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Archive for the ‘spiritual issues’ Category

Sometimes I really want to take pictures of my poop, but decide against it because our toilet is too gross.

Sometimes we’re afraid of the wrong things.

Lately I’m seeing how much of a pattern this is for me – worrying about small things while giving absolutely no thought or consideration to large, serious issues.

Sometimes I obsess over the wrong details, ignoring the obvious problems.

Maybe it’s not really God that’s in the details, it’s insanity.

I’m surprised and amazed at how much this January first felt like a special day. Was it the sun? The late morning heat we got to bask in in our parlor? We did so much good simple stuff: picked up, plant-watered, worked, went for a walk:

Dissipating contrails & blue sky on New Year's Day, 2011

It looks warmer than it was:

Bundled up on the beach, snowy Mt. Baker

I didn’t anticipate that I’d feel so great this morning. I wish I knew how to describe these feelings, that loaded up with magic potential. Maybe it’s that I still have a cold or am getting over it but my head’s blocked up and things have been/are shifting around in there to make stuff sound different. Maybe the pressure of fluid makes me see things strange.

I opened the door to spit out a gob of phlegm and heard little girls’ voices coming from somewhere but the only living thing in sight was a deer. Maybe she was talking with her sister in the bushes.

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 just used some of my webcam money to subscribe to one of my favorite radio programs ever, Hearts of Space. Nevermind the ill-advised acronym (so typical of nerds to make a hilarious mistake like that, god love ‘em).

Since our porn business operates on a subscription basis, it’s interesting to research other subscription-based internet products, their price points, and comparing the offerings. I loved reading the HOS: WHY PAY? page. Like porn, music is something you can get free online in a million places. Even when people don’t ask you to justify charging for it, many of us feel we MUST explain it (I’ve been criticized by adult webmasters for the times when I’ve disclosed similar information and confronted those questions when maybe I should leave them alone). It’s inspiring to read the way Hearts of Space explains some of their business approach (and costs outsiders don’t comprehend without being taught) because it’s so firmly rooted in a clear vision, one that I know DELIVERS an experience I’ve never gotten from any other radio programming. There is a certain personality, there are seductive, hypnotic voices I’m attached to, and there is a well-planned journey offered by HOS.

HEARTS of SPACE PRODUCER STEPHEN HILL’s CAREER seemed to take a sharp detour in the early 70’s when he abandoned his architectural career and opened a recording studio. . . . In retrospect, Hill realizes he never really left architecture. He simply became a sound architect who learned to build his castles on the air. “Architects create environments with physical materials.
I do it with sound.” - Stephen Hill

It’s also interesting to observe my own thought process in deciding what kind of subscription to get: I chose the $13 a month all-access plan because I don’t feel like I can shell out the money for a year even though I know it would save me money in the long run. Also, The internet radio channel only (no archives or playlists) probably would’ve been good enough for me, but if it wasn’t, I didn’t want to try to figure out how to upgrade mid-month. Out of laziness/a desire to be efficient with my time and not necessarily need or probable usage, I chose the more comprehensive membership. I know people go through similar though processes when deciding which membership plan to get for our sites.

Hearts of Space is an inspiring model of how to create and sustain and love a “product” that’s not personalized for each individual listener but still manages to feel intimate even though it’s mass-delivered and not even live (except maybe one hour a week, I think).  It speaks of a void and manages to fill it –inside of me and outside of me — at the same time. I’m fascinated by people and groups who design and deliver stimuli producing what appears to be a relatively mundane experience (compared to, say, a roller coaster ride in a theme park or a provocative theatre piece, etc.) that manages to infiltrate people’s lives by being constantly accessible in private, demanding little of them but providing addictive stimulation. A little like a favorite diner or coffee shop. Something offering sustenance you could get elsewhere, but elsewhere just wouldn’t be QUITE right. I believe there’s something about the earnestness of the proprietors to deliver an actual EXPERIENCE they’ve envisioned in rich detail and feel in their own bones that makes Hearts of Space , some bookstores, a couple of Indian and Thai restaurants in Tacoma, and some porn sites exceptional.

