A Weekend

Sitting here typing this up on my friend's couch after having spent a night in my hometown (sorta - this isn't the exact location - but the same metro area) - Philly. Yesterday we walked by the two houses, both in the same neighborhood, where I lived when I was little. My family moved from here to the San Francisco Bay Area when I was eight, going on nine years old. I never returned until about fifteen years ago. My husband had taken a job on the east coast and we moved our two daughters across country. My son was born after the move. One year my husband had a trade show to attend here in the Philly area and we brought the kids along and while he was busy, I drove us around and found the old sights. It's strange. Some things are familiar. But not in the way that something that you've lived with for a long time are familiar. 

Plus, so much has happened with me in those intervening fifteen years since I first returned here. I may be pondering this for days.

Not exactly pick up sticks

Straddling the "Big MF" beam

 This guy measures 9inches by 10 inches by ... 18 FEET! This is about 2/3 of the old timbers we moved this weekend. Mr. E and I. As in by ourselves. The beam above is not the longest (that honor goes to a 6"x6"x22' beam), but it is the most impressive. We inventoried all the timbers and that's what we called this one - the Big MF.

Not much time to write more - I've got to go to the dentist. I may update this later, if I feel up to it. And for those wondering, I broke ground on my writing cabin, but that's it. We needed to get these sticks moved.

Quiet for a few days

Tomorrow (Friday) morning Mr. E and I are heading up to Maine for the weekend to camp and work on our land. Hoping to get the footings dug and poured for my writing cabin. Is that too much to hope for? There is lots of other work to do too. The weather looks like it should be cooperative, though I imagine the bugs are out now. 

I'm also planning on taking some time to just sit and write. Not sure what I'll write, poems, erotica, essays, maybe some notes for my novel. I won't be taking my computer. No power, no internet, no point.  

Right now it'll be nice to be up there and have some "quiet." Yeah, there are roads and neighbors, but they're not right on top of us. And I don't feel quite as conflicted about leaving my son behind (he usually fends for himself when we go up) because his older sister is home from college (with car to go to grocery store). My only regret is it's only till Sunday. 

In the meantime, this blog will be quiet. Maybe sitting by the stream soaking its tootsies.

Insomnia

I'm writing this blog post at five thirty am. I am awake, been awake since three. This is not like me. I like my sleep. Haven't had problems sleeping for some time. The thing about being awake in the middle of the night is that I start thinking. And with nothing to distract me I usually end up stuck with one set of thoughts that run circles around me. A feedback loop.

This morning I was thinking about friends and love and all that. I was wondering why I love the people I do. It's not because of what they do or don't do, what they say or don't say. It's not even because of who they are, the type of person they are. I love them just because I love them. I think that's why my love survives. My love is not based on anything. It just is. 

I get sad sometimes. People that I love do things that make me sad, upset me, bother me, irritate me, piss me off to no end, etc. ad nauseum. And I've always worried that when (if) I let them know that something they're doing isn't going over well, that they will no longer love me. That's thinking that is so deeply ingrained, from so long ago, that I sometimes wonder if I'm stuck with it for life.

But one thing that I've been doing differently, or trying to, lately, is be true to myself. I wasn't always, in fact often wasn't. Sometimes, oftentimes, that is hard, because I know that being true to myself means not pleasing someone else. And that starts a feedback loop. 

early morning thoughts

while sky lightens

birds sing awake

clock ticks

Thinking tangled thoughts out loud

My thoughts are tangled today, they've been tangled for days. I've been doing a lot of opening up lately. For the most part it's good. Exciting. But I also find myself wanting to close up. But I seem to have misplaced my shell. When I do think of just crawling inside and hiding out, the first thought that pops into my head is "can't do that, too much to do."

Is my busyness a protective mechanism to keep me from withdrawing from the world during this "stage" of my life? It could very well be. I don't like to let people down. So I commit to things in order to not give myself a chance to back out. But the flip side of that coin is that when circumstances occur that result in me letting someone down, I can tear myself up pretty good.

Why the hell am I admitting this? Shouldn't I be trying to convince everyone how invincible I am? Ha! Excuse me while I choke on my coffee.

An Oldie but goodie

Happy Dance!

This morning I got my first post at We Who Are About To Die up! It's scary and exciting for me to do this (see yesterday's post). And I got more happy news in email last night. And it's not raining today!

And you know what's the best part? Is that I used to, when good stuff like this happened, be looking for that big ole OTHER SHOE to drop. But not today. Maybe because I'm just being myself and not trying to be something that I think other people want me to be, or expect me to be, or think I should be.

