the most basic Me
Friday, November 02, 2001
Wrote something decent today:
People used to think I had no father. They'd eventually delicately ask, "um, where does your father live?" It was because all my stories revolved around my mom. My mom was always the one with me. I grew up a satellite to her world.
My dad was military first, retired next, and then worked as a civilian contractor with the military. This involved a lot of travel. At one point I remember my mom saying to a friend in a joking voice, we've spent more time apart during our marriage than in the same country. She said it that way, but she was deadly serious. That is how their marriage survived.
Until I was in high school, I never stayed in the same school longer than 2 years. I had lived in Florida, Indiana, Arizona, Cyperus (small island country near Turkey), England, and California by the time I was 13 years old. My mom was there with me through all of it while my dad flitted in and out working. He was a good dad, he just wasn't always there.
When my mom died, my childhood ended. Granted, you might say it should have already been over--I was 23, but people stay young a long time in our modern culture. This is the story of becoming >cannot finish this stupid line.
I like it :)
¶ 3:40 PM 0 comments
People used to think I had no father. They'd eventually delicately ask, "um, where does your father live?" It was because all my stories revolved around my mom. My mom was always the one with me. I grew up a satellite to her world.
My dad was military first, retired next, and then worked as a civilian contractor with the military. This involved a lot of travel. At one point I remember my mom saying to a friend in a joking voice, we've spent more time apart during our marriage than in the same country. She said it that way, but she was deadly serious. That is how their marriage survived.
Until I was in high school, I never stayed in the same school longer than 2 years. I had lived in Florida, Indiana, Arizona, Cyperus (small island country near Turkey), England, and California by the time I was 13 years old. My mom was there with me through all of it while my dad flitted in and out working. He was a good dad, he just wasn't always there.
When my mom died, my childhood ended. Granted, you might say it should have already been over--I was 23, but people stay young a long time in our modern culture. This is the story of becoming >cannot finish this stupid line.
I like it :)
¶ 3:40 PM 0 comments
Thursday, November 01, 2001
Just spent 15 minutes checking out what the folks have written that are publishing their novels online as they write them. masochistic idea, I know. Mark (www.madebymark.com) is the only one with anything substantial--his text both makes sense, is there, and is an engrossing story that leaves me wanting more. One other gentlemen has some sketchy text that looks far more similar to my own efforts. I assume the others are behind on web posting rather than writing.
This entire nano exercise could be thought of as a meditation. How to keep your thoughts focused on just doing, rather than thinking about what you should be doing, what you are doing, and whether it is any good.
I wish I could write as much story as I can write about writing a story and thinking about it. This too shall pass.
¶ 1:07 PM 0 comments
This entire nano exercise could be thought of as a meditation. How to keep your thoughts focused on just doing, rather than thinking about what you should be doing, what you are doing, and whether it is any good.
I wish I could write as much story as I can write about writing a story and thinking about it. This too shall pass.
¶ 1:07 PM 0 comments
This month following Sept. 11th. It is hard. I still don't really have words. I am torn up. I think everyone is. Every once in awhile the scene of those planes hitting the towers or the tower falling pops into my mind and I just start crying. I support our retaliation, but part of me just sighs at yet more death and destruction. The anthrax scares--well, I think that for me is mostly just something that was bound to happen eventually actually starting to happen. In so many ways, bio-terrorism is inevitable--it can be done so much more cheaply, produced small areas, is so insidious. Although this threat has a new face--who thinks of catching a disease from handling mail?--I still think more about antibiotic resistance than bio-terrorism.
¶ 8:50 AM 0 comments
Are you guys watching baseball this series? As a baseball fan, I have to tell you--I have never imagined, far-less had the priveledge of watching two such exciting baseball games. Last nights game. Wow. The Yankees are my new back-up favorite team (my heart forever belongs to the Cardinals).
Bottom of the 9th, 2 outs. Score 3 to 1, Diamonbacks. If the Diamonbacks win, this will be a 3:1 series--very hard to come back from. One runner on first base. Tino Martinez comes to the plate and pretty soon, it has two strikes. Full count: 3 balls, 2 strikes. It is almost over folks. Normal teams do NOT come back from this. So Martinez hits a 2 run, home run.
Tied game!! We go to extra innings.
Bottom of the 10th. Score 3 to 3. Two outs. Jeter comes to the plate and pretty soon has, yet another full count. And then it happens: Home run. The Yankees win.
Wow. It leaves me speechless.