I love music and I love feeling distant connections to people, but it’s impossible for me to listen to voices or most music and WORK at the same time. “Space music” offers me the kind of escape and transcendence I long for. It’s a spiritual salve for me that allows me to imagine journeying into a meaningful peaceful nothingness of wind and colors and stars and the smell of ozone. It gives me a lot of the feeling I get from imagining my ideal forms of church or prayer or sanctuary or space travel. It’s like having a lucid flying dream. That’s totally worth $13 a month to me. “Greetings, space fans . . . “

There’s a vibe on Hearts of Space that I’d like to infuse my own site with – that I’ve always wanted to be there and have maybe succeeded in transmitting some of the time (not the SAME vibe, but a quality or peculiarity of vibe). I think it will be helpful to listen to HOS on a daily basis to remind myself of the possibilities and how personality and vision and voices (even in very limited doses, more often without words) can combine in powerful, seductive, and soothing ways. How to make transportation out of your aesthetics and values to take people to a place they recognize as one where their belief systems make perfect sense. Or freewheeling careless nonsense. Where you look around and feel yourself and even though nothing has changed, you’re like, “THIS is it, what I was trying to remember that was bothering the tip of my tongue.”

Like, fucking psychic alignment, man!

Click here for an older post about new age music, porn and more.

*****

I know, you’re all like . . . post some porn, woman!! Are you losing your mind?

I can only answer in a predictably crazy way by insisting that no, I’m totally on the verge of genuine SANITY, motherfuckers!! Seriously, like, all is about to be REVEALED!!

I’ll try to post something porny and down-to-earth for you soon, mkay? I’ll TRY.

I am always trying. I don’t know if that’s apparent or not, but it’s true.

Yesterday we had a really bad sales day. You tell yourself it’s just one of those days . . . bad luck and such. And then today we had ANOTHER really bad sales day!

Dirty Gutters & Cotton Ball Clouds: June 6th, WA

I’m not writing this to complain or ask why, I’m just logging it out for those of you interested in how business is. As always, I can think of tons of things I could do to improve sales. Like write sexier blog entries than these ones! That still doesn’t account for our sales this year being HALF of what they were at this time in 2007.

Suckerhole

It could be a destabilizing hint from the universe that I can’t really count on ANYTHING. If I’m going to gamble, I could gamble doing something else I want to do and haven’t already been doing for the past ten years, something REALLY crazy! Crazier than internet porn, YES!

It’s hard not to feel lame and sucky when you have much better “products” than you had years ago, but see a marked decrease in sales instead of an increase. Sure, there are patches of blue but many seem framed by thick, foreboding, suffocating clouds of doom.

Okay, I’m being melodramatic. But that’s the life of a small-business owner, I think. You have to be given to severe thrills of optimism balanced by degrading valleys of pessimism.

*****

Our crappy neighbor’s sweet one-eyed kitty was sitting on our welcome mat when I came home from the store, looking at me like she expected me to open the front door for both her and me and to welcome her inside for a feeding. We’ve lived here for years and I’ve never seen her do that, come to our door and indicate she wanted to be let in. It warmed the cockles of my cold, cold heart and made me sad for the millionth time in my life that I’m allergic to cats. I know it’s crazy, but I do believe stranger-cats know when a house is sad sometimes and come over to offer love.

Due to our poor relations with our neighbor and my allergies, I didn’t do anything to encourage the cat, but when I checked on her out there later as she was finally slowly leaving, she kept looking back at me over her shoulder and making eye contact with me, like “are you sure you don’t want me to stay? Because I’ll stay and even come in if you want me to. I’m of a perfectly comforting weight for a lap, see?”

I know: CRAZY. The cats just come to our house because the bird-hunting is so good. I don’t believe that, though. You don’t catch birds sitting on a fucking welcome mat in front of a door, alternating your gaze from the human to the door, back to the human and back to the door.

Nico was fifteen years old and people STILL frequently asked if she was a puppy — so pretty and smaller than people expect Siberian Huskies to be (even though she was normal-size for a female husky). But if they watched her walking from the hind end they’d understand she was an old girl. She started to look like an elderly woman hobbling doggedly with a walker, dragging her hind legs stiffly forward one at a time after reaching forward to brace herself with her two front legs.

Eat as Many Treats as You Want!!

