TastyTrixie.com

Archive for the ‘depression’ Category

The good news: yesterday we got out into the woods to shoot a set of pictures (eventually I took this dress off):

Today I have a set of pictures to post for members of me wearing cowboy boots, which I’m looking forward to sharing.

We also have webcam shows scheduled tonight and tomorrow, as well as a members-only chat.

Now for some of the annoying news:

*One of the webcam networks disconnected our access, but don’t worry, you can still get in a couple of different ways to see Delia’s show tonight. I will alter the page to tell members how. There are, however, a number of good reasons why my approach to dealing with that problem further are complicated. Not for you to worry about, even though blogging about it would make an interesting read — I’ll have to continue to bite my tongue for a few months or years longer.

*Ever since Twitter got attacked early yesterday, I haven’t been able to tweet as TastyTrixie or SpyOnUs. Not via text/my phone, not on our main cable connection, and not on our DSL connection. For some reason, Delia’s twitter account is working just fine, though. I *am* able to post tweets through blip.fm, though. I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but it’s driving me insane. I have a few more tricks up my sleeve to try to get it working, but honestly – there’s a limit to how much time I can spend dealing with one fucking tribulation at a time.

*When I added more spycams, it broke some of them. The microphone on the NightVision cam (formerly known as “ballroom”) is no longer reliably working, and my alternate method of connection to that cam using a different microphone also mysteriously died even after I tried reinstalling the software and other things. I guess the only solution at this point is to buy another microphone. In the meantime, you can still hear bedroom audio (though probably not as well) on the “MoreBed” and “BedroomDesk” cam. When they’re not crapped out. Which they tend to be at inopportune times.

*****

Anyway, little problems like that drive me batshit. I hate to admit how easily frustrated I get with those little unanticipated pinches of obstacality(?), but I do, especially when I’m in the middle of feeling bogged down and incompetent with larger projects (namely redesigning, like, all of our sites and most importantly helping get DeliaTS.com off the ground; I feel like it should be easy but all these design projects are just sucking out my life force). But of course as soon as I get through them, maybe we’ll be a few steps closer to being able to HIRE people to do the parts of design we can’t/don’t want to do. At least, I pray to motherfucking god that will be the case.

I plan on enjoying a lovely and orgasmic show tonight, though, and I hope to make a new sexy show music mix to inspire me. See you there?

I remember working swing shift as one of the very best times in my life. I’d get off work between midnight and two in the morning and drive home in the dark experiencing the magic of RIGHTNESS, of everything having fallen into place and a lifelong problem being solved. That schedule didn’t make everything perfect, of course, but it was a magical gift that explained part of my life and who I am to me and let me know that things CAN fall into place. It’s one thing to complain vociferously about not being a morning person and another thing to be lucky enough to NOT HAVE TO BE. To experience yourself operating at maximum efficiency and enjoy your favorite parts of the day and night, skipping the parts that have never worked for you. To function so much better that you’ve got PROOF that this “night person” thing is real.

I’m at a point in my life where I need a new swing shift. My gears have been out of sync for years now and I keep looking for some little twinkly adjustment I can make that will fix things. I’ve given myself a bunch of tuneups and they’ve been eye-opening and helpful, but I’m desperate to feel something like the smooth, peaceful rightness of driving home on a nearly-empty freeway with the windows rolled down in the summer, smelling everything asleep and reveling in being awake, ready to go home and make a simple dinner for myself. The answer isn’t making myself work from four to midnight now, either – I don’t live alone anymore and I don’t want to; I want to go to bed WITH Delia (not a night person, so we compromise). I feel like I’ve tried everything and suspect the answer is that I need more time to be completely alone with myself, without the sounds of anybody else, without being seen or heard by anyone watching . . . just totally removed from everybody’s sounds and presence.

