Pixie, Paperdoll, Cartoon

I realize I need to blog more of these random events that happen in the store. Most of the time these odd conversations/questions/offers now strike me as nothing more than a normal day in the store. Stories of the horrid things people use as lube. [ahem. wd40 as anal lube? Some people are too stupid to live.] The double lives of some of my regulars. [my church deacon who likes gay porn and meth. Sweet guy though] It's never a dull day in the porn store.

For today I just had the sweetest, kindly Grandfather who offered to pay me for the 'high honor' of brushing my hair. He also wants me to order him a nice chastity belt. Perhaps because I've always had short hair, no one has ever expressed interest in my hair minus comments on the color.

I'm strangely flattered.

After I updated last night and then crawled my way into bed something clicked in my brain. It was almost audible, like a switch turned and I was alright again. Maybe I should have written something sooner, or maybe it was just a process I had to go through. Either way, I am back to feeling like Me again. It feels good.

Quick rundown of the last two months. Xmas season in the store kicked serious arse, my paychecks where phat and that helped for presents and the like. For the actual holiday M and I made out like bandits, he got a new computer and fun gadgets. I got a ton of things for the apartment that were badly needed, and some cute new clothing. NYE was rather quiet for us, spending the evening with another couple laughing and having a good time.

Shortly after NYE I tripped over the kitten and broke my pelvis. Well, I rebroke it after breaking it for the first time over the summer. Had to take some time off work, and I've been rolling around in a wheelchair up until today when I graduate to the cane. Whee!

Next month some of my family is coming into town, which I am quite excited about. With the broken pelvis I haven't been moving around a lot, so most of the xmas gifts have yet to be put up. Next week is going to be spent getting the apartment back into order after weeks of chaos.

Today getting into the swing of being alright is almost easy. Hope it continues.

Going Rogue - It's the term this fab gender bender I know uses being a hermit. As she says, is pirate-ish and much cooler sounding. I've been quiet, busy, gathering myself. Seems like I've said that a lot this last year, and every time it has been true. I've needed to spend a lot of time within my own head, not letting anything out until I've absorbed it's meaning. Lots of time has been spent in the bath, up late into the night reading, and laying quietly in the dark just being. To be honest, most of the time I haven't even known why I've needed to be so detached. Though I think I am starting to figure out a bit of it, though it seems almost silly.

Learning how to be okay has been harder than I thought it would be. A vast majority of my life has been crisis and upheaval, so much so that I don't quite know how to be when I'm not winging it. Now I am comfortable. I've been comfortable for long enough that the novelty has worn off, I no longer expect it to go away at any moment. Safe and stable in nearly every aspect of my life. My husband-to-be is the most amazing, intelligent, talented, loving, funny, sexy man I've ever met and the love of my life. We live in a nice apartment in a very safe and rather upscale area of town. Both of us are very secure in jobs we love making enough to be comfortable and keep a small nest egg. Minus a few problems, my health is better than it has ever been. [I re-broke my pelvis early in the month. Long story.] I've lost a ton of weight. I'm stable, and I'm not bored out of my skull or being self destructive. It's really kinda bizarre.

I did this, this turn around, quickly. A little over a year ago I was about at my rock bottom. Living in my tiny studio, out of work and alone in Milwaukee. Completely lost and just wandering mostly blindly through life. I had no plans, no goals, no long term thinking beyond the next day. I was terrified of life because I didn't know how I was going to make it. Really, I moved back to Dallas because I didn't know where else to go and I knew that here I had people who loved me that I could count on. Now I'm tripped up because my life isn't like that, because now I feel like I can do about anything and I have no idea where to start.

On LiveJournal earlier today I was reading a post in a community I belong to that has stayed rattling around my head. The community itself is called poor_skills and a wealth of information/help on getting by on a tight budget. This post was about dealing with a spouse/partner who has no fiscal skills and was throwing a monkey wrench into their budget. That wasn't so much what rang true, what did was how the wife was describing how she believed that he did these things. 'He grew up dirt poor, never assumed he'd ever have any money so he never thought about it. That's exactly my story, but now I am thinking about it. Thankfully I didn't make that many mistakes financially to haunt me now..but my point is - I never had anything, I never though I'd ever have anything, so I didn't think about it.

I think I've stopped making sense, so I'm going to bed. I'm sure I'll be staying rogue for a while, but not as severely as before.

Xoh

Sometimes I miss my small studio apartment on the East Side of Milwaukee and the times I'd stay awake all night. I'd listen to random singer songwriters, smoking too much till the sun came up so I could wander down to the coffee shop by the lake. Riding the bus across town to hit up the little feminist book shop in bayview, going to hole in the wall clubs in Riverwest and then stumbling up three flights of stairs after drinking too much pbr. Roof parties with other writers, artists, lit students, and starving hipsters. I was too poor to eat, miserable and lonely, but horridly fashionable. Jumping from one disaster to the next.

Tonight I seem to be doing a mild recreation of those nights, as I got a second wind around 2:30am that lead me to start cleaning my living room instead of going to bed like a responsible adult. Something in me is rebelling against the responsible adult I've been the last few weeks I assume, and since I don't have anywhere to be tomorrow I am indulging. I've done all the cleaning I can do with a sleeping boy in the next room and sleeping neighbors all around me and am now surfing around sprawled over my beautiful blue suede couch. Debating indulging in a bowl to help aid in getting to sleep sometime before the sun rises.

