Right this minute I feel excited with dashes of giddy and elated. Where to even begin?

Friday was Noah’s birthday. Lots of play and sex was had. It was lovely. We had more intense talking. What is a date anyway? It was lovely. I felt seen. I felt important. I was nice to Noah. We had a good time. I’m really glad I get to spend all of these years with Noah.

Yes, sometimes I complain about play and sex stuff. When I’m complaining the stuff I’m complaining about feels SO IMPORTANT and it is… but it isn’t the biggest chunk of our relationship. Those complaints are small pieces of a very big picture. They are important and they need to be addressed… but we don’t need to act like our relationship is mostly bad. It isn’t. It just isn’t perfect because nothing is.

He’s about as perfect for me as I’m going to find.

Saturday morning we did some chores and snuggled and had more sex (because we are us). I sorta wonder how much the jump start in my libido is about the kid-free time as much as the nonmonogamy. We’ve had sex a dozen times in the past five days. That’s not including my extra sex.

It was a nice day. It was mellow and lovely. Then we started transitioning towards what we would need for the afternoon and evening. Deity came over at 2 for our first group date. Then the three of us went up to San Francisco so I could play with the nice person I bought at the auction a little while ago.

Ok…. group date: A++++++++ Would do again. Please. Soon. Holy. Shit. For. Shoe. Shine. That was awesome. Next time I won’t intersperse it with a play date with someone else (not complaining!) but logistically it gets crowded.

God it was fun. Fun. Fun. Even though I started bleeding just a few hours into this group date. (After the first round of sex.) No one cared. We have towels.

Oh how I love my life.

I feel so relaxed. So happy. Blissful. I feel like there is joy and happiness in the world.

Sex is the best drug ever.

Yes. More of that. Please. Please. Please. Oh that was wonderful.

It was charming figuring out how to do things at the same time and how to share and where to be and… I felt enchanted by how sweetly courteous and deferential the boys were. “Oh would you like to go next?” I giggled and blushed and it was all delightful and so much fun. Love love love love love love love love love.

I may stop giggling next year.

After the first round of glorious sex and showers we went to dinner and had meat and more meat and more meat and it was glorious. Then we stopped at Wicked Grounds for a milkshake (my purchased date was going to be a bit late) and talked.

Have I mentioned how much fun it is to talk to these two? Of course a lot of the time I just listen because they share interests I don’t share. But I like hearing their voices. It feels comforting. I feel welcomed even if I don’t feel included if that makes sense. I’m not going to be included in some of the geek shit. I’m just not. But I’m welcome anyway. I’ve been a girlfriend/groupie all my life. I appreciate the feeling of welcome.

To prepare for my hot date with the Sweet Boy I bought at auction I looked at his profile. He listed that he was curious about bondage and suspension. I felt a distinct metaphorical schwing when I saw that. My submissive isn’t big on being tied up. And I’m really not big on doing things to people when they don’t enjoy it. I’m not that kind of dominant/sadist.

I can’t really remember suspending someone since Portland Boy at Kinkfest in 2006. The weekend before Noah asked me to marry him. I know I have suspended myself since then….  No! I did a performance with Lee at a New York conference when I was engaged. So, also in 2006 I did another suspension.

I both feel like I must be forgetting something and I feel like I’m not…

Anyhow. I was looking forward to playing with Sweet Boy. He told me he wanted to feel used and he was… fairly expansive in how he wanted to feel used. Expansive in that “I’ve been in the scene since March so I don’t yet have preferences carved in granite” sort of way. Other than three-to-five minute demos at Leather Alley events I haven’t played with someone this new… oh in over twelve years?

I was a little nervous. I am afraid of newbies. I’m afraid I will hurt them. I’m afraid I will cross their boundaries. I’m afraid they don’t know where their boundaries are so they can’t defend them even if they want to. I’m afraid of being the monster that breaks them. Newbies are hard.

