It went really well. We ended up in a fun little group of four girls and two boys. Probably the hardest part is that most of the group wanted to bottom. 🙂 One of the girls didn’t get much play because of that very problem and that was sucky. I’ve crystalized some of my thoughts on group sex. I’m going to expound about them after the cut. So here’s a cut. Continue reading
A while ago I said that I was just happy and that I didn’t need to process anything for a long time. I guess that span is over. I’m getting good stuff out of the processing though. Don’t read the cut tag stuff if you are likely to scoff at my woo. I don’t want to hear it.
One of my wonderful friends told me that I inspire her because I have accomplished so much and I started out with so little. If I stop and think about that even semi-objectively she is right. But there is always that voice in the back of my head saying, “But you didn’t do ‘x’ and you failed at ‘y'” and those things seem to cancel out my accomplishments. But why? How do I lose credit for the things I have done? I got a high school diploma. I was the first one in my family to do so. I managed to avoid pregnancy/abortion when most folks in my life circumstances didn’t. I am not an addict and I seriously doubt I ever will be–given my familial background that is huge. I have a bachelors degree and a teaching credential. I have been to five foreign countries. I have been to 30 states including an amazing backpacking trip in Alaska (have I said thank you lately, DA?). I am a fairly technically skilled top. I am a very good teacher. I have a good eye for putting together colors in interior decorating (if I do say so myself. :P). I’m a good mom. I’m a good wife.
I am sane. I own my shit. I am good about boundaries. I give and receive respect. I am an honorable person.
If I fail the masters exam what have I lost? I lose out on the chance to have a piece of paper to hang on my wall. I lose out on the ability to feel snotty and superior because of my formally recognized education. In reality I won’t be more educated if I get the piece of paper. I will still be in the top pay bracket if I go back to teaching because no one can take away the units I have earned.
I’ve been having a serious identity crises lately because I feel like who I am has somehow become less since I became a mother. It’s rather bullshit though. I’m not actively doing a lot outside of being a mother right now, but that’s ok. That is the season of life I am in. I wanted it and doing this does not devalue me.
I am good enough.
I’ve been having a lot of anxiety lately. I feel anxious about all kinds of things. The comp exam, interactions with people, am I doing ‘enough’ in various ways, and of course my ever present internal push to be Mary Poppins. (People keep saying Martha Stewart and Hell No I think she is a wasteful twat.) I don’t keep my house clean enough. I feel confused by the barrage of information out there about health and diet and trying to be good to the planet. I feel confused by the myriad of different parenting philosophies. I feel like I am not being a good enough partner to Noah. I feel like I am not exercising enough. I feel like I must be doing Something Wrong as a parent. I don’t have any frame of reference for ‘normal’ for children so I have no idea if she is doing alright. (I think she is, but how in the hell would I know?) I alternate feeling kind of lonely and feeling like I am tired of dealing with people and it would be fine if I never saw anyone ever again. I feel frustrated by stupid interactions. I feel like I am being judged and found wanting in just about every way. I realized yesterday that my mother plans to come up here for Shanna’s first birthday party and she plans to fly to Oklahoma in July. How in the hell is she going to pay for that? Wait–is she going to expect me to? I am feeling a lot of pressure to save money and yet it seems like one of the easiest things I can do to help me not stress out all the time is spend money. (I think I’m fairly frugal but of course there are people out there who are more frugal so I feel like I am awful and terrible.) I have this problem of feeling like if I am not in the top 10% of (x) skill/ability/talent/whatever/activity then I am obviously pathetic and a loser.
That paragraph is hard to read. That’s how my brain looks right now though. I’ve never heard of postpartum anxiety but this doesn’t sound like postpartum depression. I’m not sad. I’m just anxious. I’m not happy with the fact that having a baby made it so that I don’t enjoy sex much. What the fuck happened? I enjoy the closeness and the intimate feeling, but it’s just not all that… exciting. I feel really fussy about having to be the one to initiate dates and sex when most of it is happening because it helps Noah stay cheerful. I understand that I have to be the one to initiate because I’m the one who can get Shanna to sleep most of the time, but still. I don’t feel sexy or interesting anymore. I gave a friend most of my ‘interesting’ clothes this weekend. I have weird feelings about that. On one hand I won’t be able to wear any of it for a long time (I’m too fat) but I feel like I just gave up on being interesting. I’m not worth looking at like that anymore. I’m completely de-sexed. I’m really thrilled that she is getting to enjoy the clothes though and I’m happy she is going out and having fun. So I get to feel like I’m a nice person for assisting her in fun and I get to feel like I’m just kind of pathetic and lame because I’m not having that kind of fun anymore. It’s a mixed bag.
