Saythings

all that she wants…

The Sweet Thing wasn’t the first to say it, only the most recent.
I ask for so much in a relationship - I ask to be accepted exactly as I am. And loved despite it, as well as because of it.

He wasn’t able to accept me as I am. And part of that was that he couldn’t quite accept that sometimes (not often. In the history of our relationship, less than twice a year, though clustered more in the last 6 months) …sometimes I just want to be held. Really, I want some perfect combination of pain and love and sex and tears, because it cleanses me, but it would be enough just to know that when it all got to be too much, and I just needed to cry, that he would just be there and hold me.
The only men in my life who could do that for me are not men that I have a romantic involvement with.
Why is that so much to ask?
Sometimes I wonder if my desire to be hurt is just a way of expressing emotional pain; my partners won’t accept that something could make me so sad that I had to cry, so maybe I believe, on some level, that they could accept tears if they originated in physical pain instead? Or maybe it’s just that if I’m hurt enough, I’ll have no choice but to cry. Because sometimes, after I’ve been denied the emotional release too many times, I just can’t open up to a guy anymore. Of course at that point I have to wonder why I’m still with him.

Right now, I want to see the sexy co-worker. And I want him to suspend me from his ceiling, and tease me until I’m dripping, spank me until I’m red, whip me until I’m bruised, and then fuck me until we both collapse. And then I want him to carry me gently into the shower, where the sweat and tears will all wash away. That’s catharsis.
Mmmmm, catharsis…

Posted by saythings at Sunday ~ May 18, 2008 | No Comments

Category: Uncategorized

Lost art

I’m sure it says a lot (of bad things) about me that so many of the issues in (most of) my relationships are sexual.

After more or less walking away from the Sweet Thing, I feel somewhat aimless.

Probably as a result of stress and depression, I don’t have much of a sex drive right now. Odd, since stress usually makes me want sex more, not less, but… I assume it’s more about grieving and confusion than about stress.
Or maybe it’s the difference between emotional stress and mental stress? Having too much to do makes me want to be fucked, but having too much to think about… hmmm. No, having too much to think about also makes me crave dirty sex.
I don’t know.

I was thinking recently about what constitutes “good” sex.
There’s a disconnect between my brain and my experiences there, because the activities that overwhelm me, that make my eyes roll back in my head, my breathing come fast and hard, and my willpower evaporate? They haven’t all actually involved sex.

And some of the best sex I ever had wasn’t even particularly kinky.
It was half a year after my marriage disolved, and I didn’t yet have any sense of what I wanted, where I was going, or what I would do when I got there. I had no self esteem (sexually), and had no idea what to do about the guy hitting on me.
He was older than I was, and I don’t mean by a year or two. More like a decade or two. Not quite twice my age, but very close. Nonetheless, an attractive man in good shape, with plenty of confidence (ok, sometimes arrogance), he was accustomed to getting what he wanted, and in this case what he wanted was me.
I acquiesed, and had some of the best sex of my life. This man was a considerate and accomplished lover who made the woman he was with feel like a goddess. From beginning to end (and “end” took a hell of a lot longer than the five minutes I had come to expect!) he was focused on me, on my body, my responses, and yes, what he wanted from me. He was an oral sex afficionado, and was happy to spend ages just licking and being sucked. He freely admitted to having an oral fixation, and although it isn’t a kink I share, it was still certainly an enjoyable experience, as was the stream of praise and adoration coming out of his mouth while his hands and mouth explored my body.
Objectively, I would class it as the best sex I’ve had, both in terms of his efforts, and also the positive effect it had on my sense of self.
But I’m not objective. I’m subjective. And subjectively? It falls somewhere in the middle of the list.
It wasn’t one of those “what? That’s it? Seriously?” experiences, but I wouldn’t go back for more either. (Well, I did go back once, and had a fabulous time, and remain convinced that it was both a great experience, and also not something I care to repeat)

