Do you know what the most common question I’m getting right now is? “How’s Noah?” I keep telling people that if they are worried they should ask him and not trust my reporting. It doesn’t matter if I say he laughed.

I could be lying you know. Ok, so he leaves comments here when I say something he disagrees with so I probably couldn’t get away with huge lies. But if they were funny Noah might let them slide.

What is love anyway? I have spent a lot of time wondering. So do most people, near as I can tell.

I don’t think that love is the same thing as wanting to rub sticky bits together. Is love that feeling where you want them to be as safe and happy as possible–even if that means not-you doing it?

Sometimes I say that I don’t fall out of love. I’m having a problem with my former Owner. He’s… he is the kind of guy who is prone to telling jokes that are a problem for me. It’s not that he’s a bad person. It’s that I can’t have men walking past my scenes yelling, “Hit her harder” because that creates a culture where treating me like that is acceptable. You can’t model that behavior in front of strangers. It’s not ok. If I didn’t like him I’d chew him a new asshole and move on with my life.

The trouble is, I love him a lot. I don’t know how to effectively communicate what I need without exploding because my feelings about him are all so intense. My response on day one of this was to kick him in the shins. Hopefully he will be more amenable to a conversation next time?

You can’t encourage casual public disrespect of me. Nope.

I don’t give a shit how much I love you. Nobody talks to me like that.

I don’t want to stand up to him. He was my Owner. He was my first Daddy. He was my best friend for many years. I want to just gaze at him adoringly like a puppy forever. But those fucking stupid jokes.

Fuck.

Come on motherfucker.

What does it mean to love people? I think about this so much. The way I love Jenny is not how I love Sarah is not how I love Kira is not how I love my submissive is not how I love Noah is not how I love my Daddy’s.

I even love all of my Daddy’s differently. They provide different kinds of nurturance to me. Different Daddy’s pay attention to different parts of me. They care about my physical or emotional health differently.

What does love mean?

Does it mean that you want to have connection with people because you believe you have something to give them or does it mean connection because you need to receive from them? I don’t know.

I have spent most of my life feeling guilty because few relationships are reciprocal. They instead usually go in one direction or another and then you need other relationships to balance the rest of your needs. I feel so bad about the relationships where people mostly give to me. I feel like a user.

But I know that I have lots of relationships as the giver. Where is the balance? I’ve always had relationships where I receive, I’d be dead without them. But I don’t feel good about them. I always feel ashamed.

I’m having complex feelings about what my submissive wants to give to me. I don’t understand it yet. I can’t see it. I can’t wrap my head around it. I don’t understand someone being that focused on giving to me. I don’t have any understanding of what it is going to look like.

I get the sex. The everything else confuses me. If what we were doing was just me beating the shit out of him because that is fun I’d get it. I’d feel like it was about something I had to give. It isn’t about that though. That’s part of it. He wants that. But it is something different too and I don’t know what it is.

I want it. Whatever it is, I want it.

“How is Noah?” I feel like I should make personal cards for Noah just so I can give his contact information to the people I’m fucking so they can check in on their own since they are so paranoid.

He doesn’t want to write publicly about how he is doing. I can’t make him. It’s uncomfortable but he’s riding the waves.

He’s waiting to see what will happen. I am too.

I’ve been listening to this Reba song a lot.

NRE (New Relationship Energy) is a potent drug. I’m sipping deep. It’s better for me than almost any other kind of drug.

Danger Will Robinson. Danger.

I’m not afraid of being alone. I’m afraid of running out of connection to people. I’m not afraid of being alone. Sometimes being alone is the best thing. Even when I’m alone I want to feel loved. Hell, if I’m alone in a room with a computer and an internet connection I’m never alone.

How much of loving people is just wanting to keep seeing them in the world doing whatever it is that they want to do?

I don’t want you to be like me. I want you to be like you so that I can adore you. I do adore you.

I’m feeling scared of loving people. I want it and I’m afraid.

I am afraid of loving too much or not enough. Does love mean wanting to hurt someone? Does love mean wanting to hear all the stories about them parenting because that tells you so much about how they care for people around them?

