TastyTrixie.com

Archive for the ‘health’ Category

In the past four or five months I’ve endeavored to do many a good (or at least interesting) thing.

*Remember how I was doing that ninety day program? Which involved leaving the house and being around people every day? Well! We spontaneously decided to move in the middle of that, but since I’d made this goal I kept going even though it started to be overwhelming and piss me off. Because I’d made a commitment to doing it and thought it was pretty fucking simple and I should be able to do it. And it was supposed to be GOOD for me!

• WHAT HAPPENED: I failed to complete the ninety days. And then felt like a loser who couldn’t perform even the simplest of assignments. But really there was a lot of stuff going on and I should have QUIT when it ceased to be effective and started making me crazier. Instead I lost sight of the purpose and doggedly tried to stick to something just to try to feel like I could successfully finish something.

*We moved.

• THAT WAS HARD. But I’m so glad we did it. Kind of sucked up a month or more, though.

*Immediately after we finished moving I decided to apply for a residency thingy that every year I say I’m going to apply for and never do. I started the application before we decided to move so again put pressure on myself to FINISH something for once.

• WHAT HAPPENED: I told everybody I was busy and to leave me the fuck alone, spent hours working on it (in my head, at least) but I still didn’t finish it. The process was useful and interesting, though, and it forced me to ask two people I admire if I could put them down as references. Just having them say yes was pretty awesome and made me feel good. Another failure to finish something, but got a lot out of the process anyway.

*I socialized! In addition to the 90 day thing and the screwing around with a person I shouldn’t be screwing around with, over the past few months I’ve spent more time talking on the phone with people and hanging around with them than I have in YEARS. Still not as much socializing as “normal” people do, but I broke my carefully-written rules to limit interacting with people (particularly in times of stress, like a big MOVE) and took advantage of rare visits to WA from friends Fayette of the Cockettes, and Tara / ecowhore (formerly hobostripper). We also visited with fellow Washingtonian pals Heather Corinna and Blue, and Lightning Allie.

• ASSESSMENT: I wouldn’t trade the time I spent with these friends (or transient playmates) for a bigger sense of accomplishing more work or making more money. But I’m still not sure what quantity and frequency of socializing I can sustain over the long haul in my life and actually get things done AND have the amount of quiet time in solitude I like/need to have. Delia’s been picking up a lot of slack at home and with work to enable me putting my energy towards these social experiences. I also failed to spend enough quality time with my mom or my sister and her family during this time so I have a long way to go in achieving satisfactory balance between work, play, solitude, friendships and family. Ultimately I think a big part of the solution needs to come from being less emotionally involved or obligated-feeling when it comes to interacting with customers or FEELING like I owe special one-on-one attention to everybody who appreciates me. Because
  • I’m a failure at that anyway
  • it’s not a sustainable business model / there aren’t enough hours in the day
  • I want my work to be creating more, better and more creative, unique-to-me content and ways many people can experience it NOT overextending myself to individual people
  • My social life needs to be with people *I* choose (or am blood-bound to) and do not need to maintain a certain level of service towards in order to retain a customer
  • Basically? I need to respect my personal limitations more and establish better boundaries between my work life and my personal life. I thought I was happy with my work life BEING my personal life, but that’s actually pretty fucked up and needs to change. I still have a really difficult time in separating the two, as with the guy I screwed around with (I couldn’t tell if I was doing it just for fun or because I thought he’d be a good convenient stunt cock to make porn with; the answer is both, but I need to stop forcing everything in my life to do double duty; too often I’ve passed up good experiences because I couldn’t exploit them for work).
  • Needing to work fewer hours needs to be a higher priority / goal to work towards.
  • I want time and space to be physically intimate with more people. Both privately and for work.
  • I need to treat work more like a regular job than my entire reason for being and source of self-worth. Because sometimes I don’t do a good job or work breaks or people don’t like me and I need to still be worth something to myself even when that happens. And it’s happened a lot over the past year.
  • I need to be a better partner to Delia. Next to myself, she and my relationship with her is my highest priority in life.

