Going to Seattle Erotic Art Festival!

And I'll be wearing this necklace!

This year, for the first time since 2010,  I entered some literary work in the Seattle Erotic Art Festival and recently found out that two erotic poems and one erotic short story made the cut and will be presented at this year's festival [list here]. The poems are Losing Her Composure and Re: Nude Bohemian. The short story is Corner Window Table. By the way, I'd entered five items back in February, the max allowed. Think I made some good choices with this submission? ;-)

What makes this so exciting for me is that I will be in the Seattle area then and so I can attend the festival! I'm not sure, but I think I may also get a chance to read some of my work as part of the festival. I mentioned that I have plenty of experience reading my erotic work, namely at The Erotic Literary Salon in Philadelphia. I'm busy picking out an outfit - I think I have the perfect one - and it will include the necklace above. There's a story behind it. 

And if that were not great enough, my friend Randy Lagana, an artist and photographer whose work has been featured on this blog many times, has some visual work in the festival. It will be a thrill to see his work there. 

I leave for Seattle in just over a week. While I'm out there I'll be meeting with some of the folks that I met through this blog. It's been a life-changer in so many ways. I'll also be spending time with family, and that's the main reason I'm going. SEAF is just a bonus. 

Lots going on and lots to do between now and then, but I need to start posting here more often. 

Pieced together

Pieced Together

             ~ for Anne Marie Marra (June 1953 - March 2009)

You taught me quilting, how to cut the pieces of fabric

just so, the pressing and stitching and pressing, the angles.

Afternoons or mornings spent reveling in colors and patterns

trying to find ones that would be just right for this project,

this comforting lap quilt in memory of a friend who left us,

bereft and full of questions. We found fabrics that seemed

prescient in their design: the brick wall, the timbers, the clocks.

While we worked, we talked, found connections along with 

complimentary shades of green, of pinks, and contrasts, too.

We talked of the complications of the heart, nature's wonders,

how we grieved, and wished for Spring. It was a hard winter. 

Frozen silences punctuated, and I was too shy to push, 

even though my heart told me to. I know better

than to blame myself, but I'll always wonder what if...?

Late winter at the labyrinth, then the fabric store,

after weeks of quiet from you. I couldn't know. 

You'd left the quilt unfinished. One day, sometime later,

the pieces were passed on to me, and I, in my grief,

pieced it together, quilted it, bound it, completed it.

Delivered it to its intended recipient. It was hard to part with.

We'd talked about that. We'd dreamed of collaborations.

I'd thought we were talking of the future. But today, as I type

these words, trying not to let tears fall on my keyboard,

I think of the past five years, and how different they might

have been. Now I know why I cling. And tears can't be typed.

I haven't quilted since, though I'm always piecing things together,

words, stories, logs and mortar. I'm older now than you were then.

And yes, I know despair. It's deep and dark and draws eyes to close.

But, there are trees and birds and rocks and streams that need to be seen. 

Stories we tell

We are the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Or are we? Our story may look completely different from another's point of view. Our story can vary depending on where we are at when we look at it. A different point in life can lend a new light. Sometimes we forget part of our own story. I think that's one reason we write it down. But the story can change even in the act of writing it. Which one is the REAL story? Is there one, only one? How many stories can one life hold?


This evening I took a walk after dinner. One of the few benefits of Daylight Savings Time is being able to walk in the evening. It was cold though, below freezing, so I didn't walk for very long, less than half an hour. While I walked, I thought of stories. The ones I read. The ones I write. The ones I tell myself about my life. The ones I tell myself about the world, and the people in it, both those close and those distant. All the stories are told as a way to figure out why.

When I was young, very young, I was taught that it was bad to tell stories. Even if they were true. So I kept my stories to myself. But they've always clamored to come out and play, so as I got older I let them out once in awhile. But I make sure they stay in the yard. That's called self-censorship. I'm good at it. Too good. It hobbles my stories. They pace the fence line, wearing the ground bare. You've seen the animals in the zoo? Pacing. Around and around and around. Never quite getting to where they want to go.

