The end of the 50 post challenge. I laughed, I cried, I cut my hair. Goodnight.
49. Blogging Daily
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Last night I sat at my friend’s computer while she put Carnivale in her DVD player, and Indian food cooled next to a chair I had just been sitting in. And I thought about my need to post in this blog. She won. I put the laptop away.
Writing this 50/50 challenge has made me redefine many aspects of my relationship with this blog. One of my resolutions when I began was that I would never apologize to this space if I didn’t have the time or willlingness to post in it. I’ve had variable sucess with that decision, because I’ve grown attached to the people and the attitudes to be found within the ever-expanding ring of blogs I read. But at the same time, I’m not happy when obliged to post. And that’s clearly evident, because I’ve technically missed my goal by a day. I can’t really bring myself to worry over that, and I think that’s the way it should be.
The other thing the 50/50 challenge forced me to redefine was the purpose of this blog on a post-to-post basis. I’ve always tried to write when I have something to say, and to other wise keep mum. And I never intended to make this a personal blog in the way many of us think of personal blogs: a chronicle of my life on a daily, detailed level that I cannot convince myself anyone actually cares about. But I don’t always have something to say, especially within the narrow window I allow this blog to reach. I keep huge portions of my life off the radar here. I’ve had to resist drawing on those topics over the last 50 days, looking for something more to give.
And the final redefinition is the art. That was a surprise even to me, because I’ve never taken my digital art public via a blog. But now that it’s happened, I’m enjoying the transition, and I’m enjoying the every-once-and-a-while change. So the art will stay. And with that decision in hand, a CafePress store is in the works, should any of you care for physical representations of digital art.
I probably won’t do this again. But then, never say never. Change is ongoing, and never outgrown.
48. Amusement
Saturday, July 26, 2008
I said that I am easily annoyed. However, although I live with annoyance all the time, it seems obvious that I must have figured out a way to counter it. Otherwise I would be a far crabbier person than I actually am.
The thing about annoyance is that it can’t be rationally soothed. Once that thing is under my skin, it can take years to work its way out, and all the logic and reason I possess won’t cajole the issue any faster. So it has to be approached from the side, so to speak. I have to sneak up on it.
The counter to annoyance is amusement.
Notice yet again that I haven’t said happiness. Happiness is much more open, and in some ways lacks subtlety. But I am constant amused. I like a good chuckle, a dry joke, a sardonic wit. Hell, I even like bad puns. They amuse me.
I’ve used this word before and been told that amusement is a belittling humor. I found that surprising at first, but I do see where the idea comes from. Both amusement and annoyance have an aura of detachment, or aloofness. But that was never quite my style, and I’m just as easily annoyed or amused by myself as by the world around me.
Most especially, I am amused by my constant annoyances. I find that aspect of my character just a little bit ridiculous, and worth a good chuckle. And that makes it all right; that’s how I keep from flying off the handle, and how I keep my character on the balanced side of bearable.
And this plays into my scenes as well: every time I walk into a scene annoyed, I leave it laughing.
47. Annoyance
Saturday, July 26, 2008
I wrote in my very first, very precocious post in this blog that I would eventually talk about my relationship with annoyance. That was sixteen months ago. I think it’s taken me this long to come back to the topic because frankly, while saying that I’m easily annoyed is a telling insight into my character, it isn’t a riveting, full-length blog post.
I am very, very easily annoyed. Things can get under my skin like lighting, and once there they have a tendency to fester. But I’ve specified annoyance rather than anger here because such things never bring me to full blown anger. I rarely experience pure anger. In fact, I can count the number of times I’ve been genuinely angry, undiluted vengeful rage, on three fingers. Each time in relation to a single person, by the way. I have a thing about being personally wronged, and I include wrongs to my friends in the same category.
But while anger is a rare emotion for me, annoyance is a part of my everyday life. Little things annoy me: bad service at restaurants, lights that don’t turn green fast enough, not having correct change. Big things annoy me: human stupidity, inelegant systems, being patronized. I’ve caught myself making a particular face, a raised-eyebrow, wrinkled-forehead narrowing of my eyes, my mouth pulled to one side.
