Monthly Archives: June 2009

Douchebaggery

So on occasion I have been known to behave in a less than saint-like fashion. One might go so far as to say that once in a great great great while I’m a complete and total bitch. Of course these events are few and far between. *cough* Ok, so at least they aren’t happening weekly. I would like to think that in the realm of crazy wives I’m not so bad but I am realistic enough to know that sometimes I kind of suck. Just like my wonderful, patient, fabulous husband is on occasion a poopyhead. It happens to the best of us.

You might be wondering what’s my point? Well, my point is that Noah feels like he can’t tell anyone about me being uhm less than polite. I think this is a fairly unhealthy situation for him to be in. I think that feeling like he has to stay isolated and put up with my sometimes unpleasant behavior smacks of abuse and that’s really not cool. So whereas I’m glad he doesn’t spend a lot of time bitching about me I think that some venting occasionally is healthy. I’ve told him this and he only sort of believes me. This weekend I even cornered him in front of a friend and said the same thing. Now I’m going even further and telling him in front of the whole wide internet that it’s ok to tell people that I am mean to him sometimes. It’s ok to say, “I’m not really sure what to do when she does ‘x'”.

Really. It’s ok.

I got more words

This has been sitting here for days. I don’t think I did a great job of finishing it, but it’s better than just never finishing.

curls: My hair turned curly in puberty. Before that it was stick straight. I don’t think I have ever recovered from the trauma. On one hand my hair can be very pretty and that is nice. On the other hand it’s a lot more work to make it look nice than I am generally willing to put in. I am really really really not willing to put in the work to make it straight–God that’s annoying. I like that my hair is coarse enough to tie it in a knot and leave it there with nothing to hold it.

Fisher: R.J. Fisher Middle School, I presume. Other than graduate school Fisher was the only school I ever went to for two full consecutive years. I loved Fisher. I was happier during middle school than pretty much any other point in my childhood, which is odd I understand. I had friends for the first time. I had teachers who were both intelligent and willing to work with me. The guidance counselor and vice principle both got to know me (I was a big one for acting out, but I had good reasons) and they both worked very hard at giving me a place to feel safe and secure. I think one of the best things they ever did for me was put me in the Conflict Managers program. I was made to feel intelligent, trustworthy, and competent. I met Grant there. He was my best friend. Amusingly in retrospect, he was my first D/s relationship–I was on top. 🙂 We used to go to the movie theater and I would ask him to buy me Red Vines and I would beat the crap out of him through the whole movie. He always bought them. 🙂 I discovered Anne Rice and then goth culture at Fisher. I had sex for the first time while going there and I didn’t have sex again the rest of the time I was there because I realized it was too early. That was the worst sex ever. I had a history teacher there, Mr. Potter, who single-handedly gave me confidence in myself in the classroom. We got into an argument about whether or not Bloody Mary was also Queen of Scotland. I told him that there were two Marys–Mary Tudor and Mary Stewart. I don’t know how he screwed this up but he couldn’t remember that fact. I brought in an Encyclopedia during lunch and proved him wrong. He congratulated me and told me that if I always stuck to my guns when I knew I was right I would go far in life. I really loved him.

boundaries: I’m not really as good at them as I advertise but I try. I feel intense pressure to be better at boundaries. Ugh. I seem to have different boundaries than just about any one else and I’m not entirely sure how that happened.

family: I have some weird feelings about family. On one hand I desperately want to have family, chosen or biological–either will do. In practice I find that even chosen family is pretty inconsistent and not really dependable. I guess it’s a good thing that Noah is overall reliable because most of the time he’s what I’ve got. I’m hoping that I prove to be better family than that to Shanna.

munches: I used to go a lot. I haven’t gone consistently in five years at this point. They are dandy for talking with the same people you see all the time anyway. They are a shitty place for meeting new people or for doing good reconnecting with people you haven’t seen in a long time. I think that they are rather designed to be something to fill in the gap during the week for people who are out every weekend with the same people. There is nothing wrong with that, it’s just not where I am anymore.

