vulnerability and simplicity

But then I think, well, this is a personal sexblog, after all, and it’s kinda nice to know the person you’re fucking, you know? The more of their psychology you know, the better the sex.

My evenings are a strange combination of extreme vulnerability and sex these days; I printed out all the Sugarbutch Star submissions I’ve received so far (a dozen!) and am spending some time looking at the details, trying to choose my favorites, trying to decide which stories I would write the best. I was reading over the printouts on the subway on the way home from work tonight, and definitely noticed more than a few of my crowded sardine-like co-passengers peering over my shoulder at words like cock, orgasm, fuck, rough as you can give it, I’m on top, you fuck me, in your bed …

Oh good god damn. From a purely selfish standpoint? This contest is amazing. I love hearing you tell me what you’d like me to do to you.

In the words of Flight of the Conchords: Thank you ladies. You didn’t have to say that.

The other parts of the last week or so of my life have involved lots of crying, drinking, and aloneness. (Not to be confused with loneliness, though maybe there’s some of that underneath as well.) Commercials, film trailors, reality TV, even the fucking Simpsons have all been making me cry. I watched Premonition last night and was crying at every desperate look of love from Sandra Bullock to her dead/dying husband.

Everything is hard hitting. It is as though I have no defenses, no skin, no protection between myself and the world. Everything goes right through.

That’s not horrible, I suppose, in that I’m glad to be feeling. I think I’ve broken through some sort of shell that has been keeping me held together – take that away and there are a lot of cracks to exlore. You know those toys where the little critter is held by a tension string, and you press your thumb into the base of the toy and release the tension, thus the critter falls apart? Yeah, that’s me.

I’ve had some character study revelations about myself lately, things I’ve wanted to write about because they seem significant and important to the further development of my twenty-something finding-myself self. (I’m almost over that, right? I’m almost already found? I’m so ready to be thirty.)

One is that I need to figure out how to tell the truth more often. And not just a kind way of “not lying”, but actually expressing what it is that I’m thinking and feeling, my reaction to what’s around me, the people I love and care about specifically. One of my deeply held values is to be kind to people, to not hurt people’s feelings, especially those I love & care about, and I often find myself not quite saying what it is that I mean, or want to say, because I’m concerned about hurting someone’s feeling, overstepping my bounds. It goes along with my ideas of not giving advice, too, which has also been a philosophy of mine – only to give specific advice when it is particularly requested, not just to bust out with “you know what I think you should do is …” without explicit invitation.

But I want to unlearn these things. These are deep-set values of mine, perhaps, yes – and I want to be kind, good lord, of course – but sometimes, it is more important to take a risk, put myself and my opinions out there, to offer up what’s really happening in my mind. And I don’t think I do that often enough.

(Thanks, by the way, to my fluffer femme spy who listened to me work through some of these ideas this afternoon.)

Two, the other thing I’ve been thinking about lately and kicking around in my mind and having various crises over, is that I am really fucken busy. But not just busy – overextended. My therapist told me yesterday that she is continually surprised how much I volunteer and give away my time for little (or no) money. I live the life of a freelancer, she said – I am balancing so many projects, organizational involvement, interests, and obligations that I no longer have any time for preparing fresh food (what a luxury), yoga in my living room, a fucken bubble bath, lazy masturbatory Saturday mornings, cleaning my bathroom, organizing my files or books or music, tossing a feather toy around for my cats …

I am currently balancing too much. So I have begun to simplify, simplify, simplify. I need my time back. I need calmness back.

My schedule, and my obligations, are going to change. I’m working on it.

My roommate is out of town for the next week, and I’m looking forward to having the apartment to myself. I suppose it would be best if I had a girl or two in my bed to entertain, but that may or may not happen, whether or not I get my nerve up to reply to any other craigslist ads. That is, whether or not I can read between the lines enough to know that I am not actually replying to an ad Callie placed.

There must be another way to meet girls, I swear. I guess I’m going to have to practice my bar game.