There *was* a choice of whether or not now was the right time to put her to sleep. I’m aware that there are people who would’ve put her down a lot sooner and others who would have let this stretch out forever with doggy diapers and thousands of dollars in vet bills. I’m aware that we might have made this decision for ourselves as much as for her and that I’ve been able to absolve myself of any guilt because she was really Delia’s dog and her decision to make based on twice as many years with her and a lot more love. I’m also aware that Delia gave her a good life and that she’s a HUSKY, and she couldn’t do her husky things anymore – there hadn’t been ululations for a year or more and her sickle tail was permanently drooped into brush-mode. She was confused (at times heartbreakingly comically so, like when she would stand at the hinge of the door waiting to be let out of the bedroom when the door was already open INCHES away from where she’d fixed her gaze – it WAS funny, though sad) and her mobility profoundly decreased. She’d been losing her balance (or her legs just gave out) while she pooped and would often fall over then finish pooping while lying on her side.

Anyway, there was a lot of stuff and seeing blood in her gelatinous-with-mucous diarrhea Saturday night was the clarifying symptom that it was TIME even though it hadn’t been that many days since she ran through the house as much as she could, yipping both in pain and excitement, not able to NOT force herself to go as fast as possible even after wiping out twice trying to navigate the corner between one hallway and another. If it were any other kind of dog you’d think I was describing a very fit and healthy animal, but huskies are just that awesomely driven to RUN and defy every limitation imposed on them.

So we decided to make her last two days full of good things, like her last walk in the woods. It was very very slow and the smallest hills were like giant mountains to her. She even looked at one incline so wearily that she turned around, like “just take me back to the car because I’m DONE”.

Nico's Last Walk in the Woods

During and after making the decision I’ve felt a variety of emotions: excitement looking forward to freedom and possibilities, relief, uncertainty, guilt, confusion, sadness, loss, worry . . .

Our beautiful companion's fur, walking slowly

Two women came to our house to do it after Nico had two days of walks and lots of her favorite soft peanut-butter treats and lots of love and attention lavished on her. The vet and her assistant were loving and gentle and pleasant and thoughtful and smooth and patient and respectful.

Small and short-lived.

The hardest part was the hour before they got here when we were waiting. Everything was ready, Nico was totally worn out, and there was nothing to do except know that she was about to be gone and didn’t even know what was coming (I think Delia felt more confident that Nico did actually know and was fully prepared and welcoming – either way is actually pretty sweet).  I wouldn’t trade that hour of waiting for rushing around or not experiencing that weird duality of tranquility on the outside and guts churning on the inside, though.

Waiting for the vet to come

During the process I felt a fast cycling of emotions of calm, euphoria, gratitude and resignation sort of like when I was in a car crash and had a few seconds to emotionally prepare myself to die and then was elated when I survived. But with this there were also overwhelmingly intense guts-in-the-throat needing to bawl emotions like when I was with my dad during his death.

How beautiful and floppy and light her dead body looked wrapped in a blanket with her gorgeous face exposed and then her front legs tumbling out. The looseness and complete lack of worry. The weird exciting sense of potential like you could reanimate her, so fresh and ready with all of the soreness and stiffness she’d been suffering from magically erased. She really did look like new life (and none of these pictures are communicating the reality of any of this, or at least my perceptions and experiences of these days). She was so so so beautiful.

No more breath, no more heartbeat.

*****

Helping Nico die and being present for it helped me with my dad’s death, to process it more and remember it and grieve more freely and more fast. It’s been eight years, but I really didn’t know a lot about how to be with his death and my feelings about it so it’s been a very long and protracted experience. Watching Nico die — feeling her die, touching her dying and dead — I feel spiritually more at ease than I did when confronted with my dad’s final moments. Maybe my idea of peace is wider and simpler than I must have wished for back then. Maybe my expectations for myself are lower than they were then. I don’t know, but I’m glad for it.

I am an imperfect witness, not a bumbling guide stuck with the horrible responsibility of having taken someone I loved on a journey to a brick wall on a dead end. Maybe I’m getting to be okay with nothing being perfect and not being in control and just appreciating the long moments I’ve had to absorb the profoundly ordinary in all of its individual rarity and treasure it and bask in my blessings. My dad is one of a few people I’ve had telepathic experiences with (even if they were probably more accurately described as intuitive communication or whatever) so maybe I thought I failed by not knowing what he was trying to tell me at the end or that I failed by crying and possibly making him sad or worried during his last minutes of life. There’s a lot less pressure with a dog and it was more okay with me that we were all together but alone at the same time.