More words

Arbus gave me words. Be afraid.

freedom: Freedom used to be a much bigger motivator for me than it is these days. I used to spend a lot of time worrying about not being tied down. Now I’m kind of fussy cause I am almost never tied down and it makes me sad. Ha. I appreciate being an American. I think that I’m pretty lucky to live in a country that grants me the amount of freedom I have. Yeah, that’s all I’ve got for this one.

femdom: I hate this phrase. I think we should replace it with DomLady and DomFella if we are going to be indicating gender at all. But why do you need to indicated gender at all? What the freakmonkeys is wrong with just calling someone a Dom? It’s lame enough. Why make it lamer? Oy. That said, females who happen to be dominant are pretty hot.

dealing: Drugs? Cards? I am not a complete hypocrite so I will say that I have occasionally thought positive things about drug dealers in my life even though overall I think it’s not a great career choice. I think my sister should stop dealing though because she is stupid and keeps getting caught. Dumbass. I’m a really good card dealer I think.

whirling: When I was a little girl I would try on all of my new clothes (dresses–I didn’t wear pants at all) and give them a whirl because if they didn’t go out far enough I wouldn’t wear them. I still wish that I picked my clothes this way. I love whirling around. I love whirling Shanna around. I have learned that if I concentrate really hard I can make myself orgasm on the spinny rides. How’s that for TMI?

space: God I need a lot of it. I have trouble with people near me physically sometimes and I even have trouble with people in my house. This is MY SPACE damnit! But if you meant that big black thing above us I’m pretty neutral. I’m glad I don’t have to try to breathe there.

Words

Reply to this meme by yelling “Words!” and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you. *edit* Or just five words that I want to see your associations with/thoughts about.

Aging: What a way to start. Overall I find I enjoy aging a lot. I’m figuring things out over time and I’m pretty happy about that. It’s really neat to see what my body is doing. I’m trying hard to get to the point where I actually enjoy myself all the time so that I can stop looking back and saying, “Why didn’t I like myself more!” I find I am far less critical of myself physically now and that’s nice. I think what is bothering me the most about aging is I thought I would figure stuff out faster/earlier/better/something and I just haven’t. I spend a lot of time still feeling as stupid/confused as I did when I was younger. Being an adult looked way easier from the point of view of being a kid.

Mother: This is what I have wanted to be for much of my life. I think I’m doing an ok job of it. I feel hesitant about calling myself a good mother because I feel like those sorts of judgments can’t be made in the moment; I won’t know if I am a good mother until Shanna or I can look back and actually decide. I feel like being a mother is one of the primary ways I can heal from having been an abused child. In being a good parent to Shanna I can simultaneously parent myself in the ways I needed. I find that more than at any other point in my life there is a ‘club’ that I want to be part of. I feel like there are many parts of this experience I simply can’t talk about with people who are not mothers. To start with, there are all the biological changes I want to talk to other mothers about. Do other women feel like they have to start from scratch with their sexual identity? Now I want a community of women more than just about anything but I don’t know how to create it or find it.

Healthy: I’m trying so hard. I want to be physically healthy. I want to be emotionally healthy. I don’t understand why these things take so much bloody work. I feel very discouraged by the fact that no matter how much progress I make towards being more healthy it seems like there is some freakish goal of ‘health’ that is out of my reach. I hate that there is no ‘good enough’. My diet (not in the lose weight sense) is by far the healthiest it has ever been in my life. I eat good food that is good for me in rather reasonable portions. But there is still this specter hanging over me because I am not thin. I’m not actually in bad shape. Walking ten miles in a day is not a big deal to me at all. I don’t feel sore or uncomfortable unless there was extreme uphill involved. But I feel like I am lame/pathetic because those uphills are a bitch and I can’t run to save my life (my knees suck). So I think that being healthy is something that I struggle for constantly despite feeling like I will always be a failure. And I’m not going to get into psychologically healthy today because that’s just a quagmire I don’t need at this moment.

Bisexual: I actually really hate the word bisexual. I actively shun it for myself. My problem with the word is that it presupposes that there are only two genders and people have to pick one. On one hand the word queer has other issues (painfully heterosexual perverts often love to use it for themselves) because it is so broad that it seems meaningless but I still like it more than bisexual. I feel really weird about referring to myself as queer anymore because I get all the heterosexual privilege and it feels kind of weird/pretentious/uncomfortable to try and get any benefit from also being not heterosexual. It feels too much like I am trying to have my cake and eat it too. On one hand I was strongly into girls long before I was into boys, on the other hand I’ve only ever really fallen in love with one woman. I seem to be much more romantically attached to boys. It’s all so very confusing.

