For everything I’ve published this week, four have gone into the depths, filed under lock and key, not fit for sharing. Too personal, too exploratory, too unconnected, too any-number-of-things.
A lot of what I batted around regards my relationship with sex: Where it’s been, where it went, why it changed, why it matters, what it means, why my voice is relevant, and why I feel I need to re-enter that sexual fray.
Back in the day, when I was tapping sex blogging regularly, I was really onto something.
I’ve really enjoyed revisiting all my work. I see where I went wrong. But seeing where I went right? Empowering. I know my perspective has grown. Exploring that’ll be quite the ride.
Last night, I wrote something, then hid it from you– a bold, in-your-face statement of what I think I bring to the sex-blogging world and why I feel relevant.
There’s a time and a place for that, but it’s not today. I need to update my sexual manifesto some day soon.
My first year of sex-blogging, I’d hit nearly a million page views, had ridiculous stats on Technorati and Alexa, and landed myself with raves from everyone from Nerve.com to Salon.com, with frequent spots on Gawker’s Fleshbot, and more.
Part of that appeal was the flavour I brought sex-writing.
I brought social anger, for instance. Defiance.
I was outraged I had to defend my sexuality after a lifetime spent in private schools and in semi-religious surroundings. This was 2006 & the peak of George Bush Administration’s attempt to divert scrutiny from the Iraq War by turning the country into a religious-morality battleground. Ideologies and politics clashed constantly. Church and state, indeed.
It was the time of Terry Schiavo, of adultery becoming punishable by life in prison in Massachusetts, of sex toys being made completely illegal in Mississippi, and of academic blackballing against professors who showed liberal sexual views privately while teaching in post-secondary institutions.
It was a time of growing fear, all because of what it took consenting adults to reach orgasm because of how THEY were hardwired, in that horribly socially-susceptible spot: private bedrooms.
I was outraged. I channeled that, and I channeled it well.
But I think another area that really cemented why my voice was (and is) relevant in the white noise of the web was pretty simple.
In a supposedly sex-positive online world, the industry keeps talking about wide, wide issues under the larger “sex rights” umbrella. And everything’s about the extremes of black and white. All the time. Like, rights for sex trade workers.
While I support sex trade workers, the reality is, the average person isn’t one, they’ve likely never used one or known one on a first-name real-life basis. The AVERAGE person.
And who decides the cultural, ethical, political, and sexual future of our society? The AVERAGE person.
How are you going to draw that “average” audience in if every message immediately identifies its author with extreme kinks, or really wide-ranging BDSM life-styling, or has them aggressively advocating rights for sex trade workers?
Where’s the in-between? We shades-of-greys want our sex, too. Where’s the eroticism and issues-exploring for the not-so-big-in-Japan crowd?
Just because the average person might not want THAT much edge doesn’t mean we need to be churning out Cosmo-level copy on sex.
The average person, from 20 – 45, is more savvy, open-minded, and curious than ever. They’re open to aggressive debate. They like subjective commentary. This is The Daily Show generation, whether they’re into vanilla sex or not.
We can hit topics harder, push more intellectual agendas, and even open the door into kink by taking the intimidation out of it.
Until you soften the “heavy” agenda and temper its frequency, and until you realize that extreme kink and “core” lifestyles daunt and unnerve some who might consider dipping a toe in less-deep-and-scary kink-waters, then there’s a whole audience looking for sex insight that might just balk at your all-or-nothing approach.
I don’t want to shrug and say “Well, that’s their problem” because I was one of those people, and I’ve since bought the ticket to ride.
The odds of me ever going out and buying a ball-gag are pretty unlikely, okay? A riding crop, though? Giddyap.
The line between a ball-gag and a riding crop is a bigger ideological chasm than most seem to realize, I fear.
There’s a limit to what I’m willing to try to cross, and I’m not alone.
There are insecurities I’ve had to rise above, and I’m not alone.
There are apprehensions I have had and do have about behaviours, and I’m not alone.
Being sex-positive doesn’t mean everything suits my tastes, and I don’t/won’t apologize for it.
I write about what interests, angers, and inspires me. That doesn’t include the entire world of d-i-r-t-y sex, and never will. If I’m not interested in it, I’m not gonna lie.
I write posts that say “that’s not MY thing, but go ahead. ” When I say that, every reader has permission to not only like it, but to NOT like it.
Like with this not-so-lifestyle posting, where I confess that blowjobs aren’t my idea of a good time.
But… I wrote the GUIDE on blowjobs! I wrote an INTERNET CLASSIC on how to give mindblowing blowjobs, a posting that’s been plagiarized more than a high-school hall-pass!
Uh, yeah. Yeah, and I’m still saying I can think of better things to do than saying, “HEY! It’s FRIDAY! I need a cock in my mouth!”
Do I then fail as a sex writer? Fuck, no.
I’m strong, passionate chick who knows what she needs to do — and wants to do — to make a man happy. That’s when it’s not about the act itself, but about what it causes, what it leads to, and since happiness and satisfaction are beautiful things, why not? It’s an exchange, trade, barter. It’s wonderful.
But it’s not just about having a cock in a mouth, and that’s what gets me when I see simplistic sex writers breaking things down to only the barbaric and the basic.
Sex is so much more.
For all of history, arts and passion are born because of what makes our hearts swell and break. Wars and uprisings and cultural revolutions wage because of matters of the heart.
But little sister over there wants a cock in her mouth.
Oh, sorry, she wants a hard, dripping cock in her mouth. Much better.
Yeah. Fucking right my voice needs to be in the mix.
We need more than just the academics on one side and the rock-n-roll pornstars on the other.
We need people in the middle who aren’t your meek, mild-mannered “average” people. We need strong, unapologetic voices that are willing to own their “vanilla” or not-so-vanilla ways and stand up for biology wanting what biology wants.
Sex shouldn’t be some social status card like it is now.
I don’t need be a fan of burlesque in order to be sex-positive. It doesn’t require me to be bicurious, kiss a girl, love swinging parties, be polyamorous, or even be promiscuous, in order to be a really big fan of orgasms and being dirty and having fun with a lover.