The older I get the more someone being a good parent is a ridiculous turn on. It isn’t that I want to make babies with you (Factory is closed) but the fact that you have that kind of love to give… can I touch you?

That’s coming up in a few places with a few people. I’m getting ridiculously into parents. I don’t think it is just my impregnation obsession. Good parents are good people.

Years ago my shrink told me that you can’t tell if someone is a good person based on what their friends or their coworkers say. Find out what their kids think of them. I think about that often and I’m trying to ensure that I make sure my kids see the best I have to offer in this life.

What does that leave left over for Noah, my submissive, the deity, other people who want a piece of me…

But what about me? What about what I want? I want 9 day weeks and 30 hour days. I want everyone I want to fuck to live within walking distance of my house.

Sigh.

More than once in the past week I’ve had a sad thought about this phase of promiscuity. I’m going to hit a wall: the driving will kill me. Shit.

Oh I’m getting old. The biggest thing preventing me from getting laid more is that the driving hurts my back. suck

Not that I need to get laid more, exactly. Frequency isn’t the problem. (Thank you Noah.) It’s the difference. It’s the different conversations. It’s the different kinds of permission. Noah gives me permission to be or do anything he can think of. The only trouble is the limit of his imagination. Other people think of different things.

Other people want different things so they think of them. So they suggest them to me. I like that kind of cycle.

I want to be so many things. I hope that in the fullness of time even my unpredictability will become predictable.

Goodness. Speaking of love. And because I am shallow. I have the fancy dress I will wear for the rest of my life. Apparently I like the Regency period. So the fancy gown is almost kinda like this style  because it has a green silk under skirt that is a full slip with a sheer over gown. The over gown is sheer and separate so I can wear it as the sole piece above the corset dress because being able to see the corset dress through the sheer mock up was so hot that the dress maker said, “Oh it’s a shame you can’t wear it like that later” and I said, “…… Could I?”

We talked. Yes. Yes I can. The nice man who is making my dress was a costumer for the opera house for thirty years. He went and found a nice Regency pattern to follow. The back is entirely lace up so that as I go up and down in weight (like I do) I can wear this pretty much for the rest of my life.

And the petal skirt… oh the petal skirt will be so pretty.

I’m a dork but I’m really excited about this. It feels like picking the costuming I want to have represent me. This is going to be clothing I wear a lot forever. I am paying too much money for this to be something I don’t use much. I need to get several decades of hard wear out of this for it to be worth the money.

I really like it. I like that it can be worn in many ways. Corset dress. Green silk slip dress (which may be wearable on its own). Sheer over dress (oh the sleeves are so pretty… and it trails just a touch in the back). Petal skirt (which can be worn over the corset or over the over gown). Then the jacket. The jacket is gorgeous.

So red. So “Hi. I’m here.” Red. Red. Red.

Noah wanted me to get married in red. I compromised. The jacket is red. The rest of the outfit is white and green and red. Because I’ve got this Wonderland garden thing.

I’ve gotta say, when I was looking in the mirror at the corset dress… the first thing I thought was, “Oh I’d fuck me.”

lol

I’m funny. Seriously though. I corset well. I cinch down to a 14″ difference between my waist and hips without effort. That’s hot.

I didn’t pick this body. But if I’m stuck with it I will find things to like about it. I am going to have to practice how to walk in the corset dress. So far I’m stiff and awkward. If I want to look graceful it will take effort. Just like I’m practicing with this damn red lipstick. I’m getting better.

I should… go do stuff.

Sure…. I won’t fuck my submissive. Right. Yeah. That’ll last till the first time he is naked, humping my leg and telling me how much he loves me.

I have no self control.

Oh that was nice. Wonderful, dreamy, loving and mean as hell. He is covered in bite marks that I could not handle at all. If someone bit me that hard I would probably whack their head hard enough to make their ears ring. But he didn’t mind me doing it.

Hot.

This is so nice.

On other nights I have theoretically thought, “Meh. I don’t want to tell someone they have to fuck me harder… I just want them to want to do that.”

Tonight I didn’t fucking mind one little bit.

