Christmas Eve 2021

Here’s hoping we ALL get what we want for Christmas!

All the best, my patient friends.

Merry Christmas!

Closet Organization

The past couple of months have been a crazy race against time, pivoting between multiple tasks to take best advantage of the circumstances of each day: frantically painting while temps were above 50º, demolishing and replacing doors while the weather was dry, purging the basement while the rented dumpster still had room… it’s been a wild dance, with practically NOTHING getting done outside of the Focus Du Jour.

One of the side effects of cramming 96 million different home projects into 2 months is that you end up making a lot of large reprioritizations and small short-term shifts. (Like, “X can live here until I finish Y, at which point, I’ll move Q out of Y and into S, which will leave room in Y to hold X, until I finally work my way through B and can create my new H, which will hold…” etc., etc.)

Or maybe that’s just me…?

But the hectic flurry is finally settling down (at least for the duration of the holiday season) and I have begun the process of acclimatizing to the new configurations inside my house. Overall, I’m fairly satisfied. There are some spaces that need reorganization, some want a few minor tweaks, and most are OK. Ocasionally, I even stumble across a happy accident - some space I created that serves a purpose I didn’t even know I needed.

Even if that space is just a closet…

Since last April’s “winter to spring” seasonal clothing shift took place during a major bedroom renovation, cold weather items got stuffed wherever I could find an empty spot, with a mental note to “sort that out next fall.” (“Look, Ma! I made myself more work!”)

Well, now it’s fall, and I need my warm clothes, TYVM. The weather gods took pity on me and didn’t force the issue until late November, but force it they finally did. I spent the week before Thanksgiving unearthing all my forgotten hiding spots and going through the dreaded annual ritual of Trying On Last Years Clothes.

Fortunately, not everything was a disaster - plenty of things still fit (mirabile dictu) but there remained a few items that disappointed me. Gradually, it began to dawn on me that all the pieces that need to be put away again for a while (in hopes that they’ll stretch with age?) came from the same place (the wardrobe in the guest bedroom) and I found myself musing, as I rejected yet another item, “This will have to go back into The Closet of Optimism…”

Then I realized what I’d thoughtlessly muttered, and began to laugh.

Not a Closet of Failure, not of Disappointment - but Optimism.

Hope and laughter.

Apparently, my subconscious has many ways of providing what I need!

Happy Thanksgiving!

 I’m not dead, nor even ailing…, just stupid busy and beseiged by annoying setbacks.

(I’d say I’ve been running around like a chicken with its head cut off, but that seems inappropriately tactless on this particular day.)

I’ve not given up on coming back soon, I just need to get out of my own way first - even if it’s only for an hour at a time…

If you’re celebrating, have a grand day.

Otherwise, rest up for the beginning of Holiday Madness!

(and I hope to see you soon.)

Frustrations of the Season

It hasn’t precisely been a bad summer… work is sucking eggs and Mother Nature is trying to either kill us or drive us insane with the weather patterns she’s created for Summer 2021… but there is plenty that is going right, as well. 

It’s just that this summer seems particularly rife with petty frustrations - things that shouldn’t warrant even a blip on life’s radar, but which nonetheless have assumed a significance that feels positively epic. My assumption is that things seem particularly irksome because we’ve had 17 months of playing tug-of-war with the universe and are all a little short of patience. 

Whatever the reason… I’m still ready to hit things.

So I’ve turned to Practicing Pollyanna.

Gritting your teeth because you just spent $30 and 5 hours getting, trimming, and prepping a board to repair your window frame, only to discover your father went rogue during construction and you can’t actually use your Wood of Great Effort and Expense?

     Jz Wants To: Beat someone with the now-useless trimmed and painted board.

     Pollyanna Sez: Find some clapboards to trim and jury-rig - and be grateful you had them.

Devastated that your special once-a-year birthday splurge on the chocolate-dipped-with-shots bowl at Coldstone Creamery ended up all over the parking lot? 

     Jz Wants To: Wail like an 8-year old

     Pollyanna Sez: Remind yourself that you’d eaten most of the ice cream and that at least the mess didn’t land inside your car. 