I enjoy what gets me off. That’s never been my problem. And I’ve closed the door on nothing sexual-taste-wise. Sex should lead where sex wants to lead — so long as precautions are taken, consent is given, and consequential ignorance isn’t a factor.
That’s the voice I want to have.
I want it to be okay to like it however way you want to like it. I want to be the voice that gently-but-bluntly encourages people to embrace surprise and take chances with new pursuits. I want to employ brutal truth and stand for what I feel is right when others would quash freedoms based on narrow world-views.
That’s my voice. Here’s where you’ll find it.
PHOTO: From chagrin.tumblr.com, no photographer or originating site listed.
Category Archives: Dimestore Philosophy
Letting Life Drive
Some of the best experiences in my life have come as a result of deciding life might be better at the wheel than I am, and making the choice to let it lead my way a little.
I’m doing that now, kind of have been since day one of my unemployment, and the ride’s getting increasingly fun.
There’s something about not getting locked into your expectations.
I can be really guilty of that sometimes, but I’m also hip to the roll-with-it ways, too.
It’s funny, I’m sitting here smiling and thinking of an old friend who used to try and autopsy my writing.
“Well… you’re having trouble with the conflict again. Maybe you’ve just had too much conflict in your life and you can’t willingly create it anymore,” she wondered.
That always struck me as a kind of omniscient saying. Maybe I was constitutionally opposed to conflict now. Maybe my inner-United Nations issued sanctions against literary conflict. Maybe I was all Gandhi up in the head now.
A year or so after that, I stopped trying to write about conflict. I gave up the quest to write fiction, and instead wrote about what was, the status quo. I took a non-fiction turn and cracked the inner-thought nut.
Writing and creativity came back to me. Sure, I don’t write fiction these days, but I suspect I could if I really wanted to go there. Right now, I’m happy where I’m creatively at.
I’m also enjoying riding the wave of life to see where it takes me. I think it’s throwing the odd obstacle before me, but they’re the kinds of challenges that make you think about what your values really are, and what matters to you at this given moment in time. For me, it’s involved making choices about what’s more important to me right now — and they’re sort of along some of the life-lesson paths I know I’ve been trying to learn about.
Have the skies parted and presented me with my dream life because I stood back and said “You drive” this week? Well, no, not yet. Am I suddenly wealthier? Nope. Did I get laid? Not even close.
But every morning I get up and, in some small but real way, my life’s taken one more little step toward something that feels right and good and full of promise.
Every morning lately.
All I do is, I get up with a list of a few things to do to try and get closer to where I want to be. The rest of it, I leave to chance. Then I see where my day takes me.
I think my days need to get into the tourguide business, ’cause I love where they take me. Seriously.
A Sly Smile Kinda Morning
The sky is an iridescent grey, at once inspiring and eerie.
My day is stretched before me with a loose idea of all the things I have to do, mostly of the meetings-and-appointments sort. A murky mess sits at the bottom of a mug I wish was filled with fresh black coffee. I just shrug at its emptiness and type on.
Inside, calmness has settled in. A calmness I probably haven’t felt in a number of years.
It began yesterday morning with a kind of prescient feeling about how much I could or would get done during the day. I blew that out of the water and settled my to-do list with great authority, meeting and beating all aspirations for the day.
At the end, I decided I’d finally take a look at my finances. For the first month of my unemployment I’ve applied the Ostirich Approach to my situation — only after I’d taken a hard look at the bottom line of what I would need to live on each month, and had the vague notion I might be okay until June. Then, I buried my head, spent as little as possible, and just did my shit, with the assumption that Spending Almost Nothing was all I needed to do.
Much of what I did spend was covered by “found” money — gifts from a couple kind people. (You fucking rock.)
I knew when the month started it would be tight and was 95% sure I would either be deferring my loan payment or telling my landlord I needed an extra week to pay the rent. I mean, the reality is, the first month of unemployment is ALWAYS the hardest.
I was in the situation of having had a bad-spending winter, followed by the Olympics crushing my savings, and had NO idea that a complete lay-off loomed. I thought I’d lose a day of work a week — I was praying for it — as we’d applied for the Workshare program (spreading a lay-off throughout the company, with the government paying 55% of the one day a week each employee gives up).
I never thought I’d be laid off entirely this year. And after a year spent rehabbing a back injury and two years of having to replace entire wardrobes with every season due to weight-loss, and that I’ve been making lower-middle-class income in one of the world’s most expensive cities… well, yeah, no savings either.
But…
But I managed to get enough ducks in a row as soon as the “OMG, lay-offs might be coming” fear that hit around March 24th, before finding out on the 25th that I would be entirely laid off, likely the next day, that I sort of had a fighting chance.
I was also insistent with my employer that the additional 3 days of work at the end of March would make the difference between me surviving until June at least.
And it did.
I finally scrounged up everything I had last night — not including a little emergency money I’ve set aside or what’s on my Visa — and know I can pay rent AND groceries until the middle of the month, without even receiving my government employment insurance benefit. AND I keep what little safety net I have intact.
That changes everything.
I feel like it’s the stamp of approval. “Go forth, Steff,” it says. “All will be well.”
I know, I’m supposed to be all embarrassed that my money’s this tight.
I’m supposed to be ashamed.
Wealth is a sign of success and position and talent and brains, isn’t it?
Fuck you.
Fuck ANYONE who thinks I need to be ashamed that things have been so close.
I’ve NEVER been irresponsible with money. All I’ve been guilty of is being average with money. At my income, spending an additional 10% every month cripples you in a hurry.
I am NOT my adversity. FUCK that.
Try losing 70 pounds and having to buy new wardrobes every three months, or getting so severely injured you spend a month laying on a floor and for months have to take cabs and pay 20% more in groceries just for the convenience, because you’re in too much pain to bus from a further, cheaper store.
That I’m even paying rent tomorrow without any interceding forces makes me more proud than you’ll ever fucking know.