____
This morning was my first morning of writing for the Nanowrimo challenge. Challenge is correct. At first, my idea for this thing was to just bang out 50,000 words. I was basically just going to paste in all I wrote for a month and hope. Then excitement grew. I would try and actual novel. I knew it wouldn't be any good--this is all about just getting words on virtual paper, not being good. I do not call myself a writer: journaller yes, poet, perhaps. But prose writer--no way. I've finish one short story in my life period. I don't have dreams of being a novelest. I think of being a better poet--even being a published poet, but novelist, no. But this idea of a November Novel--it has peaked my interest. You do not become a better writer by reading. or thinking about it. You become a better writer by writing. and this would be writing a lot.
I thought I'd try a heavily autobiographical theme--journal style thing. Mix real stories from my life with whatever fiction was needed to make them cohesive, funny. But thinking about it, coming up with stories from my life, characters--there was a ton of material. I knew I could do better. Yesterday an entire storyline for a novel popped into my head. I would do it. It was a perfect theme for this thing.
So I sat down this morning, tea with cream and suger on a table next to me. Email dispensed with, mind clear. Computer room clean. I started to put words to Wordpad (add little copyright symbol thingy, thank you Microsoft).
Well, it ain't as easy as journal writing. I struggled to not edit. I stuttered. My prose sucked. I thought I had a scene clear in my mind, but quickly realized I had words to sketch a scene in mind. I did not have a visual. For a lovely two minute period, I closed my eyes and atually saw the scene--poetry prose started flowing. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone. Trying to free-write and work a story is hard for me. I've never done it on computer. I write fine on computer otherwise.
When I'd finished, I had 859 words. One hour spent. Far less than the 2,000 I'd hoped for. My emotions alternated between: "I will never be able to do this in a million years" and "you know, you've got the start of something here." The words I had gotten down could be looked at as crap--or they could be looked at like a whole bunch of lovely starting points for the next 30 days.
It'll be interesting to see what I let them be. ¶ 8:22 AM 0 comments
Bottom of the 9th, 2 outs. Score 3 to 1, Diamonbacks. If the Diamonbacks win, this will be a 3:1 series--very hard to come back from. One runner on first base. Tino Martinez comes to the plate and pretty soon, it has two strikes. Full count: 3 balls, 2 strikes. It is almost over folks. Normal teams do NOT come back from this. So Martinez hits a 2 run, home run.
Tied game!! We go to extra innings.
Bottom of the 10th. Score 3 to 3. Two outs. Jeter comes to the plate and pretty soon has, yet another full count. And then it happens: Home run. The Yankees win.
Wow. It leaves me speechless.
____
This morning was my first morning of writing for the Nanowrimo challenge. Challenge is correct. At first, my idea for this thing was to just bang out 50,000 words. I was basically just going to paste in all I wrote for a month and hope. Then excitement grew. I would try and actual novel. I knew it wouldn't be any good--this is all about just getting words on virtual paper, not being good. I do not call myself a writer: journaller yes, poet, perhaps. But prose writer--no way. I've finish one short story in my life period. I don't have dreams of being a novelest. I think of being a better poet--even being a published poet, but novelist, no. But this idea of a November Novel--it has peaked my interest. You do not become a better writer by reading. or thinking about it. You become a better writer by writing. and this would be writing a lot.
I thought I'd try a heavily autobiographical theme--journal style thing. Mix real stories from my life with whatever fiction was needed to make them cohesive, funny. But thinking about it, coming up with stories from my life, characters--there was a ton of material. I knew I could do better. Yesterday an entire storyline for a novel popped into my head. I would do it. It was a perfect theme for this thing.
So I sat down this morning, tea with cream and suger on a table next to me. Email dispensed with, mind clear. Computer room clean. I started to put words to Wordpad (add little copyright symbol thingy, thank you Microsoft).
Well, it ain't as easy as journal writing. I struggled to not edit. I stuttered. My prose sucked. I thought I had a scene clear in my mind, but quickly realized I had words to sketch a scene in mind. I did not have a visual. For a lovely two minute period, I closed my eyes and atually saw the scene--poetry prose started flowing. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone. Trying to free-write and work a story is hard for me. I've never done it on computer. I write fine on computer otherwise.
When I'd finished, I had 859 words. One hour spent. Far less than the 2,000 I'd hoped for. My emotions alternated between: "I will never be able to do this in a million years" and "you know, you've got the start of something here." The words I had gotten down could be looked at as crap--or they could be looked at like a whole bunch of lovely starting points for the next 30 days.
