Mixed bag

In the rush of interviewing, working, having Jay over, and writing two papers, I've somewhat neglected an update here. Oops. I am clearly, clearly awesome.

Anyway, YES, I got the job! I am wicked excited to be working normal, 9-5 hours, not weekends, not with kids, in a much less stressful position. I'm not naive enough to think that it won't be stressful at all - I'll be working in an administrative/IT position for a very large company, which is in and of itself a challenge and a switch. But I'm extremely happy. The position is very open-ended, and when the interviewer is telling you about other opportunities that would be available to you in the company, you have to figure that's a good sign. Nowhere to go but up.

So I gave notice at my current job, and my last day there will be November 14th. Honestly, there's a lot of mixed feelings I have about that. Yes, it's an excellent job, and I've certainly gotten a lot out of it - as well as contributed a lot. But I'm burnt out. I looked back over my personal journal for the past year or so, and since January, I've been regularly posted "Oh my god, I hate my job". That's a bad sign, and I'm glad I'm correcting the situation sooner rather than later.

Still, I will miss it - if only because I can wear more or less whatever I want while I'm working. I know right now I'm excited about high heels, but I know I'll miss my jeans, hardcore.

I also worry about the kids. So many of these kids have lived their lives with the people that say they care about them leaving, and here I go, leaving. I realize that this isn't exactly like I'm completely abandoning them, but still. I don't look forward to having to tell them I'm leaving. I get the impression that tears will be shed, and ugh, I hate crying.

I'm not looking forward to telling the staff I'm leaving, either. If I'm guessing right, there will be lots of mixed reactions - anger, frustration, sadness, among others. I'm pretty sure one of my supervisees will freak out; when she and I had talked two weeks ago, I hadn't even interviewed for anything else, so I told her that I didn't have any definite plans. Suddenly, it's all crystallized, and I'm leaving much sooner than I lead her to believe that I would. It probably won't be pretty.

Still... I'm happy to be leaving. I'm excited about the new opportunities I'll have, and I'm excited to be back in a position where I don't have to be responsible for anyone but myself, as well as a position that draws upon more of my career and educational background.

These next two and a half weeks are going to be supremely interesting.

Panic!

I'm getting ready for my second interview about this job I desperately want, and it reminded me of the post I made. I don't have the time to fully flesh this out, but I wanted to get something down (oh god, I'm placeholding on my blog. This is sad.)

I am very. dominant. in my non-bedroom life. All of my friends assume that I wear the pants in my relationship with Jay. I'm a supervisor in my current position. I frequently get asked to take charge of things. I handle the bills in my apartment. My friends defer to me on a number of matters. I am in charge, people, and that is just the way I like it.

Except in bed. I want nothing to do with being in charge in bed.

So essentially, Jay and I switch, every single day.

On that note, time to put on my high heels. Mmmm, I heart high heels. I just bought this fabulous pair of red suede ones... MUST GET DRESSED oh god I am going to interview.

Put on some make-up

Had my first interview today, and it went smashingly, actually. I realized how much I miss power-dressing. You know - tailored skirts, smart blouses, shoes to die for. I miss it. I miss the heady feeling of being totally capable and in control. I miss what it projects.

I went in one Monday evening to work power-dressed. I'd been at my volunteer placement, and it requires business-wear; no blue denim is allowed. I opted to not change for work. I was wearing a burgundy blouse, gray trousers, and black heels. I looked good.

Every single kid commented on how good I looked. And I got so much less flack that evening - much less than I've been getting lately. And it was the clothes. They projected confidence and power for me, and because I knew that's what the clothes were saying, it was a lot easier to match my behavior to it. And that was a damned good night at work; probably one of the best I've had in months.

So it was nice today, to wear a trim skirt, trendy little sweater, and cute heels, and look fabulous and professional and tailored and put together - even if I changed into jeans and a t-shirt at work again.

I can't wait to be back into heels on a regular basis.

Squee, motherfuckers

I spent some quality time on Tuesday updating my resume. I hate resumes. I hate them more when I have to rewrite them. But I think I came up with what is my best resume yet, so I duly sent it off to a few places I'd seen potential openings at.

Earlier in the week, I'd emailed Elizabeth, because I thought I saw her job posted on a job board and was confused and amused. She replied that it was not hers, but it was for a position in the same town I currently work in.

She called back two days later stating that the salary was much higher than she thought it would be, and that while they were in their final rounds of candidates, she was relatively sure that one of them would not take it, and so an opening would arise. Her instructions were "I will call you, and you will give me your resume".

She called.

So tomorrow I send her my resume. Monday, I have an interview. It is for a job with better hours, much better pay, the same commute, and comparable benefits.

I have no idea what to wear! Oh god I need to go shopping.

Sign in to the Blogger in Beta

Seriously people, what the fuck. "The Blogger"? Reminds me of "THE Ohio State University". Seriously.

Today was marginally less sucky than I expected it to be. One of my appointments this morning was to go to the local Planned Parenthood and get myself some pap smeared and pills, and lo and behold! No pap smearage for me. That always makes my day, but not because it's unenjoyable. Oh no, not at all. It's quite the opposite really, and the fact that I'm having a good time is just not something that I want to be obvious enough to have to discuss it with my doctor. I'm probably thinking the same thoughts as someone who hates them - "La la la, that is NOT a speculum in there, la la la, I don't have anyone looking at my naughty bits" etc. and so on - but for completely different reasons.

So far, I've been relatively successful. But still, not in the space to really test that right now.

And, they gave me pills, so that means no more condoms, which means a much happier me (Jay too, but I'm allowed to be selfish today, because... well because I said so). Stupidly, last time I broke up with him, I stopped the pill, because right, I was done dating him for good. Right. No, not right at all, I am clearly an ass. But I did, however, abstain for over a year, which I am perversely proud of.

More sucky was the fact that I do have to have my wisdom teeth out, and that there's only one day a week the oral surgeon is in the office, and it's on the first of the two days I have class. Fucking bastard; his office hours should revolve around me, dammit. But, it is a handy excuse for a week off of work, so I will be doing that as well.

Jay has known for as long as I have that my two wisdom teeth need to come out, and without my even asking informed me that he will in fact be driving me around that day. Sometimes, I really hate when he reminds me just how wonderful he is.

Again on the sucky list, I hate my paper. I normally hate papers and exams after I turn them in, but they usually turn out okay. I'm hoping that the pattern holds true, because this is a bit more severe than usual. I have a lot more specific complaints about it, and while writing it, I never really felt it come together. Too bad it's 20% of my fucking grade. Good thing I still have another 75% in papers coming up to help improve it. My professor loved my first one, which naturally, was ungraded, so hopefully she'll like this one too.

On the positive side again though, I clearly have a new best friend in class, and he's gay and devious and snarky and hilarious, and we spend all of our social policy class being pissy, because it sucks it hardcore. Love it.

One more positive - I have a rewritten resume, and applications in to like, four or five jobs already. I need to tweak it a bit more for the other potential job area I might go for, but still, much better than it was. Hopefully one of them will pan out soon, because really, my current job cannot be over soon enough.

Jay is coming over on Friday; too bad I'll be exhausted from work. Still, might ask for a good beating anyway. Amazing how having the outlet of not being in charge makes me feel better about life.

Ugh

Reasons I do not want to get up this morning:

1. Getting up will eventually involve leaving the house and my bed, neither of which I am really interested in.
2. I have a four-page paper due at 5:00 that I have not even started.
3. I hate my job and it makes me want to die.
4. See #3.
5. I don't want the oral surgeon to tell me that I need to get my wisdom teeth extracted.
6. No matter how much sleep I "catch up on", I'm still tired.
7. See #4.
8. I have no idea where I'm going to park for my appointment at 10.
9. I still don't have a new job.
10. I really, really hate my current job, and cannot leave it fast enough.

Steam and sex

We go through cycles, Jay and I. We oscillate between 'kinky' and 'less-kinky'. Even when we're not doing anything else kinky, and we just want some calm, warm-fuzzy sex, he's usually pulling my hair or something.

It was during one of our kinkier weekends that we first had sex in the shower. Well, the first time in years, really. I think we'd done it once or twice when we were living together in one of our relationship's previous incarnations, but that was at least two or three years ago. It hadn't worked too well, as I recall, those last times.

I'd spent the weekend in a collar, naked, for the most part, but it was a Saturday afternoon and I wanted a shower. I'm one of those people that has to shower every day or I feel strange. I crave being enveloped in water and steam, locked away in my own little world. Nothing else exists but the pounding of the spray on my head and the water sluicing down my body. It's stress relief, grounding, rejuvenation.

Sometimes I like to bring Jay in there with me, and I was in the mood for that. I worked up the nerve, somehow, to drop the hint that we did in fact have a pair of waterproof, neoprene cuffs, and wasn't that interesting? I was so nervous as I said it that I kind of wanted to puke, and I'm quite proud that I didn't.

Jay responded by taking off the leather, not-shower-proof collar, putting on the cuffs in question, and more or less dragging me into the shower.

At first, nothing really happened. I washed my hair, he washed his, we soaped each other up, so on and so forth, and suddenly I am backed up against the wall, hands cuffed together and over my head, and his hands are everywhere - pinching and twisting my nipples, slapping my breasts, smacking my thighs apart so that he could get at my pussy, teasing me mercilessly. There's nowhere I can go, nothing I can do to get away from it. I'm lost - my mind has shut off, my eyes have closed, and I am nothing but sensation. My arms are still above my head, I have no choice, I am not in control.

I beg, wordlessly, for his cock; words have long abandoned me. He gives me two fingers instead. They slip inside His pussy easily, stroking, filling, making me buck my hips and ask for more. He takes his fingers out, and puts his hand on my throat, making me open my eyes and look at him, and as I stare at him through sex-hazed eyes, he slowly, slowly, slides his cock inside of me, making me wait, making me writhe, making me beg all the more.

