My fair fare last night included the following:
If I had it to do over?
I would.
12 hours yesterday and 10 hours last night. Got up at the crack of 10:00 this morning.
Honestly I feel a little groggy the moment, but it's nothing some breakfast and strong coffee can't fix.
Mmmm. Coffee.
Something like 26 straight days of work. I'm too tired to figure out exactly how many. I keep getting confused.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am going to bed.
Thank you and Good Night.
We can fix anything together.
We will make amends with our pasts.
With time we can have what we want.
The things we want take work and dedication.
I'm glad you're away from the giant. No doubt he will cast a long shadow in your life, but a shadow can't really hurt you.
I do not believe your muse is gone, rather I believe she is lying in wait. She will make you do the craziest things. Let her. Do not be afraid.
It warms my heart that you have a boy who you can be yourself with.
That is everything.
I found another article on gender and culture that goes a long way to thoughtfully explaining why things are as they are. It's inflammatory in a gentle way, by which I mean it may challenge your thinking or your indoctrination.
Seed has a link to a NY Times article which asks "Is There Anything Good About Men?" But the real meat is in the actual transcript of a presentation by Roy F. Baumeister, who addressed the American Psychological Association.
What I appreciated most was that it did not justify any behavior, but went a long way toward explaining why things might appear certain ways.
I was thrilled.
I'm at work so I can't exactly go exploring.... But I found a reference on BoingBoing to a set of retro 3D images, most of which are cheesecake or erotica.
I just upgraded to MovableType 4.
It didn't go smoothly…
But if you can see this, then the blog is still kicking.
And I am breathing deep, deep sighs of relief.
Skip the rest of this post if you're not interested in the minutia.
Sweet mother of fuck was I scared the whole damned thing was gone.
How was I supposed to know how badly it could go? I had performed major and minor upgrades in exactly the same fashion in the past. When I found the new version of MT was available I quickly downloaded it, then uploaded new version over the old. All that remained was to log in to commence the database upgrade.
But there was no logging in. Only an error message.
And I had begun the upgrade without first doing the most important thing I could have done: a backup.
Yeah. I know.
I nearly gave up. It took me days to see possible avenues of reconstruction. I pulled down a copy of my database just in case… I don't know. Maybe I could start over and upload the data some way?
Then I started deleting crap so that I could try again by uploading the new blog software cleanly--no residue from the old, you know? But I ended up over-writing my index.html so that the front page was gone. Just a generic MT homepage placeholder remained.
After some digging, I managed to find a copy of it. I had to look in the caches of many web browsers. After uploading it, at least the site *looked* intact. Even if it was still broken.
It really sucked to be unable to log in. I wanted to say at least that I was down and would be back soon. If it had gone much longer, I would have resorted to editing the front page manually.
I finished the clean upload. I had first deleted the contents of the static files folder, then basically everything but the index file and the configuration file from the root directory.
That worked. Yesterday, after days, I was finally able to log in to my blog.
Then I wrote the first draft of this entry and...
There were errors my the templates. Old template tags that are no longer supported. The software would save new entries but it wouldn't publish them.
Tonight I was able to eradicate those old tags. And I finally published this entry.
There are still some fixes and kinks to work out. But I am alive.
I'm alive I tell you.
I have been really neglectful of our BDSM needs of late. I haven't engaged in much at all lately.
I will blame issues with cash-flow currently and longer hours at work, but I do need to make more space for it in my life again.
Flower found an email list for a local group. I've just joined.
I intend to write an introduction to the list shortly. I would like build a rapport and trust enough so that Flower and I can go to the munches and possibly other local events.
I'm hopeful that finally I can find a good group of people to be "out" with.
I have worked 14 of the last 14 days, sometimes at two different jobs, and my schedule is such that I will be working the next 12 days in a row as well, sometimes at two different jobs.
My mental acuity is approaching zombie-like blankness and my moods are flipping on a dime.
I feel sorry for my poor Flower, having to deal with me being absent from our home that much more, and when I am finally home I'm exhausted.
Our poor puppies, too. When I come home they are all so excited and all want and need their individual time with me. They deserve it, of course. But sometimes when I get home I've not been prepared to deal with their needs and I have been cranky with them. I have to work on that. Especially since I plan on adding children to the mix.