• ALSO: I identified a few people I don’t want to feel so attached and obligated to and do NOT want to have boundary-hazy relationships with. People I need to distance myself from. I’m figuring out that I can continue to love people easily and with a certain level of emotional or spiritual generosity without being their friends or feeling I owe them something or even interacting with them at all. Does that kind of love have any real value? It does to me, and beyond that I need not give a shit. Nobody is entitled to my love, time or friendship. Essentially I need to be more selective about who gets inside me and how deeply I let them penetrate.

*I took non-adult pictures of a couple of beautiful local ladies for their website and ads (for their totally non-adult work). I was flattered that they asked me, but also really nervous about it and wished I hadn’t agreed to do it because it was yet another opportunity to waste time failing at something.

• THIS WAS HARD. We don’t have the equipment and I don’t have the expertise to do a great professional job at this. One of them cried when she saw the pictures because she looked (felt like she looked) fatter than she wanted to look (she’s crazy-gorgeous) and I suspect they both had really high expectations of me and my supposed ability to take flattering photos (they know we make porn). I learned a ton from this thought-provoking experience, with maybe the biggest thing being that I am really fucking brave to put so many raw naked imperfect images of my very average imperfect self on the internet. Most women in this country would be mortified and sink into a deep depression to be as exposed as I am online, even ones that are a billion five times hotter than I am. This reminds me that 1) I am awesome in some ways and 2) my work is valuable. There are tens of thousands of women who are more beautiful than I am and have bigger and/or perkier knockers than I do (or longer legs or flatter tummies or tastier feet) but very very few of them are equipped to do what I do for as many years as I have without wanting to cut their own throats and castrate all men. I’m not saying my work is intrinsically horrible and damaging, I’m saying that IT’S NOT SOMETHING THAT JUST ANYBODY WITH A VAG CAN DO.
• ALSO: I am more skilled and useful at listening, understanding and helping somebody with tearful gendery emotional body-image perceptual stuff and finding ways to put that stuff into healthy contexts than I am at being a photographer. I would rather spend time having (and becoming better at) those discussions with people than taking pictures of them. Right now neither is a priority for me, though; my priority is continuing to exploit my own high tolerance for raw exposure to get our credit cards paid off. And to steadfastly love myself while I do it. And to understand the very distinct difference between me and projected images of me.

*I did our 2010 taxes. Late again. But whatever.

• This takes me awhile, but it’s when I kind of assess our financial health and progress so for now it’s worth it for me to continue doing it myself. We’re making some progress in some ways even though our paysite income in 2011 is half of what it was when it needed to be twice as much to get ahead. So our sites need to make 400% what they’re making now to get anywhere financially. For a few years, anyway. OR we have to cam our asses off. Which is what Delia’s been doing to make up for the shortfall.

*We’re establishing better systems with the help of Lightning Allie. This includes being better organized with better plans for content production and processing, housework, debt reduction, and having some balance in our lives and figuring out what we want our lives to be like. We are no longer trying to do everything ourselves, just the two of us, or making decisions from within a weird bubble of isolation.

• RESULT: I feel a lot less anxious, a lot less overwhelmed, and like a lot more is possible by doing less myself / focusing on fewer things. And I’m enjoying contemplating and grappling with what I want those primary areas of focus to be. SEE ABOVE. And we’re getting ahead on shooting content. I feel more secure. I feel like I’m carrying much much less of a burden of memory and responsibility and obligation-to-follow-through because Allie is there to keep us on track and do a lot of the stuff that we really don’t need to be doing. I can drop balls without being scared I’ll lose them forever. It’s easier to get things done when you don’t have armfuls of bushels of balls.

Now you’re kind of caught up on tons of (the boring-to-others parts of?) my life lately. I don’t complete a lot of what I start, but when I’m okay with that I still wind up *doing* a lot. That’s pretty cool.

I started to write something else I’ve been spending time on but it felt too private to be conveyed in here in this format, so I deleted it for now.

I know this is probably a bizarre thing to post on my site, but I just found this short NPR interview with my psychiatrist:

* Psychiatrist explains why he speaks on behalf of drug makers

As you can tell by the review I posted here on RateMDs on 8/21/11, I think my doc is truly top notch so it’s weird to hear him portrayed in this sort of nefarious way. I admire that he stepped up and spoke openly about working for drug companies. He knows a fuck of a lot about drugs AND BRAINS – it’s truly amazing. I wish I could see him regularly.

