Note to the Hopeless Romantics

No, it wasn't the "L" word.

I don't know that he's ever going to "L",

and if he ever does, it's unlikely he'll utter the word.

Not to mention that should he utter it, YOU guys will never know, 

cuz I'll drop dead and be unable to post about it.

But it was still a nice bone… :-)

Oh, and Hedone - for you, because you thought of it: 

The Dancing Hedgehog

(found while surfing -
no credits available to give.)

Reassurance

So, it's absolutely true to say I'm quite taken with the man.

And it's equally true to say I'm never quite sure where I stand with him, either.

Someone told me off-post recently that she really thought that I am a "need" for BG beyond just getting his kink on, that "given what he's going through in order to get to his Jz" I must really do something for him. She figured she was stating the obvious but had really wanted to say that to me anyhow.

I wasn't so sure there was anything obvious about it because, for all the time I spend feeling confident in our potential, there are also plenty of moments when I worry that I'm nothing more than a grey cat. ("Kink on, rocks off!")

People say, "Talk!" "Communicate!" and I get the message, I truly do. But there's also the very real fact that trying to open a clam just makes its muscles clench harder. 

BG is not a man to push. 

He refuses to lie, so if he's not sure he can follow through on something, he won't offer it. 

He doesn't indulge in cliches that may be misleading (and thus mistaken for a promise.) 

My only real option with him, in fact, is to look into his eyes, trust in what I see, and wait. Because when I'm least expecting it (and usually most needing it,) he'll toss me a bone.

And hoooboy did I get a doozy the other night!

Unasked for, inelegant, and earthy but also open, honest, and confirming something good that I had suspected -- but was afraid to pin hopes on without hearing the words.
It was one heck of a bone.

It's entirely possible that I haven't stopped smiling since… even during my naps!

A Dream Deferred

This weekend left me seriously behind in my efforts toward a major life goal…

Please bear with me while I work on regaining lost ground! ;-D

Scrambling

I've been reading a marvelous book called, "Home / A Short History of an Idea" -  basically about the evolution of domestic life and the comfort of the home.

This is an unexpectedly interesting book, with it's detailed history of something I'd never really given a second thought to. Additionally, the author has a knack for coming out with thought-provoking asides all throughout the book. My favorite so far is the conclusion to a grumble about the sterile perfection of the homes presented in architectural and interior design publications: 

     "Where do they hide the detritus of their everyday lives?"

I love that statement all by itself but at the moment, I'm more obssessed with my personal variation on it, which is, "Where do I hide the detritus of my kinky life?"

'Cuz The Dog and his people are coming for a visit shortly and I need to put this crap away! 

It's particularly nerve-wracking because it seems like I always forget something. 

Last time it was the lube, the time before that I somehow completely overlooked a stack of BDSM novels on the bedside table... So far, I've always caught the offenders on my last-minute swoop throughs, but I have this sickening feeling that one of these days…

fingers crossed, please?

Timing is Everything

My workday starts and ends early.

My second job has flexible hours.

I take no classes; exercise, scholastic, or artistic...

Any given evening is likely to find me at home.

There is almost nothing in my life that I can't shift to accommodate another opportunity.

A date to see the new Star Trek movie would be one of those very few immutable things, however.

Would you care to guess which one evening out of a 16-day period is the one night BG isn't booked with parental obligations? (If you said, "the one evening you're not available" give yourself a cookie.)

This had better be one hell of a movie, I tell you.

...

... ...

... ... ...

oh, who am I kidding? 

Together?

"rain check, sir!"

The Many Faces of O

I was watching a porn clip in which the dom was insistent on forcing repeated, screaming orgasms from his sub, even though she was begging him to stop, that she couldn't take any more. Very hot, to be sure, and certainly many of us have been in that position a time or two -- AND quite enjoyed it.

However, this whole orgasm-expectation thing is something that I find a bit troublesome -- so I got wondering what the clip might have looked like if the filmmakers had catered to a more balanced perception of reality.

Because for every screaming "my throat is raw from groaning, and my muscles are now melted butter" orgasm, there's at least one "small but gratifying" release -- something much more akin to hitting a little speed bump on Pleasure Road.