And I need to try to find a way to let go of some of the things I think I need to do before I go to bed.
I have been averaging six hours of sleep or less and the bags under my eyes are growing. Shame on me.
Reverend Horton Heat are playing the 7th Street Entry at First Avenue on Saturday night.
I just found out. And I'm going to have to miss them.
Damn it.
I will, however, hoist a cold one in their honor.
This post began its life as a comment on another site. Because I feel so strongly about the topic, because for me it hits so close to home, I chose to post it here instead.
For background information, here is an article that first made my eyes glaze over then made me see crimson: Men and Porn @ The Guardian Unlimited
First off, the article says all of the politically or socially correct things. It says nothing that couldn't have been predicted and most unfortunately assumes victimization. As in, we are all.
Fortunately, I am not a politician. So I say "Fuck off."
I am so sick and tired of a media that profits from sexuality-that-sells-their-stuff also telling me that I am a victim of sex or that I am morally damaged by exposure to sex.
And I am so angry at the victim attitude I could spit.
Pornography is a problem if you believe that sexuality is a problem. If you think that reveling in beauty and lust is a problem. If you believe that your humanity is something that you must subdue and overcome, then I could see where sex might be a problem, right after breathing, eating and eliminating.
If you think you are a victim of oppression, then pornography might look like a form of it. If you think you are a victim of debauched morality, pornography might look like a form of it.
I was labeled a sex addict once in my life. I attended 12-step meetings that were supposed to counsel or cure me. I feel strongly that the diagnosis and the anonymous meetings did not help, save only to illustrate that rooms full of men felt exactly the same level of arousal that I did and told themselves they were bad men as I did. The men who said they were abstinent for weeks, months or years still spoke of lust, sex acts and pornography with relish. It solved nothing. Sex was the elephant in the room. By talking about not having sex, by strategizing what to do when you thought about sex, by thinking about how long you were "sober," or by specifically avoiding mentioning anything that could be construed sexually, you were in effect thinking about sex even more than before.
It's exactly the same as being with a room full of people on a diet. The subtext is always delicious food and how to eat more without consequence.
The behavior may be modified, but the desire is ever-present.
For the dieter, food is not really the problem, is it?
Therefore, look deeper.
Where there are those whose sexuality seems to intrude or overflow into their daily activity, it is possible something else in their lives is very out of balance.
What no one will say is that we are not children any more. No one will say we are sexual by design and THAT IS OK. No one will say that seeing pornography as a problem or a disease is really unhealthy.
I think that we as humans really have a great deal more to learn about ourselves.
If you feel pornography is a problem, fine. Avoid it. You aren't going to be able to eliminate it unless and until you eliminate male desire.
If you label it as vile or evil, you are effectively telling a large number of the men in your life that they, too, are vile or evil. Some of them might even believe you, and that's when the trouble starts. The anti-pornography and sex-addiction crusades are every bit as damaging to the psyche as the hysteria and nymphomania crusades a century ago.
If you think pornography is your only problem, there are layers and layers of the lives of men in your life that you do not begin to comprehend. I encourage you to examine what you get out of judging sexuality and sex acts as obscenity, indecency or immorality.
Exactly who is out of control?
I let them harvest some of my life-force.
They put it into a plastic bag.
I seriously did donate blood today, which I feel good about. I'm a little light-headed and trying to rehydrate.
It always weirds me out at least a little, right before I get stuck. And I honestly do find it strange to see the bag fill.
Flower was right there with me. We were support for each other.
I tried to clear my mind and will healing, peace and happiness into the bag. Does that seem strange? It felt like the right thing to do. I was donating of my own volition and for what I feel were good reasons.
I want it to help someone.
Vital Stats:
Blood Pressure: 118 over 62
Pulse: 70
Hemoglobin: 15.2 um... units
Blood Type: O Negative
I have not been to Africa, I have not had sex with a man even once, I have never tested positive for HIV, and I have not had Malaria in the last three years.
For the record.
Fortunately, I was not on it or anywhere near it.
My condolences to anyone affected. The survivors are all accounted for. Now they begin the recovery work.
Follow the story here and here.
Apologies for the terse post. I don't want to do any injustice to the insanity of the situation or say anything that hasn't already been said one hundred times in the media.
There really aren't words.
No one expects the bridge to drop.
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