A Looong Week

I have bailed a 50-ft doublewide sidewalk with a snow shovel.

I have hauled 30-lb. bags of salt hither and yon.

I have shoveled snow, ice, or water at least once a day for the past seven days straight. 

I have climbed a snow-crusted ladder (twice) to break ice dams.

I have earned this dinner of chowder and fritters, dammit!

So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to dig into something enjoyable for a change.

February Fragments Coming Soon!

Hope to see you then.

The Tuckered Bitch

Another Dropping Penny

I've discussed more than once how I don't feel like I fit into the prevalent submissive mold. How I read the plaintive words of other submissives who wonder, "Why do I need this?" and think, "Why do I not?" 

I do not live to serve; I don't long for control. 

I generally suck at deference and I am far from acquiescent. 

Nor do I have the deep need for the relief of spankings or pain that seems to be another common denominator among my compatriots. (Yes, I enjoy them but they're not part of my self-identification, either.)

I can't say I spend a lot of time *worrying* about these discrepancies, but I do spend a lot of time wondering about them, where they stem from, what the differences might be…

Perhaps I'm just a poseur, although I have to say, that doesn't really ring true.

Same with saying I'm a "bedroom submissive" -- the appellation has never felt right, yet that seems to be the default term for those of us who lack that deep vein of submissive need, so I figured I should maybe learn to own it. (Not getting very far with that, can I just mention…)

Of course, none of it really matters. I've never been one to need a definition, per se. 

All I really need to know is that both BG and SP find me a desirable sub -- I don't need anyone else's vetting on the matter.

I just get curious.

Then I read Lee Harrington's post about alpha-subs and a lightbulb slowly kindled in my mind. It took a while for me to sort out just why reading his post was such an Hallelujah moment for me, but I've finally narrowed it down to these high points:

"I’m not especially interested in someone who is inherently submissive….in the past 10 years I have been drawn… to Type A personalities. [People who] are dominant. … neither submissive in general (an adjective) nor Submissive (an identity, a noun).

When I have conversations about relationships, sometimes I struggle. The words are not enough. I want people to surrender, but only if I deserve it, have earned it, have shown I am a being worth surrendering to. I want people to submit to me, but only if I truly have a hand able to steer the life energy, the prana, the chi they hand over to me. That their throat and my jaw will match up and fit like puzzle pieces. ...

I come alive with a fire when someone who would not serve anyone else serves me. That they look at me and go yes, your maw, your maw can hold me if I kick and scream. That they look at me and go yes, you are worthy, I will sweat for your causes. That they look at me, offer up their throat, offer up their love, offer up themselves. ... 

Give me your power and your gusto. Give me your passion and your flame. Let me be powerful not because I put you down, but because I am a being worthy to be worthy next to you."

That mindset right there -- that's what I found so compelling. Because, finally, I'm hearing someone describe my type of submissiveness. 

Because he's nailed it… I'm not submissive in general or in identity.

I don't need dominance, I need the dominant.

I need the person who has that able hand, the one whose maw can hold me if I kick or scream. The person strong enough to let me be strong, yet who can still contain me. 

And it is only in finding that person that my submission is triggered.

Otherwise, it stays dormant. 

It probably sounds a silly kind of realization ... more of a self-evident truth, really. 

But it's one I could only recognize when I heard it from outside my own head.

It was a revelation … and a relief.

(Thank you, Lee Harrington!)

In Which I Sigh Audibly

I broke my bra today.

  just sittin' there…

   doin' nothin'...

      *SNAP!*

  underwire -- Gone.

You know it's bad when even your lingerie turns on you…

Firsts

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned here before that I was a slow starter in the heady world of relationships and sex. Even as a hormonally-charged teenager, it was always more about the mind than the body for me, and I just didn't meet people who intrigued me "that" way.

Which is fine. 

I do not regret being particular for my whole life ... except in one small way.

When you're a late bloomer, it's not hard for the rest of the world to outpace you in experience. Most of the time, you're the one being taught, the one having a "first time."

And there's just a little something extra about a "first" isn't there?

    First love, first kiss, first scene…

We remember them. Even if they're not otherwise all that memorable, they still have a bright shiny coating simply by virtue of their novelty and the excitement that evokes.

But when you're the pupil, knowing that all the wonder is largely one-sided can temper the afterglow a bit. Not that the other person didn't enjoy themselves, or that you can't still be special to them, I don't mean that -- but you're not giving them that extra bit of shiny. 

I'd like to, though. I want to reciprocate, to give as I get… and sometimes, frankly, to carve out a tiny place just for me in their hearts. This hasn't seemed meant to be, however. 

Which is okay - but still leaves me a little wistful once in awhile.

So I'd pretty much come to accept that I will forever be a non-firstie.

     ... and happened to mention that minor disappointment to SP...

Who then decided that 33 years was long enough for the statute of limitations on Manly Silence to have expired, and proceeded to run through a list of firsts he'd had with me.

It wasn't a long list, they weren't all occurrences of exactly the type I had been envisioning in my wistful dreams, but it was a list. As in, more than one thing! 

I had achieved the creation of multiple shiny moments and never knew!

Which got me thinking…

Why don't we tell each other these things?

I was going to chalk it all up to Men -- after all, you don't catch many of them stepping up to admit they haven't Done It All Already. 

But more likely, it's all of us.

Maybe we all hold our firsts close to our heart, unwilling to share them, even with their creator, because we fear losing the shiny. 

