Saturday, July 26, 2008

Outlets

I think I mentioned awhile back that I had started making soap again on a small scale. If you've read here for several years, you know that I used to have a soap and candle business that I ran out of my house for awhile. I made everything I sold. And I loved making everything. I wasn't working then - C was in the Navy and gone a lot - and besides writing, soap and candles was pretty much all I did.

I promised myself during that time that if it every stopped being fun and started feeling more like a business, I'd give it up. And that's pretty much what happened. I brought most of my stuff with me to Wisconsin, and I continued to make stuff occasionally - mostly for myself and family and close friends, but my heart wasn't really in it. When I ran out of wax, I quit making candles.

But awhile back, I got the itch to make some cold-process soap. If you don't know what that means, let me spell it out as simply as possible:

Lye (yes, lye) + Water + Oils/Butters = Soap.

It's chemistry and cooking in one! Sorta.

I rarely make plain soap though. I have, but I rarely do. Typically I put essential or fragrance oils, natural colorants, and sometimes stuff like ground oatmeal or herbs in it as well.

This is a hobby for me. I'm trying to decide if I want to occasionally sell some - maybe find a local shop to carry some of it or something like that - but I'm not really sure if I want to do that.

But if I don't, that leaves one big issue: I'm going to run out of room. *chuckle*

I ended up making three batches this weekend. Last night, I measured out all three, mixed the lye/water up for all of them, so that I could just put them together this weekend when I had time. Last night, I made almond-scented with oatmeal and cinnamon in it. Today was Dreamsicle and Hot Fudge with cocoa powder. I went back to an old recipe for these, because I wasn't happy with the new one. I didn't think it was sudsy enough (creamy lather, but not sudsy. Matter of preference is all)

I also did my painting project tonight. I'm not 100% sure I'm going to like them when they're done, but at least I tried something new.

I also started writing a biography for the protagonist of the fantasy novel I'm trying to get started.

And with all of that ... I'm still stewing about what I'm stewing about. /sigh

But at least I'm being semi-productive.
Sorta.
Kidna.

Wanna buy some soap? lol

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Life Lessons, Courtesy of the Verbose Chick

- Never take your first hit of acid and then let your friend put “Rocky Horror Picture Show” in the VCR. Seriously. This leads to all kinds of issues, including but not limited to sore cheeks and stomach muscles the next day from the laughter that you cannot stop. (Warning: I do not endorse illegal drugs and haven't touched them for years but this is a lesson that cannot be emphasized enough)

- In the 1980’s, the way to attract attention at a small venue rock concert (in this case, Twisted Sister), was to arrive at the concert in a borrowed hearse.

- In the 2000’s, it’s not too late to blast the CD from that Twisted Sister concert tour on your car stereo and bang your head on the way home from work.

- Long hair and lots of cleavage will take you a long ways but you might wake up and find out that they took you in the wrong direction. That’s okay. If you still have your shoes, put them on and walk your happy ass back home.

- Life is still too short for cheap, ugly underwear. Who cares if no one else is going to see it? You will.

- Losing weight will not cure all the evils in your life. It’ll just make you see them better because you’ll have a better view.

- No matter how much you try and justify it to yourself, if he treats you like shit, he’s really not worth your time.

- Treasure all of your girlfriends. You never know when you’re going to lose them or how. Enjoy them while you have them, and for fuck’s sake, never let a man come between you. He’s replaceable. She ain’t.

- Don’t be afraid to dance around your house. Who cares if the neighbors can see you?

- Music is for more than filling quiet time. One good song lyric can solve a puzzle you’ve been working on for weeks.

- Respect. Yourself.

What happens when something happens ...

So, I focus on something – oh, for the sake of argument, let’s say my Diet lol. I focus hard. I push. I track everything in a big old excel spreadsheet. I have good weeks when the scale moves. I have bad weeks when it doesn’t move. Both just keep me pushing…

But it’s not really the Diet itself that I’m so obsessed with. It never is. The diet is a distraction that I can pump all of my energy, attention, love, hate, anger and bitchiness into.

But that’s not the real issue.