Fuck anyone who thinks money and whether someone gets through a jam financially is a reflection at all of that person’s intelligence, ability, talent, or resilience. Money is as much about luck and selective adversity as it is savings abilities.
Some people just have more things to overcome. In my life, money was always the villain. That line between getting by and barely surviving is thinner than most people might realize.
For once, money doesn’t feel like my villain anymore.
I’ve got rent, baby. And food. And I’m gonna buy me some wine and a steak tonight to celebrate.
[shaking head]
Yeah. I don’t know… I feel like I have to say more:
So many of you need to feel what kissing poverty is like. You need to feel how much it hurts inside when you’re terrified about paying the rent or you’re sure you’ve got to resort to drastic measures to get by. You need to know what it’s like to think hope is too expensive a luxury for your position. You need to imagine what that fear’s like when it’s not just you it affects.
You need to know how hard it is when money’s not within your grasp. Everyone needs to feel that.
I hope I never feel it again. And I hope I always remember that pain. I hope I always have the empathy I wish more people had shown me earlier — but so many are showing me, even showering me with, now.
Today is a day of gratitude, goodness, and calm. For me, at least. You? You can choose that, too.
Take a minute to think about what you really have, and pray you never come close to losing it.
Some fears aren’t fit for anyone. But gratitude is one-size-fits-all.
Beyond the talk of money? My future’s looking great. What a ride this summer will be. Stay tuned.
PS: Methinks unemployment might’ve been the best thing that ever happened to me. Wait’ll you get a load of me, baby.
The Struggle to Identify Your Struggle
I had an interesting Twitter debate this morning after someone spoke of a Starbucks kid who screwed his store over by twice not showing up as the “keyholder” to open the shop.
The debate came from completely different perspectives — I’m getting on in my 30s, spent 15 years in retail, dreamed of a better day working in “real” jobs, but eventually realized my job never solved any of my problems in my life; meanwhile, the other debater’s in her early 20s, dreaming of a better time in a real job, and probably believes the same as I used to, that life really gets better with a different job.
Trouble is, one day you wake up and you realize that all you did was put on different clothes and cash a bigger cheque.
You dreamed of the trappings of success, but never realized it was really just a trap till it really had hold of you.
Deep down inside, the smarter-older you realizes the job has fuck all to do with your true happiness — it just gives you better means to avoid the issue and hide from the truth.
Anyone blaming their job for unhappiness probably needs to think twice.
I can’t tell you the hell I put myself through believing it was my job that was costing me any happiness in life.
I thought, “Oh, it’s a do-nothing, go-nowhere job. It’s why I feel so held back in life. I don’t make enough, I don’t do enough, I’m not special enough. I know — I’ll quit! I’LL SHOW EVERYONE!”
After two years of trying to get by in an endless parade of bad-fitting jobs, part-time work, and self-employment, I realized the job was never the problem.
No matter what I did, that current of discontent still ran through me. I was my problem.
Let’s face it, not everyone’s going to have a job that speaks to who they are. Not everyone gets to work in a career that radiates their true nature. We need labourers and waitresses too, you know.
There comes a point where the job just doesn’t matter.
If you think a career’s all you’ve got going in your life, then, yeah, okay, I can see how you might be in for a world of suck.
But that’s your choice. You’re the fucking idiot that’s decided some dude with a wad of cash has that much power over who and what you are. God help you if you ever lose that job, y’know? Be MORE. Expect MORE. Live MORE than just your job.
I’m not my job and I’m not my bank account.
I’m the chick with a way with words who really digs thinking and living a contemplative life of slowness and relative quiet. I’m the chick who can find god on a riverbank and think there’s nowhere else I should be, and no one who should be with me. That’s me. When I leave work, I contribute to my end-of-life legacy with things that speak to me and who I am. Not as much as I could… that troubles me. I want to do more. But I’m further than I was, and do more than I did, and these are good things. And I know the things that call to me, that I should do, and that I know are going to be done. My time, my way.
My advice?
Don’t look at your relationship or your job as your source of unhappiness. I betcha dollars to donuts that the source is inside you. Things you’re likely not doing or facing, and it’s easier to use life situations as “obvious” blames than it is to do the hard emotional work of realizing a lot of answers lay within.
Running’s easy. Standing and fighting? Then you get a cookie. And some bruises.
Good luck with that. It’s so not the 2010 way — avoidance is an artform. We got yer pills, your cars, your portfolios, your adventure vacation packages, yer smart phones, yer funky gadgets… shit, we even got Lady Gaga. Is she a chick?
Is that ALL there is? Isn’t there more? We’re the wealthiest the world’s EVER been — so why the fuck are we all so empty?
Rip the fucking scab off. Prod your wounds. Do all the things that scare you. Find more to satisfy YOU in life, and stop blaming your inability to do so on your spouse or your job. It’s a choice and a matter of values. Make it happen. It’s quality, not quantity, so think about it.
Hiding behind time demands as an excuse for a life half-lived is a sissy 2010 thing. MAKE CHOICES. You can’t BE everything or DO everything, so CHOOSE. Offend people and don’t go to a few engagements. Big fucking deal. CHOOSE.
Seriously, if I could sit every 20-something down and say, “All this angst and sadness you have? Your shitty retail job isn’t the problem — your reaction to it is. Everything you need to know about life, you can learn here and now. If you want.”
And if I could sit every 40-something down and say the same thing about their office jobs? I would.
Because you’ll never learn about people better than in the workforce — their capacity for evil or infinite goodness, their irresponsibility and unexpected nature are all unavoidable, daily.
Don’t cop out and blame your job for unhappiness unless you really know you’re happy everywhere else in your life. If you quit and get the rude shock at another job that you’re still going home empty inside and, gee, that place has assholes there, too, then you’re in for a really crushing emotional defeat.
Trust me, I know! Been there, done that, the t-shirt didn’t fit.
Stay with the devil you know. Try a new sport, find hobbies, do things you love. Remember to take time to do things that make you a better version of you. When you feel you’re on the way there, then you can make other changes.
