House Tearmainn

I’ve been wanting to post again—not least because Sir wants me to—but I’m fighting a semi-nasty cold that seems to have rendered my higher faculties mushy.  If memory serves, before the cold got bad, I had in mind to write about distance. I’ll try to channel some of those ideas.

This is a tricky subject to delve into for me because I feel defensive about it in all kinds of ways. For one, I made myself a promise over a year ago not to enter into an LDR again. I’ve tried it several times with different people and different situations, and to put it mildly things seem never to turn out well. It is hard to know someone well over geographic distance; it’s hard to evaluate how they behave in different kinds of situations. It’s hard to be sure one’s trust is well placed. Then too there are the lonelies, which as a rather needy person I experience in depth.

It seems too personal to explain in this setting why I decided to break that promise to myself. Suffice it to say that certain sorts of people are incredibly rare, and when the heart recognizes one, promises made in the interest of self-protection can quickly come to seem counterproductive. Then too, it finally sunk it for me that all of my relationships have seemed not to turn out well, distance or proximity notwithstanding. The reasons are many and varied. I have plenty of work to do in this area no matter how or with whom I go about it.

Another reason I feel defensive about the LDR thing is that many lifestyle participants and thinkers whom I respect have evinced an attitude of condescension toward such relationships in a D/s context. I understand why, and ultimately, I need to not care about what anyone outside the household thinks about the nature of my dynamic with Sir. This is good for my ego, frankly, which places far too much importance on matters such as “belonging” to a category of people whom I consider “legitimate” practitioners of D/s.

Excellent, the defensive preliminaries have been dealt with in only 350 words! Now I may begin to actually write. Ahem.

The challenges that distance creates for any intimate relationship are obvious (communication, lack of physical touch, lack of immediate companionship, etc) and needn’t be enumerated here at length. In a D/s dynamic, those challenges are multiplied to include issues pertaining to power exchange. Because we are at the beginning, it’s hard to do more than identify some issues we’ve discussed and describe how we’re attempting to address them thus far.

The most obvious is control. An in-person D/s dynamic allows for direct control of various kinds, both psychological and physical. I will be the first to state that distance does not eliminate the possibility of using psychological control tools, yet I’m equally sure that the type and efficacy of such tools is limited by the lack of direct proximity. And obviously he cannot, as he put it recently with tongue only somewhat in cheek (eep!), bitch-slap me if I disobey him.

Sir’s opinion at this time is that his primary method of punishment will be to reduce my opportunities to please him. I don’t look forward to that. Already I have felt rather deeply the effects of a simple expression of disappointment with my behavior. How these tools will work over time in terms of control remains to be seen. But for these reasons we both perceive our dynamic to inhabit the category of ongoing voluntary submission, though I’m not sure either of us finds this ideal. It’s simply what is available to us at this time.

Have just decided that this post is to be part one of a series. It is time to listen to my cold and put myself to bed.

I seem to have hit the place with mastery where I feel that my own ideas are firmly planted. I can tell this because I have picked up non-fiction literature to read. I recognize that my need to come to my own understanding of things before reading up on them is counter-intuitive at best, and decidedly negligent at worst. Nevertheless, it is a core component of my nature and not one I wish to change.

I’m not sure where this learning style comes from. I don’t much want to know how other people do any specific thing (this extends all through my life, from washing dishes to computers to martial arts). Once I have made my own mistakes and learned to a level where I feel proficient, then I’m perfectly happy to go reading anything and everything on the topic. I think that this allows me the opportunity to have a unique perspective on the topic without the temptation to take what “the experts” say as gospel.

For those who are curious, the book I’m currently reading is Miss Abernathy’s Concise Slave Training Manual by Christina Abernathy, for the simple reason that it was the only book I could get out of the “kinky book” drawer while dashing for the rest room. Fortune has smiled upon me, though, I’m enjoying it quite a lot. I’m not much of a book review person (see above), but I find myself nodding as I read and that’s a good sign.

Today was kind of an interesting day. Yesterday pais damaged her shoulder somehow and she’s been in a lot of pain. It either stiffened up or got slept on wrong last night and has been pretty bad all day. This means I get to step up and do some care taking myself, which has been an enjoyable change of pace.

A common theme of the past couple of days has been “Daddy”. I don’t really consider myself a “daddy dom”, though I do like taking care of my people. I am a sadist and get my kicks that way, too. However I’m not a huge sadist and sometimes it can get confusing, I’m sure.

So naturally things are rarely black and white. There is probably a spectrum between purely sadistic and purely caregiving domination. Of course it’s probably also three dimensional, since you can be giving care through sadism, but for my purposes tonight I’ll be comparing apples to pears.

On a scale from 1(sadism) – 10(nurturing) I’m probably a 7 or 8 with occasional weeks of 4 and days of 2. I’ll be curious to hear what pais thinks of that assessment. If the person reading this happens to be her, they should post a comment about that. I’m guessing that there are distinct phases that I go through where I am more sadistic than others over the course of a month or more.

I think there is more to say about how lousy I used to be at aftercare, how even now I feel a bit defensive about how nurturing I am, and how my weird dual nature plays into this, but I just can’t bring any of it to the front at the moment. I seem to not have a point here. I’m not sure I ever did. The only weird thing about that is that I’m not completely exhausted for a change. State dependent learning at work? You make the call!

Tricky day today. I could write a lot on it, but I’m not sure the details are relevant here. The lessons are, though, and foremost among them is this: If one of my girls makes a mistake it is, in all likelihood, not about me. I’m not sure why it is one of those lessons that takes so long and so much head bashing to learn, but it is. Well, so be it, I will continue to try and learn it.