Frustrated that your lawn is nothing but dirt and crabgrass while your gravel driveway has filled in with a profusion of healthy grass?

     Jz Wants To: Rail at the universe and fret over the expense of chemicals and seed.

     Pollyanna Sez: Appreciate the fact that you were given free resources to perform transplants and giggle over the thought that your lawn is now sporting hair plugs.

Maddened by the fact that the only thing flourishing in your garden this year are the 4.5-foot tall coneflowers that are growing RIGHT where you need to place your 6-foot ladder?

     Jz Wants To: Trample the flowers in a fit of pique

     Pollyanna Sez: Grudgingly finesse the ladder into place… and admire the picture it makes.

 I hope July is being good to all of you!

Lexicological Land Mines

If you’ve read here any length of time, you’ll know that I tend to bumble my way through life. I’ve never really found my niche, nor have I ever really found my anchor. (Well, SP is kind of my rock but that’s a different type of mooring than I mean. He gives my soul a center … but I still haven’t found my place.) 

Despite the worries created by my aimless existence, however, one thing I can still claim to my credit is a very strong sense of self. I don’t always like the person I am, but I accept her. Even in my younger and more socially-eager days, I didn’t put a lot of effort into trying to change in order to fit in better. I may have spent a lot of time in thinky-thought, pondering how different I was from those around me, but it was a purely academic exercise. For all the why-ing and mandatory existential angst, I never seriously considered the need for any real change. I was me, they were them, we just all needed to figure out how to get along. (And I am only prepared to do my 50% portion of that, thank you very much.)

A positive side effect of this innate arrogance confidence is that it makes a person fairly adaptable. Self-acceptance leaves you with the space to accommodate differences and discoveries. For example, as I’ve said before, when I realized I was submissive, it was a bit of a surprise but it didn’t profoundly alter my sense of identity - it was simply another thing to incorporate.

Despite that lofty claim, however, there are some descriptors that are just never going to fly - and BG stumbled onto one of them the other night. He was doing his usual pre-playtime ramping up of the heat, a thing at which he is extremely skilled. This man can use words to reduce me to a puddle of goo quicker than about anyone I’ve known. However, words can be tricky. Many have a range of meanings and nuances and the primary definition for one person may not be the first to mind for another…

So, I’m reasonably sure than when he called me “subservient”, he meant to focus on the way in which I am “prepared to obey unquestioningly”. I, however, felt like he was calling me “useful in an inferior capacity”… and that is just not a sentiment destined to heat my loins. 

     “Different capacity” - I have no problem with. 

     “Inferior”? - It’s time for you to go home now…

But until we have a chance to get that sorted out, I politely requested that he rethink his use of that particular word. And thankfully, because he is also a thinking guy, he simply said, “Whoops! Sorry that struck a nerve. It’s submissive you are” … and moved right on to fueling more heat.

I love a man who understands the power of nuance... and how to avoid a landmine.

My Week of Baader Meinhof Phenomenon

(Also apparently called “blue car” or “red car” syndrome? I dunno. I just googled, “phrase for learning a word then seeing it everywhere”… because I knew it had a name!)

Anyhow, my new word has induced a great deal of brain cramp, so naturally I need to share!

Watts the Safeword (a YouTube channel which I really enjoy) released a video last week in which Amp has his third coming out. First gay, then kinky, now he’s adding “demisexual” to his identifiers. I had never heard of this term (which has apparently been around for 15 years - Way to keep up with the times, Jz!) but nonetheless, I learned something new. Three days later, I was seeing headlines in the news about Andrew Cuomo’s daughter coming out as demisexual. (I kind of question the newsworthiness of this revelation but hey, at least I knew what they meant!) Since then, it has popped up in a number of places and I'm feeling bludgeoned by the term.

(And for those of you who are in the same boat I was before watching Amp’s video, here’s the standard definition of demisexual: feeling sexual attraction towards another person only after establishing an emotional bond with that person.)

Now, before we go any further - the reason for the excessive brain time is that this identifier rings profoundly true to me.

And yet, frankly, I struggle with its relevance.