But this Sweet Boy flirted with me during the groping preview. Just a little. In a demure, non-pressuring sort of way. He looked so young that I had to ask him how old he was. There is discrepancy in what he said that night and in what his profile says, but in any case he’s over thirty. Ok…. that’s… young but I can cope. He is younger than me.

Honestly that is part of what made me think of Portland Boy. One of the only other times I’ve ever played with someone younger than myself. And Portland Boy is a lot taller/bigger than me so I had to learn some logistical stuff with him.

I think of these things! I think of how to generalize information from previously stored models. It isn’t that people are the same. It is, “Ok most of my experience tying people up is on women or men who are my height/weight. It is different with men who are taller/possibly heavier and what do I need to do to strategize that?” I don’t have that much of that kind of experience and it is important to me for me to consciously go through the lessons I have learned before I try another experience.

I don’t want to fuck up in the same way twice.

But beyond the most basic of weight distribution considerations nothing about the scenes were very similar. Sweet Boy is not a SAM. (Smart Assed Masochist for those of you who are not in my acronym-land.)

Sweet Boy may be one of the sweetest, most accepting, melting people I’ve topped. I was surprised to find that in a casual scene. The simple ardor, the surprised expressions of delight, the subtle changes in facial expression and body language…

It was like listening to an enormously complicated symphony while eating a rich and varied meal and drinking a glass of complex full bodied wine at the same time.

An absolute bombardment of the senses.

Topping is so awesome.

Especially for me it was very non-sexual. I stayed fully dressed, he kept his underwear on. There was no genital contact. Barely any kissing and that was mostly of the kissing his shoulder variety. There was no tongue or anything like that.

It didn’t need it. It was sweet by itself. It was gentle and careful and here is how to have safe experiences with boundaries. I didn’t want to take more than was good for him. I don’t know him. I have no idea what would be good to take from him. So I need to default to a very conservative guess.

It was charming that he protested coming down from the suspension because we just got started after more than an hour. It was almost an hour and a half and he was getting wobbly. “I’m not wobbling! I’m just… moving…”

Oh Sweet Boy. I have no idea how you handle having your blood pressure drop. Let’s take care of you. Even if you would rather keep being used. It is more important to make sure that you can take care of you later. You are bigger than me. I am going to be cautious as we learn because hurting you would be a terrible thing.

Well, I mean really hurting you. Beating your feet with canes isn’t hurting you. Punching you until you groan and turn red… that’s not hurting you. You seemed to have a lovely time. The laughter encouraged me on. My laughter and your laughter, really. Even when I was the only one laughing it just made me want to hit harder. The glee.

I get to do this…. I get to do this….

YAY!

It was a fantastic experience. After I took him down from the partial suspension (I left a foot on the ground almost the entire time) he was sending signals that he was sad that the scene was over so soon. So I pulled him to a bed and hog tied him and spent some time caning him some more. Because I’m a giver.

And because he was really hot and really sweet and he made the best noises.

Swoon.

I stopped mostly because I felt two hours of waiting was about what I could ask of my darling Deity (who had never been to a dungeon before) and my ever patient husband. So. Snuggling commenced and then we all talked for a while.

Deity and Noah of course made sure I knew that the three of us came to a dungeon together. Then we came home and snuggled.

I’m finding it fascinating to manage a lot of my feelings about Deity. On a frequent basis he will adjust part of my body, I suppose to make himself more comfortable? Most of the time I feel a spark of rejection. I have to consciously choose to take his indication that he wants 1″ of space as literal instead of going for here have a foot.

I’m finding this interesting because I suspect this happens often with lots of people, but in this case I can see it so clearly and starkly as it is happening. I don’t think I usually notice why I have the aversion feeling and move away.

Establishing boundaries is important, necessary, and absolutely terrifying.

Kids are here.

This weekend was supposed to be energetic. But my back huuuuuuuuuurts.

It is fascinating negotiating with folks. Some folks are fine with group bdsm play but not sex. Some like group sex and group bdsm. Some like just group sex. Some are fine playing one to one near a group but not having anyone else involved…..

My life over the next few years will be entertaining. I tell you that.

