Insubordinate

I was fired for "insubordination" from the very first real job I held. Though I wasn't told that at the time. I'd worked there for two and a half years, starting part-time while still in college and going full-time when I graduated. It was just a file clerk/errand-runner job in a huge law firm. As far as I knew, I was well-liked and applied myself to the job with the 'no matter what you do, do it well' philosophy that I've always believed. I don't do things half-assed. Yeah, I fall down a lot, but I get back up. Sometimes I dust myself off, sometimes I don't. A little dirt never hurts.

It was the end of a Monday afternoon, everyone leaving for the day, when the office manager called me in, and proceeded to tell me "we have to let you go," and that I was really over-qualified for the job, and I should have no problem finding a job in my field. Yeah right. I'd just graduated six months before with a degree in Geology and I'd kept working the file clerk job hoping to save up enough money so I could hit the road in my old VW camper van looking for a job since I was lucky enough to finish up with school just as all the likely jobs dried up. It was the times. I'd had to move and get rid of my VW in those six months, I had rent and other bills to pay.  Needless to say, I was stunned into silence.

The real reason I was fired is probably a couple of reasons. They were probably paying me too much for the job, but they'd just given me a large raise two months before (in a fit of -we're expanding and doing so awesome that we want to reward everyone even though we really can't afford to-ness). And, I'd been working there long enough to feel comfortable with everyone, and since I don't have a single shred of reverence for hierarchy, I worked with a familiarity with everyone that, until a couple weeks before, had never been questioned.

One of my jobs had always been to take sandwich orders from the lawyers working on their lunch hour. I'd go office to office and ask. Never a problem with that. For two and a half years. But at some point, after the office expansion and remodel and new names added to the masthead (then up to six - I can still rattle the list off like it was yesterday - but I'm not typing it here), one of the newly promoted (though not to the masthead and maybe that's why) lawyers decided he didn't like being approached in his new corner office by a lowly file clerk, and it was decided I should go through the secretaries. But because I wasn't invited to the office meetings where new office procedures (aka RULES) were announced, and nobody told me afterwards, one day I went in and asked him for his sandwich order. Silly me. He didn't get angry or anything. Just told me that I needed to go through his secretary from now on. Huh? It made NO FUCKING SENSE to me. But I complied. Still, I was soon out of a job.

When I went for unemployment was the first I heard of the "insubordination" charge. I told my side. The unemployment folks believed me but told me the law firm might fight it. They didn't. I think they knew. I learned a valuable lesson then. Though some folks might say I didn't learn anything, LOL.

I remain insubordinate.  Hierarchy be damned. Gets me in trouble time and time again. People love their hierarchies, their chain-of-command, their power. I hate them. And have been known to disregard them time and time again. And while I'm in the middle of it, I can be a basket case of self-doubt. What are you doing Robin? You'll get yourself fired. You'll get your husband fired. Your family will hate you. Your friends will desert you. But looking back on all those times, I don't regret a single one. I'm glad I stood my ground. It may not have worked out. And yeah, I've thrashed a bit in my disappointment.

This is a bit of thrashing. It's hard for me to stand my ground when people I care about see things differently. I am a child of alcoholics, always wanting to keep peace, sometimes at any cost. The cost has been too high at times. And now I am old enough to realize that it's time to live my life as I see fit, as I want to. The signs are everywhere, popping up in front of me and to each side. Signs are what we make of them. I am seeing. I am listening.

I started reading Cheryl Strayed's Wild, about her trek along the Pacific Crest Trail, after picking it up at a reading of hers. You know how sometimes the perfect book to read shows up at just the perfect time? After the reading I had her sign my "Write Like A Motherfucker" mug.  Yeah, signs.

I'm sure I will piss many people off. Make just about everyone uncomfortable. I also know that I'll backslide. A lot. But I will pick myself up and go on with skinned elbows and knees. And I will love big and aim true.

And damn! I wanted to add a photo at the beginning of this post, one of Randy Lagana's and can't. Not sure what is up with that. I've used it before on this blog. Oh well. I'll figure it out another time.

Thoughts on years of blogging.

