TastyTrixie.com

Archive for December, 2009

Last night I couldn’t steer my mind away from crazy people so I decided to do the only thing that could compete for my brain’s attention: googling the shit out of my ex-husband.

We’ve been divorced for a long time (ten years? I can’t remember exactly) and haven’t spoken in almost as long so it worried me to get a couple of phone calls for him this month from anonymous business entities. I can only guess that our credit reports are somehow still linked so I worried (even though it’s not my place to, unless it’s going to fuck up my OWN credit) that he’s in some kind of financial trouble.

I found a picture of him skydiving and his wife doing something similarly adventurous. Pictures of them on a cruise. Memberships to outdoorsy clubs. Evidently he has a Really Good Job (phew!) and so does she. I felt relieved and happy for them, and sort of relieved for myself that I don’t need to feel guilty for wasting part of his life; it all seems to have worked out for the best.

As I kept digging I even started feeling like an incompetent lazy-ass. Here I make money on taking pictures, but it’s my ex-husband who seems to know everything technical about cameras, including machining his own fancy-ass lens and accessories. They have all kinds of detailed, finely-crafted hobbies requiring expertise and ambition, things I do not possess. The only thing I remember him making while *we* were together was chicken with rice.

Okay, I’m exaggerating slightly, but it was a good reminder of my own weaknesses and flaws and how my own personality negatively impacted our relationship. There are so many things that I blamed on incompatibility and HIS personality and problems that were really ME BEING AN ASSHOLE. If he was depressed and lazy, maybe it was partly because *I* was depressing and lazy. I’m not saying I regret our marriage ending because I do NOT, just that I’m glad to be able to learn something from it even now. Glad that we are both, I hope, better people now because of mistakes we made together. We are both first-borns which is a recipe for a shitty relationship; we probably just brought out the worst in each other.

Still, I wish I didn’t find out one of their hobbies brings them to our town sometimes. Dude, you LIVE IN ANOTHER COUNTRY NOW! Why do you need to come to *OUR* small town to recreate?!? This is *MY* territory!! Not one you ever had any designs on before! Not a place you have any claim on!

It’s hard to believe that he’s almost fifty now. Wacky. Fingers crossed that the phone calls stop and were just marketing fuckers or something like that. I hope it is smooth sailing and skydiving and whatever else they like to do for the rest of their lives.

While walking, December 23rd, 2009

We walked downtown to our favorite sandwich and coffee joint. Delia finished her lunch and groaned about how over-full she was.

“Foundered?” I asked her.

“What?”

“Are you foundered?”

“Founded? Floundered? WHAT?”

“No, FOUNDERED! Are you FOUNDERED!”

She looked even more confused when she answered, “no . . . I’m totally LOSTered”.

*****

We’ve been together more than seven years. Over this most recent one, her body has become new to her and to us. There are so many things you can’t see or feel by looking at pictures. Changes only I’m privy to.  When I place my hand over hers, it’s so soft. Her arms are so soft.  Her mouth is so yielding. Her face is so soft and looks so different to me. In ways you might not notice if you haven’t been lying in bed with her every night for seven years. Luminous, radiant, serene . . . heart-meltingly beautiful.

She reminds me of divinity. White whipped waves of sweet solid froth that looks substantial until you hold it in your mouth and it’s a mass of a million tiny soft pockets of air you absorb so fast. You’re eating sweet air given just enough of a slight temporary body to inform you you’re privileged to devour the form of an angel. Her tongue is like that. The way you melt into your girlfriend’s body. The way you melt into togetherness and your mouth is full of nothing but sweet. The edges are just a frame for softness. I like to hold her in my mouth, close my eyes, and let her dissolve into my bloodstream.

There are recipes for this. Special chemistries that rely on the temperature and the weight and the wetness of the air plus a perfect balance of ingredients. It’s a very delicate process, and only certain ladies have the gift to create bodies of divinity. My girlfriend is one of them. It’s art, inheritance, science . . . and a gift gods only bestow on a few.

While she was cooking I kissed her on the ankle.

*****

We saw Santa on a motorcycle at a stoplight. I whooped and he waved. We waved.

A few blocks later we passed a playground with a dozen kids telling us, telling each other, telling their parents, telling everyone:

THE REAL SANTA!! I saw the real Santa! The REAL Santa on a motorcycle!! I saw him! It was the real Santa! Did you see Santa? I SAW SANTA!