Last week I allowed myself the luxury of staying up all night long playing with TrixieRadio – listening to music, downloading new stuff and uploading it to the station . . . amusing myself and accomplishing something that has no monetary pay-off in the near future and is absolutely NOT what I should be spending huge blocks of time doing. But I miss listening to music. REALLY MISS IT. I am not someone who can work AND listen to music with words, so it’s not an option for me to multitask. Besides, I don’t want to. I want to do nothing but listen. NOTHING BUT. So I did, all night long, and organized my .mp3’s and made lists of cd’s I still need to rip and read about music and made a blog entry begging for money to justify doing it more. Being up all night doing that made me feel a little more like myself. And I finally bought an adaptor that provides phantom power for my months-old new microphone so I can personalize things more and potentially make more sales through the “radio” thing and podcasting. If I can figure out the perfect settings for recording with this microphone (one of those detail-oriented time-sucking tasks that annoys the shit out of me that I usually invest a couple of hours in then decide it’s not worth it / I should wait for a better time to do it / I have more important things to do).

I’ve been retreating a lot more into our guest room, off cam and alone, which has been helpful but maybe I’m still not committed enough to it to really reap the benefits of it. I feel guilty about it and still can’t get enough. I haven’t figured out how to integrate my need for solitude with work and my relationship with Delia. She’s really tolerant and understanding of my limitations in this area so it’s me that needs to work out the kinks alone along with continuing to figure out how to succeed at being my own boss. You’d think after seven years I’d be an expert, but I’m still an amateur (both at working for myself and being in a relationship). A lot of things have changed for the better in the past year but I’m still struggling to find daily “rightness”. I get glimmers of it, but very inconsistently; for everything I resolve to do better, something else falls by the wayside. It’s like there’s a never-ending rotation of things I do well and things I fuck up — every day, every week, every month, every quarter, every year the same fucking challenges just trade places with each other. I make progress but only temporarily before regressing. I feel like I haven’t CONQUERED anything in years and I’m pretty fucking sick of it. I try to be patient with myself, recognizing I’ve had some really fucked-up health problems and am still fine-tuning “curing” myself. Recognizing the economy sucks so it’s not entirely my fault that we’re on this debt merry-go-round.

The shitty thing is that having a positive attitude means feeling empowered and taking responsibility to fix stuff — believing it’s POSSIBLE to make things better; I’m just really really REALLY tired of the burden. Sometimes I just wish I could drive home and let my boss figure it out in the morning and tell me what to do when I go to work and know that it’s not my fault if that was the wrong thing. Part of me loves how I’ve complicated my life and that I *don’t* have a boss, but JESUS FUCKING CHRIST sometimes I miss having things be simple. I miss having someone else to blame. I miss not really caring about my job. That used to make me feel trapped, having to go to work for a certain number of hours and not doing anything even remotely creative. Now? I feel trapped because I *do* care about my job(s). Because it’s rare that I get to establish a rhythm doing something simple for 6-8 hours. I can’t quit because I love my work, but I have no idea when (if ever) I’ll be able to do my job BETTER and not just feel like I’m running on a treadmill. A treadmill that lurches and changes speeds unpredictably and is just like . . . possessed with multiple personalities. There’s no water-cooler where I can stand around bitching about my boss and how if I ran things I’d do them differently/better. I mean, I can do that, but it’s not really good for my self-esteem. I am my own worst boss/enemy and I’m so. TIRED of it.

I keep slogging along, promising myself that if we just get rid of our debt we’ll be able to AFFORD to establish some rhythms and magic swing shifts but right now we seriously do not have the money to do anything efficiently. Not shooting, not marketing, not exercising . . . not even fucking GROCERY shopping. Every day is a schizo fucking mess and I’m just so sleeeeeeeeeeeeeepy. Not as bad as I was before, but still . . . some days are pretty bad while I’m fine tuning different birth control pills, supplements, figuring out just how much fucking with my blood sugar I can get away with, etc.

Fuck it. I am going to order a pizza.

Sorry for the downer of a post. Things are good, I just needed to whine a little bit.

A quick announcement for members and fans of our webcam shows: I moved Wednesday night’s shows to Friday night. Why? Because I realized they were scheduled at the same time as the American Idol finale and with us on the west coast there could be people in our chatrooms who’d already watched it and I CANNOT ABIDE HEARING SPOILERS.