Writing: Shame. That’s my instant reaction to that word right now. For all that I write constantly (the internet is my primary connection to the world) I feel like an abject failure. I feel like failing out of the masters program decided for all time that I am a pathetic writer and I should just stop trying. That’s hard because there is more than one book I would really like to write. I have started writing two and I periodically will work on them but then after a while I feel so critical of my efforts that I delete all progress because I’m obviously too awful of a writer for anyone to want to read a book I have written. It’s hard. I have never identified strongly as a writer and yet I have periodically had things I’ve wanted to say and I communicate best in text. I think some of my short stories have even been good–but it’s so easy for me to feel like that was a fluke. I want to write. I want to be a writer. But just like dancing/being a dancer I feel like I just don’t deserve the title/activity.

Jealousy and cliques

I realized something important tonight. I don’t think I am any more jealous of Noah going out on dates than I am of him gaming. I am just about equally as hostile to both. Well… ok so somehow I manage to actually verbalize and lash out more when it comes to the jealousy around other women. I think that part of the reason I feel more secure in being actively hostile towards him dating is because of the overall cultural/social acceptability towards being jealous of nonmonogamy. It’s not nearly so culturally acceptable to throw screaming temper tantrums about gaming, especially not in the very limited and controlled way he does it. That’s really interesting to think about. Ok, so I’m jealous. I’m so jealous I want to hit things (and I have) and I want to cry (and I have) and I want to make him hurt/angry/upset too (I think I did that too). Why am I so jealous?

I think it’s because this plays into some of my core insecurities. I don’t feel wanted. I don’t feel liked. Ok, I’m aware that people do like me. The readership of this journal alone won’t let me follow that pity party too closely. But how many of you do I see in a week? In a month? In the average year? Yeah. I don’t have a close group of friends. I’ve never had a close group of friends for any length of time. That came about because of moving around so much as a kid. I never learned how to deal with people on an extended basis. I can do short bursts and then I burn out quickly. I feel like I have to always be ‘on’ and let me tell you I am good at that act. I can be interesting, sexy, supportive, or obnoxious depending on what I think will play best to the crowd. I can’t do it for long though. In the past week and a half I spent not quite three days with a couple of friends and then about four days with a different couple of friends. I flipped out on both sets. I think that being overall kind of down contributed heavily to the fact that I didn’t have as much energy to be ‘on’ as I needed for those lengths of time. I desperately want to be able to do the long stretches of time with people but I always lose it. I want to crawl into a hole and hide because as I start running out of energy for putting on the front I get snappy which means that I start feeling bad about being mean which leads me to think about what a horrible person I am which makes me question why anyone wants to be friends with me anyway. This really is a sucky cycle. I don’t know how to change it.

Back to how this relates to Noah. Noah is the one person in my life I really trust to want to be around me. But he wants to spend time away from me doing things without me. It doesn’t really matter whether it is gaming or dating it hurts either way. Because knowing that he wants to go off without me makes me doubt that he really wants to be around me. It makes me feel like Noah is just one more person who can’t handle me because I am such an awful bitch. And when I feel like anyone doesn’t want to be around me because I am such an awful bitch it makes me get mean. And things cycle from there.

Ok. If I can look at the cycle that means I can find a way out of it. I’m just not sure where to start. Ok, I do know where to start. But he’s not home from his date yet.

Dropped my basket

So I’m not really sure how to talk about this here but given that I’m me I feel compelled to try. I have crashed really hard. I now get to experience how difficult it is to take care of a kid while depressed and it really sucks. I’m doing it anyway because life doesn’t wait for me to feel happy or good about myself. There is still a baby to cuddle and read to and feed and change and nurse whether I feel up to it or not.

