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Archive for the ‘therapy’ Category

Just so you don’t feel TOO sorry for me, I *do* have garden gloves with rubber-coated fingers and palms:

Don’t worry about my silly complaints about the dearth of heavy-duty work gloves in tiny-hand sizes, because I don’t *actually* need them since I don’t really do any heavy-duty work. My fingers suffered nary a prick the past couple of days.

Sigh.

There was a 100% chance of rain today. Where I grew up that would mean rain ALL DAY. But here it means “it will be pretty cloudy today and at some point a soft spatter might fall down on you”. Both of these places are near Seattle. But so different from Seattle. And each other.

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I love this yard. I love being in it . . . being lost in it . . . becoming invisible to myself outside. That’s one of the very best feelings in the world.

I know very very little about gardening. And I’m very very slow at it, and most yard work in general. I’m not efficient. That’s not the point. Instead I’m very slow. Some of my movements are quick, but overall the progress I make (if any) is SLOW.

I look at the shapes and colors of things. I do a little something. Then I stop and look at the way what I did changed the shapes and colors of things. I walk around and look at it from different angles. I do a little something else. I smell some stuff. I pick  some things up. I put some things down. I move some stuff around.

Pull a little. Claw a little. Touch and smell and breathe a little. Tilt my head slightly. Dig a little. Turn to find the bird.

No, I’m not stoned. But doing these things, alone, without people-words, has exactly the profoundly calming effect I sometimes seek from drugs. Everything is exquisite. Thousands of small spaces invite me in. I’m fucking intrigued by this microcosm and that.

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I want this to be a significant part of my future . . . in all of the weeks I have left to live. I’m scared that I’ll ruin it if we ever have the time and resources to make it perfect, so I tried to promise myself out loud to Delia that we would never ever do that: have a boring perfect garden where the only thing left to do was maintain order. Delia will not let that happen.

One secret might be to always have big trees . . . big overgrowing things that make everything change every year.

Another secret might be to keep being really really really slow.

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The cool thing about this particular yard is that they carefully landscaped it when they built the house, like, fifteen years ago or whatever. Not like housing-development-landscaped, but with islands of native stuff like salal and a few shapes with perennials. And in maybe the ten years past a parade of renters has been through it so it’s grown out of its baby plans and gotten a little crazy in places. But not unmanageably so. Like the fire ring can’t still be where a fire is because the tree closest to it has grown to where its arms are almost reaching out over it. And you should try not to set the fucking trees on fire. That kind of thing.

So there are all of these little nooks where we could do something fairly cheap and simple and turn it into fucking storybook-charming magical. Like for photo shoots and stuff!  But not in a super-gross way. I know, I know . . . not everybody’s cup of tea. Whatever . . . I’m getting off track. I don’t really have to make anything look noticeably different, just do enough to where I’m out of my own head. Like just . . . put some shit into piles and stuff.

The point is that it’s perfect for a garden-novice like me to putter around and make a few sweet things happen without being totally overwhelming. And if any real work needs to be done, Delia knows how to use six hours to completely transform a landscape problem or crazy-ass weed-patch into THERE YOU GO ALL DONE.

My back hurts. And that’s not all.

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.

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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!

We took a walk today – the only cardio I’ve gotten all week!

The best part: sniffing big barely-pink rhododendron flowers that smelled like traditional pink bubblegum splashed with watermelon.

Delia and I shared a mango when we got home and stretched a little. My hips are rigidly, unflexibly tight these days, even more so than usual, so I cannot get enough stretching (or massage). I also spent some time massaging my belly and other gutsy parts. AND THEN I POOPED!

Then I grossly underestimated how much time and energy it would take me to get ready for a shoot and execute it. Thanks to Delia’s loving, patient help and photography it was worth it, though.

Then I went somewhere and recognized how (over)sensitive I am to meanness.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Here’s a super-belated birthday post I wrote last year but never posted until now. As of March 17th, 2011 I’m back to an even number age:

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I turned thirty-seven years old last week and am SO glad to be back on an odd number.

Some people have “issues” with numbers, often with a serious preference for even or odd numbers (and a lot of these people are OCD and/or autistic or Aspies). I’ve always preferred odd numbers which is unusual since most people with this obsession prefer evens, but I’m adamant that odd numbers are more “perfect” with more symmetry.

I know, I know, most people think an even number is more beautiful because when you split it in half, it’s balanced with equal amounts on both sides. These people will do anything to avoid odd numbers, but I myself am uncomfortable with EVEN numbers and feel like something’s missing. Aside from just finding odd  numbers more aesthetically pleasing (the way they look, the way they sound, the way they are in all of my important dates and numbers) I figured it out that for me I always need one left over in the middle to be the anchor. Think of an old-fashioned scale: there has to be a lever in between the two pans. There always has to be that one left over in the middle for me to see/feel everything in balance.

I’m not totally OCD about it . . . I have forced myself to accept even-numbered things and results and times and dollar amounts and can tolerate them without pain (and am often not even aware of whether a number is odd or even), but I always feel a bigger relief and sense of rightness when things come out odd.