They celebrated with shock and awe and hysterical thanksgiving this fleeting glimpse of a man in a red suit riding by on a black and chrome motorcycle.  THE REAL SANTA!! Little evangelical Santa believers, riled up with faith revived.

It was fucking beautiful.

*****

On Christmas Eve we had pizza slices for a big snack. I couldn’t stop kissing her mouth, our lips slick with orange-colored oil. Looking at her mouth and wanting to press my smile into hers. I took a picture of her and sent it when a song came on the radio. I asked her and all of the pizza boys how to spell Skynyrd. Nobody knew for sure but it was a good conversation. Hot open ovens in front of us, cold open door at our backs. Two women kissing each other and three young men spelling S-K-I-N-Y-R-D . . . no, S-K-Y-N-I-R-D . . . wait a second . . . S-K-Y-N-A-R-D.

Pizza time with Delia on Christmas Eve

*****

This is our seventh Christmas together. About six months ago I developed a new fear when I recognized that I wouldn’t know how to live without her. That I’ve forgotten how. Sometimes when I put my hand over her soft hand my chin starts to wobble because of how much that idea scares me.

Our Seventh Christmas Eve Together

If I had a week or two to immerse myself in a certain type of kinky porn and vibe my clit into oblivion, it would start out with taboo toons, specifically a membership to JABcomix, a site I’ve admired since 2003 (but has been around longer than that).

He’s got a special flash book to celebrate Christmas (in addition to the other stuff):

JABcomix White XXXmas Toons

Note: if taboo fantasies trigger bad feelings for you, then this site (and many books you can get in Barnes & Noble, including Anais Nin’s _Delta of Venus_) is not for you.

*****

Hoping to blog pleasant and simple and personal notes tonight, but if not . . . I hope you enjoy whatever holidays you celebrate!

Ahhhhh . . . it’s webwhore drama time!! I’ve been waiting for someone to call out Alexa:

Reality and Faux Ho Bloggers on Carnal Nation

Kat’s response to that piece

Now that people are publicly airing their suspicions that AlexaRPD is a fraud, I’ll tell you why I started (and continued) linking to her and how/why my irritation with her escalated:

*I’ll pretty much link to any sexy-type blog provided one or more of these conditions are met:

• I’m hit up at the right time (when I have time to check them out & add them)
• they’re already sending me traffic (& I notice it on one of those rare days I check my stats)
• their blogs are told from a personal perspective
• they look like someone my readers/traffic would be interested in

Alexa’s blog qualified on all of those counts. I think the only post I read all the way through was her pet bunny post, which moved me. It also did something very few bloggers have the time or ability to do: it told a whole, coherent story. So . . . sex blog, nicely presented, obviously HAS traffic (and will continue to attract traffic) equals good link exchange for me. BECAUSE PART OF WHY I BLOG IS TO MAKE MONEY/attract members to my site.

At first I tried reading parts of a few more posts — the sexy ones — and while they do not do it for me and struck me as exaggerated and full of shit, I didn’t feel outraged even though I sensed the person writing the posts was manufacturing most, if not all, of the content in her imagination. I have HATED reading mean-spirited accusations about bloggers I’ve loved: that they must actually be men, that they couldn’t really possibly be for REAL, blah blah blah. I didn’t want to be one of those people and frankly I didn’t have the time or interest to read enough of her blog to gather “evidence” on her. I exchanged links with her to get traffic to my site and recognized that her blog is the kind that will have many loyal followers. While I may privately harumph at someone who just can’t ever get enough of throat-fucking (her specialty, if I remember correctly), obviously there are many wankers who eat that up.

I actually experienced what now sounds like a disproportionately higher level of irritation over how much she sounded a lot like another(?) Alexa who had a blog called A New York Escorts Confessions (also charged with being fake). I exchanged links with her once upon a time, too, even though that missing apostrophe right in her title DROVE ME FUCKING BATSHIT. I was way more aghast at her idiotic unwillingness to acknowledge and CORRECT her mistake (claiming instead that she did it on purpose for aesthetic reasons) than I was at her concocting or sexing up posts, but again — TRAFFIC. Those of you who blog purely for fun and attention and sparkling conversations in comments (GAG) may not get it (and be sputtering, “but . . . but . . . *I* deserve those sparkling comments more than FAKEY ALEXA does!!” which is probably true), but if I were to not accept traffic (and even PAY for it with reciprocal links and/or affiliate payouts) from sources I didn’t totally love and/or respect we wouldn’t be able to make a living on our sites. Seriously, whatever wrongs AlexaRPD has committed are incredibly small fries compared to the really foul and depressing shit I’ve dealt with from other “colleagues” so it wasn’t particularly troubling to me or something I felt like I needed to get to the bottom of.