And yes, this has in the past filtered into my play, and my kinks. But not very often, and not with very much strength. I try to leave my shit at the door when I play, so to speak. Annoyance is not the right kind of emotion for me to work my way through via physical expression. It tends on the catty, sly side. I am much more physically direct. Anger, yes, I’ll work out anger physically, although not upon another person. Commonly upon myself, through bruises, music, mosh pits.
Sometimes the wry cattiness of my annoyed, demanding, *ahem* overbearing self shows up in scenes. But when it does, I beat it back. I flip the coin, so to speak.
45. What Kind Of A Man: Part 3
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Last night, after we ate avocado salad and watched Transformers, I wrapped Maymay up in my arms and we quietly talked our way to sleep.
“I’ve been thinking about what kind of a geek I am,” I said into his shoulder.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“I mean that I’m not the sort of person who can spend hours in a bookstore or get really psyched up over research or academic papers,” I answered. “And I never really have been, but that’s sort of how I’ve always understood being a geek. I’m much happier to spend that time in an art store or making something, that’s what I’m actually passionate about.”
“That makes sense,” he said mildly, his usual response to my out-loud rambling thoughts.
I thought for a few breaths. “I think I need to redefine my geek identity.”
When I was younger, there was no question that I was a geek, a nerd, and to be such a creature came with a very narrow set of definitions. Among these, wedged between getting good grades, liking Star Trek and wearing doofy glasses (all of which I did), was the silent insistence that geeks and nerds date other geeks and nerds. If, of course, we were lucky enough to date at all. One of the reasons I took to ren faires so gleefully was because they broke this mold in a new way; not by hiding my geekhood, but by redefining it as part of my sex appeal. Unfortunately I never managed to meet a nerdy boy in a leather jacket on a white horse while I was there.
Though I never specifically pursued the male nerd image the way I did white knights and rebels, smarts have always appealed to me. And although very little of the imagery around nerdiness really got me going, I did harbor some long-standing and desperate crushes on very smart boys. I suspect one of the reasons they lasted as long as they did was because there was nothing in the stereotype to mess with my underlying preference for power exchange. The nerds of my younger days were never gallant, chivalrous, or sassy, but they were vulnerable. Shy. Wanting.
On a personal identity note, although I have since learned how many different ways a person can be smart, when I was younger being “smart” matched up perfectly with the kind of people who do spend hours in bookstores and jones over research. So though I never really adapted to this kind of geekery fully, I faked it stunningly well. And it’s taken me ages to work my way back out of that fake, and even longer to be able to say, honestly and sincerely, that sometimes bookstores bore me. That research fails to thrill me. That I would rather be somewhere else. And had I known that ten years ago, it might have changed those crushes. It certainly would have changed me.
There was only one problem, I realized, as I hit my 18th birthday with nary a boyfriend in sight. Most boys are not white knights, rebels, or nerds. Most boys are just, well, boys.
44. Wanted: Cabin Boy
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
High level of detail on this, so the source image is quite large. I know there are some pirate fans in the audience, and I have costumes on my mind. Enjoy.
42. What Kind Of A Man: Part 1
Sunday, July 20, 2008
When I was much younger, I fell a little bit in love with Marlon Brando. Not the reedy, rounded Brando of The Godfather, but the young blunt Brando of A Streetcar Named Desire, and the nasal, quick-talking gangster in the pinstripe suit of Guys and Dolls. Oh, and Terry, let’s not forget Terry Malloy.
I have still not seen him play Johnny in The Wild One, but I don’t need to see the post-production photos to know I had a crush on a rebel.
I had a lot of trouble when I was a teenager trying to figure out what kind of man I wanted. Remember that this is pre-queer, pre-kink awareness, that I was still just a weird kid with weird friends and weird thoughts. And I loved Brando then. But now I wonder if I didn’t want to fuck him, so much as I wanted to be him. I watched Guys and Dolls again a few days ago and realized that he’s the only character I relate to. He’s also the only character with true agency and sexual power in the film, swinging as it does in its candy-colored 1940s New York. Go figure.
This crush was a strange one, because while I liked the man, and I liked the idea of the rebel, I didn’t see a space for me in his counterparts, in Stella or Sarah with their nice neat clothes. So I sort of gave up on him, and on the idea of falling for a rebel.
The undertone we can pick up in retrospect, of course, was that Brando’s image, and therefore my image of a rebel was a dominant man. I hadn’t learned yet how to sort the strength it takes to embrace countercultures from the overtly sexual nature of said strength. So I turned away from rebel crushes, though I do still have a soft spot in my heart for Brando.