This is especially true with tv the past two or three months which has been exceptionally good to my fat American mind. Dollhouse, Gossip Girl, Top Model, Idol, Hell’s Kitchen . . . I’ve been eating the cheese and acting like a sucker tearing up on command. The competition shows are so much better when you like all of the finalists. We might not be having a lot of sex, but who wants to watch us fucking on our spycams when you can watch me crying and squealing like a sissy-girl over CHUCK AND BLAIR and ADAM AND KRIS and ALLISON AND TEYONA!?! It’s a more degrading scene than if I invited a gang of carnies over and gave their greasy unwashed asses enthusiastic rim jobs on cam with a needle half-full of junk sticking out of my arm. Now THAT’S entertainment! Oh Chuck those pink flowers and your green coat Blair and that dress and I worship and adore you and your stockings too yumyumyum I love it when you cry you’re so beautiful when you weep and I love you TOOOOOO!

As if that wasn’t enough, as a bonus for our voyeurs tonight I also cried watching Dolly Parton sing “Backroads Barbie” AND I cried earlier this afternoon when I finished reading The Westing Game (how did I miss that as a youngster? IT ROCKS!).

Being on a higher-estrogen birth control pill is so sweeeeeeeeeeeet. Sweet and salty with my tears, like a big bag of kettle korn.

Other than that I’m working on a simple (but time-consuming) revamp of the free area of TastyTrixie.com. So I can maybe hope to, you know, make some sales. So far this year has been full of optimism because I finally figured out how fucked up my endocrine system has been and how sick I was. It’s frustrating, though, that even though I feel way better, my life didn’t instantly become perfect once I started feeling better physically. It’s like I have years worth of old work to do to get caught up let alone move forward. That’s been pretty depressing on top of the economy (I know many of you are feeling my pain or worse in that department). I’m constantly making steps to improve, though, and feel massively blessed to have the awesomest girlfriend in the world and also feel the support of people who know me online, especially our members.

I still have a long way to go, but I am becoming a more patient person. More patient with myself and the world and everyone in it. You still wouldn’t call me “patient”, but I know I am MORE patient than I was a year ago. That’s enough for me to be proud of today.

And even with all of that reading and tv watching and a good stretch this morning, I still worked eight concentrated hours and twenty-seven minutes. How do I know that? BECAUSE I AM KEEPING TRACK.

Let me toss some tgirl-on-tgirl porn at you before I get all personal and diary-ish(click for free pics & sample vid):

This is my favorite photo in the samples and in general that whole shoot was really hot to watch, plus I love that the resulting porn is both explicit and very sensual. I need to work on my skills as a photographer shooting people other than Delia, though. With Mandy and AmberLily I didn’t do a good job of stopping them and asking them to hold “poses”, so as a result there were lots of blurry and awkward shots — good ones, too, but could’ve been better. We’re still getting used to our new camera which is FAST, but since we don’t shoot with a flash or a lot of light we still have to MODEL semi-slowly even though it’s tempting when you hear the shutter flying along to dance fluidly along.

*****

Life is good — there are lots of things going on with me which are mostly connected with making a concerted effort to have LESS things going on and focus on a few high priority things. Right now my personal priorities are:

-exercising consistently (today will be five days in a row)
-eating less sugar and starches
-going to twelve step meetings & getting healthier emotionally and spiritually
-cutting back on a few things to make room for a) making money more efficiently and b) doing more things that I love

The past couple of years my body has become more and more of a challenge for me to feel good about, mostly because I never got into the habit of taking care of it except for getting enough sleep. With the added pressure (and wake-up-calls) of trying to get pregnant but not being able to, it’s gotten to the point where I feel really shitty with a litany of symptoms and complaints and hypochondriac fantasies. Long story short, I need to put myself and my health first before everything (and everybody) else.

A lot of times I sacrifice my own needs and desires to work which really is stupid because I can’t *do* this kind of work very well when my body feels like shit and I don’t provide myself with pleasure on all levels. I can barely stand to look at myself which is, ummm, pretty counterproductive for shooting porn (and editing/posting/selling it myself where I have to look at myself and love myself to do a good job). It’s not that everything looks shitty, but seriously — it’s not only difficult for me to bend over to tie my shoes these days, it’s PHYSICALLY PAINFUL. My guts fucking hurt.

Before people rush to simple judgments like, “duh! That’s what happens when you sit on your ass all day”, etc. let me offer a little perspective and extend some leniency to myself; there are definitely some hormonal problems contributing to my issues (all of the thyroid / infertility / depression / migraine / too-much-testosterone stuff and more all connected in a which-came-first/chicken-egg circle of insanity) plus the stuff we’ve been going through with alcoholism that no one has really been aware of or how it’s been effecting us; *I* haven’t even been aware of how much of my energy was going into trying to cope with it.

