09.26.05
10:00 p.m.
It's late and I probably shouldn't even be writing. I was going to write something last night, but after the day's activity; television and snuggles with Master seemed a much better idea.
Yesterday began with housecleaning and getting ready to host the MasT meeting, wherein we made yet another annoucement about our temporary relocation. Some of our dear friends hadn't heard yet, and were taken totally by surprise. They say they will miss us, and wish us the best. It was emotionally draining to have to face a room of 15 or so people, and break that kind of news. Emotionally draining.
Then we had the topic discussion, which was lively in itself. Afterwards, some people were interested in what we are selling. So we showed them, and they put their names down for some of the items. It amounts to quite a bit of $$.
(Friday, Master received nice little surprise check in the mail, which helps cover us financially from my time off work).
The foot was feeling better. Then I had mounds of activity yesterday. Today was my first day back at work, and the first day back in closed shoes. The second I shoved my foot in my boot, it started hurting. I ended up loosening the laces some, but still, the boot rides right on top of the injury. Big ouches all day. So today was another physically exhausting day. I was worn out from having to navigate that level of pain and staying focused on the job. It's a good thing I know what I'm doing at my job. A very good thing.
Master called and talked with Her mom last night, to let her know that we are coming out to stay with her. She took the news well, and is looking forward to spending time with us. Oddly enough, I'm looking forward to spending time with Master's family. I actually like them, and they actually like me! She said that she was wishing there was a way we could come out and spend some time with her.
I don't know how I'm going to be able to ride this emotional tide of leaving. I still have to make a public announcement to the Phoenix boys of Leather, and there are a few more friends we have to notify. Master is feeling overwhelmed at all the warmth and love people are gushing at us. I was used to that kind of attention in Tucson. But i was singular not plural. It isn't overwhelming me, it's just emotional making a planned move that takes me out of my home state, a beautiful land where mountains jut out and rocks hide spiney critters, and sometimes you see coyotes in the neighborhood. I think I will go find that rubber saguaro cactus to put on the car. (think I'm kidding).
The reality of moving hit home tonight when Master brought out boxes of books and had me go through them. My task was to separate my books from Hers, and make "keep" and "save" piles. I purged more books than what Master expected. Wow, I actually surprised Her. I also shed some really important ones; books I had been holding onto for sentimental value. Stuff I'm not willing to drag around any more. This IS about shedding, it means getting rid of my stuff. The crap I've hauled around for way too long.
It feels good though, to know that that junk isn't going to follow me around any more. That I won't have to carry that weight. It is a cleansing and a release, and this, this feels right for me to be doing, for Master and I to be doing together. By the time we get to Kansas, I hope to have only half of what I brought into this house..
Purging, release, rebirth. Is Fall Equinox about that? I thought it was about harvesting. *sigh*, leave a comment, tell me what you think.
back to the top
|
09.21.05
9:00 a.m.
Major Update:
Just when you think life is at cruising speed, things change. This is why I don't let myself feel "comfortable."
Monday I was working on the bookeeping. Didn't go to a meeting, and we weren't going to APEX. Then, Roadie the Iguana decided it was time to mate with our kitty Gabby. He was in High Breeding Mode, and not going to stop. I got up to control the situation, my foot was in his line of sight, and I got bit. Now, Roadie is twice the size he was two years ago, when he bit Master's foot (same reason). His jaws are bigger, everything is bigger. He clamped down hard. Fortunately he did let go. I was in the middle of the floor, screaming and bleeding. Master mustered some bravery and grabbed the iguana and threw him in the empty room. Then came back out to help me. We got me in the shower, and the foot rinsed off. The bleeding was staunched. I kept it wrapped tight. Pressure is a good thing for wounds. I looked at and knew it was going to be an urgent care night. Master called a friend who is a nurse, who talked us through some of the process. I know lots of first aid, but wasn't thinking clearly, and needed her to give some information to Master.
I got the bite bandaged, She got us packed up, and off to Urgent care we went. I'm in between Health Care plans right now, so we were pretty screwed financially. They were nice and offered some kind of value care deal, which helped it cost a lot less. Once we got in to see the Doctor, he was really nice, and asked if he could take a picture of the bite for his students. Master said yes. So now my bitten foot is immortalized in digital photo, and will be spoken about in front of a bunch of wannabe doctors. Cool.
I received three stitches, sample antibiotics, and a "take care of yourself". We were in and out of there in under two hours.
So now I have three days off, rest, relaxation, and catching up on videos I recordered and needed to watch. Also continuing the never-ending bookkeeping.
I haven't gone in to see Roadie. I need to do that today. I'm so mad at him. But I can't ignore him or starve him. That would be wrong. In all the time I've had him, he has only nipped me once. He was a rescue iguana. When I first got him, he wasn't even tamed. Now, he comes and asks me for bananas, eats out of my hand, will hang out with me on the couch. There's just this one thing. Breeding Season. I am still stunned that he actually bit me.
I took the bandages off last night, and discovered that my foot hurts so bad because there is a huge bruise across the top of it. Mucsle and tissue damage, oh boy.
It will heal.