So what was the best?
That’s a tricky one. Within the context of a relationship, Grimm and I had some of the best, kinkiest, most consistently mind-blowing sex, but there was still something missing. I don’t know what, but I assume it was my problem; he was happy with things as they stood, while I was sneaking around behind his back with my crush, getting fucked in the shower, because I wanted something else. Looking back, I really regret not trying to just get more out of my relationship with Grimm, actually trying to see if we could have made that work. Now that he’s married, I can’t even go back to play.
One of the neat things about that relationship is that I didn’t have to ask for him to be dominant, he just stepped into that role, but talking about it later, he tells me he’s never done that before, never been at all rough or dominant in a relationship, and doesn’t think he ever will again. (Isn’t that what happens when you get married? Sex becomes vanilla, then nonexistant?)
I do miss it.
He also used to send me elaborate, filthy emails detailing all the things he was going to do to me the next time we got naked together, and I really, really, really miss that. He was a gifted and creative writer, and he followed through on his threats. Mmmmmmm… Yeah, I miss that a lot.

Writing is a lost art.

Posted by saythings at Friday ~ May 16, 2008 | No Comments

Category: daily, dirty

moar

Yeah, yeah.
I know I should blog moar.

I have trouble coming up with much to say that doesn’t sounds like a broken record.
I miss my dad. Every day. With every little victory, with every challenge, with every funny or frustrating thing that happens. We used to share so many silly little details of our lives, usually via email, and hardly a day goes by that I don’t think of writing to him, to ask his advice or just to make him laugh. The whole grieving process seems so bizarre at times, or maybe it’s just the way I’m dealing with it.
I try to find ways to avoid feeling sorry for myself, which means trying to not think about how much I miss him.
And sometimes I do tell him things; I lie there at night, before I fall asleep, and just talk to him. I don’t expect to hear his voice in reply (it would really freak me out if I did) but it helps me think about what’s going on in my life. We used to bounce our ideas off of each other, looking for difference perspectives, and I’m trying to regain that input, I guess.

The big question in my life is what happens next.
I broke things off with the Sweet Thing. He wants more from me than I can give him. He wants everything; house together, kids, life… and I don’t. Not really with him, not really with anyone. Maybe one day I will (and maybe by then it will be too late) but I can’t give that to him now either.
I still don’t know what to do about work or life either.
Brother and I have decided to buy a house together in Victoria, likely something that needs a little work, and fix it up. I have a friend I trust to give me good input there, and help get the work done right, but I still wonder if it’s the best choice. Would we be better off with a condo? Something it’s easier to just walk away from for months at a time? Or just invest it all? No land, no property, far less stuff to worry about? I have too much stuff in my life.
And now here we are at dad’s house, going through all his stuff, trying to decide what to keep and what to get rid of. It’s hard to detach from the emotional weight these things carry and make intelligent decisions about what do with it all. I’m leaning towards being too possessive, since on the scale we’re looking it, it won’t be a big deal to keep a few extra boxes of things, even if we end up throwing them away later. Brother, on the other hand, wants to just get a dumpster and pretty much empty the house. I see his point, but I can’t quite do it. I go through dad’s things, and find these precious, sentimental keepsakes, and it brings me to tears. It’s not boxes and boxes, rooms and rooms, of crap; it’s just carefully selected mementos, small things that carry big memories. If he couldn’t get rid of them, right now I can’t either.
And then there’s the boxes of tools… that’s a lot of weight to send across the country, especially at current prices, but…. well, it’s all good quality stuff, and I’ll actually use most of it, so I’m keeping the tools. No question.
It also simplifies things, since he never got around to unpacking most of that; he only moved here last fall, and was sick over the winter, so most of the tools and shop stuff stayed in boxes. I just open the boxes, maybe shuffle the contents to add a few more items, and close them up again.
Though there are a *few* I’ve unpacked. I spread the contents around me and shake my head. He was a smart man, and pretty handy, but there a few modified items that make me cringe. The best so far (aside from random lengths of wire with the ends cut off and bare) is an “extension cord” with a two pronged male end (two pronged! Not grounded!) and … ready? a wall socket wired and then taped to the other end. Seriously. Sure, I can’t see any reason it wouldn’t work… but… yeah. Not keeping it. I like having things that meet safety codes, whereas dad tended towards a faith that things probably wouldn’t catch on fire.
It gave us a good laugh though.

Yeah, I’ll try to blog more. There’s a few things that have been running around my brain lately that I’d like to get out.

Posted by saythings at Wednesday ~ May 14, 2008 | 1 Comment

Category: daily

Threes?

I’m really not myself, but I don’t know who I am.