Anyway, thought it would be bizarre and interesting for you to get to hear the voice of my psychiatrist.

I’ve also often wanted to share the website of my awesome in-town doc/general practitioner because he’s also super interesting and awesome, but I don’t want people in town to google his name and wind up here or for him and everyone at the office to see our porn sites (not a huge issue, but not the greatest idea, either). He has very specific, passionate, well-thought-out (and sometimes unusual) ideas about and approaches to health care, the pharmaceutical industry, being a doctor, etc. that are fascinating and informative, and make me feel really lucky to be his patient.

Professional ethics and ways people approach their work are interesting to me, and I like measuring customer appreciation, suspicion and criticism of other professionals against customer appreciation, suspicion, and criticism of sex workers.

I’m inspired by how much love and continued study my doctors put into their work and how much they are compelled to share insights and information with their patients and other people.

I can’t believe I’ve been sitting on (haha) this entry in draft form since December! Please leave comments if you have answers to any of my butthole questions:

I ran out of toilet paper at the cabin (or I almost did, and it occurred to me this detail could prove interesting and worthy of reporting to you).

If I run out of toilet paper, if I forget to bring more next time, I will not immediately run out to get more. The first priority is The Cabin, and the LAST priority of the cabin is personal cleanliness. Of course I still want to be comfortable, and I recognize that I feel more comfortable when I’m not COMPLETELY foul between my legs, so here are some of my options if I run out of toilet paper at the cabin:

For pee I can use kleenex OR just let it moisten my panties OR wipe with the front hem of my shirt (I do this on walks and really, having a few smears of urine on my t-shirt feels kind of fresh and natural to me).

You probably think the main problem will be what  to do if I shit at the cabin when I run out of toilet paper, but shit is not such a big problem. I have soothing moist generic hemorrhoid pads to cleanse my butthole & asscrack which I can follow-up with  an absorbent pat-down provided by a used washcloth I left hanging to dry after my last shower.

Some people keep baby wipes on the toilet tank for that purpose but I think they are overkill: too large, too horribly scented – really quite irritating to sensitive skin. Hem pads are better. Thriftier and more therapeutic. Plus I was always fascinated by those Tucks commercials where they snuff out a burning match by wrapping it in the damp circular pad. To get rid of the BURNING and ITCHING of swollen hemorrhoidal tissue.

I think once I even asked my mom or my dad, possibly my grandparents, if people really did TUCK the pads up in there. Nobody ever answered me with the specificity I desired, but my grandpa told me to NEVER EAT BLACK PEPPER! BECAUSE YOUR BODY DOESN’T DIGEST IT AND HE HAD TO HAVE AN OPERATION BECAUSE OF IT! They weren’t prudes so I don’t think that was why they avoided answering me. I honestly believe it’s because NO ONE REALLY KNOWS.

It seemed like a very interesting adult mystery, the proper application of Tucks. Did people simply tuck them between their ass CHEEKS or did they tuck them INSIDE their assHOLES, leaving petals of white hanging out to pull them out later (I imagine this looking very much like a container, rather than a box, of baby wipes, where you pull the wipe out of a plastic butthole-like opening).

Was I taking the name “Tucks” too literally? If grown-ups really were TUCKING them INSIDE, how long did they leave them in? Did they hang out in the bathroom for a couple of minutes to derive the benefits of the tucking, extracting the pad before exiting, or did they tuck one in there and KEEP it tucked while driving to work, doing laundry, greeting clients, playing bridge, etc.? How many Tucks could you tuck at one time? Or did you use them as a barrier between your finger and your ass to push severely hanging hemorrhoids back inside? Could you apply Tucks in a public restroom or was the process too intimate with telltale sounds, shifting body weight and sighs? Was there an applicator involved like with certain petal-soft tampons? AND WHAT ARE HEMORRHOIDS, ANYWAY?