So yeah. I feel like my brain is going close to a mile a minute lately and there isn’t much I can to do calm down and just feel content. My life is where I want it to be and that is hard. I’ve always been striving in the past and I don’t know how to stop doing that. I need to find my zen and just be happy in knowing that I accomplished (almost) everything I wanted to accomplish. It’s ok that my house isn’t perfectly clean–it doesn’t make me a bad person. Noah doesn’t care. I actually don’t care that much of the time. I worry about the hypothetical people out there who do care. I feel like they think I am pathetic because “You have all that time at home and your house is still dirty?!” It’s all about projecting stuff.
And I’m still freaking out about my therapist being dead. I wonder if that is part of the reason I have so much fuss bubbling to the top right now because I just found out that I can’t go process any of it with the person I process with. AHHHHHHHHHHHH
My neighbor (the one with a son six weeks older than Shanna) came over for a bit this morning. She’s having postpartum depression issues and she wanted to ask me for advice. It turns out that my impression of her thoughts about me were pretty far from the mark. She started telling me about all the ways she has taken my advice so far. She started telling me about how she “just isn’t as creative as [me]” which almost made me laugh. Me? Creative? She asked me what she should do to handle a few issues that are coming up with her son. She asked me how I deal with not having much of a mom in my life. It was interesting.
It was one of those things where I stopped and thought, “Hunh, maybe I should stop assuming people dislike me.”
I was thinking earlier today. I was in a funk earlier this week and for part of last week and it was annoying, but really not so bad. I have been sad for short periods in the past few months. I get angry every so often. But I haven’t felt self-loathing in a long time. I can’t remember when I last hated myself. It’s kind of weird to think about, but I loathed myself for most of my life. I remember what it is like to think terrible thoughts about myself constantly and I’m surprised I didn’t notice it stopping. Somehow I just let it go.
That’s really awesome. 🙂 Man my life is good.
Oh, and in other news: Shanna sat up from laying down today for the first time. 🙂
For the past couple of days I have been on a really annoying emotional roller coaster. I’m angry, sad, giddy, and annoyed by turns. In the main I am able to keep my expressions of these feelings down to saying, “Wow, I am really really annoyed right now for no good reason” replacing “annoyed” with the emotion of the moment. But I’m *feeling* really intensely and it’s bugging me. I like having more moderate emotions; they are less draining. Nothing much has happened to trigger me in any direction that I know of.
My (minor) things wrong at the moment: for some reason I have started doing all the bad habits that make my jaw hurt really suddenly. I had stopped doing all of these for a long time. A have a tooth that hurts. I’m mildly fussed about money stuff but only in a stupid vague way–we aren’t exactly in trouble. And I’m starting to read towards the comp exam again but I’m doing it very slowly and mellowly with books that sound interesting.
Yeah, those are all very very mild irks. I have no idea why I am experiencing such intense feelings. I am also starving. By golly I’m eating my weekly points and my exercise points and I still kind of want to cry with hunger. Don’t worry I am continuing to eat when I’m that hungry whether I have points or not. I don’t think it is reasonable to be that hungry and not eat. I’m trying to figure out what sorts of food will make me feel full because nothing is doing it right now. I can’t figure out why I am so hungry. Shanna hasn’t been nursing more than usual.
Shanna is in fact being her awesome, mellow self lately so I can’t blame any of this on stress from her. She’s sleeping 11-12 hours a night with one, sometimes two wake-ups. I really have no complaints about her. She’s a little clingy during the day but not beyond what is totally reasonable and normal for her age. It’s cool watching her scoot all over the floor playing with toys. 🙂
So yeah. Feeling batty just now.
I get too upset about stupid things. I got all excited about getting my mom’s recipe book and I decided that I was going to make Every Cookie Recipe In It. But you know what? That’s not realistic right now. I am stressing myself out for something really really stupid. It’s time to remember that I am supposedly a grown up and get over this.