Tying him up at Wicked Grounds was fun, but not nearly exciting as following him home.

When I say I need more lube and someone jumps off me to start going down on me with that much enthusiasm… yeah… that’s alright.

I haven’t been rimmed in years. That was also…. quite alright.

I liked it when he bit my nipples. Just a little. Not enough to be trying to hurt me. Just enough to make me squeak.

I like squeaking.

I’m feeling… like… I’m kinda ridiculous. I have no self control at all when it comes to fucking. I mean… I do. There are lots of people I’m not fucking.

But when it’s people I’m already in love with who are telling me over and over how much they love me?

No self control.

I want that.

Yes. Give me more.

More.

More.

I want that. I want you to tell me how much you want me. How beautiful I am. How much you love me.

Yes.

I’m feeling no draw whatsoever to find someone who will make me chase them because they aren’t that into me. Oh good grief no. Why would I waste my time?

It’s raining men. Hallelujah.

I am feeling no end of fortunate right now. And I have another date on Sunday.

/me dances all over the room

Sunday’s date says he will decide if I can write about him after we play. Well fine then. He’s also debating letting me use his name. Which will make several of you raise your eyebrows and go, “Wait… him?”

Yeah. Him.

I started it.

I started feeling interested in him before I got married. I sorta hinted I was interested in playing but I didn’t have enough courage to be forceful then and nothing happened. Then after I was married he asked me to play and I didn’t manage to arrange it during our last stepping out period.

Then I ran into him recently. I uhhhhh was very interested.

So I sent an offer that was fairly respectable from me. I’ve been way more pathetically desperate in my neediness in the past. I’ve slowly increased the raunch at a somewhat reasonable level. I think?

At this point I’m being pretty… graphic… but given what I’m hoping he will do to me, that seems appropriate.

Noah… thank you. Thank you for saying that I can go do whatever the hell I want so I can figure out what the hell do I want?

I don’t even know. I thought I would have a lot more fun telling my submissive no. Then I had a hot naked man telling me he loved me and yeah no.

/me flops to the floor in a heap

I want all the love. All of it. Alllllllllllllllllllllll of it.

I’m tired of saying no.

I don’t want to say no. I want to say yes.

You know what…

I feel like I don’t want to die.

There is no deserve in life. I am not getting these good things because there is justice or because I was carefully weighed and measured and found worthy.

Life is fucking unfair.

But the wheel has turned. I have so much to look forward to.

I get to go forward and say yes to the experiences I want to have. That’s been building in a variety of ways over the last fifteenish years.

I don’t want to say no. Except when I do. And when I say no I’m ok with backing it up with physical force and/or (preferably) long philosophical conversations about why folks need to change their ways.

I can say no. I do it when I want to.

I told the neighbor no in no uncertain terms.

I’m really not interested in folks who are younger than me. I’ve actually turned down several direct propositions in the last week. Err, I didn’t bother to mention them Noah because they were so young I didn’t consider them seriously.

I mean, a 30 year old. Me? No.

Cradle robbing.

I am so funny.

(Ok another one was 23 and holy shit for shoe shine no.)

It isn’t that I can’t say no. It is that I don’t want to say no to people who love me and who are very nice to me.

I’m going to pay for this sleep loss. But I feel like I’m glowing. I feel like it will be easier to say no to things I don’t want. Because there is such a clear distinction between what it feels like to want to say yes.

I wanted the sex tonight. It wasn’t just that I wanted to have sex. I could have been at home having sex with Noah. I wanted to have sex with my submissive. Why. Why. Do I feel like I’m leaving him out and that’s not fair?

No… that’s not it. I mean… I did have the thought.

But no. I wanted to have sex with him. It was hot. He wanted to please me and he succeeded. It was so different from the deity.

I….

Shut up Krissy. No. Don’t do that.

Just say yes. Just say thank you.

Just be grateful you don’t have to pick. Comparison is stupid.

Then what the fuck is up with the Top 5?

Err. It’s not really about comparison exactly. It’s about acknowledging degree of compatibility. I’ve had sex with a lot of people. I know which ones I can go back to most reliably because our interests align.

