am i a blogger now?

OG makes a good point: my pronouns need changing. on the other hand, i still think of myself as a reader. i've only made this space as i simply cannot justify blurting my immensely wordy and long-winded remarks on someone else's site. and because sometimes someone else's comments will inspire me, but in an entirely different direction! and i don't want to be rude...

okay, maybe i am a blogger. but only somewhat.

(on a side note, you want to talk about pronoun problems? spend time with some drag queens. that gets confusing. and fast. ;->)

so now that i've taken the plunge, i feel i should backpedal - just a step or two - and do the "first post" post. even though it won't be the first.

i am a lot of things that don't necessarily make sense - as referenced in my profile. so here are some more things that aren't necessarily referenced there.

i am literary, or at least i like to call it that. i love to read. i have to read. it's an addiction. and my reading material goes everywhere from Jane Austen to Leon Uris, stopping at Leslie Charteris, Mercedes Lackey, and Robert Heinlein along the way (and how could i neglect Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers?). i've been reading since i was... three, i think? something like that. maybe two. or four. somewhere in that range, anyway. and my deepest obsession has always been story. character, setting, conflict, they're all important... but without plot, you won't have me. i love old books (see above - they're all out of my timeframe except for Mercedes Lackey) and old language. i'm of the opinion that they knew how to tell a story much better then, and we've lost something in that.

i love punctuation. someone gave me a copy of "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" (by Lynne Truss) and it was nearly my favorite gift ever. commas and apostrophes are among my greatest joys in the english language... okay, this isn't unrelated. anyone ever hear Victor Borge's routine on punctuation? (if not, youtube it - it is wildly funny!) i do that in my head all the time. not so much the sound effects, but placing the commas very specifically; so that i could type what i'm saying and it would make quite as much sense as listening to me talk. more sense, probably; i tend to speak in the same runon sentences as those i write. a friend of mine once said, "you don't really use periods, do you? you just go on for a bit, then toss in a comma and keep going!"

did i mention runon sentences? ;-> i do that. i will go on and on and on... i think it's all Jane Austen's fault, actually. i read Pride and Prejudice at the tender age of ten, and i adored it. and i've since read it... more than a dozen times. at least once a year. so that's at least twenty times. her paragraphs... mmmmm... i utterly delight in a writer whose idea of a paragraph is a single sentence too long to fit on a page! it's truly magnificent... at any rate, i run on and on. if my writing becomes confusing, think of it as my voice and you'll have something rather closer to the truth; i truly do write the way i speak. (and yes, i mentally placed that semicolon. had i been speaking, you would have heard it. i promise.)

i don't capitalise, mostly. if you haven't noticed thus far. proper names, titles, some places... but not sentences in general. it's a stylistic choice and i do it on purpose. i use capitalisation to accent or draw attention to certain things. (that said, however, if you notice glaring spelling errors, please tell me and i'll correct them! i do loathe poor spelling... but i also use the English spelling of a lot of words, so be certain of your own ground before poking at mine!)

i am in the process of trying to move to another state. (no, not the state of confusion.) THIS IS HARD. on the one hand, you can't get a job if you can't interview, and you can't interview when you're sixteen hundred miles away. also most people won't hire you without a permanent address. on the other hand, you can't get an apartment in a city without having a job. argh.

i wish i could write a sex blog. i would love to write a sex blog. then again, i'd love to have a sex life, and just now my sex life is limited to video chats with my Sir, who lives (you guessed it) sixteen hundred miles away. maybe sometimes i will write semi-sexy posts, but i can't make any promises. first because i don't write well at all, and second because coming up with the ideas works me into rather a fervor. besides, i prefer to leave the sexy writing up to the people who do far, far better than i do (RG, OG, etc...) and instead sometimes comment upon it. but who knows? perhaps i'll find inspiration here... ;->

i'm not very good at staying on a subject for long. i mean, i can talk about something for hours, but the process is like... oh, i need a good analogy here... oooh! french braids. i swear, this makes sense. we're all familiar with the idea of conversational tangents, right? (and if you're not, you haven't had enough conversations.) one starts at a subject, and then wanders away from it, like branches on a tree. my conversations go the other way. we start on a subject, go through it for a bit, then i'll leap off to the left for a bit, in what seems to be a completely unrelated direction, and gradually weave it back in. i always have a point. and if you're patient, i'll usually remember what it was. ;-> so a good conversation, to me, is one that has taken a single subject, looked at it singly and in combination with a number of things that relate, touched upon a few things that don't relate (just for perspective), and finally woven together into one cohesive thought. see, like a french braid!

