Thoughts

Dream

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I dreamed that I was living on the fringes of high society. That I was there to some purpose my great grandfather had asked of me. I believe as a spy, to watch the actions of a high society son.

Cut to a scene where a shaman is working with an investment group to buy up the local stores and install there own, like a Native American Walmart. But lawsuits were starting to pile up and the shaman saw the wind and the wind vortexed then shot away, back to his home. In this way he knew it wasn’t going to work and it would be better to keep what they had rather than risk it all on a scheme that was no longer favored.
Then I’m getting invited to a party where the high society son will be, he will likely get into trouble.

Then I and 2 friends prechild, get on a train and go to California but it isn’t cali, it’s the dreamscape that I refer to as little Seattle. There we have a good time and we’re all friends. 

We split off for a time and visit a dreamscape I call the conservatory. It is a near endless series of back corridors but in the front there are movie theatres, opera, plays, Orchestra and all kinds of other acts.

I go to a movie and see a woman who I Last knew generally speaking, in high school by the name of peasblossom, she is watching a movie on the formation of the universe and confides in me during intermission that she can’t leave. I find that I’ve lost my keys, phone and cards. But I’m able to leave and they are at security.

I leave to meet my two friends who are playing a game, A LARP really, but one setup by a company and one that is ongoing and interesting. I get drawn in and am filling out the forms to join. My friends leave, saying that they want to catch dinner before the train ride back.

They seem sad, like me staying is a mistake. But I’m so enraptured by the thought of this new idea that I can’t tear myself away. I tell them I’ll meet them later. The LARP group rejects my application, they say they only accept people that will work towards their goals, not have there own agenda. Dejected and pissed, I tell them that I hope their servers are secure because I’m going to rain down brimstone until their company is aught but charred smoking wreckage.

Then I leave, the elevator is to the arts place, it is more of a conveyance as it travels sideways as well. We eventually arrive near the place I’m to meet my friends but I hear an artist I like and step out. We are in a upscale bar with couches and comfy chairs arranged in concentric semi circles around a group. 3 women, one is smoking, which is a shock, since I haven’t seen anyone smoke in this dream. One is hanging back, knitting and smoking. One is playing the piano, one is singing. I recognize her as a singer by the name of auria, she is singing and bantering with the crowd. She is much older than I remember. The entire crowd is older but I am somehow unchanging. I like the lounge act she has. As they wrap, I get up to meet my friends, then I wake.

This seems disjointed but each scene flowed into the next. The only disconnect was the shaman.  In that I was there as an observer only.  A witness.

Have we fallen so far

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A interested party asked me, almost timidly, if BDSM always involved sex. I had to think for a second, not because I did not have the answer, but because it calls to mind the bad information that is out there. Of course it doesn’t always involve sex.

I incorporate sex into play only when I am in a romantic relationship with the person or persons. If the relationship is as Master and Submissive, then no, I don’t incorporate those elements into the play. I think that there is a misconception at work here that play is all about sex.

Admittedly, I have been out of the lifestyle except for friends and the referral from friends for some time now as I struggled to get my problems in hand. But, I can’t imagine it has changed so much. Perhaps, the contamination of 50 shades of grey is to blame.

Or, it could be that the community is not providing adequate training and support or making said information available except in the context of sex. I’ll want to ask where they got the notion to determine where it comes from.

I can’t shake the feeling that it is because male “tops” will use any excuse to get their dick wet. If that is the case, then those people are sexual opportunists and not true masters or tops. It is something to be aware of.

Just because you are bound does not mean you give up consent. Sex is not implicit unless such as been made explicit. I know, I could be accused of being too safe. Believe me, there is no such thing. I won’t even touch a partner sensually unless it has been agreed to. I may want to, need to, burn to, but failure to obtain consent for ANY act, is abhorrent. It is betrayal, it is rape.

My day

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My average day:
I get up about 5:30 so groggy I have to just sit on my bed for about 10 minutes before I remember how to stand.
Then I gather a towel and head to the shower.
I take care of the standard post wake up necessities, then stand looking in the mirror.
No reason for this other than to feel vaguely other, and wonder about this universe of the guy in the mirror; If I am particularly awake, I’ll make faces.
Then I take a shower under the hottest setting my water heater will allow for, which is about 130 degrees F;
The pain wakes me right the fuck up, and feels really good to my jaded senses. This goes on for 10 minutes. I know, I’m a horrible person. water conservation and all that.