I find it uhm distinctive that most of my Top 5 has either been through specific treatment for sex addiction or they’ve considered whether that might be true for them.

I have preferences, ok.

We live in a world that says that people like us, the kind of people who go out and fuck hundreds of people are broken. What if we are just like this? If we are safe, and most of us are quite safety conscious, are we just ok?

If I want to love me–is this part of it?

Promiscuity has been part of my life for more than three decades now. In the sense that other people would understand only two decades but I think all that oral counts.

I like variety in sex in a way that most people don’t. When you look at statistics and there are a bunch of guys who claim they’re having lots of sex but you wonder who it is with? It’s with me.

I’m kidding.

Sorta.

I wonder a lot about us outliers. I ask other promiscuous people lots of questions: Why do you do it?

I get some interesting answers. Maybe I’ll tell you in a few more decades when people won’t get so pissed off at me for breaking confidence. It’s too soon. We are still living our stories. It’s not ok for me to talk about them yet. It’s funny how I do these boundaries.

It’s funny what I say and what I don’t say. Lies. Lies of omission. It’s only a sin if you are ashamed to admit you did it.

I skip saying that much about the kids because boundaries.

But uhm if you fuck me then you are crossing into my writing world. Hi.

Because I want to think about you. I want to think about why I want you so much. I want you all for different reasons. I’m not nearly as free as you think I am with telling you why I want you. I can only tell you a small bit to start with.

I’m afraid to tell you all of why I want you. I don’t trust you. I know that doesn’t sound nice. It’s true anyway.

I’d rather piss you off than lie.

What to say. What not to say. Lies.

The process of writing is a process of creation of self. At least for me. I hear those fiction writers are off on some other weird ass trip. Whatever. That isn’t my gift this lifetime.

I kinda wish. Shit it would be nice to get out of my head.

But if I want to deliver the behavior I want to deliver during the variety of environments I will encounter in this life… I need to keep working on a variety of kinds of self control. I often feel abashed about how much of my parenting skills I learned in the bdsm community. I learned how to negotiate. I learned how to read body language and talk about emotional responses to sensations without framing everything as trauma. I learned how to talk about what it feels like to experience something in my body. I learned how to choose joyful shared catharsis instead of isolated self mutilation.

I’d much rather go ask a nice friend to beat me than cut myself. Quite frankly. Because after the beating I will strut like a peacock and get a lot of work done and feel all full of badassery.

After the cutting I will keep my mouth shut and my head down. I will do my best to be unseen. When I am tempted to speak I will touch the wounds and remind myself that it doesn’t matter what I think.

Why is it either/or?

You may not understand my brain chemistry. My hands hurt. I’m not up for that digression.

Suffice to say: the beating is just a better idea. But I so far I keep asking “mild to moderate” sadists and you know what… I’m wondering what lesson there is in that.

Who do I know who just goes to 11? Oh man. How many of those people do I think would actually stop if I said stop?

Uhhhh fuck.

Maybe it is so fucktastically healthy that I’m asking people who will probably max out before me and I need to cope or some shit.

Or keep asking around.

Goooooood grief Kristine.

Decide later. For now: go to bed. Yes I will masturbate first.

It’s raining men. Hallelujah.

(Thanks for the song introduction, Noah. You are so good at bringing things into my life.)

Noah and I continue talking, like we do. I continue to believe that I am lucky to be married to him and I need to not fuck this up. He is being so patient and understanding.

I have been a serious asshole. I didn’t negotiate in advance. I started breaking rules and saying, “Shit shit shit I can’t follow rules any more.”

That’s fucked up. I’m not being good at all.

And he’s being patient with me. I don’t deserve this. I also don’t deserve having Pam come over to make me dinner and waking up to Noah making me breakfast and I get those things too.

Life isn’t really about what you deserve.

He’s my best friend. He is the person in the world I feel safest with. I think we can figure this out. I mean, is it really a bad thing that he’s not an evil sadist? Probably not. It is probably why he can take care of me and love me the way he does. The way I need him to.