There's a mess of stories I want to/need to tell. And I have to let them jump the fence in order to do so. Some of them have been pacing the fence line for a long time, and I'm not sure what they'll do once they're free. Others haven't been caged long at all, and their muscles are not atrophied, and I'm hoping they'll lead the way.

Some of them will be sex stories–erotica–because hey, it's me writing. But there's a lot more to me, much of it kind of heavy, and those stories need to be let out too. My head's kinda full. What's going to be interesting is that some of the stories are about heavy and about sex. Those may be the first out of the cage.

How many stories can one hold back and not go crazy?

Deadlines!

Been beating my head against a brick wall deadline, trying to get back into the erotica-writing groove. Actually surprised at how many words I've been able to bang out. But of course I'm still in the this-isn't-any-good frame of mind. But I'm trying to be hardheaded about it and do it anyway. Just sending the submission is my goal, not being accepted.

Then, while looking up something unrelated (sorta), I found out that today is the deadline to enter literary works for the Seattle Erotic Art Festival.

I'm gonna try because a few years ago..http://erobintica.blogspot.com/2010/04/seaf.html.

Gonna need lots of coffee today/tonight. Back to turn off wifi again.

Five years come and gone

This picture was taken in late afternoon today. A beautiful, winter sky. There's much that I've been pondering lately. Yeah, I ponder a lot. Ha! If you've ever read this blog - back in the day - for long, you know I ponder. And muse. And get all thinky. It's what I do, how I write.

I've had this blog for more than five years now. I started it in December of 2008, as I was gathering the courage to send off a piece of erotica for a submission call. I'd written the story almost twenty years earlier, but had recently edited it a bit. That piece was "Wet As Spring", and it was accepted and published in Coming Together: Al Fresco, an ebook. My first print publication (of erotica, my poetry's been published in many places) was my story "Till the Storm Breaks" in Best Erotic Romance. That was in 2011, three years after I started my blog. I've now had eight (8) stories published. That doesn't seem like much to me. I'm not very prolific, especially these days.

This evening I've been thinking about the friends I made through blogging. Many of them are now real-life friends, people I've shared meals with, read erotica in public with, have come to care about. Some that I've met live too far away to get together with, but I'm sure if one or the other is in the same area in the future, we will make every effort to meet up. Some I have yet to meet, and I look forward to the day I will. There is a special ... joy and ease when you meet other folks that get joy out of writing erotica (and yeah, there's more than one kind of joy, hahaha). Because we write out what amounts to our sexual fantasies (in some form or another), put them on the page (paper or digital) for others to read, there always seemed to be a sort of freedom in our conversations, no matter the topic.

Yeah, I miss those days when we'd hang out on our blogs and be able to write long, thoughtful posts, or short funny one, or anything along the continuum, and have thoughtful or fun - or both! - conversations in the comments. And yeah, I realize it was just one chapter, and the page must be turned. Still, I keep this place, my little bit of cyberspace, and post once in a while. I still get a fair number of hits, and I'm pleased to see a bit more wide-ranging reading going on, not just my blow job or BDSM posts (the 50 shades effect).

I want to write more here. But I don't know what to write about. And yeah, this is old, tired ground. But we do tend to travel the same paths. I'm getting the itch to write some erotica again. It's been awhile since I've written any. I feel out-of-practice. Wish me luck.

Five years ago, on Tuesday, January 27, 2009, I wrote not one, but three blog posts! This is one of them: http://erobintica.blogspot.com/2009/01/beneath-surface.html. The picture I'm talking about in that post is now gone, a casualty of changing blog themes. I could never figure out how to place it back where I had it with the new template. But here it is. I'm still looking below the surface.

Contemplating the end of a hiatus

Has Santa Woody been reading? 

Yeah, it's been awhile since I've blogged. Sorta took a hiatus from erotica this year. Not written much. Didn't submit much. Did have a number of pieces get published though. Got my fingers crossed for a couple more. I should start writing again. I think I'm ready.

And I realize that I took down all the links in my sidebar. Guess I'll have to add them back and see what happens. In the meantime, links can be found on my Erotica page above.