He fucks me like that - up against the wall, hands cuffed together, as he holds my hips to keep me upright, as my knees are failing. In some distant part of my brain I hear his breathing change, getting heavier, harder. The only other thing I am aware of is this perfect moment of being one, together, and as he pushes me over the edge into orgasm, my mind shatters, and I am left shaking, trembling, held in his arms, unsure of what has just happened, but secure in the knowledge that he won't let me fall.

He smooths my hair back from my face, murmuring reassurances in my ear, waiting for me to come back down to earth and regain some power over my legs. When I can stand again, he turns off the shower, wraps me in a towel, and dries me off and puts me to bed, and I fall asleep, curled up and held in his arms, and wearing the collar once more, because I am His.

(not a) Pain Slut

So after Jay and I had talked about me not wanting him to live with me again, I promptly offered for him to come over last night and have dinner with me, and possibly stay over. You know, no strings attached, but hey, just because I told you 'no' doesn't mean I don't want to see you. That sort of thing.

Of course he accepted. He's not that dumb.

We managed to find a new restaurant and actually go and eat dinner, which is a first. I love the idea of finding new places to go and things to do, and then usually freak out at the last minute and want to stay home in a ball of cranky. But it was good. I ate ribs. And we talked through dinner, which we never do, and it was a rather novel sort of experience.

When we got home, Jay was laying on the bed in a bit of a steak-induced food coma, and I was puttering around, cleaning up small bits and bobs. My room is a hot mess, but I figure if I can at least get a few small things put away, that makes it a little bit better. Maybe.

I was cleaning off my nightstand, and came across a couple of clothespins I had taken out a while back, on one of the few occasions that I had masturbated. Naturally, being a snot, I couldn't help but make the comment "Oh, how did these clothespins get here?"

Jay more or less immediately woke up, and started questioning me on just why they were out, which turned me into a giggly wreck. It's like, I want him to know what I'm doing, but I don't want to actually tell him. He should just read my mind and know this shit, you know?

He eventually got out of me that I'd used them on my nipples, told me that was extremely arousing for him, and I thought the matter was over, since he was starting to fall asleep. Except, oh wait, no, and suddenly my clothes are off and Jay is digging around in the drawers. He comes out with the collar that we have matching cuffs to, puts it on, and then puts just the wrist cuffs on. He links the cuffs together and puts my hands over my head in that way that says that just because he didn't secure them there, doesn't mean I get to move them. I am waiting with baited breath to see what else he comes up with.

I am not entirely sure what he is doing until he starts pinching my nipples, which means that clothespins or other clamps are surely in my future. Now, I have somewhat sensitive nipples, and I am wholeheartedly not a pain-slut, so Jay usually puts the clamps somewhat behind my nipples, so that they're not the only thing clamped. No such mercy this time, the pins go directly on the nipples, and mother of GOD IT HURTS. I am doing deep-breathing exercises to deal with this pain, okay? Being a bit of a sadist, Jay is enjoying every minute, and decides to up the fun by adding a pair of clothespins to my labia, and hey, what's one more clothespin between friends? He puts it on my clit. I hate him.

He is toying with my g-spot in a way that raises goosebumps on my flesh, and I am desperately, desperately trying not to have an orgasm, because when I do, my tits will move, and it will hurt. Lots. At this point, I am probably about as happy as I can be without being happy at all, for whatever sense that makes.

By now my nipples have been tortured for a good fifteen or twenty minutes. This shit hurts. I probably cannot repeat that enough. I am also incapable of coming up with a good metaphor for the pain, so you'll have to take that. Anyway. He takes the clothespoins off my labia, and that's fine, not really too much pain there, nothing I can't handle. Then I see him going for the tits. Now, I wanted them off, I really did. But I didn't really want them off, because I knew that it was going to be horrible. He waits just long enough that he knows that I know it's coming, but not nearly long enough for me to psych myself up for it, and off they come and oh my god my world is black and focused entirely on the fucking pain that is radiating from my nipples and dear god it is never going to stop and jesus fuck i am about to cry.

Apparently at this point, I had an extremely sad face on. I wonder why that was?

He says that he is very pleased that I did not scream, and that I did not actually cry, although he could tell that I was close. He cuddled me for a bit, reassuring me, all of that sort of thing, because I needed it. For someone who I have frequently labelled as blind when it comes to non-verbal cues, he certainly does just fine reading them when we're playing together.

He did a few more things to me, and after the fun was done, snuggled up with me on the bed. My nipples were decidedly unhappy, so that limited a few of my snuggling options. The point of the matter is, we discussed, and he informed me that oh yes, this was entirely not about me and what I wanted, and definitely all about what he wanted to do to me. He knows I don't like pain, he knows where my limits are, and he wanted to push them. He likes doing that. He told me how I was a good girl for doing so well, and right there, as he is telling me that I don't get to choose what I have done to me, as he is holding me tight and caressing me, I feel the most loved, most cherished, and safest I have felt probably ever.

Everything about you

You know, I don't know how I feel about this whole "honesty" thing.

"I wouldn't mind moving back in with you," he says, as we are cuddled in bed, more or less meaning "I would like to move in with you as soon as is possible".

I freeze; he notices. My upbringing is telling me "Divert! Divert! Divert!" I really shouldn't tell him what I'm thinking. That'll scare him away. It's easier to lie and say something else, or change the subject entirely. I am two hairsbreadths away from completely losing. my. shit.

"I don't know how I feel about that," I reply.

The crux of the problem is this: living together severely smacks of "Relationship!", and I am so not even close to ready with that. I like things as they are right now with Jay - few expectations, needs getting met, open communication, and private space for myself during the week. However, I do miss him during the week, and wouldn't mind more time with him.

To give myself more time to organize these thoughts in a manner that is not offensive, I ask him why.

"Sex." He's only half-joking.

"Seriously though. I like spending time with you. I like being with you. I like falling asleep next to you at night and waking up with you in the morning. I like when you cook for me, I like when we talk, and I really do love the sex. And it would avoid instances of you texting me things like 'WHY AREN'T YOU FUCKING ME RIGHT NOW' in the future."

(N.B., I did in fact text him that at some point last week. I believe I was at work. It was a bad situation. I wished I weren't at work, and that wherever I was, so was he.)

"Yeah, I get that. But I don't know if I'm ready to live together again. It seems like every time we do that, it ends up bad."

He looks at me curiously, and I amend.

"Maybe it's not so much the living together, as the whole 'relationship' thing. Because living together definitely says 'relationship', with a capital 'R'. That's scary, in a bad way."

I can't look at him as I say this; my face is half-buried in his chest, my body curled up tight. He strokes my hair and waits.

"It just seems like every time we're in a Relationship, I wind up angry and hating you, for whatever reason. And right now I like you. A lot. And consistently - like, even when we argued the other week, I still liked you. I don't remember the last time that's happened." In other words, I used to listen to "I Hate Everything About You" by Three Days Grace a whole fuckton.

"Okay. I love you," he says.

I hate when he does that. Okay, no I don't, but goddammit, being honest is scary. Then again, it would be a lot worse if he didn't always take it well. And return the favor. Goddammit. It's nice to be heard, and get my needs met, and all of those other things, but it sure puts my heart rate into the stratosphere to do it. And the best (or worst) part of it is, the bastard knows that it does, every single time. And he's okay with that. And he's patient enough to wait.

Ugh, maybe I do hate him.

My new favorite thing: sex (and the like) in the shower.

On kink

In my racism class, for grad school, part of our "getting to know you!" introductory exercises had us think about labels and what we identify as, individually.

The list of usual suspects was on there - sex, age, race, ethnicity, economic class, etc. I added gender identity and sexual orientation, because I think about those a lot in the course of my work. I got to add them because there was an "other" category, for anything we wanted.

I got home tonight and was thinking about all the things I could put there, but didn't, and first on the list was my identity as kinky, sexually speaking. I would have completely forgotten about the exercise, except for the fact that we were talking about deviance this week, and how it's very easy to classify someone as deviant, and what that means.

The important thing I gleaned was that deviance is all in the eye of the beholder. Therefore, if the beholder is "American society as a whole", I, as a kinky person, am deviant. Highly deviant, if you want to get particular.

But anywhere else, I'm not so deviant. I'm an independent, mid-twenties, white, well-educated woman. I'm not dependent on anyone, or the government for that matter (except for student loans, but those are socially acceptable forms of dependence). In fact, I work to help make other people less deviant, in my field.

It also got me thinking about socially acceptable forms of deviance. It's okay to be gay (more or less), okay to be a working woman, okay to be anti-Bush, okay to be on Medicare or Medicaid (as an elderly or disabled person). In fact, we applaud people who are honest about these things - at least in the circles I run in; I realize that the "red states" might feel differently about them. But while I wouldn't have a problem describing myself as bi or lesbian or even trans in that "other" category, I still wouldn't feel comfortable coming out as kinky. Society as a whole would still classify me as deviant, and would try to stigmatize me for that deviance.

Hell, some days I do it to myself, for all of my liberal and sex-positive attitudes.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that it sucks that kinkiness is still so largely stigmatized (as is sex as a whole, really), and that it's really hard to like yourself when the messages you get tell you not to, even over something as minor as one aspect of your identity. Not that identity is minor, but there are so many other things that I am that I don't think I should be condemned on one of them - one of them that really is quite fulfilling, thank you very much.

Fucking christ.

Amazingly enough, when I come home livid enough to spit killer bees, I'm not in the mood for sex. So no fun sex stories this weekend; in fact I don't think I even got naked except to take a shower (or sleep, Jay likes sleeping naked so I follow along when he's here). Jay wasn't entirely happy about that, so he tried this morning, which meant that I woke up crying and curling up in a ball.

No, this is not my normal reaction to anything sex-related from Jay.

Work has got me feeling really shitty; I compared it to an abusive boyfriend last night. Just when you finally think to yourself "Fuck this, I'm better than this bullshit" it comes out and apologizes, and promises it won't happen again, things will be different, and you have a great shift where you feel like you're on top of the world and you get suckered back in again and think "well maybe it will be different".