I’ve been hypersensitive and extra bitchy the last couple weeks and today, it came to me why. I’m not going to discuss it here in any detail (while I know is unusual for me, but just trust me – it’s not a subject for public consumption at this point), but suffice it to say that I’m angry with myself about something that I let happen in my life.

I knew something was going on. I’m relatively self-aware, and even if I don’t know what’s going on, I typically know when something is. Maybe it’s a self-protection thing, where I keep it buried until I can actually deal with it. Maybe it’s that I occasionally prefer to put my head in the sand and ignore it. I wouldn’t be proud of that, but it’s entirely possible that I’ve done that. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t know something is up.

And when something is going up, sex goes to the bottom of my list.

I noticed the other day that I hadn’t been masturbating before bed, nor really at any other time that much. Three times last week. That’s very unusual for me. Very. And it’s a very good indication that there’s something going on in my life that I’m *not dealing with.

I haven’t written about sex. I haven’t written any sex for a couple of weeks. I haven’t been talking about sex. I haven’t been having sex.

For me, that signifies a pretty big issue.

I’m not sure how I’m going to go about getting through this issue, but I’m sure by the end of the weekend, it’ll come to me, and I’ll heal it.

Then hopefully I’ll get back to the things I really want to do.
Which is not what I’m doing now.
Or, rather
Is what I’m NOT doing now

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Creating a way to happiness.

I think I've mentioned my 'stepdaughters' before. I communicate with them probably less than I'd like to but I do hear from them and they do hear from me. They mean a great deal to me, and I feel like they're one of the best things I ever let in my life.

Anyway, yesterday I got a letter from the eldest girl, who reminds me a great deal of myself at every age, and in her email, she said to me ...

"I hope you are happy."

I spent most of the day pondering that yesterday. I mean - I'm not unhappy. I'm mostly content even tho there are things in my life that I'm not yet satisfied with yet. I'm mostly positive. I'm mostly upbeat.

But am I happy?

I was still thinking about this last night. It occurred to me at some point that the times I have felt the happiest in the last year or so, I was creating something.

I was writing. I was making soap. I was cooking. I was thinking about baking. I was re-arranging furniture. I was styling my hair into something new. I was hanging stuff on the walls. I was blogging (no, really).

There are other examples.

I was actively doing something creative.

And maybe that's the key to it for me.

I've always known that creating makes me happy. Even planning creating something makes me happy. I guess I didn't realize that that is where most of my happiness comes from these days. When I'm not creating anything for long periods of time I am cranky and irritable and unhappy. My whole life hasn't been that way, and there are other things that do make me happy, but because I'm not dating and don't have a partner, those things don't exist in my world right now.

But creation does.

Last night, I looked through a baking cookbook I got from my folks' for Christmas. I love to bake. Seriously love to bake. I miss baking. I don't do it now except at Christmas, or unless it's a rare time that I'm going somewhere or someone is coming here. There were so many recipes in this book that I was dying to try, but given the lap-band and the diet I'm currently following, baking is probably not the best idea for me right now *chuckle*. But I miss it. And maybe after a couple more pounds are off, I'll go ahead and do some baking and just take it into work. I think I'd really enjoy that.

I took a trip to the craft store today. I'd seen a couple of projects on HGTV that I really wanted to try, so I bought the stuff for those. And then I also bought a gorgeous art print of a close up of a rose that says "Passion. Nothing in the world has ever been accomplished without passion."

Truly.

I've taken it all over the house, looking for the perfect place to hang it. I want to see it every day. I haven't quite decided, but I will before the night is over, I'm sure.

And I bought another scenic art print of a tree-lined dirt road that looks very ethereal. I bought it for writing inspiration. It's gorgeous.

It's nice when one innocuous heartfelt sentence from a letter from a girl -- no, woman -- that I haven't seen in many years but think of almost every day -- gives me pause, and makes me realize something very important about myself.

If I want to be happy more often, I can create my way to it.

And I think I will *smile*

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Second Guessing

I hate second-guessing myself. Probably most of the heartache in my life has come from NOT doing that.

Then again, most of the love and happiness I’ve had in my life came from that, too.

Risk is a bitch. But if I can’t take them, I’m not going to get good – or bad – in my life.

