My wrists are toast.
My heart is turbulent.
My head is full.
I feel scared.
I feel like I’m way better at predicting the future than I want to be.
I think tomorrow is another day and in approximately 12 hours I can go to sleep.
Negotiations are still in progress. Given the turn they just took, I’m glad I’m not recording more specifics of the back and forth.
Don’t get attached to pieces at this point in the process. We don’t fucking know yet.
Oh my goodness. Noah got news tonight that is going to do a lot to change our lives. I’m… excited. Thrilled. Nervous. Overjoyed. Proud of him.
Many years ago Noah came to me and said, “There is this thing I want to learn. It means I’m going to ignore you a lot. But I think it’s going to be important.”
I grumbled. I griped. I was pissy for a long time. I learned how to support him and I got over my attitude.
Today that paid off. All those years of effort. Ok, Noah maybe the books aren’t doing what you hoped (they aren’t nothing!) but some of your bets… have paid off. Well done.
Then we used our babysitting date time to go to a wet munch and I got a lovely spanking. It wasn’t intense or mean. It was just a lovely spanking.
Why do so many good things happen to me? Ok… some of this is happening to Noah and I’m just standing near him. But this is going to change my life too. I’m so excited. We’ve wanted this for so long. You just don’t understand what this means to me.
It means I’m thinking about space in the house again. How are we going to handle this change? Don’t worry. I’ll make a way for this to work. I’ll make this work.
I have wanted this for years and years and years.
Oh I’m so happy. This is going to be great. Ok. We’ll figure out nonmonogamy. We have too much good stuff going on for us to not do it.
This news is so big. Oh my goodness.
It’s the assumption that all people need to always be operating from the position of being an autonomous human being.
Nope. I reject that. I choose to think of myself as part of a dyad first. Yeah, I need to have a self that is separate as well but I do think that figuring out how to be in this dyad is more important than just caring most about myself and my boundaries. Yeah I’m ok with loss of control of my own limits in return for knowing what I can expect in trade.
I don’t want anarchy. I’m ok with ranking and comparing people. I am less important than the primary partners of the folks I’m seeing when I am in a secondary position. I believe that. My Daddy is married and handfasted. Those relationships are more important than his relationship with me because those are the people who seriously carry him through life. I am there sometimes. When I have stuff to spare. He needs to cover his ass and I 100% support that.
There is exactly one person who picks my sorry ass up off the floor over and over and over and over again.
I god damn notice that and I think the fact that he does that entitles him to some level of influencing my behavior so I don’t hurt him on accident.
It’s all well and good to “assume people don’t mean to hurt you” but I live in a world where people get hurt anyway and your intentions mean shit.
We trade a lot of control over ourselves as individuals for ability to dictate the shape of how to not hurt one another. I like that. It’s a good trade. I will trade loss of spontaneity for a lot of ability to say “Yes a Not b.”
And holy fucking shit just… I… I … I’M BEING SO GOD DAMN GOOD RIGHT NOW.
I’m going back to bed. Cause I need to not stick my foot all the way god damn down my throat.
FUSS.
I love you. I know I’m not good at “arguing the words on the page” the way you want me to. It would take me a few thousand words to explain why those words are a thing and I’ll talk around it till the end and my hands can’t do that.
URGLHFLURF
My relationships aren’t all autonomous. My relationship with my submissive is influenced by my relationship and his relationship with his other partner.
I don’t want complete autonomy. I really don’t. I like that my web involves a lot of cross responsibility. I want that. I want to figure out how to honor that and my own limits.
I am a selfish fucking asshole and I do not deserve anything I have.
Let’s see who else I can fuck up with today.
Boundaries. Boundaries are complicated. Did I cross a boundary? Did I know it was a boundary?
Well I feel like steamed shit.
At the conclusion of Cranky Day I went up to Wicked Grounds and had dinner with two wonderful women. We had a great conversation. I felt seen. I felt like I had friends. I felt like I know these peoples stories and they know mine and they want to know more. I know I want to know more about them.
It isn’t just about hunting. It is about needing something bigger than a four person nucleus family with a babysitter.
My submissive walked in, surprised to see me, on a date. I was tactful I think. Barely grabby enough to remind him that I can but not stepping on the toes of his date. I think. I hope. *cross fingers* (No complaints from him.)
I think it is funny how I’m kinda putting people in boxes they didn’t ask to be put in. I don’t know if those are boxes they want to be in.
I am sorta doing with my submissive an intensified, deeper, adult, more intimate version of what I barely hinted at with my best friend in junior high. My poor best friend. I spent so much time hitting him. He told me that it didn’t hurt that much and clearly I needed to be hitting someone so it was ok. But I never kissed him. I never got even close to being sexual with him. That was completely off the table. (I actually went and stayed with this friend on the road trip. His wife is awesome and he has a darling baby boy. I’m so happy for him.)
I’ve never really soaked in wanting without hurrying up to sex. I don’t even really know how to do that. I feel like I’m signing up for the most torturous science project of my life. How does one sit with desire and coax it without indulging it completely?
I don’t know and I want to find out.
When I am grinding on your crotch and you can smell me the thing isn’t that I lack desire to fuck you.
I want to fuck you. But much more than that I want the power to decide not to fuck you. The first power like that I’ve ever really had in my life.
That’s a kind of intoxication I don’t know how to describe.
I love that I can lay on you and kiss you as much as I want to and you will gasp and moan and pant and start crying… but you won’t grab me and force me to do more than I am ready to do.
This is an utterly novel experience for me.
It is gross and creepy and yucky but I feel like the seeds of wanting this came from being a parent. I kiss my kids without escalating. But it isn’t passionate. It is loving and tender without being remotely sexual.
It really taught me a lot about the variety of love I can feel. I am curious about the extent of that variety in a way I was not before having children. How many ways can I love?
Am I physically capable of passion without hurrying to get it over with?
And it will be complicated to figure out the dynamic of pain and tenderness. When I say that I haven’t really dominated you in the past, the tenderness is a huge chunk of what I mean. I have tried very hard to give you the kind of pain I thought you wanted. I wasn’t there just being selfish. I like that kind of play and I thought you only wanted a specific thing from me.
If what you want is to do what I want, then this is going to be a whole lot more gentle. Because you don’t understand what I want as much as you think you do. Yes, I want to hurt you. I’m going to fuck you up severely. But that will be like 10% of our relationship.
I’ve watched you for a decade and a half. I’ve watched you be a man of integrity, honesty, character, and dedication.
Why in the world would I want to spend the majority of our time together degrading you?
Just got off the phone with my shrink. That was a lovely phone call. I gave her an update on the folks I’m pursuing. She said, “Oh I know these names.” That makes me happy. She thinks it is a good thing that I am taking my sexual satisfaction this seriously. “If this is what it takes and you can do it… do it.”
She also said that the thing I was cranky about is something we’ve discussed in therapy many many many many many many many times and yup I’ve been cranky about it for a long time. That is an accurate perception on my part. I’m not being hysterical. This is an issue.
I described my April and said, “Ok that is 0-60.”
I said, “IT IS ONLY ON 3 DAYS!!!!”
“Oh. But it is so much emotional intensity… it feels like a lot more than three days…”
Deep sigh.
You don’t understand. I used to do this 5-6 nights/week.
Three nights in a month doesn’t feel like 0-60 for me. And two of those nights I’ll be with the kids for most of the day anyway.
So it doesn’t represent that much time away from my normal life except in the form of lost sleep.
So it feels different to me.
I’m being real careful to catch up on sleep first.
My shrink said yeah, just use Lorazepam every night for a while. Catch up on lost sleep. Just doooo eeeet.
None of this, “But I’m overmedicated” bullshit. I’m not.
I think I have decided to try the Gabapentin. I’m scared shitless. But I seriously need a break from smoking. This is killing my lungs. Edibles are so expensive.