Except that I know it won't, so I don't know why I try. Except that I haven't got a new job yet, and I can't quit until the end of October, anyway.

On top of that, I'm getting sick. I called off last Tuesday because of just sheer tiredness, and it didn't help. I've been feeling off all weekend, and then today I woke up with a sore throat and a headache and a fever. Stunning. Getting sick as a dog is clearly very high on my list of priorities.

And to add to the fun, my nipples are for some reason hyper-sensitive, to the point where even thinking about having something touch them is painful. That's what ultimately woke me up and had me crying this morning - he went for the tits, and it was bad.

So I'm drugging myself up and eating throat drops like candy, and going to work and being bitchy, because I need the money and there's no one to work my shift if I call out anyway. Fucking awesome.

No, really.

Hey pro-tip. When I'm supposed to be gone at 2 (because I was in at 6), and I'm still at work at 3:39 picking up your mess, it is not going to add any positive mood points to come into the office where I am desperately trying to get some work done and ask me if I can do "just one more thing", because I will immediately assume that that thing is killing you, and plan accordingly.

Time for french to collapse in bed before anyone dies for reals.

Better man

I am, basically, an angry person.

I'm not any of those stereotypical "angry" people either - except maybe for the redhead bit. The world just pisses me the fuck off.

As I've gotten older, I've mellowed a bit, tempered the temper, if you will. I don't fly off the handle at the smallest things anymore. I've learned some serious self-control. I've also learned to let some things go.

But I'm still an angry person, and I'm never angrier than when I'm angry at myself.

Without going into a seriously long story of my life, I'm a perfectionist and set absurdly high standards for myself, although thankfully not in every area. The biggest problem here is that most of these absurd standards have to do with relationships. I can be absolutely intolerant of any fuck-up, perceived or actual, on the part of a romantic partner. It's not very pretty when I am.

Jay didn't even really fuck up, Saturday night, and to be fair, it was more or less of a set-up anyway. As nice as it would be, he is not in control of the weather, and so it was not his fault when the weather-dependent activity he was treating me to as our Big Date was no longer an option when we arrived. I had also spent the entire last day angry at myself, for a completely unrelated reason.

But once I'm that pissed off at myself, it's easy for it to geometrically multiply, and spew outwards, all containment lost. Once the Big Date did not live up to my expectations or plans, things got very ugly, very fast. The blame, really, is mine, just as it has been almost every other time something like this has happened.

The difference, though, was that I actually managed to tell Jay that I wasn't angry at him so much as I was angry at myself. Sure, I was angry at myself because of what I thought of as his fuck-up, and naturally, being an immature sort, used this as ammunition in my apparently continuing quest to rip him to shreds and reduce him to tears, but I at least let him know that the majority of my anger was because of me, not him.

Not that it really helped me, in the moment. I was angry with myself for consenting to date this fuck-up again, so really, that said some very bad things about me, didn't it? Wasn't I better than this? If Jay was the best guy I could find to date, that said that I was not nearly as awesome as I thought I was. And as soon as people found out - both that I was dating him again, and that he'd fucked up again - they'd be more than happy to tell me this. The relationship would reflect exceedingly poorly on my character.

To be fair, for a large portion of our college years, I was in some part held responsible, fairly or not, for Jay and his mistakes. Jay doesn't go to class? My fault. Jay doesn't show up to rehearsal? My fault. Jay doesn't do his homework, pay his bills, manage to show up to work on time, and I haven't seen him for a month because he's retreated to his room and isn't coming out and won't answer his phone? Somehow, miraculously, my fault.

So my absurdly high relationship expectations are both a product of character and socialization, which makes them very difficult to beat. I didn't say another word to Jay that night, after I'd gotten as much vitriol out as I could before guilt set in, but I was still angry about everything, to the point where the words "I love you" were no longer relevant to me and my experience. I went to bed without him, rolled away when I heard him join me. But in the morning, I was curled up next to him. I had a brief spat with my body, the weak-willed traitorous bitch, and then realized that I needed to get the fuck over myself. In the grand scheme of things, what "Jay did" was minor - a non-issue, really. Something that if it weren't him, wouldn't even register on my radar as something to fume over. Definitely not even close to a dealbreaker.

So I apologized, he apologized, and we had make-up sex. And I went to work on Sunday a much less angry person.

Moonrise, moonset

Funnily enough, I mind 5:30 in the morning a lot less when I've been awake the entire night before.

I went to sleep bathed in the light of the moon, around midnight. My room was unusually bright. I was highly disconcerted to be getting up at 4:30 in that same light, except that it was via the reflection of the moon off of the windows of the house next door.

It's still eerily bright outside, and I get to walk in it - part of my post yesterday deals with the fact that my car is in the shop and it will cost me lots of money to get it out. Oops. That's what I get for buying a used car, I suppose. So now I get to get up at the same time I would to drive to work for 6, except that I'll be taking the bus, so I'll get there around 7.

Also creepy - the utter silence outside. Well, not complete; I can hear the dull humming roar of the highway about a mile north, but that's it. No insects. No birds awake yet. No tree frogs. No one else awake except for the bus drivers. My dad gets up at 2 in the morning for work every day, and has for years. I have no idea how he does it.

I spent a month in England last year, and during that time, I drank innumerable cups of tea. Usually very, very good tea.

Tea was the beverage for nearly every occasion. Having company? Serve tea. Early morning? Have a cuppa. Meeting with coworkers? Tea. Relaxing in front of the telly of an evening? Tea, anyone?

I was a tea drinker anyway, but my experiences there just reinforced it. I came home with some lovely teas from Whittard's, drank them for a few weeks, and promptly forgot about them.

Tea is a comfort beverage. When the world is going entirely wrong, when nothing is right, and when all seems lost, things will turn out okay if it's still possible to make tea.

So I sit here, a cup of English Rose tea by my side, and realize that yes, things will all work out in the end. Even if right now, they seem rather bleak.

Individualism

The leather kick started a few weeks ago; I'm not sure why. Jay and I have probably discussed our relationship, and all of its aspects, more in the past month than we have in the entirety of the near-decade we've known each other.

He started by putting on the collar, which normally makes me quite pliant. This was no different, and I could feel the grin on my face over my entire body. Next came the belt - which he is ridiculously fond of - and the old cuffs. We've had a pair of neoprene cuffs for ages now, out of my love of waterproof items. In fact, these cuffs have something to do with the entry I want to make but not really, so consider this mention of them the start of a long road to recovery.

Ahem.

Then he got out the gag. Normally, I'm a pretty relaxed sub. I'm usually a big fan of what's happening to me, so I don't fight or struggle. I don't top from the bottom. I don't get bratty. I don't try to avoid the restraints - they are, after all, what I want (along with flogging and spanking and any number of other fun activities). But for some reason, gags tend to make me sassy.

As soon as he had it in my mouth - not even buckled! - I unleased an absolute torrent of the best insults I could come up with. It was highly entertaining, at least for me. I believe I started out with "Now that you have no idea what the fuck I am saying, I am going to fucking insult you. And your mother. I'd make fun of your father, but I do that anyway. Fuck you." And went on from there. Jay's pretty good at decoding gag talk, so I think he had an idea of what was going on, but chose to ignore it.

Now granted, I wasn't really trying to insult or hurt him in any way, so I know that if I'd wanted to, I could have gotten much, much more spiteful. Still, I think I'd gotten to the point of insinuating that every member of his family was an impotent, unlearned mouth-breather or something, before the gag started burning.

Remember how I mentioned that we had to get a new gag, because the old one tasted like burning? This was the gag that tasted like burning. Like BURNING. I have no idea what happened to this gag, but my mouth and lips were burning. So I very politely informed Jay of this, as best I could, and drank lots of water.

Since the gag was no longer an option, he decided to try to gag me with a pair of my underwear, which lead to more insults from me about his domming ability, rope skills, etc., because this attempt was a spectacular failure. The removal of the gag had not resulted in the removal of my attitude.

So Jay pulled another Dom card out of the deck, and simply informed me that I was not allowed to speak. Period.

I glared at him, but complied. He pulled out the second waterproof vibrator I'd bought (waterproof waterproof waterproof!), as he'd not had a chance to use it. I am here to tell you that he failed. Miserably.

The new vibe is harder plastic, and, well, he decided that he was going to press it into my clit as hard as he could, just to make sure that the vibrations were transferred. This resulted in much sighing and rolling of my eyes, and gave me the opportunity to mentally catalogue all of his deficiencies and search the thesaurus of my head for the biggest and most obscure words to describe them.

Still, he eventually noticed, and gave me permission to speak, so that I could tell him what was going on.

"You're doing it all wrong. Ass."

And with that I was not allowed to speak anymore.

He gave it another go, which was only marginally more successful than the first. I think - think - he was trying to get me to orgasm. Since I was getting tired, I laid back and started falling asleep. It wasn't exactly painful or unpleasant, but it certainly wasn't going to get me off, what he was doing.

He stopped at some point, and laid beside me. He cuddled me for a bit, which I wasn't having, because dammit, I was comfortable where I was and he was dumb. Suddenly, my left hand was free, and the vibrator was in it, and Jay was saying that what I would do is -

"I stab".

And I stabbed him in the chest with the vibrator.

I have no idea where that came from, but it was immediately the funniest thing in the history of the world, ever, as evidenced by my hysterical laughter. Jay just looked down at the vibrator - still in contact with his chest - and gave me that "Are you fucking serious" look, which made me laugh harder.

I laughed so hard I had tears coming out of my eyes. I could not stop laughing, and in fact did so for what probably amounted to a good, solid five minutes. I laughed so much that Jay looked like he was actually getting irritated with me. So while I was laughing - and thus defenseless - Jay hooked my wrist back to the belt, put away the vibrator, and plunged his fingers into my cunt, in search of my g-spot, and quickly found it, which shut me up right quick.

After he was done with me for the night, he gently let me out of the restraints - except for the collar, of course. And started laughing nearly as hysterically as I had earlier.

"Oh fuck. 'I stab.' What the fuck was that?"