Perhaps I’d have felt differently if she were claiming to be a camgirl, though, rather than an escort and former stripper. On the other hand, probably not. There are lots of sites I link to for money even though I don’t LIKE the people who run them or their work is not my cup of tea or who disseminate wrong/stupid information or whatever. I know some of you may find this appalling, but I only feel the slightest twinges of guilt over that. Like, that guilt is miniscule compared to the irritation, say, of a wayward hair in my sock pulling down on the skin between two of my toes. It’s not a whore sellout thing, either: today I saw that some of our very liberal friends took money from the government to provide training to the US Border Patrol to do some very UNprogressive freedom-eroding shit. When I think of all the civilians/non-sex workers who compromise their ethics for money (sometimes without a second thought) I really have a hard time feeling like I need to be a bigger boycotter and censor and ethical tightrope walker. I do not need to be up on the high horse other people insist on riding, instead I’ll stay down here with the common folk, shoveling shit and making money.

AlexaRPD follows me on Twitter (perhaps will be amended after this post to followED) and I have followed her back not just for the traffic exchange, but because she is constantly reading online and posts lots of pertinent sex worker-y news links before anyone else does. Is that one of the many red flags that she has way too much time on her hands to really be doing all the work and school and travel she claims? Totally. Does it make me want to unfollow her? No. I want to read the links she posts and I want the traffic. Didn’t much give a fuck.

But I *started* to give a fuck. The first time I started giving a fuck was when she posted a “Sex Ed” entry attempting to school  people on transgender and made some really glaring mistakes like writing as though all transsexuals are MTF (male to female) and just take estrogen for hormone therapy. When a transman got pissed about this in the comments, Alexa’s response wasn’t “OMG — thanks for pointing out to me that my information is completely wrong as applies to FTM transsexuals!” Instead it was hostile. Like the no-apostrophe defense, but much worse. I started writing comments but didn’t post them, realizing as the debate raged on in the comments and Alexa deleted sensible feedback without ONCE apologizing or hastening to correct her mistakes that THIS IS A PERSON WHO NEVER ADMITS TO BEING WRONG even when she should be totally fucking embarrassed to pretend that she’s right. And there is absolutely no point in trying to communicate with her. It irritated me so much, though, that I kept the comments I wrote (but didn’t post) in a draft in my mailbox. Here they are:

I don’t know if anyone else pointed it out as far as factual errors go (and I could be wrong too) but I *think* it actually IS uncommon — extremely — for people to be born with “well-defined sets of both genitals present”. I’m not an expert and I don’t think anyone could be, particularly when all of this stuff  (terms, expectations, scientific research) is still evolving BUT I can totally understand why people would get defensive, pissed and call you out on things. Like mostly-defaulting to talking about MTF transpeople and then not getting it when someone pointed out that FTM people obviously have a whole different HRT (hormone replacement therapy) plan. So as far as specific things to correct? The line “This might include surgical alteration, but may also include the commencement of hormonal treatments (estrogen, largely).” I don’t know if you meant to and didn’t get to it, or what. There’s no way to leave that as is and make it sound inclusive of FTM people and that definitely is a pet peeve of mine, that transwomen are fetishized and sensationalized and much more visible in the media like they are THE ONLY transpeople, while transmen are this invisible population — again where the people born with pussies are secondary to the people born with penises whose trials and tribulations and experiences are what all our discussions are built around with the biological cunt-owners being footnotes and exceptions to the rule instead of rulemakers themselves.

Being more specific about HRT *is* really important, I think, and it wouldn’t take that much space to add “usually estrogen & testosterone blockers for MTF and testosterone and progestin for FTM”. It’s really important for people to understand you’re not just ADDING hormones, but trying to counteract the ones you’ve already got.

So let’s call that Strike One for Alexa, the whole “never admits when she’s wrong” problem. With a cherry on top of “pretends she’s a ’sex educator’ when she is not”.

