Going to the chapel and I’m…

Gonna get married!

I’ve been really, really, really remiss in blogging this past year. Life got in the way, and priorities shifted.

Honestly, blogging still is a great catharsis for me, but I get lazy. I used to blog on nights I wasn’t out with my man, but then we moved in together…and, well, love!

Anyhow, last Christmas, we decided we’d move in together when my lease was up in May. Telling my roommates went better than I expected (I don’t think they were all that surprised). I was sad to leave them, but it was fun to start looking at places and such. I learned a lot about apartments in the area. Eventually, we found a lovely townhouse that we ended up renting from foreign service peeps (they’re in Russia). It’s beautiful, has a lovely patio, and our neighbors are great! (Which we learned more than ever this weekend when they helped us dig out of our house…)

Moving in together was more seamless than I thought it’d be, too. May itself was a bit rough. We had a lot more “deep” conversations, or our version of arguing, as we figured out how we each communicate and our preferences. That all settled down pretty quickly, though. I started getting super suspicious and curious about whether he’d propose…but it didn’t happen. My best friend got engaged, and we went to 3 weddings last fall… and then, November 7th, he proposed :), the last weekend before wedding #4 of the season. I said yes! And now we’re wedding planning, and our wedding will be in November of 2016.

I was mostly surprised when he proposed. I definitely had considered if he’d do it over that weekend since we were traveling with friends, and it seemed to be the last good chance before the holidays. That said, a lot of things had thrown me off, and I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I definitely hadn’t figured out how he’d do it – he made me a lovely book, and there really aren’t words for how special it is. I cried, the ring is beautiful, and our friends joined us after the proposal for a day of fun. The only downer is my best friends got terrible news that weekend about their mom/MIL, and that sucked.

Also, FYI – weddings are expensive as fuck and people get crazy and opinionated about some weird-ass shit. Plus, there are WAY too many neat places in the world to pick just one for a honeymoon…

4/22

My friend’s wedding was this weekend. I’m very happy for her. She was beautiful, the setting was gorgeous, and it was great to see old friends. It was heartbreaking that her mother wasn’t there, especially since she danced with her dad to “I Remember.” Other than that, it was a frustrating experience. I was invited to be a part of the wedding as a bridesmaid originally, but the whole weekend I was not included as a real part of the bridal party – wasn’t introduced with the party at the reception, wasn’t in the program as a bridesmaid, didn’t receive the pre-wedding jewelry, and wasn’t included in the wedding party photos. I mean really, the bride didn’t care enough about me being a part of the memory to include me in the group photos? I only wish she had made it clear up front that she felt that way, and I would’ve declined being part of the wedding at all and saved myself the $1200 I spent (no exaggeration, unfortunately) on this wedding.

With that, I really hope that my other friends getting married remember that a wedding is supposed to be a celebration of your love with your partner. It’s about rejoicing with your friends and family that you’ve found your other half. The emphasis should be on the marriage, not the wedding. The wedding is one day/night, and the marriage lasts (hopefully) a lifetime. So, spending ridiculous amounts of money and getting incredibly freaked out seems like a waste of time. All the small things don’t matter in the long run!

In other news, I checked my mail tonight for the first time in a while, and had mail from the agency I worked for during most of the year. I was mailed an award for my work on one of our projects, which was awesome! I had no idea I was being awarded anything. It’s really nice for them to acknowledge the time and energy I put in for them. Plus, it’s from the managing director of our team, which is pretty high up. This should definitely help me in my endeavors to return back to this agency once they start hiring :).

Other things are all lined up and working out. I have an apartment lined up including a move-in date set. Rapture is coming up, and some rope experts are visiting in early June. I’m going home, visiting my grandmother, and then graduating with my Masters. I’m going to visit family in Boston, and a good friend is going to visit me in DC. Then, I start my new job and have Dark Odyssey: Fusion. In the last weeks of June, I’ll be able to settle down and I won’t be doing any traveling/visiting for a good long while and the real fun can begin! I’m hoping to spend at least one weekend at MD/DE beach this summer, rent a boat for a day, catch an Orioles game, and enjoy all DC has to offer. Summer is the best, what with Jazz in the Park, fireworks, etc.

