Random Acts of Awesome

God, I love fall. This is, and always has been... (shout out to Spock!!), my favorite time of year. Bar none.  The sunlight starts to fade gracefully from yellow to white, slowly finding itself leached of life giving color, a gentle reminder that everything dies. The leaves on the trees bloom with that last burst of energy and intensity before the end, the grass gets so green it hurts to look at it, and the air takes on that smell of brown sugar and cinnamon. That smell that reminds me of childhood, of maple syrup, scarlet maple leaves, air with a hint of crisp chill and sunshine with a frantic heat, and that bone deep knowledge of death.  It sounds morbid, huh? Not to me, it's not. Death and rebirth. There's a reason the fall and spring equinoxes have been associated with such sensual celebrations. It's a sensual time of year. 

Where are you now?  It's been a long time since I've wrestled with the conflicting needs of my spirituality and physicality. It's been a long time since I've even thought about it, or questioned my lack of belief.  And I don't miss it.  I don't need it. I love beauty, almost worship it. I see it in everything, and within beauty there is depth. With that depth I build my reality, and it's a lovely, strange sort of reality. Every now and then I see the ragged edges where my reality doesn't quite mesh with the rest of the world. And every now and then I realize that my edges need some smoothing, and I'll try and adjust them a bit, make them a tad more lined up with others reality.  And then sometimes I see others reality starting to creep up on my edges, and I light a match and I cauterize that particular edge. I burn my candles and herbs in my cauldron, I stare into the flames, I think real hard about what I want to have happen, my face flushes and my ...

The contrast between dominance and submission, between aggression and passivity, has been on my mind a lot of lately. I don't know that I've ever truly been comfortable in the role of being a switch, somebody who can be crawling towards you in desperate need one moment and throwing you on your back in overt aggression the next. It's who I am, I accept that, but I don't know that I'm comfortable in that skin.  And I want to be. I want those two sides of me to be balanced. That's a difficult task to accomplish when I'm caught up more in one role than another. I've been sleeping (heh... sleeping) with someone who is quite dominant. This has allowed me to explore my submissive side (and helped me discover a love of handcuffs) to an extent I've never been able to before. It's fascinating, fun, and deliciously scary. It's also leading to an imbalance in the force.  I recently had an opportunity to explore facets of my sexuality with someone who was...

It changes so quickly. 2 months ago, I had two girlfriends who I considered family. One of whom was completely caught up in her own drama, involving men, and who I'd been avoiding as an energy drain. And one of whom I was seeing pretty much every day, going and getting a beer with after work too often, talking to every day, and felt as close to as a sister. 2 months ago, I was flirting outrageously with a man I'd never met, who'd I'd known for 5 some odd years online, and who I'd had a crush on for most of those 5 years. I was frustrated because we had incredibly hot conversations that made my mind melt, and which I couldn't seem to duplicate in real life amongst the many men I was dating. I was having a lot of sex, but very minimal actual interesting connections. My roommate and I both felt like monks, alone and isolated by choice. I was becoming pickier and pickier about who I took home, based on nothing more than the fact that I was getting my mental needs sa...

::pounce:: HAHA!!! Try moving now, motherfucker!! ::smug laugh:: Honey, I bench press more than you weigh. ::disdainful sniff:: Don't move too much. I don't want to hurt you and my knee is in a bad spot. You'd better be careful. ::more wiggling to gain a better, more secure grip of arms around head and legs around leg:: ::sudden sensation of vertical movement:: Uh huh. ::wide eyed, half angry, half awed stare, trying to look dignified while dangling in the air:: HEY!!! ::more wiggling:: ::looking down and seeing bulging arms:: NO FAIR! ::realization of awesome nature of moment, repressed SQUEEE of delight::

I went to my favorite tap room last night after work, looking forward to a relaxing sit by the window with a book and a beer, only to find it MOBBED. By nerds. There was an open source con going on, and they all came to MY FREAKING BAR afterwards. I saw this guy, Michael, who I’d dated for a bit a couple of months ago, standing outside and went up to chat. He’s big in the local OS community, and was at the conference giving a talk. He’d been the one to suggest Baileys as an afterhours place for them to geek out. Normally this would be fun, but I was in a mood and just wanted to chill and read my book. So I went inside, found a dark corner, and tried to look moody and uninviting. It worked, though a few nerds came up and tried to make conversation. They were easily repulsed by a vapid stare and some hair twirling, and for the most part I had my peace. As I was leaving, after the place closed, I stopped by a large group of them who were still sitting at the outdoor tables and told them t...

I have a summertime ritual of rereading a bunch of Anne Tyler books. I read them at the beach as a young adult every summer, sitting under an umbrella avoiding the sun. It was a ritual my mom and I had, and we'd switch books as we finished them. My favorite was always Ladder of Years, followed closely by Searching for Caleb. I'd sometimes read those two or three times in one summer. They haunted my imagination with their poignant love stories and both reverence for and rejection of tradition. My moms favorites were Accidental Tourist and The Tin Can tree. I think she related to the kooky love story, and the concept of the death of a child was intensely personal to her, as she'd just miscarried a little while before we started doing this. We wouldn't only read them on the beach, sometimes we'd read them on our summer porch with tea, but that's the memory re-reading those books brings up. Sitting next to my mom, surrounded by the large group of kids we always had ...