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Another OCD symptom I was wrapped up in as a pre-teen was weird sympathy for inanimate objects. The biggest daily issue concerned the dishes and how I placed them in the dish-drainer after washing them; I avoided letting any of one type of dishware be “lonely” or forced into a group/family of dishes it didn’t belong to.

We had a lot of tupperware cups. Some had flared rims and cool colors, some were newer/smoother and made in warm colors. I tried very hard to group the new warm ones together and the older, more-sensitive cups with each other. I would feel sad and guilty if one of the old ones had to be lumped up against a gang of stiff new ones all by itself. In that situation it would be better to find the old cup a place apart where it would be safe even if lonely.

From one of my fave funny blogs, UnhappyHipsters.com

This wasn’t a game I played with myself to make doing the dishes more interesting, it was just an uncomfortable given. As I got older I tried to reason with myself, and there have been times in my life where I don’t pay attention to the dishes’ feelings and identities at all, but sometimes I do still find myself wanting to put them in the “right” places and giving myself permission to arrange them in a way that feels good to me. I remind myself that these problems are all in my head, but I will still rearrange the dishes sometimes if things aren’t right. It’s not always about the dishes feelings, but just about building the perfect pile.

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One of the presents I gave to myself was time to play with my Magic: The Gathering cards. Not to play the game or really “play” in any sense that most other people have of playing, but to organize and sort parts of my collection. Like arranging rocks and colors on my altar. That is often how I find peace/bliss/relaxation. I sat on the floor surrounded by my cards and enjoyed putting them into stacks by expansion, by colors, by rarity; who would want a birthday party when she could be alone sorting uniformly-sized small cards with artwork and a bunch of special designations indicated by symbols and special text on said cards? Not I!!

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There’s a three and there’s a seven.

January thru March 16th of 2011 will be (oddly) even better!

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It wasn’t, but I know you can’t win at life through lucky numbers and proper sorting alone . . .

9/3/2010 Cabin Day #1: 0 (zero) words

Loading stuff up in the van to take to the cabin I worried that the neighbors would think I was moving out and leaving Delia. Maybe that worry was just a projection of my own discomfort over making time alone/away a priority. Because there aren’t good models affirming pursuing time alone away from home unless it’s to do regular work that regular people do in the midst of whole bunches of other regular people. People who desire as much time alone as I do are widely regarded as unhealthy freaks or suspected of having other motives besides a simple need for solitude. Whatever the reason, I wanted to keep running back inside to hug Delia and get reassurance that whatever I‘m doing it‘s not what it might look like to the neighbors.

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At the cabin the wind blew and I wondered how come the skinny tall trees here don’t fall down. I amazed myself by not being annoyed that there’s a daycare with kid sounds a block away. I felt the sun on the back of my neck. I gazed at the crescent moon with breakfast around noon. I scratched up my arm and the back of my thigh on blackberry bush thorns. I figured out where I can stand and lie in the cabin with the blinds open without being seen by the girl in the big house or the people next door. I made a note to buy a couple of curtains to further hide myself when desired in those couple of places where I can be seen. I caught up on all of the pooping I didn’t get done while we were away from home for three nights.

I started to stop thinking about how to get down the ladder from the loft  (how do I mount it under the slant of roof? Do I turn around and climb it back down or just walk straight forward like I’m going down stairs?). I lit a candle. Then I blew it out when we left to get gas, but only $15 worth because we’re almost out of money until Tuesday so we didn’t reset the mileage on the odometer because our fuel gauge is broken/stuck on full.

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Things didn’t go exactly as planned, meaning I didn’t have time to plan to make things perfectly prepared.

Want to read more about Day One at The Cabin? I’m hiding the minute details after a break so as not to bore or overwhelm folks who don’t want to read about my zero word count day:

Read the rest of this entry »

Have you noticed us getting up earlier and going to sleep sooner on our cams? That’s (partly) because starting September 3rd I’m going to get up early to head over to the cabin we’re (good news!) officially renting to do off-cam no-internet work sans distractions. Normally I quickly grow disgusted with a morning-person routine, but now it seems totally different knowing there’s a purpose to it.

It rained heavily on Thursday. If I hadn’t gotten up at seven in the morning, excited about the possibilities of such early rising once the cabin time begins, I’d have never known there was any blue sky to be had that day. I’d have missed seeing this moon:

Blessing Bestowed from the West

There’s a place – a real live place – where women artists can apply for residencies. Actually, there are lots of places like that, where those kinds of people can get free lodging in inspiring locations to focus on their work, but the one I’m thinking of is SUPER DREAMY . . . fucking storybook-land perfection in terms of its tiny private artfully-crafted houses (each resident has one all to herself) and woodland setting.

Most shockingly dreamy of all is the way the women are catered to; the small handful of residents (women, all of them!) have a chef who prepares crazily wonderful dinners for them every night. There are pictures proving how thoroughly stocked the kitchen is with racks of zillions of containers of spices and rows of carefully labeled provisions and specialized pots and pans used to make what appears to be an ABUNDANCE of food every night just for these six or seven women. Meats and comforts and fresh green things and berries and sauces and fanciness and desserts and lots of colors and textures on big plates and side dishes.