You might shrug off these questions as obvious overthinking, but I don’t think I was/am. For a course on child abuse in college, I read a story of neglect involving an obese junior high age girl who was a pariah, in part because she smelled horrible. It turned out her parents weren’t mean people, they just were NOT competent and the girl had always had to fend for herself for the most part. Someone had to intervene and teach the girl stuff her parents had not, like how to shower (and how often), how to use shampoo, etc. They sent her to a doctor and it turned out she had many applications of TOILET PAPER AND PAPER TOWELS IMPACTED IN HER BOTTOM. The text didn’t use the word “bottom”, but it did use the word “impacted”. That story has stuck with me all these years and I often wish I could find it again to see EXACTLY what it said, because it’s still so unbelievable and yet rings so true, like I wonder how often this happens to people (there are SO MANY people who aren’t able — for all KINDS of reasons — to teach their kids how to take care of themselves first world stylee, and unless you get to watch someone do it who knows how, how would you learn?). Anyway, if it did say where/to what extent the toilet paper was impacted, it was strange enough that at the time I looked up the word “impacted” in the dictionary to make sure I was really understanding the condition being described, but I still feel uncertain about it: how much paper product can one girl carry around on/in her person? I think there was even a painful extraction process. Anyway, the reason I bring it up is that there are modern conveniences at our disposal to tend to our asses and separate us from feces that some of us actually need to be taught how to use. Some people simply intuit what to do, but for some of us the standard operating procedures are less clear. It is also not always obvious how far you should stick things up your butt or how long you should leave them there.

I’m on the 16th day of a 90 day thing. Not a diet or a cleanse or a new pharmaceutical regimen. No, not rehab either. But I think by the 90th day it might appear that way.

The reason I’m (vaguely) sharing this is to ask people to be as patient with me as I’m trying to be with myself instead of telling myself I don’t have time or that something good is taking too long or I’ve been healthy for four days so it’s time to go back to “normal” already! It’s definitely cutting into my routine because I’m going to a support group of sorts every single day, or twice in a day if I skip a day.

I told my sister about it and she could barely believe it: “Wow, that’s A LOT of leaving the house for you, Trixie. How’s that going for you?”

So yeah, as people who are close to me know, I don’t have a lot of stamina for interacting with people or even just being around them much (even though I *love* people!). Or even just leave the house much, as my sister pointed out. I’m able to do these meetings, though, because I know how long they last and there is a structure to each one and guidelines for behavior. And because I get so much out of going, even when some of the meetings start out and I’m like, “oh my god how the fuck am I going to sit through this?!?” and then every single time IT IS WORTH IT.

*****

The really big thing that’s happened in the past couple of weeks is that I’ve asked people for help. One is for help with the above stuff and the other person is for help with stuff YOU are interested in, stuff that has to do with our porn sites! This person is super DUPER awesome. We’re gradually going to tell you more about this person, and this person may tell you more and more, too. If you’re lucky! Most of the work she’s doing is behind the scenes, back-end stuff but it will free Delia and I up from having to do it (or in my case just sitting around being afraid of doing it. SO MUCH of it).

While two weeks in is too soon to get people (me included) looking around for grand results, I do already feel immensely relieved and things look (and feel) a lot simpler than they were in my agonizing, trying-to-do-it-myself, totally-confused-and-overwhelmed brain state. We’ve exhausted ourselves over the past ten years thinking that first we had to “get rich” to hire someone to help us, insanely getting the cart WAY before the horse. Delia’s been working her ass off on cam for the past few months so tell her “thank you” for making the money to help attract the work-time of this super duper new friend of ours! And thank you to all of you who buy shows with her and memberships from us!

My top priority starting yesterday for at least five days is to get lots of exercise and do a lot of stretching in preparation to do a lot of shooting.

Here was the view from my yoga mat on the floor this morning:

"Skyyyyyyy hi-uh-eye" (everything's a Blue Rodeo song today)

I loved watching the clouds whispering past the sliver of moon:

Clouds coming to get the moon.

Sliver of moon.

Today’s Olympic Mountains from the backyard:

Today's Olympic Mountains: snowy & skirted with low clouds

Lots of trees were blooming on my brisk noon-time walk:

Spring blossoms shot with my new smartphone!