It'll be interesting to see what I let them be. ¶ 8:22 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, October 31, 2001
Got up early today. Greg and I played the morning grumpiness game wherein he pretends to be in good humor while subtly verbally provoking me and I get progressively more and more grumpy. We break this up with random winks and "I love you's" to reassure one another this isn't damaging to our relationship.
I sit at the counter looking through a Crate and Barrel catalog. I find a beautiful quilt in the magazine--the same quilt I drooled over in Nordstrom's last year. $225 for king size. I show Greg. He says, "that’s what we need, another blanket", pointing to the three blankets readily visible in the living room. "We need to do laundry, not buy a quilt." He adds, "I know you'll be mad at me for saying this, but you do not really want that quilt, what you want is for our house to look like that catalog. No one has to clean a catalog house."
It irritated me, but he was probably right.
Last night. I leave work early and have a relaxing hour, pouring a glass of Merlot, [cleaning Greg's bathtub-brackets due to this not being relaxing], filling the tub, and climbing into hot soothing water. Udo thinks containers full of water are for him and has to be discouraged from joining me. I settle into my book, sipping wine.
Greg calls and wants to know if I want to take advantage of the hour of daylight left and throw some discs. Joining him sounds fun. I dry off and throw on jeans. The course is wet, washed clean. Our footsteps are muffled and no one else is on the course for most of the time. Greg and I throw mostly in companionable silence, an occasional, "nice throw. Mmm. Should have used a different disc." We throw well.
I plan spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner. Greg is going to the store for half-and-half for my morning tea. I'm distracted when I get home by the need to call my car loan company and prevent my account rolling into collections. The account representative almost sends me off the deep end. He starts the conversation with "what do you want". He understands nothing I say. I repeat myself over and over in slightly different ways until finally he says, Now you finally get to the point. I should have asked for his manager. I do not start dinner.
Greg gets home. He puts on a pot of water. Cleans a baking dish, pre-heats the oven. Unwraps the garlic bread and lays it out. Sets the microwave timer. I'm pouring a glass of wine and sitting on a barstool. Greg says, "I'm going to sit on the couch and relax for awhile. When the bread timer goes off, the noodles need to be started." This is not a command, nor a request, it is statement. Only my subjective perception gives a clue as to how Greg means me to take the statement.
I am thrown into a different mood. My emotions and thoughts chaotic. I attempt to still myself and try to unravel the feelings. One thought: I do not want to cook, I want to sit on the couch and watch baseball. Another: I'm very tired. Thought: I have cooked the last few nights. Realize: you are irritated with the car loan account representative--that, before Greg. Thought: you have an ongoing guilt-complex that you are not a "good-wife"--that it is your responsibility to have groceries in the house, cook dinner, clean. This guilt-complex is an issue that we tried to resolve at the beginning of our marriage (Greg: I did not marry you to be my maid, you are not your mother) and yet it still comes up over and over. I know these things. The anger does not dissolve.
An outsider watching the next 15 minutes would perhaps know little of what was going on. Our dialogue was quiet. Our respective positions shifted--me on the couch, him in the kitchen, both in the kitchen, little was being said-certainly no anger showed on our faces. Under the surface of this scene, we simmer. We both know that an element of tension has entered the kitchen. In the end, Greg tastes the pasta and states that there isn't enough water in the pot to cook rigatoni--he thought we were having spaghetti. I take over and finish the meal. As he leaves, he raises his voice slightly and says, "why do we have to be so fucking grumpy tonight!" The outsider wonders where this outburst came from. Greg and I know.
We finally sit down to eat. We both say we are done being angry. I explain all the thoughts that were going through my head. Greg already knew, but appreciates me saying it out loud. I prompt him to apologize too--he says that he knew I had been cooking for several nights and that it was his turn, but he just wanted to see if I would cook anyway tonight. He was irritated I hadn't started the water when he got home. We ate together, tension dissolved for now.
¶ 9:21 AM 0 comments
I sit at the counter looking through a Crate and Barrel catalog. I find a beautiful quilt in the magazine--the same quilt I drooled over in Nordstrom's last year. $225 for king size. I show Greg. He says, "that’s what we need, another blanket", pointing to the three blankets readily visible in the living room. "We need to do laundry, not buy a quilt." He adds, "I know you'll be mad at me for saying this, but you do not really want that quilt, what you want is for our house to look like that catalog. No one has to clean a catalog house."
It irritated me, but he was probably right.
Last night. I leave work early and have a relaxing hour, pouring a glass of Merlot, [cleaning Greg's bathtub-brackets due to this not being relaxing], filling the tub, and climbing into hot soothing water. Udo thinks containers full of water are for him and has to be discouraged from joining me. I settle into my book, sipping wine.
