June. Wow.

I'm actually pretty amazed I've stayed away so long.

Of course, I've been writing. If you knew me at all, you'd realize how silly the thought of me not writing is. Writing simply is INSIDE me, writing is who I am at my most base level. Creative, expressive, unafraid of opening up and spilling my guts onto the page... without the ability to write I would probably die.

I know that sounds trite, but I honestly believe that.

I've felt it lately.

I got into a car accident last night. It wasn't much, although I did have to go to the hospital for neck pain. It did manage to terrify me into re-evaluating a few things about my life lately. Funny how cliche it is to assume your life will flash before your eyes, but how true it ends up being in the end.

But I'm ok. I'm on some seriously great medication that made me both sleep like a baby and have some pretty intense dreams. I even managed to pleasure myself this afternoon without throwing things TOO out of whack. I'm dedicated that way.

But it did make me realize that I need to write more. Especially when my creative outlets have mostly come from Myspace. It's the armpit of the creative world, but I've felt more safe keeping some things to myself lately. Don't ask me why; it's unlike me to be so closed-off.

So, I'm back. Don't know for how long, or what will come out, but I'm here.

---

I think I'm going to write over at Decorus Poena, for anyone interested in continuing to read.

I'm not writing too much lately, simply because I'm out DOING.

Life, at least in the current moment, entices me much more in experiencing it rather than taking a backseat with a pen and a pad of paper.

But I come back, as a moth to a flame, pregnant with need to create and be here as well.

In life, I rarely know what I want with much security and stability. I make choices only to change them the next day, after a night's rest and swirling dreams.

It's summer now and my plans are endless. But they do include being here, with you, whether you actually read me or not.

I'm lustful this evening. Horribly, naughtily, awfully lustful.

And I need you.

I feel like my sexuality is slowing coming back to me - the light blowing gusts of a spring breeze that causes me to extend my face into the air to feel as much of it as possible.

I reached over and took Bear's beautiful cock into my hand last night. I felt it, warm and soft, and coaxed it to life with tiny squeezes and strokes.

I wasn't looking for anything - I'm happy with re-introducing sex into our physically flawed relationship in small doses - but it was nice to know that he still responds to me in that manner.

I wanted, for a brief moment, to feel the sensation of our polar opposites. Wet soaking dry... soft over hard... male into female.

I think I'm finally getting my life back.

I've got the photography bug again. I'm thinking I may take some more pictures of myself - some nice pin-up shots that focus on my best, ahem, assets.

After talking about how I don't write for the kudos, I'm feeling the need for a little gratuitous back patting.

"... solitude is such a potential thing. We hear voices in solitude, we never hear in the hurry and turmoil of life; we receive counsels and comforts, we get under no other condition ..."

- Amelia Barr

I've tried a few times to begin this entry, but I'm just feeling so light and carefree that I can't put my exact emotions into words.

I spent the day alone today. Bear had to drive a few hours away to make a social security doctor's appointment (oh yes, the infinite wisdom of the government. Let's make a man who can barely make cross-town doctor's appointment without being in severe pain drive HOURS away to be certified as 100% disabled. Fucking geniuses!), so I was by myself from the time I dropped my daughter off at school until then time I had to pick her back up.

It was, in a word, AMAZING.

I spent the time picking up, watching television, doing laundry and (of course) masturbating. I had GREAT orgasms because I wasn't worried about being quiet. I used my poor, lonely rabbit vibrator and made myself come over and over. When my cunt was twinging too hard to reinsert my pink friend, I gave up and ran some errands.

I played music as loud as I wanted. It was freeing. Don't get me wrong, I love Bear. I like being around him. But this was my first time alone in my own apartment for probably a year, at least for more than an hour. It was just what I needed, and we need to figure out a way to continue that pattern.

Create. Clicking that button on my blogger account provides me with both pleasure and nervousness. Will I have any words spill forth onto the page? Will my usually fertile mind be a blank slate?