And to throw in some kink, I’m really enjoying playing and experimenting with electrical play. It’s another one of those things that I didn’t start out fantasizing about, although I’d always been curious about it (I’m curious about everything…). I did read an ebook once where a girl was hooked up to an electrical unit – attached to her nipples, clit, and anal/vaginal probes – and then the settings were put just high enough to sexually stimulate without taking her over the edge. She was left that way for hours as payback for an investigation gone awry. I found it incredibly hot, but more for the teasing/denial than anything else. Well, turns out the electricity can be pretty hot in and of itself.

There are different types of electrical toys, and they’re all very different. Tens Units stimulate deep within the tissues and muscles, and cause involuntary contractions. Violet wands, on the other hand, are more immediately painful/reactive and stimulate the surface of tissues. I’m really curious about using the tens units around the nipples or immediately around the clit. I’m also really intrigued by the idea of insertables for either piece of equipment. I very much enjoyed feeling the violet wand on my nipples, which are incredibly sensitive and delightfully responsive to pain; I’m almost positive I could climax just from that. It’s almost enough to buy my own toy, although I don’t know that I’d maintain enough sanity and control of my movement to be able to even use it on myself. I’m still not into stun guns, cattle prods, and tasers, though – they’re all still way off-limits (if not for the sound alone)!

I’ve also gotten to the point where rope is my safe place. I mean, I’ve always been able to find peace in being tied up – something about being forced to focus on the moment – but it’s more than that, now. When things go poorly or I have a terrible day, I can find  comfort in rope. It calms me down and can cheer me up. It also can arouse the hell out of me…but it’s strange that something so mundane can have such an intense, visceral reaction. It really makes me feel kinky. I like to placate myself into feeling “normal” by thinking about how the toys and tools of the BDSM trade are just icing on the “I like strong, power-wielding men” cake. At the end of the day, though, I’m just as kinky as the rest of the BDSM community. I may have to acknowledge an actual fetish for rope. Hopefully, I can not feel too weirded out by the fact that I have fetishes. It seems so much more extreme than saying I’m kinky, and I really don’t know why the words have such vastly different connotations in my mind. Something to explore later, perhaps.

C’est la vie.

Good things:

• found affordable black heels
• bought some kink-appropriate clothing
• sex drive returned full speed ahead
• found someone to stay with to split my drive up en route back to DC
• family members got engaged
• I won an auction for Dark Odyssey Winter Fire ($100, normally $170)

Bad things:

• have to leave in a day and may not see family for another 5 months
• three of my cousins are now getting married this year, plus my friend from college (the wedding I’m in). April, July, November, December… There is no way I can afford them all, and I want to go to all of them!
• a ‘nilla friend will be in town next weekend, which means I can only sneak away one night of the weekend, meaning I can’t go to Rapture this month (and just when I’d finally got the nerve to ask someone to do some cutting)

10 Thoughts of the Day

Another random conglomeration of thoughts and opinions.