Strike Two was/is that she’s a shameless content thief and on top of that brags about all of the traffic she gets. I wouldn’t resent this if she got all of that traffic from her bullshit stories because writing those does take time and they ARE valuable to her readers regardless of whether or not they are true. Okay, I would still resent that a wee bit. But what REALLY pisses me off? That she gets and retains a lot of traffic from posting stolen  content on her erotic buttholes erotic facials erotic this and that picpost blogs. All of those shiny, pretty tumblers she’s so proud of are built entirely on her “collection” of photos she’s not in and didn’t take AND DOESN’T EVEN CREDIT to the real sites, photographers, or models except every so often on accident when the URL stamp hasn’t been cut off.

My ears are burning up just typing this, it makes me so mad. I remember seeing one of my friend’s faces smiling pretty with a load of cum on it in one of the pics Alexa posted with absolutely no mention of my friend’s name or her site and it just brought it home even harder to me that this person who pretends to be a sex worker, who pretends to be a sex worker advocate, is one of those people who thinks she has a right to capitalize on our bodies and our work for her own gain, to just TAKE our work like it’s free and redistribute. She’s like the guys on Craigslist who post that they have hard drives for sale with 437 gigs of porn on them that they’ve spent five years “collecting” or this one guy who wrote to me asking for a free membership to my site in exchange for the “collection” of menstrual porn he’d taken painstakingly snagged from here and there, by hook and by crook. When I angrily said no, he was like, “but I spent all of this time LABELING everything and putting them into folders! MY COLLECTION IS REALLY VALUABLE!”

Listen, I know most everybody’s been there before, very excited about the world wide treasure trove of free porn and bulletin boards and we want to show it off to people, our great taste in porn (or “erotic art”) and our amazing discoveries, but most of us had someone take us and shake us and remind us of a little thing called fucking COPYRIGHT. I am still a lot looser than other people when it comes to blogging on that — I don’t think you need to ask everybody for permission and think it’s fine to post stuff that’s out there for free already as long as it’s just a couple of samples AND YOU PROVIDE CREDIT to the original artist or a link back to where you found it or even just say “I wish I knew where this came from so I could credit the creators and models”. A blog-sized photo or three is like a quote from a book and seems to me fair use. But when your entire blog is comprised solely of uncredited porn? You’re just a thief. I’m apt to be forgiving when it’s someone who doesn’t know any better, but this Alexa person DOES know better, I’m sure of it, if she knows how to parse the language of 2257 laws while deliberately ignoring copyright infringement.

I am somebody who thinks copyright and trademark laws go a bit too far to the point where they constitute culture theft; I don’t want it to sound like I think every Joe Schmoe who posts a handful of pics on his rinky dink blog of his fave porn star should be prosecuted and fined thousands of dollars, but when someone has the audacity to brag about all of her traffic that’s built on stolen uncredited content, then she’s just a Big Asshole. And on top of that to have posted a portfolio that she claimed was of herself but was really photos of Princess Blue Eyez? That takes the theft to a whole other level and proves she’s a fraud (unless she is/was the model for that site).

Strike Three: it’s a petty one. But it was the day she told me I didn’t “get” what Twitter is for because I defended those of us who don’t feel the need/don’t have time to respond to questions tweeted to us. She is one of those “you owe a response to people” types who clearly doesn’t HAVE A REAL FUCKING JOB consuming all of her time the way we real sex workers do, those of us who realize it’s not our obligation to interact with and respond to people for free. Those of us who actually DO set a price on our time. And just goes back to Strike Number One of never admitting she’s wrong, which in this version is “there’s only one right way to do things (in this case use Twitter) and that is MY way”.

It all added up to me developing a blistering rage whenever I saw her saying similar things to other people, lecturing and chastising people who actually DO know what they’re talking about, who actually DO work their asses off and do jobs where we’ve sacrificed our privacy and taken real risks to do our work, all from this person who refuses to admit she’s wrong when it matters, even about little things. This person who doesn’t have the first clue or morsel of respect for our work, co-opting our work for his or herself thinking she can leverage her bullshit and ill-won popularity into a book deal or maybe just doing it because it greases his or her borderline personality disorder.

I’ve been wanting to say all of this for awhile now, but honestly didn’t want to be the one to step up and call her out on it because a person who has this much time on her hands could be the kind of person who will fuck with you indefinitely. And she certainly won’t learn anything from it or admit she’s wrong about anything so I just figured . . . WHY BOTHER?

