other friends or do anything constructive, like get a fucking job. Thankfully, just the driving and singing of my road trip helped that some, but.... I don't really feel like you want to hear about me being happy. Hell, I didn't feel like hearing you all happy-drunk, especially because of issues that were between us about alcohol. Not that I begrudge you happiness, but I just wish it felt like it was a little more real and lasting, instead of something that can only fuel more drama in your life.

The day before this call, while sitting at a red light, the driver of the car next to me lit up a cigarette. The weater was beautiful and we both had our windows down. I caught a long, lingering whiff of her cigarette smoke before the light changed. It reminded me of you. One might think that, after a childhood living with my grandparents who both smoked like chimnees, I would associate the smell of cigarette smoke with them. And I guess I do, but I usually associate them with the smell of stale, lingering cigarette smoke in a too-small room. But fresh cigarette smoke..... Hell, if it wasn't for the interest of another man, memories of you might have ruined my experience at a day-before-Valentine's-Day party. One of the other players at my Spin The Bottle table was a smoker. He tasted like you. Hell, he even kissed kinda like you. And a Juggalo to boot.

So I'm still wondering what you expected when you called last night. I guess I just think it is all a little too soon for all this. Even if I wanted to remain friends with you, which I'm honestly not sure I do want to, because it hurts to fucking much still, I'm not sure I'm in a place to do that. When people are friends with their exes, they usually end up trying to get back together. Unless they have significant others at the time, in which case they just cheat. The prime example being my ex-bf I just saw and all your ex-gfs who crawled out of the woodwork once you were married and gainfully employed. Just don't know what the fuck you wanted or expected. Not sure any answer will actually make me sleep any better.....

Untitled Poem

Found in a notebook I don't write in often, not dated, kinda only half-finished but wanted to share when I found it.

Untitled
I watch TV as you sleep
Henry and June
On the big television on your
Oversized chest of drawers
Know you'll fuck my brains out
If you catch me watching it
During a lusty sex scene
-----
The light from the television
Makes your dark skin shine
Your knee pointing out from
Under the comforter
I want to kiss it, lick the crease in the underside
Wake you up to be ravaged by you again
But I don't want to wake you
-----
I like you more than I should
I might love you butI can't be sure it's not
Just circumstances and good sex
But
But you are sick and twisted
Like I am
You write ideas on little scraps of paper
You came back just to make sure I wouldn't leave upset at myself
You conceal romantic gestures
Just in case they aren't accepted

And I can't stop

Decision Making Strategies

When I saw this diagram on one of the feminist blogs that I visit regularly, I thought it would be a perfect way as a writer to make decisions, if you are only thinking about obtaining more experiences to draw from for your writing.

But it can sometimes get you into trouble. Or at least slightly weird situations.

Like getting stood-up on a Friday night by a guy you met on the internet who claimed to have been forced into being bi after being raped by a guy on an overnight train, in a story strangely reminiscent of one featured in the advice column Savage Love several months ago.

Like being 25 and in a car parked in the local high school's parking lot, surrounded by four cop cars, after you've decided to meet some guy off the internet to JUST make-out.

Maybe I should rethink using this diagram.......

THE Psuedonym Post (Vol. 2)

So, as there are some new people in my life who I hope will be appearing often on this blog so I thought I'd publish another volume of the psuedonym post. The original post is underneath, with a few updates.

The Keeper- A mid-30s professional businessman who I met by responding to his Craigslist post looking for a mistress and "kept woman" who he could help financially in return for having a reliable, intelligent woman he could spend time with. He's not a "sex in a box" yet, but I'm hoping that this relationship develops more.

Boy Toy (BT)- A late-20s Army boy who is shipping off for Iraq soon, but that I'm having great sex with until he does. He lives in the nearby college town in the same communal home as a friend of mine and my uncle's, which is how I met him. He is amazing, sweet, and makes me feel safe and wanted all the time we are together. I just wish I got to see him more. While he's away, I plan to send him lots of care packages.

Stewart- An unhappily married man that I'm have a "sex in a box" relationship with. He's a mid-30s professional businessman as well and I really enjoy how he looks like your average suburban dad/businessman, but has already revealed a little kink. It's just sex, but good sex. And, of course, Stewart isn't his real name, but the name he used when he first contacted me in an unsolicited IM.

Chimera- And last but not least, my long-distance "sub in a box" relationship. He's a 20 year old dad in Ohio who is going to marry the mother of his child soon, but has yet to even really fully explain his desires to be dominated to her. Though their relationship is kinky, it is mostly him fulfilling her desires to be submissive. I met him on a 3D avatar chatting site when he was looking to be the slave of the Alpha Female in the Pack. Thought we started as friends, fellow subs sharing what we desired, I've since come to really enjoy dominating him.