I get out of the shower then realize I forgot to shave my face and then just say, fuck it. My hair doesn’t grow that quickly anyway and it’s not worth the discomfort. I’m allergic to the metal so if I don’t immediately take a shower afterward there will be skin irritation.

This whole time I am desperately trying not to have ideas. I have found I will have amazing life changing rock the foundation of my relationships ideas and then when I go to retrieve them, gone like poof; so If I get an idea I don’t play it out, I just keep repeating the first 2 lines then sprint out to my phone to write them down;

If I didn’t have an idea, I do standing pushups in the mini sauna of my bathroom; 2-3 sets; or until my muscles give out whichever I have time for; Then its to my closest to pick clothes; aka which black shirt am I going to wear, the long sleeve? the one from when I was significantly bigger and has a collar that opens so wide you can see my breastbone?
Then I run my hand held tangleeze brush through my hair to my mid back; I flirt with going to work with my hair down as it is outside of work but end up pulling it back but with a black leather clasp, cause I’m so punk rock. I gather my phone and book that I say I’m going to read but never do, then collect a diet coke from the fridge for a caffeine jolt. I would do coffee but that takes time and planning and shit; diet coke takes putting it in the fridge and forgetting about it.

Then I’m out the door to my decade old no frills pickup truck. I pull up a playlist on my phone and start blasting it at warning inducing levels from my phone; and I’m driving to work; Honestly, I like driving, even in traffic I like it. And it gives me the opportunity to put my don’t be a jackass philosophy and my if you want it take it philosophy to work. I can’t tell you how pleased I am when I see someone seize an opportunity, even if it is just to merge lanes and see that they commit and take it. I know, that’s weird.

I drive up to the roof of the parking garage where i can see the whole city and the bowl of sky stretched out around me. Then I get out and walk in to my desk. I’m still listening to whatever playlist I have , and I sit down to work, I do this for a couple hours then take a break to get a muffin and more caffeine, another diet coke; then work some more, then lunch where I go to my car and think about reading my book but generally end up sleeping for 45 minutes then going over the fragments I’m working on to see if I have inspiration hit, usually I’ll write something more then go back to work; Work for 4 more hours then technically I’m free but I generally hang out with my friends, lamenting that their working while trying to distract myself from the fact I having nothing but a cat to go home to.

Now, she is a very nice cat and though she makes no bones about her waiting to eat my corpse she is still my Delightful Carnivore, but still human companionship is something I crave. But I dislike strangers so there I am. Then, I drive home. I generally watch some scripted tv; shows that I buy, not steal, thank you. make some dinner or not depending on how tired I am; then go to bed; at this point I’ll maybe read or write some more; though writing occurs all the time; bits and pieces; and that in general is my day. Was this interesting, I don’t know but it was an interesting exercise.

Thoughts on beauty and introspection

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Beauty is not about your body. If I meant it to be about your body I would have said pretty. Or used the phrase aesthetically pleasing.

When I comment that a person is beautiful, I always mean that I have caught a glimpse of something indefinable, some piece of your self that calls to my humanity. A piece that makes me fall in love, just a little bit, with that person.

Needless to say, I fall in love all the time. I think it’s a poets job to look inside to see and more importantly to write and speak.
To let people know that they are not faceless, not invisible. That beauty lurks in the heart of us all.

I’m not the best vehicle for telling people of their beauty. I’m not great at the whole charisma thing, I don’t think anyway. But I’ll write it, and hopefully they’ll see themselves the way I see them.

Off topic a bit, I’m in pain all the time. Loving individuals is who I am, it let’s me write, let’s me see and I wouldn’t change that. But so few people, see me. And I don’t mean in my writing, I mean me, the totality of me. And it is so very painful to love and not be loved.

Thoughts on friendship

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I am baffled by how casually people count friends and friendship. Seemingly, people drop in and out of their lives and this is acceptable to them. If I put in the effort to cultivate friendship I expect it to last. To be worth more than casual acquaintance.