I would much rather give my money away than hemorrhage it on pot. Realistically: I’d rather pay chiropractors.
I’m not sure I will ever stop completely. I like it. But I don’t want to need this much of it. At this point it is hurting me.
My lungs are so pissed.
I won’t be on the computer today. K is bringing the Bonus Kids over. We haven’t had a visit in a while. I’m really happy about it.
Last night two wonderful women decided to come talk to me just because I said in a public way that I would be out of the house.
I feel so lucky.
Thank you for seeing me. Thank you for loving me.
Arms hurt. Love you so much. Bye.
I just got an email from my submissive that makes me feel like my heart will stop.
I didn’t know it was like that. I… thought I was just the type you liked. I didn’t know it was like that. Oh.
Oh.
Oh my.
I didn’t know that I was quite this special. I thought… I thought this was more about what you wanted instead of being about me.
Oh.
Holy. shit.
I… I’m glad I’m seeing you tomorrow. This is going to be quite a conversation.
Thank you so much for coming to my house even though I have a cat.
Oh. Holy. Fucking. Shit. This…
I set a tiny little brushfire. And now it is an inferno.
I thought…
I thought wrong.
Do you know what is hella weird? Asking for permission to write about people you hope to fuck. Then writing about them. Then going around and checking in, “Ok, did I step on any toes?”
It is… hilarious and totally worth the feelings of awkwardness. Know why? I have better sex partially because the people who want to fuck me are willing to do a lot of homework. I communicate a lot of things in writing I have trouble getting around to saying. Also: when I’m talking to myself I’ll admit things I won’t say right to a person. Because I’m kind of a passive aggressive douche. Yeah, I know.
Professor, you reacted with surprise when I said I’d been considering this for a while. I actually thought about it before your last relationship ended. Things seemed really rocky for you so I decided it really wasn’t worth bringing up with Noah.
There. I said it.
I don’t know what makes the damn break when it does. All I know is that when it does there is so much pent up it is a deluge.
Many… many years ago I copied the idea of a users guide from my friend because I know that I am difficult to figure out when it comes to sex sometimes. I’m picky and fussy and just generally demanding. Therefore it seems like a lovely idea to have some sort of cheat sheet about how to handle me in general. Some of these things I have figured out on my own, some of these things I have had pointed out to me by friends and/or lovers/husband, some of these things are constantly in flux and will no longer be true in just a few months. Of course this is a living document and therefore subject to change and revision without notice. Just because something is in here doesn’t mean you should assume that for now and all times this is the only thing I like/want/don’t like etc. After the roller coaster that was pregnancy and giving birth, I promise you things change in my body over time.
Index:
A. Before sex (including courtship/getting to know one another)
1. Just meeting and assumptions.
2. Appearance stuff and attraction.
a. Hair
b. Weight/height
c. Gender
d. Cocks
e. Race
f. Oral Hygiene
3. STIs/safer sex
4. Foreplay
a. Breasts
b. Ways to turn me on
B. During sex (including bdsm play)
1. Oral sex
2. Positions
3. Vibrators
4. Bondage
5. Group Sex
6. D/s
7. Pain
8. Care of the delicate bits
C. After sex. (including relationship level interactions)
A. Before Sex
1. Just getting acquainted
a. General
Never assume that you are going to get to go to bed with me. Yes, I go to bed with quite a few people—that doesn’t mean I will choose you. I expect and require that people treat me as an equal, and more importantly as an intelligent, thoughtful, responsible human being until otherwise negotiated. Please don’t act like I ought to be honored to teach you whatever it is you want to know about play/sex/whatever. I have taught classes and initiated virgins and newbies alike. I’ve put in my time to the community. I can coast on doing what pleases me and only what pleases me.
b. Specifics in a Having-Kids-Lifestyle
I don’t have a lot of free time. What free time I have is mostly spent alone because I have a very high intensity life that requires me to be well regulated emotionally despite stress. I can’t focus on getting to know new adults in a really concentrated way. I’m not flakey, but I don’t have much availability. And to be honest I’m a little flakey. My priority at this stage of my life is being nice to my kids. I have to keep the rest of my life quiet enough for that to happen or I have to drop other stuff. That is the deal for another ten years.
2. Appearance stuff and attraction
a. Hair
Once upon a time I said that I prefer clean shaven men, but that has radically changed during my adulthood. My opinion now varies tremendously based on personal attitude, grooming standards, and just plain what suits each face. As for the hair on other peoples heads: I don’t care anymore. I barely notice. I’m interested in your mind. I like body hair on anyone. Pubic hair doesn’t affect me one way or the other. I sometimes shave large portions of my body. I sometimes skip shaving for over a year at a go. You have to be totally ok with either or go away.
b. Weight/height
My weight goes up and down in a 40 pound range like a yo yo. Almost annually. You can’t be attracted to me for a specific look of my body. It will be different next month. I don’t know what the fork is up with it. Yes, I talk to doctors about it. I like people with bodies. I like fat bodies. I am…more appreciative of slender bodies than I used to be, but I still prefer some heft. I used to be a bit hung up on height and now I don’t care. I like people.
c. Gender
I am a cis-gender woman. If you haven’t picked up on the fact that I am queer then you haven’t been reading closely. I have had strong attractions to people at every point on the gender spectrum. I am completely comfortable having sexual contact that begins with, “What words do you want me to use for your body parts and how do you want me to touch you?” because I can’t guess. Everyone is unique.
d. Cocks (What the hell—since I am listing my preferences…)
Everyone should remember that the vagina is all about potential space. Yes, it can technically stretch, but in a normal resting spot it isn’t particularly large. My body doesn’t stretch terribly well or willingly (even after giving birth to two children) so I am not a fan of overly large cocks. Period. If it is going to cause my jaw to be sore within five minutes of oral sex I will probably experience a lot of pain during sex and that isn’t good for me. I am so not a size queen. I do not have lower limits on the size of cocks I can figure out how to enjoy. Not all sex is about penis in vagina sex. But I do have upper limits. Ow. No thank you. It’s not personal.
e. Race/marginalization
This is complicated. I am aware that I am most comfortable treating heterosexual white men like pieces of meat. If I fuck them and don’t call later… I don’t feel real bad. I have major hang ups around using people of color and women and gender ambiguous people in the same way. I feel tremendous shame and guilt around hurting already marginalized people. Which is to say… I really like having sex with people who are not het white men. I have a hard time approaching them. I don’t want to hurt them and I am less clear on the boundaries. I err on the side of not being a using asshole. But if you are interested… let me know.
f. Oral Hygiene
YES. Bad breath/teeth that look unclean is really really really repellent to me. I generally won’t kiss someone with bad breath. I will elect not to even if you are a nice person. Just no. I smoke pot and that has impact on my mouth. I do not mind kissing other people who smoke pot. I still really am not fond of kissing tobacco smokers. I don’t like the taste at all.
3. STIs/safer sex
The first thing that ought to happen in foreplay is a discussion of STI’s and safer sex expectations. I have honestly not been tested that recently but I was monogamous until the last month so I don’t feel too guilty. I’ll get back on a regular testing schedule. My habit is every six months if I am being promiscuous. (As of 4/2 waiting on results but I have been in for testing.)
I am a big proponent of the idea that we are having “safer” sex. The only safe sex is with your hand. There is risk involved in the play I do and I acknowledge it and try to minimize it. I do not have a desire to play with people who are in denial about said risk.
Gloves… ok honestly we probably won’t be 100% sticklers about gloves but we do use them in party environments because they are safer and more hygienic in a group atmosphere.
Condoms are not negotiable.
I have HPV. I have tested clean since 2003, but technically you always kinda have it? I am very very very upfront with this information. I am happy to provide you with access to information. You are an adult and you make your own decisions based on how much of a risk you are willing to take. Given the prevalence of HPV I think it isn’t that big of a deal, but I don’t have to live in your body for the next umpteen years and you do. I never want someone to regret having been intimate with me and I will defer to the stricter preference for barriers. I also test positive for HSV1, commonly known as oral herpes. I have had a few cold sores as an adult but they are rare and I feel them coming.