Even after a week of thinky thoughts, I’m still having trouble coming to grips with how I feel about this new distinction I’ve learned.  

Because I won’t lie. altho’ this term fits me to a T… a large part of me thinks this is a genuinely ridiculous concept to create a flag around. 

I understand the want/need/desire for nearly all the other sexual identifiers, because those identities will impact the partners a person chooses. But being demisexual (or, “particular” as we old-fashioned folk might say) only impacts the people you do NOT choose - and frankly, I don’t think that’s anything that requires explanation. That certain people don’t make the cut is a fact of life that we must all learn to accept.

Yet despite my inclination to eye-roll over something that strikes me as largely a quibble… the funny thing is that, for once, this identification is actually something that made me feel better. I thought, “Oh! You mean that’s not just me being weird??” - and felt genuinely relieved. None of the other similar revelations in my life have had this kind of effect, not even when SP let the submissive genie out of the bottle. Submissive was a surprise - one which explained quite a lot… but I can’t say I felt relief - it was simply another thing to incorporate.

Nor was it the textbook definition that resonated with me at first. At least, not until Amp expanded on the meaning with a quote from Olivia Davis: “Demisexuality is about desire and arousal … It’s not merely that I’m only interested in having sex with people that I love, it’s also that I feel a complete absence of desire or sexual feelings towards everyone else. EVER. What makes me demisexual is that absence.” 

THOSE were the words that made relief wash through me.

Because that complete absence has long been a stumbling block for me. I have been baffled by the fact that I can be with a guy that, intellectually, I recognize as sheer, unadulterated sex on a stick… and yet not feel the tiniest flicker of attraction. I’ve actually wondered at times if I could be asexual - except that when I’m with someone I am actually attracted to, I kind of go from zero to 60 in 4 seconds flat... so it’s not that I don’t have a libido. Yet I truly do not seem to experience the same level of itchiness during periods of drought that others talk about. 

SP often scolds me for over-thinking everything (not without reason) and I have genuinely spent a lot of time worrying that maybe this seemingly-peculiar refusal to go a-lookin’ for partners was caused by my overly-active brain. Was I thinking myself into a stunted life? Prods and urgings by friends seemed to indicate that they thought so. Could they be right?

So it really, truly felt wonderful to receive some validation that all my lack of action is not inevitably because I’m afraid or I’m overthinking or I’m just a plain ol’ nebbish. The realization that others also feel this way was actually HUGE for me. 

Additionally, this need for emotional ties to create desire also explains why, for years now, my body has known when a relationship is over long before I consciously realize we’re at the end. My libido is aware of disruption before my mind has seen past the habits of partnerships.

So this seemingly silly identifier is actually responsible for quite a number of pieces falling into place, worries being soothed and puzzling behaviors getting explained. I find myself a walking example of the validity of the term.

And yet, I can't stop shaking my head over it…

A Bit Surprising...

So here we are, emerging from a pandemic and ready to get our lives back to normal. 

Wheeee!

Except… what’s normal now?

Because like it or not, things have changed. Fifteen months is time enough to shift lifestyles and ingrain new habits and I’m finding that a lot of people are not the same as I remember. (Probably including me, but those changes seem more natural.) 

Has this happened to any of you?

You chat with a dear friend and find yourself thinking, “When did you get so boring?”

Or is that just me?

Interestingly, this effect seems most apparent in my Type A personality friends. I’m not a psychologist, so I won't even attempt any armchair analyzing of How This Happened. All I know is that some of my friends have forgotten how to talk to others. I’ve lost count of the number of conversations in which I’m either having my feet held to the fire as I'm grilled for minute details, or I'm not given the time to get a word in edgewise. 

I realize none of this is intentional but it’s trying, nonetheless. These are still wonderful people and I still care for and about them - but our worlds have shifted. Our lives are not as aligned as they once were, and it’s going to be more effort than I’d anticipated to keep the connecting doors open.

The problem is, that requires patience -  which is not my finest quality even at the best of times, much less after the year we’ve all had. 

*inserts contemplative pause*

It will be interesting to see how this all works out.

    Says the woman planning her summer around her Type B chums...