One of my largest fears is having nothing to say... feeling nothing. My writing doesn't spring from a shallow place; it has nothing to do with comments and popularity and meeting people. I write because I have to. I need to have something, anything to say. If I don't, I'm worried I'll fall back in line with the endless masses of people slowly suffocating to death in their mundane and boring 2.5 children white picket fences lives.

Today I was pondering routines and motivation. I always mean to do these great things with my life - I want to lose some weight, get my home more organized, cook at home more than I eat out any given week - and I do them. For awhile. After a week or so, without outside motivation, I crack and turn back to whatever I was doing before.

That was one positive thing about living in an active BDSM relationship. I felt driven to please and I wanted to change whatever needed to be changed to make him happy. It's unfortunate that we've slipped out of those patterns although, to be fair, I'm not anywhere near as submissive as I used to be.

I'll come back around again, I'm sure.

I'm the consummate people pleaser. Recently at work, my boss told me that I have the type of personality that makes people want to reach out and touch me (and believe me, even in my line of work, they still have). I'm the one they call up front when clients have issues. While I can be physically aggressive and have gotten in my fair share of altercations in my life (to put it mildly), I'm also immensely capable of pulling out my best doe-eyed, everything is going to be just fine personality to immediately soothe and calm even the most difficult person.

It's not something I'm proud of, necessarily. I have a variety of different personalities, all that fit me for various circumstances, but none that I'm really choose to wear longterm. I can be sweet, I can be mean, I can always get what I want when I want it, but I'd rather just be chill and be me.

I'm not sure if the more recent swing towards the zen side of the scale is because of the yoga I've been immersing myself in or if I decided to seek out the yoga to fit me in that manner but, whatever the reason, I'm finding myself VERY laid back lately.

Unless you piss me off.

Wow.

I collect girls. It's pretty amazing to me.

It's almost humorous to me, looking back on past websites and words that have flowed (sometimes violently and sometimes smoothly) from my mind and into physical form, how sexually free I used to be.

I almost don't recognize myself in those words, like this one from nearly a year ago...

"I knew as soon as he kissed me that it was a kiss with intent. Kisses of affection, kisses that bind us together in domestic life and partnership, have been the most common lately. This sort of kiss, filled with abandon and promise, was more than that.

It's no secret that I haven't been "doing the deed," as it were, quite as often as I'd like. I have a rather epic sex drive that is impossible to match or exceed for most people but, during our good periods, Bear has (literally) risen to the challenge.

Needless to say, I was a little hesitant to give in to his unspoken promises. To put it bluntly, the only thing worse than not fucking is starting to fuck and being put off. I'm simply not the type of girl who enjoys that.

But the hair pulling and choking that followed the kiss, well, I'm the just the type of girl who enjoys that sort of thing. And multiple orgasms... let's just say that they're high on my list of "to do's."

It's nice to be reminded that we're not roommates, and I've forgotten just how much I need a strong man in the bedroom. It was a wonderful weekend."

I mean, that was only a year ago. Things have changed SO much in that regard in only a year, with minimal health advances. I'm a little bummed, so to speak, but looking through past entries has also reminded me that when the weather starts to get warm I seem to go through a bit of melancholy until I move forward to embrace the season.

Eh.

"It just seems like you agree to have a certain personality or something. For no reason. Just to make things easier for everyone. But when you think about it, I mean, how do you know if it's even you?"

"People always say how you should be yourself, like yourself is this definite thing. Like a toaster, or something. Like you can know what it is, even. But every so often, I'll have, like, a moment, when just being myself in my life, right where I am, is, like, enough."

I feel like Angela Chase today. If you don't know who that is, I recommend rushing out to purchase My So Called Life on DVD as soon as possible. Angela Chase sums up my high school career (although I did tend to be a bit more like Rayanne) in a way that no other pop culture event has.

I'm WAY in my head recently. I'm stuck there, cocooned in thoughts and emotions and introverted ideas, thinking thinking thinking instead of living in the moment like the good Buddhist in me insists I should.