The Incredible Machine

Like with my dad it took a number of minutes for her to stop all the way. “She’s not breathing anymore but she still has a very faint heartbeat”. For like four minutes. When we were kids Daddy bought us lots of National Geographic books. One of my favorites that may have impacted my worldview more than any other was “The Incredible Machine” about how humans are all electrical and mechanical and stuff. I never absorbed facts and information the way my sister could (it’s amazing how we had the same books at home and the body of knowledge her brain constructed out of them is so vastly different — and more vast in general — than mine) so what I retained from it is just a philosophy that I might not find in it if I were to read it today, but that might have been the first book I ever read to give me a celebratory nontheistic way of looking at life that was deliciously SPACE AGE eighties-style, like 3-2-1 Contact and synthesizers and stuff.

While Nico was dying it started raining and we were glad it waited until then, not starting until after her last three walks and other quiet time outside. That night the smell of the evergreens after the rain was magnified to supernatural proportions and for a minute I enjoyed imagining that Nico bestowed an enriched sense of smell on us as a parting gift.

Then I stopped wasting brain juice on that and just focused on vacuuming up as much scent as I could with each inhalation, tasting wet green dogless walks in the future moonlight, just me and my girlfriend.

*****

Delia and I have been living together for almost eight years (the first time she told me she loved me was the day my dad died). It’s a significant chunk of time as far as human measurements go but also . . . brief. Losing Nico is another transition for our relationship and maybe I have the feeling like I will contribute more as a partner now. Nico was rooted in so many years of history and two other serious relationships for Delia so she was never really “my” dog; I don’t mean that in a bitter or unloving or detached way . . . it was my way of copping out of taking care of her fully so that I didn’t clean up as much poop or let her in and out as often or get her food ready. I’m excited that we’re entering another stage together and that it’s happening now.

Pair of Trillium

I can’t complain . . . I really can’t complain or regret this loss or wish for any of it to be different. I can’t say that I wish we didn’t have to go through this or that she could have lived forever. Of all the ways of dying and lives and chunks of years of experiences out there to be had, I’d say this death and these years and our lives have been blessed, relatively comfortable with relatively little pain, and filled with pleasure. Am I still bursting into tears? Yeah, but I can’t complain.

I totally have spring fever. We can go anywhere! Do anything! The light in our house looks different. The pretending-to-be-a-grownup feeling is back when I go into my office. Maybe just because everything is intensified after so many intense days? I don’t know, but this is the first time in all these years we can leave the doors wide open and not be afraid that Nico will run away. It’s not that a husky doesn’t love her people, SHE’S JUST PROGRAMMED TO RUN AWAY FROM YOU!!

*****

Check out Delia’s post with more pictures of Nico and background. Contrasting pics of her in her younger days really shows how much she changed physically over the years, plus it’s really interesting to read/see more about Delia!

*****

Note: I feel EXTREMELY fortunate we had a way to pay for her to be ushered out so gently with at-home euthanasia; not everybody is so lucky. Humanely ending an animal’s life is really expensive for most people and doing it yourself is something most people aren’t equipped for (and legally/socially is a prime example of some really interesting double-standards, misunderstandings and class differences in our country). Anyhoo, if you love your pet and can afford to do it this way when the time comes, I’d recommend it as being well worth the extra money (if you can swing it) to have that special time at home and is worth finding out in advance what vets (or other people?) can help you with this when the time comes. I also feel extremely fortunate that my dad died in hospice which is much more like dying at home than like dying in a  hospital, but better than dying at home maybe. I loved it, and think it’s hugely important to be able to spend time with your dead loved one for hours, if you’re lucky enough to have that option and the kind of death you get to see coming.

Our friends Kristy and BeerCanMan have spent time with us on our spycams when they’ve visited. They know how it works having broadcast voyeur cams themselves for a time and have access to our sites so they can check our cams to see if we’re awake before they call or just . . . check our cams for fun to see what we’re doing. A number of our meatworld friends who are also porn colleagues have access to our cams so this isn’t unusual and our friends don’t report to us every time they peek in, but BeerCanMan did tell me that sometimes he and Kris hook us up on a big screen next to their regular tv via their xbox (or PS3 maybe?).