Greg calls and wants to know if I want to take advantage of the hour of daylight left and throw some discs. Joining him sounds fun. I dry off and throw on jeans. The course is wet, washed clean. Our footsteps are muffled and no one else is on the course for most of the time. Greg and I throw mostly in companionable silence, an occasional, "nice throw. Mmm. Should have used a different disc." We throw well.
I plan spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner. Greg is going to the store for half-and-half for my morning tea. I'm distracted when I get home by the need to call my car loan company and prevent my account rolling into collections. The account representative almost sends me off the deep end. He starts the conversation with "what do you want". He understands nothing I say. I repeat myself over and over in slightly different ways until finally he says, Now you finally get to the point. I should have asked for his manager. I do not start dinner.
Greg gets home. He puts on a pot of water. Cleans a baking dish, pre-heats the oven. Unwraps the garlic bread and lays it out. Sets the microwave timer. I'm pouring a glass of wine and sitting on a barstool. Greg says, "I'm going to sit on the couch and relax for awhile. When the bread timer goes off, the noodles need to be started." This is not a command, nor a request, it is statement. Only my subjective perception gives a clue as to how Greg means me to take the statement.
I am thrown into a different mood. My emotions and thoughts chaotic. I attempt to still myself and try to unravel the feelings. One thought: I do not want to cook, I want to sit on the couch and watch baseball. Another: I'm very tired. Thought: I have cooked the last few nights. Realize: you are irritated with the car loan account representative--that, before Greg. Thought: you have an ongoing guilt-complex that you are not a "good-wife"--that it is your responsibility to have groceries in the house, cook dinner, clean. This guilt-complex is an issue that we tried to resolve at the beginning of our marriage (Greg: I did not marry you to be my maid, you are not your mother) and yet it still comes up over and over. I know these things. The anger does not dissolve.
An outsider watching the next 15 minutes would perhaps know little of what was going on. Our dialogue was quiet. Our respective positions shifted--me on the couch, him in the kitchen, both in the kitchen, little was being said-certainly no anger showed on our faces. Under the surface of this scene, we simmer. We both know that an element of tension has entered the kitchen. In the end, Greg tastes the pasta and states that there isn't enough water in the pot to cook rigatoni--he thought we were having spaghetti. I take over and finish the meal. As he leaves, he raises his voice slightly and says, "why do we have to be so fucking grumpy tonight!" The outsider wonders where this outburst came from. Greg and I know.
We finally sit down to eat. We both say we are done being angry. I explain all the thoughts that were going through my head. Greg already knew, but appreciates me saying it out loud. I prompt him to apologize too--he says that he knew I had been cooking for several nights and that it was his turn, but he just wanted to see if I would cook anyway tonight. He was irritated I hadn't started the water when he got home. We ate together, tension dissolved for now.
¶ 9:21 AM 0 comments
In order for writing to achieve that wow-moment, lift the hair off your scalp--it has to have two things: it must come from deep inside and be real AND it has to be well written and have the right word choices.
I'm currently reading three books: Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook; Anais Nin, Incest; and the Guide to Psilocybin Mushrooms (although well written, we can ignore that last one for now). And I'm reading through MadebyMark, which I currently put in the same category with Lessing and Nin. Doris Lessing is verbose--thick, lots of words in there, but she conveys so clearly what is going on in Anna's thought process. She conveys what it is to be that woman, living a particular experience so clearly that I can imagine being Anna. Anais Nin is verbose as well, but more scattered. Of course, it is a journal and doesn't have the clarity of her fiction pieces. But she has a beautiful use of language in sections. Mark on the other hand distills days and thoughts into concise, tanku-like passages. It is like a literary japanese garden. His best entries do not spell everything out for you, but simply set the scene and describe what is.
Good writing has to give the reader the gift of truth. Not in the sense that a good book can not be fiction, but good writing must touch the essence of experience. It can not shy away from living. I read so much poetry on my email groups that is such crap. I know that these writers though are trying to convey what they are experiencing--and they are laying it out there. So why do these poems seem trite and cliched?