I know — how many colors of sky-blue can there be?!? I think the first picture is the most accurate to my eye. With the moon-and-cloud pictures I just wanted you to see the contrast I was enjoying.

So! Of course I have other goals and mega-amounts of stuff on my to-do list, but my waist is measuring more than 35 inches; I need to work on my health before I have a heart attack or cortisol-poison my brain to death or something.

Members: I’ve got a lovely gallery to post for you as soon as I finish two blog entries that I want to post WITH it.

So. The good news is it stopped snowing here and has all melted away. The bad news is I’ve been sick for months now. The other good news is I’m finally tired of it and resigned to the fact that I need to do more to get better.

Snow & Icicles and SNOW!

Note: this post is not going to get sexy / will bore you unless you’re curious about the state of my phlegm and such.

I’ve kind of been ignoring being sick because GOSH I’ve been so much sicker before and able to get better on my own, but I’m really, really tired. I came down with a cold at the end of December, got better for a week or two, but then the sore throat part of it came back along with the gross symptoms I described here. My throat hasn’t actually felt painful or scratchy the past month, it just feels very constricted, tiny, and hard to swallow. And it does look red. People have been bugging me that it might be strep but I’ve been dismissive of that for a number of reasons. Do you really want to know the reasons why? Okay, here are a few of them: 1) because no one else I’ve been close to has had strep or gotten it from me this whole entire time and isn’t strep supposed to be really contagious? 2) Because I’ve had these kinds of symptoms before in my long life and gone to the doctors for strep tests only to have it be a total waste of money because it wasn’t strep, 3) because I TOTALLY BELIEVE I CAN SOMEHOW CURE MYSELF!!, 4) because I hadn’t done everything I possibly could to get better, etc.

But now it’s literally been months and I have other weird sick-but-not-dying feelings. And I’m just so so so fucking tired. But I’ve been so much more tired in my life and I don’t actually feel like I’m dying so maybe I should give it another week or two! Anyhoo, I *will* go to the doctor soon, I promise. With this set of problems on top of how I’ve been randomly breaking out in itchy rashes since April (yeah, almost a whole year) with no apparent cause plus a host of other chronic issues I think I might have a  systemic yeast infection. I’ve been suspecting something like that with my weird nose and throat problems, but didn’t actually know something like that could exist in your sinuses (or bowels or system-wide) until I read it this week in a book I checked out from my doctor’s office. It would all make sense since when I got better two years ago, a big part of the solution was following a low glycemic index diet to improve and stabilize my blood sugar/decrease insulin resistance/increase my insulin sensitivity.

I feel depressed, have very little energy, and am having a super duper hard time eating right even though I know that’s most likely the key to feeling better. When I feel shitty, all I want to do is eat and sleep. I wish I could check myself into some kind of diabetic insane asylum therapeutic fat camp or something.

Getting my B vitamin injections is much better than NOT getting them, but definitely not solving the problem. I started taking 5-HTP more aggressively for the depression problem AND because I read (in that same book where I read about systemic yeast infections) that it helps suppress cravings for carbs / boosts weight loss. I’ve been doing nasal rinses, but not as regularly as I could/should. I’m taking acidophilus, vitamin D supplements (do NOT listen to the government’s recommendations on how little D you should get because they are WRONG), etc. (also not as regularly as I should). I drink emergen-c like it’s going out of style.

*****

I’m torn between embracing and catering to my identity as a sickly creature and denying it absolutely.

Basically my biggest accomplishment most days is just winning the struggle to stay awake. It sucks. And I’m aware that it’s not at all sexy unless you have a fetish for invalids with disproportionately large bellies.

