A Brief Pictorial Excuse

People whose brains are mired inside this:

Cannot be expected to produce this:

I seem to have hacked all my good ideas right out of my body...

Along with my lungs.

Please hold while I attempt to regenerate them. 

(lungs first)

:-)

Yet, Some Warnings Might Not Go Amiss...

SP, on some of the more absurd sexual tropes that the internet has spawned...

"While there are many positives to the fact that sexually explicit material is so readily available, I have to shrug and laugh at the ridiculous expectations that material can provoke in both men and women. … *I* am at an age where I can see it's ridiculous, and so am able to shrug and laugh. Young people at the beginning of their sexual life, however, may get thrown by that shit... 

I think maybe some porn should come with an equivalent to the "professional driver on a closed course" warning..."

(Comme ça?)

In Which I Am Stunned By the Natural Order

It all started so innocently…

I was looking at a cute little picture of a giraffe. A very, very close up picture in which you can see the funny sideways movement of the giraffe's jaw.

And I thought (as I have a way of doing) "a giraffe is an ungulate… *where did that unearth from? well, it doesn't matter*… but I don't recall exactly what makes a thing an ungulate... Is it the sideways chewing? I don't believe so… but I really can't recall…"

So, I visited my best friend Google.

Which gave me several answers, all of whose synopses conveyed that ungulates are "mammals which use the tips of their toes to sustain their body weight by moving" and that the terms roughly means "hoofed animal"...

("ah. so not even close...")

You'd think that would have settled the question right there.

But no -- I just had to keep clicking (as I have a way of doing) and go for The Whole Article.

Where I learned something absolutely fascinating…

and almost lost my mind trying to parse it out.

Because the Wiki page for ungulates contains a "simplified" taxonomy
("I do not think that word means what you think it means") -- in which, what is in one order - a suborder is, in another - a family and, in a third - a clade. [:add new tab / google "clade":] "…*ah! A group consisting of an ancestor and all it's descendants. Cool. That's simple… Wait, what?!? Nested clades, sister clades, and basal clades -- as opposed to an incomplete evolutionary grade…?*" 

Basically, it was the family tree from hell -- made sorting out "fifth cousin, thrice removed" seem like a piece of cake. Not a good thing to have tackled soon after having taken an antihistamine… 

And I Just. Could. Not. Get it.

I tried, I swear I tried... 

but I had to give up.

Call my efforts borked and just move on.

So...

…huh?…

     oh!

What was the fascinating thing, you ask…?

Well, in a necessarily sketchy generalization...

one of the ungulate suborders is Cetacea.

Which means that, to some degree (much closer than you might ever suppose but don't ask me to explain the precise distinctions,) giraffes are related to whales and dolphins!

Cousin Moby? Who's THAT??

Just imagine planning that family reunion...

     (How could you ever decide on a venue…?!?)

Things That Discourage Me - #62

That our world has become the kind of place where it is necessary to state, 

     "Remove plastic from pizza before putting in the oven"

(Mind you, I sometimes find it discouraging that I'm eating frozen pizza at home, as well.

But that's a number for another day...)  :-D

It's Raining Friends...

*Hallelujah!*

In another one of those funny cycles life sometimes throws at you, I've had friends coming out of the woodwork lately. Good friends, dear friends, most harkening back to high school -- tho' many have not been seen in a dog's age. Yet in the space of seven short days, I've been deluged with a resurgence of amity.

I lunched with my buddy-in-vertigo, Q,

My high-school bestie, Cathy, is coming to stay for the weekend,

Hal dropped by the other night, looking for some decaf chai and conversation,

Butterfly emailed just to say she appreciated our 41-year friendship,

Tiny Woman swung by for dinner,

BookMan took me to the movies,

HT looked me up through Google so she could invite me to her wedding,

And Kraken invited me for Chinese… but given my current mood, he's blunting my chopsticks before he sits down. (This is a man who knows me well!)

There's no way to convey to you what exceptional people these friends are, so I won't try. I'll just say that I have loved them all for years -- with never a reason to think, "that was then, this is now." To a man (as it were,) they are not only every bit as dear to me now as they were in the giddy days of untutored adolescence, but possibly even moreso, now that I'm older and know just how rare these sorts of souls are in the world.