This combination of truth and quality. That is what I would love to achieve. ¶ 8:20 AM 0 comments
I'm currently reading three books: Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook; Anais Nin, Incest; and the Guide to Psilocybin Mushrooms (although well written, we can ignore that last one for now). And I'm reading through MadebyMark, which I currently put in the same category with Lessing and Nin. Doris Lessing is verbose--thick, lots of words in there, but she conveys so clearly what is going on in Anna's thought process. She conveys what it is to be that woman, living a particular experience so clearly that I can imagine being Anna. Anais Nin is verbose as well, but more scattered. Of course, it is a journal and doesn't have the clarity of her fiction pieces. But she has a beautiful use of language in sections. Mark on the other hand distills days and thoughts into concise, tanku-like passages. It is like a literary japanese garden. His best entries do not spell everything out for you, but simply set the scene and describe what is.
Good writing has to give the reader the gift of truth. Not in the sense that a good book can not be fiction, but good writing must touch the essence of experience. It can not shy away from living. I read so much poetry on my email groups that is such crap. I know that these writers though are trying to convey what they are experiencing--and they are laying it out there. So why do these poems seem trite and cliched?
This combination of truth and quality. That is what I would love to achieve. ¶ 8:20 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, October 30, 2001
Found a wonderful blog site: http://www.madebymark.com/ fellow nanowrimo that is brave enough to post everything online. The guy is a brilliant writer. I hope he does publish a fiction novel someday.
¶ 2:48 PM 0 comments
Rain. How is one supposed to concentrate on work when it is raining? Rain makes me want to curl up in my house under a blanket, eating cheesy mashed potatoes and writing in my journal. It isn't truly autumn until it has rained. Telling the seasons in California 101. Grey skies turn my thoughts easily to introspection.
I had the most wonderful night. I got home a bit early and G wasn't home yet so I got a lot of cleaning done. The house has been a disaster zone since I started playing disc golf. I've been on a wife-strike (no wifely duties) and G certainly hasn't filled the gap yet ;) I cleaned up the computer room in preparation for the Nov novel writing challenge. I cooked dinner--sometimes one of my favorite things. I love the smell of sautéing onions and how it suddenly makes a house homey. I enjoy multi-tasking, the feeling of accomplishment from washing dishes, cleaning counters and floor, while getting a good satisfying meal cooked. I was tempted by the bottle of red wine on the counter, but decided the evening was complete without alcohol.
G got home and we curled up on the couch, watching football with the sound off so that we could talk, his head on my legs. We have fallen into the habit of television again and sit on separate couches most nights. We had a nice long conversation and got sleepy and headed for bed. I had difficulty believing it was only 8PM, this time change is lovely in some ways. I started to read Anais Nin and G started to fall sleep, so I leaned over to give him a good night kiss.
That led to sex--better sex than we have had in ages. It was I-just-met-you sex, I-have-unquinchable-passion-for-you sex. Who replaced my husband? Whether he was jealous about yesterday (is spending hours imagining your wife having sex with another man an aphrodisiac?), or just hadn't had sex recently, I don't know--but I liked the result. Over the last few months I have grown scared, feeling that perhaps I'm not excited by G anymore. I was more excited flirting with men I'd never sleep with than kissing my own husband. But last night, just kissing him and him starting to caress me--it felt like sex in the backseat of a car. I think body memory of first forays into the sexual world don't fade easily. The evening was reminiscent of the first kiss, the first explorations with a man--the excitement of wondering--where will this lead, what is that feeling, oh-my-god-I-didn't know-it-would-feel-like this!
I was reading parts of Anais Nin's journals last night and realize how poor my writing skills are. I have a long way to go to even approach her talent (I should remind myself how many years she worked at her craft and how she wrote and re-wrote her journals). I don't want to write exactly like her, I just would love to be able to describe some of the emotions and feelings of last night without sounding so crude. I think of Doris Lessing, Anna in the Golden Notebook, writing about her period. How she knows as she writes the word "blood" that it will be misconstrued and take on emotions and feelings that she doesn't intend just because it is the word "blood" is such an emotionally laden word. That is what writing about sex is like. You write the word "sex" and everyone that reads it immediately brings in all their past experience and emotions about the word.
Well so, delve deeper.
I have deeply felt lately the spiritual bindings that tie G and I together. I had pagan friends in college that did a handfasting ritual--an ceremony in which the couple are literally tied together in a ceremony and they stay tied for 24 hours. Afterwords, they are handfasted--married for a year and a day. I think this is a true-ceremony--a human ritual that touches a deep truth about relationships. When you are in a relationship for a long time, invisible bonds twine between the two of you. These bonds can be draining, or give power, but regardless, they are always there.
I feel that surface bonds between G and I have lately grown fragile and strained (even though the deeper bonds remain strong.) We have been having difficulty connecting emotionally. In our relationship, part of the problem is sexual. G is a sexual being. I sometimes imagine that lust is one of his fundamental building blocks, an integral part of his being. And I had become frigid. I am unthawing.