Friends are the family I choose. I love my friends, would do harm for my friends, in some cases sacrifice my life for them. I am terrible at expressing how much I love and value them.

So when I see this oh so casual behavior, it makes me afraid. Afraid that my trust and heart is misplaced, and afraid that perhaps they do not see how much they are loved. Or more distressing, that they simply do not care.

Lessons I need to learn.

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Just because I can’t sleep, doesn’t mean others can’t sleep. Also known as the 3 AM is a bad time to text people rule.

Stop telling people about your past. It may come from a sincere desire to be honest but their reactions tend to be either overwhelmed or more interested in who you were than who you are now.

Stop being defensive about your age.
That number only grows bigger. And there is nothing you can do about it.

Wait for replies to your texts and emails. Not everyone has your fanatical need to respond to every communication.

Stop worrying when you don’t receive a response, people have lives. And you didn’t ask a question, dumbass.

No matter how deeply you feel or how beautiful your words, you can’t make someone love you. You have a real problem with this one.

Stop posting things at Four in the morning (nope)

Lost time

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I feel like I lost eight years of my life to sorrow.  I learned some coping skills and eventually found myself again but I feel like I lost the time when I should have been having relationships and going places and doing things to eight years of looking inward.  I see the world so differently now. But my outward self shows the appearance of someone whose life ground to a halt.

  I think I’m writing this in a desperate attempt to quell other thoughts, foolish hope full thoughts, not of the whole of my desire, but of the faintest chance. 

Can’t write

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I can’t write this story. My mind keeps slipping away. My heart burns a slow fire.  I can’t focus on anything.  I lose myself for minutes at a time.  I am rarely this unfocused.  My mind slips and finds itself where it should not be.  Or maybe should be, where it most desires to be.  My mind goes perhaps in the hope that my body will somehow follow. But in vain.  I cannot make this choice.  So I wait. And though I may wait forever and though I may not achieve my desires, I am hopeful. But still, I can’t write.

On happiness and beauty

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We all deserve a little happiness, so let what makes you happy consume you once in awhile.

What makes me happy is the transitory nature of beauty and the ephemeral quality of performed art. Sounds pretentious, I know. What I mean is that beauty shifts and changes as we the perceiver change This change, allows us to change as we see ourselves through this outside lens and in seeing are changed by the experience.

As to the ephemeral quality of performed art. Well, no two performance is the same, each one is a unique experience, each a microcosm of itself and a connection to each other person that experiences this with you. These feelings of connection can allow us the space to embrace our humanity. To see, for a moment, in the shared experience, community.
Further, those that share the experience are forever linked. Even that little bit of connection weaves us into the tapestry of the world.

Take some time to do what makes you happy, and remember to share your passion, your joy. Maybe you are someone’s transitory beauty. Maybe it’s your ideas or your smile. We make this world with ourselves, out of our lives and that is beauty.

To PAX keynote speakers

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This is to all the keynote and storytime speakers at PAX Prime and I imagine the other PAX as well, but I have no direct experience.

Please, stop talking about your new game or game design, or the particulars of the industry. I know you are given free reign to talk about whatever, but think of the experience you are giving those around you. PAX isn’t a tech conference or a board meeting, it isn’t PAX dev. The majority of Pax goers are enthusiasts not industry insiders. You are setting the tone for the experience.

If I may offer some advice, talk about who you are and why you are. Talk about the culture of the industry, the stories of the inside. Talk about your past, your dreams, your future and where you see games going as culture. Talk about community.

This is why we come to PAX. It is not only to see the new hotness. It is for that sense of community, of being part of something larger. Of knowing we’re not alone. I talk about PAX to many people and for all of the perceived size of it from inside, most people I talk to have no idea what it is.

Most often people say “oh, it’s like comicon”. And I reply “kinda”. But most Comicon, SDCC and others, are about the thing. The new hotness, the new comic, the new new. PAX is about the community that grew up around the thing. It is about the shared experience. The games provide a template, a experience. But it’s the community and friendships that rise from these experiences that matter. That last.

So, they want you to speak as keynote. That is great. We like you already. Share the experience with us, don’t sell us something.