Mom and I are both quite scattered, in fact. Dad wanted to be cremated, and wanted neither funeral nor memorial, so all in all, things have been fairly simple in some ways.
Except emotionally. Things have been anything but simple, emotionally. It’s been over two weeks, and I still can’t really believe he’s gone. A dozen times a day something happens that makes me think I should email him to ask his advice, or to tell him what happened. (Oddly, my father and I rarely spoke on the phone. We visited frequently before he moved to Ontario, and emailed constantly before and after.)
So now every little thing that goes wrong inspires me to write to him, and then it comes crashing down on my head that he’s never going to answer. And if I’m alone, I cry. If I’m with someone else, I try very hard to focus on what they’re saying, and not to think about what a huge void there is in my heart.

And because it seems this is how things go, we’ve had plenty to take our minds off our grief, though not really in a good way.
First the sump pump failed. The basement is half underground, and the snow is just beginning to melt in earnest, so the constant stream of groundwater coming in around the foundations which ought to have been neatly whisked out to the gutters instead filled the basement. Not very deep - not even two inches - but still… deep enough to soak anything not in a plastic bin.
Thankfully, dad had invested heavily into rubbermaid bins before moving, feeling that it would be easier than cardboard boxes for all the shop stuff. Still, there was plenty of cardboard and wood down there, and a bit of carpet too.
The insurance guys have been lovely, though their damage control/cleanup crew are about as smart as a pair of bricks.

So. Flood, damage, fans, pumps, squeegees, dripping boxes everywhere. Oh my.

And if you were to believe the old adage that bad things come in threes, it would be pretty easy to find our third misadventure. Mom’s mother is getting on in years, though she’s always been quite healthy for a woman in her 80s, and prefers to live along. This week, after being unable to reach her by phone, we decided we’d best go by her apartment to make sure she was ok.
We found her on the floor beside the bed, confused and dehydrated, though conscious. It sounds like she had been there for at least 24 hours, but not more than 48, and will likely be in hospital for at least another week. The doctors believe she had a mild stroke, and we’re glad it was right-brained, rather than left. Her left arm was giving her a bit of trouble, but is responding more every day, and her language centre was unaffected. Equally unaffected is her sense of humour. While we were fretting and pacing and stressing and trying very, very hard not to get in the way of the paramedics, she was first complaining that she was quite comfortable on the floor, and we didn’t need to make such a fuss, and then catching her superintendent’s eye and whispering “you know I’m only doing this for attention”.
The paramedics, who were great, both laughed.

Mom’s siblings are scattered across the country, but are all arriving in town to come see gramma, which is really nice. They’ve been “discussing” (ok, arguing) about whether to put her in a home, and where, and whether it should be where she chooses (4 out of 6), or the place most convenient for the kids (1 out of 6, and not the one whose residence is anywhere near the nursing home he’s advocating) (1 of 6 is still enroute, but she’ll be here soon).
I think in the end that gramma will choose to be within easy driving distance of the two closest to Toronto, and an easy morning’s trip from a third. The other three are scattered to the west, so they’ll all have to fly to visit anyway.
I feel for her, because I know she doesn’t want to be in a home, but she’ll do it so she won’t “be a bother” to her children.
I know that mom (and most of her sibs) will do their best to find a place where gramma can have her own small apartment, and simply be in a building with 24 hour nursing staff, and NOT a full-on care facility. She’s able to take care of herself, and I’m sure will gracefully accept being “checked up on” daily, but is miserable confined to a bed, unable to cook her own meals or structure her day as she chooses.

I’m about to get on a plane and head back to BC for a month, and I’m wondering if that’s a mistake. Mom is entirely strung out, and I worry about leaving her alone out here. On the other hand, I worry about being gone from home so long. I want to go back, check in with life and work and worried friends, and also start moving out of my place. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m not sure that staying in Victoria is it.
Maybe it is. Mostly I haven’t been thinking clearly so much as I’ve just been stressing and letting my brain skip wildly from subject to subject.

Posted by saythings at Sunday ~ April 06, 2008 | No Comments

Category: daily

loss

Damn.

This is so hard.
I know I’m so much luckier than most.
Not only do I have a great relationship with my dad - with my whole family - but we’re all actually able to be here now, together.
My brother flew in from Israel, I came across the country, mom put off her trip to China, we’re all just here.
Together.

