waving HI!

So I'm posting now.  I'm so sorry that I left some of you wondering whether I was okay.  I said I was going to post once a month, and I have definitely not done that.

That said -- I am okay.  I am more than okay.  The reason that you haven't heard from me is that I entered a doctoral program.  My business held steady with its part-time obligations, and I took on a second part-time job.  So... if I'm not working, or doing business stuff, I'm reading or writing papers or attending classes.  And if I'm not doing any of those things, I'm trying to get some quality time with Gerard or even one of my friends.

Gerard and I are doing really well.  I can't say that we *never* fight anymore, but we have really made major strides.  Fighting is not an issue for us anymore.  Commitment is also not an issue for us anymore.  We are both here, we know we love each other, and we know we want to spend the rest of our lives together and have a baby and all that mushy stuff.  I'm thrilled, actually, that we went through so many hard times together.  I think we needed to learn what it would look like between us if it got bad.  So we know that we could go there again, if life gets really stressful or something -- as it surely will at some points.  So anyway, the point is that we couldn't be happier with each other.

I am still occasionally dating women, which Gerard still heartily encourages.  I hooked up with my best friend a few months ago, while Gerard watched, which was pretty awesome.  If I wasn't so busy I would totally have written about it here.  Maybe she will write about it on her blog some day (some of you know where that is).  I also have a date tomorrow night with a woman who came across my online dating-women profile.  I am quite excited for that.

The last thing that I wanted to mention, since I have so often written about it here, is my health.  I seem to have turned a corner with my GI troubles.  Gerard has started making me green smoothies every morning, and they have pretty much obliterated my typical digestion disturbance pattern.  I'm also starting to go off the anti-depressants that I started taking around this time last year, though I'm keeping some meds on hand for insomnia.  And I still have that stupid eczema (how does that thing just start one day all of a sudden when I never had it for the first 30 years of my life?), but that's more of an annoyance than a health concern.

So in other words, all is well.  I'm really happy to be busy, and I'm loving school.  I'm loving my business, and I'm loving the security that the part-time job gives me.  I'm madly in love with Gerard, and I'm madly in love with life.

xx

girls, girls, girls

So I'm investigating my lesbian side again.  Gerard and I have gone back and forth on this a bit, but in the end I made a profile on a dating site that welcomes casual encounters and thereby opened myself up to casual affairs with women.  And other avenues might be opening soon as well.

Over the years, I've gone back and forth about whether I should identify as bisexual or not.  For a while, I thought not.  Before Gerard and I met, I had had sex with two women, but both experiences were part of a threesome in which the women's husbands were also present and part of the encounter.  I have also had some sexually intimate experiences with my female best friend, but those felt playful and exploratory, grounded in our love as friends more than anything, erotic as they were.  I do remember getting a little thrill when I went to the doctor and checked off the box for both "men" and "women" when they asked me who I have sex with... but I held back from really identifying as bisexual.

Part of the reason for that is that I felt that I didn't have a right to claim myself as a part of the LGBTQ community... I guess because I had never really considered pursuing a woman as a life partner.  I have all the societal privileges of being a straight girl, and I don't think I am attracted enough to women in general to give that up.  It just didn't seem right to pretend to be part of this group if I was never going to have to go through the challenges that are inherent to living a public alternative lifestyle.

It was Gerard who really changed my mind about this.  He just loves that I have a history that includes encounters with women, and that I talk with him about women that I find attractive or sexy.  Eventually he started encouraging me to seek out casual dating and sex with women.  After an amazingly sexy one-time experience with a woman a little over a year ago, I saw that I had more flexibility than I thought I had.

I still feel restraints from my hetero-normative privilege, though they started to seem less central to my argument against the term "bisexual."  There were other arguments that seemed more salient, but they were starting to dissipate fast starting a few months ago.  "But," I had argued to myself, Gerard, or my best friend, "I don't really like giving oral sex to women, at least so far... I don't crave it or wish for it."  The counter-argument is that lots of straight people don't like giving oral sex, but they don't assume that they are gay.  "But," I argued again, "I seem to only be attracted to women who are dominant or who are comfortable assuming a more masculine role."  Again, I was reminded that plenty of people are only drawn to a certain "type," but that doesn't change their sexual orientation.