Maybe it's fear -- we don't want to seem too eager, or too weak?

Maybe we don't want the other person thinking they've now carved out a tiny place just for themselves in our heart...

Or we simply hope to avoid being drawn into comparisons, which have the potential to dull and disappoint.

There are a lot of valid potential reasons.

I guess when I think about it, I can understand why we stay quiet.

I'm just not convinced it's a good idea…

Mark Your Calendars

This is a "Wha'cha Gonna Be Readin'?" Wednesday post.

Because look what I found!

Noon to 4PM, your time zone

It's a fundraiser/literacy awareness program.

"Help change lives this winter by celebrating National Readathon Day with Penguin Random House, GoodReads, Mashable, and the National Book Foundation. Together with your support, we hope to help fund their efforts to educate, tutor, create and sustain a lifelong love of reading.

You can get involved by joining readers across America in a marathon reading session on Saturday, January 24. From Noon – 4 PM in our respective time zones, we will sit and read a book in our own home, library, school or bookstore."

I didn't find any place near me to go congregate and participate, but that's okay. 

I can read anywhere for a good cause!

No Name-Calling Week 2015

As a wise-ass, I know how tempting it is to take the cheap shot for laughs.

As a person who's been taunted, I know how much it hurts.

As a pragmatist, I know you can't change human nature.

But we can change our actions.

We can learn to think before we speak.

We can learn to allow for differences of opinion.

We can come to understand that something that isn't right for us does not have to be, perforce, wrong.

It's not about who is right and who is wrong.

It's about doing right.

It's about acceptance.

An Unexpected Pax

I never really know who's going to walk through the door when he comes over… he's an endlessly changing mix of characteristics, so there's no getting cocky about thinking I know who he'll be on any given day.

   Sometimes the dominant shows up, sometimes the sadist.

   Sometimes the generous lover, sometimes the man who simply takes.

   Most times, it's someone somewhere in between.

And that's okay.

Because they're all parts of him… and you may have noticed that I am rather taken with him? So all variations are welcome, -- and generally accommodated without a second thought. Sometimes there can be a touch of disconnect...

   Maybe the sadist shows up when I could use a little gentleness.

   Or he wants service and I just want to be fucked until I can't think.

But we've been good at navigating to the same page pretty quickly. (Or, more accurately, he is good at navigating us to the same page. I cannot claim to contribute anything to this process except the part where I follow his lead...)

So I don't really worry which version of my dom will show up.

Except, there's someone new who's been coming around lately. 

He's not someone I've really met before -- in fact, seeing him kind of makes me wonder if BG's body has been invaded by aliens -- but he feels like the BG my heart believes in and has stuck by, the guy I've always thought was in there, the one who knows me and gets me and maybe even can come to care for me. This may be the man behind the defenses.

And that's someone I'm surely glad to see.

But Weenie Girl isn't so sure. 

This BG kind of scares her…, although probably not as much as I scare her. 

She's afraid I'm just seeing what I want to, that I'll follow what I perceive as his lead, when really, it's only a dream -- that I'm chasing right off the edge of a cliff. 

She's not so chicken-shit that she wants me to run away, exactly… but she doesn't want me moving toward him, either. 

Weenie Girl would much rather I just sit tight for the moment.

And for once, I think I agree with her.

Let's Hope I Sub Better Than I Bake

This morning, I decided to use a muffin recipe I had filed under "To Try!" 

Upon closer reading, however, I realized (to my complete astonishment) that the recipe was designed to make only 11 muffins. ("Don't use all 12 wells, the muffins will be too skimpy")

Now, six or eight muffins, I can roll with.

     But 11 out of 12?!?? That's just ... dumb.

Just fiddle the recipe to make another 1/2 cup of batter, for cripes sake!

So I did. 

And they were perfectly fine … the whole dozen of them.

Chalk up another triumph for Jz's Theory on Following Directions: 

     "If they sound stupid, adapt at will."

(Really, it's kind of a wonder BG puts up with me at all, isn't it?)

Seriously?

Somebody was teasing me the other day… but I wasn't entirely certain if it actually was teasing -- because there was a very real possibility that I just been rude and simply not noticed that fact. And I hate feeling like I've blundered all over someone's feelings -- I get all earnest and contrite when that happens. 

So this person didn't get anything like the reaction they'd been expecting.

     "Geeez! I can't even kid with you without you getting all serious…"

This caught me off guard, because I'd recently been indulging in an internal debate over whether or not I was entitled to use the word "serious" to describe myself. I couldn't really bring myself to believe I'd have much of a leg to stand on if I tried it, yet here was someone giving me grief about that very thing.

And I suddenly remembered a scene from high school…

I was with a friend who liked to style himself a Poet. (Personally, I considered that he merely wrote verse -- but he was a friend, so I never voiced this opinion… but I digress...)

An offhand conversation in the library led one of our teachers to inform him that he needed to buckle down and start taking things more seriously.

"ME?!?" (because Poets are always quite serious, don't you know…)

"Yes, you. You don't really take anything seriously… And you…" (she said, turning to me)

"YOU need to stop taking everything so seriously…"

I'm not sure who was more stunned, he or I.

Because, like him, that has never been the picture I have of myself -- not then and not now.

Yet, SP has thrown this at me, too. 

(And BG might have mentioned it more than once himself, she mumbles to her shoe…)

I'm still not convinced I buy it.

But for now, I'll pretend I do, because that means I can stop debating entitlement and just go ahead and share this with you!  ;-)

Magnetic Attraction?

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