My dad has the time left to take care of so many little things, and/or to guide us through the things that need doing, and that will make everything a lot easier after he’s gone. We know his wishes, and his intentions, and he’s been able to talk to us about what he wants.
How many families aren’t given that opportunity? How many are just taken by surprise, and unprepared?
I can’t imagine not being able to come back, not being able to say goodbye.

But it’s just so hard. It breaks my heart to see my father so weak, so frail. He’s always been the one who could do anything for me, who had so many of the answers. And all that trite crap about him living on in our hearts and our memories? Despite knowing that it’s all true, and that at some point I’ll look back on time spent with my dad and smile and be happy for that, right now it does nothing.
Right now one of the most amazing, loving, important people in my life is dying, day by day, in front of my eyes, and I’m helpless.
I can’t help him, I can’t save him, I can’t do anything but tell him how much I love him while I crumble on the inside.

Posted by saythings at Friday ~ March 14, 2008 | No Comments

Category: Uncategorized

stress

My father is sick.

More than sick.
Has has cancer. He and mom have been in and out of hospital and specialists offices for the past couple of weeks, getting scans and tests and biopsies done, and they’re quite certain it’s cancer, and are just trying to figure out where (in addition to his lungs) it is in his body.
I’m having a hard time with it all (not surprising), and have already warned my boss of the possibility of me leaving at any day.
As long as mom is out there, I trust her to let me know how he’s doing, and whether I should be booking a flight tomorrow or just planning to visit sometime soon. (She’s a nurse, after all, and has spent many years with hospice patients. Essentially, she’s watched a lot of people die from a wide variety of illnesses, and is pretty good at telling the difference between a rough couple of nights and “get out here now, the next flight.”)
It’s not really a surprise to him, or to us, but still, I can’t say we were prepared. He’s been a smoker for decades, and expected that it would take years off his life, but I don’t think he expected (I know, I know, it makes no sense. It’s his thinking here, not mine) that it would be painful.
I think he expected to die like his father did;
A reasonably healthy, if somewhat aging man, he walked in from working the fields one day, declared himself a little tired, and said he would just take a little nap before supper. He lay down on the couch, fell asleep, and that was it.
I don’t really remember my grandfather. He died when I was very young.
I do remember sitting on his lap, in my grandparent’s house, at the kitchen table. He was holding me with one hand, and with the other, he was rolling a cigarette. I remember watching, entranced by his dexterity, by the magic way the paper and tobacco came together.
This was over 30 years ago, and nobody knew yet that you weren’t supposed to smoke around children. It isn’t really much of a memory, but I treasure it.

I know there a lot of new treatments for cancer out there, and the success rates are getting better all the time, but it still scares me a lot. He’s as ready, I guess, as anybody can be. He made his will a long time ago, my brother and I both know where everything is filed, who his lawyer is, what to do. But I’m not ready. I don’t think I ever will be.
I can’t stop thinking about him, and worrying about him, and wondering if I should be there, instead of here.
As long as he’s still feeling ok, still at home, and taking care of himself, and waiting to hear about test results and talk to the doctors about treatment, I guess there isn’t really anything to be done. I hate this kind of waiting, but I think I’m going to hate what’s at the end of it even more.

Posted by saythings at Tuesday ~ February 26, 2008 | 1 Comment

Category: daily

Something flickered for a minute, then it vanished and was gone.

I found someone willing to tie me up.
Someone… nice. Not awesome, or wonderful, or super sexy, but nice enough, intelligent enough, attractive enough. More importantly, someone with an interest and a skill with ropes who understands the things I’m craving, the emotional as well as the physical side of things, and even just knowing that the possibility is there takes a lot of the edge off.
In some ways it’s a bad thing. Before the sexy coworker made it clear he was willing to top me, before this other island guy made his offers to tie and torment me, I could just go on thinking it was this weird aberration of my own. And that was awful because it made me feel so alone, and so messed up, and just so… wrong… for wanting the things I want, but in some ways it was easier because it wasn’t about a lack on Crios’ part, it was just a problem with me. I know he’s tried to be what I need, but he doesn’t understand it, and probably never will. Now, knowing that there are people out there who do understand it, people who are willing to accept the position I’m in, who are ok with a relationship that’s a friendship-with-fucking, people who won’t look down on me, judge me, make me feel bad about the way I feel… well, it makes it easier to deal with myself, but it also makes it harder to be with Crios. Or rather, harder to be with him when he’s unwilling to let me go outside our relationship to have these needs met, but unable to meet them himself.