Otherwise, you’re likely just doing more harm than good.
Changing should always be done on the inside before you attempt the outside. If you’d like to see it take hold, that is.
Pfft. I don’t know, I’m still on my journey. But what I DO know is, I’m happier here, “on my way,” than I’ve ever been — and I don’t have a job or savings or security. I have more inside me, though, than I ever have, and I credit that to the really hard choices I’ve made to learn about myself and all my damage, over the last 3 – 5 years. I made some mistakes along the way and I’d rather others learn from that.
Fix you, and the universe will follow, seems to be the lesson things have been teaching me. Jobless? Moneyless? What I got you don’t buy, you don’t get given, and you don’t take. You earn it, slowly. Self-knowledge, faith, belief, and you learn it by going crutch-less and not dishing out blame.
Yep. Fix you. The universe will follow. It’s a fucking amazing thing.
PS: Sometimes your job really is a steaming pile of shit and you should run for the hills. But, you know, just make sure of that.
Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?
I had an end-of-the-night chat on Twitter with my friend Tris Hussey (@TrisHussey), one of Vancouver’s best WP blogging smartie-pants, about the strange life of being a vanilla girl in a sex-blogger-world.
It’s had me thinking since, which is why I like smartie-pants like Tris.
See, he thinks the world needs more sex-positive voices — especially from everyday-peoples like me, I guess.
Me, I still have a hard time swallowing the role. So to speak.
That’s what my whole journey in sex-blogging was about. Discovering my own sexuality in a more positive way, where I no longer judged my tastes or worried what things might suggest about me ethically or morally.
It was a hard fucking battle and I’m not even sure where I am on that road right now because I’ve been abstaining for too long. Just… because. I didn’t want to think about sexuality. I had to think about me.
But I’ve thought about me. I’m a better “me” than I’ve ever been. Now I’m ready to be more. Again.
I think the reason my sex-writing has been so successful at being applicable to the average person is because I am one. I’m not interested in burlesque. I couldn’t give a shit if I ever experience a threesome. I don’t have anything too crazy going on in my closet, can’t tell you about any really freaky encounters or swinging parties. I don’t have really odd kinks, I don’t need to push any boundaries. I don’t need more/crazier/harder to get off than I used to.
I like a little bondage, a little kink, trying creative positions, and have a little thing about sex in interesting places if time/lack-of-visibility allow. That’s about it.
I’m not off-the-charts with my sexuality, and I’m not even promiscuous. I’m old-fashioned.
But I think into every sex life a little doggy-style must fall. Or maybe a lot. It’s open for debate — let’s bang-out a plan of attack. What can I tell ya?
I think sexuality is probably one of the biggest journeys we all take.
How many people ever truly get comfortable in that context? How many people not only get comfortable with being truly sexual, but do so in a healthy way — they don’t overconsume porn, hurt others in their quest for fulfilling needs, or develop unhealthy dependencies on any particular activity, person, or lifestyling?
The world doesn’t have enough oft-laid happy “average” people skipping through life with a “I”ve been shagged SILLY” bounce to their step. How many accountants do you see walking bow-legged on Monday morning, huh?
The attitudes we DO have about sex, unfortunately, are being shaped by really fucked-up messages on the media, in Hollywood, and the internet. Sleeping around’s more popular than it’s been since the ’70s, STDs are on the rise, people are experimenting left, right and centre because media’s showing all these alternative approaches to us…
But where’s the heart?
Where’s the emotion?
Why’s there such a profound disconnect between what we’ll let ourselves feel in the crotch versus what we’ll allow our hearts to feel?
What the hell are we thinking?
Sigh. Don’t ask me, man. I’m only beginning to even attempt to crack that nut.
For the last 2-3 years, I’ve not been considering sexuality and society as much as I once did. Re-reading my work has reminded me of why I’d been so angry about it all in the past, and has rekindled my interest in being one of the voices to bring some reason to the argument.
I think so much of what’s wrong with us as a society can be explained through our skewed perspectives on sex.
I’m not suggesting getting laid equals world peace.
I’m suggesting that it’s the attitudes we associate with sex that matter, not necessarily about whether we’re getting laid or not.
When we do get shagged, how vulnerable do we truly let ourselves be? How willing are we to let our loved ones into our deeper darker places we’re scared to admit exist? How ready are we to open the doors to where we keep our skeletons?
Sex is the physical realm of mental trust. What you’re willing to do mentally SHOULD translate sexually, vice versa.
Yet how often is that true?
Are you open to others, do you accept all ways of life, can you trust those around you, are you comfortable expressing your needs? Tell me what kind of lover you are, and I’ll tell you the answer to those questions. Again, vice versa.
If everyone was open, trusting of others, accepting of other lifestyles and worldviews, willing to be versatile, able to be vulnerable but also strong when needed, and could let others lead when necessary but follow when called for, what kind of world do you think we’d live in?
Don’t tell me sex can’t heal us.
Don’t tell me sex isn’t an important statement on who and what we are as a people.
And don’t even think of telling me we’re okay.
I’m not crazy about standing up here and being the sex-positive poster-girl. I’m not enthused about the judgment or speculation it promises to hold for me. I’m not happy this job needs doing by anyone.
But there’s no one out there talking about sex for ME.
There’s no one *I* get. No one echoes the battles I’ve fought, the lessons I’ve learned, and the thoughts I’ve had in a way that really resonates.
And I know how alone I felt and how fucked up and self-judgey I was, and for how long.
Someone needs to speak for me.
So I will.
And hopefully it’ll mean a few other people feel spoken for.
Because I’m getting real fuckin’ tired of the people who’ve been doing all the talking so far.
A Writer's (Re)Reading Life
In a world with a million distractions and life that moves faster than ever, it’s easy to forget just how far we’ve come — and how many hard grades, sharp turns, trying twists were along the way.
The devil really is in the details.
This morning I’m facing the reality that I’ve gained five pounds in three weeks. I’m not surprised, I’m an emotional eater. I got laid off, then threw myself into the hardest project of my life. Five pounds? I’m surprised it wasn’t 10.