I'm not sure how I got so lucky as to end up with them in my life, but I won't quibble about the why's, I'm just going to relish the moment -- and the people.

(And since I've already given you that earworm anyhow, why not indulge in a little warm and fuzzy nostalgia of your own?!  :-D )

Administrative Details

(if you listen to Josh and Chuck, you'll know how ^^ that's ^^ supposed to sound in your head!)

I received a request:

Dearest Jz,

I think it is time for the prickly (but cute!) hedgehog to go on vacation. I want to see the big blue eye again or at least the twinkling cartoon blue eyes.

I'm not ready to come out of withdrawn prickly hedgehog mode quite yet, but I was thinking the other day that my blog needed a little perking up.

So I put the twinkling cartoon blue eyes on the hedgehog got another avatar and tried another template.

Will that do as a compromise?

Shoo, Fly...

My libido tried to stage a comeback over the weekend.

I stomped on that sucker like a bug.

Whap!

Forget it! 

Go Away!

And it did.  

*HA!*

(Or that's the story so far, anyhow. It may be lulling me into a false sense of security…)

But honestly? Nice tho' it is to think that I'm not permanently non-functional, I have no place in my life for any hankerings at the moment.

All they do is distract and lead to poor decision-making.

... and I've got yard work to do.

(No one wants to operate machinery in an impaired condition.)

:-)

A Formless Element

In the course of writing the "W" post, I started surfing for "traits of water signs" … and found something I wished I'd seen two days earlier, when I wrote about vocations and got myself into a tizz over being the jellyfish I am… 

~~~

Those with planets in Water signs are often assessing a situation by its undercurrents. Going forward in a relationship or situation often means being sure of their emotional ground, a kind of decision-making process that is baffling to others. Their perceptions border on psychic, but these insights get clouded by the intensity of feelings, or are altered by the vivid imagination.

Water is a formless element on its own, and that's why those with this sign are so quickly shaped by their relationships to others. They need time alone to remember where they end and others begin. And to let what's been stirred up by life find its way to a quiet calm again. These are people who need people, but also need the restoring space of solitude.

~~~

Now, I'm not sufficiently woo-woo to say, "aha! My frustrations all exist because I'm a water sign!" -- but this explanation did provide a different perspective that helped me see myself, if only briefly, through a slightly-less-critical lens.

After Mom died, I was raised by my father, the ultimate earth element type. This was a man with "form" of his own to spare, I tell ya. Dad loved me and was proud of me, but he also tore his nonexistent hair out over me. 

"What are you, stupid?" 

"I've never known anyone as aimless as you are." 

Dad was completely unable to understand why I acted the way I did, how I could possibly go through life with so little of a plan, and why I let other people frame so much of my life.

He worried that I was malleable, dependent, and gullible (i.e. weak) and that I'd be hurt as a result. That is a fair parental concern and not entirely without basis, either. I am inherently naive about people and that can leave me vulnerable.

Additionally, it's true that my relationships, both platonic and romantic, are a large part of my framework. Those I love provide a lot of my edges, my boundaries. I gauge much of my own depth and breadth by that of the people I have around me. 

Yet I could never articulate an explanation of how or why I operated that satisfied Dad. (see "baffling to others", above.) All I knew was that I was doing what felt right. So, being the stubborn cuss that I am, that's what I continued to do - to proceed in my own way. (raise your hand if you're surprised…) 

Nonetheless, Dad's opinions are forever lodged in my mind -- and frequently come out and roar loudly, usually in his voice. I may not have bought into his way of thinking but I cannot escape the vision he gave me of myself either, and sometimes that vision concerns me. 

Because sometimes undercurrents are so intangible they are practically invisible and I myself do not fully understand why I'm doing what I'm doing. I continue to respond instinctively but cannot always pinpoint why.  -- And when you can't figure out why exactly it is that you keep walking into walls with your eyes wide open (would that I could at least grant it the nobility of "tilting at windmills" but my method is far too lacking in purpose for that,) then you start to wonder if maybe there really IS something wrong with you.

Which is why this glimpse of an alternate perspective was so soothing to me.

Not because it might make me right, but just because I may not be all wrong, either.

I think it's easy to remember that everyone acts in different ways, but not always so easy to remember that there is no one "right" way of thinking behind the actions. 