::Zoom to sprawled woman, as she serenely murmurs, "aaaah… well, that was pleasant":: 

Doesn't pack the same punch, does it?

Of course, that's exaggerated but really, I do get agitated by all these societally-driven expectations for a woman's orgasm. First, we were pariahs if we had difficulties achieving orgasm, then we had to prod ourselves sore trying to locate a g-spot so that when we did manage one, it was "real". Lately, we're apparently not real women unless we can squirt. Or gush, depending on who tells the story. Whatever, you've got to soak the sheets or you are obviously lacking some crucial component…

I find this completely maddening. Orgasms are about as organic a thing as you can get -- they do whatever the heck they feel like doing at any given time. Achieving one is more like bellying up for an ice cream grab-bag. You'll always go away happy but don't count on knowing what's coming out of the box. (as it were)

We've already mentioned the screamer and the speedbump but really, the possibilities are endless...

You've got the tease, which keeps you cruising along, luring you into believing that it's just around the next corner -- when it fact it's miles down the road and often far less of an event than the roadsigns would have you believe.

There's the artful dodger - cousin to the tease, which plays you along but good, yet never does put in an appearance. This one is nasty, cuz it generally leaves you hanging at a level of frustration that makes you want to chew an arm off. At the very least.

(I think I've even heard this one giggling at me a time or two…)

There's the mulitiple orgasm, the most fantastic variation on hiccups that God ever created.

Or the T-bone, when you're getting ready to enjoy a lovely, long, leisurely bout of pleasure and the next thing you know, you've been blindsided by a doozy of a finish when you hadn't even gotten fully ramped up for the ride yet.

There's the mindgasm, where all your sensations go shooting off waaaay into the stratosphere, even tho' the actual physical release portion of your girl parts doesn't seem to have made it to the party. (God, I love mindgasms!)

Or the bodygasm, where said girl parts flutter and party like it's 1999 but your mind is going, "huh? is something happening? what did I miss?" (This one has got to be my least favorite.)

I know there are tons more -- what have I overlooked?  ;-)

Benjamin Button and Baggage

I was looking at my stats the other day and noticed that there was someone who was painstakingly reading through all my posts - in reverse chronological order.

Interestingly, at about the same time, mouse mentioned how she feels funny when people tell her they've read ALL the way back, because she fears it shows how she hasn't changed. (To which Sir J rightly pointed out that she was quite right, she'd started out funny, articulate, and intelligent and here she is, 4 years later and still all of those things!) 

I know what mouse means, however. For a lot of us, the thing we keep tripping up on is our old baggage. And while it would be lovely to think that one good relationship would relegate all that baggage to permanent storage, that's … just not how life works.

A lifetime of learned (and reinforced) behavior is just not going to disappear overnight. So we have to push it toward the storage unit, hard-won inch by hard-won inch. (Dang heavy baggage, after all.) We struggle, we strain, but we advance none the less…

Only to have our attention wander for *just a second* and WHAM! -- there we are, tripping over the same stinkin' suitcase all over again.

And while I realize that people who read along with us must surely notice that we're still fighting the same battles, somehow the unchanging nature of it does seem more obvious when you're reading in reverse. (Kind of like how you're supposed to compare signatures for a credit card by looking at them upside down -- by altering your perspective, the patterns stand out more.)

The thing it's important to remember however, is that, even tho' the baggage is still there, you've got to look at how far we've come toward getting it put away. The travel time may be frustratingly slow but, as SP reminded me, "there are no points for being a good person when you've never known any other way. What makes us good is what we work out, conquer, set straight for ourselves."

Basically, the process is progress in and of itself.

No matter the direction.

I need that on a pillow...

Several pillows...

In Which I Sorta Crib from Ms. Constance

Because today, this is a gardening blog... 

Little change of pace, I know, but I achieved a milestone and I need to share... 

Despite my post-fracture tendency toward dizziness and vertigo in high pollen season (did I mention the levels have been near-historic this year? *See Jz wobble*) my back garden is finally tilled! 

