Opera Man always makes me smile.
There are a few Vancouver characters that the locals who’ve been here for years know about. Like the Rock-Art Guy. Or Opera Man.
Over the the 12 years I’ve lived in Vancouver proper, once in a truly blue moon the cosmos aligns ever so fortunately, and I luck out and happen upon Opera Man taking a stroll. Nowadays in his 60s, he’s a shorter, smaller, slimmer Italian man who shuffles casually with his hands clasped behind his back and just belts out baritone operas at will. He oozes joie de vivre.
I’ve seen Opera Man when I was depressed as I’ve ever been, and when I heard him and his spontaneous operatic bliss, I couldn’t fucking help but grin. Big. I love that man. Big love. If there’s a “Dude, you rock, and make Vancouver Vancouver” award, he gets one.
Me, I love to sing. But I’ve always been a coward. I have an all right voice. Took voice training back in the day. I’m deeper-voiced, with a throaty, sultry rattle, and smooth power when I want it… but I’m shy.
One of the many “Making Steff Rock” projects I’ve undertaken in this year of conscious changing-of-self is that of trying to force myself to be a bit bolder, less afraid of being spotted for being myself out loud… in all my trouble-making or bold ways that I usually keep somewhat under wraps amidst the general populace.
So, tonight, cycling home along one of the more travelled bike routes, I decided to sing out loud. Continue reading
To Dabble or Not to Dabble
I’m all torn these days. The more I consider relationships, the more I realize I don’t really know what I want, nor what I can handle. I’ve accepted a date for sometime next week with a poly guy. I’m curious as to whether I can process such a relationship.
I’m not concerned about my ability to take more than one lover, if I’m open about it and don’t have to juggle or lie or anything. I can’t do the duplicity thing.
My concern is whether I’m too jealous or possessive, whether my insecurities will get the better of me, whether my competitive nature makes me unlikely to play well with others in the picture. I really don’t know. Am I built for the variety and openness of a poly relationship?
I got told I gotta get off the fence and figure it the fuck out. Hence the date.
I know I don’t have a “regular” relationship in me. I’d love a friends-with-benefits situation, but I know, inside, I’m kinda wanting to taste my way through a few male specimens. I want variety. I want to consume men instead of food. But I don’t want to go sleeping around. I figure 2-3 lovers could be fantastic.
But then can I deal with the flip of men having the same variety on the side?
Well, there’s really only one way to find out.
Celebrities & Smut: Mirren on Date-Rape, Duchovy on Sex Addiction
Late last night I put a cutesy “Helen Mirren rocks!” kind of posting up, and I woke up to see a message from Abby Dabby pointing out that Mirren has gone on record as saying date rape isn’t really something the courts should be involved in.
In an article coming out in the UK’s GQ, she’s said:
The actress also stated in the candid interview with British magazine GQ that it would be hard for women to press charges against someone they had planned on being sexually active with.She told the publication, “I was (date-raped), yes. A couple of times. Not with excessive violence, or being hit, but rather being locked in a room and made to have sex against my will.”
“I don’t think she (a female rape victim) can have that man into court under those circumstances.”
Every single time I have sex, it is a choice. Every single time I choose to be active, my partner’s receiving a gift from me. If I don’t say yes, it’s not a choice. If there’s no choice, it is arbitrary and a situation of force.
Force means rape. Continue reading
The Most Annoying Conversation
I had a chance to go to a huge party Saturday night, but I decided I wasn’t very much on my social game, and that a simple one-on-one conversation would be better suited for the day I should have after a long week, so I made plans for a drink with someone instead.
Well, so much for being on my social game.
It was my first time meeting this guy. I figured, smart conversation and some drinks, a nice mellow time, right?
And maybe that’s how it would’ve felt if I could have gotten a word in edgewise. But I didn’t. So, no, not so nice, not so mellow.
While I’m often excessively articulate and pretty quick-thinking about it, I go through phases where I’m thinking more than speaking, and when I do talk, I’m a bit more measured and slow about it. I often like to do crazy things, like think before I speak, so I’ve been known to take something like 5-10 seconds to formulate my comment.