One of the unexpected bonuses of Delia getting sober is that I got to enter recovery too. Only I totally didn’t anticipate how hard it would be or that I would totally fucking freak out (which I did, surprisingly, really fall-the-fuck apart the first month and couldn’t really understand why when I thought I would just feel relieved and everything would be bliss and perfection). Now that Delia is sober and I’m not constantly thinking about her and trying to control her drinking, I’m left with the way bigger, scarier challenge and problem of mySELF and my own fucked-upedness. Patterns of behavior and sickness that I had before Delia and I ever even met.

I feel really optimistic, excited and fortunate right now, but I also feel like I need a lot of space and time and patience to get healthy in more ways than one. It takes more than a week or a month or three months or a year to feel relief, to figure out what to change (and what IS changing whether you want it to or not), to adapt, and to grow into new ways of doing things. I’m kind of tired and have a lot of stuff to process and let go of so just mending my body, our relationship and going to meetings right now is enough to keep me very occupied. I’d say that I’m sorry I don’t have more left over to spread around and to keep doing all the things I was trying to do, but I’m not sorry. I’m happy to be focused on what’s important.

Note: I’m leaving comments open for people who want to remark on the Delia & Mandy shoot or those who have their own personal sharing/relating on the subjects I talked about, but I usually do not feel helped by comments containing unsolicited advice, analysis of me/us/our lives and/or criticism even when I know they’re well-intentioned.

I’m betting people are curious how my psychiatrist appointment went, so here’s a post that’s JUST about that:

It was a relief to see him; I was amazed how much he remembered after more than five years, and that was without even having the benefit of reviewing my old records since he moves them from his office to his garage if inactive and older than five years.

Hmmm . . . now that I’m trying to write this I’m not sure how much of it I feel like sharing, not because any of it was bad or even that personal, it’s just the kind of thing that requires a lot of context and background information to be accurate and I know people have a tendency to be judgmental about prescription drugs, people who are diagnosed with new labels, etc. On the other hand, I know that for every person who reads this stuff and thinks, “what a crock of shit/loony bird/lazy, oversensitive drug-seeker” there’s another person who can relate.

Long story short, I’m really glad I went. It’s always so cool to have positive, meaningful experiences with health care professionals where you are helped in a way that also makes you feel respected, empowered and cared for by people who are extremely knowledgeable and gifted. I wish everybody could afford to get the care they need from people who deliver it at such a high and loving level.

Aside from the intangible benefits of going, I came away with my generic 10 mg Ritalin prescription and an assortment of other samples and scripts to try since I live too far away to come often (four hour round trip), my insurance isn’t paying for it so it’s too expensive for me to come often, and I said I can’t afford to try anything new after my bad experiences with Adderall (it made me feel really depressed and hopeless) I’m reluctant to stray from what I know works for me.

I’ve only filled the prescription for the Ritalin, but also have Focalin, Concerta and Vyvanse sample scripts. For a couple of weeks I’m just going to enjoy my old standby, though. I took some last night before I went to sleep (yes, I know that’s contraindicated but it often *helps* me get more relaxed, satisfying sleep) and it was just a huge fucking relief.

Another big relief is that he gave me a sample kit for Lamictal (a mood stabilizer). I don’t feel like getting into a discussion at the moment about whether or not I’m bipolar, but either way it sounds like a safe drug (even if you’re trying to get pregnant or are pregnant) that’s worth trying. I’m not sure whether or not I *will* try it, but I can’t describe what a huge relief it is to have it here and to know that if things get any worse I have something that will probably make it better. I’m going to wait and see if I continue to have dramatically fucked-up mood swings (example: getting one of my “brilliant ideas” and getting so worked-up/hyper-enthusiastic/crazily-driven that I’m pacing uncontrollably for a few hours then plummet into a state of horrifying self-loathing and hopeless depression lasting twice as long as the crazy-high; apparently “they” are expanding how they diagnose bipolar disorder so it’s not just limited to people who cycle slowly from one extreme to the other). I’m still going to see an endocrinologist to find out if there’s a hormonal problem fucking with my head, and I know lack of exercise and stress are other big factors that can make people crazy but sometimes meds can work miracles, even if you just try them to learn how it feels to be different or are reminded that things can be better.