Original Post
A friend and regular reader suggested that they have been confused about my psuedonyms for different people so I thought I'd start a psuedonym post that I'll put in the Important Posts section and update as I get more psuedonyms and more people in my life, so that there is an easy index for all readers.

Sir- Sir is my most recent ex-boyfriend. We were together 5 years. His psuedonym of Sir is one that he came up with because, whenever he is out with male friends at restaurants, the waitresses always call his friends "sweetie" and "honey" but they always call him "Sir." We broke up February 2005 and have remained good friends since.

Ex-T- My first real boyfriend when I was 16. He lives in bigger Midwestern city where I travel to see my grandparents. We are still friends and talk quite often. T is his first initial and I was very lazy in coming up with a psuedonym for him.

Ex-J- My second real boyfriend. He was a great guy that I fucked over royally. But I think he has a good life now. Or at least I hope he does. Once again, J is his first initial and I was lazy.

Anna- My good straight male crossdressing friend, who I have developed a "switch in a box" relationship with. Even if we were to stop "playing", we'd still hang out and watch movies, get really drunk, and just have a good time.

Mon Parrain- The name is French for sponsor, godfather, advisor. I wanted to pick something that would fit his initials, MP. He is a "sex in a box", but is also fast becoming a very good friend who is teaching me about myself, my sexuality, and life in general. He has a very complicated life, but is very honest and caring. I hope that soon our relationship will move more towards "dom in a box."

Cassie- She is a friend that I've had for a year or more now. A frenemy tried hooking us up, but nothing really happened so we decided to become friends. I have thought that nothing was happening between us because she didn't like me. On paper we would have been a perfect match, but she never made any ANY move towards me. Turns out she is just painfully shy in the romance department. She recently became a "sex in a box" after I got really flirty with her. **Update: That "sex in the box" didn't last very long as she felt I was taking advantage of her. While I thought I had explained what I was looking for, it obviously didn't really set in. But, despite all that, we are still friends and she has just gotten with a great girl who she's in love with, so I'm happy.

The Pack- This is a family that I have met recently and seem to becoming part of fairly quickly. I answered a CL ad from a couple looking for a third, though they didn't really specify whether they wanted just a third domestically or both domestically and sexually. They offered me sanctuary when I was worried about a guy coming after me and I'm completely taken by them and the life they have to offer. It might just be infatuation, but, right now, I want to be a part of their pack, their beta female. Individually, since I'm not very inventive right now, they are Alpha Male(AM) and Alpha Female(AF), and their two beautiful amazing children are Female Cub(FC) and Male Cub(MC). **Update: This has since blown-up, for many reasons.

Free Write From Retreat

Back dated to when it was written. Sorry, I've been negligent in posting.

The house should be creepy to me. Well, it kinda is anyway. The stones holding in the yard are old, beginning to crumble. The stone steps don't lead to the front door. Instead they leave you facing a part of the side porch enclosed by a banister. I have to navigate the small sidewalk, which is being overtaken by the unkempt yard, duck under low-hanging trees to get to the stairs up to the porch. The top step on the porch is rotting away, making the last step rather precarious. A skeleton sits in a rocking chair ten feet to my right on the wrap-around porch, perhaps a Halloween joke left out until the next August? Spiders and their intricate webs have taken over the area between the flannel-shirted skeleton and I.

I knock on the front door but no one answers. The thin pain of glass that makes up the top half of the door makes me nervous. It doesn't seeem like a very secure barrier, a very strong deterant to would-be theifs. Then again, I can clearly see the intricate swords and knives hanging decoratively on the wall opposite the door. Maybe those are the real deterants.
I knock a second and third time before a jovial face appears in the door opposite the front door. Though this is the first time I've seen this face in person, a disjointed film plays in the back of my head, of all the times before I've seen him. I never really believed in past lives. But a movie plays in my mind, centuries spanned in which I've known this same man, seen this same face, in rage, in battle, in tenderness. The door is opened and I am immediately embraced, the prodigal finally coming home. I relax into the bear of an embrace, into this stranger I have known a thousand times before.

The inside of the house is dim, but warm and inviting. Chaoting in the way that only two infants can create. With few words, I am hustled to the shower, already running for me, so that i can wash off the dirt and sweat from my long journey. As he guides me through the house, I can hear her singing in some close room. A melodic soprano voice singing, "Hey, way, I've got a new complaint." It's the sweetest Nirvana cover I've ever heard. She brings me a set of her won clothes to change into after my shower, for we are almost the same size, and a big hug, overjoyed that I am finally here.