Even though I have a hard time with the fact that I have to be directive during sex… if I do just a little bit of it boy is the best lover I’ve ever had. Ok, maybe I want some vacation from being directive… but it’s hard to argue with that kind of success. I get why he wants advice. I do.

I like being married to Noah. I like how we talk. I like how we cuddle. I like how he kisses me. I like how he makes me food. I like how hard he works at the things he thinks are important. I have mad respect for him. There aren’t many people who say, “I will do _____” and follow through on it like Noah does. I watch for that. He’s amazing.

He isn’t perfect and he isn’t everything. But what he is is so good.

Noah sees me in a way no one else alive has any desire to see me.

I can live with stepping out to get my ass beat.

I can’t live without Noah. He points out that I said pretty much exactly that about four days before I broke up with him the first time.

Yeah… notice how even breaking up with you that time didn’t involve me being able to stop climbing into bed with you? Or hanging out with you? Or cooking you food? Or wanting to work out with you so I could flirt and beg you to be inappropriate with me?

You haven’t been someone I could walk away from. Even when I tried.

No one else has ever given me permission to tell my story.

And shit, at this point it would mean split custody and dealing with dispersal of property… given that you’ll let me go fuck whoever when I get a little nutty…

I need to stay. This is the only route to happiness for me. I know it. I mean, if you die (please don’t) I hope I can figure something else out… but I really doubt I will ever be this happy without you.

No one else will ever want to go through years of experimentation to figure out how to feed me without making me sick. And honestly you know more about it than I do. You pay more attention than I do. You care more than I do about my health.

Thank you for forgiving me for breaking rules. Thank you for forgiving me for being shitty about telling you that I broke rules. This is part of why I compulsively log all of my fuck ups here. So that even if I can’t say it I’m not completely lying.

Which isn’t good enough. I need to stop it.

I am kind of ridiculously grateful that you have agreed to “no rules” for a while here. Yeah. I do need it. I need to be a free agent just deciding based on my whims and not based on what somebody else wants for a while.

I need to spend some time figuring out what I want. And that means not caring about what you want.

I mean… I have to only do stuff that is kosher for me and whomever I am playing with. Respect and boundaries and yada yada. I know. I’m trying for that. I’m trying to not be too pathetic in my begging for people to blow right past where they are comfortable and hurt me until I’m unable to walk.

I know that most people just won’t do that because yeah… liability…

I know. I’m trying to uhh respect some boundaries somewhere. I’m not sure how well I’m doing. Oh fuck everything.

Do I have boundaries right now?

I will discover them in the moment. I want to discover them in the moment. I want to find out what they are because right now I don’t even know and that is bothering me.

I have no idea where my limits are right now. I’ve been operating under other peoples limits for so long I feel like I don’t know who I am.

“In addition to being a hippy-dippy housewife Krissy also moonlights as a severe masochist. Details at 11.”

Who am I?

What about me is worthy of love? What about me is worthy of tolerance whether you love it or not? What about me is ok? What about me is wrong? Wrong for whom? Why does it matter?

I called it in January. 2016 is going to be a fucktastically intense emotional year. What about me is worthy of love.

I want to be able to talk to my mother someday. I cannot do so until I love myself completely without her regard. I have to love myself or I may leave that conversation and go drive off a bridge. (Side note: I am continuing to hand write a book for her. Progress. Not close to completion. God this hurts, emotionally. The handwriting process is fucking intense for me with all my issues around handwriting. Anyway. That’s a different processing thing going on. I’M SO TIRED OF PROCESSING. CAN’T I JUST CRY FOR A WHILE?!)

Because I don’t think she’s going to love me and that’s going to have to be ok. That has to be ok.

I can’t let that end me.

My children deserve better than that from me.

I’m still thinking about that thing that is weighing on my heart. A thing about promises and what I can really and truly be. I’m still not going to admit publicly what it is. I have told Noah what I’m thinking about because thinking about this makes me so frantic that he needs to know why I’m flipping out. He lives with me and has to help cope for the amount of strain I feel.

He cares so much about how our children are treated. He has been willing to jump through any hoop I put in front of him with regard to helping with the kids. He does monitor my behavior. He assists me in figuring out self care so that I have more patience to give. He makes sure I don’t get to be too much of an asshole. He will tell me my tone of voice is inappropriate.