Yard Sale Adventures

I was committed to hosting one ("Location, location, location!") but not actually ready for it. The day arrived, however... and at some point, you have to just say, “All this is really going to cost me is some heavy lifting and a day” … and just go for it.

Monetarily, the results reflected my preparedness. I made some money but not a killing. 

The people-watching, however, was priceless.

A very handsome, engaging man (higher on the “attractive-to-Jz” scale than the new neighbor and more age-appropriate as well,) spent several lovely minutes beaming and telling me how happy I had made him by selling him my old wok. (If only it were always that easy to enchant men!)

A vivacious young woman in a vibrantly colored tube top jump suit (which she wore over an extremely pedestrian brassiere) hopped out of her car, marched straight to two of the larger items for sale and handed me the asking price with no haggling. (“These will be perfect for my work!”) Carrying the pieces triumphantly over her head (showing both an impressive amount of upper body strength and a significant increase of visible bra), she surfer-walked them to her car and then fought with her husky to “Move over and make room!” 

She made me smile - and feel very old at the same time…

One young boy was so enthralled with his new model car that he walked straight into the pedestal sink, forcing his mother to perform a leap of heroic distance to body-check the teetering porcelain before it toppled onto the lad’s brother.

A crotchety old lady bulldozed her way through my front hedges and complained about stubbing her toe on the big telephone pole anchor which is embedded beneath the hedges - the one that belongs to the utility company and which I cannot do anything about. (And by the way madam, why are you walking through my hedges in the first place?) She then bitched at me for not planting some grass seed to cover the large bare patches in lawn and turned, empty-handed, to barge her way back through the hedges - stubbing her toe a second time and turning back to yell, “See? This is a hazard!"

I called a polite, “Thank you for bringing it to my attention” while my sister-in-law, who is the most Christian of women, muttered, “Some people!” beneath her breath.

Not every encounter was that notable but they were all fun. Men hopping out of their trucks to ask if I have any marbles (“Nope, I’ve lost all of mine!”), women getting excited about potholders, that kind of thing. Mostly, we just met people and were reminded that we live in a community, not a bubble. We greeted and smiled, chatted and waved goodbye. 

Now it's time for the next step... the rented dumpster!

Things I Have Learned Since We Last Spoke

Well, *that* month sure got away from me! I figured I'd better stick my head in and say, "hi!" ... and maybe let you know what's been going on - which is basically, a lot of challenges and lessons learned. So here you go...

This room re-do project that I’ve landed myself in (and which has taken over my life) has necessitated a lot of googling. Of course, you need to take everything you read with a grain of salt, but I figured I was safe using advice from This Old House guy, right? 

Well, he may be the grand old man of home restoration - and indeed, I have learned many useful things from his website -  but not every recommendation is equally useful. In fact, “…switch to a roller for the rest of the paint job—you’ll still be able to coat the grooves of paneled walls just fine.”, while exciting to read, is a downright fib.  

Yep, Bob Vila lies.

On the subject of instructions, I came across this doozy when I unboxed the new sewing machine I finally broke down and bought:

I’m getting too old for the nonsense of the day.

Because, life… this project has been full of minor catastrophes and set-backs. To wit:

Tiles have been broken.

Sixty-year old adhesive does not inevitably disintegrate with age.

Thriftily, I used clear waterproof caulk left over from the worlds longest bathroom renovation to re-glaze a window I’d stripped down to bare wood. BG took one look at the tube and said, “Umm, you realize that’s not paintable caulk, right?” One trip to the hardware store, two tubes of the correct caulk, 6 small and 2 large window panes later, I was back at the point I had thought already achieved.

Frugality does not always save either time OR money.

Do not hold freshly painted metal objects in one hand over a concrete floor.

I don’t think I’m going to explain that one - I’ll just set it down and walk away…

The delays have caused me to really buckle down on the project, spending a good chunk of time every day stretching and contorting and otherwise giving my not-so-young and very out-of-shape body reasons for protest. It has retaliated with (in chronological order) a severe bout of vertigo, some pretty intense lower back pain, and (most recently) the triumphant return of my undiagnosed “-itis”. (I suspect “burs” rather than “arthr”, but cannot be certain.) I know from experience that the only thing that helps this is rest, but I can’t be stopping for every little ache and pain, so I tape it up and forge ahead.

