She Shops

The title is just the first thing that popped into my mind; I may change it later.

Imagine a world where if a woman just was stressed and over-worked, worried about her family perhaps, or studying for midterm exams and needed a physical and mental reset to relax---a world where, next to the nail salon in the strip mall next to Publix, she could stop in for a quick orgasm. Maybe the shop takes appointments, but walk-ins are welcome too.

This world of sexual and gender equality came to me after waking from a dream. Rated PG.

I, (if I'm entirely honest) a frumpy unfit yet attractive woman, am out for a girl's night with three beautiful women. One of which is Sandra Bullock, who is almost exactly my age but is not frumpy or unfit. Just to be clear. So you have the visual.
In my dream, we are in a maze of stages, cafes and bars separated by cozy lounge areas. We're not really there for the music, but for each other. We talk and laugh and drink and eat. Throughout the night in a private room, when each woman is ready, she is given an orgasm by another in the group. I am unwilling to be a giver, for childhood abuse reasons, so I watch and wonder at the female human body. It's all very friendly.
My turn is last and Sandy is my giver. I stop to freshen up, and go back to meet them, but I get lost. There are all these aisles dividing these separate areas, definitely not designed on a grid system, and though I am diligent in my search, I cannot find my way back to them.

I don't wake up disappointed. It was a fun dream. Not just fun, but relaxed and open. The four of us had a space to be whole and complete women.

Which brings me to the she-shop idea.
Men have been catered to at saloons and baths throughout history.
Imagine a world where women were given the same opportunity.

Maybe when you imagine it, you see male sex workers mixed in there as well. My imagination didn't allow for men. Again, being honest, but as I was first sexually abused at four years old by a man with a penis, you'll forgive me my bias. I'm not gay. I wasn't ever allowed to be gay. I have no idea what being gay would even be like.

...and back to the she shop: midterms, lunch breaks. The thirty minutes before picking up the kids from school, instead of parking in a line of cars a quarter-mile long, you stop in for a quickie and then pick them up when there is no line. Self care list: hair trim, nails done, orgasm. Then stop at the grocery store for some dinner ingredients. Maybe there's a cell phone friendly online booking menu: giver preference, scent preferences, music choices, lighting. Maybe even a warm couch area, or a bed choice, or a full one-hour bubbly bath. Not like a cold doctor's table covered in paper. For an extra charge, they can give you flowers on your way out. Or a balloon.
Gift cards available for Mother's Day...

Feelin' The Bern

Hello! It's been a long time...

If it wasn't obvious, I have some issues with balance in my life. Not just personally, but with everything, from the way I eat a meal (eat all the cauliflower first, then eat the meat or whatever) to how I spend my work time and my free time. Whatever it is, IT will take up most of my waking hours, and usually some sleeping hours as well. For example, I have been thinking of getting a new car. I look at cars everywhere I go, I google cars, dream of cars. Can't stop mentioning and talking about cars. I was very passionate and excited about cars. Until I decided not to get a different car, and suddenly I am able to focus on something else. I am compulsive and "all in" on anything I do. 

Today's topic: getting Bernie Sanders elected president of the United States (POTUS.) As is my norm, I am all in on trying to do whatever I can to make this happen, while still being a mama and a wife and keeping clean clothes in my closet. Occasionally I even cook a meal. I'm not doing much beyond what a gazillion other volunteers across the country are doing: calling voters, monitoring callers calling voters, training others to call voters, and being hostess at the grassroots (Bernie/Progressive issues) office for others who are also volunteering. I am watching and live-tweeting debates, which causes my family peeps to flee to other rooms in the house. You know, your basic Berniecrat or whatever we/they are calling us.

My attempt has been and continues to be balance. I need certain things to take care of myself. Sleep, food, showers, clean clothes. I need to foster and enjoy relationships with my husband and kids, and help them also to meet their own basic needs. My dog needs food and potty-walks. You get it. So I have limited myself to doing Bernie stuff mostly during MY TIME, when others are doing their jobs or classes, with the occasional weekend event or conference calls/live streams from home. 

I'm adjusting this balanced plan starting next week.