Hard to believe that I used to post here so often. While I don't think I'll be as prolific as I used to be here, I am going to try and post more often. With stuff that is interesting. I hope.

In an attempt to save my blog from just disappearing...

I've removed all the sidebar information that could at all be construed as an ad for an "adult site" - even though I've never made A PENNY from this blog ever. I don't have the time or the heart to try and move this blog from blogger. 

This holds years of my writing. And yeah, it's probably archived somewhere. But still...

http://www.zdnet.com/googles-blogger-to-delete-all-adult-blogs-with-ads-in-three-days-7000017451/

A bit of an update

So, I just noticed that there were several posts that had never been posted, that were saved as drafts. Some of them were more than 2 years old. Don't know if I'll go back and finish them and post them, or rewrite them, or just leave them, or delete them. Since I'm not sure which, I'm doing nothing about it right now. ;-)

Pretty soon I'll be adding a couple of new anthologies over there on the right, and on my links page. I've sent a few things out this year, but not much, and I've not been very prolific. In fact, writing is still a struggle. But, I'm keeping at it. Slowly. Painfully. LOL.

The weirdest thing is that I've now told my sister about my erotica writing, this blog, etc. I hadn't before. Various reasons. But now she's on Facebook and sent me a friend request. Those of you who know me there, know I'm miss postalot. And I'm not real shy. But this is going to be interesting. She'll be seeing a side of me that I don't think she ever has. Or if she has, she's never said anything.

I keep forgetting to blog. I've been pretty scattered the past six months. And most of my pageviews are for older posts anyhow. But, I need to start doing this more. It's practice. We'll see.

When inspiration strikes

There's a lot of debate among writers about waiting for inspiration versus just sitting down and putting in the time. Seems whatever it is that a particular writer does, they think that is the best way to do it. Thing is, I think there is a spectrum and writers are scattered all along it. Some just sit down, same time same place, every day, and write. That's all fine and good, but that doesn't work for me if I don't already have something I'm working on. I just end up sitting there, watching the cursor blink.

I've been pretty stuck lately. While I've written about 60 pages of poetry (yeah, I know, that doesn't sound stuck), most of that hasn't even been typed into the computer and it sure hasn't been edited. A lot of that is just emotional spewing on the page, trying to get the events of December 14 and aftermath out of my head and onto the page. Have no idea if those words will ever be sent out. They're sitting for now.

Writing erotica has not back come easily. I wrote one little piece for my own whatever. I haven't been able to get back to any of the novels I was working on (or thinking about working on). I've let plenty of submission calls pass by. Even when I felt the words piling up behind my mental levee, I couldn't open the floodgates. I kept having this image of myself, finger in the dike, while cracks and leaks developed all around me. The words were there, I just didn't want to let them flow.

How come? Because I knew what those words wanted to say. And that knowledge terrified me. Yeah, I'm just another neurotic writer.

Then something clicked in me, late in the afternoon, while I puttered in the kitchen fixing dinner. After doing the dishes, I took a walk, and jotted hard-to-read notes to myself in my little notebook I carry in my back pocket when I walk (it lives in my purse otherwise). Also, a couple of songs popped into my head: Ani Difranco's In or Out, and Talking Heads' Burning Down the House.

I came home, made myself a drink and started typing. Only got about 500 words down, but it's a start. I know what it's about, but I can't say what it's about yet, since it's still forming. Yeah, there will be sex in it, because I am writing it, but it's about ... everything. Don't know if it will be any good, but it wants to be written.

Doing it in public...

Reading from "Another Chance."

...reading erotica that is.

This weekend I'll get a chance to read part of my just published story "To Bed" in front of a who-knows-how-big crowd at CatalystCon East. I'm also going to read an erotic poem. Someone asked me once, "how do you do it?" in reference to reading my erotic work in front of an audience. And I've thought about that a lot. [Duh, if you know me, you know I think a lot about a lot of things.]

I was one of those kids who would feel sick to my stomach if I had to get up in front of the class. Same thing in college. But when I became a mom, I suddenly found myself having to speak for my kids as well as other kids, and that was so important, that I found a way to squeeze past my fear of speaking in public. I led volunteer meetings for new & experienced breastfeeding moms for years. Spoke at conferences. But reading or performing your own work, your own words, is very different.