1. In management science, we learned how to evaluate efficiency and make improvements. I love it. There are still aspects I don’t understand, but it’s really neat to see how you can compare brands via inputs, outputs, and comparisons.
2. I wish more people understood the difference between arguing and debating.
3. I strongly dislike that many of the men in my acquaintance fail to see a gray area between “casual sex” and “marriage.” It IS possible to want a relationship that takes life as it comes, and develops without trying to force it in a specific direction. There CAN BE an in-between.
4. I miss the self I was when I was in show-choir, when I loved performing and being on stage, when I got off from getting attention, and shyness was non-existent. I regained inhibitions in college, and it kind of sucks.
5. I’ve been invited to play a D&D type of game, which I’ve never done before. I don’t know how to play, and I’ve never played before, but I don’t want to judge things without trying them. I was trying to read up on it, but it seems kind of difficult, so I’m not sure how good I’ll be. I may be too inhibited for it.
6. Which brings me to – why do we judge people for playing video or RPG games? I will admit I’ve done this in the past, when I worked for EB games. So many people didn’t shower, or were crazy awkward, or presumptive about my affections, etc. But, a lot of people play games without sacrificing their lives to it. I’ve taken to just thinking of it as a hobby, similar to how I can get lost reading a good book for hours, or watching a TV show on DVD.  Just because people play these things doesn’t mean they are weird.
7. I dislike oatmeal, and apparently that is a crime to the kids in my grad program…to that point, here’s a fun article that happened to go with the thoughts. http://www.cracked.com/funny-7040-oatmeal/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+CrackedRSS+(Cracked:+All+Posts)
8. Sometimes I wonder if I should refrain from giving money to businesses or sports teams or entertainers who I disagree with. I don’t have a definitive opinion on this, just the thought crosses my mind.
9. I had to tell a friend that a guy she dated isn’t interested in her…it was awful. I hate how involved I was in the whole thing. But, he was just going to “back off and let her figure it out,” and she was wondering non-stop about when he’d call for a second date, to the point of getting sick about it. She got (rightfully) upset about it, and I tried to be there for her.
10. I haven’t seen a movie in a very long time. I really want to see the Natalie Portman chick flick, The King’s Speech, or True Grit. I also still want to see Secretary (preferably while all “tied up”).

Randoms, 1-24 (Pot, Religion, Family, et al.)

1) Legalization of Marijuana

I’ve been working on a project for a class/government agency on public opinion of marijuana since 1970. My personal responsibility has been to become an expert on past laws/propositions in the marijuana world. We are going to use this data to chart public opinion, and to get an idea of where trends are going in certain states.

I knew about prop 19 before this class, but I didn’t realize how far medical marijuana had progressed. 15 states and DC have medical usage laws in place, and in 2010 another 18 had laws on the ballot/in the legislature. Certain states, like Maryland, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, and Minnesota are only a year or two away from passage. Personally, I’m not against this, but I didn’t realize as a country how far we’d progressed.

Technically, within federal and international laws, medical marijuana is illegal. I doubt the federal government will enforce that superiority law, but it puts an interesting perspective on things. Another interesting point I’ve learned is that the wording of Prop 19 in CA actually made it illegal for a workplace to discriminate against a drug user, even while federal policy made it a legal requirement to have a drug free policy. Also, under federal law, any money made from illegal activity (such as taxing legalized marijuana) can be seized at any time by the federal government. Those discrepancies make the failure of the proposition much more comprehensible.

Another interesting point is that of 50 states and DC, 46 have had SOME type of MJ law – decriminalization, medical, legalization, therapeutic research, etc. Indiana (my home state) is off the list, as are Utah, Kentucky, North Dakota, and Idaho. I knew my state was conservative, but I didn’t realize we were among the same ranks as Utah and Idaho.

2) Bible Belt

This kind of goes with my next interesting point. I overheard some international students on the shuttle today discussing religion in the US. One made the point that every time he visits the US, he discovers a new religion. They were jokingly going through a listing of local churches. In my hometown, the city is literally called the City of Churches. Within 5 miles of my house, there are two evangelical christian mega-churches, a catholic church, a lutheran church, baptist, episcopalian, three churches of God/united Church of Christ, and I think a presbyterian. If you go another 2-3 miles, there will be a dozen more. That’s a LOT of religion.

People ignore Indiana. They disregard it. No-one understood why I was SO amazed when the state voted democrat in 2008. I mean, we are one of the 4 most conservative states in the nation. We’re more bible belt than some southern states. We do have a lot of factory workers, rural employees, and labor union type of folk, and we *are* right next to IL, so Obama makes some sense. But, IN is also traditionally one of the most racist states. Muncie, IN was used as Middletown America in a variety of national studies to represent small-town america. I have a new sense of appreciation for my hometown.