(This isn’t a constant thing because I do well most of the time. But we don’t act like parents are perfect.)

There is no chance I could be the parent I am without the amount of support I have gotten from Noah. I won the lottery.

I don’t know that I am that good of a parent. But I know that whatever good I have been able to do has been because of the privilege Noah has given me and the support he has generously offered.

Maybe it is good he isn’t more sadistic and selfish. Really really really good.

Noah isn’t the first person to ask me to marry him. He’s the only one where I ultimately decided it was a good idea to say yes. I put him through hell as a courtship. Then ran away to get married in secret because I couldn’t handle having anyone look at me as it happened. Would I be able to keep this promise?

Who knows.

It’s been almost ten years. I think I have mostly kept the promises I made. Good thing monogamy wasn’t actually on the list.

I have a date tonight. And a date tomorrow. And another on Sunday. I’m going to go take a nap. I’m going to need my strength.

I’m sure I will tell you how it goes. At least a little. Maybe. We’ll see. Maybe all you’ll find out is “Will see again.”

Hopefully I live up to my advertising.

I’m whinging on Twitter about this and I want to be clear in my overall documentation.

I’m not upset that people turn me down. I’m upset because I put people in the position of having to say no and that upsets a lot of people. Many people feel just about violated by having to refuse something they don’t want as having something happen to them by surprise. I’ve had people get so mad at me.

So far so good on what I’m asking for these days. No one has blown up and been very angry. There are lots of “I’m up for x but not y or z” which isn’t a flat no in the same way. But it’s a lot of negotiation.

I’m feeling very anxious about enforcing this on people. Am I being an asshole? I don’t know.

Of all the people I’m negotiating with the only person I was a dumbass and flat asked for assurances that I’m not pushing too hard is my submissive. I have to kind of pretend that I assume everything is going fine with everyone else. I’ll tell him I’m freaking out directly. Because shit dude it’s been 15 years and if I can’t say that at this stage fuck everything.

Is it ok that I’m asking you for things that you have to say no to. I don’t want to be a problem.

Not that he’s saying no to much. I’m not upset about him having boundaries. Anything but.

Having boundaries is ok. I feel very bad that I’m so bad at figuring out where other peoples boundaries are. I need really explicit verbal conversation in order to understand and usually I need to repeat questions a few times and…

I feel like a bully. I feel like a monstrous predator who is trying to force people to do things. Even though I’d prefer people say no to things they don’t want. Making people say ‘no’ hurts them sometimes.

I’m forcing “Ask” culture on “Guess” culture people sometimes and that bothers them a lot.

I’m reminded of the chick this last year who told me in great detail how horrifying rude I am to ask for things instead of just accepting what is offered to me.

You know what… without asking… people just don’t fucking offer what I want.

Does that mean it is wrong for me to ask? Because people rarely automatically offer up what I want?

I don’t know. She clearly thinks so. My submissive says, “This is just how relationships go. You are fine. We are negotiating.”

I want to cry.

I’m sorry that I am not good at intuiting what is “right” and what is “wrong” and I need you to tell me explicitly.

I feel like a failure.

I know that this feeling is today. I don’t think it is always. But right this minute I feel like I’m hurting people and I feel scared of that.

Luckily today Noah is going to beat me six ways from Sunday and maybe I’ll forget.

It is 1:26. I woke up at 12 and haven’t been able to slow my thinking down since. First: have to pee. Then pain stuff. My back hurts still. This period has been awful. My arms were hurting. I was up and down to get water, Ibuprofen, my braces… after an hour and a half of racing thoughts on top of mounting physical whines… fuck it.

What am I so worried about?

I want. That means I’m going to ask people for things that they may not want. Oh I don’t like myself very much for that. I feel really bad for the fact that I spend a lot of time putting people on the spot and causing really awkward and uncomfortable feelings. People are going to have to say no to me.

Hundreds of people have already said no to me in the past. I have no reason to suspect the future is going to change that dynamic much. Asking people I already know is only so much more successful because… complicated.