So damn excited!

Not sure why exactly I find this so exciting, but I do. I'm now going to be a contributor to the fairly new blog We Who Are About To Die! If you go to the contributors page and scroll down, you'll find me! I have no fucking clue what I'm going to contribute, but I will find stuff. I always find stuff. It'll be fun since I have such weird, eclectic tastes for a middle-aged woman. Ha!

So, I'll probably cross-post things as they happen. Kill two birds with one stone and all that. Ouch!

Oh, and the best part of all this? I'm doing it as the "whole" me. Yup. Pretty damn cool.   Oh, and that there's a sparkler bomb.

Early Monday morning thoughts

It's very quiet. I can hear the clock ticking and my computer making it's sounds. A cat is snoring somewhere. The sun is up, but the other people in the house are not. I'm drinking tea. It's cold, having gotten down to freezing overnight. It's May. Those two sentences shouldn't go together. Right now I'm glad I haven't been into gardening this year, or I'd be worrying about my little plants if I'd gotten to them earlier. Most years I wait till about now to do garden stuff anyway. This year I'm not sure how much I'll do. I'm more interested in getting my writing cabin built. Ever since April ended, with it's poem-a-day, I've not done much writing. Maybe I needed a week off. But now we're already ten days into May and I know I need to force myself into some routine, or before I know it, it'll be September.  Yeah, I'm not breaking this up which makes it hard to read. It's early and I'm just writing to write. I'm feeling old this morning. Introspective. I want to crawl back into bed and sleep more. It was late (or early depending on perspective) when I got to sleep, probably well after 1 AM. I'm not used to that. But there's lots I need to get done today. But to sleep again, that would be nice. I'm not a very driven individual. I slack off real well. Sometimes I wish I was. Other times I'm glad I'm not. I have a friend who is driven, you'd might even say obsessed. With dance, to the exclusion of just about everything else. On the one hand, I admire that. On the other, it makes me want to shout "Look at all else you're missing!" I wish I was as driven about my writing. I haven't worked on my novel for several months. Not sure why. Well, I can make all sorts of excuses, but that's all they'd be. Am I afraid of it? Or is it that I just can't seem to focus on any one activity for too long? All I know is time is moving much faster these days. It was just the new year, and winter, and there was all the time in the world. Or it seemed that way. But the months and weeks and days and hours and minutes and seconds go by and are gone. I don't know where I'm going. I just get up each day and do stuff. I definitely feel like I'm transitioning between eras of my life. I've embraced the erotic side of my being, and that feels great, but sometimes, like right now, I wish I hadn't of waited so long. I don't want to end this on a downer note. So, I think I'll get back into bed for a few minutes. Start over.

Because I'm in a mood today

The pill turns 50 today and Dr. Ruth has something to say about it. (I'm older than the pill!)




I love my children. But sometimes it seems that on "Mother's Day" that  love gets tested. That's all.

Mixed feelings

Nowadays my husband sends me blog fodder, and in this case took this picture while he was at an event for business. He saw these paddles and the saying on the middle one, and knowing me, he had to take a picture. Not that I'm into paddling. In fact, I've never been spanked since I was a kid and I get a little strange when I think about it. Which sometimes makes doing things like reviewing erotica that involves spanking or doing blog posts like last Tuesday's a bit ... hmmm, difficult isn't the word ... I guess I just get a little ... weird. It's quite complicated.

But back to these paddles. His impression was that the guy making these was serious, they were designed with corporal punishment in mind, and maybe did not know that they might be used for the very thing they were designed to discourage (Mr. E thought this because of some of the other items this guy had displayed). 

So, okay, paddles don't do anything for me. This I have discovered about myself. But, show me a leather flogger, and something happens. This came up because tomorrow we're going to one of those renfaire type of things (how I want to spend part of Mother's Day), and one of the vendors makes floggers (that's  not the vendor) and I still remember how I felt the first time I saw one at their booth years ago. And I feel a little exposed here admitting this. Hahaha. But anyhow, I doubt that hubby will buy me one tomorrow. But one of these days I want one. 

Where do things like that come from? Those visceral magnets that draw us to them from someplace deep and cob-webbed. Maybe from images from books or movies or television shows. Maybe from dreams. Who knows. 

It's been a trip and a half discovering my kinks. And I'm sure I'm not done. This is probably a lifetime journey. 