The complimentary part of this lesson is that if it’s not about me, my reaction should be proportionate to the mistake. It doesn’t have be, I am within my rights to be a prick, but that’s not the kind of dominant I want to be. What kind of dominant do I want to be, then? Sounds like the subject of another post. I wonder if the “to write” pile is currently longer than the “written” one. Seems likely.

I am possibly the most self-centered human-in-service I know. (Ow. Yeah. Cringe.) At many points during my years of questing for my place within the lifestyle, I’ve thought of myself as far too selfish to be a decent submissive, much less a slave. For example:

1. I not only gaze at my navel, I fall in. A lot. It’s bigger in there than one might guess. While I’m in there, I forget about other stuff. Such as, you know, serving.

2. I like feeling all hot and used and slavey. The work part? Meh. Not so much.

3. I don’t especially enjoy sacrifice. I like being comfortable; I like feeling safe.

4. I can admit the above freely when it’s my idea to do so, but call me on these points in context and my ego will be affronted.

5. I could go on.

Sometimes I’ve thought, hell, maybe what growth means for me is learning how to hold my own in an egalitarian relationship. Maybe I’m a bottom but not a submissive; maybe what I truly long for is a service top. Maybe maybe maybe.

Then again, sometimes I forget the shades of grey that color our personalities, the hidden potentialities, the nuancey stuff. I’m not one thing; I’m a lot of things. Selfish is one of them, yep. Giving is another. Evolving is a third. Tack on aspiring and you have an interesting mix going, though it may remain hidden from view until you also bring onto the scene a noble and Dominant man who sees nothing in simplistic black and white.

Hence I am here, selfish girl violet, very happy to be “in service” because that is precisely what I most need to learn and how I most need to grow. This first week has brought me several lessons in this area, destined, I’m certain, not to be the last ones! I hope that I can bring to this opportunity the aspects of myself that will benefit the household. They are the ones that will benefit me, too.

Life continues to be full of ups and downs and weird little turns. There are lots of interesting things going on, but nothing that seems appropriate to put up here. I intend to have violet start posting here since she enjoys writing and I enjoy reading her writing. I would also like to read what pais has to say, but her writing tends to be deeply personal and less appropriate for this venue.

I am, obviously, having some trouble staying on top of my various responsibilities. Priority shuffling hasn’t resolved the issue completely, but has made everyone feel neglected. It’s good to be consistent. I didn’t have a lot to cut back on to begin with, posting here has certainly suffered for it. Things are moving back towards a level of normalcy as everyone learns what they can expect, and I learn how to distribute my time and energy better. Everyone expected a period of adjustment bringing violet in, but that doesn’t quite make the transition itself pleasant.

The transitional period with violet is going to dovetail with more changes in the coming month as pais goes back to work, violet has various life changes around work and living situations, and I change jobs. Nothing is ever simple, though, and I suppose this will be good practice for us all in dealing with stress as a family.

Overall things are better, and back to “good”. One more good night’s sleep and I’m hoping things can creep back over the line to “awesome”. There is currently some discussion of how things will work when violet comes out to visit next month. I suspect this will be the topic of several upcoming posts, hopefully it will stay as positive and upbeat as it has been.

It’s bad when I sit here boggling at an empty screen and unable to think of anything to say. Probably because my sole criterion at the moment is “Two sentences long, or less”. Well, that never works, of course.

I want to write about how tired I am, or how I got through a day that could have been very difficult with only minor scarring, or how I managed to pick up the world again today, only to find that it got all moved around and weird when I wasn’t looking, but that would be more self-gratifying (or worse self-congratulatory) wankery than I can cope with.

I also want to write about why I want and enjoy strong, smart, and functional submissives, but I think that is a book topic more than anything else. Luckily I think I can sum up the book thusly:

Necessity. I can’t have naked people getting beaten and sexxxed up all day long in front of the kids. Neither can I have a perpetually sub-spaced cage rat around them. I need someone who can be a strong, thinking, arguing, positive role model for them. Also someone functional enough to do the tasks I don’t want to, and given the quantity of those tasks that’s rather a lot to ask.

Humility. Sure, I’d like to have an ego stroking machine, but it wouldn’t help me meet my mission or the household’s. I need someone who can keep me honest, tell me when I’m being a prick, correct me when I’m wrong, and still do everything I want without questioning more than I want. I don’t want to be the person that lets their boner drive.

Vois la. Now I just need to expand that by about 200 pages and wait for the checks to come in.

The world gets very heavy sometimes. I put it down for a bit last night, and thought I got away with it. Not quite, though. There’s always a cost, and I’m used to paying it myself. In this, though, the cost can’t always be mine. It has to be borne by my little ones sometimes, and that can be crazy making. Especially it’s little ones that Aren’t Mine to take care of. Bah and boo hoo.

Today has been a lot of trying to put things to rights, with a few additional mishaps along the way. Having another girl is more work, but it’s hard to tell exactly how much because everything else is very crazy right now. After tomorrow things should calm down, though. Here’s hopin’.

I’d like to have something more meaningful to say, but mostly I’m saying it to specific people at this very moment. Guess this will have to do for tonight.

Tonight is not going well, I believe I will cut my losses and skip trying to post. It is my sincere hope that everyone out there is having a better day than I am.

It would be irony if I was too busy writing about running a household to actually do it. I suppose it is better to be too busy running it to write. All I have to say on the topic is that I’m incredibly grateful to Google for their various apps, they make all of this so much easier for my detail-addled brain.

If I could get work to settle down (or, preferably, go away completely but continue to pay me) I would have a lot more to say about how I’m integrating violet. For now, though, I’ll just say that things are proceeding well on all fronts, and everyone seems to be happy. I’m very pleased and very, very tired.