So then I realized that I was being pretty silly.  Yes, I am bisexual.

That eventually led me to my encounter earlier this year with the beautiful dominatrix.  I couldn't deny anything after that.  Nor could I deny how sad I was when she told me that she couldn't see me anymore, because she wanted to focus on finding a long-term partner instead of just fooling around.

I left the idea of pursuing women alone for a little while.  And then a few weeks ago I started my online profile, only available to other women who wanted to sleep with women.

Soon after that, I heard from my beautiful dominatrix.  She and I were getting together one night for drinks, to talk about something that seemed business-related.  But the meeting location changed from a bar to her apartment.  And then we were there alone, sitting on her couch, flirting.  She has a boyfriend now-- she's had one for several months.  And as we smiled at each other across her couch she let me know that she and her boyfriend had decided to "open things up."  She was available to play again.

We didn't go anywhere that night physically, because she had friends coming over, and they arrived right as I thought she was going to make a move.  But I left her apartment about an hour later feeling extremely amped up.  Her breasts were so beautiful... her legs... I don't think I have ever looked at a woman and responded in that way.  It made my head spin, to be honest.  I made it clear to her that I was interested in getting together again, and the ball is now firmly in her court.  I am still crossing my fingers that she will reach out and say that she's ready for me.

In the meanwhile, I do have a date tonight, with a woman that found me on the dating site.  I don't know what is in store... Despite my history with women (the breadth of which I am rather proud of) I've never been with a lesbian before-- they've all been straight or bisexual-identified.  From her pictures I can't tell anything about how physically attracted to her I will be, but I know that she sounds very interesting-- like someone I would want to be friends with.  And she pursued me... she said that she "enjoyed" my profile several times.  Since I go ahead and say that I am submissive on the profile, I think that might be a good sign.  So we will see what happens.

Gerard is thrilled about all of this.  In his fantasies, I hook up with a woman of a type that *he* would be attracted to-- young-looking, feminine, vulnerable, corruptible-- you know, like ME.  It's a little bit disappointing to him that the type of women that I seem to be most attracted to and compatible with are the ones who are more dominant and masculine.  (I haven't been involved with anyone who was masculine in appearance or general demeanor, but all the women I've explored with since Gerard has known me have enjoyed playing a more masculine role that bounces off of my extreme femininity.)  But since he's not along for the date anyway, he can change any details he wants in his fantasies.  And that seems to have a powerfully positive effect.

So, there you go.  I'll report back about my date, and hopefully have something to share about my dominatrix soon as well.  Girls, girls, girls.  What a fun diversion!

a once-a-month blog

Well, it seems I am beginning to write a once-a-month blog.  Thanks for continuing to check in with me and share your thoughts, even if all I really have to contribute lately are updates.

Earlier this week I told Gerard that I am now the happiest that I have been in four and a half years.  And I really am!  With all the shit that I've been through since early 2007... oh my god, I can't believe that I have finally pulled my way out of the darkness... but I am so grateful that I have.

I am working now.  Not enough-- not yet-- but it's on the horizon, and it's a sure thing (i.e., I know I will have exactly as much work as I'd like, if not more, in the next month or so).  I've made it up the curve in part, and there is more rising up to come in terms of my career.  That means that things are eventually going to improve financially.  (Although that part isn't as important to me-- what I really want is to be doing the work that I love, and I am!)  Every time I leave work I am always thinking about how thrilled I am... I am really good at what I do, and I'm being reminded of that now.  It just feels amazing.