When I first started this blog, way back in mid-December 2008, it was because I figured I needed some sort of place to hang my virtual-hat as I ventured into the world of erotica. I'd started entering Alison Tyler's short short story contests, and other folks seemed to have a home base, so I would too!

At first I was pretty sure I was just talking to myself. And I was okay with that. I didn't get any comments that December. But I was venturing out and commenting on other blogs and thought "well, at some point someone will follow me home." That sounds kinda creepy, doesn't it? LOL.

I did my first post of 2009 on Jan. 5. That day I'd sent off my first erotica submission, a story I'd written many years before. But I got 2 comments from other erotica author/bloggers. The very first one was from Jeremy Edwards. That's cool, because I couldn't remember who had first commented on my blog (I went looking as I started this post), and now Jeremy is someone who, with his lovely wife Helia Brookes, are real world friends. As are many of the friends I've made through the virtual world of erotica blogs.

The other comment was from EllaRegina, whose entry in that first contest, spurred my entrance. I did get to meet her IRL, but she's been scarce these days. I hope she is well.

That year, 2009, was my most prolific year blogging, with 233 posts. I was drawn out of my shell, and that was the year I befriended artist Randy Lagana, whose work I was familiar with from a project that had been abandoned about four or five years before. I wanted to use some of his photography, etc. to illustrate my blog. I've never been one much for grabbing things off the web. I take/took a lot of my own photographs and if I used somebody else's work, I asked first. For the most part. That's just how I am.

I did an interview series with Randy, in three parts: 1, 2, 3. I should probably go back and read them. It's been awhile since I have. I had coffee with Randy this morning. We're now working together on the revival of that long-ago abandoned project, a poetry and photography journal: Stark. Randy has been taking nude photos of the poets that are included in the collection, some of them from the original selection of poets, some new. I'm one of the original ones, and I've not had my photo shoot yet. Soon.

He met me when I was new at all this, and full of enthusiasm and tentativeness. Now, not many people read this blog. I don't post often, and I'm sure those two things are interrelated. This post is an attempt to correct that. I started off blogging despite having no readers. In a way that gave me the freedom to write whatever I felt like.

Think I'm gonna try that again.

The non-perils of sex writing

A few days ago, a friend sent me a link to an interview in the Paris Review: Nicholson Baker, The Art of Fiction No. 212.   Though I'd been intrigued over the years with various titles of his, I'd not read any of his books yet. When House of Holes came out last year, I put it on my mental "to read" list, but of course our library doesn't have it (or any of his sexually-themed books). I've since checked out The Mezzanine (his first novel) from the library and started it last night. I think I've found another writer whose strange work I love.

The interview is long, and I had to read it in chunks because I was otherwise occupied. But it is well worth the time. What I most loved about the interview was Mr. Baker's answer to the question "Can we talk a little about the perils of sex writing?" Mr. Baker answered "Yes. There aren't any."!!! :-)

I would love to know if the interviewer was as flummoxed as it seemed. A little further on, Mr. Baker is asked "Is writing about sex arousing for you as you’re writing it?" and part of his answer is the whole reason for this post. "There’s no point in doing it if it isn’t arousing to some degree. Erotic-romance novelists talk about, after certain chapters, taking a “fun break.” You’re imagining all these wild, explicit things. I think it would be really perverse to sit there completely unmoved."

But we, as in those of us who write erotica/smut/porn/whatever already know that. ;-)

Something about reading this review made me very happy. Nicholson Baker had much more to say about "sex writing," so go read the interview. It's great!

Sexy Mama blogging at Good Vibrations blog

In a fit of confidence and bravery, I answered a call from Charlie Glickman, that I saw on Facebook, for bloggers (especially for their Sexy Mama series) for The Buzz/Good Vibrations Online Magazine. And got the job!

I'd heard Charlie speak at Momentum, and have been reading his stuff for awhile. I sent some writing samples (from here and other places), and it meant a lot to have him say that he likes my writing style.