3) I’m questioning Big City living.

I keep thinking about leaving Pittsburgh in May (or August, whenever it happens to be). I don’t know how I feel about it. I really am passionate about public policy and public service. I want to work in energy policy. I love it, it keeps me on my toes. I want to be in the center of it all, and the best place to be is Washington, DC. But, when it comes down to it, I want more out of my life than a career. And yes, if it’s a career in public service than it is making a difference, but I want a family and a home life too. I just don’t know if I’ll find that in DC.

I’m not from a “small” town. My town has 250,000 people, and my high school had 2,000. I went to college with people from high schools of 200. In Indiana, my town is the second largest. When I visit larger places, however, I realize that even though my city was big by IN standards, it is very small compared to the Eastern Seaboard cities.  I’m all about an informed public and being around people like that, but I also value midwestern morals and manners.

I’m a nice girl. I smile at people, I talk to people. I reserve judgement, and try to be nice to everyone I meet. I can find joy in simple pleasures. I like open space and nature. I don’t mind discussing corn, or spending a weekend just hanging out by a lake. I enjoy long drives to get places. Don’t get me wrong – I love the culture, museums, art, music, sport, and educational benefits of a large city. I just don’t know that I want to live in one…definitely not long term. I want to be near enough to one to take advantage of the nighttime and weekend activities, but I want my suburban/semi-rural living.

As much as I’m a “career-woman,” I’d also be a great soccer mom. I’m not ready for kids just yet, as I don’t feel I’ve lived enough yet (plus I’m not patient enough or settled enough), but I want them someday. I want a house, a husband. I don’t want to have to give up my job, though. I know in government, they’re cooperative. And, in theory, if I get the right federal appointment, I could transfer to a smaller town in a few years, maybe.

Hard choices. I’m still staying on the DC track of my program; I understand the logic of how much it will get me ahead. I’m just revisiting choices I made when I moved to Pittsburgh; a smaller school, in a smaller place would have suited me. I’d be just as happy working in a local government office in the long-term, even though I’m pursuing jobs at the national “super ambitious” level.

4) I need to reassert my comprehension of my own knowledge.

I started qualifying my answers again. I’m one of the youngest people in my grad program, and sometimes I feel really incompetent. I forget that I’m just as qualified to be in the program, that I’m intelligent too. I doubt myself. When that happens, I start to preface my answers to things with “I don’t know, but…” then I give the answer. I raise my voice at the end of statements, indicating uncertainty. This only makes people doubt me. NO MORE.  I DO know what I’m talking about. A friend recommended that I think “what would a man do” before I speak up…which is sad, but true. Men aren’t afraid to be falsely confident, and they rarely show fear at being wrong. I need to absorb that mentality.

5) Valentine’s Day –> Cupid = Santa?

If Cupid were Santa, and I could ask for anything romance-related that I wanted, it would be this:

I want to go on a date with a Dominant fellow, and surrender control for the entirety – no decisions. That includes dinner and whatever activities. I don’t want to pick the restaurant, or the movie. I am ok giving input when requested, but I don’t want to make the choices. The specifics don’t matter as much – I don’t care what activities we do (I’m really easily pleased), but that’s the gist of it.

If Cupid was feeling particularly generous, the fellow and I would have enough attraction that I’d enjoy him touching me, and he could assume temporary “ownership” for the evening as well. That could include discrete torment or teasing throughout the evening or afterwards. Maybe not full on sex, but again, that’s the gist of it.

Either way, the first part would be enough. I’ve experimented with different types of kinky play, and I enjoy doing that and will continue to do so. I want to experiment more with actual power exchange, in an everyday scenario, when it isn’t as sexual. I want to feel that type of submission. I realize it’d be all the better with someone I really like and am attracted to, and have hope of a relationship with, but I figured I’d keep my Cupid requests on the lower expectations side of things.

~

If I haven’t said so before, I like things in multiples of 5, so that’ll be all.