I don’t listen to the radio very often. A lot of the crap that passes for music these days gets on my nerves and honestly there are only a few radio stations in Madison I can tolerate. Since I don’t have my 45 minute commute since I moved over here to this end of town, I almost always have a CD in the car rather than having the radio on. I’ll always turn the radio on when I get close to the Quad Cities to listen to WXLP The X (97x) – because that was once, and will likely always be my favorite station. But I find more often than not “Classic Rock” to most stations also includes some crap that wasn’t good when it was released and has not gotten better with age. (Yes, I am a picky little bitch about my music ~ deal with it).

Anyway. (I swear this is related to the original topic, just be patient)

I do occasionally listen to the music stations that come along with my digital cable. That’s how I discovered Tina Malia (Her Shores of Avalon CD is one of my Top 5 ever) several years back, and since then, I do tend to listen to it if I’m writing in the living room. The Soundscapes channel plays a lot of Celtic music which I adore.

But once in awhile, I flip around to some of the other stations, too. And one night, I landed on one (I honestly don’t remember which it was), and heard a song by a new artist named Colbie Calliat that I fell in love with. Some of the lyrics from the song, called “Realize” hit me right between the eyes….

“Take time to realize, that I am on your side. Didn’t I…Didn’t I tell you? But I can’t spell it out for you…no, it’s never going to be that simple …”

So why did that hit me so hard, when I just got down talking about risk and second-guessing myself and how much I abhor those two things?

Because I do them now. And I don’t think I even realized I was doing it.

“Take time to realize, this all can pass you by.. Didn't I tell you…But I can't spell it out for you….no, its never gonna be that simple….”

Over the last four years, since my marriage crumbled and I struck out on my own again to forge a new and better and stronger and more independent and happier life, I have done this twice that I recognize. I have held back when perhaps I shouldn’t have. I have stopped far too often to think when perhaps what was called for was me letting loose.

But even now, I’m not completely sorry I did it.

One, I know would have ended in heartache for me. The other is likely to have come to the same conclusion. And both could have easily tossed me off my track to the happier life I’m after. Maybe... maybe not ....

But in the end, would either have been worth the risk?

Maybe.

But it’s too late to second – or third – guess it. What’s done is done. And I’m all right with the decisions I made.

Colbie just reminds me that sometimes – occasionally – once in awhile – it’s all right to not spell it all out. Sometimes, it’s better to keep your cards close to your vest, and wait to see how things unfold in front of you.

Sometimes, it’s all right for *me to be the one with poker face. I’ve earned that.

It's not up to me to make it easier for someone else all the time -- or simple, as the song says. Everyone has their own demons to fight - either someone realizes that it's a demon worth fighting, or it's not. And I'm not doing all that fighting on my own anymore.

I don’t have time to fight all of the demons.
And I don't have time to regret.

Tonight, my muse was wearing ......

Inspiration comes from the weirdest places with me sometimes.

Tonight, it came from a picture on the internet of a dress.

I'm not a huge of fan of Denise Richards (the girl wearing the dress) or anything but she's gorgeous and I love her hair.

But what inspired me tonight was definitely this dress.





I slid off the edge of the desk, and putting my hands behind my back demurely, I covered the short distance across the room to stand in front of him. I looked up at him, and licked my lips.
“Exactly.” He said, as he pushed me down to my knees. “Put your hands back where they were.” He unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants quickly as I put my hands behind my back again. He slid his pants down, along with his boxers, and wrapped his hand around his hard cock. “This what you were licking your lips for?” He asked, putting his hand in my hair.
Without giving me time to answer, he pulled me forward and rubbed the head of his cock along my red lips.
Talking time was over. He tightened his grip on my hair a little, and pushed himself past my lips, the head of his cock sliding between them slowly. I opened my mouth a little further, taking more of him than he was offering and then tightened them around the shaft, sucking lightly. He let go of his cock and reached down into the top of my dress and pulled my breasts out while he slid himself a little further into my mouth.


Tonight my muse was wearing a red satin dress.

I want her wardrobe *grin

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Spoiled

I call myself a princess sometimes. I like the fact that I reclaimed that nickname from an old relationship that was abusive and where the nickname was used in a derogatory, sarcastic manner.