The hardest part of that hardest project is just opening the door — the door to my past and all those crazy fucking worlds I’ve travelled through.
I like my re-runs left on television, thanks.
But I’ve cracked that door this week and it’s been every bit as hard as I expected. Better than I expected, too. But it’s taking longer, which makes the “hard” part that much more insufferable. The last couple days have been spent poring over the months leading up to what was the hardest part of my life.
‘Cos, as much as I’ve had REALLY hard times in the past, that’s the only time when I truly was NOT myself and couldn’t find my strength and self inside. It was a chemical depression.
I’m rereading these passages and little cracks are appearing in my heart. My heart’s slowly breaking for myself because I can truly remember the pain and horror of going through that terrible, terrible depression. Fucking pharmaceuticals, man. Birth control pills sent me spiralling into the darkest place I’ve known. (I doubt I’ll ever take them again. The right choice for me, but not necessarily for you. Know your options and proceed carefully & judiciously.)
The depression is not there yet in full, but it’s starting to arrive. Bleakness, sorrow, a sense of loss about choices and the future.
I know why it cost me my readers. I understand and accept exactly why people walked away from the blog.
I probably would have, too.
When I write in a “normal” depression, I’m readable. I’m insightful, level-headed, never the victim. I’m determined, I try to be objective about the adversity.
But in a chemical depression? There was nothing to gain from me. I offered nothing.
I was a shapeless, meaningless cloud moving through a thick intimidating fog. Nothing in nothing, with nothing to define it.
That time period is just unfolding for me now in my archives. I’m plodding through, a heavy weight holding down my chest, gulping often.
You see, the thing is, it’s kind of worse than I remember.
Only now that I’m so far away from it can I admit that I forgot how oppressive it was, how scared I was, how day after day after day after day the struggle to hang on to that last little bit of dignity and hope was so goddamned HARD.
In frequent postings, my desperation of reaching out is hitting me hard. I’m not that person anymore. But I was.
And while I’m re-reading all that, I’m “unpublishing” some of the posts. I’m making them private. They’re there. I’m not deleting them. I’m just being true to my original statement, that I write this blog for me, not you.
I overshared. I take it back.
At the beginning, I felt bad for changing a post’s status to “private”, but as I’ve progressed, it occurs to me: I’ve written about a lot of really important things. I’ve written some really good stuff. Not ALWAYS, probably not even that OFTEN. But I’ve got a lot of good content on this blog.
And I had so much BULLSHIT in between them. Needy, desperate, oversharing little blurbs that you don’t give a fuck about and I don’t give a fuck about, so why’s it there?
Probably because Twitter hadn’t been invented yet, really.
But this tweaking, slimming-down, and weeding-out of my blog is for the best. You’ll get the best of me, or just the most readable of the journalling (because, let’s face it, some of those journal posts are exactly the kind of thing we like to read in a blog — it just depends on the mood within).
Coming up? This weekend I’ll probably read through the darkest part of that chemical depression.
The part where suicide started seeming like maybe it might make more sense than this seemingly-endless waiting for something better. God help me, that’s going to be a hard time to wade through, too. But important to revisit, methinks.
Then it’s a year of reading through just holding on, just trying to stay alive.
Then I start reading about my journey to be 60 or so pounds lighter.
Then the rest of my blog is tagged and it’s the Post-Wordpress era, and I can probably avoid going there.
But it’s been a heavy fucking few days. It’s probably why I got so worked up in my posting from yesterday, because I went from the girl I was before EVERYTHING went horrible in my life to being that kind of woman who needs to respect herself and know her value isn’t in a man — and that’s the part I’ve been re-reading recently.
All the pain and the little moments and the stupidity of that year, it’s just a little too much to take in at once. I’ve been trying to slowly digest it, but it’s still a mighty big meal. I should be through the worst of it in the next few days.
I’m really, really happy I’m doing this, though.
We need to be reminded of how much we’ve really done. As time slips past us and the years blur together more and more, we forget just how hard the day-to-day once was, and how much an accomplishment just getting through that really, really was.
I’m patting myself on the back. Rightfully so.
But I’ll still be happy when this part of my project is dead and buried.*
*Well. Until I dig it up again. Part of this tagging/SEO/editing project is so I’m not as intimidated with researching my archives for my book. Now I’ll be able to just search a “depression” tag or “money” tag and get what I need, and just skim through relevant areas, instead of reading the whole blog post-to-post and trying to figure out what’s worth saving & for where in a herky-jerky by-the-post method. Hey, it’s a book. This shit’s slow going! But it’s going. And I like this method, because I’m thinking a lot of how the pieces all unfold one to another, and the in-the-head stuff’s helpful too. Also… some writing. Just not for you.
On Becoming a Sometimes-Sex-Blogger Again
As a so-called sex writer, I went off the reservation a long, long time ago.
As a writer, I’m writing a book, and it means revisiting all my work from the last few years. In the process, I’m tagging & categorizing all my posts so you’ll have an easier time to search relevant topics.
But, boy, is it interesting taking a look at all the passion I wrote about sex with in The Old Days of this blog.
It’s important, too, because I’m remembering why I used to write about sex.
For example, I came across one of my first postings on this blog, Shut Up and Screw, in which I wrote “During sex, when I’m not using my mouth for pleasure, I keep it shut.”
And, it’s funny, like the addendum note at the top of the posting said in 2008, I’d drastically revisited that position about liking quiet lovers.
Ahem, I probably revisited the position in probably more ways than we should be counting, but there was a moment later that year with a certain lover in which I made the jump from quiet to vocal, and it was a profound jump in a lot of other sexual ways, too… and maybe even in some inner-life ways.
I realized that there was this psychological place that you get past when you no longer care if someone hears you climaxing. It’s like that great philosopher George Michael sings, “Sex is natural, sex is good, not everybody does it, but everybody should.”
