Can't Dance...Don't Ask Me!

This morning I was listening to the "Today" show while I was showering. Often it is some stupid crap about Katie's latest shoe shopping binge or "Where in the HELL is Matt Lauer?" but today they did a thingie about how women are attacted to men who can dance. And I practically fell to the shower floor hysterically nekked! The gist of the theory is that women, not unlike goonie birds and the like, are attracted to the dance of their mate. Ok...I get that. We are all ANIMALS, after all. Pretty plumes, glittery gems, a man who can trot like Travolta...

Now let's backtrack a few years... It is time for my "ahem" 25th Reunion. Tom galantly says he will suffer thru' the dinner/dance (see where this is heading, doncha?) as the wonderful fiancee he was. We went. We drank. I hated it. He talked and entertained himself with the other "dates". And THEN..... MUSIC! Not just your basic listening music...not just the kind of music that you can ignore in the background....oh, noooooo.... (shiver) DANCE MUSIC! The kind that starts the tooties-a-tappin'. The kind that brings out the primal "Oh Baby, wanna see you shake yer wild thang" instincts. And of course, having never danced with my beloved, I smiled sweetly (as all petite delicate flower of submissiveness are wont to do) and said "of course, my darling dearest man." We clasped hands.... walked to the dance floor... took our places... I started to dance...and looked up to see Tom go into convulsions! I am sure it was convulsions. I cannot imagine that anyone would subject their body to such painful contortions unless they were epileptic or had a debilitating muscular disease. I covered my mouth with both hands, laughing and cried.....hysterical tears. He had to take me off the dance floor. I think this was one of those time I knew I loved him. He can't dance. But he suffered thru' that sucky dinner with strangers for me. And I still laughed at him....OUT LOUD...in front of those strangers. And then we left and went out for beers at a nice micro-brewery..... that didn't allow dancing.

So there are must be women out there who are attracted to the mating dance. I always thought that Fred and Gene were pretty spiffy. But give me a man with a great heart and a sexy scar any day.

I saw that scar from across the room and just HAD to say "Hi!".

T

Just a Little Power Exchange?

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Remembering and Looking Forward

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Joseph Campbell"

I've got lots of time on my hands. Time to sit and think and look at life. I've been looking at where I am, where I've come from, how I got here. To me, it seems so clear that the life I'm living has come about largely because, at some point, I became willing to take a chance on "possibility."

There really was nothing about me, growing up, that would have told anyone that I'd take this road. At least, it seems to me, as I look back at the child I was, I don't see it. I was quiet and serious, bright and skeptical, looking at the world through eyes that saw and questioned. As the oldest, I took on responsibilities beyond my years in a household that was "Better Homes and Gardens" perfect on the outside, and chaotic behind the closed doors. I parented the younger ones and tried to protect and defend my brothers from the depredations of parents who were too often lost in alcoholic rages to guide and order their world for them. Junior high and High school brought the torments of adolescence to one too tall and too thin, too shy and too damned smart. I didn't date, didn't party, didn't dance, didn't smoke, didn't drink, didn't kiss, neck, pet, or hang out with a gang of friends. I was the quintessential "ugly girl at seventeen." I could factor a polynomial, but couldn't make small talk to save my life. I kept my head down and my grades up, and headed off to engineering college with a scholarship and an intact hymen...

When I met the "husband to be" in my freshman year at college, he seemed nice. He also seemed like a ticket out of the family from hell. My parents raised a fuss, but once I managed to turn up pregnant, that put an end to most of the objections. They wouldn't pay for anything having to do with the wedding, wouldn't allow my brothers to attend, and my dad wouldn't walk with me at the ceremony, but other than that... Two babies by the time I was 23 years old, and I was back in line with what I'd always been told I was supposed to be doing: married, mommy-ing, working that brain of mine doing surveying/drafting/computer programming, making a life for myself. Nevermind that the "husband" who had seemed so nice had turned out to be a bit of a disappointment on a number of fronts. I'd been well schooled -- love, honor, obey, 'til death do us part, etc., etc., etc. I was big on keeping promises.

And then there was that voice that whispered in my mind about being controlled, about being taken, about being hurt. Dark and insistent and exciting and scary. I knew that voice was bad and wrong and needed to be vanquished. And the "husband" was more than happy to reassure me that I was right about that -- bad and sick and perverse...

Twenty plus years, I worked and raised my kids and kept the "husband" in line and finished my college education and clawed my way up the corporate structures of the oil and gas industry, playing corporate games with the "good old boys" of the oil patch. The voice in my head kept after me, and I steadfastly sang the la la song with my hands over my ears.