I'm not entirely sure where it's come from, either. Mainly a sense of feeling lost, presently, stuck in a cycle I can clearly see but am unable to crawl free from. I'm this unique person with all these thoughts, both healthy and unhealthy, but I'm constantly being pigeonholed into this personality that doesn't really fit or feel comfortable on me.

Right now, I don't even know what I want. I don't know how much of my desperation steams from this need to fit in or be who everyone seems to think I am, and how much of it is my genuine self.

It kind of sucks, to be crass for a moment.

I'm hoping my murky picture becomes clearer soon...

I worked my usual overnight last night, coming in my perfunctory 5 minutes late, and was greeted by a happy, tail wagging, big black dog in one of the bottom cages.

"Awww...." I said to myself.

I stepped closer to check him out and saw the clipboard sitting on the corner of the x-ray table, the scarlet letter pronouncing his impending death for all to see.

I sighed to myself. This wasn't the usual donor day, but we had just used both bags of canine blood the week previous to save the life of a 10 year old Great Pyranees with a baseball sized hemangionsarcoma mass on his intestine.

If this adorable boy was going to be dispatched to the sweet hereafter, I was going to at least make his last few hours on earth comfortable. I raided the refrigerator and came upon a coworker's stash of cheese cubes. Said coworker, who will remain nameless, is considered by the majority of employees at my work to be heartless and just generally callous with the lives of the living creatures entrusted to her care. Her cheese was a sacrifice I was willing to make.

The cheese cubes were snarfed down within seconds and the tail never stopped wagging. He looked at me with his big pleading chocolate eyes and I called Michelle to complain.

"We have a donor dog," I began. She responded with her usual sigh and a few choice words that echoed my feelings exactly.

When she arrived at 6 pm, we took him out (now named Harley) and drew blood. He just sat there on the floor, happy as could be, letting me poke his cephalic veins while he tried to lick all the skin off of Michelle's face. His blood tests all came back normal and clean. While the seconds counted down, Michelle and I got more and more attached and less and less willing to let this handsome boy meet his untimely death.

"We've got to be able to do something," Michelle said, disheartened.

Now, lucky for me (and Harley!) one of my close friends, for all intents and purposes, the shelter manager at the local Humane Society. I called her up, spent a few minutes on the phone with her (answering the usual questions - neutered, good with food/touching, any obvious behavioral problems, etc.) and was informed that, as long as I checked with Animal Control, we would be able to take him on Monday.

Luckily for us, about 5 minutes after I hung up the phone our boss walked in. I was kind of nervous about asking her, since we only have the ability to get so many blood donor dogs a week, but she was all for it provided everyone was happy at all three of our places of business.

Michelle hopped on the phone with an employee that also works at Animal Control, got the skinny on our dear boy (abandoned with his brother - the owners had no money to take care of them anymore), got the ok to hold him there until my friend could pick him up on Monday. The Dr. on duty neutered him free of charge, we still got a bag of blood from him (with no side effects - just the same as a human donating) and the rest is history!

High fives were slapped, trust me on that one.

I dropped him off at Animal Control this morning and the hardest part was leaving him, watching those sad chocolate eyes wonder why another family was abandoning him. I wish I could explain that we saved his life and that he was going to have a GREAT chance at having a wonderful family. It's enough that I know that.

And, of course, I brought my daughter and she LOVED him and he loved her (his previous family had little girls her age). She cried this morning after we left and told me, on her way into her classroom, that she was going to cry again a lot today. I feel bad for her, on the selfish level that makes parents never want to see their children hurt, but I'm really proud that I've raised such a compassionate kid!

The best part of this chapter is, because of our (Michelle and myself) empathetic nature and motivation to see a happier end to this story, his brother is also getting another chance at life.

Let me just tell you, I'm BEAMING with pride.

Here's our handsome man, by the way...





Just remember, nothing is ever set in stone and it NEVER hurts to try. :)

My daughter, increasingly the social butterfly, had a birthday party this afternoon. Being the control freak that I am, I brought a book (Jeanette Winterson) and camped out in a hard plastic bowling alley chair for the two hours it was scheduled to last.