Can someplace be home the first time you've been there?

Alone in the shower, cluttered with a million different kinds of shampooes and conditioners and body washes, I can still hear the household running around me. the joyous cries and laughter of the two infants, the constant movement of their parents. The scalding water rinses away all my fears and doubts about coming here as well as the fears that drove me to seek sanctuary with strangers. I am suddenly, strangely, unencumbered.

Once clean and in fresh clothing, I sit with the rest of the pack on their new tan couch. The older of the two children, a usually cautious female cub, takes my hand and asks me to watch cartoons with her. Her mother tries to hide her shock. As three year old humans are known to do, the little girl climbs all over me and the couch, igoring all modesty as her dress shifts, exposing her small body. She is also a never ending stream of questions and comments. Unfortunately, I have not yet mastered the language of three year olds.

THE Psuedonym Post (Vol. 1)

A friend and regular reader suggested that they have been confused about my psuedonyms for different people so I thought I'd start a psuedonym post that I'll put in the Important Posts section and update as I get more psuedonyms and more people in my life, so that there is an easy index for all readers.

Sir- Sir is my most recent ex-boyfriend. We were together 5 years. His psuedonym of Sir is one that he came up with because, whenever he is out with male friends at restaurants, the waitresses always call his friends "sweetie" and "honey" but they always call him "Sir." We broke up February 2005 and have remained good friends since.

Ex-T- My first real boyfriend when I was 16. He lives in bigger Midwestern city where I travel to see my grandparents. We are still friends and talk quite often. T is his first initial and I was very lazy in coming up with a psuedonym for him.

Ex-J- My second real boyfriend. He was a great guy that I fucked over royally. But I think he has a good life now. Or at least I hope he does. Once again, J is his first initial and I was lazy.

Anna- My good straight male crossdressing friend, who I have developed a "switch in a box" relationship with. Even if we were to stop "playing", we'd still hang out and watch movies, get really drunk, and just have a good time.

Mon Parrain- The name is French for sponsor, godfather, advisor. I wanted to pick something that would fit his initials, MP. He is a "sex in a box", but is also fast becoming a very good friend who is teaching me about myself, my sexuality, and life in general. He has a very complicated life, but is very honest and caring. I hope that soon our relationship will move more towards "dom in a box."

Cassie- She is a friend that I've had for a year or more now. A frenemy tried hooking us up, but nothing really happened so we decided to become friends. I have thought that nothing was happening between us because she didn't like me. On paper we would have been a perfect match, but she never made any ANY move towards me. Turns out she is just painfully shy in the romance department. She recently became a "sex in a box" after I got really flirty with her.

The Pack- This is a family that I have met recently and seem to becoming part of fairly quickly. I answered a CL ad from a couple looking for a third, though they didn't really specify whether they wanted just a third domestically or both domestically and sexually. They offered me sanctuary when I was worried about a guy coming after me and I'm completely taken by them and the life they have to offer. It might just be infatuation, but, right now, I want to be a part of their pack, their beta female. Individually, since I'm not very inventive right now, they are Alpha Male(AM) and Alpha Female(AF), and their two beautiful amazing children are Female Cub(FC) and Male Cub(MC).