I'll be blogging mainly about sex and parenting, though I gather whatever tickles my fancy is fine. I'm thrilled to get a chance to pursue some subjects in a way that didn't feel quite right for this or other venues. I opted to write as Erobintica, for a bunch of reasons. I'll write about those another time, but for now...

Here's my first post: Hard To Teach If You Didn't Learn

Accepted into Best Erotic Romance 2!!!

Sorry this is a bit late being posted, but Kristina Wright, accepted my story "Another Chance" for inclusion in Best Erotic Romance 2013 (or BER 2)!!!!

It's an honor to be sharing the pages with these folks. And I'd find links to folks's sites, but my laptop is being real slow. Maybe I'll add them another time. Yeah, am thrilled!!!!!

BEST EROTIC ROMANCE 2013

Table of Contents




Foreword                                                            Saskia Walker

Introduction: Can’t Get Enough

Kiss and Make Up                                                Heidi Champa

Waiting for Ilya                                                Teresa Noelle Roberts

Three Nights Before the Wedding                        Catherine Paulssen

Flowering                                                            Donna George Storey                       

Teach Me                                                            Jeanette Grey

Last Hundred Days                                                Geneva King

The Price of Love                                                Kate Pearce

Another Chance                                                Erobintica

Cutting Out Hearts                                                Kristina Lloyd

Chocolate Cake and You                                    Victoria Blisse

Adagio                                                            Torrance Sené

Nothing Important Happened Today                     A.M. Hartnett

Renovate                                                            Nina Reyes

Trouble in Paradise                                                Crystal Jordan

Kiss of Peace                                                Dominic Santi                       

Grounded                                                            Nikki Magennis

Sweet Memories                                                Kristina Wright

On getting a very nice review

Yesterday, thanks to Emerald, I got to read this really nice review (of Suite Encounters: Hotel Sex Stories) at Erotica Revealed. She (Em) wanted me to see this because the reviewer, Nathan Burgoine, said some especially nice words about my story, "Return to the Nonchalant Inn."

On a completely different note, “Return to the Nonchalant Inn” by Erobintica was a lovely piece with a man and a woman reminiscing on the erotic adventures of their youth – but from a vantage point of an older, wiser – and still sexually heated – perspective. I think the inclusion of this story, with a woman confident and content in her mature body, was an absolute win for the collection – and a very strong reminder that eroticism doesn’t die with the passing of years.

I've been reading that over and over again. And at times it makes me choke up. I'm 54. Not getting any younger. And as I said in my last post, I was afraid "Erobintica" was fading away. Yeah, in a way I think I've been mourning some lost youth that I never really had, because back then, I was not wiser and I sure as hell wasn't confident, or even content in my younger body. But these past few years, Erobintica has been a journey for me. And I'm learning something new about myself every day. Sometimes I like what I learn, sometimes I don't.

Or more exactly, I don't like some things about me, even though they may be crucial to who I am. Who I will be happy as. When you deny parts of yourself, you shut yourself off from being "confident and content." I've always been worried about what people (those amorphous "people") would think and worried that those who mean a lot to me wouldn't like who I am (or want to become). But that kind of worrying and thinking is so fucking self-limiting, that it was almost as if a sign from Eros, that I saw this posted on Facebook the other day. I saved it on my desktop and even printed it out so I can glance at it often:

I've always admired that in other people. Maybe it's time to try it on for myself.

Just when I needed it most

We're just about ready to put the house on the market. The painting and refinishing and packingpackingpacking (and filling a 10 X 10 storage unit almost to the ceiling) and purging is almost done.

I've been neglecting my writing. Have only written one poem (and that was about packing) in the past several-or-more months. I think I did crank out a story or two. And I've hardly blogged at all. Not much to say.

And for awhile I kept worrying that my Erobintica days had seen their best and that she'd be slowly fading away. Because it felt like that to me. Inside. Where the spark for her lived. Yeah, I was thinking past-tense when it came to my erotic core. I won't enumerate the reasons for that. Because I discovered she wasn't gone, just asleep.

Several good, no, make that great! things have happened lately, to give me a bit of a boost just when I needed it most. Some I can write about, some I can't. But let's just say that I'm back and ready to gaze below the surface again. :)