He said it’s like we’re all in the same room together, watching tv in bed like we do when we can get together in real life. They look over at the screen and there we are in bed, laughing and watching tv too and it’s almost like we’re really there. They can look over and see us, right there next to them.

*****

On Friday I got into an argument with one of the guys who now has control over that best spycam site we’ve been broadcasting on since 2002, SpyOnYou. The one with audio that our friends use to be in the same room with us and the best quality feeds of any of the adult voyeur cam sites out there. But also the one that’s been the biggest pain in the ass, too. The one I used to get paid to cam on, got fucked in a variety of unpleasant ways by the owner years ago, was no longer paid to be on but still couldn’t advertise my site there and last year was forced to start PAYING to be on and give our members access to it.

To make a long story short, over the weekend this guy disabled our access to the cams. (Note: we still have 24/7 spycams broadcasting on our sites through two other plugins). I wasn’t willing to keep paying for them without having more control and information and he was not willing to provide that information or treat us and our business with any respect or consideration or communicate with us at all except to demand money while moving up the date he wanted us to pay little by little each month and tell me it’s none of my business what the actual operating costs of the site are after we’d been led to believe something different by one of the other guys (the one that I *trust*). He screamed at me on the phone about how much his expenses are and how he’s just hanging on by a thread and then in the next breath refused to show me invoices for the hosting because “that’s personal!!!” Dude, you’re going to have to decide if it’s business or if it’s personal, because if it’s personal? Don’t cry about your expenses to me and ask me to help foot the fucking bill. We have expenses of our own and are hanging by our own threads.

I am used to being treated disrespectfully by camsites, but not having to pay them for that dubious honor.

This guy is part of the reason why our cams are often disconnected in the middle of the night without any warning or explanation, part of why the broadcaster has major problems, etc. when all of the other sites we broadcast on are usually extremely stable. But still, the quality was so much better when they DID stay up and there was the audio which the other spycam sites don’t broadcast. And really? The amount we were paying wasn’t unreasonable at all. Then again, he never responded when we indicated a desire to help pay the programmer to fix the software (which this guy now says he “owns” even though the programmer was never paid by them in entirety which is why it was left buggy).

So. I don’t know if I was just being an asshole or what, but after the way he behaved on the phone and made it his mission over the weekend to take down our cams and member access (and bizarrely and rudely Jess’ and Mina’s, too) because his ego was bruised BEFORE the thirty days I already paid for was up, I am glad to wash my hands of him and want nothing to do with him. I wish him well and everything, and especially two of the other people (Steven and Bonnie) that I worked with over the years at that company but after eight years I am done with wondering “what next?”

*****

Okay, I lied. I will never be done wondering “what next?”

I am wondering if what’s next is to partner up with our trustworthy cam friends to build a better spycam site:

Should we make MySpyCams.com someplace awesome?

We all have the vision and experience to know what would make it special, and more importantly WORKABLE for us as camgirls and for our members. But would it actually make money? Can we really afford the time and money to make it operate the way we envision it and without demanding MORE time and money we don’t have down the road?

I’ve been a camgirl since the year 2000 and have seen SCADS of people become giddy with the prospect of building their own camsites, dump tons of money and time into them, and FAIL MISERABLY. Of course they were different camsites — pay per view — but still. Knowing you COULD do something better than others who’ve gone before you and actually executing your supposed “genius” are two totally different things. On the other hand, this isn’t a crazy complex pie-in-the-sky scheme; mostly we just want to replace what we lost. And at least improve upon it a little. And while we’re at it why not make it totally fucking awesome?!?