On to the next bit of news:
Master and I started talking Saturday morning. There is major FOO issues back in Kansas, and no one able to really go and help. Her mom is having hip surgery and sis isn't doing well with her MD. I don't like my job, Master still hasn't found full-time employment, and we need out of this house. As much as we love it, it is too big, and too expensive. Master has decided that we will pick up, pack, put most of our stuff in storage, and go out to Kansas for a spell. This is a short term deal. 3-6 months. There is no way I can live in Kansas in the Spring with my allergies. And without health insurance, I won't be able to get any meds before we go. Also, we will be going during the coldest months, late October to Early Spring. Cold and wet. I'm gonna freeze, but I'll figure it out. I've only lived outside of Arizona one other time, and that was in Southern California...during the beautiful winter out there. I'm not used to below 42, sometimes Tucson got below 35, but that was rare. I'll be wearing lots of clothing, which makes for an unhappy boy, since I like running around naked and half naked.
But it will be a good move. It will give us an opportunity to really SHED the way Master wants to.
It will give us a chance to go help family. Master's family gave me full acceptance. They love me, and have said so. And it's not just the because their daughter loves me. There is genuine like between all of us. And that is very hard to find in our kind of lifestyle. Master was with me through my mom's death, and trying to help my dad recover. She walked through some really painful stuff with me. It is only right that I go with Her to help with mom and sis, and really connect with Her folks more then I have.
And who knows maybe we'll be able to drive back in an RV. Park it in a Mobile home/RV park, and begin our nomadic life. We even know someone who might let us connnect up to
their house. Possibilities are vast.
I look at this as an opportunity. Master has all sorts of worries and fears. Like getting stuck in Kansas. Hello! My name is boy, and my home is in Arizona. Ok, as a slave, my home should be anywhere Master is, but Master is a responsible owner, and knows that Arizona is my home. It is Hers too.
Next bit of News:
The Sacramento Monarchs won the WNBA Championship!!! YAY! What a series and what a team. I watched game 4 last night. It was really good. Ok, so it wasn't the Phoenix Mercury bringing the Title home, but at least the title stays in the West!!!!! I didn't get to go see a live game this season. That made me sad, but I got see all 4 games of the finals. Master tolerated that because, like the iguana, She knows that Women's Basketball is good for me.
And finally:
A dear friend took me up on the offer to go see Henry Rollins! So I'll be there on Thursday night, Sept 29th, to watch one of the Icons of Spoken Word perform. I am sooooo excited!
And the MasT meeting is at our house this Sunday, YAY!
back to the top
|
09.17.05
12:30 a.m.
Yeah, I should be in bed sleeping, it's late and tomorrow is a busy day. Master is already asleep. This is one of the few times She has allowed me to stay up while she's gone nighty-night.
Our communication has been very poor lately. I'm frustrated and so is She, over finances, our jobs, life in general. There is so much to do, and neither of us seem motivated to do it. I did manage to clean some of the crap out of the closet this afternoon, and I threw a bunch of little stuff away. I actually got home early enough today to enjoy a bit of by-myself time.
Work is work. It's not a happy thing dealing with the "manager", but at least I like what I do for a living. I have to put up with someone else's time perceptions in order to continue to make this job happen. With the bad communicaton thing going on, it's been hard to talk to my boss as well. I am not working for someone who inspires or motivates well. I miss that about Chef...however, it is not such a negative thing to learn to get along with difficult people. I choose not to have them in my personal life, but they are unavoidable in the work environment. I've learned that over and over again.
Master stated something tonight, I've been working for many years now, and she finds it hard to believe that I haven't been in this situation before. Well, yes I have. My experience with Texaco comes to mind. This is the first time I've had this kind of working situation clean and sober! Without a joint to run to, or beer to drink, I'm not numbing myself from the stupidity of other people, and I'm not able to shut off the dialogue in my head...what I should have, could have, said. The things I needed to correct. Challenging prospect to find the off switch without running myself into the ground.
And what I am focused on? I want to see Henry Rollins! He is coming to Phoenix, and the tour date isn't even listed on His web site. For those who don't know who Rollins is, He is basically the Angry White Man of Spoken Word. He released a spoken word video before it was even cool. He predates the grandpappy of Slam Poetry Marc Kelly Smith. He fronted the band Black Flag in the early 80's. He is stunning and amazing, a musician, an actor, author, and publisher of his own work. He probably had some money to get started. Unlike some of us.
I'd really like to go see him. According to Master's budget we won't be able to afford it. I could use a night of intensity, because he doesn't just speak, he performs with a band and everything! There's this magic button on the left hand side of my website. If you'd like to help a struggling poet see one of his Heros, and help Master's household out...donate just a little bit by clicking on paypal. The show is September 29th. The cost: $20.00. If twenty of my readers sent me a $1.00 each, I could go to the show. But hey, I'll still keep writing, with or without donations.
Though I haven't been doing much of that. I don't want to sound like a whiner/complainer and I feel that's what I have to write about. Having to root around in the muck and mud of life, working to survive, not working because I love what I do. In a relationship with someone I worship, and I can't even play nice because I feel cornered. I don't like feeling cornered. It's when I start biting.