{What a word--frigid--what the hell is it supposed to mean anyway? Websters: "(3) habitually failing to become sexually aroused, or abnormally repelled by sexual activity: said of a woman." I love how even the dictionary throws the word, "abnormal" into it. As if the "normal" state of a woman is to be continually aroused sexual. A sexual being. }
I have been thinking lately that the core of my sexuality revolves around power. Perhaps all girls that spent years, unfulfilled, fantasizing about relationships--having a relationship with a "boy"--grow into women that get aroused simply from the joy of being woman and the growing understanding of the power woman hold over men just by being Woman. These girls watch their kate moss, lanky bodies, blossom into curves and gradually come to understand that when men look at their breasts instead of their eyes when they talk--it is a form of power: a great strength to control men. I grew into this power in college: experimenting with my first boyfriend, changing the way that I dressed, eventually through affairs--lapping up experiences with different kinds of men. I grew into an understanding of the what it means when men look at you and wonder, "perhaps". Knowing how to draw them in with my eyes. I love this power. Meeting G, I learned to love. He taught me new things about emotions and my body that in many ways had nothing to do with this power. That was not a bad thing--it was simply an expansion of myself and who I am.
Something frightened me last year and I withdrew into myself. G's sexuality frightened me. My reaction and actions frightened me. I began to doubt my emotions, myself, my beauty, my strength. I started to work harder and harder towards figuring out what he wants instead of what I want. I found myself withdrawn into an inner world that put walls around my sexuality that I could not climb anymore. I was unmoved. I had no desire. The few times I did have sex with G, it was an effort. And finding that he was unaware of that effort--that he found the experience still wonderful--it practically unraveled me.
And then I found my lost boys. Which is a story for another day.
¶ 9:52 AM 0 comments
I had the most wonderful night. I got home a bit early and G wasn't home yet so I got a lot of cleaning done. The house has been a disaster zone since I started playing disc golf. I've been on a wife-strike (no wifely duties) and G certainly hasn't filled the gap yet ;) I cleaned up the computer room in preparation for the Nov novel writing challenge. I cooked dinner--sometimes one of my favorite things. I love the smell of sautéing onions and how it suddenly makes a house homey. I enjoy multi-tasking, the feeling of accomplishment from washing dishes, cleaning counters and floor, while getting a good satisfying meal cooked. I was tempted by the bottle of red wine on the counter, but decided the evening was complete without alcohol.
G got home and we curled up on the couch, watching football with the sound off so that we could talk, his head on my legs. We have fallen into the habit of television again and sit on separate couches most nights. We had a nice long conversation and got sleepy and headed for bed. I had difficulty believing it was only 8PM, this time change is lovely in some ways. I started to read Anais Nin and G started to fall sleep, so I leaned over to give him a good night kiss.
That led to sex--better sex than we have had in ages. It was I-just-met-you sex, I-have-unquinchable-passion-for-you sex. Who replaced my husband? Whether he was jealous about yesterday (is spending hours imagining your wife having sex with another man an aphrodisiac?), or just hadn't had sex recently, I don't know--but I liked the result. Over the last few months I have grown scared, feeling that perhaps I'm not excited by G anymore. I was more excited flirting with men I'd never sleep with than kissing my own husband. But last night, just kissing him and him starting to caress me--it felt like sex in the backseat of a car. I think body memory of first forays into the sexual world don't fade easily. The evening was reminiscent of the first kiss, the first explorations with a man--the excitement of wondering--where will this lead, what is that feeling, oh-my-god-I-didn't know-it-would-feel-like this!
I was reading parts of Anais Nin's journals last night and realize how poor my writing skills are. I have a long way to go to even approach her talent (I should remind myself how many years she worked at her craft and how she wrote and re-wrote her journals). I don't want to write exactly like her, I just would love to be able to describe some of the emotions and feelings of last night without sounding so crude. I think of Doris Lessing, Anna in the Golden Notebook, writing about her period. How she knows as she writes the word "blood" that it will be misconstrued and take on emotions and feelings that she doesn't intend just because it is the word "blood" is such an emotionally laden word. That is what writing about sex is like. You write the word "sex" and everyone that reads it immediately brings in all their past experience and emotions about the word.
Well so, delve deeper.
I have deeply felt lately the spiritual bindings that tie G and I together. I had pagan friends in college that did a handfasting ritual--an ceremony in which the couple are literally tied together in a ceremony and they stay tied for 24 hours. Afterwords, they are handfasted--married for a year and a day. I think this is a true-ceremony--a human ritual that touches a deep truth about relationships. When you are in a relationship for a long time, invisible bonds twine between the two of you. These bonds can be draining, or give power, but regardless, they are always there.