But apparently hesitation kills and no one should be allowed such time before speaking, if my night was any measure of that. My drinks-date interrupted me every single time I spoke. Not once could I naturally finish my thought. Every. Single. Time. I even got pissed off now and then at him interrupting, and CONTINUED speaking, despite him not stopping his interruption. Still, didn’t take the hint. I even said, “You talk too much” and made a couple comments that way, and, nope, didn’t slow him down a stitch.
And then the other thing was, any thing I did manage to say, he either turned it into a statement about him and his life, or else he just flat-out said he didn’t like my opinion. (I said, “I want to go to New York soon” and he goes, “I hate New York, it’s all concrete.” Well, I’m not fucking visiting there for a park, now, am I, when I live in a rainforest surrounded by ocean, mountains, and amazing land? Like New York’s competing with THAT? I’m going for a concrete jungle and “the city that never sleeps”. Fuck. Stop making me justifty myself.)
I gradually just stopped giving a shit and phoned the conversation in. Why fucking bother? Like anything I said mattered anyhow? Every time I spoke, I was interrupted, or informed that my opinion wasn’t at all correct. Way to make a companion feel like they matter and have something to contribute, huh?
I wanted to bitch-slap myself yesterday when I realized I was doing the story-trumping thing myself. You know, say someone goes, “I just climbed a mountain!” and you go, “Wow. Which one? Oh, I’ve climbed that seven times. It’s pretty shitty. Next time you should–” and it’s all right when we do that once or twice, it happens, right? But I think I did it a few times yesterday and I thought, “Wow, you arrogant cunt. Shut up.” So I shut up and listened then on.
This guy needs that inner voice to do a little shouting, methinks.
The irony of all this is, I recognize I’ve become too internal and too into myself of late, so I’ve been working to try and make myself a better listener and a more measured and gracious speaker. I was never, ever as bad as this fellow is, but it certainly serves as a reminder of why I’m trying to take myself to a new level as far as the give-and-take of conversation goes.
If people tell you that you talk too much, you probably do. Maybe you should listen.
If you like interrupting people because you think what you have to say is so brilliant, maybe you need to understand that it’s rude and it’s offensive, and it’s essentially saying to people, “I don’t give a shit what you have to say, because I’m wittier and better than you.”
Next time I want to feel not smart enough or not appreciated, I know who to call.
But, you know, I’m gravitating toward people who know how to make others feel appreciated and liked. It feels good. Who knew?
In Case You Still Don't Think He's a Diiiirty Ol' Man
McCain's VP Choice
[Someone made a cute little comment on Twitter, about how amusing it is that Canadians care so much about the American election. Why do we? Because anything America does tends to affect Canada, that’s why. Protectionist folks want Bush, err, McSame, to win so our trade policies don’t get negatively impacted. People like me, however, are tired of the conservative climate that contagiously caught to Canada during the Bush era. My life has notably changed, my freedoms have notably changed, as a result of the oppressive climate down south. Our policies don’t affect Americans day-to-day so they never care about our votes. Americans affect us daily, ergo, many of us live vicariously through your happenings, because we know the tumble-down effect will hit us shortly. And how.]
Why should McCain’s Vice-President pick offend any thinking, smart women in the world?
He met Palin once, then decided she was the one. Just like that. Shazam. Experience? Pshaw! She’s cute!
But who is she really? Just a hockey mom with five kids who decides to be a toughie on finance in office as governor of Alaska, a state with around 300,000 people… after her illustrious career as a mayor of a town with 9,000 people? Is she just a gimmicky leader, like her stunt of selling the Alaskan governor’s airplane on eBay, then stuffing the proceeds into the state coffers and opting to fly coach?
She’s a woman so given to petty politics and favour-making that she’s under ethical investigation for trying to get her former brother-in-law fired from a high-paying state job in Alaska after the ink on the divorce with her sister has died. I mean, she’s UNDER investigation. It has not been resolved, she has not been cleared, and yet she’s nominated as a running mate? Yeah, way to vet her, guys.
