Defining my Identity

I’m on my way to MaxEarnest’s with a 4-hour layover in Berlin, and I feel rather discombobulated.  I had to pay and extra 50 euros (on a flight that cost 55 euros) because my carry-on weighted more than 8 kilos, and I felt so helpless and ripped off that I tripped on an escalator and bruised my shin.  And then Starbucks doesn’t have free wi-fi!  It costs as much as Starbucks in America (actually, quite a bit more), and they charge 8.50 euros an hour for wi-fi!  So I’m so tired, and feeling broke (even if I can afford the 50 euros--it just makes me feel really insecure, like I don’t know what I’m in for) and isolated.   

I got on my computer to unsubscribe from many of my podcasts.  Terry Gross.  Bill Moyers.  Bill Mahrer.  Dan Savage.  A variety of NPR podcasts.  Rachel Maddow.  It is all scary, but giving up Rachel Maddow feels like a huge loss.

I spend a lot of my energy and wits on keeping informed about politics in the United States.  Part of me knows that it is pointless.  Does it really matter if I know about the Obama’s administration’s continuation of Bush’s abuse of executive power?  During the Bush administration, it felt really important.  I shouldn’t say this, but I feel saddened by Obama and like I’ve lost my ability to believe that anything I do can make a difference.  Part of me believes that the power of witness is important.  That small percentage of us who stay engaged and focused on the news, who know what is going on and write letters and talk to each other and care--do we make any difference at all?  Is it just political masturbation, only not as fun?

I know that in Europe this summer, I won’t have the sort of time I had in the U.S.  I do have time planned here, but I will have to be focused and really do work during that time.  I think MaxEarnest will want as much of my time as I can possibly have, and so I have to unsubscribe.  Part of me wants to define myself more as sex-kitten than liberal Democrat. I’m keeping RadioLab and This American Life, because I couldn’t not have those, but I’m unsubscribing from almost everything else.  But that feels like I’m losing a big part of how I see myself. I missed 7 weeks of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report while MaxEarnest was in the U.S. and when I went back to watch it after he left, I felt a little out of sync.

I know that in some ways, it will be good. I used to actually listen to significantly more podcasts and every New Year's Day I unsubscribe from a few.  Some of my podcasts are just great for my commute, but there have always been more than my commute lasts, and I sometimes end up playing stupid video games while I listen.  Maybe I need to let go of that part of my identity.  I know that it uses a lot of resources in terms of time, but also money--I give an awful lot of $20 donations to politicians around the country.  It is also a foundation of a lot of my friendships--I’m sure the good ones won’t go away.  And, in all honesty, I can easily re-subscribe in September.  I'm sure I will to many.  But what will have changed?  

Predictions for September:  The election will be close; the economy will be bad; Mitt Romney will have said something a little wooden (am I only one that thinks he has high-functioning Aspergers?); Obama will have disappointed me in at least 5 ways; Claire McCaskill, Tim Kaine, Jon Tester, Maria Cantwell, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar will all be in races that are within the margin of error--maybe I should send them each $20 today.  Faux News will have ginned up a fake controversy that is linked to Obama’s scary otherness and Nevada will be close enough I’ll be tempted to go there to volunteer for a week, but ultimately I’ll probably decide it isn’t winnable this election and Washington and Oregon will be safe enough that I’ll feel like volunteering isn’t worthwhile.   What does it really matter if I don’t get all the nuances on the SCOTUS decision overturning much of Obama’s health care bill on Thursday at 7am Pacific time?  Does it really matter if I only get the headline a little later?  But it is a little terrifying to me.  It is a huge part of how I justify my existence.  I feel like it matters, even if I don’t really think it does.

Hospitable kindness

I had an enormous dinner with a number of people that do what I do at different centers all over the country to finish up a continuing education week.  The guy who was organizing it asked us each to pitch in $100, which shocked me.  I paid it, but I was really, really upset and felt coerced.

Here's the thing though--it might have been worth it.  It changed how I viewed the last week, made me enjoy the people, may have cemented a few friendships and was just so much fun.  I ate raw salmon, tongue, salmon tartar, duck salad, daikon salad, pickled mushrooms, pickled tomatoes (who knew?), caviar, mushrooms five different ways, veal (which I've never had before, and probably never will again) and everything else they put in front of me (except the foie gras--honestly, I wouldn't have had the veal if I'd known what it was, but I found out after the fact).  I drank much, much too much. The guy I was frustrated with for spending too much money didn't even eat.  He was watching all of us the entire time.  The moment my glass was full, he had another one for me.  (And this was a restaurant--he just didn't think the staff was quite attentive enough.) At one point, when I had discreetly (or not so discreetly) poured some vodka into some fruit juice, he joked "I think your vodka got spilled--let me get pour you some" so that even though he was pouring me more than others, no one except he and me knew it.  

I'm clearly much more of a teetotaler for the reasons of costs and taste than calories and morality.  Give me free girlie drinks all night long and I will keep up with the best.

But I was really surprised at what a lovely, lovely, lovely evening it was.  I went in feeling a little entitled because it was so expensive.  And I'd never spend that kind of money myself.  But I felt very taken care of and sort of held.  And several people and I sang songs, and others joined in and it made me smile.

Usually in those situations, I feel more comfortable trying to take care of other people.  I'm not used to feeling like I can just relax.  I think the fact that it was so expensive took any obligation off of me to prove myself or take care of other people.  I just sat back, drank and ate what they put in front of me.  It was a lovely change.