About twelve years ago I started going to a weekly poetry series. I was writing poetry at the time - lots of angsty stuff since I was dealing with some old issues, but not sharing it. Finally, after weeks of being asked if I wanted to read in the open mike, I got up the nerve to read a couple of poems. And I didn't go back for months it seemed like. But eventually I did go back. And eventually I got "used to" reading my work. Some of it.

Some stuff I wouldn't read. But I did share it with my writing group, and when we decided to form a performance troupe [I'd never "performed" really before], when we worked on picking which poems to do, it was my more erotic pieces that were favorites. So, I gathered up my thin threads of bravery into a ball and "went on the road" performing poetry, including some of those erotic poems. Off page, in front of people.

Reading at The Erotic Literary Salon in Philadelphia

Now, ten years later, reading poetry or my erotica in front of folks doesn't phase me at all. That's not me being all brave and shit, it's not that I don't get nervous. I do. But I've also read enough to know that it's important for people to hear this stuff read without shame. Thank you The Erotic Literary Salon.

Yeah. Shame. Our culture and society attaches such shame to anything to do with REAL sex, that some really weird things happen. We can have 10 story high advertisements on the sides of buildings for underwear [no sex there, just move along folks], but try to have a beautiful black and white photo of a naked couple curled up together on the cover of an erotica anthology, and that behemoth online book sales place has a conniption fit. If you look over to the right, on the sidebar (you may need to scroll), there is a picture of Susana Mayer's SenSexual: A Unique Anthology. Those are the images used on the combined Vol. 1 & 2. That's the images as they should be. These photos were done by Arnold Skolnick, who created the iconic Woodstock poster.

But then look here - at the heart that had to be added in order for this cover to be able to be listed. When the volumes are split up [to be sold separately], the one image was deemed too explicit.

What's wrong with this picture? A somewhat rhetorical question. ----->




And then the images had to be edited for inclusion in a press release [below]. ??? What is wrong with the world? Another rhetorical question.

What's this all have to do with reading erotica in public? Only this - we create our own shame. Once you've read something in public that bares some quite innermost thoughts, and THE WORLD DOES NOT END, and people actually come up to you and thank you for reading whatever it was you read,
you start learning that it's possible to make a small difference in the world.

I  have a real problem with shame. That sentence can and should be interpreted in many different ways.

When I read my story from Joan Price's Ageless Erotica on Saturday night, I will be wearing my FUCK SHAME necklace, of that you can be sure. And there will be pictures.

But first...

Last night I started writing a post that I'm calling "Gettin' it on again," but I got interrupted by a phone call and by the time I got off the phone, my train of thought was derailed. So I saved it in drafts to finish today. But this morning I took a walk and realized that I have to write this post before I go jumping back into doing this Erobintica thing regularly.

There's a reason I didn't update this blog for about five months. Reasons, plural, really. At first it was because I was working on a novel-in-progress. Also, I was distracted by various things going on in my life that were not blog fodder, and they overshadowed those things that were (erotica acceptances, for example). And then my self-doubt about being a "real" writer decided to raise it's medusa head (so many reasons).

But then, in December, something horrible happened, very close to where I live. Where I live. The word many of us use to describe everything that happened–and still is happening–is "surreal." We're just now peeking out from under the cover of shock.

I'm beginning to understand the phrase you have to redefine "normal." And for me that includes my writing. I was working on a novel. I've yet to be able to go back to it, because I don't want "all this" to become my characters' story. And also, old negative messages about creativity that I grew up with, came screaming back. So, for a bit, I was paralyzed.

Write erotica?
How the hell?
Write at all?
How?

The first few weeks of this year were pretty bleak. But I went searching out help, and wow, the things ya learn about yourself.

So, yeah, I'm starting to write again, and crawl out of my snail shell. And I know that nothing I write from here on out will be untouched. And I'm coming to terms with that. This isn't the first time I've had to come to terms with changes brought about by examining what lay behind me on my path.