Today is Noah’s birthday. He’s 40. I made him French toast for breakfast. That and a date night are what he gets.

Birthdays are a thing yo.

Wow. Completely out of the blue I just got this out of body feeling like I was at the grief ritual and I was screaming I don’t want to die. Stop telling me to come with you. It doesn’t matter if you want me. I don’t want you.

Yeah. I will be going back to grieve more.

I have a lot more to say to my piece of shit ancestors.

White guilt. Ha. How about Everything-that-touches-everything-I-come-from-guilt.

How can anything that springs from such a dung heap have any value?

Isn’t that the entire point of compost?

Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. You have no value if you are not a tool.

I am a tool. Do I have value? Do I have value because I’m a tool?

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

Do I have value because I have this hole? Because I am good at cleaning house?

Because I can go through this elaborate pretense of being nice and civilized and happy even though I’d like to go behind closed doors and beat my head on concrete until I can.never.think.again.

I don’t care that you want me to hate myself. I don’t want to do what you told me to do. I want you to leave me alone. Stop fucking haunting me you son of a fucking bitch.

I was created to be a weapon. A weapon with which to hurt my mother. She didn’t want another baby, another burden.

But here I fucking am. I do not burden her any longer. You know what? I’d put a lot of fucking money on the notion that my mother is very burdened by my absence.

I do not do this to punish you, nor to punish me. I do this to save my children. Everything that springs from that well is poison. I need to feed them something different. I need a new way.

Even if it involves decades of faking it.

What is real? What is faking it?

Faking what?

Don’t ask.

I’m sorry. I’m not sorry. I’m sorry. I’m not sorry.

I’m dysregulated as fuck. I’m on day 32 of my cycle. My “average” cycle length is 34 days. (But I vary dramatically.) I know that my emotions are raw before I bleed.

I sorta hope bleeding waits till Monday. Cause whoa this weekend.

This weekend will be fantastic. Maybe I’ll tell you about it. Maybe. A lot of firsts.

The punching last night managed to work out some deep muscle pain I had. Thanks!

This weekend I asked Sarah if she would pick me for her zombie apocalypse team. On one hand this is a silly and ridiculous question. On the other hand… Sarah knows more competent people than the vast majority of this planet. So if Sarah wants to pick me that means she is not choosing more competent, skilled people. That’s a big damn deal. Because Sarah knows many of the most competent people in the world.

She says absolutely. Because of my stamina. Because if she gives me an order I will follow it. I will only argue if I have a very serious amount of domain knowledge that leads me to be 100% sure that I’m right. Then I’ll justify myself briefly and we can negotiate. We do this so well.

I’m thinking about that energy tonight. I had two good nights of sleep in a row. 10 hours then 9 hours. Then tonight…4. Sigh. I decided to just take the Klonopin last night instead of also taking melatonin and 200mg of pot. Apparently… that’s not enough sedation. Awesome. I woke up very awake.

Sometimes I wonder about the evolutionary function of people like me–people who can burn energy like this even when it hurts them. It strikes me that this type of idiocy spurs self harm or heroism.

A while back I read an article about a young man from a “troubled past” who rescued a bunch of people during Katrina. He continued to struggle with life after the disaster. A lot of what makes children earn the “troubled” label is having far too much energy for solving problems compared to the adults around you. If you are a high energy person you are trouble.

God this is so broken.

I am pretty sure Noah and I have reached some kind of equilibrium around nonmonogamy stuff. Now we get to put what we talked about into practice and see how it goes.

I feel very guilty. I know there are ways and places in this marriage where I get more than my fair share (like massage–I don’t rub him much because my hands hurt) but there aren’t that many places where I just flat out ask to get more. Usually he gets more or it is hard to tell. I work hard on that because I don’t feel I deserve the deal I get and I would feel really bad if I was more blatantly exploitive of what I have.

I have already taken too much from Noah.

But here I am. Taking more. Ostensibly because it allows me to give more back. I wish I understood why I am hard wired for novelty in a way that is highly unusual even for my promiscuous species. I can make up a story based on trauma or based on my family history but the truth is I don’t know. I can just guess.