I feel that surface bonds between G and I have lately grown fragile and strained (even though the deeper bonds remain strong.) We have been having difficulty connecting emotionally. In our relationship, part of the problem is sexual. G is a sexual being. I sometimes imagine that lust is one of his fundamental building blocks, an integral part of his being. And I had become frigid. I am unthawing.
{What a word--frigid--what the hell is it supposed to mean anyway? Websters: "(3) habitually failing to become sexually aroused, or abnormally repelled by sexual activity: said of a woman." I love how even the dictionary throws the word, "abnormal" into it. As if the "normal" state of a woman is to be continually aroused sexual. A sexual being. }
I have been thinking lately that the core of my sexuality revolves around power. Perhaps all girls that spent years, unfulfilled, fantasizing about relationships--having a relationship with a "boy"--grow into women that get aroused simply from the joy of being woman and the growing understanding of the power woman hold over men just by being Woman. These girls watch their kate moss, lanky bodies, blossom into curves and gradually come to understand that when men look at their breasts instead of their eyes when they talk--it is a form of power: a great strength to control men. I grew into this power in college: experimenting with my first boyfriend, changing the way that I dressed, eventually through affairs--lapping up experiences with different kinds of men. I grew into an understanding of the what it means when men look at you and wonder, "perhaps". Knowing how to draw them in with my eyes. I love this power. Meeting G, I learned to love. He taught me new things about emotions and my body that in many ways had nothing to do with this power. That was not a bad thing--it was simply an expansion of myself and who I am.
Something frightened me last year and I withdrew into myself. G's sexuality frightened me. My reaction and actions frightened me. I began to doubt my emotions, myself, my beauty, my strength. I started to work harder and harder towards figuring out what he wants instead of what I want. I found myself withdrawn into an inner world that put walls around my sexuality that I could not climb anymore. I was unmoved. I had no desire. The few times I did have sex with G, it was an effort. And finding that he was unaware of that effort--that he found the experience still wonderful--it practically unraveled me.
And then I found my lost boys. Which is a story for another day.
¶ 9:52 AM 0 comments
post:
I enjoyed the bit about a 5-yr old with a cell phone--I'm sorry, but that is way too early for starting to use instant communication technology. My husband and I just rebelled against the entire thing and put our phone upstairs behind a closed door. We rarely answer it (it does have voice mail). I have a pet peeve about the way people just assume nowadays that everyone should be available at all times. Cell phone, fax, pager, phone, voice mail, email--if you don't respond within half a day, you are up the creek/in trouble. I sometimes let myself get caught up in the whole thing and then something in me screams--slow down. Everyone is in such a hurry.
To return to your post: road rage--I tried an experiment awhile ago. For three days as I drove around I tried to smile. If people cut in front of me, did something stupid, were talking on a cell phone, etc--I just smiled at them. I plastered a look on my face of understanding and compassion. It was really interesting. Sure, some people just continued on their merry way, oblivious--but you would be amazed at how many people that one minute earlier had a look of defiance on their face, suddenly melted into contrite apology. It made me wonder how much of the feeling that the world is going to hell in a rude-hand basket is actually just a matter of perception. Our own anger reflected into our view of others. Imagine the world as groups of people walking around being preemptive--protecting themselves with facades of anger--when really they'd just like to smile.
I am able to climb into this view of the world fully only when travelling. It always amazes me when you are travelling how nice people are to you. I've picked up an Australian hitchhiker in Alaska and become friends (inviting him to stay with my husband and I when he came to California), had a stranger give me $25 worth of Alaskan salmon on a whim in a Chicago airport, had deep conversations with an American I just met on a bus in Chile, met a German woman in Alaska who then came and stayed with us on her trip to Chile--a conversation I still remember. These people exist in this-town California, but I'd probably never even say hello. Three-quarters of my disorientation when returning home from travelling is shutting myself down from this over-friendliness and openness. It is somehow unacceptable to be that nice in everyday life. I met a woman in the park the other day that had that type of open friendliness and I just wanted to hug her and ask to her be my friend forever so I could absorb that openness.
Disc golf: http://www.tahoedisc.com/enter.htm is the easiest way to explain it--the site has photos. Disc golf is like regular golf except you play with frisbees and throw into baskets.