Recently we’ve also seen well-established sites with lots of resources (time and money) make gigantic, huge, really fucked up mistakes (I’m thinking of Niteflirt and CCBill) in overhauling systems that basically worked and fucking the people who bring in their bread and butter. Of course I think part of that is that they have a fundamental disregard for the clients (I don’t mean the “end users” who pay for phone sex and porn site memberships, but phone sex operators and site owners) perhaps BECAUSE they have enough resources and can afford to make decisions from a huge distance from the people they will impact. Months later we have lots of  apologies and patched together fixes, but things are never quite the same (in the case of Niteflirt) and no one puts their money where their mouth is to compensate the people who got screwed (in the case of CCBill who should’ve lowered our processing rates/fees if they want us to think they really MEAN that apology; you know the programmers got assloads of money to make something substandard and force us to be their beta testers and lose money but what do we get? An apology! Nice, but it doesn’t make up for months of fuckery and trust lost with our partners – in my world if you make big mistakes you offer some freebies, discounts, etc.; god knows I have when it was the right thing to do even when I couldn’t afford to).

Point is, if these big companies with lots of dough can fail so miserably and hire programmers and project managers who TOTALLY DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK THEY’RE DOING and send everyone’s shit sliding off the rails, how much easier would it be for US to fail miserably and not have the money to hire someone else to fix it? Do I really want to be part of investing time and money and friendships and friends’ time and money into ignorantly (because I know nothing about programming) searching for the right hosting and coders and programmers? That’s hard enough, just putting something like this together even if you DO have money, but when we’re all already putting everything we have already into the sites we already do have (and in our friends’ cases their other full time jobs)? And then what if we hire THE WRONG PEOPLE? Even if those people are well-intentioned and do their best and aren’t deliberately fucking you (and I truly do not believe anyone intended to fuck anybody at Niteflirt or CCBill, that’s just how it wound up; the rectum-ripping dick just wound up sliding right into people’s asses through bad planning, not malevolent intent), the end result could still find us wading in a morass of shit. I do not want to spend weeks, months or years unprofitably wading through shit.

But maybe I’m being fearful for nothing. This isn’t something I will be doing alone and everything could just as easily work out great as it could not work out at all. Still, there are potential headaches and risks even if we have an awesome site with perfect tools that practically runs itself. Some of those headaches and risks are called CAMGIRLS. If you are good at this shit at all, you’ve got a strong personality. Strong personalities working with strong personalities can be volatile, dramatic and time consuming, even if you avoid the former by doing a lot of the latter (consuming time) making sure you only work with people who have their shit together. But jesus fuck I know that’s not even fair or realistic considering *I* do not always have my own shit together and have been known to be a royal pain in the ass.

And how about liabilities? Porn is under enough legal scrutiny and persecution that even static content is risky; add in LIVE 24/7 camfeeds and you have the potential to get into trouble for all kinds of things, even on accident. I don’t even want to provide examples for fear of getting into trouble, but I will mention a couple of areas of concern: music broadcasting and accidental children sightings (not necessarily at the same time). Here’s a situation: maybe your sister comes over with her kids while you’re in the shower and before you had a chance to turn off ALL of your spycams and she brings her baby in the bedroom to knock on the bathroom door to let you know that she’s arrived safely at your house and you don’t even know the baby is in there until you jump out of the shower and open the door naked and then there you are NAKED on a PORN site with a BABY! And ohmygod the whole world is going to crumble because you have done the unthinkable!!!!! And your business will be ruined as soon as someone takes a screencap and sends it to the feds and your payment processor and visa and FOX news and the locals who didn’t even know you were making porn in their neighborhood and there was a BABY involved?!? That’s just a hypothetical situation though. That never happened to me last week at all I’m just describing how easily your life could be destroyed by participating in this industry and having a family. ONE FALSE MOVE AND THEY’LL GIVE YOU THE CHAIR!! Okay, you won’t get the chair but you could wind up in a business-destroying legal battle. Even a little snafu can ruin you. Normally I don’t worry overly much about these things, but that’s partly because I’m only risking mine and Delia’s asses as opposed to the asses of friends. I do not want to be a liability to people who trust me.