Things I (almost) always congratulate people on with genuine happiness, enthusiasm and well-wishes:

• finding religion (or some form of contact with divinity or spirituality)
• finding religion (or some form of contact with divinity or spirituality) is bullshit
• deciding to love someone, move in with someone, or marry
• deciding to break up or divorce
• pregnancy
• abortion (but I would never congratulate anybody on a miscarriage, unless they specifically said they were glad for it)
• deciding they never ever want to have children
• asking for help with a problem (preferably from somebody other than me, but in very rare cases I’m glad someone asked me — I know, I’m a dick)
• discovering they were wrong about something / changing their mind
• recognizing that something bad that happened to them wasn’t their fault or anything they had control over.
• any sexual encounter that they’re excited to tell me about
• abstaining from sex or drugs or whatever they decide they want to abstain from
• relief-bringing farts, burps, or poops (if they share that they had a good one)
• starting school or deciding to learn or practice something new
• quitting school
• starting a new job
• quitting a job
• ceasing or limiting consumption of anything that bothers them ethically, morally or makes them sick
• making a big fucking mistake and realizing it
• incurring debt for something they want or a risk they want to take
• going bankrupt
• opting out
• opting in
• getting dirty and staying that way for an extended period of time
• getting clean
• baptism
• feats of strength or endurance or solitude
• wallowing deeply and darkly until the tired hurt passes
• putting a team together or being part of one to make something happen, even if it’s a miserable failure
• figuring out you hate something and deciding to avoid it as much as possible for the rest of your life
• figuring out you’re not good at something and you don’t want to waste time trying to become good at it. Ever.
• moving

This is not an exhaustive list.

Pretty much any change is cause for congratulations and celebration, as far as I’m concerned. One thing I sometimes feel like congratulating people on but don’t is the diagnosis of an illness or disease. Because now you know and your life is being transformed, and you can shape your healing or reception of the change or whatever. I have to thank my mom for that, for raising me to never be afraid of finding out something bad about my health . . . to think of it as an opportunity (though she was thinking of things that aren’t 100% death sentences, things like diabetes, heart disease and herpes). Also, I really wish people had congratulated me when I was diagnosed with ADD. Or just for taking the steps to get help.

I know I’m not always a nice person, but I often feel really happy and excited for change in people’s lives and pull for them to experience all of the amazingness in life they possibly can: redemption, discovery, movement, freedom, immersion, floating, love, humility, creation, running as fast as we can, and stopping to catch our breath, sinking into the earth with dog-tiredness weighing tons of magnets.

I’m not a huge fan of photos of the sunset, but I’m posting one anyway as a way to share just ONE beautiful thing we experienced today:

Sunset tonight (June 5th, 2010) from our backyard.

Today we took a walk in the same woods where we took Nico for her last forest walk. It’s the first time we’ve been there since then so it was hard not to think of her, but not necessarily unpleasant because of it. Delia identified birds by their calls:

Olive-Sided Flycatcher.

Orange-Crowned Warbler.

Swainson’s Thrush.

At home I asked her what the birds were in our closest tree:

Cedar Waxwings.

And then over a dozen of them rushed out of the tree right by us.

She’s identified them for me before, but I never remember any of it. I might be cultivating a mental block on purpose because I love having her tell me . . . I like asking her and having her answer. I like being almost completely ignorant and dipping into her body of knowledge and having it be too much for my brain to absorb. I like feeling overwhelmed by the world of birds and having their names sound as new as possible to me each time she pronounces them.

I’ve never been “into” birds (though I’m a big fan of chickens, crows, and owls — all for different reasons, of course — plus some other raptors) so paying any attention to them at all is sort of other-worldly because there are so many of them this time of year and most are so different from anything I remember noticing growing up. They’re kind of a revelation to me, so tiny and animated and enchanting. It’s kind of sickening how much they delight me in the same way I’m slightly grossed out by the way poetry and jazz have grown on me in the past year or so. Like, what the fuck is happening to me?!?

*****

In case you’re wondering what this poppy looked like when it opened, here you go (taken the morning after I took the other ones):

One of the poppy’s sepals thrown off:

Poppy's thick, fuzzy sepal thrown off onto the ground.

In bloom (with another bud below it):

Salmon-colored poppy in bloom.