Sunday after the Shower: A Fantasy

I can’t sleep any longer. The phone calls won’t stop. Well-wishers wanting to do stuff for my grandmother, my grandmother waking me and ordering me around. The dogs barking at nothing, hoping I’ll give them a bone on my way back to bed, promising me that if I do they’ll shut up.
Once back in bed, I can’t really fall back asleep. All I can think of is you. Of the times spent in this bed. It’s Sunday. I haven’t heard from you since your four line e-mail last Monday. “Talk to you soon.” Hmp.
I have to shower before making my daily visit to see my grandfather at the hospital. As he’s been moved temporarily from the rehab floor to a medical floor while he gets over a bout of pneumonia, he has even more time alone on his hands. I enjoy the quiet of sitting with him in his room. He’s never been much of a talker. Though hard of hearing, he doesn’t turn his tv up loud, mostly because he doesn’t really watch it. We mostly just sit together.
It’s a nice change of pace from my grandmother’s house. If she’s awake, she’s talking to me. Constantly. It doesn’t really matter what I’m doing or where I am in the house. Privacy has no meaning to this woman. I get a special reprieve between 8 and 9 pm, she retires to her room, where she blasts taped episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit on her bedroom tv. I can hear the dialogue outside her door. She wakes up at 2 am for a cigarette, at which time she begins to talk to me again. It doesn’t matter if I’m watching a movie or catching up on the political blogs I read regularly or reading a book or just generally attempting to take advantage of the relative quiet of the house in those late night hours. She will begin the non-stop barrage of questions, disregarding the activity I’d previously been engrossed in. I suppose “question” is the wrong word because she isn’t really looking for an answer. She is looking for agreement.
Sleep provides a sort of refuge but, for the past week, I’ve been unable to sleep, thinking of you, conjuring all the ways and reasons that my hot-and-heavy new lover, who said he never disappeared on people, has suddenly disappeared.
My one respite lately has been singing. I’m not a very good vocalist, but it tends to take me out of myself, like a great meditation that I can achieve in only three minutes. The car and the shower are the best places to indulge in this because they tend to create a wonderful echo chamber, making me sound much better than I really am. As I gather my clothes, I also grab the small stereo and a mix cd, so I don’t have to rely solely on songs I know all the words to.
As I undress, I start the disk. Or attempt to start the disk. After a minute of fussing, the first song starts to play. But just as I step into the bathtub, the music stops, though the disk is still spinning. I skip that song. And the next. The third track seems to be working better. In the middle of shampooing my hair, however, that song hits a snag as well. Dripping wet, I dry my hands on my towel, skipping through the rest of the songs on the disk to see if I have any more luck with them. I don’t. Finally, I give up, turning off the power to the stereo and going back to my shower.
I drop to my knees in the bathtub, warm water streaming down my back, my calves flush against the hard porcelain. This seems to be the way my life has been going lately. A combination of life’s downs all happening at once and my less-than-stellar way of handling it. Having a hot dominant lover, full of possibilities, had seemed to take the edge of off a great deal of the stress, but now….
The dogs were barking again. But this time it meant that my grandmother was probably home. Visiting hours on that floor started at 11 am. It was probably 2 pm by now, meaning she was just exhausted. I hauled my body off the bottom of the tub and finish my shower so I could get to the quiet of the hospital as soon as possible. I shaved my legs, just in case. The tech that came on duty at 7pm last night was pretty cute. Maybe I could haul him into a linen closet for a quick make-out session before I left. Goddess, what was getting into me?!?
As soon as I pulled back the shower curtain, I realized my mistake. In my distraction to get the small stereo, I had forgotten to grab my blue jeans out of the closet. So, I had a fresh pair of panties, a bra, and a t-shirt, but no pants. Oh, well. Lotion all over, what clothes I did have, two quick pigtails in my not-quite-long-enough-for-a-real-ponytail hair, and I was ready to throw on my jeans, grab my bag, and go. But, when I opened the door to my room, I was met with a surprise.
The bed covers that I had left in a crazy mess were neatly pulled over a human-shaped lump curled in the middle of my bed. This human-shaped lump was obviously naked, as there was a neatly-stacked pile of clothes sitting on the floor at the end of the bed, the tell-tale Tommy boxer-briefs folded neatly on top. Hearing me shut the door, a blond head popped up from under the covers, a mischievous grin on your wholesome face.
“Your grandmother really needs to be more careful about locking the door when she leaves. Any psycho could come in here.”
“What do you think you are doing here? After nearly a week? No texts, no calls, no e-mails- you just show up like this? Naked and in my bed?”
“If you didn’t know I was here, why aren’t you wearing any pants?” As I don’t really have a good answer for that, I just stand at the foot of the bed and scowl at you.
A shadow passes over your face and you’re suddenly pulling me down onto the bed with you. In one swift move, you are on top of me. There is a strange new look in your eyes, one I’ve heard about but never seen. The one I teasingly call your “dom” look. Your hands are holding my wrist firmly over my head as you lean down, I think, to kiss me. Instead, you murmur harshly into my ear, “You’re going to trust that there is a good explanation for all this and you are going to wait to hear it until I’m ready to tell it to you. But right now, we are both going to get what we’ve both wanted for this whole week.”
I sigh, relax, submit.

Just a note about the previous post....

Just a note about the previous post....

I had written it (the old fashioned way, by hand, in the journal I carry with me) while I was at the hospital very early Friday morning waiting for the doctor to come by on his regular rounds so that I could then go home and relay what he had to say to my grandmother, who couldn't go because her back was hurting her too bad. But, as doctors never show up when you think they will, I had plenty of time to write that. Then, when I got home, I typed it up for the blog. Of course, I got interupted by a phone call, leaving it up on the computer screen. I can't really blame my grandmother for reading it, because that is exactly what I would have done if I was in her shoes. But what really irritated me was that, first, she insisted that I print it off so that she could keep it and show it to everyone she knew, and, second, that she thought it was all about how pretty I think her garden is. I think she missed the point of it. Oh well.