4. Foreplay
a. Breasts
This is really funny… but I feel like I should start tracking this on my period application on my phone. How much breast stimulation, and what kind, varies dramatically through the month. There are days when I will claw your eyes out if you brush near them too hard. There are days when I really want gentle stimulation and lots of it. There are days I want to be hurt very badly. Sigh. I married the most wonderful, flexible guy.
I love playing with breasts/tits. I like on the rough end but I’m not married to it.
b. Ways to turn me on
First and foremost: talk to me. Tell me how hot you think I am. Tell me what you want to do to me. Tell me what you are doing while you are doing it. Just hearing you narrate how wet I am when you slide your finger into my cunt will increase the quantity of wetness. Read me porn. Have me read you porn. My brain is the most potent sexual organ in my body. Pay attention to it. Do you know why I like having sex with my friends? Because the ones I have sex with are the ones who have spent years buttering me up talking about what they like from sex.
Stroke my legs, particularly behind my knees. It is very easy to turn me on when I am lying on my stomach and my legs and back are stroked lightly. This is by far the most sensuous activity for me. I love having my neck and head stroked gently. It’s not a massage–it’s… waking up sensual contact.
Biting is hard. I like it but I get hurt really badly too easily in a way that causes me to go to dark mental places and I dissociate. It isn’t off the table… but it’s complicated. Be really careful. Watch me. Make sure I am still “there”.
Tell me how to please you. I love having someone tell me how to get them off—it will usually be enough to get me off. An awful lot of what I get out of sex with people other than my husband is that thrilling feeling of, “Hey here is someone I haven’t practiced on for years and I’m still talented enough to get them off. Yay!” So lots of instructions about what you want and how you want will… turn me into butter. (Once you have permission to talk to me like this. If I indicate a boundary you had better back off like you hit an electric fence or you’ll get the full taser.[not literally])
B. During Sex
1. Oral sex
I like giving blowjobs. A lot a lot a lot. I like them the most if there is some degree of being “forced” involved. I’m not talking about serious forcing, but pushing my head down on your cock is going to get me all wet. Telling me to suck your cock will get me all wet. Asking me politely if I would mind will probably cause me to lose interest in giving you oral sex. If I do it at all it will be a lackluster job and I dislike performing poorly. OH! These suggestions apply to people I have already had sex with. If I have not had sex with you, you bloody well need to ask. For those of you who have already had sex with me, guiding my head down slowly is giving me plenty of time to say, “Not today.”
For the record: if I have given you a blow job I consider you one of my sexual partners. None of this “oral sex doesn’t count as sex” crap. Don’t bloody ever tell me that we haven’t really had sex. You have fucked my body and probably (hopefully) come inside me. We have had sex. Sure, it was a different hole. Whoopie. It was still penetrative sex. Don’t worry about asking me if it is ok to come in my mouth. If I like you enough to let your dick in my mouth, I’m happy to have you come. I do prefer being told when it is happening so I can synch my breathing, but it is just a preference.
I do have a strong gag reflex and if I seriously fight to bring my head back after you have forcibly shoved my head down on your cock… let me go. I may be on my way to run to the bathroom and vomit. It has happened. It will probably happen again. I’m ok with this. Please don’t let the possibility of this happening prevent you from fucking my mouth with enthusiasm. It is great for me. This being said, I’m not terribly thrilled with having a relationship centered solely around me giving blow jobs. I will eventually feel kind of used (after a year of being in that kind of relationship I really didn’t like him anymore and I didn’t like me much more).
I haven’t played with someone who had a cunt in many years. Sigh. I remember them fondly.
Also: I really like getting oral sex while wearing a strap on. That is fucktastically hot.
2. Positions
I am old, cranky, and in chronic pain. There are times when I am up for acrobatic porn-star sex. There are days when it is, “I am here. What more do you want from me?” I can be fun enough whatever my range for the day. But you will have to respect where my body is on a given day. Your fantasies take a back seat to my physical limitations.
3. Vibrators
In this post kid era, there are times when penetrative sex alone is not enough to get me off. Mr Hitachi, however, never lets me down. (Well, Mr. Hitachi IV is dying a pathetic death right now so he is in fact letting me down. But I have Mr. Hitachi V lined up and he is just dreamy.) I think the point of me having sex is so that I can get off. I know that other people have different beliefs about the purpose of sex, that is fine for them. I’m here to get off. If I’m not going to get off with you alone I will not hesitate to whip out my friend. Don’t worry. You will like the feeling of me orgasming enough to get over your ego at not being able to do it alone. It isn’t you. My body is kinda annoying at this stage. (For the record, when I want to be fucked while using a vibrator I almost always want to be face down.)
4. Bondage
Complicated. Once upon a time I spent a lot of time tying people up and being tied up. It isn’t really Noah’s thing so I don’t really do it any more. But I miss it fiercely. I really like being tied up. I really like being suspended. I really really like being suspended and fucked. Oh the good old days.
5. Group sex
Why yes, I would love to engage in group sex. Thank you for asking. I will make everyone talk more than they feel comfortable talking about wants, limits, permission, consent, etc. Because I need to hear all of those things said out loud. But then hell yeah.
6. D/s
What a difference ten years makes. Wow. Reading my old section here…. delete.
I am in a marriage that has power differential within tightly negotiated boundaries as we model a highly egalitarian marriage in front of our children. It will change after they grow up and we don’t have to look like such nice people any more. We have plans. Ahem.
I uhm, appear to have distinct interest in exactly one submissive man. How the hell did that happen? So I’m really not hunting for more in that department. I think my dance card will be full.
If I am playing with you on a more one-off basis it is very ok to negotiate for a D/s dynamic and tell me what kinds of things you fantasize about. I can be almost anyone for an hour.
7. Pain
Post-children my body has changed dramatically and I honestly don’t know what I like. Well, I know I still like single tails and canes. Those are my perennial favorites. My husband doesn’t know how to use a single tail. Do you? Choking is completely off the table. I have pre-stroke symptoms that are very concerning and I have young children. We cannot risk my life.
8. Care of the delicate bits
Due to some of the stuff that happened when I was very young I have a whole lot of scar tissue throughout my vagina/labia/anus. Scar tissue is like a dotted line in the skin that means, “Please tear here.” Despite my very strong desire for rough, and rougher, and rougher sex… I can’t actually handle all that I would like to handle. (Damnit.) Don’t pull roughly on my labia. Don’t pull my ass cheeks apart with any speed or force. Just DON’T. I will tear open and it will hurt and hurt and that will mostly curtail sex for hours if not days. It sucks ass and so I try to avoid massive tearing. Gentle handling of the bits is important.
That is the paragraph from the pre-kids era. The only update I will give to that is: having children did do some work to break up the internal scar tissue inside my vagina. (Hurray!) But I am still delicate in a way you would not expect from someone with my overall temperament. I’m a fragile toy. Treat me with care.
C. After Sex/play
Immediately after sex/play I will want to breathe and hug for a few minutes. I will want a check in email afterwards for any bdsm play–I do not need it for vanilla sex. I like being friends with people but that has to happen around my schedule. It is highly limited. I’m not rejecting you. I’m dealing with the fact that right now my life is about figuring out how to be healthy around my kids and that is much harder for me than you might think. It takes a lot of time and energy. It is very important to me that I do this right. It will remain my focus for quite some time.
Noah just mocked my “no dating” thing up one side and down the other.
Don’t claim that, Krissy. You are going to be dating.
But things don’t change with the kids.
Shit.
What am I doing?