It’s back to the idea of an open relationship, I suppose; to me, it takes away nothing from my relationship with him, but it makes me a more pleasant person to be around. To him, it’s the worst thing in the world, a betrayal of our love and of everything he feels for me, and of everything he’s put into this relationship. I just don’t get it. So I have sex with someone else. Or not. It doesn’t change what I feel for him, and it isn’t going to make me leave him.
But being stuck in an unfulfilling relationship sexually, and feeling like a freak because of it?
Yeah, that might make me leave him.
I’d rather be single and happy than in a relationship and miserable.

Or at least, that’s what I keep telling myself. Doesn’t actually seem to be true half the time though. Half the time I’m miserable in this relationship, and I just can’t quite bring myself to leave. I want so much to believe that he’ll eventually come around, and the longer we’re together and he doesn’t change, the harder it gets to keep believing that.

Posted by saythings at Sunday ~ February 03, 2008 | 2 Comments

Category: daily

Oh noes!

Oooooh.

Driving home from work today, I saw an awkwardly hand-lettered sign taped to a telephone pole.
In large, poorly spaced capitals, it said

“EMERGEY SALE”

Underneath, slightly smaller, and in a mix of upper and lower case, it explained

“EvErtHing Must Go!”

I weep for mankind.

Posted by saythings at Wednesday ~ January 09, 2008 | No Comments

Category: Uncategorized

Not entirely gone.

What appears to have happened is that getting a new job makes me not write blog posts.

New job.
Across the straight. I’m trapped on an island!

Simultaneously the coolest and the nastiest part of my job is that I work for the “health authority”.
The paranoid part of me is convinced that the zombie plague is already incubating in hospitals around the world, and will shortly erupt in a frenzy of cannibalistic gore. It doesn’t make much difference to me whether I’m infected with it or simply torn to bits by mindless animated corpses, either way my long-term plans are shot.
On the other hand, I get to play with a lovely assortment of really cool tools and toys (in fact, I get paid for it!) and have reasonable access to all manner of medical…supplies.
No, not pharmaceuticals. Not really my thing. But paramedic’s scissors are things you can never have too many pairs of…

And the job itself is interesting. And the pay is ok. Not fabulous, but decent. I’ll need to be getting a lot more hours than I currently have to make it worthwhile though.

So the last month or so has passed in a blur of packing, cleaning, househunting, training, unpacking, settling in and suchlike, on top of all the unavoidable seasonal stuff. It isn’t that I have anything against christmas, per se, but I hate having it crammed down my throat by retailers, and I’m indifferent to a lot of folks’ family traditions. In my (relatively non-christian) household, we almost always got whichever family members were nearby to get together in one place and ate far too much delicious food, and that was about it. Probably bad movies were watched. Adults may have had too much wine, and in some parts of Canada, snowball fights were had. Very nice.
All this “seasonal joy” and spending more money than you have to buy people things they don’t need (or often even want) kinda baffles me.
Chris bought me a thermos this year. Gotta love the stainless steel practicality of it.
(and I do love it, truly. It beats my travel mug, hands down, and it’s small without being girly. Though I’m not sure how a thermos could even be girly, unless it was made of pink plastic)

And now I live in a new city, away from the sweet thing, which is both good and bad.
And I have an entertaining and interesting job, where I learn good new things every day.
Sure, you learn something new every day, but when my knowledge for the day involves reading the back of a cereal box, I feel strangely unfulfilled.
Yesterday I tried welding stainless steel (not the thermos) for the first time.
Today I learned how to take apart a motor with a gearhead. And what not to do when it turns out the bearings are sealed, though I got to learn that one by watching the boss. And last week I learned to take apart the wheels on the overhead rail system to clean the “sealed” bearings inside them. Pretty easy to unseal, clean, and reassemble.

So all very good.
One of the only things left is to start writing again.
Once I master that, I’ll try to start writing in an entertaining manner.

Posted by saythings at Friday ~ January 04, 2008 | 1 Comment

Category: Uncategorized