And then the kids were raised. Grown. As best as I could, they were launched on their own paths. For better or worse, they are the people they will be. Not perfect, but done. I'll stand by the work I did in the mommy leagues. Not a doctor or lawyer in the pair, but at least one is good and decent and honest. The other is a mess, but Dear Lord, I did what I could... and she is alive.

The "husband?" There too, I did what I could. For a really long time. As honestly as I could. It never, ever made an ounce of difference. The mistake I made at the very beginning, remained always and forever a mistake. I didn't know, on the day I met him, who I was, and so I couldn't tell him the truth and he bought a relationship that he couldn't possibly live with or keep up with in the long haul. In the end, it came to a point where it was finished.

We have language that says that marriages that end "fail." Ours couldn't succeed. It had nothing to stand on from the beginning. We were too badly paired. Like trying to hitch a giraffe and an alligator in tandem. We should have cut each other lose long before.

Before it was done though, there was THIS. This new life. This amazing POSSIBILITY. There was a single moment when a connection was made and the glimmer of the possible happened. Master and T came into my life, entirely by chance, it seemed, although I don't believe that for a moment. I know, in my soul, that we were supposed to be here together. What was chancy was the "whether" of any of us being willing to reach for that connection, being willing to seize the possibility of it.

I will never forget the whirlwind of coming together. Of the conversation over IM when I said to Him, "it will probably take a couple of years for us to work all the details out and actually move to Cincinnati." He was adamant. It foreshadowed my life. He simply said, "Do you think we are getting younger? Get here next summer." And so began the three month race to sell the house and pack the household goods and quit the jobs and say goodbye to incredulous family and friends and move to the One who pulled me inexorably to "get rid of the life I'd planned so that I could have the life that was waiting for me."

I am here, now, fussing over this waiting time again, but remembering THAT waiting time. I know that waiting comes to an end and life begins again in glorious whirling joy.

I am glad for this life that has come to me because I was willing to let go of the planned and take a chance on the possible.

swan

Playing Dress Up

Some of these pictures are really awful. I was messing around trying to figure out how the self timer on the camera works. And trying to amuse myself, since I am not allowed to do anything much at all... Certainly nothing useful or fun.

So spent some time playing dress up and goofing with the camera, but of course you never know when the darn thing is going to snap the picture -- and I never was the most photogenic critter...

Anyway, here I am in my pretty, new, after surgery nighty... Thanks family!



This is one of those little, summer short skirts that are fun to wear. Light and comfortable and sure to get some looks out and around conservative Cincinnati... Nevermind the dumb look -- that is a camera thing.








I bought this dress for Christmas last year. It was pure indulgence and an absolute thrill when I realized I could actually get my body into this size 10 column of red velvet!!! Now the number of places that a person can practically speaking wear such a get up are essentially zero, but I've got it should the occasion arise!







And yes, this is me in my "biker babe" leathers. They are mine and they are leather and I have actually worn them on the back of a bike (although that was in another life). And no, even though I look stoned in this picture, I'm not. That is another camera stupidness. Pay no attention to the face. This is a dress up thing, remember?

Figure the whole thing is a silly, girly, therapeutic shot at feeling better.

That's what happens when you leave me here all alone, unsupervised and bored half out of my mind. Good grief, three more weeks of this? I will likely run away and join the circus!!!

swan

Day 5 Sucks

I've got some good friends who "DO" this Red Hatter business. More power to them. I always sort of liked the poem -- until the Red Hat societies started springing up everywhere, taking advantage of the loneliness of lonely women everywhere, and subjecting them to self-imposed public humiliation play... I'm sorry, but having survived as female in this culture to a certain age shouldn't mean that you are automatically a candidate for social insanity, and this is just too crazy for words. As far as I can tell, none of these women have dominants requiring this sort of exposure to public embarassment. They do it to themselves, in large groups, at considerable personal expense. No thanks. And, yes, I am old enough to be a full-fledged Red Hat Lady -- not just a Lavender Princess. Just in case you were wondering, young whippersnapper!!!

Today, though, I'm feeling lousy. I hurt. Inside. Where there is nothing left to hurt anymore. Just the spaces. Bruised and empty. Aching. And I am afraid. Of the nothingness. Of the long weeks ahead and the questions that lurk where I don't want to look. And can't help looking anyway.

I am now living in a body that I don't know anymore. And I am afraid of knowing what it will end up meaning. I am horny already and afraid of that horniness. I can't go anywhere with that response. Can't do anything with it. No sex. No SM. Can't know what will be there when I can... Every move, every breath aches. I am cold and shivery and sad.