Gerard and I are still happy together as well.  We have really figured out a lot of stuff about being together and how to make it work.  I feel really proud of that.  Furthermore, now that I'm out of the house for two or more full days each week, we've started to have sex more often.  Hooray!  I do NOT get tired of feeling that man inside me.  :)

We've also played around with the idea of creating a spanking contract.  Gerard pulled a Spencer Plan thing off of google a couple of weeks ago, made a few edits, and then told me that I had to sign it.  Later it became clear that this was just a clever method of foreplay, but as we talked about it we decided it might be fun to try it out for real.  We're still negotiating the contracts a bit (I made sure I made him one as well, that says all of his responsibilities as a dominant and spanker), but one thing we've already started practicing is Sunday maintenance spankings.  The punishment and behavior-management aspect of this whole contract thing is extremely arousing to me, I must admit.  So that's a fun little thing that we'll get going on, I suppose.

Oh, one other thing that is contributing to my good spirits is that Gerard and I used money from our respective savings accounts to join a gym around the corner from us.  I have never been one for exercise, but I've gained 7 pounds in the last couple of months, and they are not melting away like they once did.  So we've started going over there together.  We swim, we do exercises together, and Gerard takes yoga classes.  I am really loving it, and feeling like my body is getting toned, even though I definitely haven't lost those 7 pounds.  (I know, I know, muscle weighs more than fat.)  It's a great way to use my extra time.  I sort of wish we had decided to do this sooner!

So that's my July update, friends.  Thanks as always for reading.

a good little redhead

"Be a good little redhead," said Gerard a few hours ago, right before he left.  He's going to be gone for ten days, off on a business trip.  His business might be finally taking off.  We don't know for sure yet, but there are lots of positive signs.  And so he's gone off to see if he can seal the deal.

Things are picking up in my world too.  It seems just about definite that I will soon be off of unemployment, and doing the kind of work that I love again, while still continuing the new initiatives that I've tried to start over the last year.  And, this fall I'm going to be going back to school.  It will be part-time as well, so I can continue the work stuff too.  I could actually be busy again!  That seems like a dream come true.

While we're not quite to the point where we can afford to buy new clothes or go out for nice dinners yet, Gerard and I are starting to feel much more optimistic about our respective career and financial positions.  It's a relief!  And it's also nice to know that we've been able to support each other through all of this.

When I started this blog, I felt that I was very in touch with the imperfections of love and long term relationships.  These days, I can acknowledge the existence of those imperfections-- but they feel less weighty.  Gerard and I rarely fight anymore.  I used to use a green highlighter to mark on my calendar each day when we had a big argument, and I don't even remember where I put that highlighter anymore.  Sure, we get annoyed with each other still.  We occasionally speak harshly with each other still.  But we haven't escalated into an actual *fight* in weeks and weeks.

We still go through periods where we definitely don't have enough sex.  Both of us are still really frustrated by the change in the way we relate to each other sexually (seriously, it was once our absolute strongest area!).  But we also go through periods where we have a very satisfying amount of sex, and a very satisfying quality of sex too.  It seems to vacillate, although I haven't noticed a pattern around which it does that.  I am trying to find relaxation and acceptance around this issue.

So there's not much to report, in terms of the theme and anonymity-assuring parameters that I set for this blog.  I just wanted to check in and let you all know that we're still here.  Even though I don't write very often, I'm still happy to have my connection to the interwebs and all the interesting people I've become acquainted with here over the years.

Here's what I want to believe: that one day in the near future Gerard and I will both be very busy and successful in our work.  We will no longer be confined to the tiny space together for so much of our days, and our finances will no longer confine us to very little beyond making dinner at home and watching TV.  Then life will become more interesting.  We'll be able to play harder, and we'll be looking to connect to each other more in sexual ways.  We'll be able to be more adventurous in day-to-day life, which leads to more excitement and more stories to tell.

Or we'll skip a bunch of the exciting going-out stuff and instead our next big news will be about baby-having.  I'd be okay with that too.  But it's still in the future ahead, not happening immediately.