I wasn't sure how I would pull that off in my current condition, but my buddy Q, who himself suffers from vertigo, offered the sage advice to "go slow, and pre-select a point of reference in case of emergency loss of horizon."

This, and a lot of cussing, got me through.

The earth, she is ready to receive!

So, the 116 seedlings I have carefully nurtured into existence are hardening off on the porch and today I played hooky from work to attend an Heirloom Species Plant Sale. 

New additions to Jardins de Jz are:

celosia

honeywort

statice

shasta daisy

butterfly flower

petunias

portulaca

red cosmos

snapdragons

flowering maple (the flower, not the tree)

viola

lantana

anise hyssop

pink sweetness dianthus

candy mountain foxglove

As well as a gajillion tomatoes, basil, swiss chard, and leaf lettuce.

And some annuals for the herb garden.

Oh, and a mystery flower. The little descriptive stick got lost along the way and I have no stinkin' idea what interesting heirloom that cell-pack holds. (Good thing I love surprises!)

I don't have as good a green thumb with edibles as with flowers, more's the pity. But I love fresh tomatoes, so I buy a ton of seedlings anyhow and simply hope that I get one decent fruit from each plant. ;-)

Plus, BG makes a killer pesto, so I make sure to get PLENTY of basil, too!

Let the planting begin!

a·bashed [uh-basht]

adjective

ashamed; embarrassed; disconcerted

You know how I said there were a great many things I didn't like about myself?

Well, I barreled face-first into several of them in fairly quick succession over the past few days and as a result, I'm not feeling too good about being me right now.

In fact, in the immortal words of Mr. Bennet in "Pride and Prejudice",

“I am heartily ashamed of myself, Lizzy. But don't despair, it'll pass; and no doubt more quickly than it should.”

(I swear, that woman can nail anything in two sentences or less!)

So, yeah, I know this will pass; and no doubt more quickly...

But I'm chagrined right now, I can tell you.
yuck.

(This has, however, served to settle the question -- I am definitely coming back in my next life as a heartless bitch. I may not be any less the insensitive clod but at least I won't care enough to be so appalled by the fact! … *sheesh*)

May 12th

I am now, officially and irrefutably, older than my mother ever got to be.

Not only is this a peculiar feeling but it periodically leads to bouts of introspection -- and comparison.

While they didn't marry young ("Don't even *think* about marriage until you're at least 24, honey") Mom and Dad were together for more than two-thirds of her life. She excelled in her career, raised a (mostly) sane, functional and happy family, took every possible opportunity to dance, and inspired the hell out of people by doing all this while waging a decade-plus battle against cancer. She fought hard for her life, sucked as much joy out of it as she could in the meantime, and taught us all a lesson in "grace in the face of the inevitable."

That's a tough act for anyone to follow, much less a jellyfish kind of gal...

Not that I would change anything. I honestly believe you can't force your life's journey -- you have to simply take it as it comes. If there are traditional milestones I never achieve, then so be it -- I have plenty of other good and wonderful things to treasure in my life. 

But I can still admire what she achieved.

What so many of you out there achieve every day…

Enjoy your special day, Moms.

You guys are the best!

apologies where due

monkey's comment to the last post made me realize that I may have done unto others as I absolutely HATE having done unto me…

One of my least favorite things in the world is being hectored over things I feel helpless to change about myself - but because I was squinting at a detail, I failed to notice that I was doing just that in the bigger picture.

If I made anyone out there even half as distressed as I get when on the receiving end of a similar harangue, I genuinely, truly apologize.

I was not seeing outside my box and I'm sorry.

While On This Roll...

So while I'm asking difficult questions, here's another one that's bugged me for a while...

WHY are so many people so scared of themselves?

Is it fear that we won't meet our own expectations?

Worry that we might not be able to control that person? Or that we could but we won't want to?

Concern over what other people will think?
Help me out here?

Because I have to admit, this is one area where Weenie Girl is less active than usual. Sure, I'm scared of many things - snakes, bungee jumping, growing old alone...

But few of those things are me.