It is possible to paint without the use of opposable thumbs.

(I will not speak to the quality of the work, however…)

Not all my gains in knowledge have come from the room redo, however.

Work has thrown me a good challenge.

(See my upcoming book, “Big Sur, M1 chips, and The Art of Privacy Permissions”)

So has my dominant.

Never say you don’t think you can possibly come one more time.

(“Challenge Accepted! ”)

Finally, I’ve been reminded that it’s never a good idea to go longer than 30 hours without a shower - because you never know when you might meet your new (cute, male) neighbor.

*le sigh*

Anyhow, that’s life by me.

How are YOU guys doing??

Oops! I almost forgot Spock & Friends! This one feels appropriate after so long...

Secular Sacrilege

I wondered if there might be some sort of Spock Easter greeting out there, so I googled…

       and stumbled across this horror:

Now, I love absurdity as much as the next person, 

but some ideas are really best left undeveloped.

After that disturbing image, I think we could all use a little art therapy to soothe our nerves ...

A happy little Easter egg to you all!

Just Checking In...

Well, my winter torpor has passed off and somehow, without any prior intent, the return of daylight and energy has landed me face down in another big project in my house. Unlike the Worlds Longest Bathroom Renovation, this project does not rely on anyone else (well, an occasional helping hand to move heavy items, but ‘most everything is now where it will stay until it’s time to put the room back together), meaning that the pace is determined purely by my enthusiasm and/or determination. Which, at the moment, is/are pretty high.

Sadly, this doesn’t mix well with my intentions to blog more often. I do a chunk of work, then give myself a break and sit down to attempt to compose a post, only to find myself googling, “restoring hardwood floors” or “dismantling curio cabinets” or “latex paint over oil-based stain”… and there I go, down the renovation rabbit hole!

Some of this single-mindedness is because I enjoy the feeling of pleasant productivity but some of it is simply because I need this project finished in a couple of months… because I have to sail into painting the exterior of my house this summer. (*blergh* ) I let the bathroom project take top priority last summer and am now reaping the rewards of that negligence. (It’s kind of amazing how quickly a house can start to look run-down.) So, action must be taken.

It’s also amazing how much more of my time this crap sucks up as I move gently through the years. (*ahem*) My body is less resilient, my speed is somewhat diminished. The spirit is willing and the flesh does its best - however comma but…

I have not given up on Blogland, friends, but I also haven’t yet managed the appropriate adaptations that will let me get done All The Things and still have time for posts that are more than fluffy little bits of someone else’s work. I’m trying to figure it out, I promise. 

In the meantime, I do have a plan:

Who Knew?!?

I had no idea this man was Irish...!

The Missed Opportunity

Because if ever there was a mash up made in heaven...!

Fragmented Finale

Well, February Fragments is wrapping up for another year.

I know my February posts aren’t top-heavy with content and may feel like a cheat to some but the project still serves my originally stated purpose:

I really like the idea of making a commitment to blogging something each day . . .  It occurred to me  . . . that I have an "odd bits" folder full of silly pictures, snippets, and fragments of blog posts that I've never quite been able to whip into full-blown post form.

   hmmm...

The exercise might even have a tertiary benefit, besides giving me a small challenge and cleaning out my junk folder. I know I've mentioned this before but I have an unfortunate tendency to fall into a February Funk. Cabin fever strikes and I just generally get a case of the big ol' fat and ugly blues. So it struck me that perhaps a month of February Fragments might help liven up my sometimes dire month.

The fragments are random, often vanilla, and generally pretty darned short.

But I'm hoping that we'll all have fun, me with gathering them and you with reading them.

Thank you all who come along with me.

I know I usually end the month with a picture of some lovely place where we can all go and vacation together but, well, there’s still a pandemic out there. So I’m thinking maybe this year, we should just Zoom from a safe location of our choosing.