Novelty increases my desire and tolerance for all forms of sex. I’m a lot more satisfied with something that doesn’t feel satisfying if I also have novelty. All of a sudden the repetitive is comforting and lovely instead of boring.

But yeah Noah, you are right. We developed some patterns for getting through the breeding years that we are going to have to undo. They no longer serve. It is becoming a bad thing for both of us. How to ask? How to push? What to do?

It all changes and that is so annoying.

I kinda thought I would get to my 30’s and have sex figured out. Sheesh, I’ve fucked enough people I should know what this shit is about. With every year I am more confused. Because life is a bitch.

I sorta feel like in my dream world “my” people wouldn’t live so spread out. Scheduling people months in advance is fraught. It is hard to predict energy levels that far in advance. Given the distances involved and the complicated schedules involved…. scheduling in advance is how I maintain contact with so many people.

But I kind of wish that I had a longer list of people I could email on Thursday night and say, “Hey want to come over tomorrow?”

Because right now that list of people is somewhere between zero and one. On a given week I might feel brave enough to try once but I usually get turned down and don’t have the ovaries to keep asking people because I suck at that flavor of rejection.

SOMEDAY MY BATHROOM WILL BE DONE. That may change some of how we schedule stuff. Having the house be destroyed is sucking. fuuuuuuuck. I need to go talk to the city about my permit. It expires soon. Sigh. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Shit.

In my dream world I’d get to invite over the folks I like. Some of them I like having sex with and some of them I don’t. We’d all talk and share ideas and laugh and be safe.

That’s my dream world. Where I get to invite people over to my house at the last minute to talk about intense things in a safe environment.

That’s what I want.

I hope I’m heading there.

I don’t want to cut off my friends in favor of my lovers. I want to spend time with people. I feel like I desire contact with people the way other people want air. I want to hear what you think and why. I want to hear more about your story so I can understand.

Do you know how much I want to understand you? I try so hard and I fail so often. Please talk to me more. I’m sorry I have such a thick head. Thank you for your patience in explaining to me repeatedly.

I love you. I want to know you.

*no tags because OWWWWWWWWW arms

Part of the reason I don’t like to write more in times of lots of extreme ups and downs is because I feel stupid. There have been up moments. I feel like maybe there are more positive moments than terrible moments over the past few days. Things are leveling off.

I feel like we are getting closer to an agreement we can live with. It isn’t perfect on either side (compromise isn’t a dirty word) but it is something we can live with. Perfect for Noah might involve a much longer leash than I can cope with. Perfect for me might involve a whole lot more patience with my shenanigans.

You give what you can give.

I still like being married to him. I’m still happy that I get to talk to him and fuck him and have him tell me that we will figure it out.

Don’t compare partners. But only one person carries me. I notice that. I do compare that. I honestly believe I would have to be a fucking moron to not weigh that more heavily.

That doesn’t justify being mean to anyone else or taking them for granted or using them and discarding them. But I do compare what kind of support I get because I need to make sure I get enough support.

I have to.

Am I selfish? Yes. Is that ok? I don’t know. Noah thinks that banging me is worth the price of admission. It is high.

Tonight we have the penultimate conversation. One of the least scary ones. I am sad that I didn’t manage to get all the people in this month. One of them I will talk to in June because sweet sunny french fries I couldn’t see more people this month. I feel like I’m about to collapse. And I have a cold.

We are getting closer and closer to understanding kinda what we want. Maybe. Uhm, lots of group sex. Because group sex is awesome. Ok, it has obnoxious dynamics to deal with (what sex doesn’t) but I can adapt.

It isn’t that our sex life is inadequate, not really. We have fucked 31 times so far this month and I’m so chafed that sitting down is… uncomfortable. It isn’t that we can’t fuck each other enough.

We went to an open relationship discussion group recently, because I like talking about this stuff. It was fascinating how bad I felt. “Not poly. Slutty.” No. I don’t want to devote every Thursday to you. Even if you are spiffy.