i make no promises about regular postings. this is interesting because it's new, just now. i may lose interest. i may lose time - currently i'm unemployed, so i have oodles of time to write. or not write, as the case more usually is. but i am hoping to find full time work when i move, so that remains to be seen. i also refuse to be pushed around. i am not writing for publication; to me, this is a type of conversation. i am flinging my words upon the waters, hoping that yours will come back to me. i am more than happy to engage in conversation with you on... well, any number of subjects. and if you don't want to engage, i'll talk to myself. but i make no promises for regular content. i find i must be inspired, you see, and that is not predictable. thank heavens i don't do this for a living...

i won't argue religion. my beliefs, while i may choose to share bits of them, are a personal matter. i do enjoy discussing concepts - but i won't tolerate being preached at or proselytised. i also don't talk about politics. i have my viewpoints - who doesn't? - but i refuse to argue them. sometimes i listen to (or read) others' views on certain subjects, because i'm interested in learning more. but i won't argue the point. arguing either politics or religion is, in my opinion, roughly equivalent to wrestling a pig. and as we all know, one should never wrestle with a pig - you both just get dirty, and the pig likes it.

i do, however, have a very strong sense of justice. i won't argue politics - but i will say, for instance, that if you want to make a commitment to a partnership with someone, and you are both legal adults and self-sufficient, then you should be allowed to. (yeah, i'm talking about gay marriage.) on the other hand... oh, bugger that. what it all comes down to is best state by the Wiccan rede (as i was taught it long ago): "An it harm none, do as thou wilt." don't harm anyone else - but otherwise, do what gives you joy.

this has gotten long. almost painfully long. and i could go on... but i need to put clothes on and run errands. so perhaps i will come back to it...

i hope your day treats you well!

So it begins...

now i am wounded.

too many of the bloggers i have grown to love have pulled away - not that i would ever question their right to do so! but for reasons that wound me.

i lurk. i don't comment on blogs often, unless i have something to say that i think no one else will say. not to disparage RG's article (essay? post?) about comments, but my tendency has always been to the wordy and dramatic, and this is your blog, folks, not mine.

but i will say the things no one else says - maybe we all think them, but they get swallowed up in our worries and concerns. so here's to saying the unpopular things.

(Real content begins now.)

ladies and gentlemen (and non-ladies and non-gentle-men) of the blogging community, i place before you this simple truth:

we have no right telling you what to do.

i'll say it again, and i'll use small words, so we'll (the readers) be certain to understand: WE DO NOT GET TO TELL YOU WHAT TO DO.

you open your hearts to us. you open your thoughts, your sketchbooks, your journals and diaries, your very dreams - and even those are both light and dark - to our prying eyes. we are intruders. to borrow an image from OG, we slip into your rooms at night... open your journals, sketchbooks, computers... read everything we can, some of poring over every word time and again; some of us browsing until we find whatever phrase, image, or thought spikes that thing inside us; some of us brushing lightly along the surface and some of us nearly stalkers... and then we go our ways. some of us scribble encouraging little post-it notes; some make corrections in red ink on the margin and in the text; some of us say nothing at all, retreating into our own little worlds with whatever we have gleaned, drawing it out to huddle over it in the darkness, like Smeagol and his Precious; and some of us... well, some of us feel it appropriate to make requests, or even demands.

and that is why i am writing. i am pulling back the curtains on my mind and heart now, expressly to offer a little support to those whom i have loved, albeit silently.

we the readers are guests here. we are visitors, we are... spectators, that's it, on the happenings of your life and the imaginings of your heart and mind. it is not our place to tell you what to do. we have no right to do so. it is one thing entirely to laud an exceptional work (i've done it myself, tonight even!) and ask for more of the same in a courteous fashion. it's another altogether to demand reading material, as though we were trapped in the bathroom at a relative's house, shouting down the hall for a replacement roll of tissue.

we are not your leaders. we are not even your drivers. we are followers, nothing more, and for many rather less. we are observers, and as such we do not have any right of command. we may offer opinions, we may hold out encouragement, but we do not get to drive the bloody bus.

sometimes your musings hypnotise us. sometimes your sketches arouse us. your journals may bore us (well, it's true) occasionally... and sometimes your dreams frighten us. but they are not our thoughts or dreams, and therefore we do not get to command them.