After all

Having had my fill of existential angst, Jay informed me that he went shopping again, and that I was to open the box as soon as it arrived, since there was a surprise in it.

Not that the rest of the box wasn't exciting. We desperately needed a new ballgag becuase the old one tasted like burning, and I mean this in a literal sense. Jay has also decided that to go with some other bits and bobs of leather, he was finally going to buy leather ankle and wrist cuffs - locking, of course, which seems to be the theme. So this makes a locking collar, a locking pair of ankle cuffs, a locking pair of wrist cuffs, a locking ballgag, a locking waist belt (for fun attachment purposes) and a locking set of thigh spreaders.

I am really, really glad that I have lots of extra keychains.

The spreaders and the belt were in the last shopping trip, and Jay has decided that he does indeed like them. For some reason, he really loves the thigh spreaders. I think it has something to do with the fact that I can't close my legs. Amazing, that. I can't even close my legs when he's playing with my g-spot and it is beyond intense and I am almost crying, nor can I close them when he decides that vibrators are the best invention ever and he is going to make me enjoy them whether I want to or not. That man is starting to get far too devious, I think.

We'll probably try the new toys out at some point this weekend - I can't imagine Jay wanting to wait any longer than necessary. Oh, and the surprise? A brand-new stainless steel Collins speculum. Deeeeelicious. Seems he does pay attention at some points - a few weeks ago I'd mentioned how much I did in fact enjoy the one scene we did with a bit of a medical bent to it, and lo and behold. A girl could get used to this.

Goddammit.

I am not, in the strictest sense of the word, a writer.

Oh, I'm perfectly capable of using words to express myself - sometimes. An ongoing theme I've noticed in my life is that the English language (or any other, really) doesn't always have enough words to accurately describe my feelings or anything else. There are close approximations, but often, nothing exact. It's one of the reasons I didn't have many friends in grade school and high school. I did have one, and the reason he and I stayed friends was because we both came to that same realization, and also realized that when we were talking, it didn't matter, because we got a lot of the same non-verbal cues.

So he made me a little bit lazy with expressing myself. Why bother going through the effort when he was going to get it anyway? And he made me reluctant to ever try to be different.

The written word is still easier than the spoken word. Spoken word requires me to think on my feet, and come up with things quickly. Writing allows me to let it sit for as long as it needs to before coming out. Doesn't stop me from speaking so quickly I stumble over my words - then again, I don't usually talk about heady things like emotions.

Jay's continued to call me at night, and while I love the feeling of connectedness these calls give me, I hate the actual work of communicating and connecting they require. He's turning the tables and trying to pick my brain apart - I've been trying to pick his for years. It's not that I don't know the answers; I spend hours upon hours picking my own brain and putting everything into its place. It's that I can't figure out a way that I like to tell him the answers.

Some of it is fear that he won't like what he hears. Some of it is perfectionism rearing its ugly head. Some of it is a lack of vocabulary and a tired head.

Some of it us me putting off what I really want to do, by talking about why I don't want to do what I want to do. Hopefully, at some point, that sentence will make sense, because I'll get around to doing what it is I want to do.

Time to take her home

It used to be, when I was younger, that I could simply drive my problems away. If I was having a particularly rough night, and needed out, I could hop in the car, put it on the highway, and peg the fucking thing and be done with it. I'd return home refreshed, relaxed, and able to re-tackle my life. Gas was cheap and plentiful, the car was made for cruising, and my parents didn't pay that much attention to when I got home from work.

The last time I updated was one of those nights where I needed desperately to escape, so since I have a car again (for the first time in like, eight years), I decided to see if it still worked. I got myself on the highway and just drove.

I wound up in the next state over. The radio was playing shit, there were too many cars out to really speed a lot, and all the time, I realized that I couldn't just drive away from my problems. Growing up truly is a bitch and a half.

I also realized I forgotten the $10 I'd just taken out of the ATM at home. Worse, my debit card was at home, which was now about an hour and a half away, and therefore useless. I did the entirely classy thing of paying for a large fries and small Coke at McDonald's entirely in change. I have a change purse. It's pretty empty right now.

Still, when I got home, I did feel better about life. There's still a lot of shit, but I at least escaped the same four walls for a while, and that can't be discounted. And since then, I've made some strides towards fixing what's wrong, instead of just running from it or hiding. Hopefully I can make it a habit. It's a lot harder to speak the truth than to soft-pedal someone with a glib lie. And lying is always so easy; it always has been.

Tomorrow is a bonus day off of work (the only reason I'm awake right now is because I was in the emergency room with one of my kids until nearly two). I believe I will get up, work on my chairs, clean my room a bit, and blog about Jay, because clearly I am far below quota on mentions of him these past weeks. But first, I sleep. Lots.

Monsters

With working all weekend, the start of the official week being as lousy as it was, and things as they are with Jay, I've been in some very strange headspace lately. It's not quite melancholy, but it's certainly living in the same neighborhood, although there is some introspection, heartache, and yearning in there as well.

I'm unsettled, and I'm not quite sure why. My parents still love me, Jay is stupid for me, I won't be losing my job any time soon (although I do desperately want to quit), I have enough money, my house is relatively clean... all the sorts of things that usually upset me or make me anxious are in their assigned places.

One thing is for sure, I need to stop listening to "Cities in Dust" by Siouxsie and the Banshees, because while it is a wonderful song and it was great to hear it on the radio again this past weekend, even I am getting sick of it.

Not that Matchbook Romance is really all that much better.

Bah. I can't even blog right. Suffice it to say that overall, Jay and I had a lovely weekend, and one of these days, I'll get around to telling about the new toys. I think I am going to go curl up and read somewhere, and maybe find something to eat, because eating makes things better, right?

Remind me not to get up tomorrow

My week so far, by french, age 25.

Sunday: Reluctantly got up for day three of five for work, leaving Jay curled up in bed. Go outside to get in the car. Turn the key. Get a mere series of clicks. Run inside to get Jay's keys from him, so that I can drive his car to work. On the way to work, call Dad and determine that, as I suspected, my battery is dead. Jay thinks it is the starter, but then actually checks it out, and agrees.

Monday: Get up ass-early with Jay, so that he can jump me (and my car, ha ha) before work, and early enough that I can get the battery replaced before volunteering at nine. Car will not jump-start. Lose my shit completely, as it is 8:00 in the morning, I have only gotten four hours of really crappy sleep, and I do not want my car dead because starters are really fucking expensive.

Call Dad again, who tells me to take off the battery terminals and clean under them, which I should know to do myself, but am being a girl, so don't. Fail at this, but do clean the outsides, which miraculously enables my car to start. Get new battery, also find out that one of the terminals was cracked. Volunteer, then go to work, and deal with completely incompetent new supervisor, and want to cry.

Tuesday: Get up butt-early to go to day of meetings at work. Discover shower is filled with five inches of scuzzy standing water, and bathtub is in similar state. Want to go back to bed. Go to work, have donut for breakfast because stress-eating is awesome, and deal with both incompetent new supervisor and incompetent old boss. Drop off car on way home to investigate mysterious clunking from under my left foot, and finish homework for grad school. Also discover that shower is still filled with water. Drink.

She was a sour girl

I did not in fact go to fucking sleep after that post last night; instead my body and mind sort of went on auto-pilot and I stayed awake... doing nothing, really. Nothing of consequence, anyway. I had an extremely healthy and nutritious dinner of two bowls of Lucky Charms (hey now, I used low-fat milk), after Jay had prompted me over IM that I really should eat something. I wasn't really in the mood or head-space to truly do anything though. Cooking was something far beyond me, as was just about everything else.

When I get in that space - unmotivated, distractable, tired and cranky but not sleepy, whiny, and almost feeling a little sorry for myself, what I really need is a hug. I am not sure how this cure was discovered, but I am sure that it was with Jay, since he is the only person outside of my family that I allow to hug me with any regularity.

But there were no hugs to be found, because that's not exactly what you ask of your roommates, especially when one of them annoys the piss out of you on a daily - sometimes hourly - basis (did I mention that it only took ten hours for him to dirty up the cleaned counters again? AGAIN?). I had resigned myself to just going to goddamn sleep already just before midnight, and dutifully put on my pjs and turned off the light, and brought my laptop to bed with me.

Jay's been calling me as he goes to bed lately, which is usually just after midnight. I for one am quite pleased with this development. One of my cheif complaints very early on in our relationship was that he never. fucking. called me, and he appears to have learned that calling me is in fact a way to make me happy. I always approve when people learn their lessons. Plus, I love having that connection with him, even if I don't get to see him. I love hearing his voice, and knowing that he's laying there in the dark, thinking of me, just as I am thinking of him.

He has called me, and we have fallen asleep on the phone together, often enough that I immediately got sleepy, so I put the computer down and curled up with my phone tucked beneath my ear. Jay was already somewhat aware of what my mental state was, since he'd been infrequently chatting with me online. I wasn't much better on the phone. I was whiny, and I could tell that I was just mentally overtired, because my brain started messing with my perceptions of size again. I felt exponentially large and expansive - my phone felt like it was six inches wide in my hand - and that I was somewhat floating above my bed. That's always a fun experience, and it usually only happens when my mind is just all set with being active and having to work, thank you very much.

I had been talking a bit about what was going on for me, and finally just whined "I need a hug." Jay got silent for a few moments then did possibly the best thing ever.

"Hold on just a minute. I'm going to hug the phone, because I can't hug you."

And he proceeded to hug the phone.

And you know what? It was nearly as good as the real thing. Maybe it was a trick of my idiotic brain, but I could nearly feel his arms around me, holding me tight. And it brought the same silly smile to my face as it would as if he'd physically been there.

Better yet, it made everything alright. I happily nuzzled down into my pillows and could feel myself getting more relaxed and calm. We talked each other to the point of sleep, and hung up. And I slept much better than I would have otherwise.

I am God's personal source of entertainment

I was tired when I got home from work today, so I was going to take a nap. I went and took out my contacts and grabbed a book, so that I could read until I fell asleep.

This was three hours ago.