Hopefully having fun…
I’ve been a kinky motherfucker all of my life. I officially entered the bdsm community at 18, but I was doing kinky stuff before then. I’ve been giving oral sex for 31 years. I’ve been having PIV (penis in vagina intercourse) by choice for 22 years. This summer marks 16 years of my life in the bdsm community. In two more years I will have been in the bdsm community (to some degree or another) for half of my life. I feel very confident saying that being a pervert is part of my identity. Part of my identity I’m thoroughly comfortable with.
But things shift over time. The kind of pervert I am changes. The kinds of things I like has drifted considerably, especially since having kids.
In all these 16 years I have resolutely shied away from pursuing any kind of ongoing interaction where I was to be Dominant. That’s been a line for me. I like being toppy. I’m sadistic as fuck. But I’m not a Dominant. Nope, that’s not me.
I’m a serious control freak and I manage a lot of that by being the submissive/bottom/slave because then I’m the one who does the vast majority of the work and it goes how I prefer. I date lazy tops. Perfect.
But my life has changed a lot. I feel like I have changed.
There are a lot of people and situations in my life where I could railroad people and control the shit out of them. I’m home schooling my kids. I could micromanage the fuck out of them. I could require them to be submissive to me. Legally I have the right. Yesterday I read this post that reminded me of why I really don’t want my children to be submissive to me in any way.
I don’t know about you, but I fall into being a bully real easy. I have to be careful not to control people inappropriately. I have big opinions and big feelings and people who aren’t rock solid in themselves like being influenced. I could be a serious problem for a lot of people.
I try so hard to not be that. I keep my boundaries fiercely. I don’t boss people beyond very specific, small, limited places where I ask for consent. “Hey we want to organize this event, can I boss people around to get things done quickly?” At this stage of my life 9/10 times when I ask that people gratefully say, “Oh please do.” I’m good at figuring out a plan. I’m good at bossing people.
But I’m scared of it. I avoid it. I don’t seek it out in an ongoing way. I do not want a job where I have that kind of control over people. I am not stable enough. I am not kind enough. I make such bad assumptions.
I act without thinking and I hurt people when I do too much of that.
It isn’t safe nor appropriate for me to be too bossy with any of my friends or family members.
But lately I want to boss. I want to control. I want to have influence in an ongoing control-tastic way.
I got this email from my friend. The one I topped the other night. The one I’ve been thinking about a lot for a while now. The one who likes the really super intense play that I like.
I’m thinking about him way more than is good for my overall balance of life. Holy shit. What do I want from him?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So much. So little. Such specificity. I don’t want to try to meet all his needs. I want to negotiate a very small slice of his soul and control the ever loving shit out of that. As I hurt him really badly.
Anyone who tells me they really want to see me come up from biting them with blood dripping down from my mouth?
Shit. We need to get tested.
Cause I can’t draw blood until we have both been recently tested. I have kids. I have to care. I have too many friends who have contracted Hep C.
Cause if you have been dreaming for years about having me hurt you like that and I have been dreaming for years about hurting you like that and my husband doesn’t mind and your partner thinks it is hotter than the sun?
Uhm…
Why not?
I have worked very hard to cram all of the “me” that is a pervert into a very small box that I keep in the closet. I take it down for very rare special occasions when my kids are far away and kept safe with someone I trust completely.
I know that many people in the community are ok with somewhat fuzzy boundaries with their children. I am not comfortable with that. I need boundaries between them and my sex life constructed with steel beams and concrete reinforcement. This is a no-information/no-fly zone kiddos. Nope.
No, I won’t swing in the house with the kids.
Just no.
Not because I’m judging you. Because I’m trying to deal with the body and brain I have. I’m trying to deal with the highly traumatized DNA sequence I passed down.
Why does sex with Noah behind a closed door feel fine as long as we are quiet? Because I’m really thrilled that my kids think that sex is a natural part of growing up and finding a partner. I’m ok with modeling that.
I can’t model promiscuity. Not given my background.
You know what? My kids have flat told me they don’t want me to date. They know that we have friends who date outside their marriage. They don’t care about what other families do. They told me flat out that they don’t want to give up more time with me.
They are little for such a short time. I’ve already been a pervert for so long. I have already been a slut for so long. Those things will still be there when my children no longer want me like this. I have one shot in this lifetime to nail the kind of parenting relationship I want to have and that means giving my children far more than I want to give. It means giving up things I want really badly for a while.
Life is always about choices.
Noah could tolerate a lot more promiscuity and boundary pushing and dysfunction. But then I’d be teaching it to my kids.
No.
It isn’t that I think that modeling dating is inherently wrong. I truly don’t. Other people have very different lives.
I think I don’t know how to model long term stable relationships. I like picking up strangers and fucking them once or twice and moving on.
I don’t want to model what I like.
Even if I don’t want to stop liking it. I just don’t want to like it in front of them.
This feels so complicated. I don’t like being in the closet. I don’t like feeling like a liar. I don’t like feeling like I am being anything other than 100% brutally honest.
You know what? I am with my kids. I still have boundaries. They sometimes ask probing questions about my history or my experiences and I will either say something matter of fact like, “Yes I dated lots of people before I got married because I wanted to figure out what things were important to me” or “That’s something private that I will not discuss with you during your childhood. You need to grow up without having that information in your brain. You can find it out later.”
So I’m not… lying… but I only answer selectively.
Part of how I have kept these divisions is “I did a lot of stuff in the past I’m not doing now and I have no shame about any of it” and “Right now I’m doing the mom thing.”
But the “mom thing” isn’t all of who I am. Even the (incredibly hot) sex I have with Noah feels like part of the mom thing and…
It isn’t all of who I am.
I’ve gone through a lot of evolution of perception of self. Especially with regards to the word whore. (Small disclaimer in case anyone is new: I’m not talking about sex work. I’m talking about personal associations from formative abuse. Specifically I have to figure out how to get my brain to work around shit my father did. It’s complicated. I’m not knocking anyone or any careers.)
I’m going to need some way to refer to this person I’m playing with. I will need a code name. I’m not ready to make one up yet so this is awkward. I have blanket permission to write about him, but he values his privacy.
For a long time I genuinely saw myself as a kind of sacred whore. I had sex with a lot of people, many of whom… weren’t getting a lot of other play. I feel like there is a lot of emotional healing that comes through sexual intimacy and you can absolutely experience that with strangers. There is a validation and affirmation that doesn’t exist in other kinds of connections in my experience. But it only happens with a highly, highly experienced partner who knows how to read intricate body signals and ask the right questions.
I’m really good at it. I’m told. By an exceptionally long list of people. So I have to believe it is true.
This person I’m playing with likes a lot of degradation with his submission. He wants to be called a whore and I get that. There isn’t a lot I find hotter during sex than having someone grind into me and call me a whore… so I get it. Better if I’m being hurt while they are calling me a whore and fucking me. I’ll usually come right there.
I’m having big feelings about degrading him. He asked me a lot of specific, leading questions leading to his desire to be degraded. Oh my.
I want control so badly right now. I want to be able to boss someone around a lot. I want to really play with someone’s mind. I want to headfuck someone until I can tell them that down is up and up is down.
I know how.
I’ve taken lots of classes. I’ve practiced with lots of people who are considered experts. I trained for this.
But I’ve never actually gone and done it. I’ve always been terrified of this. I don’t have the right. I was a Wiccan too early in life. What you put out there comes back to you times three. Be very careful what you wish for and make happen in your life.
I want to crawl into someone’s head and change parts of how he feels about himself. Not in bad ways. I don’t want to hurt him. I want to… tweak him. Because it’s hot. Because controlling people is so fucking hot.
I don’t want to hurt his life. I don’t want to interrupt his relationship with his partner or his kids or his job or his other play partners or…
I just want this. This piece of control. That I can’t explain yet. I don’t know what it is I want so god damn badly right now.
Thinking about the fact that he has to wait for a letter in response to his email because I feel like making him wait …. I’m going to masturbate quite a few times today. This is hotter than fuck.
(Yes I have appropriate boundaries around it. Don’t worry, I can come quick. I only need like three minutes of privacy.)