If you’re a feminist and you’re sitting around thinking, “Oh, yes, but she’s a woman. She strings whole sentences together! Yay, women! Women rock!” then give your head a fucking shake, would you? Yeah, sorry, there’s no argument praising Palin you can make because the facts speak for themselves. She’s under investigation, has never done foreign policy, hasn’t even been in charge of a town of more then 50,000 people, or a state with half a million folks, yet if Mr. I-Had-Cancer-Four-Times and Will-Be-Oldest-Prez-Ever should kick the bucket in office, SHE takes over as leader of the free world? Well, at least we know she can get a good price for Airforce One.
When smart, powerful, deserving women get appointed to positions of power, it’s a compliment to women across the board. McCain could’ve picked Christine Todd Whitman, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Elizabeth Dole, Kaye Bailey Hutchinson, or any number of other smart, established women on the American scene. He could have. Hell, he should have.
Instead, he’s arrogantly picked someone who’s cute as a button, has barely any experience, and who’s an easy-to-sell all-American hockey mom. Unfortunately, she’s supposed to be pandering to the disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters… yet not one of her policies is compatible with Hillary’s. Oh, but she’s in the pocket of oil and gas, and I guess that’s always helpful if you want to be a Republican vice-prez.
I think it’s high time women be included more frequently in top level politics. We’ve shown we’re as smart, as innovative, as communicative, and as ambitious.
But choosing the cuter girl over the more experienced, more established, more credential-heavy, more proven women out there who might just be over 45?
That’s not the change we need. That’s the same old misogyny, just dressed up prettier for 6:00 sound-bites.
Obama’s right. McCain just doesn’t get it. Do you?
The Bi-Monthly Friday-Night Bottle-of-Red Requisite Posting
In vino veritas.
The price of truth, it seems, runs $9.99 per 750 mils. Yum.
I’ve recently cut out my crack-like addiction to the tasty, chewy, buttery, vanilla-y Rice Krispie squares from the market down the street. That, coupled with yoga and a few more veggies in my diet as well as weight-lifting, and I’m noticing (just as of tonight) some new toning in my midsection. Like, what? I have rib bones? Who knew? Continue reading
Obama by Way of a Detour or Two
I wrote this back in March. I don’t have the time, really, to write in the morning, got home late tonight after dinner out. A thing or two to say of that at another time, probably.
But in honour of the awesome happenstance down south today, when Obama officially accepted the nomination and made what was one of the greatest political stump speeches I’ve ever heard, I’m gonna throw this posting up. Since, like, the opening goes double for tonight’s fucking phenom of a speech. But bear with it, it takes a couple detours. You know me.
Feeling political hope? New. I like this.
I’ve now both read Obama’s entire speech on racism in America today and watched it, and, boy, I like this guy, man. I like him a lot. I think he’s the politician I’ve waited a lifetime for. I don’t think anyone could run on a platform of complete change and not achieve any. I don’t think you can articulate what’s so wrong with a country today and not have had ideas for a lifetime on what to do to fix them if a chance ever comes.
I have, for a while now, believed that Obama is, in some respects, a master manipulator, but I believe he does it for the right reasons — to make himself a viable candidate. By not polarizing people too greatly earlier in his career, he can stomp his feet a little louder now and achieve more through it.
He’s far from perfect and I have no illusions, but you gotta understand where I’m coming from. Continue reading
Struggles Between Sexuality and the Self
A reader, Dp, just happened to ask me to maybe touch on the difference between a person’s sexuality and the person. He and I sort of look at the equation differently, I suppose, but it’s something I’ve been considering a lot.
I’ve placed a sexual encounters personal of late, trying to find that elusive friends-with-benefit situation that encapsulates someone brilliant, someone my style, and someone who nurtures both the same high libido I do while still being a passionate and creative lover who’s not afraid to cross a few proverbial lines in the sand.
I have a tall order to be met. I know it will be a frustrating search. I’m already frustrated, but I’m resolved. I’ve had responses accusing me of being a “shopping list” woman who’s out there for a trophy man rather than reality guy. That’s so not the case. I’m a reciprocal woman. I bring to the table everything I’m seeking in a partner. Absofuckinglutely. I deplore hypocrisy, and I do not ask for anything I’m not willing to provide, or that I haven’t provided in the past.