Instead of sleeping, I have been reading. But I haven't been reading the book, I've been reading blogs. And trying to desperately remember the password to my online banking, because they changed how I have to log in and I only did it once and goddammit I really need to get in there because apparently my electric bill is still fucked to high heaven.

But I can't, so I have to wait until the helpful IT people reset my account. And now that I've outblogged myself, I am hungry.

And maybe I should read that book. Or do my homework. Or finish painting my new chairs. Or start the sewing project I have to have done for Christmas. Or clean my house. Or finish painting the boxes I bought for my supplies in occasional Pagan leanings.

Or fucking go to sleep already.

Trip report

Thought that ran through french's head over the immediately past weekend, #693: My god, he's turning into a total Dom; this is fucking awesome.

Jay pretty much never needs a real excuse to come over to my house, I've found, although I like to provide him with them anyway. It sort of makes me feel better about my life in a strange way. So he came over this weekend with the express intent of tying me up. In fact, he was actually at my house before I was even off of work, which was astounding. My roommate Chris, that I hate, let him in. I think Jay's been over a little on the excessive side, maybe, since my roommates let him in when I'm not here. Hmmm.

Anyway, so he's over here, and it's pretty much immediately "no clothes for you, french" time. He was all set and ready to go. Now, I would not exactly consider myself a pain slut. Sure, I love a good beating here and there, but that's not really pain - well, okay, it is, but I really hate sharp, stingy, pinchy pain. Thud and slaps and other sorts are fine. So yeah, not a pain slut, by any stretch of the imagination. Things like nipple clamps and I usually don't get along very well, because they really are more into the pain side of things. But, but! This weekend I managed to have the tweezer clamps on for a good half hour, which is the longest I've ever gone. Usually after about two minutes I'm whining and asking for them to be taken off, but no, not this time. In fact, I pretty much enjoyed having them on. I am awesome sub, hear me roar or something like that.

I also got to wear lots of rope, because we did buy more from instant-gratification central. Well, that, and dammit, I like twisted nylon. If I'm ever doing a suspension, I'll invest in some hemp, but that has to wait until I have a suspension point, and I think putting one in my ceiling would more or less completely void my security deposit, which is a highly unfortunate situation.

But I love being tied up. No, you don't understand, go read that again - I love being tied up. Being wrapped up in rope, whether I am immobilized or not, regardless of which body parts are involved, is a blissfully happy experience for me, and I am perfectly content to aid the roper in roping me up, and then to lie back and bliss out, feeling the rope against my body. I'm not one of those rope bottoms that struggles, and I never was. For me, it's like, why the hell would I want to try to get out of this? I'm trying to stay in this as long as humanly possible here. I might stretch around a bit, quietly flexing legs or back, getting the rope to rub certain places, but certainly not try in any way to get out of it.

So I got to do a lot of blissing out in rope this weekend, which I really haven't gotten to do in a good long while. Luckily for me, Jay is perfectly okay with the fact that I get stupid-happy and pliable while in rope, because apparently he likes to see me in it - even without doing anything else (although the stupid-happy-pliability does aid him in doing those other things). And he did do some of those other things, and he did have me sleeping in a collar, and he did even drag me into the shower with the waterproof cuffs on (which was super-awesome, actually), and all in all it was a fantastic weekend - which ended with Jay saying "I have got to get into the habit of doing this more often again," which I am 100% okay with.

I knew it all along

I went back to work on Tuesday, and was figuring on working all of this week. With the schedule working out the way it has, I've had the past two days off, and I'll have this Saturday and Sunday off as well - sort of another vacation, if you will. Overall, I think I have put the past two days to very good use - although I didn't think so at the time.

Wednesday, I didn't even get dressed until about 4:30 that afternoon. I spent the day lazing around in bed, reading, watching porn, coming up with new and creative ways of using rope and breasts, masturbating. It was actually quite fun - although I did feel a bit guilty, seeing as how I wasn't really "productive". To ameliorate this feeling, I cooked myself a healthy dinner, and engaged in a little bit of painting - one of my hobbies that's sort of fallen by the wayside recently. Jay called me as he was getting read for bed, which made me positively gleeful. I also managed to come right out and say "You know what? You should come over this weekend and tie me up," which he agreed to (not that I didn't think he would, but I can still be shy about saying these things to him). He gave me a list of things to do to prepare - mostly which toys I should have ready by the time he gets here tonight. I adore when he gives me things to do like this. I am wholeheartedly participating in my own corruption.

Thursday started off much the same, with the notable exceptions of no porn, being in the shower by 2:30 (and having a lovely orgasm in there, thankyouverymuch), finishing Jay's tasks and being out of the house by 3:30. I'd had some errands that I'd been putting off for quite a while that really just needed to get done, so I packed up my car and went. While out, I seriously toyed with the idea of stopping at the local Home Depot to pick up some more rope. It's been a long time since we bought any, and given that I'd just asked Jay to come over and use it all on me, I thought it might be a good idea to have more. More is better, right? I put it off though, figuring Jay and I could both go this weekend.

After I got home, I spent some quality time shopping for kinky stuff. It's easier to do that online - no one looking over your shoulder wondering just why it is you're so damn interested in whatever it is you're interested in. Plus it's really easy to say "Oh I'll just bookmark that and buy it later", so that one does not blow one's budget. One did stretch one's budget though, in buying one's self a new waterproof vibrator. I have apparently decided that waterproof vibrators are the best thing ever (okay, definitely not ever, but up there) and that I needed a new one. In my defense, it's rather unique and inexpensive, to boot. So that gets here next week, which makes me an excited person.

QUITE independently of me, Jay too decided to go shopping, and told me about what he had found and was tempted by. Being me, I did nothing to discourage him, and in fact sent him to other pages I thought he might find of interest. Rather quickly, I was told that I should expect a box within the next week or so. I asked if I got to know what was in it, and was told no, so I reciprocated - he wouldn't get to know what was in my box. He was, as they say, all agog.

For some reason Jay likes it when I do things like buy sex toys and masturbate. Who knew?

He called me again as he was going to bed, all of his own volition, which made me a very happy, gleeful, downright giggly person again. He informed me that with all of the excitement of new toys, and coming over this weekend and shopping with me for rope on Saturday, and then getting to use the rope on me, he was going to jack off before going to bed. I let him get started, then decided to deliver the killing blow -

"By the way? I've 'borrowed' it every single day this week."

It took a moment for it to sink in, but once it did, I was rewarded with a very audible, distinct sigh - that one that's a bit more of a forceful exhalation, that usually means "ohmygodthatisunbelievablyhotandorpleasurablewhateveritisyouaredoingdon'tstop". That sigh. That one that means that I win (and I totally won last night).

I'm pretty sure I'm going to win this weekend, too - albeit in a totally different, much more, ah, restrained fashion. I can't bloody wait.

Trust

Hey babe - can I come over tonight and pick up my pda? I think I left it at your place.

He did, of course. I saw it immediately upon waking up yesterday morning. I only vaguely remembered him leaving.

Being three glasses into the wine Rabbit and I had bought earlier that night, I gleefully agreed.

He came over, saying that he was going home at a reasonable hour, but that he could stay a while. I'm not sure why he ever says that; "reasonable hour" usually means "six-thirty so I can stop home and shower before going in to work tomorrow morning".

I had brought home furniture from my parents'. I'd been planning on rearranging and cleaning a few things, so that I could put it in my room, instead of leaving it in the hall, and saw no reason to change my plans because he was there. Eventually, he grew tired of watching me throw things away and wipe up layers of dust, so he said "There is too much crap on this bed, and not enough naked french."

"Just a few more minutes. I'll be done by midnight." I'd continued to imbibe - again, seeing no reason to change my plans on his account.

I joined him on my bed, curling up, but having to move quickly, as he'd already tired of seeing me in a t-shirt.

"Oooh. What is this?"

A free day and nearly two weeks of nothing sexual had led me to experiment earlier that afternoon. The experiment included ropes and breasts, and was a resounding success. My skin was marked afterwards.

I suddenly became shy; caught out at being sexual without Jay.

"I was... experimenting."

"Oh? Do tell."

"Well, obviously with rope."

"I know; that's why I want you to tell."

"I'll tell you later," being unable to tell him exactly what I had done to myself.

"The idea of you experimenting, especially with rope, makes me very, very excited." He took off my bra, and his shirt, and my pants and panties - to see if I'd been experimenting anywhere else - and sat with his back against the wall, pulling me to sit between his legs, my back to his chest.

I hissed as he grabbed at my breasts; they were already sore, and my earlier activities had done nothing to improve this condition. I could feel his grin as he continued to caress and fondle them, pinching here, soothing there, the occasional slap.

He slid my glasses off as my eyes glazed over, then reached up with his hand upon my throat, raising my head up and back, exposing my neck, putting the slightest amount of pressure on it. Enough to make sure I knew exactly what he could do, exactly how powerless I would be to stop him.

He continued to hold my head back as he intensified his attention to my poor breasts, slapping them more firmly, tracing the rope lines upon them, kneading and squeezing, making me moan and gasp and writhe in his embrace. "Mine," he growled into my ear as he pulled my head a little tighter, a little farther. His fingers slid into my pussy easily. The bed already had a damp spot.

"Are you trying to make me cum?"

"Maybe. I'll have to think about it." His hand on my pussy moved up to my clit, gently sliding over it, rubbing, pinching, pulling.

I bucked my hips, making him smack my legs and breasts to keep me in line. "If you aren't good, and hold still, you won't get to cum." I whimpered, legs shaking as I tried to keep them perfectly still, to control the spasms.

He pulled the hood of my clit back and touched it directly, making me whine in pleasure and pain. "Good girl... don't move." He rubbed my clit faster, and more firmly, making my mouth fall open and my breath come in gasps which quickly turned to cries as he slapped at my pussy and breasts, his hand on my throat and jaw keeping me still.

My body was stiff and still, muscles straining. "I suppose you still want to cum?" I gave a barely perceptible nod, as he continued to manipulate my pussy and clit.