(i know, i'm harping. i do that. i'm amazed i've managed to stay on one subject for any length of time, honestly.)

i'll say this loudly. IT IS YOUR LIFE. you are graciously (or exhibitionistically, if that's a word) letting us in around the edges, to know what you do and think and write and dream. but it is your life. for the love of all that is holy, live it! don't let our approval or lack thereof hold you back. trust me, we don't want the daily grind. we all live it. we don't come to you for it. we come to you to be shaken out of ourselves for a moment, whether that be through arousal or fear, joy or sorrow, or any other number of things. we come to you. we come for your arousal, your tears, your anger, your sexuality, your dreams, your intellect...

don't be anything other than what you are for us.

And to be slightly more specific, don't let us stop you from living. you want to go and jump off a cliff? i will encourage you to either have water at the bottom or to be wearing a parachute or bungee cord, but - jump! you want to engage in illegal activity? i won't break your laws for you, but if that's what you need to do, then do it. (although the whole safe/sane/consensual thing is in play, and abuse is abuse. but that's only because it affects other people.) want to participate in risky sexual behavior? far be it from me to stop you. be aware of your consequences, because they're not my responsibility either, but make your choices and then go and do it.

we are all bound to something, by something. i am bound to my Sir by chains of my own making, and bound to my life by my attachment and lack of enlightenment, and bound to my situation by my fear... you get the idea. but i strive to break those chains, or most of them anyway, so that i can fly free. i have a life, and i am determined to live it. and so should you be. if there is any one thing that i feel free to tell you - inasmuch as i give orders - it would be that. live your life. for the sake of all that is right and good and beautiful, and even for the sake of that which is dark and sometimes not good and a bit frightening - fly!

(i wrote this for those listed below. here - this is a little of what i have thought for you, and of you...)

Daemon - fantastic writer. fabulous. but a man, and a very dominant man at that. i will not follow him. i cannot follow him. i cannot go where he goes. (for a lot of reasons, but a big one is - wow. can we say addictive?) but i will stay over here and observe. i will marvel at the glimpse he occasionally provides into a mind that fascinates and thrills me. and i will long, in my quiet way, for more of the same - but if he cannot do that any longer, then i will be quiet, and appreciate the gifts i've already received.

RG - you are my mystery. you're female, you live in ... where is it again? Thailand, i think? i remember, faintly, as though it were a dream, reading something you wrote about being a sort of family black sheep, as it were. it whispers behind my ear, so that i want to turn to hear it better... but there is nothing there. i don't remember. but you are the first erotic writer i ever found out here on the web, and i love you well. you are my Mata Hari - my exotic dream - my window into a world that is simultaneously as rich as any fairy tale and as freeze-dried as any monday-thru-friday-nine-to-five-corporate-job. (which is all one word because it's all one blurred-together feeling.) i keep reading other people's fiction, but... well, cue up a little Sinead, and know that "nothing compares to you"...

Discerning Dom - another wonderful writer who's touched my - well, no, 'touched my heart' is not at all appropriate here. that's not my heart at all. ;-> but he's certainly pushed my buttons on occasion, and done it in an intelligent and witty fashion. and, good lord, the things that man gets up to... it's enough to make a girl tremble. and be hideously, hideously jealous...

OG - how i envy you sometimes! when i am older than i am now, i want to be like you. in the strong ways, of course. ;-> you are so strong. you inspire me. i write this (of course for all of us, but) mostly for you. literary, lush, seductive, womanly, submissive... i can only dream of some of that.

(i've just noticed how i'm speaking directly to the women but speaking of the men. interesting...)

I have grown to love you all, and i wish you the best in whatever comes.