This is where I’ll be:

Let me know and I’ll send out the invites! :-D

See you in March…

The Perpetual Struggle

 

Life Tip #61

 

The Fortune Cookie Writer Saw Me Coming

 Because seriously, is this me, or what?

(Altho’ I must say that balance may be more than that, but I still consider any day where I manage to achieve the minimum standard to be a good one!)

Of Safe Words and Traffic Signals

My safewords are pretty standard:

  Green is “I’m good, keep going”

  Yellow is “Don’t stop… but please take your foot off the gas”

  Red is “Stop - Now!”

One lovely thing about being together so long, however, is that I rarely need to use any of them, because BG is very, very good at reading my body language and will generally have reacted accordingly even before I need to channel a traffic light.

This is particularly useful as I am a child of Southern New England.

You know, the place where we hold this truth to be self-evident…

Not a good time for confusion to set in...

My Fickle Fictional Heart

I won't lie - I do this.

Of course, I also suffer from fictional infidelity, since my affections careen wildly between Charles Cornick and Jamie Fraser. (Perhaps both? “Yoohooo, boys…!”)

But lately, I've thrown over these men and given my devotion completely to a fictional place, 

because I’m officially in love with Three Pines.

I want to go there. No, I want to live there.

I want a boulangerie around the corner and a bookstore with comfy chairs.

I want to eat 3 out of 4 meals at Olivier’s bistro. 

(All others being potlucks served at a kitchen table holding one of Myrna’s bouquets.)

I want to be sassed by Gabri, I want to look out my windows and watch Ruth walk her duck.

I want to help Clara get the cracker crumbs out of her hair.

I want Inspector Gamache to wave at me as he walks past with the dogs.

I do not consider this too much to ask. :-)

The Unusual ℞

but I’m preeeetty sure this is what he meant…!

A Little Something For Monday...

I thought I’d used this already but I can’t find where I did…

So here you go:

***********

You’re welcome.

😁

Music to Snooze By

It’s a big, heavy vehicle that scrapes and scoops the snow before it - you don’t tend to think of it as producing a wide range of sounds - but a snow plow can perform a symphony of sounds, all in itself.

The snow sets the stage, blanketing the world in a thick, expectant hush. 

Gradually, we hear the opening notes… a low, near-subliminal rumble in the distance, gaining in strength as it approaches. Then a growl superimposes itself… which shifts into a sustained scraping, which crescendos until finally a whoosh! of spraying snow joins in, soaring above the other sounds as it arcs away from the plow…  

The tempo slows and volume gentles as the truck stops to pack its load safely to the side. A moment of silence, rhythmic beeping as it backs away, a pause... until the BANG! of a blade dropping down punctuates the end of this movement. 

Gears roar as the vehicle pulls back onto the road and starts off on the next stretch. 

The growl fades, the rumble dies… and silence reigns again.

In Which I Ramble

I broke out my latest book with thoughts of doing a Whatcha Readin’ Wednesday, but got no farther than the epigraph before I went tumbling down a rabbit hole. So “Eleanor Oliphant” is on hold. First, come visit the bunnies with me…

The quotation that sent me onto this tangent was from Olivia Laing's “The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone” :

“Loneliness is hallmarked by an intense desire to bring the experience to a close; something which cannot be achieved by sheer willpower, or by simply getting out more, but only by developing intimate connections. This is far easier said than done… the lonelier a person gets, the less adept they become at navigating social currents… Loneliness is accretive, extending and perpetuating itself. Once it becomes impacted, it is by no means easy to dislodge”

And the bells rang.

You see, a while back, a number of bloggers had posted their thoughts on friendship. I didn't because I found I had trouble putting my thoughts together in a way that didn’t sound self-aggrandizing or patronizing. In the end, the entire post was put on ice until I could find a way around the Dutch uncle trying to hog the limelight. But these words of Ms. Laing… they hit at the heart of the thoughts I had been struggling to express, so I’m going to try again…

A lot of the posts during that phase seemed to be written from the perspective of “don’t have many friends and that’s ok” - and I get that, I really do. I’m almost too comfortable with my own company; know very few people whose interests cover the same range as mine; and am frequently a complete social misfit. (Particularly upon first acquaintance, when I tend to pingpong between too bashful to speak and so arrogant, it’s amazing nobody has ever smacked me.) Forming connections is a LOT more work than just staying insular.