What felt like hours later, he gave his answer. "I suppose that's alright." I moaned in relief, relaxing my legs, feeling the beginnings of an orgasm already sweeping over me. He held me tightly against him as I came, quieting my moans with his mouth upon mine, getting his hand even more wet.

He wrapped his arms around me as my head lolled back, biting my ear.

"Mine." I couldn't have disagreed if I'd wanted to.

War on estrogen

I got back into town on Sunday night, and wound up crying. I was immediately overwhelmed by a huge wave of homesickness. I wanted to go back outside, pack up the rest of my stuff in my car, and start driving for home again.

I've never been one for homesickness. We never moved when I was a child, so the house I grew up in is still there, is still the home I go back to. I moved a thousand miles away, and never even really batted an eye. Sure, there were times when I got all wistful, and missed things about home, but never outright homesickness.

This was serious though. I wound up in tears over it. I never cry; I decided a long time ago that I was all set with crying, and I wasn't going to do it anymore, thank you kindly. The crying was what made me sit down and think about what the hell was going on, because jesus, breaking out in tears is seriously not okay. I am not that at-one with my femininity and emotions, okay?

Part of it is that I'm getting older (yeah, I'm so damn ancient at 25, woo), and want babies. My mother had two kids by my age, so I'm feeling a little behind. Part of it was that I really, really hate my job - or rather, some of the people I work with, who unfortunately are the ones who can really affect my position. Part of it was just that it's time to go home. I get along quite well in my current city, and it's great and all, but there truly is no place like home.

And part of it was because I spent an entire week at my parents' house, following my dad around, messing with power tools, sleeping in, playing video games, and eating out almost every night.

Oh, and hormones. Did I mention hormones? 'cause I think I'm getting hormonal.

For now I've contented myself with moving back when I'm done with grad school (although I'm less than impressed with them; don't be surprised if I withdraw and start over somewhere else), which is in three years. It's a long time, but by that point, some of the other details (like marriage, kids, house-buying, etc.) should be falling in to place, I hope.

I realize that this will narrow down which half of the country I live in, but that's okay. It is stupid fucking hot outside. We are officially into "hell's asshole" territory for the temperature, people, and my house is not air-conditioned.

Thankfully, I'm staying with my parents for this week, and their house is. I'd have come out to visit anyway, but the climate over here just makes it that much better. Plus, my dad and I are going to work on my car, and I'm helping out with their current remodeling project here at the house. Being at home gives me access to all the fun power tools and shit that I love, and have no reason to buy for myself (right now). It's pretty fucking awesome. I am completely not willing to go home or back to work at this time. Vacation rules, and shit.

Nowhere to go

Four solid days of "I have nowhere to be, and nothing to do if I don't want to" was fucking fabulous, thanks.

Back to regular updates next week. I don't think updating this from the parents' house is a good idea, do you?

Getting the hell out of Dodge

Saturday, I go on vacation. No, Joseph isn't flying out here, which as I mentioned, doesn't ultimately surprise me. So instead, I made plans of my own, which involve me going on a vacation all by myself, which is really what I prefer anyway.

It starts off with Jay, though. He's taking me to a show I want to see on Saturday night, then dropping me off so that I can travel to my actual vacation destination. For not-dating, we certainly see a lot of each other.

Honestly, I think my relationship with him is better when I don't have an official one. There are so many fewer expectations to run afoul of. And I think that's what really did us in - my expectations. I have lots of them. Lots of very high expectations. And I have plans, big plans, for how I think things should go. When I was younger, I would be absolutely enraged when things did not go according to my plans. I never threw tantrums, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't absolutely horrid at times. I have a bit of a temper, shall we say.

I still have the temper, but I've learned a great deal more control and finesse. And while I still don't like my plans ruined, it doesn't usually ruin my entire day (or week, or month... you get the picture). Anyway, in a relationship, I find that I have lots of expectations for my partner, and that Jay had some serious trouble living up to them. Admittedly, some were probably a touch unrealistic. So the fault is not entirely his.

Since he's simply in the role of "straight male close friend", there's considerably fewer expectations I place on him, and consequently, I'm considerably happier. So I will continue to date him, without really dating him, because it makes my life a whole hell of a lot happier.

Turn it over

Jay is unsubtle at the best of times. His idea of a "subtle" hint would be to lay on my bed in a suggestive pose.

We've both been known to switch, and he's been hinting that he was in the mood for that lately anyway. So Saturday night, after I got home from work, he came over, and we went out to dinner, having a lovely and suggestive conversation the whole way there and back. Maybe it's wrong, but I'm highly entertained by giving him a turn in public, with the things I whisper into his ear. I nearly got him to blush, which I count as a victory for me.

Upon arriving back at la maison, he proceeded to lay spreadeagled on my bed - the suggestive pose, of course. I laughed and crawled into bed with him, asking if he was trying to tell me something. He played dumb, as he usually does. My thoughts starting swirling, coming up with possible scenarios.

Our conversation moved on, but my brain didn't - and neither did his. We'd been talking about how much I loved skinny men with muscles, when he remarked that gee, since he's lost so much weight, maybe the collar fits him now? The collar in question is the one in the picture I put up here - just a simple leather collar with a single drop ring. We have a couple of other collars, but we both tend to like the simplicity of this one.

Being as how the collar was right next to my bed, since I'd just used it, I grabbed it and he put it on. Perhaps not surprisingly, it fit.

Now, I consider myself, mainly, a sub. I don't like to be in charge, except in my vanilla life (where it's better for all concerned if I am). But if there is some patron saint or deity of domme-liness, she smacked me upside the head but good as soon as I saw Jay wearing that collar. We are talking but good here, people. I grabbed the ring forcefully, pulling him towards me for a deep kiss, and gods if it wasn't wonderful. That was more than enough to raise the temperature of the room by a good five degrees, so I turned the a/c up and stripped Jay down.

Throughout the entire process, I had the most wicked little gleeful grin upon my face. Since I've known him for so long, I know exactly what makes Jay squirm, and I took large advantage of that fact, tying off his hands to the collar to keep them out of my way. The session was a mixture of some of his favorite things (cock and ball bondage, spanking, nipple clamps), and some of mine (which are mostly the things that make him squirm - tickling, and things between his toes).

I can certainly understand the appeal and desire to top. The notion that I put that look of absolute terrified bliss on someone's face is a heady one, indeed. And oh, there was terrified bliss going on - especially when I added a little bit of predicament bondage to the mix. I'll have to remember that it's quite fun to tie Jay's feet to his cock and then tickle them.

Ultimately, topping is as much about pleasing the other person as yourself, I think. Obviously, he was pleased - he's been profusely thanking me since Saturday - but I too was pleased, because I knew that he was. How's that for a feedback loop.

In the end, after we'd dissected the session, we decided that while we both enjoyed switching, we both prefer our usual role - He as the dom, me as the sub. And I'm quite alright with that.

Still, it wouldn't hurt to brush up on some of my rustier bondage skills. Some of it was absolutely sloppy, and I abhor sloppy work.

I love waking up in the morning and having sex.

Like I needed this lesson

So Chris, the eater-of-the-cool-whip, is the roommate that Rabbit and I were planning on kicking out. One small problem - neither of us really wanted to tell him this.

See, Chris is a bit delusional, and thinks that we like him. He's one of those "nice, but dumb" people. And, well, while Rabbit and I can be wicked bitchy, we didn't want to be that bitch. Plus, I was the one who originally invited Chris to live here. This is not the first crap roommate I have picked; perhaps I should not have the final say in these matters.

When confronted about the disappearing dessert topping, Chris surprised the hell out of me and admitted to it. He did not, however, admit that he's ever stolen food before (which he has. And it's always the good stuff, like cool whip, or Chips Ahoy!). Still, at least he admitted it this time - not that he had much choice; Rabbit was on vacation so it was either him or me that ate the damn stuff, and if I was that irritated, chances are I didn't do it.

I was quite proud of confronting him. I don't have any problem taking strangers to task, or the kids at work, or my co-workers, but people I live with? Oh man, I do not want to come home to a fight. That is just a huge pain in my ass, and it's not the kind of pain that I like, so I'll pass, thanks. Of course, this just sets up the situation to get worse, because if you don't let someone know that they're doing something wrong, they're probably not going to get it, and when they are repeat offenders of my sensibilities, I get very, very angry.

So I was trying to figure out how to tell Chris that he wasn't going to be signing the new lease with us this fall, and that someone was coming over to look at the apartment, when I open my email, and hey, there's something from Chris.

Hey, I just wanted to let you know, I found an apartment on the south side of town, so I will be moving out at the end of August. I wanted to let you know before I told the landlords.

Problem fucking solved.

However, the lesson here is that if I ignore an unpleasant duty long enough, it fixes itself - which is patently not true, except in this case.

Hey, maybe it will work with my grad school financial aid (no, no it won't, I need to stop dreaming on that one).

Oh, hell.

Because I needed another reason to not want to get up and go to work, I dreamed this morning.

The first was boring; I was in a grocery store - one I've "been" in before - shopping, etc. That one left when I hit the alarm the first time.

But the second one, oh, the second one. I don't quite remember how it started. But in it, I'm lying in bed, the mood is romantic. Jay (or at least I'm about 99% sure it's Jay) is lying on top of me, talking to me. He touches my face, as if he can't believe that I'm quite real, and all I can understand him saying is "You're worth waiting for," as he wraps his arms around me.

I'm not a romantic person. Hearts and flowers and candy really don't do it for me. But this dream did. I felt so intensely and indescribably loved and cherished. Just the entire notion of someone waiting for me, as if their entire life was spent doing so... *sigh*. It's straight out of a romance novel (I do read those).

So like I said. Didn't exactly make me want to get up and go to work. Especially not when the dream ended when work texted me and asked me to come in early. Dammit.

Yes, he is for real.

He ate my damn cool whip.