Because who really cares if she’s a fake? Not her readers, apparently, who love an invisible woman with stolen pictures who never has a tired, stinky, or headachy story to tell about sex and ALWAYS sleeps naked and might invite YOU to a gang bang! And at first I was content to not care, either, until it wasn’t just about amusing herself with hypersexed tales to make ad sales to escort sites.

But I do care now. WE care. Those of us who pour our guts out for real, who HAVE our faces plastered with cum and other substances all over the internet, who are trying to make ends meet, who insist our time and our sex work is valuable and we should be compensated for it and our time in general, who HAVE gone to the schools we say we have, who are in some cases real educators . . . we care when you steal from us and then have the balls to teach people “sex ed” and gender ed and sex work 101 and scold us.

We care when you insinuate yourself into our virtual midst, insert yourself into our conversations and you can see US and take from US and pretend to be one of US . . . while you hide behind your charade. It’s fucking gross to those of us who are bonafide and verified. Those of us who have real work to do, posing for and/or shooting the pictures you steal, being real advocates for sex workers, actually TEACHING (as opposed to claiming we’re educators in interviews where your credentials are never verified), talking to real clients and customers (as opposed to simply amusing ourselves engaging in hot chat with freeloaders and teenagers who like our blogs). Yes, there are other anonymous sex worker bloggers some of whom I *adore* without question. But the thing is THEY NEVER DID THIS BULLSHIT ALEXA IS DOING. The content theft (to the EXTENT she does it), the hypocritical hand-slapping, and the offensive posturing.

To paraphrase a friend’s complaint, it’s creepy that this person knows who we are, but we don’t know who s/he is . . . and that person KNOWS he has an advantage over us when he talks to us . . . knows that he’s tricking us into treating him like the person he isn’t, like he’s one of us (and by “us” I don’t mean all of us are the same or do the same jobs or have the same identities). Alexa is basically someone who has succeeded in manipulating people into giving him free dances/handjobs/shows/phone sex.

*****

Well then . . . that about does it.

I feel a little ass-y about posting this, but kind of justified because I really wanted to emphasize the thing that matters more, I think, than creating a fake cum-hungry fantasy persona: it’s the hypocrisy of claiming to be a sex worker advocate WHILE YOU STEAL FROM THEM. The hypocrisy of “educating” people on transgender while you delete educational comments and corrections FROM PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY ARE. You know . . . stuff like that is bigger and more fucked-up than playing virtual dress-up. And I did want to provide an explanation for deleting my link to her and turning off all that ill-gotten traffic, so there you have it.

Note: I will not think less of you if you’re one of my readers or members and you continue to enjoy her blog (with a grain of salt please?) and I’m not saying that EVERYTHING on her blog is wrong, stupid or patently false; I’ve agreed with many things she’s said, and there WAS that awesome pet rabbit, Hansel. I definitely want to remind you, though, that all those pictures she posts? There are real people in them and real photographers who made them, so stop thanking Alexa for providing you with them, instead insist that she credits those in the images she shares so you can support (I hope) the people who ACTUALLY MAKE visual art/porn/erotica, not just steal it.

Oh man! I almost forgot that one time she told me I really *must* start waxing my twat, that my lovers would thank me for it. If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time you probably know that I don’t take kindly to advice on pubic hair removal, even when coaxed with a wink and the promise of someone else appreciating it. Nothing against waxing, which I’m open to, just not so open to being patronized by someone who crows about her eversmooth grooming but has never shown a photo of her biscuit, if she actually has one.

Edited to add: just noticed a midnight post from Mistress Matisse on the subject.

I wish I had the time and focus to say I read 357 books in 2009, but the truth is I only actually FINISHED around 35 and I don’t think any of them were really “new” books. Here are my six+ favorites:

The New York Trilogy

The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster

Sheer fucking perfection. Sidewalking stories that spiral inward and out, mirroring slightly fractured selves all with the feeling of noir detective stories, but . . . not.

Stardust

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

I know, I’m totally behind the times. And this is only the second of his books I’ve read (the other one being American Gods, parts of which I enjoyed immensely). Basically felt like the PERFECT grown-up bedtime book. I adored it. It’s the kind of book you recognize as something you’ve been longing for (in this case, a fairy tale) a long time and finally found. Note: I felt the same way about The New York Trilogy, but it answered a different longing.

The Abhorsen Trilogy

The Abhorsen Trilogy (Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen) by Garth Nix

Magic, adventure, strong female leads on journeys/missions.