Yeah, I'm introspective today. My various selves clashing and clamoring for control. Who to be today? Mom, writer, homemaker (I have a shitload of cleaning I haven't done), gardener, cook, totally wanton slut?  Do I  have to choose?

No time like the present

Here's an old poem. It's been reworked many times over the years. Was included in a one-off chapbook that I made for my husband a couple of years ago. 

Let's just say, a habit was broken today. No picture with this one, hahaha.

Habitual

Lunchtime. They sit across

from each other. Her mind turns

towards thought of

not lunch.

He turns pages. Another how-to

book spread open before his staid

reading glasses. If only

she could somehow

turn his thoughts;

make condensation that clings to his glass

remind him of sweat  trickling down flushed skin,

chips of ice pressed between teeth bring

to mind hardened nipples,

his grilled sandwich with cheese warm and melted

would evoke soft flesh between legs.

She turns back to her meal,

he closes his book, never knows

her thoughts.

Yielding: Please, Sir: Erotic Stories of Female Submission

I don't like to be bossed around. I don't consider myself to be submissive, and my husband doesn't either. But.

The idea of being restrained, of being NOT in control, of being told what to do ... why do these thoughts turn me on? Why do I get a rush when my hands are held together over my head? Why does a little bit of pain seem to make my body respond so strongly? I don't know the answer, but I do know that reading the stories in Please, Sir: Erotic Stories of Female Submission have had a much stronger effect on me than I had anticipated. (Disclaimer–I've not read all of them yet). The stories in this new collection of BDSM erotica, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel, explore "female submission and male dominance from the sub's point of view." The women in these stories are "smart enough to know that kink is not about simply embracing one's fears, but grappling with them, battling with them, taking risks and seeing if, in fact, they yield sexy rewards."

It's getting close to midnight as I type this. I know I'm resisting. I don't want to go to the places my mind is going right now. Earlier this evening, I was talking with Emerald (author of the story "Power over Power") on the phone, and she said something about "intimacy with self" (I wasn't taking notes, but I did jot this down). And I'm tired and I don't recall the exact context, but that struck a chord with me. We have to get very intimate with ourselves, to accept whatever kinkiness lies within us. Sometimes what we want is not what we think we want.

Like I said, I've not read all the stories yet. But all the ones I have, even the stories that have at their center something that I just can't wrap my mind around, have been engaging and thought-provoking as well as arousing. I would heartily recommend this book if you are taking part in NaMaMo (for National Masturbation Month). That blog was started by Shanna Germain, whose story "Anticipation" starts off Please, Sir.

Here's the book trailer for Please, Sir.




Also, at the Please, Sir blog, there are some interesting posts, including interviews with some of the authors, excerpts from the book, as well as tidbits like info about the gorgeous corset on the book cover.

While some of the stories involve pushing limits and receiving physical punishment, some are more about psychological power play, such as Donna George Storey's "Just What She Needs," which involves a reversal of sorts.

What I'm wondering right now (when it's getting so late that I really need to stop wondering) is what some of the authors felt as they were writing these stories. Were they exploring territory they are familiar with or unfamiliar with? How much is autobiographical and how much imagination? You don't have to tell which is which, LOL. Unless you want to. Also, if in the writing of the story, you discovered something about yourself that maybe you weren't as aware of before.

And if you're not in this anthology, please comment on your thoughts about the whole submission/dominance topic and how it relates to your writing (if you write).

The last line on the back of the books says it all: Find out why nothing is as hot as the power of the words "Please, Sir."

Nothing like...

having mid-July land in early May's lap. My brain is like steamed mush. Three days ago it was still getting down to thirty degrees at night. Five days ago it only got up to forty-six. When it does this kind of jump, my body can't adjust and I actually have trouble thinking. Anyone else notice that?

I was wanting to try and write an erotic poem every day this month. I have not written one. I've not written much of anything. Today I'm preparing for my spot on the Please Sir: Erotic Stories of Female Submission virtual book tour, which is tomorrow. Still not completely sure what I'm going to do for that, so stop in tomorrow. And no, I'm not in the book. I didn't even submit to it because the call came while I was really not submitting anything (I've already had my butt kicked over my lack of submission - ha!). But I did volunteer for the book tour because there's some great stories in it.

So, return tomorrow.

Lusty Month ahead

April poetry month is over! Yay!  Boo hoo! But what to do with May? Well, it's the lusty month right? And while I thought I'd write a bunch of erotic poems in April, I didn't. So, May is going to be the month of lusty poems!

More info tomorrow. I'm off to NYC today!

Happy May Day!