On top of all that, the chef ALSO prepares individual baskets for each resident full of her favorite foods to help sustain her throughout the day while she works in her perfect little house. And there’s a garden full of plants someone else tends that each resident gets to pluck and cut flowers and leafy things from. FOR INSPIRATION AND SHIT!

I know that being there wouldn’t be actual utopia, but it does provide a model to ooh and aah over. I think it’s awesome that a very teeny-tiny percentage (wish it were more) of talented women in the world get to experience opportunities like that, to be told that their own self-directed art is so valuable as to warrant a few days . . . maybe even a whole month(!) . . . of concentrating on nothing BUT the work she most wants to do and that she will be sheltered and reliably fed to delicious excess if she likes so she can take care of her work while someone else takes care of her basic needs with sensual generosity.

Same time as picture above, but looking 80 degrees to the south.

What an exquisite fantasy! But it seems so decadent, like I know that I personally could never warrant such treatment. It’s a nice daydream but it actually makes me nervous to think about having such a giant privilege bestowed upon me. I’m nervous enough about the idea of renting this cabin, feeling like I need to prove that I “deserve” it. That I’m worth blowing more money on when I already have so much.

And then I remember that my grandma made my grandpa dinner every night to his specifications. Dished it up and brought it out to him. It wasn’t fancy, but she SERVED him. And every day she fixed him a box lunch even on the days when he was only working in his garage out back, a one minute shuffle away from the back door. I know times have changed, but when I was growing up I never fucking once saw a man prepare and serve a grown woman food. NEVER ONCE outside of restaurants (which I rarely saw) and pancake breakfasts at the Masonic Lodge where it was a wonderful novelty to see the men with aprons on, coming out to the long tables to pour coffee and bring us our hotcakes.

It wasn’t just my family that was like that. Most people my age and older grew up seeing men (and children) waited on at home and women NOT.  I suppose gender-blind egalitarianism is the ideal I should desire (and I do in some ways) but part of me needs to experience the balance of intimate privilege tipped dramatically towards women to undo what I learned by watching. I wasn’t brought up to BE that kind of woman who waits on men — not at all; I wasn’t taught with words to do it  — but that’s what all the women in my family DID to one extent or another and the men DID NOT. You have to be crazy to think that kind of learning is something you can just erase with your intellect when you grow up or even along the way with words of “you-go-girl” encouragement.

Looks promising upwards and eastwards

Even though I never grew up wanting to be a woman who takes care of a man, once I outgrew the entitlement of childhood I came to FEEL that having someone take care of me wasn’t something I deserved or could expect the way a man in my grandparents’ and parents’ generations could and that the only way to live my life just-so, to my specifications, was to live alone. I didn’t think this on a conscious level, but I think the past ten years (and then some) of webwhoring have involved more conscious efforts to recognize and reconcile this conflict; I want to work — to do MY work and do it MY WAY — and have someone else take care of the housekeeping and cooking. For my work to be the most important thing I do and everything else to be relegated to the distraction pile which I should be able to demand someone else pick up and put away. To believe that my work is so important that I should be angry and frustrated when I do not have the tools or environment to do it properly. BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT MEN OLDER THAN I AM GREW UP EXPECTING AND DOING. And so what if their work wasn’t important or they would bankrupt the family with their business schemes? You didn’t fucking criticize the work, jobs or dreams of men. You just didn’t unless you wanted to be the evil villainous bitch in the story.

I shouldn’t feel guilty about wanting to have as many places to do my work alone as my grandpa did: a garage, a basement, a toolshed, a closet where he kept his Black Velvet and other private treasures, and a windowless office he hardly went into that nobody else was allowed into that was always at least 15 degrees cooler than the rest of the house. My grandma didn’t have any place in her house that was her own like that, just like my mom didn’t have a special place in our tiny house for herself like my stepdad had a whole room for his model train. And if Grandma fucked up some shit in the kitchen Grandpa would go ballistic on her ass. So I guess maybe I SHOULD feel guilty about wanting all that man-privilege since being an abusive asshole came with the territory. I don’t know. But on Friday morning I’m going to work alone in the cabin AND I CAN HARDLY WAIT!!

Also? I’ve drafted a new personal ad for a slavey-houseboy type. Not putting it up for awhile though as that’s a whole time-consuming process in itself. I also keep wanting to blog more about how going to college totally distorted my idea of money and assessing the worth of an investment in myself, perhaps making me approach financial risk-taking in a more “manly” way than I would have otherwise.

More morning moon pics to come?

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So. I don’t anticipate members and fans seeing a noticeable change in focus on our sites because of this and will probably see more exciting stuff on cam rather than less since we have to cam more to pay for everything. One of the good things (in terms of “earning” my cabin keep) is it’s already making me more disciplined and focused in how I prioritize things, clarifying what needs to come first (which is really REALLY challenging when you have boatloads of everything to do and have an easily-overwhelmed mind like mine). Right now at the top of the list is simply getting ahead on shooting and getting updates lined up, so that’s what I’m going to get back to work on right now.

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.

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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.