Anyway, the point is that we're still here and we're still happy.  And hoping to be happier soon.  Thanks for reading.

distant family

Recently, my grandfather passed away, and Gerard and I flew out to a completely different part of the country to attend the funeral.  The trip meant an introduction to over a dozen of my relatives that he has never met (or even much heard about) during our couple of years together.  Before we left for the trip, I wrote the following few paragraphs:

I didn't know my grandfather very well, so the trip isn't emotional.  It will be interesting to introduce Gerard to members of my family that are more distant.  As far as I'm concerned, he's already met all of my family members and friends that have a very important place in my heart.  But on this trip he will meet enough people to fill in the blanks on the Aurelia family tree.  And something about that feels potentially interesting, like I'm letting him peek into a back corner of my closet.


I wasn't socialized to behave like this branch of my family-- in fact, I'm very different from them.  That's part of why none of them really fall under the VIP category of friends and relatives.  Even when I was a child, it was hard to relate to their different way of doing things and their different way of understanding the world.  I could tell that they didn't "get" me or the values that my parents instilled in me.


Here's just a few examples: I was taught to value a kind of uptight dignity, and this part of my family is always silly and teasing.  I was taught to eat healthy foods and carefully watch my appearance, and this part of my family always dresses sloppy and eats terribly.  Consequently, every last one of them is significantly overweight, unhappy about it, and yet also not willing to do anything to change it.  I was taught to appreciate art and culture and all the new things that there are to learn about the world, and this part of my family doesn't care about much beyond NASCAR and the birds that are stopping at the bird feeder.  Being around them is sort of surreal.  And since Gerard shares all of my values that I listed above and he's more rigid than I am in general, I'm a little nervous about the introductions.

And now we're home again, with the trip behind us, and I can report that I had nothing to be nervous about.  The thing is, even though my family members are strangely unlike me in a lot of ways, the main thing that Gerard noticed about them is that they are all "soooo nice."  And though I initially neglected to mention it, it's true.

Gerard sat with my grandmother for hours and asked her questions about my grandfather and their life together, essentially taking a kind of history.  She was absolutely thrilled to have his attention all that time, and he was genuinely interested in hearing her tales.  He took in information about my grandfather, and watched the slideshow of photographs from his younger years, his courtship with my grandmother, and the development of his family.  My cousins gathered around Gerard, charmed by his wide-eyed enthusiasm and interest in them and all things unknown to him.  And my immediate family, who of course has known Gerard for years now, treated him like one of their own, like part of our special clan.

So, the introduction to distant family members was nothing but positive.  They will all remember Gerard and seek him out at future family events-- I have no doubt about it.  And he will get to know them more too.  Introducing him to my weirdo family members did nothing other than make Gerard feel even more like he is my family.

a reality

Gerard and I think that what we're going through is probably not uncommon.  Probably lots of couples go through this, but probably most of them don't try to write sex blogs!

I used to write about us fighting a lot.  Well, we don't do that anymore.  We got over the strain of learning to live together, of being scared of committing to each other.  We still have arguments, but they are much less frequent and much less escalated.  Considering the amount of stress that we're under and the close quarters in which we're both living and working, I think we're doing awesome.

Yeah, we're not having any problem in the companionship area.  We love each other.  We're talking more often about our plan to eventually get married and have a baby, and we're both getting a little bit less freaked out by that every time we discuss it.  We support each other, we work together, we nurture each other... we spend more time together than probably either of us would prefer, but we're making the most of that (in most ways, anyway).  I can say this unequivocally: We're happy.

We're also affectionate.  We hug a lot.  We snuggle.  We touch each other.  Gerard likes to spank me a little bit every day.  We say that we love each other.  He sings me songs; I tell him why I think he's special.  We have no shortage of affection.

But what we do have a shortage of is SEX.  Sometimes I can't believe that we once had the most amazing sex I'd ever had in my entire life.  Yesterday my best friend told me this story about the mind-bending sex she had with her lover, and I couldn't even imagine what that might feel like.  It's been more than three weeks since the last time that I had Gerard inside of me, and sometimes I feel like I'm going to go crazy.