My goals need to come down to a more reasonable level. No one expects that I be superwoman except for me. If I say, “You know, I didn’t manage to make your favorite cookies because Shanna kept me busy” no one is going to hate me.
I still feel bad. I’m kind of dumb sometimes.
I don’t like that the tired bear cries. I’m not crying.
It’s amazing to me how this stay-at-home-mom gig works. Caring for Shanna requires continual physical effort (it’s not *hard* physical effort, but it is physical work) and almost no intellectual effort. Yet I don’t have the mental bandwidth to do much else at the same time. Studying Spanish is hard. I don’t retain the stuff I do while I’m playing with her. I have to be interruptable at all times (As I come back from a diaper change that had to happen mid-entry). I feel like my brain is not working the way it used to. I feel like I am less smart, like my brain is on hiatus.
This doesn’t make the prospect of studying for the comp exam any happier. My daughter is the whole scope of my world right now, or at least I wish she was. I’m so happy most days. I love seeing how she changes day by day. This is all I want to be doing right now. It’s interesting because I have always derived so much of my self-image from my intelligence and what I am doing right now has no part in that.
I want to be done with school so bad I could scream. I have missed four semesters of school entirely in the past 23 years. Otherwise I have been in school for at least some portion of every term. I am starting to hate school. I am starting to lose any desire to learn what can be taught in school. There are still many things I want to learn–don’t get me wrong. I just want to go out into the world, damnit.
But I have a Spanish presentation tonight. And finals next week. And I have many more months of studying ahead of me for the comp exam. And I have two more terms of Spanish if I pass the exam. I have decided that I am going to study like mad and take the test in April. If I fail I am not going to bother with finishing Spanish. I have too much resentment as it is. I hope I don’t fail. I am going to work pretty hard to ensure I don’t. *sigh*
Every so often I notice that I have been rude a lot for a period of time. It’s sometimes hard to figure out why I am doing so. I’ve been like that a lot lately. I’ve been rather snotty or nasty to more than one person in the last couple of weeks and I don’t have a good excuse for my behavior.
I’m sorry to everyone I’ve been rude to. Most likely you don’t deserve it. I’m going to think pretty hard on my behavior for a bit and try to figure out how to ditch my bad attitude.
Saturday I did Christmas shopping in the morning while Noah gamed then we had a chore filled afternoon and a mellow evening. It was really nice. Sunday I had a great morning with farmer’s market and dim sum. Then I went up to the city by myself. This was our first lengthy mommy-time-off. It worked out fantastically well in my opinion. 🙂 I got to go to the graduation of a wonderful friend from a program that has been very important to her. I was happy and proud to be a witness to her recognition. Yay!
This was from a leather organization and there were several speakers. Five total. The first was a guy I have known for a few years and it was about what I would expect. He’s a really cool guy and I know how important this program is for him. I’m really happy he is so successful. The second was a guy I have seen at cons variously. I wanna talk about him a little.
He (I’m preserving anonymity consciously) is one of the best speakers I have seen in or out of the leather community. Let me tell you–he can sell me any kool-aid he wants. I was ready to line up at the pitcher when he was done talking. He has a beautiful voice and a compelling personality. I believe that the reason he is so compelling for me (and maybe for other people too, it’s hard to judge this sort of thing) is that he is completely at peace with himself and the world. He is a Leather Man. It has helped him feel his place in the universe. He doesn’t judge anyone else for what they do or don’t do. He doesn’t seem to feel superior because he is a Leather Man, he just feels that he is being as true to himself as possible by walking that path. I admire the degree to which he is self-actualized. I admire him the way I admire many people of faith.
Two of the other speakers were exactly what I would expect from this sort of ceremony–friendly and loving towards the people they know but not otherwise extraordinary. Good, solid people with friendly advice. They made me smile. Then we got to the last speaker. He very much meant well and the affection towards him in the room was palpable. Unfortunately, he had exactly the sort of tone that bothers me. Whereas the other major speaker had specifically said that we (I surmised the leather community) shouldn’t have enemies, this person encouraged us/them thinking. He talked about how the graduates are joining the ranks of those who “get” leather. I believe that I understand what he was trying to do and if I were part of that group I would probably smile and nod. But I’m not. And I felt alienated. And when I feel that way about a group I no longer have any interest in joining. I don’t want to do the us/them thing.