I moved on to white knights.
41. Medusa Dreams In Photocopies
Thursday, July 17, 2008
A third, probably final, and considerably more abstract work upon the Medusa theme. I’m gearing up to start posting large chunks of content again, when I have more than a day to work on them. I intend to dig up some old issues about power, age, and dominance.
40. Well, You Asked
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Per reader request, here is chibi emo Maymay doin’ what he does best: being small, cute, and redheaded. And decidedly skinny, for a chibi. (This is my first time drawing a chibi, by the way, and they are weird little creatures.)
Also, I was told to set up a Cafe Press store to make these images more available. (Well, maybe not this one.) Is there an interest in that?
Chibi Emo!
39. Take It Up With Him
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Today’s post is dedicated to one of the niggling, nagging annoyances of kinky life that I wish to permanently destroy.
Here’s the situation. Maymay and I make a kinky friend or two. Perhaps we’ve chatted at a party. Maybe we meet someone new online, or we find ourselves in touch through an event or meeting. In any case, the lines of communication are open. All parties have access to all relevant email addresses, et cetera.
And then, a day or two later, I will get a sweet, polite email in my inbox. It will usually express how great it was to meet the two of us, and sometimes propose a date for coffee or extend an invitation. All seems well, yes?
Except I’ll go ask Maymay if he’d like to take that date, or act on the invitation we’ve been given, and I’ll be greeted with a blank stare. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he’ll say. “I didn’t get that email.”
What has happened? Does the Cc box not work for kinky people? Is Reply All on the fritz?
This has never, ever happened with correspondence to us in a vanilla context. It has happened several times with correspondence in a kinky context. And it is weird, annoying, and occasionally downright inappropriate.
Yes, it’s true that we live together, and we see each other’s emails. It’s true that we read each other’s blog comments and Twitter feeds. It’s true that messages for him will still find their source through me. But I find the method rather nonsensical, especially regarding events and invitations. If you have something to say to Maymay, say it to him. His contact info is so easy to find, you can trip over it.
Why does this happen? Sometimes, I suspect laziness. But frankly, how hard is it to type another email address?
Other times I suspect that although I’m the dominant one, Maymay is the more intimidating. I advise all parties concerned to get over this. He is intimidating, and abrasive. He’s also worth knowing.
And occasionally I do think this is a technical goof. Not everyone is email savvy: forgiven. Once. Email is not like the telephone. Believe it or not, more than two people can participate in an email conversation.
Most commonly, I fear, correspondance that should go to both of us ends up sitting in solitary in my mailbox because kinky people have this persistent, annoying tendancy to assume that because I am dominant, I am also the main point of contact in our relationship’s public face. (And yes, our relationship does have a public face.) This trickles down into all kinds of dangerous assumptions, not the least of which are:
That we’re in a 24/7 D/s dynamic. (Technically I’d argue we are, but we don’t advertise that fact, and we don’t suspend collaborative decision making.)
Or, that dominants make decisions, and submissives take orders. In social contexts, in scene contexts. What’s next? Shall I start ringing my boy at lunch to tell him how much sugar to stir into his coffee? Destroy this terrible, awful assumption before we all make ourselves out as assholes. I’m not our manager.
Or, that I speak for Maymay. Frankly, no. Just no. And I think that when meeting the two of us this should be obvious. But apparently it isn’t.
New acquaintances have no idea what roles Maymay and I play in our relationship even if they do know our dynamic. And really, it should be fairly easy to see that addressing mutually applicable emails only to me implies that you consider Maymay to be an unequal partner in our relationship.
Point the first: Maymay might be an unequal partner in some parts of our private relationship, but he is most definitely my equal counterpart as far as our public face is concerned.
And point the second: Unless we tell you otherwise, to treat the two of us as unequal partners of our own relationship disrespects us. Both of us.
Newsflash: non-consensually disrespecting submissives is still a shitty thing to do.
This behavior is a precise, miniaturized version of attempting to negotiate scenes with Maymay through me. I have said before, and I will say many, many times again: he does his own negotiation. Take it up with him.
Let’s dispense with the assumptions, and bring back the Cc box. I’m sick of playing messenger.