Godot

I have this work event almost an hour from home this week, and due to a SNAFU, I have a hotel room.  I told them I’d go home, but they’d already booked it and couldn’t cancel it, so I have it.  The first two nights, I drove home, but tonight the work stuff went till almost 10 and I didn’t feel like driving home for an hour, only to leave 8 hours later for another drive back, so I stayed at the hotel.

For the first time, I think ever, I saw no romance.  There was no thrill of a life that could be different.  No siren call of possibilities.  No projection onto the generic luxuries that a hotel room holds.  I have a nice view from my bed, a very good view in fact.  But I’d rather have my sheets and my home and my life.   I have a TV with cable, but with no new episodes of Mad Men or Downton Abbey, why would I bother?  I’d prefer my home to the hotel and my life to a generic cipher.

I think that is important,  Part of it is, I’m sure, because when Maxearnest was coming, I did all the things I’ve meant to do for years.  Honestly, I was in the process of moving when John died, and while I’d put aside a month to get my new house in order, all I ended up doing during that time was the bare minimum necessary to get my stuff out of the old house, and cry.  Slowly, I’d gotten some things put ways, but I’d been living out of a few cardboard boxes for two and a half years!  I got all the simple repairs done in anticipation of his visit.  Maxearnest helped me put up curtains.  My home feels lovely.

But something else has shifted also.  Intellectually, I know that the future with Maxearnest is uncertain,  but I feel more capable of facing that future, even if I end up alone.  I don’t feel defined by a void, the way I have in the past.  I hope I won’t end up alone, but if I do, I don’t feel like it will be all-defining.  I hope Maxearnest and I find some way to bridge the pond.  But I will do my best to let the future take care of itself.  Meanwhile, I am content.

Communication

Maxearnest has been gone for a couple of weeks, and I had a huge work event I do each year, and then relatives missing.  One more week for work and then I'm off to see him, to which I'm really looking forward.

It's funny.  I miss blogging, but I haven't really had much to blog about, and I even forgot where I log-in to write!  (I also have been so busy.  That old axiom "Time flies when you're having fun" seems to hold far more true with Maxearnest than I've ever felt with anyone.  I feel like I have less time with him than I've ever had, and it is a very new feeling for me.  I've never been with someone that wants to spend so much time with me, and it is lovely much of the time, but sometimes it was hard.  I miss time feeling slower, but, for me, that involves more free time.  Maybe I will try meditating and see if it can slow time down again. )

When things are good with MaxEarnest, they're just fabulous.  And when things are rough, I don't always know how to write about it well.  I think I really hurt his feelings with the last blog entry and it is making me feel like words are such blunt instruments. I used to think I had good communication, but lately I'm feeling less and less confident about my ability to communicate anything.

There was an interesting piece in Salon.com this weekend about kink and Fifty Shades of Grey (which, being a good girl, I haven't read because Maxearnest doesn't want me reading erotica, and that's a limit I'm fine with).  

The wide-eyed virgin Anastasia didn’t seek out a shadowy subculture to test the limits of her own desire; she stumbled into it, and she just happened to hook up with a hot and mysterious millionaire who knew exactly how to turn her on. The book seems to confirm the infuriating failure of modern women to find sexual pleasure on their own, and its wild popularity has also thrust an underground world of kink into the mainstream.

I'm certainly not a wide-eyed virgin, and, in fact, I have sought out the shadowy subculture, but I too have an infuriating failure at communicating my desires.  Or, honestly, even knowing them.  Even if I were to make Freud's question more specific, and try to answer only "What does Connie want?"  I don't know.  Surrender.  What does 'surrender' mean, exactly? Even spanking, which I usually love, and frankly crave and need, only works when it works.  I need all the stuff that goes with it.  I need to feel that this is the same man that, at moment when I woke up from a nap in his arms, was just looking at me with delight.  I need tone, narrative and adoration.

How can I communicate "tone?"  Right now, I"m into what Maxearnest likes.  When I play with myself, I think about what he likes--corsets and high heels and bondage and all electricity and suction.  I don't even know what electricity will be like (although I expect I'll find out in the next few weeks), and I expect I will learn to engage with it. But John was into floggers and ships and I eroticized them when I was with him. I've never understood those checklists of endless activities.  "How" and "Who" is so much more important than what.

I'm also bad at communicating almost-limits.  I've had a hard time with corsets in real life (as opposed to fantasy, where they are just sexy).  I start to get nauseous, and I sweat and my hands and feet get all tingly.  And when it gets to that point, I just tell him I can't do it.  We've talked some about how I think I can handle it more (mostly not tying it so tight to start with and helping me slow my breathing--it is counter-intuitive, but I think I'm hyperventilating because intellectually, I feel like I can't breathe, so I think I'm breathing too quickly to make up for it), but I can't do that when I'm in a submissive state.  When I'm submissive, I can communicate "I tried and I failed" but that's about it.  Other than that, I'm lousy at saying anything other than "yes."

Narrative is the opposite, though.  I need narrative.  I crave narrative.  Sometimes, when something is happening to me, I can't process it.  It more hot after the fact than during.  But Maxearnest talks to me; he tells me the things he will do to me and what I am and who I belong to.  And words are so fabulous there!

And part of what is so wonderful about being Maxearnest's girl is that he doesn't ask me to use words.  He can tell by looking at me if I'm doing well or not.  He can tell the difference between "I will do this only because it pleases you" and "oh yes yummy" from what?  The tension in my shoulders?  The arch of my back?  I don't know.  But it is like a kind of magic.