I own it now. And hearing it at certain times gives me a very ‘special’ reaction, if you know what I mean /wink

I’m not a princess though, and I’m far from being spoiled. At the very beginning of the relationship, I felt very spoiled by M, but the fact was (and I later realized) that it wasn’t so much spoiling me, as it was ‘buying’ me, and covering for basic human inadequacies. Money became his substitute for love. In the end, it didn’t buy him anything but a kiss-off in his kitchen when he pushed me too far.

I am used to being the one who does the spoiling. There have been very few men in my life who didn’t welcome that; maybe they had been the ones doing it before or maybe they just enjoyed the fact that I was willing to do it, but I think I shoot myself in the foot by doing that, and it’s done.

At least, until someone else does it first /smirk

(as an aside, it’s storming like crazy here, so I have one eye on the laptop, one on the back door, and I’m keeping my toes crossed that the wet stuff doesn’t creep under the door again ….)

I keep saying that when I do finally get into another relationship (which would require me to actually date….), I don’t necessarily need to be treated like a princess but I certainly expect reciprocation. That’d be a shock to my system out of the last few relationships I’ve had.

(And yes, I do realize how sad that is and how much it probably sounds like whining but when has that ever stopped me from being honest before? ) /snicker

I guess maybe I have more time to think about relationship right now because I’m not concerned about having one. The focus on the diet/exercise portion of my life has taken over all of that and yes – it’s possible that maybe I’m using it as an excuse – but I want to feel the best I can feel – not be the skinniest or the prettiest – but actually Feel the Best I can Feel – before I put myself out there again.

In doing so, maybe I’ll get myself that reciprocation.

No. Not maybe. I will.

And if I don’t, he won’t last long enough to see what he has to lose.

You gotta have priorities..

“Good sex just hides everything that’s bad about a relationship” from HBO’s “Tell Me You Love Me” series

That’s an interesting quote.

And unfortunately, despite everything I’ve said over the past 5 years of writing this blog, it’s at least partially true.

I have stayed in relationships far longer than I should have because the sex was good – or at least because there was sex and I didn’t want to shut down that opportunity.

But that’s not all there is to it.

Good sex can also give enough incentive to make a rocky relationship better, provided that both people believe there is something there to save.

I have been on both sides of that coin; in a relationship that wasn’t worth saving, and in a relationship that was rescued from the brink of disaster by a couple of really good fucks and a lot of talking in between.

Obviously I escaped the first and the second deteriorated eventually, but as with everything else – I’m always a fan of doing whatever you can do to hold true to your commitments, providing that you don’t put yourself or your self-esteem in jeopardy.

Call it what you will, sex is a huge part of any relationship. Can it kill a relationship? Yes. Can it save a relationship? Sometimes. Does it hide flaws? Maybe. But not for long. And not to the exclusion of seeing serious signs.

While I stand by what I’ve said about the importance of very good, very hot, very inventive sex in any satisfying relationship, it really does need to be said that sex can make or break that bond between people. I know there are people who’ve stayed in relationships for security, for money, because of children – all of that. But whether or not those people are actually –satisfied- is a whole other story.

And I would rather be satisfied with less money than rich and unfulfilled. I have always been that way, and likely always will be.

It’s a matter of priorities, I guess.

And my priority is happiness.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Revelations

Revelations are not always fun.

While I was doing the word count and editing the piece of erotica I wrote this afternoon (4669 words, 2 hours), it occurred to me....

What if this is all I'm really good at writing? Maybe I can't break the block with the fantasy story because I'm afraid I'm really going to suck at it, and I'll be relegated to "that erotica writer" for the rest of my days?

And if I were relegated in such a fashion, would it be the end of the world?

Maybe.

But only because I want *more*.

I'm not a one dimensional person. Oh, look, I know 90% about sex here, and that's by design. But there is more to me than that. And while I am very grateful for the gift for words that I have been given - I'm very thankful for having been published in magazines and other web sites and my poetry book - there's more to me than that.

It took a long time for me to cop to the fact that there was more to me than "Screamer". I lived, breathed, wrote, ate, slept and fucked Screamer for nearly 12 years before I finally was able to set her aside and start looking at Jill through a new lens. Part of her are very much still alive. Parts of her are at my core.