So the next question (which should’ve been the FIRST question) is whether or not this has the potential to make money. While I actually have a lot more faith than I seem to have that we could build an awesome site that virtually runs itself (we aren’t trying to do anything nearly as complicated as other camsites; it doesn’t need to be fancy) I have serious doubts whether or not this would actually pay for itself (development and monthly hosting) let alone make extra money as a stand-alone site or even just as a promotional tool for the exhibitors, especially if we don’t have the time or budget to promote it heavily out of the gate. So would it be worth it if it just pays for itself and is a reliable, high-quality plugin for our members? The truth is that all of us are really struggling with the sites we already have and I don’t even know if that many of our members care that much about having the higher quality cams with audio and a chatroom we control (rather than a chatroom where we can’t link to anything offsite, can’t “promote” ourselves, and have to follow their rules, which is understandable but very limiting when you can’t even link to a news article when you’re talking about shit that’s going on in the world). There are so many places you can get explicit and entertaining cam feeds for free now that it seems foolish to think we can compete with a for-pay model where the cams don’t even promise anything exciting; most of the time we’re just washing dishes or blogging or crying over the most recent dip in sales.

The funny part, though, is in my heart of hearts I vehemently believe our camsite would be special and offer something a lot of people (camgirls/boys/couples AND customers) would appreciate and recognize as valuable. After writing all of these fears and doubts and well-reasoned concerns I am too attached to these spycams to let them go. Even though we still have assloads of spycams broadcasting right now! It’s just not the same on those plugins without audio. I am extremely ATTACHED to the idea of a camsite owned and operated by the people ON them who feel the same way I do about them and promotes THEM as much as the camsite itself. Even more than that I am extremely attached to the idea of making something GOOD, and since we would be working with other people that seems a lot more attainable than Delia and I trying to make something good alone.

I am also very attached to the part of my identity that’s been a “camgirl” all of these years. A lot of the experiences I’ve cherished most as a webwhore over the years are exchanges we’ve had via our spycams. There is a raw authenticity on the spycams with audio that’s incredibly intimate BECAUSE it is often so mundane (and when it’s not mundane is all the more intense because of the contrast). There is a dailiness and reliability and easy sharing that I think is a tremendous and comforting gift. While part of me craves more anonymity and less-ready accessibility, a large(r?) part of me is massively attached to providing this spycam experience and I don’t want it to just be mediocre.

I’ve been relieved the past couple of days not to have the audio on our spycams, but also have felt painfully aware that people are missing out on being close to us and knowing what is going on, even if that is nothing very “entertaining”. How will they know we’re laughing at Star Trek? How will they survive without hearing our Captain Janeway impressions?

I started talking REALLY LOUDLY. I don’t know if it was just because I *could* without sounding weird or if it was because I thought maybe people could hear without audio being broadcast if I JUST ENUNCIATED REALLY CLEARLY. Without even thinking about it, I’ve begun exaggerating my facial expressions to try to communicate without sound. Part of my life is knowing you are out there, watching and listening, for better and for worse. It’s like one of my limbs has been amputated and I’m trying on different prosthetics.

Anyway, I don’t know if all of these attachments are good. Maybe I should break away from something that is turning me into a bizarre version of a silent film star wannabe. I can’t seem to decide if this is a business decision or a personal decision. As a business decision it will depend on how much it costs to build. I think my struggle is more personal, though. I’m torn between “these cams are my identity and I love them” and “I really need more time away from work and more time focusing on CREATIVE static work; building another site and business entity with tech that if it goes down would need IMMEDIATE attention so as not to fuck customers and exhibitors doesn’t sound like a good way to get less stress and more private, in-my-head creative time AT ALL.”

So you know how I said I don’t want to spend weeks, months or years unprofitably wading through shit? I’m not even sure I would want to wade through shit for extended periods of time PROFITABLY. As much as I want this lovely spycam site to work out, the truth is there are many other things I want even more. I’m getting to an age where a couple of priorities/desires to create are rising to the top  and realizing that I will have to give up some (a lot of?) things if I ever want to immerse myself in what I want MOST. But I guess I’m still having a hard time letting go of the delusion that I can accomplish way more than I’m probably capable of. I suspect I’ll be happier when I fully accept my limitations and give myself over to one or two things that I want with gigantic private bigness, but apparently I’m too attached right now to these other things. But I could DEtach myself from them right now if I chose to. And this does seem like a perfect opportunity to do so that wouldn’t be a big deal to anybody but myself. So what if our voyeurcams aren’t the best and don’t have audio? SO WHAT? WHO CARES?? My life just got easier!! Why not embrace that??