Between chapters, I people watched. I watched odd interactions between lovers, one needing attention while the other checked out all the women around him. I watched children playing and pretending not to hear the adults yelling at them. I sat and blended in, preferring not to interact with the other mothers (never been my thing as I'm never ANYTHING like any of them), enjoyed my book and wished the minutes would tick away faster.

They didn't, of course, but my daughter had a great time and that's really what matters to me. My workweek starts again tomorrow, but for some reason I'm energized for it to come. I'm not grumpy this evening, which is a shock. Sundays usually find me in a foul mood for a variety of reasons.

But instead I'm planning on going to bed early, rising early for yoga and enjoying a week without dread. How much worse could it get than performing emergency surgery on an elderly Great Pyrenees at 3 am? I don't want to find out but, as a little advice, don't disturb me before 2 pm if that happens again.

How are we supposed to defend our country when we can't even defend our soldiers' freedom of religion and speech?!

JUNCTION CITY, Kansas (AP) -- Like hundreds of young men joining the Army in recent years, Jeremy Hall professes a desire to serve his country while it fights terrorism.

Soldier Jeremy Hall says the pressure to believe in God is so strong "I was ashamed to say that I was an atheist."

But the short and soft-spoken specialist is at the center of a legal controversy. He has filed a lawsuit alleging he's been harassed and his constitutional rights have been violated because he doesn't believe in God. The suit names Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

"I'm not in it for cash," Hall said. "I want no one else to go what I went through."

Known as "the atheist guy," Hall has been called immoral, a devil worshipper and -- just as severe to some soldiers -- gay, none of which, he says, is true. Hall even drove fellow soldiers to church in Iraq and paused while they prayed before meals.

"I see a name and rank and United States flag on their shoulder. That's what I believe everyone else should see," he said.

Hall, 23, was raised in a Protestant family in North Carolina and dropped out of school. It wasn't until he joined the Army that he began questioning religion, eventually deciding he couldn't follow any faith.

But he feared how that would look to other soldiers.

"I was ashamed to say that I was an atheist," Hall said.

It eventually came out in Iraq in 2007, when he was in a firefight. Hall was a gunner on a Humvee, which took several bullets in its protective shield. Afterward, his commander asked whether he believed in God, Hall said.

"I said, 'No, but I believe in Plexiglas,"' Hall said. "I've never believed I was going to a happy place. You get one life. When I die, I'm worm food."

The issue came to a head when, according to Hall, a superior officer, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn, threatened to bring charges against him for trying to hold a meeting of atheists in Iraq. Welborn has denied Hall's allegations.

Hall said he had had enough but feared he wouldn't get support from Welborn's superiors. He turned to Mikey Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

Weinstein is the foundation's president and a U.S. Air Force Academy graduate. He had previously sued the Air Force for acts he said illegally imposed Christianity on students at the academy, though that case was dismissed. He calls Hall a hero.

"The average American doesn't have enough intestinal fortitude to tell someone to shut up if they are talking in a movie theater," Weinstein said. "You know how hard it is to take on your chain of command? This isn't the shift manager at KFC."

Hall was in Qatar when the lawsuit was filed on September 18 in federal court in Kansas City, Kansas. Other soldiers learned of it and he feared for his own safety. Once, Hall said, a group of soldiers followed him, harassing him, but no one did anything to make it stop.

The Army told him it couldn't protect him and sent him back to Fort Riley. He resumed duties with a military police battalion. He believes his promotion to sergeant has been blocked because of his lawsuit, but he is a team leader responsible for two junior enlisted soldiers.

No one with Fort Riley, the Army or Defense Department would comment about Hall or the lawsuit. Each issued statements saying that discrimination will not be tolerated regardless of race, religion or gender.

"The department respects [and supports by its policy] the rights of others to their own religious beliefs, including the right to hold no beliefs," said Eileen Lainez, a spokeswoman for the Department of Defense.

All three organizations said existing systems help soldiers "address and resolve any perceived unfair treatment."

