A friend who watched me play on Saturday wrote to remind me that intense play can have a serious emotional drop afterwards and he is worried about me.

Awwwwwwwww!

I thought he was an evil sociopath! Gosh he’s come a long way. I feel so loved.

I dropped after the first scene with Cupid because I misunderstood the tone of an email (completely something I do). I wonder if it’s kinda smart to wait two or three days to process more because then I don’t have that initial OH MY GOD WHAT IS YOUR TONE reaction. Hm. Useful?

Over time I’m a lot more comfortable that Cupid is there doing what he wants to do. I was really anxious the first time that he was humoring me to be nice because in the scene… there’s at least some play that is motivated that way. Lots of folks can’t get the play they truly want unless they do it with a friend. I kinda suspected he wan’t as motivated by selfish reasons?

Ok at this point I think he’s doing it because he likes doing that sort of thing. No one would hit me till I was freaking out like that unless they wanted to.

Ok I can cope with that.

This is part of the fuzzy complication with Noah. Noah has never had a partner with whom such play was possible. So I’ve never seen him do it. So I don’t believe he wants it for himself and I can’t bear the thought that I am dragging people into brutality like that.

If you do not have such brutality already in your soul it is an evil gesture to try and implant it.

I worry a lot about what I want to talk people into doing.

The feedback I got from watchers was “You looked profoundly unhappy.” Happiness is such a funny emotion. Was I happy when I was screaming, “Fuck fuck fuck” while he was punching my thigh on top of already existing bruises and cramps?

Happy … isn’t the word?

I wanted to be there. I’m still glad I was there. When I heal… I will ask for more. But I need to heal first.

Why is this so good for me? You would have to live in my body to understand. I deal with such intense variation in emotion on a nearly daily basis that this kind of play is… kinda like going from running with the kids to running by myself.

Oh yeah. I swing back and forth from an intensity of 3-7 over and over and over again and now I get to hit 10. AWESOME.

It is walking with a toddler then going for a run as a grown up.

I spend so much time with incredibly intense emotions all within a limited range that when I get to have super intense catharsis outside my normal range it is like there is less pressure inside me.

I have that intense screaming and freaking out inside me. It wants to come out. If I don’t ever let it out in play it creeps into my life and creates problems.

I don’t really want to scream like that because I’m hit. I want to scream like that because of emotional problems and the hitting gives me an acceptable smoke screen. The hitting justifies what I’d like to do anyway and if I did it without being hit I’d be called crazy. So yeah, please hit me that hard again.

It means I’m not crazy.

In the past, before kids, when I played like that I did drop more. But after play like that I would be alone. I would be alone to think about how that kind of contact was most of what anyone wanted with me. I didn’t feel like I was worth very much.

Now when the play is done and my snuggles with my top are over I go back to Noah and Noah takes care of me like I am a precious, fragile piece of art. I come home to children who want to say, “OH MY GOD YOU WERE AWAY FOR FOUR WHOLE HOURS OF MY AWAKE TIME I NEED TO POUNCE YOU AND COVER YOU IN SNUGGLES.”

My life is different.

I feel so much gratitude for where I am.

Drop is a very different experience when you are loved compared to when you don’t feel very loved.

Which isn’t exactly fair. I was always loved. I’ve had Jenny longer than I’ve been in the scene. I was always loved. But not in the ways I needed to be loved. That waited till Noah and the kids. That seems ok?

I feel like I have a place where I am important. I am needed. I need to deal with my shit because there is work to be done.

I like my life so very much.

I’m not going to spend my whole life in dungeons. I’m going to show up when I need to get something from the experience. I’m there as a supplement to what I already have. It is different feeling from when I lived the bdsm experience.

I’m getting emails on that kink site from folks I haven’t seen in forever because they want to talk about the good old days. “Wasn’t it awesome when there was one play space in the bay area and it was missing a wall and everyone who was a pervert got together like four times a year?”

Well… it did have some charm but I’m glad things aren’t like that now.