BUT - I’ve also learned the hard way that no matter how comfortable I am alone, I still need some degree of social contact to keep me from turtling down into those small, comfortingly dark inner places - and once there, the longer I stay, the more daunting it is to come back out to the light of day. I become tentative and unsure, a bit scared to poke my head up. Alone will start off as a retreat but increasingly becomes an unwanted confinement. Been there, done that, still have the pitons needed to climb out of that pit…

 

It’s not easy to make friends, tho’, is it? Especially not as an adult, where 98% of the people you meet are already entrenched in their own existing circles and not particularly open to forming adjunct relationships. Again, I can understand. It takes effort to establish new connections and who has time for that when they’re already all booked up? When you are content, you don’t stop to think that maybe someday your marriage will break up, or your friends will move away (or worse) and your currently-sufficient circle will shrink. All you know is that “Eh, she seems nice but I just don’t have room/time right now.”

And even when you do find someone who seems open to forming a friendship, as a lonely person, you have to be on guard against that tendency to rush the intimacy level, lest you come off as desperate - which nobody wants to be either seen as, or pursued by. 

What ended up working for me was when I eventually realized (or maybe accepted?) that “friend” does not have mean someone who’s close and compatible with every part of me. That’s the ideal, of course, but even “minor” friendships can serve to keep me feeling like a functioning member of humanity. Maybe my shopping buddy or pizza pal won’t turn into the deeper BFF type of relationship, but the smaller connections still serve to keep me open and receptive to people and possibilities. And like anything else in life, when you relax about something, it tends to get easier.

I dunno... that was a whole lot of words I just wrote.

Did any of them make sense, or did I miss the boat yet again?

Oh well. Using up the unpolished bits is what February Fragments are for…

In Which I Laughed and Laughed

This may not do it for everyone but I absolutely howled…

      (and yeah, maybe looked up the answer.)

Truth in Art

 This:

Which I want on a t-shirt, btw...

because, this:

Sometimes I despair of myself...

Default Settings

Once upon a time, someone somewhere had started a conversation about penis pix and the baffling belief males seem to hold that women are actually going to be turned on by unsolicited photos of men's junk. (And may I just mention once again: WRONG!)

During the course of that conversation, gg made the observation that, “penis pictures are - well - ugly. Even the most perfect penis needs context.”

I absolutely loved that utterance, and repeated it to BG. He chuckled… but I could see the wheels turning. A few days later, this arrived, along with the suggestion that I might want adopt this as my starting point when forming any frame of reference. 

Men really are infinitely predictable...

For Fondles

If you read her, you’ll understand why…

Today's Plan

It IS a holiday weekend, after all!

Be My Pandemic Valentine

It's been a weird-ass year no matter how you look at it, full of much that disappoints me about humanity. But today is dedicated to love, so let us have no stories of disappointment. Instead, I give you a tale of surpassed expectations - because this is the story of the year with my Dom.

Now, BG & I don’t have a perfect relationship by any means. We mean a lot to each other but we have a long history of never managing to be on the same page at the same time. Frankly, if you had asked me last Christmas where we’d be in 2021, I would have expressed doubt that he & I would make it that far. If you’d asked me just after Covid-19 took center stage, I would have sworn to you that this would be the final nail in our coffin. I really thought pandemic life would break us.

Yet here we are, a year later. Life in a pandemic has taken its toll, of course. He & I see each other rarely, go through phases of how well we stay in touch, and have suffered some inevitable drift as a result, yet somehow, we’ve also ended up a lot stronger. Which may seem oxymoronic, depending on how you determine the strength of your relationship, but I stand by it. We’ve shifted and changed but we’ve also learned to recognize (and relax into) just how strong our connection is.

We may yet part… but it won’t be because we broke.

Which is a realization we might never have reached without covid to test us.

Altho' I'm not sure this knowledge is worth not being able to be in the same room together...

Because this kind of remote teasing just doesn’t have the same impact as, 

well, actual impact.