Unfortunately, I’m one of those that doesn’t do it these days — I’ve been celibate for an embarrassing length of time now, despite the occasional date, the men who’ve propositioned me, and so forth. I got to that place where I finally had no libido, and life was simpler not pushing it. If my libido was active, my social life would be a whole ‘nother story. Then, I mean. Now’s getting to be a different story.
She’s in there, the feisty one. And she’s starting to emerge, now that life’s moving past the always-be-surviving mode I’ve been stuck in for so long. Now that I don’t have to just focus on getting through this week, this month, etc, I really want to start playing outside my sandbox again.
Back then, when I wrote that silly little posting, was when I probably entered into the best two years of my dating life. I was dating often, getting tons of interest, and keeping very satisfied sexually, thanks to a couple partners over that time.
One of whom was later that year, the one who made me vocal in ways I never assumed I’d be. Oh, wouldn’t you like to know more. Tsk. Good thing you’ve got your healthy imagination.
That orgasm? Pretty life-changing. What? An orgasm? Life-changing?
Yup. And why not? When you finally get to that place after a lifetime of hangups, where you can loudly and proudly hit a climax and not feel like you should be ashamed and silent about it… yeah, it’s a big shift of self.
And that’s why I write this blog.
Or why I did.
And why I want to again.
Because everyone needs to take that journey.
Everyone needs to think more about how small things — whether it’s saying what you really think, expressing how you really feel, or just screaming out with a little sexual pleasure — can redefine who and what we are.
I believe in the examined life. I believe in accepting & appreciating that the little things do add up, that they profoundly change the landscape of our lives.
It’s like the rah-rah speech Pacino gives in Any Given Sunday.
“You find out that life is just a game of inches. So is football. Because, in either game, life or football, the margin for error is so small. I mean, one half step too late or too early, you don’t quite make it. One half second too slow or too fast, and you don’t quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They are in every break of the game — every minute, every second.”
If, in every moment in life, we milk just a little bit more — from that kitchen you’re cleaning through to the kiss you want to deliver — the payout is so greater than “just a little bit more”. It’s the difference between surviving and thriving, liking and loving, and the difference between mere enjoyment and ecstasy.
I think, in some ways, my battle to make people see that has been successful, but more so in the earlier days of these writings.
I’m not satisfied with “more so in the early days”.
And this inspires me to somehow bridge the gap between the writer I’ve become and the writer I was — a reminder on the importance of spreading the word about sex in a non-porn way, while also continuing the exploration of outside-of-sex selves that I’ve been trying to journey through over the years.
It’s kind of awesome, this little walk through memory lane. Creatively and personally.
If you haven’t read a lot of the content over 2005 to 2006, and you think I’m a good writer, you really might want to take a read through those times. It’s probably the best creative period of my life. But I know it’s not the last.
If you’ve been around a long time? Thanks for your support, readers.
If you haven’t been around for much of those 5 years? I hope you will be around for the future.
‘Cos I plan to be here — in ever-changing and ever-growing ways.
Bracing Myself For What May Come
Throbbing pain behind my eyes makes writing sort of the last thing I should be doing right now. I can hear the blood coursing in my head in between the droning waves of traffic grinding up the main streets by home.
I close my eyes and nausea swims on top of my belly. Nerves, or just general dis-ease after two days with this headache.
So much got done yesterday — most of my floors, organizing, rearranging, decluttering. Much more needs to occur in the coming weeks for me to have the perfect little home I’ve always wanted but… I’ve never been this close out of the gate, y’know? Feels good. Even as my head pounds and pulses.
I dropped a line to my Mystery Mentor today, all the while going “Gee, what crazy antics in my life. Zoinks! I should write a book about it or something.”
After all this home-fixing-up stuff is done, it’s onto the book in earnest, but not in a “I’m gonna siddown and write eighty-umptillion-schmillion words today!” kind of way — instead, I’m writing me a book proposal.
It’s kinda assbackwardy, truth be told.
You figure out kinda an outline for your book. You pitch it. You go “Holy smokes, this is brilliance, buy my book!” in a way that doesn’t actually say that. Then you send that to agents and hope one goes “Holy smokes, this is brilliance, I must buy this book!” One does, they sign you, you’re hard at work on the book you’ve proposed, and meanwhile the agent goes to publishers and says, “LOOK. BRILLIANCE. Buy this! Publish it!” One does, you get a fat advance, you finish the book, everyone lives happily ever after.
Uh-huh. Or so I wanna believe.
I wrote last week about the Patti Labelle advice for her 30-year-old self, “Believe the hype, baby.” Honestly, I believe that’s been the biggest struggle for me in recent years. Learning to see myself on the inside as other people perceive me to be — and I still ain’t there by a long shot.
And that’s the interesting dilemma I’ll face in the Book Proposal Project: I need to believe.
I need to believe the story I’ve got to tell and sell is better than one that anyone at a party has behind them.
I’ve got to believe my story’s compelling enough to make someone stop in the middle of filling their glass at the office watercooler and say to their coworker, “So this book I’m reading, you should totally go there!”
THAT’S the game you need to believe you bring BEFORE you write a book. If you don’t THINK you’re that compelling, if you don’t BELIEVE your story has that much gravitas, then what the fuck are you doing? Don’t waste MY time, but sure as shit don’t waste yours. A book’s a one, two, five-year commitment, man. It’s not frivolity.
Believing this is where being raised as a Catholic Canadian really hoodwinks a (not as) fat-girl.
- Who’s better at feeling guilty than a Catholic?
- Who’s better at being sorry than a Canadian?
- Who’s better at being insecure than a fat girl?
Oh, hey, now… have I got a book for you!
So, as I sit here with my pounding head in my ever-simplifying home, I realize next week is game on and I start this book proposal. My awareness of its psycho-emotional implications, though, are new.
My understanding that the book proposal itself may turn into a therapy exercise is probably the most important realization I can have. Therapy’s great, but then you gotta stand back like a comedian and point and laugh.
But this is the week the foundation is laid. By removing all my distractions — this pile of papers there, the clutter over here, the floors that need to be cleaned or the crap that needs to be donated — I’m creating a landscape or work environment in which my focus can only be pulled so far away at any given time.