It was nice feeling like I knew everyone like me within 100 miles. That was cool. It’s not like that now. Bdsm is… uhhh… more popular and shiny now. It isn’t dirty gross weird people. I miss that. I’m a dirty gross weird person! I used to fit in more! This is harder. I’m not going to fit in as well with all the newly minted acceptable fetish crowd. They are inspired by things that are commonly kinky. Usually they think extreme kinks are “weird” just like vanillas.

Hey I thought it was awesome watching the guy put the jar of bees on his dick. I like watching scenes where people pound large nails through cocks. I like intense shit.

I miss the kinds of events where people will show up with a kiddie wading pool, jello boxes, and a rubber chicken. I’m not even fucking kidding. That was one of the meanest scenes ever.

The folks I knew from back in the day are complaining about how commercial everything is now. I have mixed feelings about that. Part of the reason things feel more commercial is because so many kinky people are trying to make a living off of being kinky. Once upon a time the scene only supported a very small number of craftspeople and pornographers and they mostly lived in squalor because we didn’t take care of our own that well. Now a lot more people want to be living better off of the scene and that takes money.

I have mixed feelings. We have forced the marginal people out entirely. I don’t know how most of those people are doing these days.

I feel really embarrassed that I haven’t tracked all of them to make sure they are ok. I haven’t. I wouldn’t know how to look them up now. They were my community and I let them down because I was small, selfish, and only looking to my own life.

I know who my friends are who are craftspeople and pornographers and I know how they are doing. But there were more people who did that. Not that many 16 years ago. I could have tracked those folks. Not everyone who has appeared in 16 years. But I could have been loyal to the old days.

I wasn’t.

It is kind of funny how many people in their 50’s want to discuss the “good old days” with me. I grin and think, “I am now at the age where you consider your “golden age” to have been. I refuse to think that the golden era of my life is fucking over. I’m 34 fucking years old. My good times are not god damn over.

I listen to Nikki Minaj a lot.

The last year has involved feeling more alive, feeling more potential, feeling like my life is going somewhere than I think the rest of my life combined.

My golden era isn’t over. It is just picking up speed.

I have felt for a while that I’ve already gotten to participate in more than one Golden Era. To such an extent that on my egotistical as fuck days I wonder if I bring it with me.

Theatre in college was amazing. I’m still friends with most of those folks. No one else has had a period that good since then. I have.

The bdsm community in 2000-2004 was a pretty magic time for a lot of people I’ve met. It wasn’t just me. That was a really well connected, awesome time. I know a lot of friends who think of that general time period as being intense and special for… not sure why. It just was.

Teaching was amazing for me. Teaching was wonderful because unlike for other people teaching represented the first time in my life when I got to have permission to be the one who set reality and invited people into my space to learn. That was magic. I had never had a home. I had never had a place. But I had a classroom and a whole bucket of intense shit I think you need to know to be ok. Let’s get to business.

The first year of my oldest child’s life was the happiest, most blissful year I’ve known. I sat on the couch or on a chair and nursed. I didn’t clean much, cook much, or go anywhere.

I just sat encased in love.

I am almost 10 years into the only permanent home and real family I’ve ever had.

What is my Golden Era? When is it?

I have been so blessed in my friends.

Putting myself out there has been a mixed blessing in life. It is why I have a laundry list of traumas that horrify people. It is also why I’ve had so many Golden Eras. I try to bond. I try to connect. I want to be attached. I have so much love. Can I share it with you?

Some dude pinged me on okcupid and said he treats dating (or attempting to date?) as a creative writing exercise.

I totally know what you mean.

I’m bouncing off so many people because I want to figure out what to say, how to say, what I want, and how to deal with what other people want and I do an awful lot of the figuring in writing. I don’t have room for more serious relationships though. God I’m drowning.

Another random dude wrote to complain that it isn’t fair that I don’t have lots of time available to pay attention to him because I sound really interesting and he’s not willing to have connections with people unless they devote a lot of time to him. Sometimes I want to say, “Can you hear yourself?” It isn’t fair that my life is too full for the kind of connection you want to have. Uhm.

