The Keys to the Castle

(or at least to the montage...)

My "fed up with everything" phase seems to be ebbing, thank the lord.

I think that going 3 days with no heat just froze the spark of human warmth right out of me and I've had a hard time getting back up to temperature. (It was really, really cold in my house, can I just say?)

But I'm back to caring that I can't write, and I anticipate a breakthrough on the actual act itself any moment now!

In the meantime, I've had three requests for an answer key to the meaning behind the frames -- and who am I to deny those brave enough to comment on that particular post? (Altho' as I said to someone, you should consider yourselves lucky. My quirky and potentially disturbing montages are still WAY better than if I vented via poetic offering!  ;-p )

Here we go:

1- Sand Guy

This one I think is fairly self-explanatory. 

(Doesn't everyone feel like this when they're in an "I don't like life much right now" phase?)

2- Tim Curry

Halloween = Rocky Horror Picture Show = Young Jz's (im)pure lust for Frank'n'Furter = The First Clue That She Might Be A Bit Bent

3- apples

pure wistful imagining. 

I'd love to look like that, stockings, heels, and all.

4- old sheet music illustration

Mom and I, sitting at the dusty old piano down in the basement, going through stacks and stacks of old sheet music, with her plunking the keys and us both giving it our vaudeville best.

5- Egg Lady

Somewhere, there's a picture of me at about 3, sitting on top of a wall in front of Storybook Land, next to a big cut-out Humpty Dumpty, with the most astonishing amount of leg dangling out from beneath my little smocked dress. (I know how long my legs are and even *I'm* startled by this picture.)

I look like a caricature of the character next to me and the image has always stuck.

This picture is the grown up variation.  :-)

6- So This is Love

Again…

Love, rope… What's to explain?  ;-p

7- Linus

My Life's Philosophy.

(as seen on my closet door since age ~10.)

8- pup in glasses

You can wear glasses, look all pointy-headed, and still be cute, dammit!

9- Mac, book, library

Uh, hello, people….

This is me, remember?

10- lamp post

This is actually the most meaningful one in the bunch.

It was taken (tho' not by me) on the single-most intensely perfect, magical night of my life.

Right where I was, right about the same time… and all I have to do is look at it to go back and feel the magic all over again.

Montage

I can't write right now...

and I can't even care that I can't write right now.

Would you settle for this?

(it actually does say things...) ;-p

Elephant Handling

Back in August, nilla and I went off on a side track, discussing the elephant in the room behind one of my posts. She made the observation that naming the elephant is like saying "Rumplestilskin" … that by breaking the silence, you make things visible, fracture your cage, neutralize it's power.

You may still have an elephant on your hands but at least now you can start dealing with it, maybe shrink it down to purely ornamental size… 

And I got thinking...

I haven't ignored my elephant but I've dealt with it quietly, by myself. Cuz that's just how I roll. But despite that working perfectly well for me, I realize that there's a positive plague of pachyderms out there -- and maybe a show of solidarity would not go amiss.

So, here goes...

A long time ago, I had a date that left me bruised -- and decidedly NOT from consensual behavior. Legally, clinically, and emotionally, it was date rape. 

I know a lot of people don't believe that this is something that is real. They figure if you went out with a guy in the first place, you carry some degree of complicity in your fate. Or if the sexual violation is oral, as mine was, it's somehow not valid, it can't really have been that traumatic… "So you had a bad date -- get over it!" 

There is, of course, a kernel of truth in that. You do have to get over it, because life has to go on. To the surprise of no one but those who've never actually experienced assault, however, it's just not that simple.

Yes, I was young and stupid, but only because I was trusting. I had no external factors impairing my judgement -- even in hindsight, my only mistake was to believe that a guy would accept that "no" means "no" - especially if I was yelling it into his ear.

But he was bigger than me, he was stronger than me, and he had no compunction about slamming me into the furniture to get his own way.  He used violence to coerce a participation that I most certainly did not consent to.

Which left me sickened, shocked, trembling, horrified, violated … and completely pissed off -- at myself. Because whether that's reasonable or not, the fact remains that I'd experienced an epic failure at taking care of myself -- and that makes a person feel like an inept fool.

Plus, the real kicker is that misery doesn't even turn out to be the hard part.

No, it's afterwards that the real challenge begins, when you start trying to figure how to get past it all… How do you ensure, as you move forward, that you both learn your lesson and keep the experience from rotting your innards?

I knew for myself that I didn't want to stop trusting people but I sure as shootin' had no intention of ever letting myself be that kind of stupid again, either. 

So I had to find a balance between vulnerability and caution. 

I had to develop the skills of internal listening, examining, evaluating - while not completely losing sight of spontaneity.

I had to respect the healing process of my psyche, yet keep poking at it, to make sure it was actually healing and not just closing off and letting itself atrophy.

That's all difficult, draining stuff -- and seemed for a very long time like it was WAY more work than it was worth. (Would it really be that bad to just wave at the world from inside an impermeable bubble?)

But tempting tho' BubbleLand sometimes sounded, it was not really what I wanted. That kind of existence would be all wrong for me, on almost every imaginable level. So I took it in stages and persevered… heck, I persevere still. 

Because, as I wrote to nilla, one thing I find completely maddening is that even after 30-odd years, this one jerk will still occasionally rise from the dead and blight my sexual enjoyment. I've worked long and hard to take that control back and for the most part, I've succeeded. That he's still not completely banished is frustrating, irritating, and really MUCH more attention than he ever deserved in the first place. (Brief return to that "being pissed off at myself" place…)

So no, elephants aren't exactly like Rumpelstilskin - they require lots more time and patience to tame than just a one-time shout out.