My life is too full.

I would have to cut a few full branches off the tree of my friendships. In order to make room for new growth. Who do I cull? Not you. Not you. Not you. Not you.

Shit.

I rant and rave about how there is no such thing as “deserve” in life. But I think maybe to some degree I have earned the relationships I have. I don’t want to cull any of them. I’ve worked so hard. But choosing to not devote more intense energy to individuals is a choice. I’m scared of putting all my eggs in one basket.

I have poured so much into Noah. Narrowing my other support seems… questionable.

I’m trying to feel more connected but it is hard. I’m having trouble feeling grounded. I feel floaty. I feel disconnected and distant. Cutting does that. I’m way more calm though!

I learned something interesting: I can do much more extensive cutting on my thighs with no marking than can happen on my breasts. Noah marked my breasts, just a little, and those marks are much darker and more apparent than the pretty serious cutting I did on my thigh. Skin is fascinating.

Today I should pack for the grief ritual. Sarah picks me up at 1pm tomorrow. Tomorrow is Noah’s last day of work. Hurrah. Let me run away from home. I’m gonna cry. Doesn’t this just seem like a good time to take all the grief and pain and scream about it? Hell yeah.

Don’t hurt yourself.

I will try to stop.

Do you know what the worst form of self harm I’ve done lately is? Breaking agreements. The cutting on my leg isn’t that big of a deal. Not really. Not in the scheme of things. I broke agreements I made. That hurts me. Noah is going to keep talking about how he knows he needs to get over it… and it’s going to be long term damage. Because I hurt my home. I did that.

I’m mad at him for all the things he has done. But most of what he has done is to not do. I do the bad shit. I break things. I blow things up. I say, “I can’t follow rules right now.”

I don’t know what rules I can follow but not those anymore. They don’t work now. Well, I have a better idea of where we are going. We start writing soon.

And by burn I mean bridges.

Ok I need to type. I haz feelings. I’ve been pretty quiet about them and that sucks for me. It sucks in a lot of ways. In order to compartmentalize my extreme disordered thoughts when I’m not typing them out I have to do a lot of depersonalization. I feel like less than a person. I feel hollow. I don’t feel fleshed out. It isn’t exactly the same thing as dissociating but it is related.

I have offended one person and I didn’t offend that person so much they want to banish me from their life they just don’t want to be that close to my sex life. Totally reasonable.

My sex life is a chaotic place. You need to be ok with ups and downs and extreme changes in emotion or…. we just can’t have sex as part of an ongoing relationship. Because that happens to me. I have big feelings.

I was honest with the psych nurse yesterday. (I have two new scripts. Klonopin (a longer acting sleeping pill like Lorazepam to deal with the early wake ups) and Abilify.) She asked if I had any suicidal urges on the Gabapentin. I said no but my self harming urges went through the roof. She asked what that means.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and said, “Ok I’m not going to lie I cut last week.”

“Ok, where? How deep?”

“On my thigh. It’s not deep. It really isn’t dangerous.”

Then I went into my medical schpeal about avoiding tendons and arteries and she asked me how I insure cleanliness and I told her I use disposable scalpels to avoid infection risk and…

When I was done she blinked and said, “I don’t think I’ve ever worked with someone who is as serious about mitigating the harm that they are doing. Uhm, well done.”

That was funny.

You are harming yourself and you know it. But you are doing it so you don’t do what might be worse harm in another place. As you harm yourself you are following elaborate safety precautions. Oh. Well. Uhm. Ok.

When was the last time you cut? Almost five years ago. Let’s talk about the similarities there.

In  both situations I felt like I had mountain sized emotions that other people were not ok with dealing with and I had to make them go away. Now. Stop on a dime. It doesn’t matter how you feel it matters how you act.

That’s hard. I don’t know another way to do it. When I feel absolutely in a trap and I have to make my hysteria go away now… I don’t know another way to do it. I really don’t.