I think that this sort of us/them thing exists to fill the same hole churches used to fill. People want a sense of identity with a group and that used to be religion. Honestly, I feel that these sorts of groups are religious in nature whether they mention God or not. There are many groups out there that fall into this category in my mind: Journeyman, AA, Landmark, HAI, Masons, Burning Man, hell even Weight Watchers.
You know what? I don’t want to belong. I don’t want to be a joiner. I don’t want to need a community to set my sense of self. I’m thrilled for my friends who are happier in these communities, but I don’t want to be one of them. It’s an interesting thing to think about.
Today we went to a graduation party for some of my kidlets. It was interesting for a variety of reasons. See, they are a couple and they have been dating for more than three years now but I can’t remember for sure exactly how long. So their family’s tend to combine forces and host stuff together as if they are already a long-term couple. They are given as much respect and support in their relationship choice as most adult couples I know and noticeably more than others. Their respective family’s were both extremely polite and friendly to Noah and I. They were curious who we were first, then enthusiastic because obviously I must be pretty amazing if the kids wanted me there. 😀
Watching them all interact was fascinating. They were nice to each other. There were obviously a few places where personalities are not a perfect match but people took a deep breath, looked at the sky, then shook their heads. That was the beginning and end of all the conflict. I don’t believe that they never have conflict at all… but my family has trouble passing up golden opportunities to fight. It was neat to be around. I liked that people made an effort to get along because that’s what you do with family. I liked that by and large everyone seemed to like everyone else.
And I liked finding out that the girl in question has decided to pursue a career in teaching due to my influence. I liked hearing both of the moms tell me how much I mattered to their kids. When I was getting ready to leave ST I commented to my fellow teachers that I was surprised by how many kids said they would keep in touch. I was told not to count on that because kids promise that all the time. Well, I certainly heard that promise from far more kids than have kept in touch; however, I feel like the ones I really want to keep in touch with are doing it.
So for the people who have told me that I am wasting my education by staying home–no I’m not. I did wonderful things with my education. Now I’m doing a different wonderful thing with my education.
This is going to feel like I am slamming some people and I’m sorry for that. I’m not trying to. I am trying to express my feelings about something that is quite prevalent in my social circles.
Today has been hard for me in a couple of different ways. The day started out so well. Angela showed up and made breakfast and that was awesome. Then we were all highly productive for a couple of hours. Then stuff started going down hill triggering a lot of trust issues for me. Punctuality issues. Frustration with people. I spent a lot of the later part of today being alternately very angry and very sad. Couple of times I started crying and couldn’t sit down for a good long cry for various reasons. I’m sure it was partially hormonal, but it really wasn’t all about being pregnant. It was about disconnect between how I see the world and obligations and how other people see the world and obligations.
Noah said something today that is making me think: “You treat manners/etiquette as a second rate way of enforcing boundaries.” He’s right. I treat things as being about basic manners when they are really about my personal boundaries. I did something risky for me this weekend and it went really badly in general. I’m not going to take that risk again anytime soon. The potential payoff isn’t worth the consequences of things not going well. Not 100% badly, but bad enough that I am going to remember this for a long time.
I guess learning is an important part of living and all.
Every so often Noah goes through and rereads my archive. I think this is a bit frightening as I know how much I have written. When I notice that he is doing this I tend to copycat. Honestly, I shouldn’t. I should simply smile and nod and let him read because he gets something out of it. I don’t get good things out of it. I get weird and insecure. I find things he said years ago and I want to point at them and say, “See! You said that! That’s why I get upset!” But that is an awful thing to do. Noah is allowed to change his mind and grow as a person and do different things now. I don’t need to take previous statements about “poly is non-negotiable” (dude has actually said it. I could point at dates.) and treat them as currently true. Because it isn’t currently true. Noah doesn’t feel that way at this point. Given how his life worked then I can see why it wasn’t negotiable then, but a lot has changed. I need to trust him.
Not quite two years ago Noah and I went through a rough patch. I was really awful to him. I did some things I’m not very proud of. If a good friend of mine came to me and said they were being treated the way I was treating Noah I would tell them to run, not walk, to get out of the relationship. But he trusted me and he let me try to change things. He trusted that I loved him enough to work through what I was doing and stop hurting him. I hope his trust was well placed, I have certainly worked very hard at stopping that behavior. He trusts me.
