Helpless Women are Twice as Beautiful

I met a couple with whom MaxEarnest is friends, and they are truly lovely.  Happy, joyous people with twinkles in their eyes who, blessedly, spoke a bit of English.  I don't speak German.  I can say a few miscellaneous food things, hello, good-bye, please, thank you, excuse me and count to 12 (because MaxEarnest has been teaching me to count and spanking me, so I know my numbers).  I feel like the rude-entitled-American stereotype. Generally, I've tried to learn a bit of a language before I visit a country--I speak more Turkish and Indonesian than German.

In addition to not speaking the language, and often not knowing where I am, MaxEarnest often has my passport, so I am completely dependent.  When I spoke about being lost, the lovely man with the twinkle in his eyes said "Helpless women are twice as beautiful."  So MaxEarnest took me home and made me truly helpless.

Remember in The Great Gatsby when Daisy says girls should be beautiful and stupid?  I think that our sexist society makes it easier for women who are beautiful and stupid and that is deeply problematic (although, truth be told, I played dumb when I was dating for most of my twenties).  But maybe there is room for helpless in my feminist view of the romance.

The more MaxEarnest trains me, the more submissive I become (and training, cuddling and sex are taking up the majority of our waking hours right now).  Probably not surprising--after all I'm just saying submitting makes me submissive.  It makes me much more traditionally feminine, a little slower, less ironic, quieter and more open. And it also, interestingly, lets me get rid of much of my favorite German word, angst.

There's another aspect too--when I'm helpless, and taken care of, I do feel cherished.  I sometimes thinks models look so bitchy because it is 'proof' that they are beautiful--no one would want to hang out with them if they were average, so being really mean proves how attractive they are.  Needing to be taken care of makes me feel prettier.  But I do worry that I may lose my 'feminist' credential (if I have any left) for that confession.

I'm sure that if MaxEarnest and I traveled to, say Paris, I'd probably do just fine.  I think I speak French as well as he does, and I probably am more comfortable in cities.  I don't think I'm losing any competence, but I don't think that competent side of me has twinkling eyes.  More peaceful than bright with a bit of mischief.   I'm sure I'll get that back when I want it, but I'm certainly lounging in the helpless side of the spectrum right now.

Responsibility and Reluctance

We had a rocky start to my visit, but I think we're doing really well now.

I like having reluctance overcome.  I don't necessarily want to take responsibility for my own desires.  Or maybe I do in my mind, but  I am hungrier and kinkier than I would care to admit.  I want, no, I need, to be used hard, but I don't want to admit that.

When I got to Europe, I was tired. This is absolutely true.  I had a bad (but cheap) and very long flight, and I'd been really busy before so I was a little worn out before I left.

MaxEarnest took very gentle care of me.  He made sure I met his needs, but he didn't use me hard, and I got more and more tired and less and less engaged.  We fought over little things.  The less engaged I got, the more careful he got with me.

Needless to say, it was a nasty cycle.  I tried a little to provoke things, calling him teacher and mispronouncing numbers in another language.  (I don't actually disobey on real stuff), but he was careful with me.

Finally, I got a little tipsy and a little obnoxious, and said, perhaps in an inelegant way, what I needed, and he really, really heard me.

The truth is, when sex is going well with MaxEarnest, it is amazing.  And all our myriad differences seem scale-able.  

The other truth is that I'm more of a masochist than I've ever admitted, mostly because I've never trusted anyone else as much, but also because MaxEarnest uses that information by degrees.  He doesn't haul out a single tail and wail away.  He prods and smacks and clamps more and more, but he doesn't make me numb out.

And I'm pretty insatiable.  I may not see much of Europe.  But it is good.

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.

Letting Go Your Illusions and Don't Confuse it With Dreams

Sad.

It isn't him.  It isn't me.  We're just too different.  And he really feels alienated being in my city in America.  A City.  Any city. And America.  He doesn't care for either.

I'm still spending the summer with him.  And it will be a wonderful time.  But I think it is now a moment, not a life.  And that makes me awfully, awfully sad.  

I knew it deep down.  It was obvious he wasn't happy here and wasn't happy with what I could give.  I have a full-time job.  It is really cushy by American standards, but I have to work 4 days a week most weeks, and usually 5-7 hours a day.  For the last couple of weeks, I had 6 days off work, then 4 on, than 4 off, then 3 on, and I haven't done anything else.  I've quit my hobbies.  I haven't seen a single friend in the last 2 months and haven't even really had any long phone conversations with anyone but he still feels neglected.  But he doesn't have anything here except me.  Nothing excites him.  He misses home and little tempts him to explore and find hobbies or other people he might like.  I think he feels like I did visiting Dotty in the rural village in April.  