Lt. Col. David Shurtleff, a Fort Riley chaplain, declined to discuss Hall's case but said chaplains accommodate all faiths as best they can. In most cases, religious issues can be worked out without jeopardizing military operations.

"When you're in Afghanistan and an IED blows up a Humvee, they aren't asking about a wounded soldier's faith," Shurtleff said.

Hall said he enjoys being a team leader but has been told that having faith would make him a better leader.

"I will take care of my soldiers. Nowhere does it say I have to pray with my soldiers, but I do have to make sure my soldiers' religious needs are met," he said.

"Religion brings comfort to a lot of people," he said. "Personally, I don't want it or need it. But I'm not going to get down on anybody else for it."

Hall leaves the Army in April 2009. He would like to find work with the National Park Service or Environmental Protection Agency, anything outdoors.

"I hope this doesn't define me," Hall said of his lawsuit. "It's just about time somebody said something."

I'm restless and agitated today; almost separate from the remainder of the world. I'm questioning nearly every person around me - their loyalty, their true personality, their reasoning for involving or not involving themselves in my life.

I don't know. I feel like I've given 100% of myself to people, once my trust is earned, only to be repaid with inconsistency. It's just a little frustrating...

More tomorrow. Storms are coming, according to the weatherman. I hope they wash away all these feelings of disingenuousness.

It has been an amazing few days, the upswing in the weather has taken my spirits with it. I've gotten slide burn from the twisty slide, felt my toes kiss the warm, green grass, laid on my back in the park and watched the fluffy clouds float in the azul sky.

The skin you see above, milky white and untouched by the sun, will soon turn a toasty brown (but, fans of my translucent dermis, worry not. I never get much darker than an albino hispanic *laugh*). My mood, and therefore my writing, will be more cheery and optimistic.

It's spring and I'm really embracing the season. Flowers will be worn in my hair, shoes will be cast aside...

I just wish you could come swing with me.

I was barely awake as I stumbled out of the car and into the gym this morning, coasting on fumes and dreading the hour and a half I planned to spend there. I briefly noticed the temperate weather but put it aside while I pushed open the gym doors.

Yoga was, as always, both relaxing and challenging. I find the immediate gratification aspect of my practice the most fulfilling; knowing that each week I'll noticed a marked improvement in my strength, flexibility and ability to meditate while pushing the distractions away. The body truly is a temple and yoga makes me truly feeeeel that more than any other exercise program I've tried.

After that I ran for about half an hour - I'm training for a 5K in November. I've always been a cardio machine junkie, but actually working towards an attainable goal pushes me to really break through the walls and move forward. Running outside is a totally different ball game, but a challenge that I'm ready and able to accept.

The pay-off, however, was walking outside after I was finished. Sweat beaded and glimmered on my forehead and neck, my hair soaked with the physical ramifications of my effort, and I truly felt and experienced how gorgeous it is outside. The light breeze cooled me, blowing slightly colder than the 70 degree temperature, and sent a chill down my spine.

I drove home with the windows all the way open, enjoying the wind on my face and the childlike enthusiasm that caused my arm to extend out the window, fingers coasting against the jetstream like a bird on the breeze.

Today, simply put, is beautiful.

There is something slightly unsettling about hanging out with old flames, similar to having a ghost walk boldly into the room and sit in between the two of you.

It whispers to you, reminds you of words exchanged and past physical affections, all the while you look through its spectral body and attempt to concentrate on mundane conversation. You fight the urge to pull that person close to you and place your lips on their earlobe, breathing clandestine ideas and words of adoration.

We sat on the couch, the obligatory two feet of space between us, and watched a movie while the kids ran like elephants up and down the stairs. We laughed at the right times, cryed at the right times and ignored the fact that the evening felt like two children playing dress up and attempting to act like adults. What we really wanted to do was jump up and down on the couch, hold hands and forget we had roles to play.

But it's never really that simple, is it? The connection I feel with her is fleeting, fading and reminding me that I never was that into her. There were no fireworks, no declarations of love. The sex, while technically great, wasn't mind-blowing in the way that emotionally deep relationships produce.