Turns out that he's sexually frustrated too.  He wants to have sex too.  But somehow we're not doing it.  I feel like I initiate with some regularity... but it doesn't work that well when I do.  We both like it when he's the aggressor.  We have better sex when he's the one doing the pursuing, and I'm capitulating to his desires (at least, that's the story we tell ourselves-- and it works!).  But he's not feeling it.  He says he just doesn't feel turned on.

I think some of the problem is intimacy.  Intimacy is scary.  Before he moved in, we always had the distance between our apartments to keep things from getting more intimate than we were ready for.  Then he moved in, and we had fighting to keep us from getting too intimate. But now... now we're here together all the time and we're not fighting.  We're more intimate than we've ever been.  Maybe regular sex would just be more closeness than either of us can handle right now.

But, presumably, we could both work on our intimacy issues and eventually it wouldn't feel so scary anymore, and we'd start having that crazy-perfect sex that was once one of our defining features.  That's the theory that I'm trying to believe in.

In the meanwhile, we have to come up with strategies to help us improve.  Gerard likes it when I explore with girls, so I hit Craig's List last night.  He also asked me to touch him in certain ways more frequently.  I gave him some feedback about the way that he touches me too.  And we're just going to try to be more open to each other.

Because, I'd like to say... having a little intrigue with other people occasionally is fun and titillating, but what I really want-- what I want more than anything else-- is Gerard.  It all starts and ends with him.

Anyway, when I started this blog I said I was going to write about the reality of a long-term relationship between two people who know they're sensitive and damaged.  You readers saw us overcome our fighting and my depression... so now we've got a new problem.  And here I am being embarrassingly honest about it.

I hope you see us get through this one as well.

postponed

Well, I have been postponed by my would-be part-time casual mistress, perhaps forever.

I have to respect her for being honest with me, and for her reasons for backing away.  She said that even though she enjoys playing around, she's realized that her real goal is to have a long-term partner.  So because of that she's not sure how she feels about casual play anymore.  She's also in graduate school, and she has a lot on her plate right now.  She asked me if we could talk about it again in a month, giving her some time to figure out what she feels and wants.

So I totally get where she's coming from.  Don't we all want that kind of connection in our lives?  It's true that casual playing around can distract a person from the quest for an actual partner, and I would never want to deny her that.  But wow, am I disappointed.

She emailed me after that last meeting, you know, and said that there were a lot of things she was interested in doing with me.  Oral sex, she mentioned, and fucking me with her strap-on, and discipline-related stuff.  Being with her was so exhilarating; I was imagining what I would wear when next I saw her, and fantasizing about what she might want me to wear.  I didn't even try to imagine what it would be like to be fucked by her-- I was saving that until the moment when I could actually experience it and know.  I loved our age difference-- she's nine years older than me, just like Gerard-- and I loved our complementarity and the electric attraction between us.  I wanted to be with that a little bit longer.

In her most recent email, the one where she explained her need to table me for now, she asked me to go to her blog to read something she'd shared, and tell her what I thought of it.  The topic was something intellectual that we have in common, but it was all written on the blog that she uses for her professional dominatrix persona.  In other words, this intellectual, academic piece was surrounded by dominant fantasies and words and the general presence of her extremely attractive dominance.  Oh, and photos of her.  So even though I knew she was appealing to our intellectual connection rather than our D/s connection when she asked me to read and share my thoughts on her piece, I couldn't get through it.  It was too distracting, and maybe even a little bit painful, to be in that virtual environment.

I had this yearning, you see... I wanted to go to this part of my sexual self.  The bisexual part, and the submissive part.  I wanted to try it out again.  Gerard used to play the dominant role in my life a lot more, before he moved in and "us" got more complex and messy and emotional.  I thought if I experienced it with her for a little while, it would help me figure out just what I wanted with that kind of sex within my relationship.  My main relationship.

But anyway, I can't blame her for her choice.  I want her to be happy.  I don't know her that well, but I know that finding a long-term partner is more important than getting off with someone that you know will never be serious about you.  I'm crossing my fingers, though, that she wants a little bit of casual playtime now and then while she's on the road to finding her love.  And I told her that I want to stay in touch even if we never end up in her bed together again.  Sigh.