Real Neat Blog 2

Thank you greengirl! I know that it has taken me foreverrrr to do this, but I do really appreciate the award! And yes, I am going to cheat and just answer the questions...

1 - If you were going to create a blog award, what would it be called or be about?

Hmm, this one is fun, which means that I'm sure to over think it! Hmm, I think that I would call it "The Brave Blogger's Award", because I think that sometimes its really brave when people share how they are feeling, what makes them tick, the kinks they don't want to admit...And I love it.

2 - How would you describe your style of decorating.

Well...The first thought that comes to mind is "practical". We have animals--the cats like to scratch things, and the dog thinks nighttime was invented purely for her to sleep on the couch. More than anything I like a home to feel comfortable--the kind of place where it's not too fancy, and you know that cranky boys sprawl out across the living room on the weekend. I don't like fancy, uncomfortable furniture, and I have a variety of books and statues spread across the house, so maybe my style of decorating is comfortable and a bit on the eclectic side?

3 - If you could have your dream job/occupation, what would it be?

Oh, this one will probably never change--I'd go to school. Forever. I'd take any class that caught my fancy. And get payed to do it. Dream big, right?

4 - Are there any people in your (vanilla) life who you think might actually be kinky, or who you look at and think "no way, but, yet, maybe..."

Yes, actually. There are a couple of couples here...one, Alpha commented that he felt the wife was a lot like me, and initially she tended to avoid interacting with him on her own in a way very similar to how I often treat those of a dominant bent who provoke that submissive approach in me, but I don't want to feel it so I avoid them as much as possible.
The other couple...She's a very dominant person, and while that doesn't necessarily mean that dominance spreads into her private life, I have spent a fair amount of time working on a project with her (avoidance not possible, plus she happens to be the one person here that I really consider to be a friend), and she's the only woman I've ever met who has made me have the thought, (quickly squashed, stepped on, and kicked under the couch) that she's everything which makes for an awesome dominant, and if I was into women and life as everyone knows it was completely different, I'd...*Steps on thought and kicks it back under the couch*

5 -  Where would you put yourself (the sum total of your relationship) on a spectrum from incredibly stern and rigid to teasing and lighthearted?
Oh jeez, I think that we tend to cross that whole spectrum on a daily basis. Sometimes I don't catch on quite as quickly as I should when he switches from teasing and lighthearted to rigid, but I love that we kind of "have it all".

6 - If you had a fairly close friend with whom you really could discuss these types of things, do you think you would still blog?
Hmm...I do think that I would still blog. In fact, this would probably be the first place I would come just to holler at the world that I could sit down and have coffee with someone who knew that side of me exists. I haven't spent a whole lot of time here lately, but I have been a resident of Blogland for years now, and I value the interactions I have and the people who also reside here.

7 - If you had more time (in your day, in your week, in your life) what would you do differently?
Oh...Time...I have a draft in my drafts folder my about time...I would probably do more things with my family. I mean, we spend weekends and evenings together, but so often days where none of us wants to leave the house because we've been gone all week, and it would be nice to spend more time out and about. And I'd come here more often. Because you all inspire me, and I'm trying to reconcile two very different parts of myself and wrangle them into something resembling a functioning whole, and being her helps me do that.

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.

Musings on Life and Love

This started out as a comment over at Misty's place, but it got ridiculously long and went way too far off topic...I'm pretty sure that I have already used this title at some point, and my images were exceeding uncooperative, but I have other things to do today that are not nearly as interesting as musing about philosophical concepts...

The other day, I was thinking about something in the general vein of being afraid of need and something being too good to be true...Only, unlike her posted thought process, mine sounds way stupid in print.

Around the time that I met Alpha, I made a conscious decision not to ever fall in love. Now, I suppose that doesn't sound so bad until you tie in my reasoning--I wasn't afraid. I wasn't afraid of life's tragedies, of the things I couldn't control, of losing anything or everything, and most of all, I was completely unafraid of death. However, I was afraid that love would change that--love would create need and dependence. So, since being in love was obviously the most terrible of Achilles heels, I was determined to never actually feel it.
For a while, it worked. And it was terribly heartbreakingly unfair to him. I decided that maybe it was better to give in to the thing that brought me so many fears, instead of letting my life revolve around fear of those things. And regardless of whether or not I actually deserved him, for some inexplicable (to me) reason, he had chosen me.

In retrospect, I was right, of course (couldn't resist and opportunity to say I was right. Clearly). I am now ridiculously afraid of losing him, of death and any such journey that either of us must inevitably take without the other.

Yet...Which is really worse--to deny oneself the feeling of actually being alive that comes with needing something so overwhelmingly much from someone and never actually allowing oneself to feel the need and looking back on life only to realize that we never truly allowed ourselves to LIVE because we were too afraid to do so?

Or knowing that it was glorious and beautiful and it hurt unimaginably badly and we bled for it, cried for it, gave it our all until our existence was merely the dust of that feeling and we flew through the stars; even knowing that eventually the landing would crush our hearts? Because it will, of course. Nothing we know, love, or experience will last forever as we know it. Nobody lives forever, and nothing is immune from the sands of time. But the trick, I think, is to really be alive. It is better to crash into dust like a flaming star across the sky than it is to skate carefully to one's end--because one would have spent too much time dead already.

Anyways, who's to say that what we see as the end is not really just the most terrifying and beautiful beginning, something so vast and beyond our thought processes that we simply cannot comprehend it until we become it...?

Above all my fears so vast, this...

Questions of Vacation, Music, and Implements

From Roz, "If you could vacation anywhere, where would it be? What is your favorite music? What is your favorite implement"

Ooh, anywhere...Suddenly, I can't decide!

At this point, I'd say back home. In the grand scheme of things, that seems a bit too lame, even for me! So, I'm going to stick with Wales because that one's been on my list forever.

Favorite music...My favorite music tends to change with my mood...Some days I like rap, some days I like classic rock, other days Celtic music or folksy stuff...Really pretty much just depends on how I'm feeling at the time!

Implements...I have to say, the riding crop. Of course, I'm prone to changing my mind mid-use, but that applies to all implements (wuss here). I don't like thuddy things, or extra stingy things. I feel like the riding crop falls right in the middle...

Questions of Kink and Munches

This round comes from tori:
1) is there anything kink or even non-kink wise that you would like to explore that Alpha has no interest in?

2) Would you like to go to any kinky clubs or munches, why? or have you been to any and if so experiences?

So this is a little difficult because I tend to use his okay as justification for the kinks that I find attractive--if he likes it, I can justify it to myself as being okay. If he doesn't like it, I dismiss it until the idea no longer holds interest for me. If that makes any sense...

I would like to check out kinky clubs or munches. I've never had any face-to-face interaction (that I am aware of anyways, lol) with people who have relationships like ours, and I think that it would be an interesting experience. You know, just to physically be around people who live like we do, and have it be openly accepted...
This is maybe one of those areas where I have more interest than him. Though, I'm not sure that's accurate...Where we were before, there just wasn't really any opportunity that didn't have to be traveled to. Now, his job makes keeping this part of our lives to ourselves private pretty important, and there's nothing quite like opening announcing it to a group of strangers to make a person feel like their secrets are going to get hung out to dry.

I feel like I didn't really do these questions justice...It's  bit difficult to get into the kinky mindset these days--he's working 80 hours a week, and I have somehow once again found myself rewriting operations manuals which are larger than the average book--we're both drowning a bit at the moment...