I'm going to Tucson tomorrow with a friend, not Master. We're going down for the "Tucson Trot" to hang out with other boys and get a bit of community. Both of us went to school there, and are still very connected to the "feeling" of Tucson. It will be good to get away to get my head cleared, and get some time off. Haven't had any of that in awhile. That's where the shortness of temper is coming in I think. Lack of separation. Mind you, I don't need weeks of separation from Master, but sometimes a few hours, here and there, maybe a day, could be beneficial. Help me get a fresh perspective, and appreciate what I do have, instead of ripping what's in front of me.
I will work on having a better attitude. I will work on playing nice. I will work on not raising my voice. I will work on appreciating the life I do have. Because right now, there are people who don't have shit. People who are stranded, homeless, wandering strange city streets because their streets are gone now.
I'm not horrified at a natural disaster wiping out one of America's great cities. I am horrified at the lack of response by the government, and the way people behaved, and the way the news has reported the Aftermath of the Hurricane.
And maybe that's part of the stress as well. I just don't know how to express all the emotion welling up inside me about a crisis of this magnitude. Well, I know how to, I just didn't think to sit down and write something out...some kind of poetry that gets the jumble out of my brain.
I live where "hundreds" of people were relocated. Now, a city that is already overburdened with a fast growth rate, and lack of jobs (though they don't tell us we have that), has taken on evacuees. Because we have "nice" weather. Because our governor is a push over? Because we'll get federal dollars for helping out victims? I don't begrudge these people a place in my town...I just question how we are going to absorb these folks.
And that's all I'm gonna say about that. My two cents about the Hurricane.
Now, definately, time for bed.
back to the top
|
09.03.05
5:00 p.m.
Stress Relief
I'm getting a bit frustrated with myself. I want to write more in depth stuff, the stuff I was writing when I first started this online journal. Life got to be a bit stressful, and I stopped writing about the emotional outcomes in my life, and have moved into a more semi-weekly, "here's what I'm doing" check in.
That's not what I want to be addressing. I want to be talking about how I am doing emotionally, how the interactions with Master are going. How slavery is applied in my every day life. I can't seem to break out of this apathy about putting out the real, the raw material of my life.
I don't want to have to force myself either. Forcing is bad. Forcing means I "have" to do it. I started this journal under Master's orders. She didn't think I would do one online. She requires Her slaves to maintain journals. Since I have boxes full of them, I obviously don't mind writing a journal. However, I don't usually share my raw journals with other people. The few times I've done it, shared those raw, un-edited thoughts with a partner/s.o./dominant, I've regretted it. It came back to haunt me in negative ways.
Master has not used anything that I write against me. I'm not writing from the gut because I'm too tired, too cross, and there are people I know and love reading this journal, and that causes me to self-edit more. And I shouldn't let that bother me. The point is to just write. Get out the emotions, the feelings, the thoughts that have been running rampant inside my head, and get them out into some form. I have been picking up my notebook, and scribbling in there. Again, it isn't the pages and pages that I usually ink up, but at least I am writing something somewhere in some form about the emotions I am experiencing.
That's the journal that doesn't get shared. I need that private venue to express my deepest fears, and my most glorious hurrahs, a place for my egomanicial self to explode. Then I can tone it down and place it here for mass consumption.
Before you see a novel, or a movie, a writer has scribbled notes placing them on cork boards. The outlines of characters, , plots and plans. They have places where the chaos was created to become the order that you read, and that you watch on the big screen.
Some days, my brain feels like that, total chaos. And today is one of them.
The change at work has affected me deeply. I'm not dissatisfied with losing the position of "Chef", but I am outraged that, based on what he saw, the Manager I work with considers me without cooking skills. AARRGGHH! Any one of you out there who know me, who have been privilaged to eat one of my meals, taste my tortillas, or had my salsa, know that I am not without cooking skills. The job this man is asking a person to do leaves little room for quality, and he is asking for gourmet sauces made out of margarine. ACK! Something like three times this week he indicated that I needed to beef up my cooking skills. It took every ounce of training, every bit of honoring what Master has ordered me to do, to not blow up in his face. There was only one other time in my life when I was told that I didn't have cooking skills, and that was because I chose to go home instead of wash dishes.
But I can't make this guy understand how and what I cook. Based on what is necessary to perform the job he wants performed, there is little room for quality, and for "skills" to be exercised.
So to the Universe I say, thank you for getting me out of that situation. Maybe what I am doing isn't high quality, isn't "real" cooking, but at least I'm still working a grill, making breakfast burritos, and learning to "manage."
We'll see what develops. If I stay unsatisfied, Master and I will have to have a long discussion about what is next for me.
I am grateful that the guy didn't take away the $$ I am making. We cannot afford a pay cut. So I am making good money to be a grill jockey. And that is nothing to whine about.
And that's what I've been holding in for a week now, and it feels good to get it out of me, and put it out there. Relief of stress is always a good thing. That is what is important for me to remember about writing like this. It relieves the stress, takes the pressure off, and helps me sort out the jumble in my brain.
back to the top
|