The focus next week is to start the book proposal — but deliberately doing a therapeutic version. I’ll get the bullshit out, then blast it away with my irreverence and self-deprecation. What’s left will probably be a very good fascimile of who I am as a writer.
But I won’t get there if I don’t go through who I am as a person first.
The reality is, my book is about me. Between now and the end of this, I need to believe I — me, myself, girlie-o, chickadee, moi, yours truly — am worth plunking down some $30-40 on in hardcover form. I need to believe I can see YOU sitting in an armchair with a blanket around your legs and a glass of wine in hand, flipping page over page as you can’t wait to read how I got out of that NEXT jam, while ignoring your phonecalls and promising you’ll get to those emails come dawn.
I need to believe that.
And if you want to write a book? You need to believe that, too.
There’s a strange dichotomy in the mind of anyone who needs to have YOU buy a piece of themselves for their livelihood. There’s the legend-in-one’s-own-mind syndrome that butts heads against the reality of almost all of us getting taunted, mocked, or just plain failing at one point or another in our lives.
Insecurities aren’t rare. They don’t all cripple their owners, though.
My insecurities were bigger because I was bigger. I couldn’t fucking hide. I was 277 pounds and size 24. Where the fuck am I gonna go, right? That was only the beginning of the end of where it all came from, the beginning of what I needed to get past in order to tell the story I now think you’ll one day be okay with dropping $29.95 on.
In the meantime, minions?
Unemployment’s giving me the chance to get back into a life I somehow lost for a while — cycling, writing, enjoying my home, living simply, and, yes, even dating. I’m dusting myself off and getting back into dating** after a long time of just being completely disinterested. Do I want “love” right now? [shrug] I dunno. Whatcha got? Right?
We’ll see what the world unfolds. I feel like anything can happen right now, and despite the seemingly negative turn of events losing my job would appear to unleash, I feel very much the opposite — that opportunity is everywhere.
I feel like it’s my time, but the only thing holding me back is finding the path from here to there, and dialing up the courage and resilience it’ll take to keep walking that path long after the bloodied sores and blisters emerge.
Ever read Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist? No? You should. Right now, no matter what I do, there’s a very quiet little air of Maktub* in the back of my mind.
But I still need to do the writing.
*In the book, Coelho explains MAKTUB as meaning “it is written” in Arabic, a sort of idea of fate and determination.
**I’m taking applications. No. Really.
Easter and Change in the Air
My earliest memory of something atypical of Easter-cliche-happenings was in the year I would turn 8, 1981. It was Easter Sunday morning and my father, mother, brother, and I were gathered in the bright yellow sunroom for breakfast when the phone rang.
It was family back East. Seems my father’s father died that morning. I’d never met him. Phillip. But if he was my father’s father, well, he must’ve been a giant of a man, then.
We lived on opposite coasts of the world’s largest country back when air travel wasn’t exactly a bargain. But that was the summer — we were going back for almost the entire summer, spending it in Prince Edward Island for my mother’s parent’s 50th wedding anniversary and family reunion.
Two months too late to meet the last of my father’s parents.
Ever since, I’ve always found death and rebirth to be synonymous with Easter.
Winter rages, summer bites back. Seasons change. Lethargy bleeds out and enthusiasm rears up.
The romantic in me is enjoying the realization that such a major and untenable lifechange should come for me as Easter dawns.
I wish I could bottle and share this cauldron that bubbles inside me — a (in)toxic(ating) mix of excitement and fear, curiosity and dread, confusion and confidence. I have no idea what to make of it, how to pull it all apart.
It’s like my emotions are fighting like a carload of five-year-olds.
And this week coming up is filled with grey and cold and wind. A batten-your-hatches and clear-your-files sort of week filled with naps, short wet walks, pensive moments, and strategizing.
The weather gods apparently feel next weekend is a good time for Spring to begin her return engagement in the fair city of Vancouver, after peppering us with an ironic blast of late winter and snow after our “warmest Olympics ever” came to an end — and the city’s been in a freeze ever since.
From weather on down, change is coming every which way in my life. From my professional focus to my health attitudes to the time I have to focus on myself to my ability to be out in the world to my back account.
EVERYTHING changes here, now, this very week.
It’s not like this is some happy slow transition. No, dude. I’ve lost my job — I’ve gone from trying to juggle seems-like-60-hour weeks to juggling zilch, nada, zippo. My landscape of my life is like a vast stretch of prairie scrub. Goes for miles and miles and miles.
Its vast emptiness is paralleled only by the expanse of my savings account.
The life I had, overnight, is in cardiac arrest, sustained only by the faint hope that is the three-months-to-hire-me-back open-ended lay-off I’ve been handed. Aside from that?
Well, shit, son. Not every aspiring writer gets her bookwriting ducks in a row then gets her pink slip.*
My whole life’s kinda weird right now. I had a Mystery Mentor step out of the works on Twitter and give me very valuable advice for starting my book. I’m reading How to Write a Book Proposal by Larsen now. Very “start here” positioning when you have a good idea of how your book unfolds. As I’m beginning to.
But I’d been working toward this readying since December — figuring out plot and structure, style and voice, basic timeline. In my head, of course. But sometimes that’s a good start.
Life-wise, I was able to get just a few things in a row — not everything will unfold at once but instead it will unfold over the next few months, slowly making me able to sustain the kind of adversity I have to be ready to face if I’m to use this sudden shifting of worlds to my advantage.
All in all? Easter? What an exciting unexpected scary time for me.
Thank god I believe in myself and have an inkling that, despite this appearing to be “bad” luck, this may actually be the start of something wow for me.
WHAT, exactly, I don’t know.
But isn’t it fun?
Happy Easter, everyone. Save me some ham.**
And avoid the “death” part of Easter. It’s kinda lame. Ham’s better. Not for the pig. But, you know.
*Pink slips are blue, incidentally, in Canada. Get yer passport now. Yer missing the fuck out, people.