I don't know how I've been changed. Only time will tell. And with that said, I can move on, at least here.

A new outlook

Yeah, if you've ever come here before, it looks a lot different now. I got rid of the black background, remembering a number of friends mentioning it was hard on the eyes. Robin's egg blue seemed appropriate to me. :-)

I'm updating links, now that I've got a number of stories in print and in e-books. I'm also trying to fix broken links. That'll probably take me awhile.

This isn't an "official" new post, but one will be coming soon. Been awhile.

Looking ahead

Yeah, most of my posts lately have been sorta down-in-the-dumpsish. It's all that quicksand and stuff. But, despite momentary (and yeah, maybe long moments) bouts of oh-woe-is-me, I'm actually kind of excited about what the future may bring.

I've decided to pick up and finish my languishing novels. Dammit, it's time I stopped being afraid of them and just write the fuckers. Yeah, plural. There are three of them. One was started about seven years ago. The other is 2-3 years old. The last one still just two separate stories with the same characters, those stories sort of egg and sperm about to meet. I still don't know what will come of this one, and it's what I'm most excited about working on. I'm actually going to (reallytrulypinkyswear) set up a routine where I go someplace and write for a set period of time on each day (well, most days) that will be purely for working on these. The idea scares the hell out of me, so I'm going right towards that.

There are other projects of my own that have been languishing too. They need to be picked up and dusted off. Then there is a big project that is not my own, but has unfortunately been somewhat open-ended and so not been kept on track. I met with one of my co-horts today and we're trying to figure a way to get this to not turn into something that never happens.

Yeah, I'm being vague, but I need to right now. I need to keep my focus unfocused, the better to see what's on the periphery.

A Door Closing

In May 2001, more than eleven years ago tonight, I walked through the door of an old train station turned art gallery where a weekly poetry series was held. Though I'd started writing poetry again (after quitting while in my early teens), I wasn't there to share any of it. It would take me awhile before I got up the nerve to do so. But I enjoyed listening to the other poet's works, and eventually became a "regular."

It changed my life. Over the years I went from being the woman who sat quietly over on the side, to reading, to performing, to hosting, to booking features, to pretty much running the series for a couple of years (which ended in Dec. last year). I'm no longer shy and afraid, though I still have major bouts of self-doubt. Duh. LOL.

I've half-jokingly called the series my "mental health night." Being able to write, and share some of it, helped get me through some dark times. I learned a lot about myself and about writing. Over the years I've had dozens of poems published and it was a poet-friend who gave me the nickname Erobintica, when I started venturing into the erotica world, after sorta kinda becoming known for my erotic poems.

Tonight is the last night of that series, though it's been in transition this whole year. I'm hosting and since it's been a bumpy transition, I'm not sure if I'm going to say anything or not. I may just introduce the feature, and later the open mike readers, and leave it at that. Most of the folks attending these days don't know the history of the series. And the series has been going much longer than I've been part of it.

I'm feeling waves of grief wash over me at random times. And it's not that I wish it weren't ending. I sense that it's been ending for several years. I jumped in and saved it once, partly out of my own need to have there be a place each week to go to. I let go at the start of this year because I wasn't sure when we'd be moving from here (and still aren't sure).

It's not like I'll be losing poetry. Last night I went to a wonderful reading and I'm still writing. But this is the end of something that I have already been missing.

There's that old when one door closes another opens saying that sometimes pisses me off to no end. Maybe because it's kinda true. It's just that it would be easier if we could see that next door. Usually we can't. Or we can but we're not sure if we're seeing the right door. Or we don't want to go through it. Or a thousand reasons for standing there like a deer in headlights.

The poetry world is funny. There's its cliques and critics and sad comedies. I have poet friends who aren't really talking with other poet friends. Usually over deeply held, though still-sometimes-petty reasons. I've always been the idealistic little child wanting diverse folks to see past their differences. The older I get though, the less hopeful I feel about that happening.

So, this afternoon I'm probably going to just read and take a walk and drink my beloved mocha.

Tonight, I'll hear the latch click shut on an era of my life. I wonder what the next door will open to.