I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who are comfortable separating the sex they have with the people they are, but I’m not. The sex I have is as much a part of who I am as the girl who loves to bake for her office coworkers. I mean, it’s part of my identity. As much as I am a generous woman, I am a sexual one with a big love for intimacy and passion. I’m given to doting on partners, and I love selfishly receiving. I’m keen on orgasms. But I’m also keen on taking all night to get there sometimes. I seek power almost only in sexual exchanges, though sometimes in my life; but certainly there’s a part of me that does seek that power. To deny that she exists, or to wrongly assert she’s just a “mode” I operate under, would be to blatantly ignore a core part of who I can be, and often am.
But just because I enjoy power exchanges as part of sex doesn’t mean I can do without the smothering, doting affection of old-school intimacy. Because I can’t. Affection and intimacy are as important to me as any other facet of sex, whether it’s taking a good hard shagging or practicing an evening of switchery.
Born and raised Catholic, much of my life has been spent trying to get past the “Satan is waiting for you if you engage in sex” bullshit taught by a church who seeks to shame practitioners away from sex. It’s taken my whole life to realize that who I am when I am a sexual being, someone who’s getting shagged frequently, is a better person than the moral, abstaining girl that life sometimes induces me to be. I’m better all the way around when I’m getting laid. Simple.
The hardest thing I’ve had to learn to be in my lifetime is that woman I am when I’m having sex. Realizing that she’s not a bad person just because she likes to take it the way she does, or domme a fellow when the urge strikes, or tease and taunt a fella to the brink.
I’ve learned slowly over the years that I need to get past that mind-body connection. Past that place that distinguishes the mind over the body, or vice versa, and instead uses them both together to transcend mind/matter, which some of us believe has to happen for real “sexual union” to occur between lovers. Complicated, huh?
It’s one of the reasons that getting vocal about sex wound up being a huge turning point for me in taking my sexual experience to another level. By being less concerned about my volume, just allowing that natural reaction to occur, I somehow got past another level of hang-ups, got more into the now, less into the thought side of it all. It was, and is, such a struggle to override the person I was raised to be as I try to embrace the person I’ve discovered I am, all the while trying not judging the latter just because I was raised as the former.
How each of us gets to that point where we stop segregating who we are sexually with who we think we are morally, and realizing they don’t have to be separate people, that we can (and often are) both, is a struggle I think some of us will be fighting for our whole lives. There will be no easy answer to how you get to that point of accepting the coexistence of your sexuality and your morality, and the realization that one need not cancel out the other.
But the only way I know to do it? Stop stopping at our comfort zones. Stop assuming that just because you’ve always thought one way about sexuality that your mindset is correct. Stop assuming you know how a sexual act will or will not make you feel. Don’t presuppose things like bondage will never appeal to you, because the odds are mighty strong that, like the majority of people out there, who you truly are sexually is something that will be shifting and changing with the rest of you throughout your life. Embrace it. Most importantly, explore it.
Of Dates, Diets, And Me
So, I’ve been dating more of late. Averaging one date a week these days, and it’s all right. Nobody has yet made me pitter-patter, but we’re getting better on the averages here.
My big sexual misadventure of a couple of weeks was the classic case of pulling the trigger way too soon (in more ways than one) largely because I stupidly gave in when instinct said “Stick to the script, girlie. Use the door.” Ultimately the blame lies with me because I’m the person who probably had better perspective that night, but hormones said “Get thee LAID.” Not what I had in mind, but.
Now, though, that’s not the problem. I’m not “going there” for the hell of it. Getting laid is nice, but I’m not doing it if anyone’s getting hurt, or if it’s just flat-out dishonest. And I just don’t feel taking advantage of situations for my hormones, either. It needs to be genuine, and the right thing for right then. As it turns out, I seem to be doing all the rejecting these days, which is new, which is good, but the guilt sort of sucks sometimes.
Like, Monday I had a date. To be brutally honest, I was disappointed to see he has a bigger weight problem than I thought, and that’s a big problem for me at this point in my life.