So we're friends. Our children are friends. We watch movies, go to bars and have dinner.

But don't make me pretend that her hair doesn't smell like heaven.

I can smell the storm on the horizon, although it seems increasingly unlikely that it will grace us with its presence. I've been waiting for that one great storm for years now - the weather in Illinois has tended towards blizzard conditions instead of raging thunderstorms - but the systems always flirt by us like the high school prom queen.

We did, however, get seismic activity which I'm sure would have been amazing had I awakened from my semi-comatose (and deliciously dreamlike) sleep. It was a 5.2 on the Richter scale, which sounded impressive to me until Bear - in his usually deadpan demeanor - reminded me that he didn't even get out of bed for any quakes under 6.0 in California.

I did elicit some bed-shaking of my own yesterday evening, though. Due to Bear's back and our increasingly platonic romantic relationship (not that I entirely mind, however, although that fact mildly disturbs me), we haven't had sex in months.

I was unsure he was asleep but his back has been spasming more than usual lately and I wasn't in the mood to get told no, so I took care of business myself (so to speak). I think that the orgasms I have when I don't move a muscle, where my pleasure dances along every nerve in my body as I attempt not to squirm or gasp out, rank very high on my Richter scale.

And no, I won't tell you who or what I was thinking about. That may ruin your entire vision of me. *grin*

Sitting down to write, I've forgotten how much pressure it is to create for a public website. Here, as opposed to the more private writing I've been doing lately, I feel the need to live in a certain niche.

I'm not me, not the whole me, but instead reduced to little pieces of me that I feel comfortable enough to expose here and there.

And, try as I might, I can't seem to break through the self doubting wall that I've created in my time away.

My goal is to write more, about anything, and hopefully chip away at the brick-and-mortar bit by bit until the full picture appears in from of my face. I know it will be just as beautiful as I've always imagined.

I'm at work (and working hard, as you can tell!) watching Juno for the second time. And, I have to tell you, I'm kind of consumed with lust for Jason Bateman.

All I can think about is him throwing me up against a wall and fucking my brains out. Good lord - especially his character in Juno.

Yummo.

That's all for now!

Generically, we call today "Donor Day" at my emergency clinic. I, without even the tiniest bit of affection, call it "Black Tuesday."

Today is the day, once monthly, that our practice manager visits Animal Control for the purpose of funding our blood bank. She picks out one canine and one feline, all with their deadlines (and I say that without the slightest bit of irony) up and brings them back to the clinic. We then sedate them, draw out every last drop of their precious blood and euthanize them.

Needless to say, this occasion negatively effects me.

I began on this career path to influence people's decisions regarding the furry gifts in their lives... to make the suffering of animals without a voice as little as possible. I wanted to speak for creatures unable to speak for themselves. It's hard for me to grasp this basic assertion that it's all for the greater good and that these animals, that happened to find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, have less worth than my precious ones.

One up-side to all this, however, is that I have developed an empathy and compassion in the the past few years that I didn't have before. I'm more tender and sensitive, more able to express emotions and deal with their aftermath with more dignity.

So please, pet your animals an extra time today. Life is too short to not take it as seriously and frivolously as it deserves.

My brows are constantly knotted in and out of furrows lately as my thoughts attempt to break free of the perpetual coffin they're being increasingly tied to.

That may sound dramatic, but I've never said that I'm into stating things simply.

I've been cheating on you, you see. Writing on other sites again, going around behind your back and giving my most personal and private thoughts to others. It's not fair, but I have this need to jump around to keep my feet from touching the ground. Afraid that others may try to cut off my wings and halo and bring me crashing to the earth.

I need my solitude, to hold that little piece of me that makes me special in my hands like a tiny hummingbird. In doing so, I make absolutely sure that even the most important people in my life don't truly know me. The unfortunate side effect of that is that I don't even truly know myself and it's a shame.

So I'm trying to write here more and less on privatized space. I'm trying... I can't promise I'll succeed but I do miss you all.