Why did I feel like it this time? Because I was going to flip out in front of the kids and I’m not ok with that. I’m way ok with flipping out where they can’t see me. I wasn’t going to be able to hold it together in front of them on that day and that… that isn’t ok.

Shove that shit in a box, bitch.

I can’t freak out at my kids. I just can’t. Not when I’m upset about things in my sex life. That’s not ok. Hold it together. But does cutting count as holding it together? Well, my kids haven’t seen the marks and they haven’t had to deal with my extreme behavior either. I’m not sure if that is good enough but it is what I had to give last week.

I put myself in situations where BIG FEELINGS are unavoidable. Then I struggle to deal with the repercussions. My feelings cause other people to have feelings. Situations cause other people to have feelings. Then the feelings must be dealt with.

Thank all the stars in the heavy for easy going, slutty folk. Y’all are the best. You are ok with doing what you are doing and on the good days I show up and fuck you and on the rest of the days you don’t get mad at me for my inadequacy at being consistently up.

Noah and I are… a lot of the way through negotiating. It still hurts. Why does it hurt? Because neither of us like it that either of us will ever do anything but look at one another. We both want that from one another. LOOK AT ME.

So how do we share that? How do we share this intense possessiveness we both feel? I don’t know. But we are going to find out. When it goes well it goes so freakin well. When we both feel safe and loved and like we are getting what we need we have a lot to share and we aren’t selfish and we aren’t stingy.

But how do we get to the point of feeling safe and loved? That’s the hard bit.

We go through phases of feeling that way. I know that I complained about how only other people make Noah glow and that’s not true. I see him glow with me too. It just only happens on days when I spend a lot of time adoring him and that shit takes work.

I need to do more of that work. I like the results.

Sigh.

What is it that we really want? I want to speak in we. Maybe that’s bad.

I want enmeshment. I want intensity. I want attention. I want to be a separate self and I want to not have much of me that is outside of our relationship. I want sex like this month to be most months of the year. I want to feel special.

I hate that I have absolutely no idea what could cause me to feel special. I don’t. Even though Noah has spent ten years doing his best to cause me to feel special… I don’t.

That seems so unfair. It means there is nothing I can ask him to do to make me feel special. Clearly it isn’t going to come from him if we have utterly failed so far.

I don’t know and it really sucks.

I want time spent. I want conversation. I want perversion and tenderness. Time. Time. Time. Time. I want your time. I want to crawl inside you so that you carry me around in a Joey pocket and I never have to miss a minute with you. Ok, maybe I’ll crawl out and leave you alone when you are pooping. Because oh my god. But the rest of the time I’m happy to be with you.

I don’t need you to garden. But it’s nice when you decide to come sit in the shade near I’m working so you can talk to me.

I don’t need to program. But I like sitting near you when you are doing so.

I don’t like doing the cooking. But I like when we work together and I do all the other stage setting parts of making a meal and getting drinks so that things just feel more put together when we sit down to eat the wonderful mea you have made.

I like grocery shopping with you and exercising with you and meditating with you. I like that you, alone in the whole world, are happy to try that hard to learn how to be happy so you can teach me how to be happy.

Thank you. That is a gift I cannot repay.

I see you. I see the vulnerability and sadness that comes from feeling like there isn’t a thing about you that is lovable. You do deserve love. You didn’t believe you deserved it when I told your mom she wasn’t allowed to come after the motorcycle accident and we took care of you because we loved you and you don’t believe it now when I do my very best to show you that you are important every single day.

Yeah, I’m all in.

Yes, this sexing other people thing is going to be hard. But it’s also so much fun. It takes energy from both of us to share. It’s hard. We don’t love it. Neither of us like sharing our toys very much. But we do actually both like the results. We do like the increased skill base and knowledge and repertoire. We like the glowing and the extra energy.

Even when I want to scratch your face off. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

IF ONLY I COULD STOP LIKING THE BENEFITS OF NONMONOGAMY.

Uhm, I need to go water the back yard before taking Eldest Child on the school tour. Fudge.