I bought some cool whip on sale about a week ago, to go with the strawberries and dessert shells that I got on sale. It's summer, that means strawberry shortcake, bitches. I made some for me and Jay last weekend, and it was good. I used no more than half of the cool whip, even factoring in the two doses of strawberry-and-cake-and-sugar goodness I made for myself last week.

Tonight, I ventured into the fridge to kill the last dessert shell, as well as make a dent in the new pound of strawberries I bought yesterday. I grab the cool whip container, and it is suspiciously light.

I open it up: suspicions confirmed.

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!" I am relatively sure that this was heard up to ten miles away.

There are a measly two tablespoons of cool whip left.

He ate my damn cool whip.

He being Chris, the roommate that I hate, who maybe I should tell isn't living here next year.

The cool whip joins a long list of my food that has been violated by Chris, including an entire box of Nilla Wafers, a sleeve of Chips Ahoy!, and an entire bag of tortilla chips.

I have since taken to storing food in my room, whenever possible. This is bad, because it encourages me to eat in my room, which was a habit I'd gotten out of after college, and one that I am not pleased to have picked up again. However, it does prevent food stealing pretty effectively. I am not so rich that I don't care when someone pilfers my shit.

I wrote a note on the whiteboard in the kitchen. Pretty simple. "What happened to my damn cool whip."

I heard him moving about shortly after I wrote it, and stayed in my room, because I was not in the mood for a direct confrontation (I need to get over that).

He wrote a reply.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't think you would be so angry."

I left that up there for Rabbit to see tomorrow when she gets home from vacation, and responded.

"Yeah, except it's not the first time that food of mine has just disappeared. If you want some, please ASK. Don't just take - it's wicked rude and inconsiderate."

You would think this would be standard roommate etiquette - if you didn't pay for it, and you don't have permission, you shouldn't be eating it. Obviously I was wrong.

Attention_whore++

I have a little bit of an exhibitionist streak, but not enough to actually post any naked pictures on here. Still, I've finally decided to add a profile picture. In it, I am wearing one of my favorite collars, and you get to see my hair, which I am in love with all over again after seeing this picture.

I am in fact a girl, no matter how much I may act like a guy; therefore it is a-okay for me to be in love with my hair (and I totally am).

Now, I started this blog mainly as a way to work out some stuff about my life, mainly kinky, that I couldn't really talk about anywhere else. I like to think that I have done that, quite a bit, and I see no reason to stop doing so. It's immensely helpful just to get it all out, somewhere, before I have to talk intelligently about it. Not that I talk about all of this, but, well, you know. It's always helpful to have one's thoughts organized. And mine are frequently disheveled at best.

But knowing that other people read this... well shit, it's damn fun. If enjoying this fact, even perhaps getting a small, non-inflating ego boost from it, makes me a stereotypical "blogger", then so be it. I'm human, after all, and I like it when people pay attention to me. I like it a lot. I think it's one of the reasons why I'm a sub, actually. Subs tend to get lots of people paying attention to them, and usually in very delicious ways.

Not that I'm above paying some attention to other people. Of course not; I'm not completely narcissistic. But... I like it when people pay attention to me. And knowing that people read this blog (and will now be looking at a picture of me, regardless of the fact that you can't really identify me from it) is a really nice way of getting attention paid to me. Sure, there might not be that many people doing it, but that's perfectly okay. In the end, this is all for me anyway.

But I'm an attention whore. And I'm okay with that.

Sweet dreams

"Mine", he says, sliding his hand around my body to gently nestle around my His cunt, the other lazily playing in my hair.

Me, half-asleep, giving a small murmur of assent. Snuggling back against him, enjoying the feel of his arms around me and his hands upon me.

"All mine", he growls in satisfaction, curling around me.

"I borrowed it."

This stops him. "Oh?" he casually asks. A touch of worry in his voice; he knows he's not the only one who would stake a claim.

Drowsily I almost nod; "mmmhmm" I say in my sleepyvoice, much higher than my usual voice. I sound young and innnocent.

"In the shower," I tell him. "It's waterproof", referring to the vibrator currently hiding in the drawer next to my bed.

"Reallllllly", he drawls, slipping a finger between my lips, brief worry over before it can take hold.

"Mmmhmm" I respond again. "I hope that's okay."

"Oh yes. You may borrow it for that any time you like."

"Oh?"

"Yes. I like the idea of that very, very much," he tells me. I have independent verification: his cock, hard, nestled between my cheeks.

"Okay" I singsong, and drift off to sleep.

Small and getting smaller

I was out with my kids at a bookstore tonight, just to get them out of the house. And to make reading look good to them. They don't do enough of it, I think.

I was trying to herd one of them towards the checkout line, and he kept getting distracted. He wandered over to a "Summer Reading!" table, and picked up Belle de Jour's book - which I hadn't realized had actually come out.

He squealed and picked it up, and I was all like "Uh, no, you shouldn't bring that one back." And he gabbers on, saying "Oh, I know who this is!"

"No, you don't."

"Yeah! She had a movie, it was like 'Call Me' or something..."

"No, she didn't. She had a blog."

"No no no, she was in a movie..."

"No. She wasn't."

He then commenced into the checkout line, to buy fucking Paris Hilton's book (perhaps I should have let him get Belle's). Then I hear this:

"What's a blog?"

NEVER MIND.

Synchronicity (II)

I mentioned last night that Jay and I had a conversation. That's a bit wrong; we actually had a few conversations this past weekend, and one ongoing one.

I find it interesting that dear Hannah is blogging about the topic of the ongoing conversation as well. A year or so back, it was one of my biggest complaints about blogging - as soon as I thought up something to write about, I discovered someone else already had.

Anyway, Jay and I had an ongoing kink conversation this weekend. It started, oh, Friday night? He was pulling my hair (which I adore) and telling me how much liked being "a little bit mean" to me. After things calmed down a bit, I, ever the curious one, asked, quite innocently "How mean is a little mean?"

This flustered him a bit - here I was expecting him to talk, and at a time like this (we were both naked, in my bed, of course)! I changed the question to "how mean would you want to be to me?", and I think there were a few rephrases after that as well. Regardless, it had the desired effect: Jay was talking.

The conversation wended its way through whips and paddles and crops and floggers, and how much Jay likes the cane because of its "precision", and how he hates the flogger for its lack thereof. And how he knows I'm not so much into pain, per se. I responded that the fact that I'm not into pain, as such, is true; however under certain circumstances, certain types of pain, in regulated amounts, is a-okay with me.

This got him musing onto other things. We probably haven't gone through the kink-list in a few years - at least, not since before I dumped his ass. (As for what I'm doing with him right now, it's called "not-dating", and it basically involves us having sex and going on dates, but not in a relationship. I like him much better this way.) We reaffirmed the fact that needles freak my shit out, and that other sharp objects are not welcome in my bedroom.

He asked me about wax, which I knew he had an interest in. That's one of the mutable list items - it really does depend on my mood. Since it was right after talk of needles and knives and whatnot, I was not in the mood, and declared it a "no". Fire and I sort of have a long-standing, mutual truce backed by distrust - fire doesn't burn me or my house, I allow it to cook my food and occasionally light a candle or two. Fire twelve inches above me, melting something that's dripping on me... not so much at this time.

Jay allowed as how that was all right, then turned the tables on me, and asked me for something that I would like to do that we had never done. That was a bit trickier. Now, I trust Jay - at least as far as I am capable of doing so. I know that he cares for and about me, I know that he would never deliberately hurt me, I know that I will probably never, ever be able to make him cry or scare him away. But I was a bit scared by the question, whether logically or not. Sure, I've known him for the better part of a decade (and freaked him out when I mentioned that), but... I didn't want to scare him away. Still, I thought to myself, I hadn't yet, so perhaps something in my deep dark head is shareable.

I went safe though. I mentioned as how we still hadn't gotten around to building a wooden pony, and I thought that was a great idea. It still is, apparently. Perhaps I will have to find those plans I drew up. We talked about a few things that are on my list of "nice ideas, not practical", such as doing a shoot for Hogtied or something. I think it would be intensely fun. I also think it would possibly be one of the stupidest ideas ever, because with my luck, the wrong person would see it.

As I was sifting through my list of things I could possibly tell Jay, I noticed something - the same thing Hannah did, incidentally, and that is that the list has shifted. Things that I would never have been interested in - canes, voyeurism, etc. - a few years ago have become definite interests. And things that I was only somewhat interested in - anything remotely to do with anal, floggers, paddles, etc. - have become huge yeses as well. There are still some nos on there, and I'm pretty sure they'll stay nos. But... there's a few nos on there that I could possibly be persuaded on. Jay is very pleased that one of these is mixing electricity and sex, because he likes the idea verymuch. I think it's because he's an engineer, and is trying to combine two of his favorite things.

When I first noticed this happening a few years ago ("oh my god, I was never in to that kink before! what the hell") I was a bit scared. The kinky side of my personality still scares me a little bit - it's definitely not mainstream or accepted as such, and I live in fear that one day, the Wrong Person will find out about it - but considerably less now. The fear from expanding the list came from the fact, I think, that I hadn't even come to terms in any way with the fact that I was kinky at all, much less into more than one kink, on an ongoing and expanding basis.

Still, I've had some time to get used to the idea by now. And I like kink. And I'm okay with the fact that I may, sometimes, come across a new kink and like it - whether that goes under the "nice idea, but impractical", "I could be persuaded under the right conditions", or "oh hells yes" column. I'm smart enough to keep myself safe, and I'm lucky enough to have at least one person in my life willing to come along for the ride with me - when I feel like letting him. All in all, I figure I've got it pretty good.

And I will never, ever buy needles.

Independence Day

Because I had to work today, Jay and I went out last night to see some fireworks. There's a number of towns around here that don't do them on the 4th, so we took a ride. We walked around the town a bit, then found a bench in a park and sat and waited for the fireworks to begin. Jesus Christ, that almost sounds suggestive. We noted that all of the test fireworks seemed to be placed directly behind a tree. We are awesome at picking spots to watch fireworks.