The email he wrote me is earth shatteringly hot and I can’t quite quantify why. The depth of longing. The number of years this longing has been sustained for.
I met him when I was 19. He likes to say that I had him from, “And who the hell are you?” Apparently that was the first thing I said to him and he was done.
You know…
I feel like this is a bad rom com justification for intense longing wearing people down.
In this moment I all of a sudden understand one of my friends much better. She has a marriage in which they do not discuss politics because they are on opposite sides of the fence. This man and I… have very differing views. We are going to need a hard and fast rule that if one of us notices that we want to have an argument because it is veering near politics we will need a Shiny Change Of Topic. Because…. I know his views. I know his views about a lot of things don’t align with mine for very complicated and diverse reasons.
He isn’t someone I could have married and had kids with for a laundry list of reasons. Guess what? That role in my life is filled and I’m fucking thrilled with how it is going.
But there is this stuff that I really fucking like to do that I can’t do with my husband because holy shit is he not interested.
Noah’s ok with some biting and scratching because it indicates enthusiasm and he likes that. But he is not a masochist and he has decided limits and he gets mad if they are crossed. It isn’t hot.
He has offered, over the years, to do some bottoming if I feel like I just absolutely have to do it and I just… can’t hit him. Not like that. He doesn’t like it. I topped him once because he wanted to feel what it was like to go through a hook pull and he needed help from endorphins and it sucked for him.
I can’t ever do that to him again.
But I really really really like hurting people and it is much easier to control that impulse on a regular basis if I have occasional times when I get to feel like, “Yes, This Is The Right Time And Space”. It is easier to understand what boundaries feel like when you get to have lots of them in different places at different times for different reasons.
I’m horrified by the idea of putting mild pornography in front of an unknown vanilla audience. But I will take all my clothes off in a room full of strangers, crook my finger at a person I don’t know and proceed to fuck right there. I will go to Folsom Street Faire and tie up any person who wants to get tied up because I know I am safe and competent and I won’t hurt them and they will get to have a sensual experience.
Boundaries, motherfucker.
Some time ago one of my children was being friendly with a random other child while we were waiting in line somewhere. The kids were going to have to just stand there for an hour or more. After a few minutes of Eldest Child trying the mother looked at me and said, “Your children have no boundaries, do they?”
Whoa.
What a global statement. We are friendly in a way that is highly unusual outside of California. We are enculturated to being part of a place that treats everyone warmly and like we could be best friends and we just don’t know it yet.
This is where we have always lived. This is how we know how to be. It isn’t that we have no boundaries. I’m wary about going into peoples houses. The kids have a lot of boundaries around going into secured spaces with people they don’t know. They are only allowed to be taken in the cars of very specific people and we have passwords around that.
No boundaries, holy fuck.
We like to pass the time in line by being friendly. Some of those random chats have turned into beautiful friendships. You know what? On the road trip we stopped in Michigan to visit with a man I met in a grocery store. Because he was wearing a pervy t-shirt and I needed to ask him to join the Mountain View Perverts Society. (We weren’t a real thing, but there was a shocking density of pervert households in a small area; we knew each other.) At worst it usually means standing in line is less tedious.
No boundaries. Jeeez.
You know what? My husband neither wanted nor asked for sexual fidelity when he married me. Nor did I.
I said I would be faithful to our relationship. That doesn’t mean anything about who I fuck or beat. If I am faithful to what Noah wants from me… You know what? I’m better able to be present with Noah if I have other needs met by other people. It means I spend less time being frustrated with him that he completely fails to be a queer masochist. I mean, what the ever loving fuck did I do wrong in this life to end up married to a hetero top?
But you have to take the hand you are dealt. He wanted me. He wanted to do the kids and home schooling thing. He has been up for everything I want to do in life. He isn’t someone who has as much strong direction as me. He’s thrilled to have someone with a stronger rudder around.
But I can’t control him. I don’t boss him. And I can’t hit him.
I have someone I like, someone I love even, walking into my life and telling me that they want me to hurt them as much and as deeply and as harshly as I want to because they think I deserve to have that release in this lifetime.
Holy fucking shit. God that’s hot.
What do I mean when I say I don’t want to date? Because clearly that means something to me. I think it means: if my children have already known you as the kind of person who comes to one big party a year and maybe one dinner a year… that’s probably where it is going to stay. I don’t take much time away from my kids. I need a lot of alone time and that dominates the time I take away from my kids. If I start seeing someone else on my own time frequently… it would cut into how present I can be with my kids and that’s not ok. But I want to see him so much.
And I’m making him wait for letters before we negotiate more. Oh, he’s probably reading this. But that’s different, you know? There are a lot of things I’m not saying here. A lot of things that are going to be private negotiations and may not ever be written about because I’m not 100% sure I want my kids to be able to find that in the archive.
I want to do some pretty fucking evil things.
And he really wants to let me.
Why is that so bad?
I don’t know.
I’m having a hard time talking myself out of it. I don’t want to talk myself out of it. I want to ………
Oh god.
Yes, when we played last weekend it was not anywhere near what we’ve talked about so far. Yes it was sexier. Yes it was more gentle. I was trying to not squick the vanillas, ok?!
Boundaries, motherfucker.
God. This scene is going to be so hot I should sell tickets.
Hey, maybe it would be a way to get enough money to pay to rent a play space during a time when my babysitter is actually free… Ha.
No pictures though. He has privacy concerns.
Yes. I want to take you. Yes. I want to take you.
God the sex is complicated. I think…
I think that is going to have to be part of what makes this so fucking hot. I think my pussy won’t be involved. I’ve never had a stone relationship before. I have never before in my whole slutty life been interested in having a stone relationship. I don’t know what the fuck this means.
It isn’t that I think I won’t have sex with people other than Noah. He kinda holy-crap enjoyed the swinger thing and… yeah I can do that.
It isn’t “what I want” in the same way. But it is close enough and fun enough and sure.
I want to use you and use you and use you and fuck with your head and build you up and help you feel a whole lot more cocky about how wonderful you are with everything you have to offer. I just want this tiny piece of it. But I’ll talk a lot about how much I enjoy all the other parts of you. I want you to be whole.
I want you to be a whole you. I think I can feed part of you.
I think you have already given me something.
I’m sleeping a lot better.
I told the woo Dr I need a month off from these supplements. I need to figure out how my body is doing after what we have been doing.
A lot of my pain issues are improving. I can feel that most of my current ache is because of current unfamiliar strenuous labor. My hands are getting wrecked. I really ought not be typing.
But I can’t say all of these things to Noah. And I need him to know that I’m thinking them. Because I need to be as absolutely transparent with Noah as I can be and in most of our lives… we just can’t talk about this stuff.
I don’t want to “date” in the next ten years. I want my kids and Noah to take up pretty much all of my time. I need that safety. I need it. I don’t know how much time I can carve away from that in order to come out with the relationship I want to have with my kids.
Don’t worry, I’m going to launch these puppies. Then I’ll have more, ahem free time. But a lot of that will go to Noah as his reward for supporting me and providing for me so well for so long.
I don’t know what is left.
I kinda want to find out.
I feel so alive.
Other people aren’t going to make your dreams come true. Just go do it by yourself.
I went to a party last night. The kind of party where you aren’t supposed to talk about what you do. But how much do I respect those boundaries? Only by the skin of my teeth. Which has no skin. So I totally don’t get that expression.
It was hot. I had a lot of fun. It was interesting to manage my feelings and expectations. Noah had more uhm contacts than me (this was intentional) and we both left feeling like we had a really positive experience.
I do have explicit permission to write about one of my partners. He has given me blanket permission to write about him. But that’s complicated. You see, a lot of folks I know… also know him. I’m having big feelings. They come in waves and layers and they impact many different aspects of my life.
Who am I? What do I want? Am I good or am I a monster? Can’t I be both? Is it ok?