I'll be hostessing/training in the afternoons---until 6pm. (GASP.) I'll be making time for some of the ME-stuff that hasn't been happening, writing to open the creative door each morning, writing here on my meaningless blog each week, writing my memoir---focusing on the transitions between the excerpts I've already written. Perhaps having some bursts of fiction explode out of my brain. HA!---and while I am adding those things back in, I'll be prepping for dinner also before I go in to The Office. 

Good luck to me. 

See you in a week if I am successful.

I Heart Them Both

Okay, before I get into it, let me clarify what I'm going to say with the gratitude and love I feel for my husband. He is almost perfect. I'm not going to list all the things he does that I am grateful for. As he does them, I make sure to thank him, so he always knows. I know that if I wait to play catch-up, something will happen to one of us, or both, and it'll be left undone. He is great. I am a very lucky girl.

That said, I'm going to attempt to write why I think I (actively) LOVE my little white dog more than my husband.

I got this idea last night, and instead of getting out of bed---which would have been impossible since I had taken my nighttime menopause pill already--- to write it down, I rolled over and fell into a well-deserved sleep. I had walked in a parade yesterday morning, gotten some sun, and talked to folks about voting for Bernie Sanders for POTUS 2016. I don't generally walk in parades, as a rule. Not usually my thing, if you wondered. Then I went to the beach with said husband and daughter. I was too tired to write it. And I hoped I would remember it. And for the most part, I think I do.

So I love Elli, our little white dog. We got her 7 years ago, rescued from a meadow after her owners took her four puppies to sell. She was only 2 years old then, which is really too young to be pregnant for a little Maltese. So she was saved and then we found her a week later. She was depressed. Wouldn't eat or play. She was still lactating. And now I'm like her mom, and she's taken care of those randomly occurring cravings for holding a baby. Lots of emotional bonding behind all these little details. She NEEDS a lap to sit on most of the day, so if I'm free to lounge on the couch, she will be there soon after, asking permission to come up and lay with me. She pauses before she lays, looking at me with a yearning. Please touch me. Sometimes I do, sometimes not. But because she has a 50% chance of getting rubbed, she always asks, her little eyes pleading. If I am not up for it, I'll tell her to lay down, and she listens. But if I am, I start with her head and cheeks, her eyes go to another place, a peaceful, xanax-type place. She loves to be touched. Then she's move a little to the side, hoping I'll run my hands down her back, and once I do, she drops on her back so I can rub her tummy, which was her want all along. She's very clear about what she wants. And if I can, I give it to her. But she feeds me at the same time. It feels good to love her. She looks at me with appreciation and almost worshipful joy. At other times, she will slide her head along my torso, in a hugging manner. She'll rest her head on my shoulder or cuddle into me as we lay together. She follows me into whatever room I'm working or playing in, just to be near me. Every day or two, she brings a toy or slipper in her mouth and places it at my feet, hoping I'll play fetch with her. When she returns with the thrown item, I have to gently chase her to wrangle the thing from her mouth. So far she hasn't lost any teeth doing this. Crossing my fingers. What I have with Elli could also describe a courtship between a man and a woman. A girl and a boy. A very comfortable, loving, reciprocated friendship saturated in love and affection. God, I love her. I'm so grateful for her. She just walked over to me, as I write this. Can I sit on your lap? she asks. No? OK, well thank you for sliding my cozy round bed closer to you, and in the sunlight from the window. You know me so well.

So, next my task is to go back over this descriptive pink fluff and catch the identifiers of my love for this little doggy. I must take that list and apply it to my relationship with my hubby. Perhaps then I will see the lacking, make some adjustments. And maybe, just maybe, I'll ask him to make some too. Fat chance. I think I've lost hope of him doing some of those things. Those things that would make me happy.

But then, I so appreciate the things he does do. Do I really want to change anything? What if he didn't do what he already does anymore? Then I'd have to ask for that back. Hmm. Maybe I should just be happy I have him AND the dog. Two loves. I am so lucky.

Just Roll With It

Everything changes. 

Today I am wearing a tank top in Mid-December, enjoying climate-controlled 74 degrees in my ginormous central Florida house---because I have a house in central Florida. Where I live. Weird, right? I have become one of those people. One of the lucky ones to live in paradise. There's a really tall palm tree in our front yard. I can't put my lit-up baby deer decoration on the grass, because we still mow the lawn. Weekly. Last year at this time, my old furnace was groaning because it was below zero outside and it was working so hard to keep the house at 68 degrees. I was dripping my faucets so my pipes didn't freeze and break. This year, I'm hanging my poinsettias by the backyard pool.