I don’t god damn know how to read signals. Outside of a few glaring examples I’m usually not real clear who is interested in me for what.

This is a rather distinct problem as I treat other people wanting things from me as permission to be that thing.

Which is kinda ridiculous and lame at this stage of the game.

I’m completely freaking out about how some of my uhhh more conservative friends are going to feel about this uhm U-bend turn in behavior lately. I haven’t done any of this while they’ve known me. It was all in the distant, more theoretical past.

Hi. I iz weird. I hope you still like me.

I’m scared.

When I was tossing in turning in bed I started thinking about the things I want to ask for and I felt so ashamed I wanted to go in the bathroom and start cutting just because then I won’t go out and ask anyone for anything because I’ll be too ashamed and…

No.

No.

No.

I’m not going to cut myself down to size anymore. No. No. No.

On Twitter, a woman I follow (Feminista Jones–just so it’s been said) posted a link to a woman who wrote about accepting compliments on dating sites with “I know” and how that leads to a lot of abuse.

Like a fucking moron I spent a while reading the comments. A shocking number of people believe that if you don’t perform humility appropriately you deserve any amount of abuse people want to throw at you.

You know what? I don’t think I’m pretty. I don’t think I’m beautiful. I think I’m kinda a funny looking motherfucker. But for the fucking rest of my life I vow that if someone tells me that I’m pretty/beautiful/whatever I’m going to say, “I know.”

I won’t say thank you unless I asked for the compliment before it was delivered.

Why?

Because I’m a rude motherfucker.

Because I want to know this about myself without it being about you or your opinion. Because if you are the kind of person who believes I deserve abuse if I have positive self regard I want to know that as fast as humanly possible so I can get the fuck away from your disgusting self.

Shiny change of topic. I’m hunting so I went bra shopping. Mostly… I just don’t wear them cause I don’t give a shit and Noah doesn’t either. This was something I argued about with the friend who took me shopping.

The contention was: if I dress up for Noah in fancy lingerie/makeup he will be inspired to greater than normal heights over my sweats/t-shirt ensembles.

To this I say… you really don’t know Noah. It doesn’t matter what I have on. It really doesn’t. It matters how much I strut/push/seem interested.

Ok, now it is true that I turn on more in the dressing up process so usually I strut more (thus hunting meaning I go bra shopping) and that’s fun. But no really Noah doesn’t care. If I wear uncomfortable shoes and put a whole bunch of effort into my appearance… our sex life stays static. There isn’t really a spike. I’ve checked.

After ten years you don’t think I check that shit!?

Ahem.

Heh.

That’s the hilarious thing about keeping records of your sex life. I haz the data.

Ok, we do both like dressing up sometimes for a role play scene. But it has been years. Sad face.

I won’t play where my kids can hear and we haven’t had overnight babysitting much in years.

Other source of anxiety: how is this impacting the kids? I don’t think this is impacting my time with them that much because it is coming out of personal time. I’m just getting less alone time.

I can’t get to the point of no personal time but I’m not close to that.

Given how much work I’m pulling off, I think hunting is actually helping me with the kids. I’m being pretty damn patient. I’m not yelling much. I haven’t screamed recently. I’m being clear with expectations and boundaries. We are having good conversations. I’m not being good at record keeping, but Eldest Child is actually making a lot of progress on school-y stuff lately by choice.

I’m feeling realllllllllllly bad about asking people for things they then have to turn down.

But I’m a lot more scared to stop asking. This process feeds me. It makes me have more to give my kids. I am so empty. Noah fills me as much as he can (ok the sex puns here are just so bad) but he needs so much work from me…

It’s been a long ten years.

I’m happy to be where I am. I’m happy with how I spent the last ten years. I can honestly say I would not have been physically capable of doing much more work.

I am so grateful I get to work with and in front of my kids.

That’s another anxiety brain monkey: god home schooling is selfish. It’s not just selfish because I’m keeping my kids from having other opportunities and I’m limiting them to what I can offer (although that’s there). It is that I am not helping to make the system less abusive for other kids. Why aren’t I organizing the PTA to refuse homework in elementary school?