**You ever think the Christian tradition of ham at Easter is sort of an ironic slap at Judaism, which kinda started the whole Easter-ball rolling anyhow? I’m more a turkey girl.
What to Learn from Unemployment
I woke up with a smile this morning. I woke up unemployed.
It’s not permanent… yet. They have three months to hire me back. If they can’t, I get severance then. If they do, tickety-boo. Just not for a while, please.
I’m so fuckin’ tired from runnin’ so fuckin’ long.
I need to stop. I need to breathe. I need to be. I need to remember small things, simple moments, big dreams, little lessons, and good times. I need this.
Can’t afford this. But I need this.
I used to find stillness often. I’m that person who has literally sat still and watched light change on a landscape (during some midnight summer sun in the Yukon, a religious experience if you’re into that kinda thing). I used to know I could stop, just stand somewhere, just stare, just be.
Be someone doing nothing someplace for some time. Sometimes, it’s everything.
Then I got on a hamster wheel and just started running.
In the last year, I’ve finally forced myself to pull back — a lot. But my downtime has been nothing but fraud. Downtime? Not so much. Just… distraction. I was doing THIS, not that.
Years ago, I was hanging by the window on a ferry ride home, dreading that moment when I stepped off that boat and transcended island time right back into my rat race. This guy, I guess, saw something of that in me, and we got into this conversation. He commented that cities were built to distract us — “Hey, look at the shiny toy! You’re not unhappy at all! You don’t hate your job! Your boss isn’t a fucking prick! Your commute doesn’t suck balls! Hey, there’s a new nightclub — let’s go drink and pretend we’re anywhere but here!”
The city life, we’re all so busy rushing from the job to this to that and fitting him in while squeezing that in, and saving the date in case that other thing falls through, which depends on her contract panning out and —
Oh, Jesus. There are days I just want to stand on the sidewalk and shout at everyone “FUCKING STOP! Doesn’t it get TIRED? Aren’t you SICK of this endless shit? NOTHING EVER CHANGES. It just comes with new toys!”
But then I wonder if it’s just me, and I’m tired of checking into the same plastic neighbourhood and seeing all the same people with their shiny toys and lives of distraction, where nothing real gets said and everything’s all wink-and-nod.
Yeah. I woke up with a smile this morning. Yes, it’ll be hard.
But I’ve been wise to that distraction for so long. I see the veneer of happiness so many people wear every day, the air of lies and fakery that exude as people try to convince themselves that, YES, when they were six and daydreaming before Saturday morning cartoons, that THIS was a life they’d be happy to live — tied to a smart phone and plugging in detail of every single day, microprocessing life and yet never really ever stopping to remember what simply sitting still in a moment feels like. It’s all there in the subtle sighs and sunken shoulders, the trancelike moments where they fall away for just a — and then snap right back into this.
I think we’re all sucked into a “Is this all there is?” moment every now and then. Sure, we convince ourselves this is a pretty good gig, but sometimes the bigness of the world just magnifies the smallness of our lives, emphasizing how stupid it is that our daily grind should seem so immensely important when we know that 15 years from now all these stupid fucking appointments this week will mean jack shit.
I’m unemployed.
It’s time to recalibrate.
It’s time to break the hamster wheel.
There’s a gift, you know, in poverty.
Desperation can be a beautiful thing if you know how to channel it. Being forced to enjoy the simple and the free can remind one just how little it takes to enjoy a moment.
Yes, you might love the chef’s tasting menu at West and the flight of wine you had, but I imagine some sunsets with beer and buck-slice pizza, spent on a log at the beach, would blow your fancy-ass meal out of the water. The laughter, the comfort, the trust, the beauty… True ease.
You can’t buy that. You can trick yourself that it is up for grabs, but… you can’t buy that. It’s not for sale. Only the appearance of it is for sale.
I’ve had simple barbecues, a few good friends, an afternoon with no end pin-pointed, that have left every person there thinking “Yeah, no one’s enjoying their place or moment more than I am right here, right now. It’s this beer, that hot dog, this place, those people, and this feeling of weightlessness and grounding that comes with.”
I wrote once that I want the trappings of success but not the trap. You can keep your microscheduled, nanoprogrammed life of pace and panic. If it means you get the $80 meals and the lights and pizzazz, so be it.
I’m fuckin’ done, Martha.
I need me some time. I need me some mornings when I can roll over with a dopey grin and grumble into my pillow as I try to decide if I get up now and nap later, or sleep another hour, knowing the only other pressing conundrum is when to brew some coffee or start to write.
Other people have money, get to leave town, leave the country, find their fuckin’ selves. Well, some of us are stuck here, broke, hangin’ on a dime and a prayer, clasping at any five minutes we get without obligation.
I’m fine with that. I’m stuck here, broke, nothing but a vague sense I can get by and a will to write the best hardcover memoir you’ll read in 2012.
It’s like Ken Kesey once commented, something to the effect that, if you can’t find God in your backyard in Kansas, he ain’t gonna be found at the Egyptian pyramids, either.
In fact, I think “soul-searching” done abroad in fancy healing retreats may not be as beneficial as tackling those mysteries while trapped in your life. I think you have to earn it harder, you have to want it more, you have to dig for greater meaning. I think it’s too easy when you’re off at some yoga retreat. When you’re here, in your life, you need to make other people understand your search, you have to value yourself to do the work, and you have to balance the life you lead with the life you want.
It’s not easy and it ain’t for chumps.
Find your soul at home and you won’t have to worry about it falling away from you when you “return” to life.
This summer, I find my soul. I catch up with it. I figure out what the beginning after this end is supposed to be. I’ve done it before and I’ll do it better this time.
My life is a gift, man. My adversity is my opportunity.
It’s times like these I call upon this much-loved Bruce Chatwin quote I’ve posted on so many occasions:
“A white explorer in Africa, anxious to press ahead with his journey, paid his porters for a series of forced marches. But they, almost within reach of their destination, set down their bundles and refused to budge. No amount of extra payment would convince them otherwise.
They said they had to wait for their souls to catch up.”
Yeah. That’s right. I woke up with a smile. And you?