And certainly, I don't like a great many things about myself, either - but I'm the hand I was dealt. I spent years trying to fit myself into someone else's box - and it never worked so I gave up - and am surprisingly content with just letting the ugly be…

Now, I would never try to convince anyone that there isn't weird stuff that goes on inside the brain. There certainly is. But I find the workings of it all absolutely fascinating. 

And even more fascinating is how we process those workings.

From as far back as third grade, I have been startled by how others approach thinking. My mind would be wandering along, connecting and leaping, and my classmates would sit there with nothing more to add than that I was "weeeeerd." I can actually remember sitting on my bed, mulling this over -- and concluding that my mind couldn't possibly operate that much differently than anyone else's, so they must not be paying attention, that's all.

Sure, I find my own inner workings to be largely intriguing, frequently irksome and occasionally baffling - but... it's just a head! 

Aren't there better things in life to battle to the death than our own selves?

Like, I dunno, ignorance? prejudice? 

the appalling lack of appreciation for sumo in America?

What am I not getting here…?

Lawn Cultivation

Sometimes, I like to remind myself that the grass is not necessarily any greener anywhere else… I'll pick a untried restaurant or shop, take a day off, and go play tourist in my own home-town. No chores, no errands, just wandering around, delighting in re-discovering the familiar.

Anyone else ever do that?

Too often, we overlook the things right under our noses. We give them lower priority because "they're there any time" and then, thirty years later, realize we haven't gotten to 'em yet. Seriously, I am in danger of going to my deathbed never having seen the mid-1670's Georgian mansion that's literally 5 miles from my house! How ridiculous is that??

(I just bumped it up on the list, btw…)

We do this with places, events, attractions, even people. It's not exactly familiarity breeding contempt, it's more like familiarity breeding indifference. Or hyperopia…

I say, fight back!

good question...

I said to SP, "In my next life, as well as coming back all lithe and sexy (with smaller boobs and better hair) I also want to be an unsentimental, heartless bitch. Because I suspect they sleep better at nights…"

SP: can you be a heartless bitch and a sub?

Interesting to note that I think that the two are not compatible.

Jz: I was just thinking that... 

SP: Now I'm wondering why my gut reaction would be that... 

Maybe because the few real sub women I know/have known certainly weren't heartless bitches?

Jz: Or perhaps you were just thinking about me specifically? (*mad eyelash batting ensues*)

SP: indeed you are my prime example ... and shining star.

Egotistical smart-aleckyness aside, this exchange got me wondering, too.

And I can't make up my mind, so I'm throwing the question out there… 

What do you guys think?

I know that many of the sisterhood (mutatis mutandis) are geared toward service and like to deem ourselves selfless givers. Yet I sometimes pause...

Because occasionally, the degree of self-avowed insistence on being the one who gives and serves could almost seem like a socially-acceptable mask to disguise a certain degree of self-centeredness. And while self-centeredness isn't the same thing as heartlessness, the glimpsed possibility opens doors for further consideration, I think…

Yet I also have a fairly strong gut reaction that is much like SP's, so I am by no means decided on the matter, myself. Which makes it good that this is not a question that actually needs answering. But it does make for an interesting ponder...

Anyone feel like jumping in?

From the Trough of a Wave

My love life seems to run in cycles of five years.

(Well, OK, one relationship was 1 year and another 9, but look! That's an average of five!) 

All the rest have been five years, almost exactly.

BG and I are at four and a half. Despite the various challenges and obstacles which keep us developmentally at about a year, still, we're closing in on five chronologically.

Which means I've been starting to think about this…

My dad always said that you can never move ahead while you're won't let go of the past -- and I honestly believe the wisdom of those words. I don't think it's a good idea to stay stuck in a rut just because you're comfortable. But I'm also not sure it's a good idea to move on for no better reason than some externally-mandated principle, either. 

I've had wonderful relationships - with the wrong person - and they starved the inner Jz.

My current relationship has a less-than-ideal structure and glacially slow growth - but is with guy who only leaves me starving in a good way. ("Please, sir, I want some MORE…")

Talk about your opportunity cost analysis…

Stay, and risk not growing.

Leave, and risk not nurturing my soul.

(lil, what did you do with that rock we crawl under?)

.