On Deleting a Post

The other day I wrote, and published a post that with some reflection, I decided to take down. A few people read it and upon talking with them (virtually or IRL), it was obvious that it was in many ways, far too much to ask of anyone to have to deal with. The title of it was Inconsolable. That tells you a lot right there.

I've been having a hard time of it. I'm at a turning point in so many areas of my life that I feel kinda dizzy. The ground is shifting under my feet. Earthquake. Quicksand. Or even just like when you stand on the beach and the water runs out and the sand pulls away and you feel like you're going to lose your balance or get pulled out. Under.

Digging bare toes into shifting sand. That's what it feels like I'm doing.

I'm trying to be open to what the seas of change are telling me. But what I'm hearing is scary. Dare I reinvent - that's not the right word - myself at this late stage of the game? Am I mixing too many metaphors?

Incorrigible

This time I wasn’t going to turn around and go back. That line means so much in so many different ways.  

This time I was going to keep going, and even if I looked back, it would only be briefly, in the way that one should walk in the woods, always turning to look back the way you came, so that you can recognize the your path from both directions. 

This time I wasn’t going to feel bad about my decision. I’d made it. That’s what mattered.

I tend to worry and wobble and waffle a lot. Should I or shouldn’t I? I run through the myriad variations of what could happen IF....   

I’m really good at talking myself out of things. But lately, something’s shifted in me. 

Maybe it’s age. I’m coming up on what some folks call “double nickles” and for some reason it feels more significant to me than the big Five Oh. Maybe it’s because my children are all grown, and though not all gone (one is still in college and so will likely be home for a couple more school breaks), my days as FULL-TIME-MOM are over. 

Those may be contributing reasons, but I think the main reason is that after spending most of my lifetime doing for and being thoughtful of and working around others, I now want to do some of the things I want to do, whatever they may be, and irregardless of whether others (family, friends, complete strangers) may think.

Yesterday, when I kept driving, and then arrived at my destination, getting my campsite set up all by myself, I felt self-sufficient. Something I’ve not felt very often in my life. Instead, I’ve felt very dependent. Oh, I’ve had moments. But for the most part, I was always something–daughter, girlfriend, wife, mother–that defined me by my relationship with others. And as a result, that’s how I thought of myself. I never thought about what I would do if .... I could do anything I wanted. Because that’s never even been a concept I could relate to. 

What’s amusing though is that lately I’ve been thinking of myself as “incorrigible.”

incorrigible |inˈkôrijəbəl, -ˈkär-|

adjective

(of a person or their tendencies) not able to be corrected, improved, or reformed: she's an incorrigible flirt.

noun

a person of this type.

That is not something I would have ever thought of myself as in the past. Incorrigible. Or a flirt for that matter. Hahaha. 

Where was I? Sorry, I got lost in a bit of a reverie. 

And the trees behind me are reflecting on my laptop screen and its pretty. And it’s kinda nice to not be connected to the rest of the world. What I hear is this: someone driving in stakes for a big tent that will provide shelter if it rains (I’m at the Maine Primitive Gathering), someone else setting up their own tent while talking to their neighbor, crickets and cicadas and rustling leaves, the occasional car going by on the road, voices and occasional laughter. A small plane far off. The birds are quiet right now, but I imagine they’ll make their presence known later. 

There is no particular point to this post. It’s just me realizing that my life has shifted, and I’ve shifted with it. I still get triggered by situations that evoke memories of past difficulties (there’s a euphemism if there ever was one, hahaha) and react in ways I wish I didn’t. But I do tend to chill once I recognize where my reactions are coming from. In the meantime I may have pissed off and/or upset folks. Or at least exasperated them. Tough. I have to stop apologizing for being who I am. 

I want those people who like/love me to like/love me for who I really am. In all my incorrigible glory. Yes, glory. I’ve hid that side of me for far too long. You know that feeling that just makes you want to burst with overwhelming joy? That feeling that makes you want to make love to the whole world - everyone and everything. That feeling. 

What’s that saying? Well-behaved women seldom make history. I bet they were incorrigible too.  

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