Oh, and I’m in a much better mood than I was in that other post. I haven’t been getting my B-vitamin shots; I thought I was getting too much because I got headaches a couple of times after getting them (which is part of why I *get* those shots, to *prevent* headaches), so I’ve been taking a liquid form instead and I don’t think it’s quite doing the trick. Anyway, whatever the cause(s) I’ve been a little more anxious and moody lately, among other things, but overall am fine and am working on it. I’m going to take more of the liquid B’s and am refocusing on maintaining a stable blood sugar level and increasing my insulin sensitivity by eating fewer bad carbs. I also did a good job of taking care of myself and a headache on Thursday and Friday without feeling guilty about it because I knew how much work I’ve done this week and that I could afford to get some rest and work a few less hours on those days. Yay for keeping track of hours worked and stuff accomplished instead of only looking at the undone stuff on our long-ass to-do lists!!

*****

We do have porn stuff going on at home and in our members-only areas, I just haven’t been blogging about the sexy stuff as much as I should. But it’s all in there! You can check at TrixieAndFriends.com for some previews.

How long can I feel this super groovy? I hope a looooong time! The memory/deja vu/hopeful-excited-magic feelings I mentioned last week are still here and I feel GREAT. So great that I’m almost worried that I’m losing my marbles and trying to figure out what to attribute these good feelings to.

Is it the B vitamins? The D’s? The pressure being lifted from IRS after being forced to resign myself to accepting and even embracing whatever bad things might happen? Our deliciously mild winter (that could fuck up the winter olympics in Vancouver if the Pacific Northwest doesn’t get more snow)? Getting rid of DirecTV and reading more and enjoying each other more? Our new sound therapy machine with the delta wave inducing sounds (I usually dream so much that I don’t get deep dreamless sleep: a symptom of low serotonin levels/depression)? Is it that I’ve lost some weight? Is it going to twelve-step meetings? Is it just that I’m reading more and I FUCKING LOVE TO READ?!?

I don’t know, but IT IS GOOD! So I’m going to try to enjoy it and not worry that there’s something wrong with me. Goes to show how unhealthy I’ve been for so long that when I feel terrific for more than three hours I think maybe the sky is falling.

*****

I picked up my new weighted hula hoop today for more high jinks on the spycams! I also have a bollycardio dvd that we rented which I’ve only gone through once and am looking forward to doing more of. It’s jolly/silly camwatching goodness.

Speaking of camwatching goodness, we enjoyed some fucking yesterday and I hope our voyeurs did, too.

*****

On Friday and Saturday we had a great visit with my sister, brother-in-law and nephews which contributed to my heightened sense of awareness and positivity. Hanging around a three year old and an easily-delighted baby with a huge grin and dimples is like bathing in a clarifying happiness. Music sounds better, everything looks newer and more interesting and mysterious, and I have an excuse to read books aloud that were read to ME when I was little.

And hey, on top of that there is all of this boundless LOVE. On top of just loving those little guys to pieces, the amount of unconditional love I get from them is totally amazing. I’m forced to love myself more just being around them, in part because they do not see flaws but also because I want to always model un-self-conscious confidence to them; they make me love  myself more.

Maybe that’s what’s going on with me lately . . . better brain chemistry. Getting better sleep. Getting rid of the television — maybe having more oxytocin like from being around my nephews and my sister, but also from cuddling Delia and really being TOGETHER in bed instead of just staring at the tube all of the time. Maybe I’m just being flooded with a lot of girl juice: the loving, bonding chemicals, not necessarily the sexy ones.

Cuddling never used to help me fall asleep — it was more something I liked to do for a few minutes BEFORE unsticking bodies and going to sleep on my own side of the bed. Bizarrely enough, I’m actually finally starting to understand how great if feels to fall asleep nestled up to Delia. If I get in her armpit with her arm around me and my nose on her upper tit, I now get an instant jolt of SOMETHING I’ve never had with anybody else. Seriously, it’s some kind of a drug injection that I do think has something to do with oxytocin. Whatever it is, it’s BLISS. Tranquilizing and emotionally/sensually stimulating all at the same time.

It’s still sort of weird and foreign to me so I mostly continue my years-entrenched habit of nestling into my own don’t-touch-me space to sleep, but I think I’m going to try to get more of that business more often. I might need to work on my initiation technique though which consists of awkwardly trying to lift her arm up and demanding she “let me in”.