It feels easier somehow to accept variations in how we express our thoughts than in the thoughts we're actually having…

Of course, this may be nothing but self-justification.

All I can say for sure is that I felt a little better after reading that.

And that will do for now.

Update

So, it's been three months.

(Four if you count from the Five Year Anniversary on which he stood me up and then dropped off the face of the earth, but three from "I Throw in the Towel Day" -- and that's what I'm going with.)

I still miss him so bad, I ache with it.

I have dreams of him coming back…

Of hearing my mail alert and seeing his name as the sender.

Of watching him get out of his car and stride down my sidewalk. 

  (On really bad days, he's even carrying flowers…)

I still cry hard on occasion, I haven't felt light-hearted in ages... But I'm forging ahead, as I know I need to ... even tho' the inner slut is wailing, "Come Back!"

Because that's a reaction to the emptiness.

Who really wants someone who repeatedly demonstrates that you don't count?

I think that, for a while at least, if I'd made a first move, been willing to forgive and forget one more time, we could maybe have gotten back together...

Except it wouldn't have been either "back" or "together" - because he made it clear just how little effort he's willing to exert in order to keep me, or our relationship… and to say that's OK, that I'll take him anyway, would make me someone I don't want to see in the mirror.

It doesn't matter that he's the Dom and I'm just the lower case thing. A dynamic is a two-way street. You don't get carte blanche just because you're dominant. 

You still have to earn my respect … and let me keep mine.

He knew he was on thin ice. I had knowingly and willingly made concessions up to that point -- but we hit my line in the sand. Any further concessions were going to have to start with him. 

(And we all know how well that turned out…)

I miss him like hell -- but I will not let him turn me into someone I don't like, either.

(I'd miss my self-respect if it weren't around, too.)

So I grit my teeth and go on.

Even tho' right now, it's the suckiest way in the world to go…

Allergy Season

Anyone else feeling this way?

Synchronicity

One of the loveliest aspects to my long and quirky relationship with SP is the synchronicity we have together. Moods, connections, conversations… we're very often on the same page without having to negotiate to get there.

Like the other night…

He came online and started teasing about a date.

Now, my libido is still AWOL so I'm not feeling warm and fuzzy about any kind of tusslin'… but I would love to just be held for a while by someone who cares. 

And, lo...

SP: in my present mood I am more interested in just having a lovely dinner and a walk (complete with a smooch) on the beach, followed by a nice cuddle…  (altho' of course, it's quite possible that the next thing you know, you will be waking up to find me piercing your nipple…)

Jz:   so, cosseting first, piercing later, is this what you're telling me?

SP:  more like warning you the worm could turn on a dime

Jz:   duly noted

Caveat issued, the planning of a fantasy date began…

with several decisions reached:

-hygenic preparations -- First, I will be shorn of my newly-restored "pretty draping", after which he will luxuriate in a tub of hot mineral-salted water, being "bathed lusciously" by a freshly-denuded, wet and slippery Me.

-selection of the restaurant -- "it has to be really nice and we will get all dressed up." (and since it's fantasy, I'll even actually have something to wear...)

-seating requirements -- "side by side seating will be needed so that I can indulge in some feeling up of your side boob … which I cannot do sitting across from you because it would require an overtly crass movement that would spoil the atmosphere." 

(not to mention cause me to snort wine out my nose in laughter…)

-behavioral instruction -- "you will laugh with mirth at all of my jokes, no matter how small they may be…"

-postprandial footwear --

"who wears shoes on a beach??" 

"only a fool"

Additionally…

-I was called an oaf -- ("sweet oaf…, lovely oaf…, but oaf, none the less")

      and 

-I received a lecture -- on the complexities of the preterite tense

He hit all my buttons, without crossing over into my current no-man's land. He kept it sweet, funny, loving, and physical enough to be hot, but not so much that I'd get triggered into discomfort -- all without me having to say a word.

Seriously…?

This man can do more for me from thousands of miles away than most guys who show up in real life with candy and flowers ever could.

Best long-distance hug EVAH. :-)

May be...

April is finally over.

      слава богу!*

To all who stuck it out with me, thank you.

But I'm taking a break now.

     (that made my brain hurt...)

*Thank God