Here’s where I have to clarify: Hard bodies don’t interest me. Never have. Some are hot but in that “I’d fuck you but I’d never, ever trust you” kind of way. Is that bigoted toward excessively pretty people? Sure, but it’s going on the averages I’ve come to see in my own life. There are always exceptions, of course.
But like I told my date tonight, it’s about health and strength. I’m not strong enough to be around someone who loves food, and all the wrong kinds. I can’t. I’ve lost 50 pounds, gone from a 22 to a 16, and I can’t go back. Won’t. Dad almost died of diabetes. I was heading toward a future of heart disease and diabetes and premature death. I had the “This isn’t good” chat with the doc. I was filled with self-loathing and felt like I was out of the loop with life. I’m so much better than that now. I like this girl. I like her a lot.
And why wouldn’t I? I have changed everything.
So I had the decency to say I’d keep an open mind and if I saw him trending toward health and fitness, I’d develop an interest… most likely.* Which is true. He’s certainly of the “type” I gravitate toward. Very much so. But not at the price of putting myself around a life of excess, not anymore.
Bodywise, that “type” however tends to be guys just carrying a literal few extra pounds. Maybe 30, 40, 50 pounds overweight, depending on height and frame, just of the mildly “doughy” and comfy but nothing more than that. Kind of maybe at a max to the extent that I myself am presently overweight.
Cushion for the pushin’ and a little extra to soften the blow? Works for me.
But you got to know, I’m not keen on bones gnashing into me during sex. I dig madly the slap-slap-slap sound of flesh hitting flesh in the act. Thin-people sex doesn’t sound as fun. They need a little more slappin’. I really love skin, but more importantly, flesh. I’m all about the meat of it. Good firm meat, of course. Like firmness. Excessively jiggling meat, not so good.
But when I say “doughy”, I’m talking more in a Steven Page of Barenaked Ladies, not Jack Black. Geeky and softish but in proportion. What can I say? I’m that type, and I like that type. Says a lot about the light I see myself in, if anything, I guess.
Now, me, personally, I ain’t aiming to be slim and trim. Not in my goals at all, whatever you think of this weightloss quest. I see my ass being perfect at about a size 10-ish. Face it, in life and on this blog, my personality’s larger than life. “Slim” doesn’t compute when one throws it up against “Steff”. I mean, really? Foodie-sensualist-scooter-riding-feminist-geeky-sex-fiend girl? Thin? No.
I like myself a little on the soft side. Just not as much as I was. đŸ™‚ That problem’s solved anyhow. Like I wrote yesterday, waxing about the new loveliness of my thighs. Smooth, firm. Lovely! I like this. Shaving is so much more fun. Yet, my ass is amply grabbable. S’all right.
If my proportion stays as good as it is, but I just slim up a little more, then I’ll have what I think is the perfect body. Fuck the media, fuck size two, fuck DDs, fuck it all. I’m cool with a B-cup 10. The ever-perfect 10.
But I’d feel like shit if I just slammed the door of possibility on this guy, who has a lot to offer, but lives a different lifestyle than me right now. I’ve been that person. A little faith would have done me some good.
And it’s like that bumper sticker. “I may be fat, but you’re ugly, and I can diet.” Exactly. He’s cute.
Good people are good people, whatever their size. But they say your social situation dictates your fitness. Hang with overweight folk? You’ll be overweight. Why? They eat fat food, don’t exercise. Hang with thin people? You’ll lose weight. Why? Because they tend to eat better, exercise. Nature, nurture?
It ain’t science, it’s just environment. And given how much a glutton I am when the lovin’s good, given my foodie-sensualist bent, I need to be a very careful girl these days. Let’s nibble wee bits of wonderful cheese and lots of fruit, maybe a crumb of excellent dark chocolate, but nix the pizza. Choice is a wonderful thing.
And that’s the way that low-fat cookie crumbles. As did my date. With whom I’ve vowed to stay in touch with, and get to know, either way, with an open mind. Since he aims to “prove it”. Because good people are good people.
*Steff note: I should add he says he’s up to my challenge and says I should stick around. I said sure. We’ll see.