Trust is hard and scary. In a relationship it’s so multilayered. I have to trust him and he has to trust me and we both have to be able to trust ourselves. Noah has certainly done everything possible to earn my trust. I don’t know that I have done as much to earn his trust, but he gives it anyway. I think the hardest part is trusting myself. Part of being able to trust myself has to come from knowing myself well. Right now in order to behave in the way that Noah deserves I’m going to stop reading his old lj stuff. There is nothing wrong with anything he wrote and I’m glad that record of his life exists. But I internalize things that are not about me and then create problems around that. That is something that *I* do that is not his fault or really about anything he has said. I’m not going to do it this time. I’m going to trust that I made the right decision in having a relationship with him and that he is completely telling me the truth because that is what he does. He tells me the truth when it will make me angry, when it hurts me, and when I would really rather he lie. So I have every reason to trust him and to trust my faith in him.
I picked a good man. I picked a man who is willing to work through just about any level of hardness to stay with me. It doesn’t matter what was said five years ago or three years ago. What matters is what he has said consistently since the day we got married. He has lived up to his promises. Ok. Breathe. And no being a buggy weird bitch when he gets home.
Attention! This is my shit! I’m not blaming this on anyone else! That said…
I showed up in the bdsm community almost 9 years ago. In that time I have been mostly monogamous (I still think that “girls don’t count” is not the same thing as monogamy), monogamous for a brief period under duress, polyamorous, and slutty. Even during the monogamous period play with other people was never completely forbidden. It was limited, but it happened anyway. Throughout basically all of this period knowing that my partner wanted to have sex and/or play with other people has been really really awful for me. If I added up all the time I have spent crying and feeling like I am not enough I would probably be able to point at months and months of my life that I can’t get back. Why? Why do I keep doing this?
I have always felt that if you are going to be part of “the scene” then that entails certain behaviors: namely, that you aren’t really actually completely monogamous. I’m not sure I have ever known a couple who really and truly had no contact with other people. Maybe my memory is being fuzzy. I know a lot of “mostly monogamous” or “polyplayful” people, but that is still allowing a lot of fuzzy borders. The fuzzy borders are really hard for me.
At this point I have reached the conclusion that I continue to play with other people and engage in that kind of contact because that is one of the primary ways I get people to like me. I kind of wonder if part of the reason I have “phased out” as a bottom in the view of most of the community is because I’m not an easy bottom to play with so I assume people don’t want to bother with me and I don’t ask. It’s really easy to stay popular and liked if you are a good top though, and I am. I feel like I do a lot of it because I want people to like me. That may actually be why I’m ok telling guys that I don’t want to top them and not girls. I’m more confident that guys will like me anyway without me having to do as much for them but girls seem like I have to earn their liking me.
I’ve always liked fantasizing about doing things with lots of people. It’s a mainstay of my masturbatory life (ha! There’s TMI for you.) but when I actually do it I don’t tend to get as much out of it. When I am single and playing with lots of people I believe that I end up with a mostly neutral reaction after playing–it’s fun, but there isn’t much that impacts me positively or negatively long-term. When I’m in a relationship I feel massive guilt and ambivalence for a while to come. Opening up my relationship with Tom to include sex with other people was really hard for me. At that point I think the increased amount of sex was something that was a beneficial thing because I desperately needed that chemical fix, but I felt guilty. I felt like I was betraying him. I think the fact that we had frankly discussed before that point that the relationship wasn’t likely to be “forever” was the only reason I could do it. I was already starting to pull away from him and from the relationship. I still don’t know if that was really a good thing to do or not, but I really wasn’t ready to just walk away that early. Seeing as the last six months were actually pretty good overall I feel like I didn’t do anything too awful. I don’t know if he agrees or not and he probably won’t tell me. 🙂
But anyway. So I like to think about doing things with other people–that doesn’t lead to guilt or feeling bad. But when I actually follow through I tend to feel varying degrees of bad. I played with two different women at TNGcon. One of them did a little bit of decorative bondage on me–that wasn’t too bad for lingering guilt. It was mellow and emotionally distant so I didn’t internalize much. With the other chica I tied her to a chair and was fully intending on just punching/hitting her but she made it very clear she wanted sexual play. So I ended up fisting her. I’ve had a hard time with that. I’m not angry with her or blaming her or saying anything bad about her. I’ve had a hard time with knowing that I did that. I’ve struggled with whether it counts as sex given that I didn’t really want to have sex with her. I did it because she wanted me to and not really because that was something I was jonesing for doing.