We debated moving. About two minute before the fireworks were set to start, my phone rang. I was taken aback for two reasons. The first was because I actually heard it ring; usually it's on vibrate. The second was because, hey, who the hell would call me at 9:30 on a Monday night? It was my generic "hey, your phone's ringing" ring, so that didn't give me any clues.

I flipped it open. Oh, Joseph-chan. Even though I was with Jay, I took the call.

"What the hell do you want?"

He was calling about an email I'd sent him earlier, that apparently was confusing and cryptic. I explained it to him. It had to do with not going to a certain landmark on a certain day, because I had information that suggested one of my kids would be there. Awkward, to say the least.

He talked a bit more, Jay studiously silent next to me. I figured he knew who I was talking to. Joseph went on to say that since his girlfriend's plans were a bust, he too wasn't going anywhere, and so he would not be seeing me the last week in July. I was not surprised. Nor was I particularly disappointed. Honestly, it solved - at least temporarily - a number of niggling little problems for me. I made the appropriate sympathetic noises, listened to him apologize for making me take vacation and then not following through, etc.

He asked what I was doing; I told him I was in a certain town waiting for fireworks, so he said his good-byes. After I hung up, Jay asked who it was, surprising me. I told him, and also told him that Joseph would not in fact be coming out, so he could go do his little dance of joy. He declined, as that's not really his style.

Through the fireworks we talked. Let me say that again: Jay and I had a conversation. Admittedly, we didn't talk each other's ears off, but we had a running conversation. We were on a date-type-thing, and had a conversation. This is a major development. Jay, in fact, has been talking a lot more lately - and we've been talking about very interesting things. Anyway, we talked about how I hadn't been surprised that Joseph bailed, what I might do for vacation now, and how Jay had never really been worried that I'd sleep with Joseph anyway.

"Well, there's a few reasons why. One, he's thirty-what, three? And has a semi-almost-serious girlfriend, who at the least is living with him, who is his baby mama, and he has a kid, so that would have stopped it on his end."

"Don't assume that. Because it wouldn't have."

"Oh. Then that definitely puts him into rat bastard status. Two, I know you. You don't do sex without lots of emotion involved. And you wouldn't want to get yourself in the middle of that. So I wasn't worried anyway."

Apparently Jay thought the me and Joseph having sex deal was my idea. Silly man. Although he did have a point about me, and how I do sex.

Still, this leaves me with one problem - what the hell am I going to do for vacation? I've got two weeks, and while one of them will be spent at my parents', I have that whole, delicious first week to get myself into trouble. Mmm, the possibilities. It is good to be an independent woman.

And speaking of, Happy 4th, everyone. Here's hoping that true freedom does not get relegated to the "antiquities" pile this year.

Things that make you go...

Joseph and I talked on the phone late last week - a rarity. Apparently the girlfriend and child were visiting at an aunt's place for two days, so the lucky boy had the house to himself. What does he do? Call me. Naturally.

I used to completely hate talking on the phone, and in fact would only talk with family, under threats of bodily harm from my mother. It's awkward. I'm a visual person, more than auditory, so without the body language, a lot of times I was adrift in a conversation. Since I've gotten older, I've gotten much, much better at it, and in fact will call up complete strangers and ask to buy their cars. But I still don't like talking on the phone, especially not to Joseph.

Joseph falls under the "guys who want to get in my pants" clause, which goes something like this:

If there is a guy, and he wants to get into my pants, I will have absolutely nothing to say to him in a one-on-one conversation. I will also be incapable of replying to any attempts he makes at conversation.

It's sucky. The worst of it is, Joseph and I are both wordy people. Dude is a goddamn writer, for fuck's sake. Me, well, I just have a big mouth. And yet, every time I talk to him, I look like a fucking idiot. Unlike Jay's and my silent dinners, I think in this case it is because I am trying too hard to be witty and entertaining, and failing miserably because I am too scared to try. Or too lazy to think anything up, one or the other. Email is fine though - probably because it's okay if I take fifteen minutes to compose a single sentence in reply.

Anyway, Joseph and I. We talked. Not much, since he called on Wednesday night when I had to get to sleep for my four-hour nap between shifts. We did talk a bit though. Two things stuck with me from the conversation (well, maybe three or four):

1. He is not into kink.
2. He is, in fact, amoral, and likes me because I don't bother to judge him for this.
3. He is not telling the girlfriend that he is spending a week with another woman.
4. "No matter what we wind up being to each other, I want you to know that I'll always love you, and consider you one of my closest friends, and I'll always be there for you and look out for you."

One of these things is not like the others. I didn't really know how to respond to the last - my silence was long enough that he started getting worried that I was getting emotional. Obviously he doesn't know me as well as he thinks, because I don't fucking cry. Certainly not for him. And it wasn't that I was emotional over it, but more like Hmmm. That's interesting. I wonder what exactly that means to him. I would not consider his plans 'looking out for me' in any way, shape, form, etc.

I also gleefully told him that if he were my significant other, and I found out that he'd spent a week out-of-state with another woman, trying to seduce her, and had told me instead that he was going to see a number of old friends and family, I would castrate him. He allowed as how that was probably true. Maybe he does know me. Maybe the word "girlfriend" means something different to him; in fact I'm almost sure it does. But if some dude were my boyfriend, that implies that I have the exclusive use of his cock, and I tend to be possessive about these things.

As for the not into kink, that is highly unfortunate, because I think he'd be really good at it. And I think I would like it a lot. But his loss. Me, I'll stay kinky, please and thank you.

So basically, I will never, ever date this man. He's an amoral, selfish and kinkless bastard, with some really interesting vocabulary. But he's fun to hang out with. There is certainly no sin in that.

All the things she said

Friday nights are tough for me. I work until at least 11:00, and then get to go home, sleep for a few hours, and be back at work at 8:00 the next morning. It's thrilling, I assure you.

Last night, I wound up working until 11:30 (why no, it's not acceptable to parade around the house in your underwear! And no, I don't think it's too much to ask you to follow the rules; why do you ask?) and not going to sleep until nearly 3:00. I had set my alarm soon after getting home, because ideally I wanted to be asleep shortly after midnight. My brain had other ideas, unfortunately.

As I was falling asleep, the little voice in my head said that I should set the alarm on my mobile, just to make sure that I woke up in the morning. As the mobile was right next to me, and the process is quick and doesn't involve me leaving bed, I did so, setting it for 7:00 am. That gives me forty minutes to shower and get dressed before having to leave for work.

I woke up this morning to my mobile's alarm, dazed and confused and wondering why the hell I was even hearing it. Turns out my power went out at some point during the night shortly after I went to sleep, and had but recently come back on. Awesome.

So now it's off to work. Getting woken up by the mobile alarm is certainly more pleasant than waking to the "work" ringtone, but not nearly as pleasant as staying in bed, fast asleep.

I hate everyone and everything

Apparently my car is invisible, because not once, not twice, but no less than SIX FUCKING TIMES did someone nearly make a right turn off of a side street into my car. Now, maybe I'm biased, but I do not have a small car. It is a big fat Ford ('cause I love me some big fat Fords). It has a big engine. Its engine likes to purr and be very responsive to the gas pedal. What is most fun is the hill by my house with the stoplight. It is the perfect hill, because while I am waiting for the light, I don't have to press the brakes. I am digressing.

People are fucking stupid. And they do not like to look when they are turning. And then they like to give me a dirty look, as if to say "HOW DARE YOU BE DRIVING ON THIS STREET AND GETTING IN MY WAY" so I yell "FUCK YOU RIGHT-OF-WAY DICKWEED DO YOU SPEAK IT" and this helps me a lot.

I hate other drivers. They suck.

So after posting that long entry last night, I wake up to this in my inbox.

Dear french,
Here is your horoscope
for Wednesday, June 28:

It's time to make sense of those recurring fantasies. No matter what your loved ones say, you're the only person who has the final say about your true desires. Listen to that inner voice. It's telling you the truth.

Fuck.

Emotional echo

I'm one of those people that has at least a half-a-dozen projects in the works at any given time. I've always got these great ideas, and I'll enthusiastically start them - which means I give up on the last great idea or three, putting it aside.

But today, I am going back and tying up a few of those loose ends, blog-wise.

About three months ago, I had a draft of an entry, filled with big huge things that had happened that day. There were too many, so instead I just focused on one of them. But anyway, going back to that, the first three "big things" had to do with my relationship with Jay, such as it is.

Wait, no, she's blogging about that? Quelle surprise. Maybe we should call someone.

I'd decided that I wasn't ready to be in a relationship with Jay again. That verdict still stands, as does the qualifier - "I get the feeling that at some point I will be, but this is definitely not that point."

The reasons are varied and myriad. Yes, he's become more mature in his personal life, but I don't think he's quite caught up yet. It's still too easy to fall back into old patterns, positive and negative. My parents do not approve.

That last may seem strange - after all, I'm an adult, living on my own, financially independent, etc. and so on. Why the hell should I care about my parents? Well, because they're smart people, and they love me, dammit. I got reminded of that today - I did a portion of a research study about childhood memories, and I got to talk about how wonderful my childhood was. It was far from perfect, but it was wonderful. And especially in my field, I've really gotten a chance to see what passes for parenting on the average, and have grown a huge appreciation for my parents, and the childhood they provided me.

So when Mom and Dad say that something isn't a good idea, I don't take it lightly. On the flip side, when they approve of something, it certainly weights my decision in favor of it - see also my car. If I had told my father about it, and he had said that I should run in the opposite direction, I likely would have. Instead, he said that it would be a good bargain, so that tipped the scales so that I bought it.

Same goes with Jay. Ultimately, it's my decision, and my parents will respect that. And they like him as a person - he's visited them before, and in fact my extended family likes him as well - but not as a person dating or otherwise involved with me in a romantic fashion. Their concerns mirror mine, which just validates them more strongly in my head.

Too bad it's only my head that is saying "Stay the hell away! What the hell is wrong with you." My body and heart are going "Yay! We like this." It. Sucks. How the hell am I supposed to be intelligent about this when every time we have sex, it feels like coming home.