¶ 9:01 AM 0 comments
Monday, October 29, 2001
I just finished posting on my new blogspot site entry for today. Out of curiosity, I plugged the post into Word and did a word count. It was 962 words. Do you realize how many words I post in emails everyday? If I can just spend an hour a day on this nanowrimo thing, I should easily be able to get up to 2,000 words a day...I hope ;)
Thinking of changing my entire story idea to a sci-fi or romance novel.... ¶ 3:51 PM 0 comments
Thinking of changing my entire story idea to a sci-fi or romance novel.... ¶ 3:51 PM 0 comments
Udo, walk in the woods, clicker session
My day has improved immensely. I went home and took a short nap and then went and did some fieldwork. I was able to take my dog Udo [Udo is an 11 month old German shepherd] with me to do the fieldwork and that always makes things fun. The site is about an hour away and is up in the foothills of the Sierra's at approximately 2,000 ft. The site is fairly disturbed in places--it is adjacent to a mining site and most of the lowlands have concrete and rubble piles. People have dumped trash on parts of it as well (very odd to be walking through pine duff and suddenly stumble on 1,000sq ft of carpet remnants. The rest of the site though is classic ponderosa pine woodland along with some lovely drainages, chaparral and ponds--very fun to walking. Udo had a blast running around. He was very unsure about quail though :) He cracked me up every time we got near a bush with quail in it, his hackles would raise up and he got very nervous. He took it like a trooper though and as soon as I got there he relaxed and walked past.
The trip made me realize how infrequently I take him to totally new places. I think that I'll try and start making Saturday's a hiking day and take him with me to some new areas. Sunday (sober) can be reserved for disc golf.
When we got back to the office, he was being a spaz for awhile. Sandy had her dogs at the office as well, so we let Scooter and Udo play for awhile. Scooter is an adult female Australian cattledog and hadn't seen Udo since he was a little puppy. She wasn't quite sure about Udo now--he was rather large for her. We had to do some calming signals and space management to get her relaxed a bit (giving her an out, having Sandy stand rather than sit [Scooter started guarding Sandy], and having Udo lay down). Udo finally won her over and they had quite a nice little play session.
Speaking of Udo, I've gotten more jazzed about doing clicker training with him and have been doing sessions in the evenings. A couple nights ago we had an interesting session. Now that I'm clicking for a lot of different things, he suddenly seems to understand that he might get rewarded for other things than sitting, downing, and waving. He started throwing all sorts of behaviors---it was quite fun. I was trying to teach him to bow and I clicked the beginnings of it many times. It was interesting because he would start bowing several times in a row and then suddenly stop and start throwing other behaviors or just sit. I saw what another CS subscriber described--starting to throw calming signals in the middle of a session. You could just see how hard he had to work. I would stop the training session at that point and let him relax for a bit. Later, I was clicking him for turning his head to the left. I was working towards a left spin (he already spins right). It was really odd because he seemed to understand that it was the head turn getting clicked--he'd throw the behavior 6 or 7 times in a row and then suddenly he'd just stop and lay down (again, I'd tell him he was good and throw some treats out and end the session if he started throwing calming signals.) This seemed different than what I see when he's experimenting to see what is being rewarded. It is almost like his brain just got full and was overloaded. It will be interesting to see what he does during the next session.
marriage
I still feel really bad about yesterday. Having G make sure to let me know where he is has been a big issue for me. Background: G and I have been married for almost 6 years. This November will be our 6th anniversary. We have had a fairly uneventful marriage thus far. We get along well, we rarely fight, etc and so forth. This year has actually been one of the hardest so far. We've both just been going through some weird funks. Recurringly, our main issues are money (big surprise) and G's smoking and not calling when staying out late. I have issues with needing to know where people are because I get very worried that people are dead (my mother died suddenly when I was 23 and my mom's best friend was killed in a car accident--I never think people are late--I think they are dead).
So, me not calling last night was unexcuseable. I also was out with a group of our male friends and G (Mr. Non-jealous Himself--normally) had just had issues last weekend about me flirting too much with these guys.
There are other issues here that I need to think about....
¶ 3:25 PM 0 comments
The sky today is as gloomy as my mood. I have to stop drinking so much on Sunday's (stop me when you hear me say that for the 50th time). Being tired does not make Monday's any easier to deal with. The good news is that I played well [disc golf] on Saturday (sober)--the bad news, I did not play well on Sunday (drunk). I see a pattern here. I also stayed out far too late and forgot to call my husband and tell him where I was. That wasn't nice, especially since the worst fight we ever had was me being mad at him for not calling! Ooops.
¶ 8:52 AM 0 comments