I just have to say HUGE RELIEF again. That’s what it is. To know you have options and boosts. To know that if things get worse there is help to be had (and that things don’t HAVE to get worse before you seek it out).

I have $150 of my own spending money and am trying to decide which of these things at the top of my personal wants list are most worthy of it:

*a new microphone perfect for podcasting

*hiring a guy to make a logo for WebWhoreBucks.com so I can give the whole thing a facelift and a proud capitalist woman vibe

*use it all on massage and maybe exercise classes

I’m leaning towards massage (and maybe mental health care) because even though I *yearn* for those other things, taking care of my body fulfills my basic needs (and IS mental health care) better than those other things do which require follow-up effort to be truly useful. Buying massage is one of the few things I can do for myself that is really good for me, requires no effort on my part, and on top of all that is PLEASURABLE.

*****

Mildly put, I’m having a really difficult time today. A lot of it is hormonal/PMS, a lot of it is just the normal difficulty I have as an ADD person in prioritizing overwhelming sets of to-do’s, but some of it is specific stress over a few different circumstances that I overall feel hopeful about, but have been emotionally exhausting. My emotional resources are tapped out and my brain’s really loud and jumbly.

To make part of a long story short, Delia’s going Alcoholics Anonymous meetings now and I’m going to Alanon. It’s a huge relief to me and I feel really positive about it. I feel like a lot of weight and isolation is being lifted from me. Still, there are residual effects of the stress I’ve/we’ve accumulated getting to this point and being in a number of transitions; I’ve cried a lot more than usual in the past week, which is awesome in some ways but just really fucking exhausting.

On top of that, we continue to be plagued by problems with our neighbors. Fortunately, the guy got thrown back into jail yesterday so we’ll have a bit of a break from him, but the woman is probably more of a menace to us than he is. And the daughter? I just feel so fucking bad for her that she’s one of the pains that I cried over recently.

Our main ISP where we have a business account tightened its spam filters and pretty much blocked us from sending any email from or referencing our porn domains through their outgoing mail servers; they were very helpful, professional, and non-accusatory, but ultimately I had to spend a lot of time on the phone for a couple of days to find a solution and get it working again. That time-suck piled on top of others makes me feel totally burned-out, like I can’t get ahead. I know that’s not true, I’m just feeling that way this week. It hasn’t all been bad, and most of the time I feel happy, but my mood swings are extreme and the lows are really pathetic. I tried to get ahold of my psychiatrist that I haven’t seen in five years or so, but he hasn’t returned my messages. It would be a big help to get back on Ritalin so I could at least concentrate and get some work done without being totally scatterbrained, distracted, and wanting to rip out my overactive, inefficient brain. Just being able to sit down and work without little sounds like frogs croaking (which should be PLEASANT!) driving me to insanity would be a really huge help.

I can’t stand hearing people go on and on all the time about all their problems that they always seem to be having, so I just hope that if you’re reading this that you have enough context for my complaining to know I’m not defeated or just a pitiful slug of depression with no hope for the future, I’m just in a bumpy spot. I know it’s nowhere near what other people have to deal with, and I wouldn’t trade in my problems for other people’s, but that doesn’t mean I can pretend everything’s totally smooth sailing for me right now. It’s not the big things that are bothering me today — I feel pretty excited (in good ways) about the big things — it’s the little things that are wearing me down. Like my mom calling to say that even though Grandma appreciates my letters, she’d rather I called. And that making me feel like I was smothering in a lead blanket of guilt that I will never have enough energy, time or detachment to throw off (it’s impossible to talk to my grandma without the first thing out of her mouth being a passive-aggressive guilt trip; I thought I was fulfilling more than I’m capable of just to talk to my MOM on the phone four times in two days but I’m supposed to interrupt work to do more? YES!!!).

Then there’s the world-is-out-to-get-me crap where you think everything is being aligned to stymie your efforts, like the library being closed for staff training the one day of the month you go out of your way to visit it, or water aerobics being canceled this week (JUST *this* week, they say!) when you made what felt like a herculean effort to go to the pool for the first time in fifteen years specifically for that because you really fucking need the exercise. And you know the whole modern cult-of-magnetization thinks you brought this shit on yourself . . . there ARE no coincidences and the world isn’t out to sabotage you, YOU ARE DOING IT YOURSELF, but I have to calm down and remember that’s both notions are a total fucking crock of shit and I just have to keep trying in spite of being annoyed that both facilities’ online schedules were totally misleading!