But I came home and bragged about it. I know. On one hand I was glad that I got to feel like someone wanted me and I really like the feeling that someone wants me. I don’t get that same kind of “oooooh he/she likes me!” from a steady partner. But I also have felt pretty uncomfortable with having done it. Longer term I’ve realized it was a bad decision. I have tried so hard for so long to maintain my identity of being a sexual outlaw that I think I do things just to maintain that identity that I don’t actually want to do. It is important to me to be the kind of person who does outrageous things so I don’t pay attention to how I feel when I do them. Cause you know what–I tend to feel like crap. I don’t talk about that part much though. I rarely even do a good job of identifying to myself what I’m feeling. But it’s there.
Then we get to my partners playing with other people. I can’t count the number of nights I have sobbed through when Tom or Noah have been out with other people. Hell, there were a few dates where I was off with Erik for the weekend and Noah was on a date when I would sneak off to the bathroom and cry because Noah was on a date and that made me feel awful. How is that for lame? (This isn’t to say that my relationship with Erik wasn’t good–it was. I’m glad I dated him. I’m even more glad we are friends now. He’s a great guy.) But I massively do that “primary” bonding thing. I have never really been able to split loyalties well. Whoever I’m ‘with’ as my primary is the one I am focused on. I have tried pretty hard to split that and I suck at it. I feel bad. I feel like I am hurting everyone involved even when they are all pretty cheerful about the split. (I don’t think it would have been possible to date two guys at once who are more mellow than Noah and Erik and have them still have a pulse.) Does this mean that I have never loved more than one person at a time? No. I certainly have, but I don’t split focus well without feeling horrible and terrible about it. There is at least one person out there in the cosmos who I love pretty madly but I’ve never really been able to make a relationship work there and I’ve given up trying. It’s ok. The friendship is still good.
I don’t know how to not feel terrible about my partners playing with other people. This has been an issue with Tom, Noah, James, and Puppy. Much less of an issue with James or Puppy–but there were still bad spells with them. This play can be but doesn’t have to be sexual. I mean, Tom usually tied people up with all their clothes on and never even kissed them–I still felt awful. He wasn’t doing anything threatening to our relationship in the slightest and he was certainly not breaking rules. Noah has done everything possible to earn my trust and I still feel like him going off with other people for platonic bondage practice is hugely invalidating to me and our relationship. (This is complicated by my own body limitations and issues at the moment.) I’ve given him permission to do it though. I encouraged it. I even suggested it. Why? Because that is “what I should do.” I’m big on doing what I should do even when I hate it and it makes me feel like shit.
Despite the fact that I am “not a real masochist” I think I like doing the things I “should do” that will make me feel terrible. The fact that I feel so bad about doing the things I think I should do validates my overall shitty opinion of myself. I shouldn’t be so upset. I shouldn’t feel possessive. I shouldn’t feel jealous. But I am. And I do. And I do. So I sit and I cry. And I don’t place many limits on my partners even though I would kind of like to. I feel like if I issue an ultimatum then I deserve to lose. If my partners wanted me enough, if I were enough, then they just wouldn’t want to go play with other people. Then I wouldn’t have to place limits. But I’m not enough and I have to accept that. And part of how I accept that is pretending that it’s all fine and I want to go play with other people too.
But I think I should stop. Other than in the realm of fantasy I don’t really want to play with other people. I feel bad about myself when I do. It’s time to be nicer to me and stop pushing me to do this.
Noah, after listening to me talk about some of this came to the conclusion that he should stop playing with other people. The problem is, now I feel like he is doing it under some sort of duress. I feel like he would really like to still do it. He’s pretty clear that being with me is much more important than any amount of play with other people, but I still don’t believe it. I’m scared. I’m scared to trust him that he is doing what he wants. I’m scared that if I do start to trust this and believe in it then down the road he will change his mind and that will hurt so much. If I hold on to the distrust now then I won’t be hurt as much later if he decides he does want it. Then I will get to be proven right that I should have shitty self-esteem because see–I’m not enough.