No longer maiden. No longer mother. Crone. Officially.

And guess what? If you go look up "crone" on line, there are Crone Counsels! Just like Red Hat societies, only a little less flamboyant. No shit! There they are. Right there in the picture. All hanging out together in the picture, smiling for the camera. More public humiliation play. You can go online and get directions for how to do Croning Ceremonies, airy-fairy, new-agey bullshit, with candles and chants and a nice dessert for afterwards and whoopie zing!!!

Makes me want to scream. Or throw things. Or punch holes in the walls. How's that for wise woman behavior?

That's how it is here on day 5.

swan

The Night of the Buckwheat Hulls in the Fur

It seems innocent enough. Just a simple travel pillow, like you might carry in the car for a long road trip, or even take with you if you were going on an airline flight. You can buy these particular ones in Cracker Barrel restaurants. They are filled with buckwheat hulls, and covered with soft fabrics. Master likes to sleep with one.

Last night, just as we were finally settling down to sleep, lights off and all quiet, He gave the little pillow a final tug and a twist, and disaster happened... The diabolical, Trojan horse of a thing burst! The buckwheat hull army poured forth from its hiding place inside the innocuous looking plaid fabric and took over the entire bed. It all happened in the blink of an eye. In less time than a sleepy, naked slave can say, "EEEEKKKK!" The little statically charged, buckwheat hull invaders had crawled out of hiding, run all over the fur covered body of Master and completely immobilized Him. He was afraid to move for fear of spreading the chaos even further, and His extensive knife arsenal was rendered utterly useless. I sat there blinking in the seemingly mercilessly bright (on again) lights wondering what the hell I ought to do now.

Remaining calm under the onslaught, He suggested the vacuum cleaner. So I went to fetch the vacuum cleaner and a trash bag to try and capture the remains of the pillow and the remaining hoardes. When I arrived back in the bedroom with the vacuum, He looked at me, from His Gulliverian spot in the bed, and demanded, "are you allowed to carry that?" I looked around me in the darkness and, seeing no options, just looked back at him and tried to avoid the obvious, "DUH, Sir?" Instead, I assured Him that I had only dragged it on its wheels and not lifted or carried it...

I plugged it in, hooked up the attachments, and proceeded to engage in vacuum cleaner play with Master in the middle of the night. Of course, powerful personality that He is, about halfway through the process, we blew the circuit breakers. Luckily, by that point, I had Him cleaned up enough that He could go and restore power to the household and I could finish cleaning up the mess. Talk about suck!

See -- power exchange proceeds apace. No matter the obstacles, Dear readers.

swan

Viking Funerals

Years ago, only months after the birth of the wild child, the husband and father to my two children had a vasectomy, and I stopped thinking about birth control. At gynecologist appointments in the years that followed, I answered the inevitable question about my birth control method by stating that my husband had a vasectomy. One physician commented, wryly, that that kept him from becoming a father, but others simply made a chart note and went on. I occasionally noted to myself that the vasectomy choice kept me faithful, but had my hands full with survival and so did not let my thinking dwell in that realm in those years.

When life shifted and our poly relationship began to evolve, I was, for the first time in over 20 years, confronted with the issue of managing the question of preventing unwanted pregnancy as a result of engaging in adult sexual intimacy. Our sexual dynamic developed slowly and with a good deal of starting and stopping, but eventually, it became clear that there was a need to address the potential for conception to occur if we were to continue on as we were. I needed to make an active birth control choice. I made an appointment with my doctor.

That encounter was interesting. I was not a young woman, even then, and I was clear about what I did and did not want in the way of contraceptive methodologies. I'd done my homework, was a committed and responsible and determined adult, and when I talked with my doctor, I told him that I wanted a good, old-fashioned diaphragm that I'd have control of and that would not be screwing with my already tenuous hormonal balance. He was a little taken aback, and as it turned out, did not have a currently viable kit for fitting such an "archaic" device. We had to wait while he ordered a new kit. Good grief. Eventually, the "raincoat" as we've come to refer to the little devil was duly fitted and delivered and we've used it to good effect, making sure that no unexpected additions to Clan Heron have come about (at least in that way).

Now, obviously, there is no need for the "raincoat" any longer... I am still recuperating. Not feeling fabulous, but doing better each day. The weather here is unseasonably warm and the pond behind our home beckons...

I simply cannot stop seeing in my mind's eye the vision of the diaphragm, floating away on the pond in the dark, tealight candle burning brightly in the night, Norse music drifting off to the stars as the smoke carries the brave little warrior off to its final resting place...

swan