But again, there is more to me than that.

So I started writing fiction that wasn't based in female submissive/male dominant design. I broke that wall. It was hard, but I broke it.

But what if the wall between fantasy and erotica isn't breakable?

It won't be the end of my writing. I could never stop writing all together - THAT is truly at my core. It's what I do. It's my creative outlet. It's my soul.

But I am so much more than Kanthra Adaire.

In high school, I had a friend who also fancied himself a writer. For an entire school year, he and I traded a series of notebooks back and forth. We wrote a story together. He would write a couple pages, give me the book, and I would add to the story. It was absolutely exhilarating. Many years later, when I was married to my first husband, we began anew. We started with a new idea, a story told from two viewpoints. He wrote one, I wrote the other. We traded ideas, pages, letters, plot design. Neither of those stories contained one iota of sex. They were based on plot, characters, life stories of people that we grew to love and care about. With the second one, I went so far as to have another friend of mine take me out into the country, find a railroad bridge (that was in the story). We found one. We spray painted it as was done in the story. I took pictures.

I still have them.

So I know it's in there. I just have to break that wall down.

Where did I leave that jack hammer at? /wanders off

It would please me ...

Awhile back, I wrote a phrase in the little book I keep next to my chair. In the last week or so, I took that phrase and wrote a few paragraphs to add to it. And then set it aside. Because I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with it.

Apparently, today - my mind fed up with the fact that I had three days to write and didn't - decided what to do with it.

I don't write from this angle very often. I'm not sure why. It's not something I shy away from in my life, unless it becomes a habit of "more often than not" and then it doesn't do it for me. But as an occasional thing - as something fun or different - part time - I do enjoy it.

So today, I wrote it.

An excerpt:
---------
I teased his entire body like that. Tongue, lips, teeth, nails. All the way to his ankles. I carefully avoided his feet, knowing they were ticklish and not wanting to disrupt the sensual mood of the evening with unbridled laughter and angst. I left a bite mark on the inside of his thigh, just an inch below his balls. His body reacted fitfully to me; straining between pushing toward me, and trying to get away from the intensity of my touch. Small cries and moans escaped his lips with each new area of skin I touched, and by the time I’d worked my way back up his leg and left the bite mark, I was sure he was in violent need.
But not yet. I was not nearly done yet.
“How are you?” I asked
“I am fine, M’Lady.” He said, tightly.
“You want something.”
“Yes.”
“What is it you want?”
“I want you to touch my cock, M’Lady. Please.”
I smiled, and leaned up to slip the blindfold off his eyes. “Really?” I knelt up, putting my hands up under my hair and stretching a little. I watched his eyes as they covered every visible inch of me. Stretching my arms high above my head, I made sure that when his eyes landed at the bottom of the merry widow again, he would see my cunt; open, wet, hungry. He saw. He moaned. I let my arms down, and ran my hands down over my chest, to cup my breasts through the lingerie. “Maybe I’m not quite ready to do that.” I said thoughtfully. “Maybe I need something else, first.”
“Anything you ask.”
I reached into the top of the corset and pulled my heavy breasts out, cupping them. I leaned forward and guided one nipple to his lips, teasing him with it. His tongue snaked from between his lips and licked the tip of my breast lightly. I lowered it, and he sucked tenderly on it. I let him, for a moment, and then pulled back a little, just out of his reach.
“You know what pleases me.”
He looked quizzically at me.
“I should not have to tell you what to do to please me.”
“It’s different …”
“Is it?”
“It feels different.”
“It isn’t.” I lowered my nipple toward his mouth again, and this time he attacked it hungrily, sucking on it hard and biting at it.
I purred softly. “What pleases me pleases me. Now is no different from then.”

---------

Do I feel better, having gotten 8 pages out of me, even though it's not what I intended to write this weekend? Yes.

And it's early. Maybe I'll do some more ....

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Frustration

I read about writing when I can’t write. While I’m at work. I get excited about writing. Plot twists are cooking through my head.

When I can write, I watch TV or play games or read stuff other than writing

What’s wrong with this picture?

/sigh

I thought it was writer’s block. I thought it was fear.