Wha?

For the record my profile is set to only looking for friends and it states that I’m not polyamorous, just slutty. And I still have random people telling me that it isn’t fair that I’m not giving them what they want.

Humans.

Noah asked me why I’m not reading more books lately. I can’t. My brain is full. I’m thinking of too many things.

Today I need to: clean the house, spend time with a neighbor, homeschool the kids (whatever that means), put together a timeline of issues with the remodel for my lawyer, and write a loose outline for the radio show tonight.

I don’t have room in my brain to synthesize reading a story. It’s too hard. I can’t even reread Tamora Pierce right now because it is too hard.

I understand more about why the GATE evaluator told my mom if I was any less brilliant I wouldn’t learn at all given the chaotic environment I grew up in.

To change topics again, one of my favorite things in the world is happening right now. Eldest Child has a double chin. That means she’s about to shoot up. It’ll happen in the next week. I will get to watch her transform. I love that double chin. It is a hint that I need to start staring super intensely or I will miss some cool transformation. I am very sad that Youngest Child does not have such a tell. The growth happens more secretively and I’m constantly like, “OH MY GOD WHEN DID YOU CHANGE?!”

It’s like a pop up alert on my phone. Or my period app. I love that double chin. I love that her experience of life has been that double chins are awesome and wonderful and to be greeted with joy.

My weight goes up and down like a yo yo and it’s not cause I’m trying. When I have a double chin Eldest Child points it out with glee and I grin and say, “Yup. These days I’m living well.”

My kids have managed to grow up in a world where fat is greeted with “Mmmmmmm fat.” Do you know what fat bodies mean? Glorious snuggles. Fat bodies mean love.

I’m up to almost 8 years of this. Between 40% & 60% of 6-12 year olds are worried about their weight.

When I gain weight do you know what I do? I stand in front of the mirror naked with my children in the room and I say, “Damn I look good.”

Even when I think I’m lying I say it with conviction and a big smile because I owe them this performance.

I… have a lot of trouble accepting my body when it is lighter. I strongly dislike the fact that I am usually more appealing to sexual partners when I’m smaller. It offends me to the core of my being.

Fuck you for wanting me to be less.

Years ago one of their cartoons had an anorexic horse. It was an interesting thing to explain because my kids were totally baffled. Why in the hell was the horse refusing to eat?!

I told the kids that it is very complicated and the explanation I’m going to give would be grossly insulting to some people who suffer from this disease because it is complicated and I’m just not capable of giving them the full answer. I said that creatures have lots of reasons they will stop eating. Sometimes because they get confused about how they look and they think they must look a certain way and they must force their body to do that even if they die. Sometimes people punish themselves because they don’t feel worthy. Sometimes people confuse what makes them valuable and they think they need to worry about their appearance so much they make themselves unable to do the things that would actually make them valuable.

If a creature feels they can’t eat enough to sustain their life it is because some part of them is sick and needs help. It doesn’t mean they are bad. It means they are suffering and need help.

I feel very grateful that I have been able to shield my children from television and magazines and movies for the most part. It’s not that we don’t watch anything. It is that we watch fairly curated stuff. We live in a bubble. A bubble where bodies are wonderful and they need to be embraced for however they happen to appear. A bubble where there are positives and negatives to every way of being and there is no such thing as a “better way” only the way that works for you.

A bubble where it takes all kinds.

No wonder my kids spend so much time saying that even if they move out someday they think they will always want to come back and spend a lot of time in Wonderland.

I’m actually living what I believe in. Because I believe in magic. I believe if you want something hard enough and you work hard enough and you study hard enough… you can change things. Not everything. Not everything for everyone. But you can change things. Ripples matter.

Good grief. Prince just died. Think about what one person can do.

Ack. My first appointment is at 8am. My last appointment ends at midnight. I woke up at 4:30am after 8 hours of sleep.

No time to tag. ttfn