I’m not sure I want to stop being a monster. What I want to do is go bite him right on top of the bruise he has from me biting him last night. That’s what I want to do.
He said that for that night it was a 9 but in the future I can treat it like a 7 because he really wants to let me do what I want to do.
So. Hot. Explosively. Hot.
Well I had my first fuck since Muse. Not with my friend I am hurting. Why not?
Why not?
Why not?
Why do I need that to be a boundary? I’m still thinking about it. It’s complicated. It has to do with a sense of obligation, about boundaries, about my own limits around energetic output, and of course it’s about the fact that when I’m being super slutty… I wanna bottom.
Even though it is explosively orgasmic to fuck your throat, it is hard for me to turn around and say, “Ok now I want you to fuck me like this and like that and do it this way and harder and…”
When I’m fucking I want to drop like a rock.
That was part of the trouble with breaking the rule in Portland. I wanted to break so many rules. I wanted to cheat. Because he likes flipping people.
That’s where I get in trouble. My friend, who lets me hurt him so exquisitely, has absolutely no drive or desire or impulse to flip me. Not an ounce. None. I’ve looked in that well. I’ve dug out the bottom praying for brackish sips of toppy energy.
I love you so much. I want to drop when I fuck.
I feel bad for wanting that and I don’t want to feel bad for that.
I can do enough feedback to tell a stranger how to avoid land mines and encourage them to hit the tempo I want. That’s easy. I can’t tell a submissive how to fake being forceful enough to fuck me. I know folks who can. My hat is off to you. Sounds fucking hot. I can’t do it.
That was the thing with my Owner. He liked to submit to me. But when he was done he wanted to flip the table hard and have me go down.
I like that.
If I don’t feel a strong challenge, if I don’t feel like someone kind of wants to crawl inside me to eat my neck from the inside… meh. I’ll go find someone else to fuck. Don’t worry. There are more out there. Dick is the most plentiful thing on earth. As Feminista Jones recently pointed out, dick is more plentiful than drinking water.
And if what I want is someone who will fuck me like an animal then go away and not talk to me anymore?
I’m in a god damn buyers market.
This is part of why negotiating boundaries with Noah is so hard. I’m so touchy. I’m so sensitive. I need so much attention and energy and maintenance. We aren’t going to be polyamorous any year soon if ever. I have no desire to share that big of a piece of him.
But how does it work to fuck your friends? How does it work to keep people at a distance? I don’t know.
My kids are my secondaries. That sounds creepy. I don’t think we have an emotionally incestuous relationship. I think we have a lot of boundaries around what it means to be support for one another. I don’t think I am overly enmeshed or overly dependent on them. But I am really seriously teaching them how to take care of themselves. And I’m doing that by figuring it out (kinda) in front of them.
I believe with all my heart and soul that much of this journey needs to be off-screen for them. Sure, I write about it publicly and some day they may discover just how skanky their mom was/is…
I can live with that.
I believe I am allowing them to grow up in a world where sexuality is normal, healthy, private, and personal. People do it in a lot of different ways for a lot of reasons and there is no one way that is right or wrong. We have friends of quite diverse family arrangements. And I’m matter of fact and shame free about all of it. I explain why things I tried failed because of defects in my personality. It isn’t that those ways of existing are wrong.
I just can’t do them.
I don’t know why sex can be biting someone and slapping him and fucking his throat with my strap on and that’s enough. We didn’t even kiss.
But sometimes that is a complete sexual experience that needs to be respected within the boundaries that apply to it. Sex isn’t what you think it is. Sex is a lot of things.
I kissed his body. I kissed his neck. I licked him. Do you know the most contact I had with his cock? When he was wearing pants I kneeled on his crotch and jerked him off with my knees. I was still fully dressed.
Sex can be a lot of things.
Sex can be a lot of things it can’t be with Noah. That’s feeling interesting to me right now. And then the pick up sex.
Gosh. Feeeeeeeeeeeeelings. Where do these all fit in my heart, in my loins, in my life?
I asked permission for the pick up sex. Absolutely no cheating happened. This was all highly negotiated and safe and what not. Lots of condoms and covered oral sex. Ok we didn’t use gloves for fingering.
I swear to goodness driving across the country with my kids was more dangerous than fucking this dude.
Why didn’t I hunt for a woman?
Complicated.
Because there are more feelings involved. Squishy feelings. Feelings I have a harder time keeping at arms length. Because I want to fall in love with you. Because I miss women so much. Because I would want to… not have the boundaries I’m supposed to have. Because I do want to come over and bring my kids and all of us can cuddle because surely that’s not a problem, right?
A long time ago I went home with a couple after a wild drug fueled orgy. I shit you not. In the morning the three of us were lying in bed naked doing more drugs. In walked their eight year old kid.
No one blinked. This was just normal.
I left very soon after. I didn’t really keep dating them. I couldn’t do that.
My kids know I smoke pot. My kids know I have had sex. My kids see my casually naked because I genuinely see nudity as not a big deal.
My kids don’t walk in on me smoking pot with my lovers in the nude. Nope, nope, nope.
Do I think I’m better than them? No. Not really. Because you can go down a list of this for that wrong for right and… I’m not. I’m not better than anyone. I don’t have stones to throw. But I have decisions to make about where my boundaries need to be.
Isn’t judging kind of a necessary thing in life? It doesn’t have to mean someone else is in the wrong. But you have to judge anyway. You have to judge if something is right for you.
I asked very careful permission before I engaged in any sm play because this was not a bdsm party. I asked the host, I found a semi-private room. I asked the other people playing in the room for permission before I got started. When other people wanted to join us in the room I asked them if they were comfortable before things got going.
I want it to be ok for me to be in my place in the weird ass world and I want it to be ok that sometimes other people need to be protected from my baser urges. My baser urges are pretty wicked and I know that. Whoa.
I kept it light. I knew I was at a vanilla party. I’m told I only got up to a 3/4 for the hitting. The biting I got more fierce because that doesn’t scare people who are watching. Uhm, not as much?
No punching. No kicking. No serious choking.
I kept it kinda sensual mean.
aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh. I’m going to beat off like a fiend for weeks thinking about this. I need to go to a real bdsm party with him so I can fuck him up. I feel like I’m fiending like a junkie. I like this feeling.
This used to be my life. Ok, I didn’t top that much. Enough. I topped as often as other people could talk me into it. Because people who really crave being hit can tell what I have hiding beneath my smile.
How am I going to keep boundaries around this?
I’ve already loved you for way more than ten years. I’ve known you for more than fifteen years. If this changes, what will that mean? How much of me is going to go to a relationship that has been… super low key for a long time?
That’s the rub. That’s where the negotiating comes in.
Last night I was teasing him and I was teasing me. I know what we both really want and I couldn’t give it to him there. It wouldn’t have been appropriate.
See: I can be taught.
He told me, “Many years ago I decided that even if I didn’t know what you wanted from me, I want to give you everything I have.”
Danger. Danger. Danger. Soooooooooooooooooo much temptation there. That could be so much fun. So much intoxication. So much excitement.
Crap.
It’s magical. It’s appealing.
I have at least ten more years before I will consider seriously dating. Realistically I’m not sure our marriage would survive a serious outside relationship for one of us. We are enmeshed mother fuckers.
But I don’t mind when he goes and does x with someone else.
Cause it isn’t cheating. I walked into the room. I saw what was happening. I saw who it was happening with. I grinned. I walked out.
I like watching other people but I honestly don’t like watching Noah have sex with a stranger. I like watching him fuck my friends because then I can tell them both what to do and be a bossy shithead. That’s kinda inappropriate when he’s banging someone I don’t know. Boundaries, bitch.
And the very best part is when we got home he wasn’t ready to get a hard on so he put on a strap on and fucked me till he was ready to get hard again. Because I wasn’t done yet and if you aren’t hard that’s fine, we have equipment for that. I’m not done yet. And then we woke up and had frantic sex again in the middle of the early morning.