If you sum up the last year and a half it kind of makes sense that I’m losing it. One of my close friends died after an overdose and then my therapist, whom I saw for years and years and was very close to, did the same thing. And another death in my extended family was kind of the topper even if this one was expected and less tragic. I failed out of the masters program after seven years of work. I’m not sure why my writing was good enough for all those years but it just wasn’t in the end. I didn’t manage to have the home birth I was so set on; I suppose I should just be grateful I escaped the hospital without a c-section. I’ve had a miscarriage of a baby I wanted very much. I’m having an extremely hard time with some stuff with Noah; I’m really feeling very inadequate and pathetic. And on top of all that I had Shanna–which has been wonderful and fulfilling but a lot of work and physically stressful and my system is not recovered yet anyway. Many things about my core identity have been challenged in some pretty difficult ways. I feel like I don’t know who I am.

So I’m lonely and depressed and I desperately want to cut. I’m not doing it only because in some weird way I feel like it would be unfair to Shanna.

Hilarious

I just got a message on okcupid:
Heya,

I recognize you from the dancing community. It’s fun hearing about the ways your life has been evolving lately. Let me know if you’d like to meet one another in person to get to know one another more.

J.
PS I’m good with you being into country :o)

Wow. I don’t think he has any idea who I am. Or that we have been on more than one date.

So awesome.

I realized that I have gotten to have four dates in the past three weeks. (Ok, two of them are technically happening this week.) That’s amazing. I remain absolutely convinced that as wonderful as Noah is to be married to, he is even better to have an affair with. I have played with people who might have more technical skill in some specific area of bdsm but no one who has ever been able to climb inside my head and fuck with me the way he can. He is hands down the best lover I have ever had. He is attentive and sweet and a mean son-of-a-bitch. I so win. I get to keep him forever.

(Oh, and that cryptic entry… geez folks. Yes the sex will be with Noah. :P)

And then it happened

And it wasn’t a big deal. I went hiking with Laura in the afternoon and came home after he left. Shanna and I snuggled and played and went to sleep reasonably early. He woke me up accidentally when he got home and we talked and figured stuff out and then had the hottest sex we’ve had in years. I guess feeling competitive is good for my drive.

I’m really surprised that I’m not upset. Now that it is over with and done there is nothing to anticipate and get nervous about. What’s done is done; there’s no sense in crying over spilled milk and all that. That’s really interesting to learn.

So much for the filter…

Talked to Noah lots.

See, this is why I married him. We spent hours and hours talking last night. We went through all of the things that are bothering me, all of the myriad of ways that I’m upset/nervous/insecure. It was really good. He listened when I was ranting and gave me constructive feedback when I calmed down. We talked more specifically about why this is happening. It took coming up with some silly examples before I could get him to understand what this feels like. He’s a big foodie. I asked him how he would feel if I went up to The French Laundry with someone else and left him at home. He said that would upset him a lot. Ok, now you have some idea of how I feel. It’s not really as bad as all that but this is really hard. I feel like if I can get through this to the other side things will be ok. Let me rephrase: things will be ok when I get through this. No doubt in there. It’s like freaking out about getting blood drawn. It’s not my idea of a good time but afterward there won’t be a problem anymore.

Why do relationships have to be so complicated?

Fucking sucks.

In general I don’t make posts that Noah can’t see. This is one of those times though. I feel like I’m going to puke. I’m so angsty and upset and freaked out. Noah has a date on Friday. When we originally started negotiating this it was stated as a “play date” and I come from the bdsm community where that frequently doesn’t include sex–that is my base assumption. But they are negotiating whether or not to use barriers on oral sex and he plans to fuck her.

I am so freaking out. My stomach is a ball of knots and I want to vomit. I hate this feeling. It doesn’t help that Shanna is having a hard day and I’m having a terrible time being patient with her. I was very open to the idea of playing but it snowballed so fast. We were supposed to have sex last night (yes we schedule these things) but I just couldn’t do it. The idea that he is anticipating and planning sex with someone else made me feel really revolted by the idea of him touching me. I don’t know how I am going to manage to have sex with him on Saturday at a play party when we’ve scheduled that.

This is so hard for me. I feel so completely inadequate and pathetic.

I’m doing at least some processing with him but it feels like a full dose of it wouldn’t be fair. This is the result of a lot of negotiation because it really sucks that he has to compromise on his needs so much.

But god I don’t have patience for Shanna right now and she’s been crying all day. AHHHHHHHHHH