Working...

 I still have a neat blog award thingy to do, and it's probably going to be the best thing I write this month, but I feel like it deserves actual thought...

I've been working. A lot. Technically, I'm pretty sure it's called volunteering when you're not getting paid, but it sure feels a hell of a lot like work!
On the bright side, I have been offered a paid position starting at the end of summer. Details to be discussed this week.
So why work for free now? Because it's got to be done, and we will both have to work within the constraints of what I put out now.

I had a moment today...A moment when I decided I couldn't do this. All these training materials, all these manuals, and the codes and this's and thats...Writing and rewriting and adding and subtracting, when to leave it when to change it, knowing when it's stupid but you can't change it or when it's stupid and you actually can change it, or when it's stupid because you already changed it and didn't do it right...It's so complex. To complex. Fucking complicated. And if I screw this up, it's bad bad--I'm screwed, he's screwed, it's all screwed up.

I took a couple days off. So now I'm officially behind. But...I had also, obviously reached the point of falling apart, too much information was blending together in my head. And did I mention that I decided I probably can't? Because damn, complicated.

On the bright side, if I can get my shit together and pull this off, future retirement might not look like this:

And maybe eventually he could retire too. For more than one day even!

Real Neat Blog 1

 I have to go back an redo paperwork, putting me behind by 580 pages, as opposed to a mere 540. Meh. So I thought it would be nice to start out the day in a somewhat different vein...

I know that I'm late to the party, but...A couple of lovely ladies were kind enough to nominate me for the Real Neat Blog award, and since I am clearly starving for blogging fodder, I decided to really milk it out and break it in to two posts.

From She and Him, with my thanks.

The rules:

1)  Put the award logo in your post
2)  Answer 7 questions asked by the person who nominated you
3)  Nominate any number of bloggers you like, linking to their blogs
4)  Let them know you nominated them

1) What is your favorite ethnic food?
Oh...Um...Is chocolate considered ethnic?
There's this curry shrimp with spinach stuff that I haven't made in ages because it uses like three different kinds of sauce which I only know how to use for that particular dish...

2) Would you ever considered telling someone about DD/twdd to someone in real life you thought was headed toward divorce?
 Hmm, while I would consider telling someone, I don't know that I would do so on the grounds that they were headed for divorce. I know that ttwd has been a "saving grace" for some of us and our marriages, but I would hesitate to suggest trying to use it as a tool for such--if it is an expression of who people really are, I think it can be successful. If it's a band-aid applied in a desperate attempt to stop the hemorrhaging...Then it could backfire drastically, and I'd hate to feel even remotely responsible for such a thing!

3) If you could travel anywhere, where would it be and why?
Oh boy...Last time I answered this question, I got it right. This morning...I'd go home. I hear a bird outside you see, and it was so terribly familiar that I could almost smell the trees...

4) What is your favorite television show?
 I have to pick one?? The Walking Dead. Unfortunately, the seasons are entirely too short!

5) Are you a dog or cat person?
Dog. Cats can be entirely too catty. Har har.

6) If you could have any career, (even if your retired) what would it be?
Yay, an easy one! I would go to school. Yep, I'd make a career entirely out of learning and probably never get a degree in anything because I would be taking every random class that appealed to me, and the range would be so vast that it's likely very few of them would actually coincide enough to apply towards and one degree.

7) What are your strongest/weakest points within yourself?
Guess there was a fee for the easy one, huh?
Probably that I function at my best when the shit hits the fan in a traumatic way. It's a trait which seems to have the trade-off of falling apart when things are not going well, but fall short of total disaster.

As I am entirely late to the party, everyone I would nominate has probably already played along, so I'm going to use that as my excuse not to nominate anybody in particular--if you read this and you want to give it a go, consider yourself nominated!

My questions would be...
1) Coffee or tea (there is one right answer here)
2) What is your favorite thing to do, kinky or otherwise?
3) What most inspires you to do/be your best?
4) What trait do you admire most in a person?
5) What is your favorite time of day, and why?
6) What is your favorite recipe, and can we have it?
7) What brought you to Blogland?

I am now off to re-immerse myself in the never-ending paperwork hell that seems to exist in a complete progress void...

Belonging in the Story of My Own Pages

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Really. It just keeps tilting every which way so damn much, I'm having difficulties keeping my balance...
A couple of lovely ladies have given me the Real Neat Blog award, and I will get to that soon. It is greatly appreciated. And I know that I have comments to respond to on my last post, but in all honesty, I may never actually get around to answering them...They are, however, greatly appreciated--it is nice to know that one is not forgotten even when they have forgotten themselves.

There was a time when I could talk about mostly anything here. I lived an isolated life, my daily activities revolved around the house, and we were pretty much off the radar of humanity in general.
Things are different now. My working obsessions are unsharable here, and there has been no private life to speak of, really.
I wake up with things on my mind that can't be written here, I go to sleep trying to figure out problems which cannot be displayed to the world, I spend my days in manuals and regulations detailing policies that I can't talk about. And D/s...?

I quit coming here. Well, that's not exactly true...I would come here and stare at the pages with all their feelings and thoughts suddenly so foreign...It felt like this blog detailed years of a life which no longer existed, about a woman who was no longer the same person. Like I no longer belonged in the story of my own pages.

The truth is, I am woefully unsure how to reconcile what I have become with who I have always been. I don't know how to be this ridiculously super independent public manager reciting regulations and brainstorming with brilliant professionals, then let it all go and fall to my knees when he calls. Something had to give. And it was the slave.

 I thought about finally just walking away from this blog, letting it fade into the pages of obscurity in which so many have come to rest, discovered only by the occasional newbie on their desperate search to explain what they have become. Because there's a whole new book now, and I felt like I no longer belonged in my own story...As if perhaps everything that I have always been stayed behind in the mountains, floating on the wind in the trees, as untouchable as the moonbeams which used to caress my skin each night.

With my typical lack of eloquence when speaking of such things, I told him that I was pondering leaving this place behind because I no longer felt like the person displayed here, no longer knew how to feel what I was while being what I must. No longer was there the inevitable crawling back to scratch the itch which has always emerged so strongly over time.

He has been busy. And he has been patient. Did I mention busy? Like, I'm overwhelmed with half the workload of his, busy. He disagreed with me.

After stumbling in around ten last night, he informed me that our agreement was not a temporary eight year term. He had not taken out a lease--he owned me still. I couldn't feel it, couldn't give in, couldn't drown in his skin...

Even on my knees, covered in piss and shivering in the cold, I could not let it go. Then he got me drunk. Drunk on humiliation, on drowning, on surrender. Drunk on being his. And he washed my hair...Undid me like the laces of his shoes...Like five shots of tequila (two to many for me) I lost my balance and came crashing down.

Suddenly, I felt the path beneath my knees, like a million miles of road less traveled. Floating on the wings of a familiar darkness.