Because we feel cocky, snotty, insatiable, and completely and totally lucky that we get to come home and fuck each other.
I think it is hilarious that my shrink is shocked by how much sex we have considering how long we have been married. “Krissy, you know that people just don’t do that, right?” Meh. I know people who do. Maybe you don’ t know the right people.
It’s all about where you stand.
Noah likes to make fun of me. If I can find people who are more extreme at something I will loudly and prolifically say that I’m not that good at ________. Doesn’t matter what the topic is.
If there are fifty people alive who are better than me, clearly I’m not that good.
Uhhhh, right?
Depends on your scale. I’ve never ever tried to be a specialist. I’m a generalist. So what the fuck does that mean?
I don’t know yet.
Let’s find out.
This morning I had a peaceful moment. One of those true, Zen moments of “I am happy and this is where I want to be.” Eldest Child woke up to use the restroom too early. I was awake doing chores, like usual. She asked me if I would climb in bed with her so she could sing me a lullaby. Twinkle Twinkle was the song of choice. Then she spent a while talking to me about why she likes me.
This is kind of a habit I have with the kids. I don’t put them to bed all the time, probably not even half the time these days at home. Maybe a quarter of the time? But we had the road trip and all the years before that of shared bed times. At bed time, what we do is we cuddle up close and spent 15-20 minutes talking about all the reasons we like each other. “You did ____ and I was so impressed with your thoughtfulness. You did ______ and I was shocked to see that you have made that developmental jump. I thought that was a (age inflation) thing and I’m really wow’ed. You said ______ word today and that was surprising because I didn’t know you knew that word!”
We bookend that with waking up to morning snuggles. During morning snuggles we talk about what we need to do today and how the schedule will work.
I can understand why my children insist I’m not an asshole and I just have bad moments. I don’t understand it so much from other people. Sometimes I feel like my children get to have a relationship with someone that no one else even gets to meet.
Sometimes I am capable of seeing myself as kind, giving, and loving.
That doesn’t change the fact that I’m an asshole.
Contradiction is necessary for life. For survival. You can be kind and an asshole.
Why am I so convinced I’m an asshole? Because I lawyer up fast when my contractors give me trouble. Because I find that swearing at men really harshly is one of the best ways to convince strange men I’m not interested in their attention. Because I find that sometimes it is necessary to kick people really hard to get them to let go and I’m willing to do it. Because I’m going to keep talking about why the word whore is eating my brain even though people with sex work careers twitch and feel really upset about it.
Want to hear something wild? Yesterday one of the most famous sex workers of our era gave me permission to use the word whore however I need to in my processing. She says if anyone questions me again I can send them to her.
That is… incredibly validating. Wow. Thanks.
I’m not sure I’m ever going to pull that card. But I may print out that tweet and cut it up small and put it in my wallet next to the permission slip from Noah. Just so that I think about it.
I have permission to look at this however hard I need to in order to get over it. She said so.
I am so fucking weird about permission. I’ve spent my whole life cringing, crying, and hurting myself because I felt that was the only thing I was allowed to do without permission. I need permission to stop. I need permission to feel something else about myself.
Why does that have to be the default? I mean, blame your parents yada yada, why does that have to be my default?
Why do I have to assume, in every moment, that I am the least valuable person present and if someone should die it should be me?
Not that I want to get to the point of wanting to sacrifice other people for myself.
Wait, maybe that is it.
I have never known a white person with really high self esteem who isn’t willing to throw other people under the bus for their own advancement. I have known people of color with high self esteem whom I have never seen sacrifice a friend. I know people of color who are exploitive assholes, too.
I’m trying to think through my white friends… y’all make very self absorbed choices. I do too. I’m not sitting on a high horse. I’m sitting flat on the ground. I’m not high and mighty here. I’m trying to figure out how this works.
I am willing to throw people under a bus if I feel I have to do so in order to be effective.
That’s why I’m an asshole. I need accurate labeling so other people know they have to protect themselves from me.
I want to help you. I will try to help you. But if I feel I have to be effective in some area for Reasons…
I’m a selfish piece of shit. That’s why I’m alive. I’m willing to say that Safeway doesn’t matter as much as me, I’m stealing food. I’m willing to say, “Being around people who make choices like x is so problematic to me that I will bug and bug and bug people who make choices like that until they don’t want to know me any more.”
I’m an asshole because I make a lot of assumptions about people and I don’t check my privilege nearly often enough. I’m trying to get better. This is hard.
My life has been kind of hard to adjust to.
I spent my childhood moving like a ghost through different communities. I never stayed long enough to belong. I lived in a lot of neighborhoods where we were the only white family. I grew up feeling like being white was a bad thing. Know why? White people don’t care about their kids very much. That was how I experienced it as a child. I don’t think that is literally true across the board. That was my experience. In white neighborhoods there were always packs of unsupervised children doing horrifyingly inappropriate things. In neighborhoods of color there might be much older teenagers or 20-somethings causing trouble, but the kids were god damn watched.
I was chased out of so many homes for having bad behavior. I was told I was a bad girl dozens, maybe a hundred times.
It’s funny how my memories of these things change and drift. I remember them very differently as my understanding of the situation changes.
When I was 21ish I honestly didn’t remember all those lectures about being bad. I had kinda blocked them out. I knew I was bad but it was a fog hanging over my life. I didn’t have all those disparate voices going through my head.
As a parent watching my children be children (by which I mean breaking rules and fucking up) I hear those people in my head over and over more and more clearly. Oh. That was why they said that.
Click.
Now I get it.
Shit.
I have always felt like I was living in many ages at once. But I feel like my future selves have changed a lot over my life. My ability to perceive who I could be has changed.
These days I can picture having grandchildren who scornfully tell my children that they should be more patient, like Grammie. I will giggle. My children will say, “YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT SHE WAS LIKE TO GROW UP WITH.” I will giggle.
Do you have any idea what having that vision in my head means to me? I have the belief that I might be able to arrive at having the kind of experience of being in my body that I want to have. I believe that I might get to the point of being actually regulated and calm.
I have hope for something I was not capable of dreaming up 20 years ago.
It’s amazing what ten years of safety can do for a body. I see it in myself. I see it in my children. That is something that home schooling does for me that isn’t necessary for almost anyone else I know.
I require this specific time to be set aside in my adult life where the entire point of my day is to model how to have big emotions, get them under control, deal with them appropriately when they come up, and then keep working.
Not suppressing. Not denying. Not minimizing. Not avoiding until it comes crashing down on you at some inappropriate time in the future. Your feelings matter. They live in you and they serve a purpose. If you ignore them in the moment you will pay a price later. There are times and places where emotional displays are not appropriate, but get that stuff out as fast as possible so it doesn’t become a poison.
I am grateful every day for the life I am leading right now.
I have the safety, the money, the access to care providers, and the education to do something about the trauma in my body.
That is magical. This should be available to everyone who has experienced trauma. We would be a better world.
People deserve to be seen in context and understood. Most people who seem “crazy” to you wouldn’t seem so crazy if you knew more about their story. I tell my children all the time, “Weird just means you aren’t used to it yet; eventually it is just normal.”
My mom used to say, “The only norma people are the ones you don’t know very well.”
One of my neighbors is stepping up the offer of maternal-nature-friendship. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, Thank You Oh Universe, You Sure Do Like To Hear My Calls, Don’t You?
On the other hand… I’m scared of blowing up what we currently have if she finds out more about me. I’m not exactly the uhhhh conservative type and she is quite shy, scared, and sheltered. I don’t want to hurt her. She will need a lot of boundaries around the kinds of things she can handle hearing and I’m not sure how to find those boundaries without fucking up pretty badly. Once you say something it can never be unsaid.
We have a really solid, positive relationship. Losing it would be brutal. This feels really tricky. Our families are fairly strongly connected at the level we have now. I feel really like this is a big risk. Much bigger than telling all the strangers on the internet about my raunchy sex life and habit of beating people up for fun.