I made the best of both situations. I’m a fucking winner. And I know it will get better. Probably when my period starts. And my girlfriend is making me eggs and bacon right now to remind me that my life is charmed, sweet, and I’m not in this all by myself. I get taken care of.

We’d *planned* to take a real day off tomorrow, the 4th of July, but instead of that we have to take a buttcrack of dawn trip to Seattle to try to inseminate me. I hate to be an asshole, but I feel like crying because the LAST FUCKING THING I WANT TO DO on the Fourth of July is be on the road. IN THE MORNING. The tension I feel now seems really counterproductive to trying to conceive so I guess I need to try to do some deep breathing or something. I would feel better if I could take a run right now and blow off some steam, but I hurt my foot the other day walking in heels outside for a shoot. Well, actually I was just trying on outfits for a shoot and had to run outside to see what our dog was hell bent on wolfing down: a grenade sized piece of dehydrated poop or something, and my ankles buckled three times in the grass as I ran in my mules to discover that. Since then it’s hurt to put weight on my left foot.

Fucking hell.

This is NOT the blog entry I would like to post for you, it’s just what it is. If I do not get pregnant this time, somebody just take me out and shoot me.

Are you going to tell me to go read _The Secret_ now?

Anyway, I had to cancel my shows on Saturday the 5th because we *might* wind up stuck in Seattle and I can’t put on a good show anyway after this procedure. So maybe we’ll make Saturday our day off. Sort of like normal people have weekends and holidays, only ours will be just one day. Of course, normal people don’t get to schedule massages on the fly the way I did today just after lunchtime, so it’s not like I’m saying I want to be normal or anything. Just bitching, that’s all.

We finally got a new camera! It just arrived on Tuesday so today we shot our first nudey set with it. Here’s one of my favorite, happy NON-nudey shots from that:

I’m extremely happy with it and hope to write a whole blog entry singing its praises and showing it off. Here’s one I took last night:

*****

I should say that I can’t BELIEVE it’s been over a week since I made a blog entry here, but I actually CAN believe it. I feel it in my marrow, this neglect. I could whine and cry about how disgusting I’ve felt and how tired I’ve been but that kind of melodramatic pathos won’t do anybody any good. Instead I’ll just say that I’ve revamped my routine goals and schedules in such a way that I will be more productive and efficient.

Basically instead of cycling through a long weekly routine to-do list, I’ve shortened my daily and weekly tasks and lengthened the monthly to-do list so I can group repetitive tasks in a lump to get weeks of them done ahead of time rather than trying to switch gears and never getting ahead by focusing on weekly cycles which barely give me a chance to half-assedly finish all my “chores” before the next week starts and I’m back on exactly the same treadmill; I’ve been depressed and overwhelmed feeling like I’m spinning my wheels so I really want to set work up so that I can get on a roll and STAY there for two to six days on one type of work at a time. Part of this switch began with me scheduling one hyperchat week per month and now I’m following through on that by making ALL of my work into lumpier monthly events.

Speaking of lumpy monthly events, I did get my period/am not pregnant. I just finished up with that and my second Clomid prescription so in a week or so I should ovulate again. This time we are 90% sure we’re going to the doctor for an intrauterine insemination instead of the homebrew fucking. Maybe bypassing my cervix will get this party started, but it will probably leave our spycam voyeurs high and dry since Delia will be storing up her spooge for the fertility doctors who will spin it and wash it and prep it for my uterus (a process that causes some sperm to be lost). Sounds pretty counterproductive, doesn’t it? Perhaps, but many sperm are lost in the vag, too, never even getting past the cervix especially if one has “hostile cervical mucous” which really sounds like a very Trixie-esque condition. I haven’t had my cervical mucous tested or anything, but it would not surprise me one bit if all of this disappointment could be blamed on my bitterly acidic cunt juices. Oh, we’ve tried tricks designed to improve the quality of my mucous and used products intended to bathe sperm in slippery stuff they can easily swim through, but to no avail so far. We really want to get this motherfucking show on the road. FOR REALS.