I prefer Philip Pullman’s and Garth Nix’s heroines to Harry Potter. Nothing against J.K. Rowling – I admire her and of course ENJOYED her books and think they’re worth celebrating as a phenom/something we can all (mostly) love in common, but the Harry Potter series didn’t take me to the places His Dark Materials and The Abhorsen Trilogy have, or move me the way those did (and STILL do when I think of them). What I’m trying to say is that if Harry Potter is the be all, end all for you then maybe my book recs won’t work for you.

The Road to Damietta

The Road to Damietta by Scott O’Dell

Historical fiction by the guy we all love for writing Island of the Blue Dolphins. Here’s what I said about it on GoodReads:

Outstanding; I’m so glad I ran across this book that I’d never HEARD of before and wouldn’t have bought if it weren’t for vaguely recalling how hard Island of the Blue Dolphins rocked. I’m not someone who’s into reading about saints or the crusades or Italy or any of that; it’s just a frank, well-researched story of a girl’s infatuation that doesn’t resemble any other cliched overtold version of same. Pulls in so many provocative issues (but in a simply-told, objective way) but most of all is ju…more Outstanding; I’m so glad I ran across this book that I’d never HEARD of before and wouldn’t have bought if it weren’t for vaguely recalling how hard Island of the Blue Dolphins rocked. I’m not someone who’s into reading about saints or the crusades or Italy or any of that; it’s just a frank, well-researched story of a girl’s infatuation that doesn’t resemble any other cliched overtold version of same. Pulls in so many provocative issues (but in a simply-told, objective way) but most of all is just a perfectly told STORY, or story blanketing other stories.

I’m so glad I didn’t know anything about this book or expect anything or see any of it coming. Just beautifully done in a well balanced, simply-stated way (but still very sensually told). I really appreciated this one; it read totally differently from anything else I’ve had my nose in lately.

Especially interesting to read as an alternative YA “romance”/adventure to Twilight, et al. ESPECIALLY considering the criticisms of the religious “agenda” of those books, this is a pretty healthy alternative.

Note: if you’re afraid of reading anything to DO with religion assuming it will be religious itself, you don’t have to worry with this one. Unless you’re one of those people who breaks out in hives at the mere mention of Jesus.

The Motel Life

The Motel Life: A Novel by Willy Vlautin

A book about brothers, it felt close to me. Not because I recognized myself in them in literal ways, but . . . something(s) else. Maybe that part of me that gets sick and fucking tired of most books being about (or written by) people living on the East Coast (specifically the NORTHeast) or in London or fucking California. Maybe it’s just a class thing, I don’t know, but it’s one of the few books I read this year with characters who seemed like people I would actually meet in real life (I suppose after listing so much fantasy you’re like, “DUH, because the other shit you read takes place in the land of fey!”). Again, here’s what I posted on Good Reads:

I couldn’t help hearing most people’s voices in this book sounding like Moe’s voice on The Simpsons. Moe is my fave Simpson character, so maybe that partially explains my love for this beautiful, sad fucking book. The other part of the explanation is just that it’s a pretty special book. I was afraid going into it that it would be unbearably depressing, but it wasn’t. Depressing, yes . . . but just squeaks by as BARELY bearable. I did find myself with tears dripping down my face a few times, but…more I couldn’t help hearing most people’s voices in this book sounding like Moe’s voice on The Simpsons. Moe is my fave Simpson character, so maybe that partially explains my love for this beautiful, sad fucking book. The other part of the explanation is just that it’s a pretty special book. I was afraid going into it that it would be unbearably depressing, but it wasn’t. Depressing, yes . . . but just squeaks by as BARELY bearable. I did find myself with tears dripping down my face a few times, but they were gritty and slow and tiredly sweet, not headache-inducing wailers.

It felt very American, very WESTERN American and like it could have taken place any time between 1930 and the present (even though there are real events that place it in one specific time period).

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

I know!! Another book for kids!! And I totally should’ve read it when I was in fourth grade or whatever, but didn’t, and I’m GLAD because it was so awesome to read new as an adult. And hey, aren’t you glad something written by a woman made my favorites list? Phew! Me too . . .

*****

I mostly just read for pleasure these days, so sorry I don’t have nonfiction in my list. It’s just not relaxing for me to read about things that matter, and I have enough “mattering” in my life for now. Mostly I just want to lose myself in someone else’s story and not feel like I have to DO something about it or commit a bunch of facts to memory. But wait, I actually *did* read some nonfiction . . . it was light stuff, though, that couldn’t come close to edging out my faves.