I’m kinda weird.
My superego is fucking developed at this point, ok? I’m growing up.
I’m an asshole and she is not. She wants to mother me. What will she do when she finds out I have approximately 500 x’s as much life experience as her?
There is a thing I think about. When I was in the bdsm community I was really serious about learning all I could as fast as I could. I played a lot with a lot of people. Basically I spent more time on bdsm than I spent on my college education, which I was pursuing simultaneously. Much Much Much more time on bdsm.
I was a serious slut and it was really fun and I have no regrets. I learned what I wanted to learn from that experience. I’m shocked at how often I find ways to apply the lessons I’ve learned, not in ways you’d expect.
I had more life experience at 25 than many people have at 50. It isn’t hyperbole, it is simple fact. I say yes to almost anything that comes up. I know very diverse people in many communities. I’m a moody bastard with a short attention span.
I’ve done a lot of things. It is something I notice when I meet new people these days. I sound like a lying braggart. Nope. I got receipts. I did all that. Why? Because I never felt like I had a better choice than to do what I was doing so I did it all in. As soon as something stops feeling like the best choice in the moment I break down, fall into a deep depression. Go home. Hurt myself until I figure out that the boundaries required in that community are not things I can maintain long-term. Then I heal. Then I try again.
It goes faster and faster as I age and get boundaries carved out of granite. It is harder to change them. I am less tolerant of my internal, “I need to conform by doing x in this environment” sensor and I just flee.
I have a home now. I have less reason to tolerate your bullshit rules. Wanna know why I know they are bullshit rules? Cause this ain’t my first rodeo. Don’t worry, I think the rules in my house are bullshit too. They are all weird and arbitrary. They are made to suit the moods of whichever asshole in the vicinity is loudest.
I know.
I used to know a man who liked to say, “I’m the only psycho in this relationship” or maybe he said he was the only one who gets to be crazy? I may be misremembering. I’ll cop to that.
I need to be the biggest asshole in the space I’m in. So Noah is an asshole, but I know that I’m much more likely to be the one to bulldoze than him.
It works for us. Picture a heart emoji here, but I have technically banned them so this will have to do.
He doesn’t think I’m an asshole. That’s part of why this works. I think we are both assholes and I’m just a bigger one. But he’s all mellow and tolerant so it works out. Do you however you need to, ok?
I’m going to be kinda passive aggressive here and say: if you are one of Noah’s friends… this is a great time to ask him to go out some time. He needs to talk. To more people than just me right now cause life is like that sometimes.
I can’t fill his tank as much as he needs me to right now. Because I’m dealing with the remodel and and and. His job is kinda hard.
I need to go beat the shit out of people. I don’t know what he needs. But right now, he’s wilting like a flower and that’s a serious bummer. I don’t know what it is that is missing right now, but clearly all the right nutrients aren’t in place.
This is the kind of micromanaging, paying attention that I want in my life. It is why I appreciate the people who have stuck with me and really got to know me so much. Because I’m more pushy like this by the year. Because people do it more with me. It’s a careful balance. How much controlling and influencing other people should we do?
I really don’t know where those boundaries ought to be. I’m not pulling up Noah’s email account and making plans for him. That’s over the line.
Where is the line?
Everyone is different. I want you to get to be who you need to be. I want to figure out who I need to be and I want to just do the shit out of it.
This feels like baby steps towards self love, doesn’t it? This morning feels good. I have to say that these piles of tile are inspiring. I may be jaunting off to get more sparkly tiles today. I’m really excited about the snow wall. I want to build that first because I have so much white and it would be nice to get it mostly used up and out of the way so I see how much I need to still buy in terms of tile for the rest of the bathroom. I really can’t tell yet.
It depends on how high up the walls I want to go, right? We’ll see!
Youngest child’s half bathroom is spring. Other half bathroom is summer. The bathing room is going to have autumn and winter. I can’t wait to look at the sparkly snow while I take baths in candle light at night. That will be so beautiful.
I’m serious my friends, if you want to come take a bath… let me know.
I’m thinking hard about how I want to make the tree of life that will climb up the wall over the bath tub. I need to look at more pictures. That will probably be that last bit I design because much of it might be painted, I haven’t decided.
I know that “traditionally speaking” you want flat walls. I’m not going to have flat walls with perfectly level tile. It’s going to be pretty rough and it will be on purpose and structured and artistic. I think it will work.
Oh please God let this work cause this puppy is going to be expensive if I fuck up.
Go big or go home, bitch.
Oh goodness what did I get myself into?!
Have I told you that the floor will have a stone path lined with green tiles to look like grass?
I’m having SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH FUN.
If only the roof weren’t uhm, being tricky. We are still negotiating. I’m blathering on Twitter but I won’t rehash it here. Just… gotta keep walking on. I’m trying to not be angry. At this point all of the guys in the company have apologized for making decisions without me when clearly they made the wrong choice at a critical juncture. I had preferences and they didn’t ask. Even though I’ve told them over and over and over I want to be asked.
Ok. Trying to move on. Have to get this shit finished. If it’s beautiful… I will still write positive reviews with caveats about how I had to be fierce in advocating for myself.
I made it very clear that from here on out the crew was not to dump their lunch garbage all over and leave it here for weeks. Saw blades are all over the ground and that’s not cool. My lawyer was at this meeting. I should stop talking about it for all kinds of reasons.
I wanted to write something down here for documenting purposes. Instead, I hit cut’n’paste and sent it to my lawyer.
That seems smart just now.
Past self, you picked this woman out based on proximity and hope. Well done!
Today will be a good day, I think. I hope. I believe. Oh yeah, a friend asked if she could come over to dinner. I should tell Noah. Ha. Surprise. We have six people coming over for dinner.
Roll with it. Life flows like that. If people ask to come over for dinner the next night and I have no plans…. I’m weak. I have no willpower for that kind of rejection. Because you hit my sweet spot. Basically no output of energy and lots of input of attention. Yeah, you can do that. Sounds awesome. I have to cook anyway. Don’t worry. I always have enough food around.
You never know who might be coming to dinner.
I talked to the woo doctor who gave me the pills yesterday because I’ve been having lightning flashes of pain in my abdomen. A couple of them. One on either side over multiple days. I said I’m worried about bowel obstruction because I’m alternating between some of the most fierce liquid dark brown diarrhea I’ve ever seen and thin toothpastey things that feel like I’m constipated and I’m about to pass a grapefruit.
I was told that my symptoms confirm the diagnosis. But uhm, apparently I don’t need quite so many pills for this to be effective and I get to cut a whole bunch out.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Physically I’ve been terrible and great and not so good and good and ok so far on the pills. So I’m not sure what the fuck is happening in my body. I’m on week three of this motherfucker. One more week till I’m mostly through the parasite cleanse. Oy.
I was pretty good about doing the meds when I was in Portland. Even though it was yucky and I was whiny.
I…
Man I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut. I’m out of practice attending the kinds of events where you aren’t supposed to talk about it.
I’m kinda the opposite of good at discretion sometimes. But some things require me to not go into detail. Not because of my own privacy, but because other people are involved.
This was quite a weekend.
I can’t tell you about it. Even though I have allllll the feelz. So many positives and negatives and intensity and STUFF I WANNA PROCESS. But other people have different boundaries than me. Fuck being respectful and other such bullshit.
My cunt hurts quite a bit.
I broke a rule. Noah says it isn’t all the way to cheating, but I feel like I need to document that it happened even if I’m not going to say what I did. Because in the future I’ll be all, “Well I didn’t admit to that one thing that one time” and this is my way of saying, “Yup. I did that.”
I accept responsibility for my actions.
I’m not sure I’d take it back if I could.
Time to clean my house.
Shit.
Just because you would do something in a certain way doesn’t mean someone else can or would or should.