[As a side note, I find it greatly amusing that I am far more of a responsible member of society now as a stoner than I ever was in my clean living days.]

There are a number of things I should be doing right now. Sleeping, planning xmas gifts, cleaning the litter box, making the grocery list for the week..ect - however I'm going to stay here and just enjoy being for a little while. Enjoy the quiet all around me, and be glad I found my way out of chaos.

What's your favorite radio station, past or present?

Since Clear Channel owns just about all the radio waves in the DFW Metroplex, I mostly listen to NPR. On the way home from work my honey and I listen to the BBC on PRI [Public Radio International] and have almost every night for the last year. Sadly npr doesn't really fly in the sex shop, so I either leave the radio on the generic new rock station the day guy listens to or switch over to Jack FM.

While I'm not a music snob by any means, feminist folk rock is not often heard on the radio [not counting college stations] so most of the time I am listening to my iTunes.

Yet again I will end up working 7 days without a day off, and was feeling mildly bitter about this on my way to work. Even funky specialty retail still has the drawbacks of regular retail I suppose, and I do have some flexability with my schedule which is a benefit that most lack. The owner of the store and I were chatting last night about my hours, and how I work less at this location than when I worked for the other set of stores. Yes, before I did 45-65 hours a week and made some shiny paychecks. However the hours had me so worn down that the smallest cold would spiral into something massive and I would be horridly ill for weeks on end. I had no life outside the store and curling up with Michael. I love the stores, I love the product, I loved *most* of my co-workers so I kept at it - even though looking back I realize how miserable I was. Now I have no interest in going over 40 hours a week, and if I don't get my days off I get bitchy. BossMan likes to call me lazy [in a joking way] and compared to many people I know, I am lazy.

I'm okay with that. I'm amazingly lucky right now, combined M and I make enough to live comfortably and I don't need to slave to keep a roof over my head. When he finishes with his undergrad work and goes for his Doctorate I will be the bread winner for a few years, then I'll happily work as many hours as I need to. Till then, I am trying to enjoy myself. I still don't see enough of my friends, and goddess knows I don't see my family as often as I would like to, but I am enjoying my life more right now than I ever have in the past.

Work tonight also reminds me why I do love this job. So far I've had a wonderful chat with a lady in her late 50's about rediscovering her sexuality after what she grinningly called 'the great change', debated what makes an artist a 'starving artist' with a stoner buying papers, helped a newly outed man pick out some good lube, and discussed the joys of watching midget porn while drunk with a young yuppie couple. Within the sex shop I meet people from every walk of life, economic class, color, gender identification, and sexual background. Some people obviously do not want to talk while picking up their porn, but most warm up quickly. [Goodness knows I'm not about to judge if you enjoy shemale porn.]

Within everyday, every customer is an adventure. This is why I work here.

I'm going through my Flickr profile and deleting my nakkid/bewbie [yes, I always spell those words that way. Deal.] pictures.

As the subject line states, people will just have to deal.

Oh, and just for an FYI - I am not doing this because M requested it. He's used to the fact that there will forever be photos of me in the buff floating around teh interwebs. Just something that I want to do.

I love LJ. I've had my journal about 5 years [I think, I'm too lazy to go back and see exactly when I signed up] and reading my friendslist is how I wake up every morning. I've got friends spread around the world and back, and keeping up with them on LJ keeps us all in touch. The communities can be fun, drama-ridden time wasters or genuine resources for information and *gasp* support. A lot of the time they are both. I do wish more of my LJ friends would move over to Vox, as I like the design and feel better over here, but to keep up with those friends I do still spend more time in LJ land than anywhere else.

Creature of habit I suppose.

My list is a collection of Close Friends, Social Butterflies, People I'd Like To Know Better, Acquaintances, and a few I Have No Idea Who The Fuck You Are. Most of the latter I've removed, mostly people collected from my Nakkid Days who went quietly when I announced that I would not be posting free nakkid alt girl pr0n anymore. The problem I'm having right now with my friends list is that there are a few of my friends, who I love dearly, who post the most inane bullshit in their journals. Just mindless MEME responses most of the time [haha dudes!! This 5 question survey says I'm a crazy killer!1! LOLZ], Song lyrics [I'm guilty of that one a few times, but multiple ones a day make Saint Pinkness weep into her Phallix], and the few times you get a real post out of them - the spelling and grammar are so horrific you wish to stab your eyes out. These are intelligent people, many of them decently educated, who cannot spell the most simple of words. Sure, we all make errors. Goodness knows I have and do, but SPELL CHECK PEOPLE!! PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SPELL CHECK!!

*breathes into a paperbag for a few seconds*

There is of course the simple idea of just deleting them. I don't read their posts, and most of the time I talk to them often enough through other means that conversations overlap. However an LJ cut is always noticed, and always causes drama. I've yet to find a nice way to say 'I love you honey, but the things you type make my eyes bleed'. Web 2.0 - Even more chances to alienate people.

Of course if you have any ideas I'd love to hear them.