It's official. Poppo has cancer. It's into his lymph nodes now, so once we get a little more information from the doctors (hopefully today) I'll be headed home - again. There's no treatment for him at his age - they're just going to try to make him comfortable.

I'd like to wax poetic about this, but I can't right now, so I'll suffice it to say I may be away from my blog again for awhile.

Nice Memories.

I got an email from C. this morning. First one I've gotten since last time they went out of port. So he's obviously been on my mind all day. Once in awhile, a distant memory will come into my head, of something we've done in the past, and makes me smile. Today, I was remembering when we went to one of the casinos in Vegas - I want to say the Rio - and walked through the huge candy store they had. We laughed the whole time we were in there, and ended up spending well over 60.00 on stuff we hadn't seen in years, and odd flavors of Jelly Bellys. I just remember feeling at that time that life couldn't have been any sweeter (pardon the pun).

To the polar opposite of that, my mom called yesterday and said that my grandpa couldn't walk more than a few steps without wanting to pass out, so they were headed down to take him to the hospital. My sister, who lives 10 miles from my grandparents, couldn't be bothered. My parents drove 2 hours to get there to do this. My sister -- if I haven't mentioned this before -- is a selfish, no-self-esteem waste of air on this planet, and I hope to one day be able to wag my fucking finger at her and say "I told you so, you worthless bitch." It's a real long story, and I won't bore you with it, suffice it to say that she uses her children against my family. And frankly, I've given up on her.

Anyway, Poppo is in the hospital now, and it turns out his blood was way too thin from the meds. He's going to have to have a transfusion. Amongst other things.

I'm lucky, I guess, that I've had grandparents well into my thirties, and nearing 40. I had 5 grandparents and 4 great-grandparents for my entire childhood, then started losing them one at a time. I have 2 grandparents left - my mother's folks. I'm lucky that way. C has none.

Okay - enough of that.

Back to finishing the candles I'm pouring, and then either writing or EQ.

Been a busy week here. In addition to making a few kinds of soap (three, actually - Oatmeal, Milk and Honey, Gardener's Friend and a new puppy soap recipe), I've been cleaning up/out my stories/poems folders on the computer, and have started re-editing some of them, and sending them in for anthologies and such. There isn't a lot of money in erotica, for sure. But it's something I'm good at and something I enjoy, so I continue to plug away at it, though I think I'm going to be working on some vanilla stuff as well. I have a couple of outlines done for some short stories and hopefully, I'll get a good energy going this week so I can work on them.

Good topic on the StrictlyDs list recently - about romanticizing BDSM. Here's what I had to say:

====included text========
Everyone has issues. Problem is, many of those issues do not come out in
the first five dates or online or on the phone. You think you're getting
"Mr/Ms Perfect". but what you're really getting is a *real* *live* person
with their own baggage and their own issues and their own problems.

I've seen it said time and again that getting to know each other online is
either like "Speed Dating" or "Better than RT, because you fall in love with
who a person IS, not what they look like." I call bullshit on that. Online,
you're getting to know what a person WANTS you to know about them (or, what
they want you to BELIEVE about them).

Even meeting folks at scene parties, when they're always "on" can be
deceiving for people. Sure, that dude always wears leather and is always in
Dominant Mode at a scene party or munch - but if you haven't seen him, pants
around his ankles, doing his "business" or you haven't seen him hunched over
the toilet puking his guts out, chances are, you haven't seen the real him.
Have you watched his face while he pays bills? Have you seen how he eats
his eggs? Have you seen his kitchen cupboards? No? Then you don't know
him as well as you think you do - and his issues *will* come out, sooner or
later.

No shame in having issues. We all do. The problem with the romanticism of
ds, as I see it, is the ignorance of those issues, and how to deal with
them - or, if you even *want* to deal with them.

=======end included text===========

I feel an essay coming on about this. Big time. Auntie Screamer needs to get back to work.

Pouring test candles this week - yum. Some of the scents are really good - others, I could live without.

Have been working on a book in my head. I have several ideas, but the one that seems to keep hitting me over and over is a fantasy genre story. I did outlines and flow charts yesterday - we'll see if I can keep it going in my head.

Once I get it on paper, I'll come back to a couple ds topics that I want to write here about.

Got a call from C on Sunday and probably won't hear from him for a couple weeks. That's okay, though. I can send email (he can't respond), and I can still feel him in the house.

Hi there. Been catching up at home since I got back from vacation, but thought I'd sit down and write a little before I get busy again.
I've goten a couple phone calls from C. since he left. That sure helps. The email on the boat is touch and go, but at least I can hear his voice. It hasn't been bad yet- missing him. I do, don't get me wrong. But I haven't gotten that huge frustrated feeling that I hear so much about. Course, it's only been a month.
That blasted "Gift" topic came up on my email list again. Let me say this here, because I've said it everywhere else SUBMISSION IS NOT A GIFT. ARGH. That just irritates the hell out of me. How can you call something a gift, when you're getting just as much from it as you're giving? If you weren't, you wouldn't be fucking doing it now, would you? I just want to smack the hell out of people who say that it's a gift. For some reason, that's my pet peeve. Well, one of them. There are others

I've got to get back to writing again. I miss it. And I need to do it.

Started Atkins again on Saturday. Time to get this "moving stress" weight back off. Riding my new exercise bike, too. Man, they've improved those things since the last one I had. I'm impressed :)

Okay - back to soaping. You all behave :)

Okay, I'm back from Iowa. I slept most of the day yesterday (drive was 19 hours) but will be catching up around home today, and hopefully back to writing tomorrow! It's hot as hell here. When I got home, my AC had gone out and it was 90 degrees in my apartment. UGH. All better now.