*****

Tonight I’m going to try to get these new photos posted for members and maybe get some more exercise, too. My body is like a weird stranger to me these days, all thick and dimpled in both good and bad ways. I did some exercise along with the tv the other day called “slow-robics” and couldn’t even make it the entire hour even with commercial breaks. After the midway mark I had to take a big ass break then come back to it for another ten minutes. There were tons of speed-skater-imitating squatting exercises that turned my thighs and buttocks into what felt like big soft balloons of swollen jello. I have only just regained the ability to lower my ass onto the toilet without screeching in agony and clutching at the wall for support on the way down.

I guess this is what they call “thirty-five”. On an intellectual level I know precisely how I’ve gotten to this point and exactly what I need to do to control at least some of the damage, but on another level I just can’t believe this is my body. More to the point, I can’t believe how different I am from when I was young. Again, on a rational level it all makes total sense and OF COURSE I’m different from my younger self, but it’s not just my body that’s different; I have changed in many ways and am maybe needing some time to adjust to my new identity and get to know who I am.

All this dim-witted introspection might sound silly, like it should all be easy and come naturally and make total sense, but you make a lot of plans in life and develop a lot of habits based on your perception of your identity. When your values, needs, and abilities shift then you need to change your habits and plans. Being here in my mid-thirties is almost like losing a limb and needing to learn how to do everything with three of them instead of four. My balance is off and I feel justified in simplifying things. It’s not that I feel handicapped by my age (except slightly in the body/porn department); on the contrary, I know I’m more skilled and capable. On the other hand, I’m less deluded and more aware of (and complacent about) my weaknesses. I’m more sure of what I want and what I do NOT want which is great, but it does make one’s options seem more limited.

I feel like I blew my ambition wad in my twenties, working really long and hard hours for other people. Proving myself to other people, making other people money, doing what other people wanted and tiring my damned self out. Now? I feel like I don’t have much of that drive left, in part because I’m happy and content, but also because I’m just motherfucking tired of it. I don’t like having to be resourceful to do my job; I want to have all of the tools I need to do my job well and it just exhausts me, mentally, physically and emotionally, having to pull everything together on a shoestring budget to attain mediocrity. It feels like a big waste of my time and I really REALLY want to spend more time with my family and I REALLY want to make better porn. A lot more time with my family AND a lot more porn. I think these are very normal, typical thirty-something feelings and part of me enjoys being in this stage of life. It’s also embarrassing, though, because I feel like I should be able to muster up the energy to rectify this lack of resources. Sometimes it’s empowering to know you control your own destiny and can CHANGE your situation just by hard work. Other times? It’s just really depressing and tiring when you feel like you’ve DONE your hard work and you’re way past due for the payoff. Everything feels like it hinges on how well I can mind-fuck myself into believing that I can, at the very least, double our income which is basically what we need to do and FAST to make continuing what we do justifiable. Of course, getting normal jobs is even less justifiable than continuing what we do full time simply because the only hope we have of paying off our debts is to win the lottery or work hard on our sites (since there’s no limit to what we can make on them, unlike real jobs that have, ummm, limitations on wages and salaries and such, and are totally degrading and exhausting and enslaving compared to working for yourself on the internet). We don’t play the lottery and I have no desire to quit what I do, so this is what we’re going to keep on doing. Of course, my mind is always spinning with ways I can augment the porn site stuff and switch up our plans and find other revenue streams (aka pile even more jobs on myself) but the basic place I’m at is feeling like I’ve run a really long race and have no idea how far I am from the finish line. My body is falling apart and I’m beyond ready to slow my pace WAY down to falling flat on m
y face, preferably straight into a bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy. But I just keep telling myself to keep trudging along even though I suspect when I round the bend there’s just going to be another long-ass stretch of empty road.

*****

It’s almost 9 pm now so I’m not going to be able to get both exercise AND an update done. I’m feeling floppy after writing this and want to go to bed, but I’ll try to get back in here to edit the photos because I know it will be fun and make me feel better. Then again, so would eating donuts and watching television.

Just in case you didn’t believe that my weight gain is a real thing with an impact on my health, here’s a photo of my face last month telling the tale:

I do not even look like myself in that picture. I actually think I look cute in it, but like someone else. Oh yeah, I *recognize* that it *is* me, but she’s like an alter ego of some sort, like I was transformed overnight (which of course is ridiculous since it’s taken me awhile to get there) or am experiencing a Freaky Friday scenario where I’m magically switching places with my chubby twin sister.