But it's a start. It is certainly a start...

(and don't worry - comments not expected on this one. just getting it out there)

Adjectives

I am always the wanton, cock-sucking slut.

That's a constant -- but all other adjectives are subject to change, depending on his mood.

Now, none of his choices are ever hurtful. He's not a man given to humiliation or belittling. He might tease me to embarrassment now and again but even then, he's careful with his words. So, rather than asking me if I feel "exposed", he'll use the word "vulnerable"… 

A subtle distinction but it makes a huge difference to my response. 

Yet, despite all his care, there are times when the differences between the male and female mindset muddy the waters anyhow. Because he will occasionally choose a word that is simply a neutral descriptor to him -- but that I really don't enjoy having applied to my person. The fact that I cannot deny truth of these words does not make them any more palatable. (I'm pragmatic but I'm not THAT pragmatic…!)

Unfortunately tho', the fact that they are true renders me incapable of protesting their use. 

At least, not to him. 

I will, however, share with you, my bloggy friends, that I greatly prefer "abundant' to "broad"… and I really don't like the word "pendulous".

Even if SP does assure me that "there is great sexiness in the word"…?

I'm just not feeling the love.

I'd Like One in Every Color, Please

Srsly...

Scene in Senses

The shock of his outdoor-cold hands as they slide beneath my robe.

The growl in his voice when he says, "You are in SUCH hot water..."

The sharp twinge of rope tightening into my wrist as he adjusts my position.

The gentleness of his hand stroking the flesh he is about to lick with the belt  

and the way that stroking intensifies the heat.

The shocking slap when leather hits flesh.

The sting of candle smoke in my nose.

The trembling, aching tension in my muscles as I fight for balance.

The sweet relief of clips undone.

The warmth of his skin against mine.

The slickery slide of sweat and lube.

The boneless exhaustion of a well-used body.

The floating feeling of bliss.

The Monogamous Onion

I was listening to yet another old Erotic Awakening podcast, one where Dan and Dawn's Question of the Day was whether anyone can be poly, and how you could tell…

During the discussion, Dawn made the comment that she thinks people tend to be hardwired one way or the other, that some are wired to be monogamous and some are wired poly, but that we all have an insulating layer of societal expectations that can make it difficult to see what we really are…

I was kind of drowsing as I listened but my eyelids snapped wide open on that one - and my brain immediately added, "plus, the lifestyle tends to impose yet another layer on top of that…"

Because when you enter this heady world, it's easy to feel that there are community pressures to throw off the constraints of vanilla life. Monogamy is just one more societal conceit created to produce cookie cutter members, so why should we accept it? 

Who ever heard of a monogamous slut? 

It can land a person in an maddening quagmire, all those multiple layers of tropes.

But truthfully, altho' I have long considered a kinky nature to be just the result of wiring, I'd never thought about monogamy or polyamory as a wiring issue. That had always struck me as more of a morality-based decision. Does it sound too ridiculous for me to admit that even the suggestion that it's not something we can alter was an incredible relief?

Not because it means I don't have to change but more because it means my struggles aren't against a flaw - they're against a valid, real thing. And that difference in perspective actually changes a great deal. Because now the argument shifts from, "Why can't I make myself accept this? Why can I not change?" to "OK, it's just not gonna move. How do I punt around it?" (Not to mention, "Do I want to punt around it?")

I've spoken ad nauseam in the past about my great internal conflict over not being able to cheerfully assure BG that a ménage would be just splendid. I want to do and be what he wants, after all. But any form of sharing or being shared is something that I have NOT been able to get a handle on, and I have found that frustrating.  

It seemed I was battling a combination of societal construct and my own insecurities and getting nowhere. And since I know societal constructs aren't that important to me, then that must mean my insecurities go a lot deeper than I want to accept. (Which, btw, may still be true. However…) 

My lack of progress makes a lot more sense if I consider that maybe what I was actually doing was trying to peel away one construct so I could lay on another construct, when in fact, the truth lies in a layer even deeper, within something that is actually an integral part of me -- something that just IS, so it's OK to accept it and go from there.

And that makes me feel like SO much less of a hypocrite, it's positively emancipating.

Because I know I don't judge people who can multi-task their sexual fidelity -- so my inability to budge my own feelings on the matter was starting to make me feel like someone who could talk the talk but not walk the walk. 

Or a big fat chicken...

And neither hypocrite nor chicken is an adjective to make a person proud.

Hammered Home

We had a five-hour carpentry date the other day.

(I know, you're all madly jealous, aren't you?)

I was pretty psyched about it, however.

In large part because it puts me within a hair's breadth of packing the hammer and paintbrush away for the season ... but even more because it was vanilla time spent together -- at his offer, his suggestion.

Protocol, low tho' ours is, was set aside. This was getting to know each other better, learning that we work really well together, and an ideal opportunity for me to show off my assortment of tools. ("Hey! This is almost identical to mine!" "Perfect. I have that exact one.")

Handymanitude is not everyone's cup of tea, I realize this -- and that's OK. But it is part of mine. It's the culture I grew up in, the default setting for most of my circle. It's not poverty-based, it's practicality, sensibility, and capability.

And I absolutely loved realizing it's one more area where BG and I see eye to eye.