You can see what I’m reading (and have already read) by visiting my GoodReads profile or checking the badge in my right sidebar (over there >>> to the right and down). My ratings are pretty much meaningless (aren’t those star systems ALWAYS meaningless??) and I’m not good at “reviewing” books, but I enjoy that site a lot and like to see what other people are reading.

I meant to link to this a LONG time ago, but it’s still worth reading: Caramel’s interview with Delia. She’s been a fan and supporter of our sites for a long time which makes a big difference in her approach to asking questions that result in genuine and revealing answers. I REALLY appreciate that and am looking forward to seeing what she might ask me for her other blog, Caramel’s Girls (she has very good taste, but perhaps I am biased).

*****

In other Delia-esque news, she is nominated again for a Tranny Award for Best Amateur Website. I can’t even begin to predict who will win since all of the nominated sites have unique and special components (namely the individual girls themselves) that are so hard to compare to each other. Looking at some of those sites gets me all excited again about do-it-yourself porn and personality sites.

*****

Speaking of do-it-yourselfing, I’m building another design for my site since this blog thing on the front page isn’t working so well. I started doing it tonight. As suggested and discussed with a few people I could still try putting an eye-catching and prominent banner or enter graphic in the middle that leads to this tour or a new one and see if that works. We’ll see . . . trying not to grumble.

I’m experimenting with thinking of my higher power as PLEASURE. Not necessarily (in fact RARELY) sexual pleasure, but more sensual pleasures . . . looking around and noticing what looks or sounds beautiful and what would feel good to touch . . . what DOES feel good to touch. And noticing what I’m doing, assessing it, and choosing to do something more pleasurable if what I’m doing isn’t important and also is NOT pleasurable.

I came home from a meeting today where my period started and I was reminded of this experiment and what I need to practice, and sat down at my computer with a warm, wet bloody mess in my panties having already sort of forgotten all of that when a strange sensation came over my entire mind and body. It felt like I’d been meditating and my body was deeply relaxed, but it was totally spontaneous; all of a sudden my body was filled up, like I was a thick balloon and was filled up with warm, fat air, ready to rise and float heavily just inches above where I sat.

The sensation didn’t last long, but it was fucking awesome. I don’t know if it had something to do with my period or frame of mind or what.

Maybe I have a brain tumor; the doctor wanted me to go for a scan but I think she has her head straight up her ass. I do not have a brain tumor – it’s amazing that the same doctor who thinks it makes sense to only test one aspect of thyroid function (dismissing the usefulness of adding less than fifty dollars worth of additional tests) wants me to get a scan that costs thousands of dollars when I complained of having a bad taste in my mouth (which has since gone away). Well, and headaches and stuff, too. But WHATEVER.

*****

This whole blog-on-the-front-page-of-my-porn-site thing is totally NOT working out in terms of making sales. I don’t know what to do about it. I mean, I have ideas and know a million ways to address the problem(s), but I don’t have time for that (and it’s not going to work to move it back to tastytrixie.com/blog). I’m also getting really burned out on multitasking and just the general way that my job(s) work, which involve so much starting and stopping and pausing and waiting and switching gears and redoing shit. There’s a lot of repetition and no continuity. I just want to immerse myself in doing ONE THING with ONE TOOL for a couple of weeks REGULARLY and not have to fuck with all this other bullshit. The dual nature of internet work demanding immediacy (and foisting it upon you in the form of a billion interruptions) combined with so much LAGGING — slow connections, clicks-and-waits repeated over and over . . . REFRESHING; it’s taking a toll on my happiness. I’m also tired of spending so much time trying to market our sites. It has to be done, but it’s not what I want to do, at least not to the extent that I need to do it. We’ve been wearing too many hats for too many years and I’m really weary of it. My work could be so pleasurable if it wasn’t the work of seven people.

*****

So there you have it illustrated . . . there’s just no way my blog can be MY blog and also make people with semi-hards just hitting it for the first time turn into actual paying customers. The blog is a wilter of stiff cocks (or a very SLOW builder of erections). It’s a very rare bird who’s going to **NEED** to JOIN RIGHT NOW after hitting an entry like this one or this picture with me sprouting antlers and belly rolls, no matter how charming and beautiful I think that pic is.

*****

NOTE: I am NOT sharing these thoughts and feelings in search of advice, so please don’t interpret it that way.