I don’t know how to win on this one.
I’ve had this thing come up more than once lately. And I’m thinking about it a lot. And it relates to sex in the midst of relating to a lot of other things. If the header of {dirty} isn’t enough to tip you off that this may not be safe for work, nothing will.
Today I have done a bunch of reading. For the record: Northrop Frye may have one or two points that are interesting, but in the main he is a twat. The other critics I read today bothered me far less. I have also folded the laundry, made the bed (Arbus–I don’t know why you like making the bed, I hate it), cleaned up the kitchen after a weekend of use, and did a bunch of random picking up to allow the house to once again look “staged”–aka, boring. I’m all proud of me.
I have also been thinking about how I want to do more actual cleaning this week, partially in preparation for the open houses next weekend and partially because we will have a fabulous house guest. Very excited about hosting Brehen. 🙂
Which brings me to my point about house guests. I have had a number of people (it’s got to be close to 20 at this point) mention coming to visit us in Pittsburgh. This is awesome, wonderful, thrilling news for me to hear–but it also freaks me out and terrifies me. I’ll explain why. I am massively territorial about my space. I want things to be set exactly so, cleaned exactly so, and I want to feel like *I* have more history in my space than anyone else. This leads to all kinds of weird things about guests in my house in general. It’s part of the reason that I freak out about hosting events. I have slowly been coming to understand the depth and breadth of my neurosis on this topic as time goes by and more people want me to host parties/weekend stays/etc. I am not complaining about people wanting to visit me or stay with me or what have you. Really, I’m not. What I am saying is that in order for me to feel fully comfortable with that I need to be respectful of my own needs for boundaries.
Which brings me to the blunt part. I don’t want to host anyone for an entire weekend for the first six months we live in Pittsburgh. I may make an exception if there is some kind of emergency situation–but it would take something pretty damn extreme. I know that sounds like a long time, but it probably won’t feel that way to me. I want to settle in to my house slowly and feel like there is no pressure around needing to entertain anyone. I will also be settling into seeing how things work with the Lizard because if things go according to plan, the end of the six month period will mean the Lizard is only about eight months old. After that six month period I will probably be missing people like mad and I will be begging people to come stay with me. It’s just very important to me that I have it. I’ve told a number of people this individually, but I think that a couple of people felt like it was a personal rejection and it really isn’t. If I don’t want *you* to come stay with me ever I’ll bloody well tell you that. 🙂
So if you tell me “I want to come visit you” anytime soon I may cringe and say “Not until spring.”
Oh… unless you mean coming to stay at the Disaster House. Feel free to ask for that. I have all kinds of feelings about this house that mean I am not real attached to who stays here. 🙂
Recently one of my beloved g-bloggers brought up how she is going through changes in her body image/self-image post-baby and I didn’t comment at the time because I had too many thoughts to be able to make sense of them at the time. I’ve been thinking about it a lot since then though and I think I am more able to be coherent.
(Nope, not sure I was more coherent. WAY long-winded and rambly. Ah well. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. 🙂
I miss g-blog because it was a rather random community. I only started off knowing a few people but then I was the catalyst for pulling some people into blogging there. That was neato. Indirectly there are a lot of people who are now on lj because of g-blog and the circle of people I influenced. The funny thing is–I no longer really talk to the main person who I pulled onto g-blog who pulled a bunch of other people. Evolution is an odd thing.
But I miss feeling free to talk about just about anything in public. The fact that people here know me more or at least, feel like they know me more, changes the audience. On g-blog I didn’t really feel like people were judging me even though at times they probably were. It felt more like the people didn’t know me and didn’t try to claim they did. There were many things I didn’t hesitate to say there, even with it being totally public, that I censor here down to a very small filter. Why? Who am I afraid of? Why do I care how people will judge me? I no longer have a job to hide behind. I have never worried about my family finding this. Sure, now I have a few minors reading this–but oh well. I probably did on g-blog too. It didn’t stop me from posting extremely detailed stories about my sex life.
I liked feeling like I had nothing to hide. I liked feeling like I was being honest with everyone. Lately I have usually been hiding anything serious behind a small filter because I don’t like feeling judged, but oh bloody well if people judge me. If people think I am too crazy/obnoxious/rude/inappropriate then they don’t have to read.
I guess it’s time to stop being friends-only.