Now I don’t know what it is. But I’m not happy.

I did some more preliminary plot work today but I haven’t written more than a paragraph on the fantasy story this weekend, and I had such high hopes.

I do have a piece of erotic cooking in my head. Maybe I’ll at least get to manage to get that written.

Friday, July 04, 2008

Fantasies in Life

I have a habit of asking anyone that I'm considering having - or am having - a sexual interaction with what their fantasies are. I know that most people do that, but probably not as early on as I do. I am fascinated (ha!) by other people's fantasies.

I have my reasons for asking early, of course. But the biggest two are: I like to know what I'm getting into, and playing with other people's fantasies are fun. Y'all already know that I don't have a lot that's off limits, so someone has to be pretty deep into something that I consider offensive or immoral before I'll write them off altogether.

What's interesting to me, though, is that some people seem to have a lot of fantasies, while other people won't cop to having any at all. And even some of the most generic male fantasies (watching two women together; anal sex) aren't always forthcoming or even applicable. C, for example, had a very large bias against anything that screamed 'bisexual' ("Bisexuals piss me off. Make up your mind already."...C) and wouldn't even discuss it. (Course, later I found out he had a thing for trannies, so ....).

Some people say that only uncreative people don't have fantasies. I agree to a point but I also think that everyone has at least one fantasy. The question is -- are they willing to admit it out loud? That, to me, is the bigger factor.

Fear? Maybe. But maybe not for the reason you'd assume. Sometimes I think that people are afraid to share their fantasies because the reality won't live up the masturbatory material it's been for them for so long, they don't want to lose them.

I'll admit to that one for a couple of things, myself. And it's an important point. Because I'm one of those people who typically masturbate with pictures in my own head.

In a conversation last week, it was brought up that I didn't really need 'porn' because I was a very creative person and I could come up enough stuff on my own. And 99% of the time that's true. But I do watch a little porn or read a little porn occasionally, because sometimes I can't shut my mind off enough to let my creativity come through. But most of the time my fantasies are varied and vivid enough to keep my mind cooking for as long (or short!) as I feel like playing.

And okay, maybe there really are people that really don't have any of the typical fantasies, or maybe no fantasies at all. But I'm pretty sure that that's not the majority. And whether they want to admit to them or not, in the dark of their bedroom, it's the movie that runs through their heads while they make themselves cum.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

What's Important

So, it's been a couple of enlightening weeks for me. I'm taking care of myself again, and still trying to figure out why I quit doing that. So while I haven't quite figured that part out yet, I have been thinking about other things.

I'm trying to decide why I quit 'looking' at the personal sites again. And on the surface, its because I am right now focused on ME. This is time for ME to get my shit together - not only with my health and such but also other parts too - like my finances and my writing and my home.

But maybe it's a little more than that.

I had a thought the other day, while I was sitting in my car on my lunch hour, that there are a lot of things that are important in deciding if you're going to have a relationship with someone, and everyone's lists are different. For me, sexual compatibility is pretty high on my list. I'm much less concerned with how much money someone has or what kind of car they drive. There are women who consider those things first, and figure that they'll deal with the sexual aspect when it comes up but I am not one of those girls.

My friend, RD, said to me last week that I really needed to have a natural dominant in a relationship. I understand why he says that, but I'm not 100% convinced that it's true anymore. I know that I searched for one for many years (and never really found one) but there are other things that are more important to me at this particular point in my life. That can change. It has changed, over the years. But right now, I'm of a mind that's it's on the list, but not at the top. After having relationships with a couple of men that my sexual drive didn't really match up with all that much, especially my marriage, I know that the next one really needs to click on that level with me for me to want to put 100% of myself into it.

There are other important things, of course. A fellow geek would be great. Someone who reads fantasy, enjoys the same kind of movies and TV that I do... these things are also important. But if there is no sexual compatibility, the rest of it is only superficial and it just will not work out.

So maybe I'm still sifting through all of that, and that's why I've ignored the personals emails.

But maybe it's because I'm just totally focused 100% on myself right now, too. It's my time to do that.

But it's also time to get off my ass and write, so be that a short story, working on a novel, or writing here - that's my intent for the 3 day weekend.

3 day weekend! YAY!