I had them lob my long hair off last week. I picked up my new (awesome) glasses today. It's like I'm wearing a disguise. Two weeks ago, for our well-attended Thanksgiving holiday, I looked like a completely different woman from the neck up. Sometimes change is fun.

Life is like that. The sets change. Our theme music exudes ever-evolving melodies. Our stories pile up. But hopefully, and I wish this for all people everywhere, there are some constants. The core people you surround yourself with. Sometimes the lines blur between family and friends...let's just call them our "people." And maybe surround isn't a literal meaning; maybe your people are spread out all over the country. But those who emotionally orbit your soul. The ones you'd drop everything for to go help at a particularly hard or happy time. The ones you would call if you really needed something.

Our other constants: treasured items you wouldn't have time to grab in a fire, but pieces that you would miss greatly if they were lost. My mother-in-law's wedding china with the green edging. The worn blankies both our children were glued to so many years ago. My books and paintings and writings. The photos stored on our computers. Our family's Christmas stockings and the children's homemade ornaments.Too many things to list that, when we see them, bring joy to our hearts.

Change can be difficult. Difficult, as in...it can really suck sometimes. Depending on your age and maturity level, moving for instance can really suck. Leaving your comfortable home and city, school and neighborhood, is painful. Navigating a new life, while applying every effort to maintain who you were and what you did is rocky for a while. Sometimes it takes way too long to feel the bumpy road start to smooth itself out. Hopefully, you make new friends that become like little railings you can use to steady yourself as you seemingly run in circles while you search for familiar landmarks and routines.

We have to trust that this move, this change, holds some value and added meaning to our futures. We have faith that there is a purpose to enduring and conquering, and enduring some more. As we create our new normal. 

I'm a Writer!

Recently:

I have nearly completed a sequel to 2013 Noble Literature winner, Alice Munro's short story, Post and Beam. It is about the continuing lives of her characters, Lionel and Polly. I have contacted Munro's publisher's assistant to see if this is legal and asked a question or two. I have also requested permission from the Alice Munro Festival organizers to enter my short story into their writing contest.

I have revised and submitted 4 short stories and my first poem for grading at IU. Of these, I am in love with 2 of the 5 pieces. One of the others will become a novel, which I will continue to work on, one is meaningless, and the other is mediocre at best.

I'm surprised by my poem, meaning I didn't expect to write a poem that was not trash and that I liked. It evokes a bunch of emotion (as does my favorite short story) which I deem as way more important than following all of the poetry norms.

I am also surprised by how nervous I am at people reading my stuff. It's very similar to displaying paintings or drawings for critique. I care a lot less about the grade I get, but yearn for feedback.

I have decided that I would love to create paintings that reflect my stories/poems, and when compiled have prints of these works alongside the writing. I have yet to research any authors who have done this in the past.

It Was Bound To Happen

Yesterday was the first day, since I started back, that I felt awkward, and embarrassed by how old I am. Sitting on the hallway floor in the Ballantine bldg, waiting to go into a gen ed class... It just hadn't occurred to me until then to feel inadequate because of my age. I had been feeling like it was a very cool thing. And it's not the academics (except qualifying for future finite math), I'm doing fine. It's probably my blasted hormones. I feel good about it though, because everybody has insecure moments, right? This is not something that haunts me daily. Six weeks into the semester, and just one off day? I'll take it.
But that off day is not fun.

Note To Self...

Back To School.
Things that worked. Things never to do again.

Cello Concerto in G Major

Move productive time to morning, and laundry, etc, to later in the day. Brain can't function after 4pm. Plan my day. Also, more evenings with fam, not readings for the next day.

Don't trust that the bus driver will arrive on time. Leave lots of time to get to class early.

Bring water, snack, umbrella, gloves, hand sanitizer, mints, kleenex. Even if you think you won't need them.

Headphones on the bus, mandatory.

Do not sit sideways or read on the bus.

If not sure if heading in the right direction, use navigation app/compass.

Not everyone wants you to talk to them.