Because I’m selfish. Because that would be a hard horrible uphill losing battle and I’ve lost so many battles to this system already.

I’m selfish because I was highly trained by a public education system and instead of being the fucktastically effective teacher I am for hundreds or thousands of children I am picking two.

I borrow kids whenever their parents will let me.

I want to have impact on more kids than just mine. But I need to see to mine first. Because I’m selfish.

I had them. I made them. I made them on purpose out of pure selfishness. Because I wanted to meet them. Because I wanted to know if something that came out of me would be as intrinsically bad and horrible as I thought or if maybe I could make something good.

So far so good.

What a horrible science experiment life is.

On a regular basis people tell me they admire me because when I had children everything changed. I upended every part of my life to have a new center. I don’t think that is the “correct” way to live life. I think that is what I had to do to try and create a less broken system given where I was coming from. I made them because i wanted to have no choice but to be something different. I’m a mom now. I’m not just a mom. I’m their teacher too. The buck stops here if there is a problem. It is my fault. I can’t blame a care provider or class mate or other authority figure.

If there is a problem… it is me. I have to change me in order to change how I am modeling behaving in order to fix behavioral problems in my kids. If there is a problem I have to learn how to differently express the boundaries until the kids can understand.

One of the things that made me so effective as a teacher was the fact that I consider it the teachers failure if a student doesn’t learn something. I remember one test one time where an entire unit just… failed. Something like 80% of the kids in all periods failed this exam.

I wept and apologized. I told every period that I let them down and I am so sorry I wasted their time with such bad teaching. I am very sorry that we will have to repeat this information and still get through everything else and that is all my fault. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.

Guess what? They fucking learned it after that. Not because I forced it or drilled anything. Because I found more creative ways to teach.

Teaching is about inspiring people to want to remember something you need them to know. It isn’t something that can be demanded. You can’t force people to learn. You can get people to rote memorize things… you can’t force them to learn.

Learning is about leaps and connections and being able to apply things in a cross curriculum fashion. Not being able to do a math worksheet in a given period of time. I believe in cross curriculum education.

I was told that kids need a math class to learn all the ways to solve math problems.

Pshaw. You clearly don’t have any idea how much math we use. We talk about many many many ways to solve problems. Because there is no one way to solve all problems. Given that I spent my childhood being told I was bad at math because I was at grade level (compared to my reading scores, which were off the charts high) I’m shocked at how being a maths-person is just part of the identity of this house.

We talk geometry, algebra, and make references to more complicated maths just as a matter of course. “How would you figure this out?” We talk about how to solve problems and we do arithmetic for fun. (Which is how you fucking know it isn’t at my initiation because I don’t think arithmetic is fucking fun.)

We are talking about combining fractions more and more. I gotta say… it freaks me out how easily these kids pick up concepts. I struggled with some of these into college.

It must be from Noah.

Home schooling is selfish because my kids are going to be so fucktastically weird. They will never be able to conform very well. They are going to be weird, weird fucking weird.

I like them so much.

We are all selfish in different ways. Is it ok? Is it ok to keep asking for things I’m not going to get? Asking for kinds of relationships and interactions that other people don’t want?

Getting rejected sucks. I get told “no” and “I don’t want to” a lot. That’s the downside of asking.

I HAVE NO PITY FOR PEOPLE WHO COMPLAIN THAT THEY CAN’T DATE BUT WHO NEVER EVER ASK ANYONE OUT. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH REJECTION I DEAL WITH TO GET TO BEING THIS SLUTTY?!?!?!!?!!!

Yes, it is easier for a girl to get laid. I don’t just want to get laid. I want a very specific, in high demand skill set.

Noah may think I’m all that and a bag of chips but I’ve been in this market long enough to know that I can only be so demanding with some people. He’s going to keep being shocked by how often I’m turned down and I’m going to keep nodding and saying, “Yup. That’s how it goes.”

And when people do say yes they usually say yes to what they want to say yes to which isn’t quite the same thing as what I wanted and them’s the breaks.

Can I sleep now? Should I hide eggs first? Probably. Go get phone for flashlight…