That is the biggest and SOFTEST I’ve been in my entire life and the second time I’ve weighed that much (around 130, 132 pounds). I am back to 125 and those five pounds make an enormous difference in the number of chins I have (and if I lost only ten pounds now I’d be at a very good place). At the time of that photo my period was severely overdue, not because of pregnancy but because I didn’t ovulate which I’m certain is because of how overweight I was. I know 130 pounds doesn’t sound enormous considering how much fatter people are capable of getting, but for my frame that is just really WAY too much. With my hormones totally out of wack and the stress and pressure of our plans to get pregnant being delayed and feeling out of control, all I wanted to do was eat. Carbs. Lots of them. It’s a vicious circle.

Once my period finally started last month I stopped having my usual two teaspoons of sugar in my morning tea, stopped eating candy (except some dark chocolate here and there), and have been exercising more. I feel better, but still have a major energy dive in the afternoon/early evening and have been napping almost every day; it’s only 30-60 minutes, but I feel enormously guilty about it for some reason. I don’t know if I’m just stressed out, tired from exercising, fat and lazy, or have some internal voice ordering me to focus on a very few things. It is (and has been for the past nine months or so) very difficult for me to focus on anything besides our conception attempts. It sounds stupid, since if I were really focusing I should have been exercising more and eating better, but my main priority has been to try not to stress out my mind or body. All I have wanted to do was try to be patient, calm, and relaxed and honestly? Accomplishing that takes all of my energy, I think. And lots of food and lazing around.

It should come as no surprise that I have not felt great about shooting photos and videos of myself. Part of it is self-consciousness about my weight, but another part might also be me feeling a need to keep some of me to myself. Trying and failing to get pregnant over and over makes me feel like there’s a demand being placed on my body that I keep failing to meet in spite of the many different adjustments and approaches and changes we make to get it done. I already feel like I’m asking enough of my body, forcing it to get fucked on a schedule, to tell me what it’s thinking, to subject it to tests, to tell it to work harder and be “healthy”. Other than that, I really just want to put it in a cocoon of blankets and comfortable clothes and to try to let my mind escape. I want to protect myself, my mind AND body, from more opportunities for failure.

There are a few other factors contributing to my state of mind, including missing my girly birth control hormones, my ADD and hypersensitivity to stimuli (I am fucking exhausted from processing so much information and trying to tune things out; I have not been able to concentrate at all on blogging or anything), stress/guilt over an argument I had with my mom in March, MISSING my nephew and longing to live closer to my family, and the way all these things work together to make me feel, I suppose, a little depressed. I’m not particularly worried about it in the short term, but if I allow myself to fret about how long this trying-to-conceive business could go on I do get anxious and concerned about, ummm, my mental and emotional health.

I guess my main priorities right now are making my body healthier and focusing on transcending daily worries to get to a place where it’s all good, whether it’s in a nap, brushing the dog, dancing, reading a book, writing for myself, daydreaming about things that make me happy, visualizing the positive possibilities, drowning myself in mindless entertainment, researching stuff I want to know for future and current projects, listening to cheesy new age music, smelling good things and enjoying sensual (but nonsexual) pleasures like massage, or processing these thoughts and reflecting on my needs the way I am right now by writing this. I feel better having done it.

But I still don’t feel like shooting porn. Not today, anyway. And of course this makes me feel slack and guilty which only deepens my mini-depression. I would like to be more productive and intellectually have a hard time allowing myself a break; part of me says if I were a better person I would just WORK HARDER. Still, I know that once we do get pregnant, if we do, there will be a whole new set of demands on my body so maybe it’s okay for me to just SURVIVE right now.

NOTE TO MEMBERS: I’m not saying that I’m ceasing shooting, just that updates are coming a little slower than I’d like and don’t have as much tastiness as usual. I’m sure we will shoot soon, especially since I’m no longer quite as pudgy as in the above photo. Oh, and another uninspiring factor in all of this is that we really need a better camera; I bought this one in 2002 and it’s really not up to par anymore and has some problems. Not so fun to shoot with and the results are less than stellar.