And I feel like I don't live up to his standards.  I multi-task, which he hates.  And I'm more independent than him. I'm craving time to myself to think.  To me, I think having 30 good hours a week with a partner is a lot, but he thinks that isn't anywhere near enough.  I feel like he wants all my time.  To me, being with a partner is roots, so you both have a ballast that lets you grow taller and stronger in the world, but I think he feels like it should be more.  But even aside from being in the world, I need time to think and feel just myself.  I've been meaning to write this for 10 days now, but 4 in the morning when I can't sleep is the only time I have to myself.  I have a letter from my dad that came a week ago that I haven't had time to open and read and think and feel about.

We'll see if I feel the same way when I'm in Europe; but I expect I will: this is a difficulty my parents are still trying to resolve with my mom constantly wanting time to herself and my dad wanting more from her.  In fact, MaxEarnest and I are actually replaying several of the dynamics that I see with my parents, although, oddly, we seem to jump back and forth on who plays the part of my dad and who plays my mom in different dynamics.

We are each hardy and frail in different things.  Yesterday I fell when I was biking and it freaked the hell out of me.  I switched over to biking cleats about a month ago and he went through an intersection when a car was coming and I was stupidly following him without watching. By the time I saw the car, I couldn't get my foot out of the pedals. It is the first time I've fallen in years, and it wasn't a huge deal (although my wrist and knee still hurt), but I just wanted to go home.  I didn't have any resilience left to enjoy our adventure.  He really pushed me to not give up.  He held me for a good 15 minute or so, but then wanted to keep biking, and I did what he wanted, but it was really hard for me.  But a couple of nights ago, he got in a cold breeze for maybe 3 seconds, and his shoulder really hurt.  I don't think either of us can quite predict what the other one will need because we're so different.

It isn't that we have different philosophies on life--we're even more different than that.  We don't even look at life the same enough to have competing philosophies.  It isn't enough to say that he loves Two and a Half Men and Californication and I love Six Feet Under and Downton Abbey.  I was working on a grant proposal for at-risk teens and talking about what the program does.  One of the steps involved kids sharing and the grant mentioned the importance of teens seeing that other people have experienced some of the same difficulties they had.  It is sort of like "It Gets Better" except it is just teens from different schools sharing with each other in person, over time.  This, to me, is one of the most valuable things my work does, and Maxearnest couldn't understand why this was important.  We talked about it a lot, and it was like I said we all needed to breathe Jello-o or something.  He couldn't relate at all to a sense of affirmation that other people had gone through these difficulties and you, (I) wasn't a freak after all.

I don't care that he doesn't have a job on most levels, although I'm the kind of person that wants to take difficulties now to avoid them later.  But the fact that he doesn't work means he wants much, more more from me than if he had to work for 30 or 40 hours a week as well.  The incongruity of our outside demands unbalances the relationship.

And, truth be told, we're lousy roommates.  The ex and I were lousy lovers, but great roommates.  We shared a 350 square foot apartment, for almost a year.  Maxearnest and I have really different expectations and likes and dislikes.  We operate at different speeds.  We value different things.

I'm in my little bedroom right now, because he doesn't tolerate fans or air conditioners, (but he also is unhappy when it is too hot --he's usually more sensitive to that than I). And I miss him.  I was lying on my side, with my cat in my arms and my back felt so alone, so empty.  I crave his touch.  I ache for him, because I feel this will end and I'll be back to sleeping with my cat, my blood turning to dust.

It seems I have to pick between a lover and a partner.  Maxearnest is the only lover I've ever had that I could imagine being with for the rest of my life.  Joyously and excitedly.  And I love him. It makes me cry, racking sobs that he can't hear under the air conditioner, that this is probably it.  Part of me wants to scream: "don't go!  I love you!  I'll give up the idea of having a partner to have you as an occasional lover."  But we'd be talking about him visiting me a couple of times a year and the two of us going away whenever I could sneak off from work.  But when I had to work, he'd come occasionally, maybe twice a year for two weeks at a time.  We'll see.  Maybe I will find a way to have a holiday-lover be enough.  I'm sure we'd keep skyping. But, long-term, I think I crave a partner.  Someone to support and be supported by.  Someone to make a life with, rather than escape for a few magical moments.  But magical moments are, well magical.  What's the dream that can't be compromised?  What's the illusion that must be let go?  

I can see the sun is starting to rise.  But I can't bring myself to post this because if I do, I have to e-mail him a copy, and there feels like a finality in that.  I do love him.  I can't bear a finality in that as well.