I just realized, though, that I *can* quit/pull out of this at any point if it doesn’t work out. And right now it’s working out FINE to go forward. Or maybe it’s not. A month before taxes are due I should be making as much money as I possibly can, not spending time and energy on something that won’t be ready to make money for months, if ever. I’ve already dumped more time and energy into this lately than anything else. Hell, in the time it took me to write this tormented blog entry I could have been doing something USEFUL like promoting Delia’s site (which is really ALL we should focus on selling if we really want to make money fast) or at least working on my own site. But spycams are PART of both of our sites, right? Right!!

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Thanks for letting me muddle through that. While I sound uncertain, the truth is my mind is already made up that I want MySpyCams.com to work and I feel like I’ve already committed to it.

PLEASE NOTE: I am *not* looking for advice by posting this, I’m just SHARING the process in case you’re interested in reading it. Blogging about it helps, but even with all of these words there are a world of details I’m leaving out so it doesn’t put anybody in a very good position to “advise” me. But that doesn’t mean I won’t solicit feedback and help later! AND you’re WELCOME to share your own stories of similar dilemmas or relevant anecdotes/observations – I would love that! And if you have any recommendations for hosting, programmers, etc. THAT would also be awesome, or if you want to volunteer (or advertise as for sale) your own talents, that TOO would be fantastic! We’ll have a form up later for people who want to actually broadcast on it and more details about how that would work, requirements, etc. All in good time . . .

A couple of random notes:

I accompanied Delia to get her first Botox injections today. I was kind of jealous and can totally understand how some people get addicted to those kinds of procedures. I thought for sure the doctor would try to sell me on something as long as I was just standing there, but the only notice he took of me was after his juvederm speech to look over at me and remark, “your cheeks are awesome. You will never need fillers.”

I’m not sure how to handle some compliments (like this sweet one comparing me to Kate Moss), but compliments on my cheeks or cheekbones always make me happy. I think because it’s a remark on something that seems very objective and sounds like a structural analysis. It seems very specific and rational, almost impersonal, so I can accept that kind of flattery. Plus I think it’s accurate. I believe that I *do* have awesome cheeks! Note: I can also graciously accept compliments on specific ways I am “weird”.

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Do you wish I would now talk about how I feel about cosmetic surgery and enhancements and stuff? Maybe another time. Or do you wish I’d sputter about how Kate Moss is a bad role model for young women? Oh gosh . . . don’t even get me started. It makes me really fucking irritated when people jump all over her skinny ass like she’s personally responsible for all of the eating disorders in the world. I don’t think we’re healing women of insecurity by rabidly insisting that skinny women aren’t “real”, which goes back to how I feel about cosmetic stuff; no matter how much silicone you put in your body and how your skin is moved around and your fat excised, YOU ARE STILL A REAL PERSON and should be treated as such. Yeah, I think it’s all very problematic and stuff, but whatever. It’s all too fascinating to blog about in depth right now (no, I’m not being sarcastic: this stuff FASCINATES me though it does sometimes bore the fuck out of me, too . . . I’ve even felt a kind of spiritual awakening reading about people who are extremely addicted to cosmetic body mods). Personal request: PLEASE don’t make any assumptions about me or my beliefs based on this paragraph; I just don’t have time to go into the complexities and nuances right now.

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The second thing I wanted to mention is that Charmin Ultra Strong toilet paper is THE BEST!!! It’s advertised as being applicable in situations where you want “a Dependable Clean” but it’s also marvelous in settings where you merely want a soft and delicious dry. I highly recommend this toilet paper to anybody looking for a thick luxury wipe or cheapskates who limit TP rations to two squares per job.

One of the things I dislike about shaving between my legs is that the stubble shreds lesser toilet papers (MD) and I’m left with little wads of white all over my vulva. CUS has solved this problem for me. Honestly, the quality of my life has been significantly improved by giving Charmin Ultra Strong a spin. This is my personal testimonial . . . I’m not receiving any kickbacks from Charmin for it. It’s just a very important consideration for someone like myself who takes great pleasure in pooping, etc.

I know there are more important things in the world to concern myself with, but toilet paper is the only product that interacts with me in an intimate way multiple times each day.

Yes, I know this post is BEGGING for your PUNNY comments!

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.

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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.

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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”.