Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Theoretical New Schedule... ish...

In theory, I can predict a rough kind of a schedule these days. This is what I'm shooting for on weekdays when I have no other plans (dunno yet about weekends):

7 am - 8 am: up with the dogs to let them out, feed them, snuggle them so they will sleep a while longer

8 am -11 am: sleep

11 am - 2 pm: wake up - my new meds make me groggy as hell in the mornings until I have a loading dose of caffeine, which takes a while to kick in - and try to eat something

2 pm - 5 pm: log on for phone sex - yay! It would be so great to get back in touch with afternoon callers again

5 pm - 8 pm: feed dogs, feed myself, take the dogs out to stretch their legs and get some wiggles out of their system - to a park, or at least for a walk around the complex - I've been walking more, and it feels great

8 pm - 2 am: log on for phone sex- yay! The dogs can usually peacefully lounge around downstairs on their own between 8 and 2 as long as I let them sleep with me from 2-7 am. If I crate them overnight with no snuggles, they get yowly.

My biggest challenge so far on the new meds (which do keep me less dizzy - yay!) is keeping simultaneously hydrated and caffeinated without using caffeine pills, which spike my caffeine too much and make me jittery. If that's my worst problem in life, I am soooooooo sooooooo happy.

Callers who talked with me before the new meds and since the new meds say they cannot tell a difference on the phone. Yay!! My brain feels a little slower overall, but I usually slowed myself down for phone sex anyway - most people don't want a rush job.

The clear victim of my new meds is chatting: I cannot chat with more than one person at once, and even chatting with one person at a time is complicated. I think it's because I used to multi-task while chatting, and by brain switches more slowly between tasks now, so I find it far more difficult to chat while simultaneously doing anything else, but chat isn't really something you do as a dedicated activity. Maybe it'll come back.

I have been logging in for phone sex in the evenings lately. Not every night, but most nights. Yay! And I've been setting up appointments with people who email me and ask for them, which is quickly becoming a favorite modus operandi of mine - it's lovely to be able to pick up the phone and already know ahead of time which flavor of energy I will be responding to. Delicious.

I have used the word "yay" too many times in this post. One interesting side effect of the new meds: I cannot be bothered to correct that. My brain is too mellow and laid-back to work up the concern.

However, I do still have perfectionist tendencies when it comes to getting on cam, doing photo shoots, writing blog entries, and making custom mp3s / videos, so those are still only happening very rarely. Well, okay, so I'm a bit more lax about what goes on the blog, but the ideas in my head aren't making it to "Publish Post" as often as I'd like these days.

Apparently, at my husband's new job (which is going very well, by the way, thanks!), a common phrase is, "It is what it is." That is true. The schedule, the blog, the pictures, the custom requests... they will all morph from what they were to what they will be in their own time, and I'll do my best not to beat myself up about what doesn't get done.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Holy Crap Someone Took Me Up On It

Holy crap... someone took me up on my offer from my last blog post, so he could hear me being all loopy on my medicine. He said I just sounded drunk, and he thought it was amusing.

He asked me all kinds of questions to see if I'd accidentally admit to some dark secret that I wouldn't tell him normally, which made me laugh at him. As far as I can tell, no secrets were spilled ... mostly because I suck at keeping secrets even when I'm un-drugged!

And then he gave me a tribute for logging on for him! Ha! That cracked me up, because I was the one being all dorky and stoned and bizarre, so I was sure he was going to feel like he had made a mistake, but he insisted it was "fun as hell".

I plan to return to my regularly unscheduled slightly less dopey self tomorrow. No more double-doses for Ms Chance - it was a noble experiment, but the conclusions were clear: just one pill a day for you, young lady.

Looooooopy

My husband (via text, from the Midwest where he's consulting this week): Tornado sirens going off, announcement to move to the back of the store.

Me (in Houston): Today seems like a fantastic day to see what happens when I take a second dose of my horse tranquilizer within a 24 hour period. In fact, right the fuck now seems like a perfect time.

Husband (20 minutes later, after many updates): All clear!

Me (starting to feel looooooopy): Whew!

And that is the story of Why Galiana Isn't Logging In Today... although if someone emails me and says they'd pay to talk to me in this state, I'd totally log on, but it would be QUITE a different version of me than usual. Amusing, but different.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Orgasmic: Confirmed

I was a little worried that the horse tranquilizers I'm on for my vertigo might change my sex drive or my ability to have orgasms.

Nope.

Yay!

That is all for now...

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Continuing to Overshare

Warning: this blog post is long, emotionally complicated, and contains almost nothing at all about phone sex (Inner Slut: sheeeeeeesh, again? The Rest of the Gang: Oh, hush, you.)

When I started phone sex and started blogging honestly about my experiences, I got a lot of positive feedback for being "real" (although every woman who answers a phone sex call is a real person, so I kind of hate that term, but I understand that it means that I use my own pictures, and the only lie I tell is to give myself a stage name).

The potential downside to oversharing (possibly one could say even: compulsive oversharing?) is that if you need some privacy for a bit, people get worried about you.

I've never done well at updating people during transitions. Why bother, when it's all about to change anyway, right? I know, that's not helpful - the least I could do is say "I'm in transition," which is what I've tried to do lately, with varying degrees of success.

So here's what has been changing: in February, we made the decision to move to Houston March 1 and for my my husband to get a job outside the house. Since then, (1) we moved (2) he has accepted and started four different jobs (3) my social schedule is totally different because my family is here, and (4) I may or may not have found a medicine to help me with my vertigo.

I have yet to feel settled in any way since about Feb 15. That's a long time to feel unsettled.

The details of the hub's job churn are unimportant here, but the churn itself has been significant because every week has brought significant conversations about our choices and what might be changing. It is hard to "be here now" and live the life you have to live today when you're spending the day trying to project into the future to plan.


In math, a Cartesian product (aka product set) is the combination of all possible choices, so the Cartesian product of (Ace through King) x (spades, diamonds, hearts, clubs) = 52 cards, each of which has a unique combination of a value and a suit.

I've been doing Cartesian products on my life... and it's been a bit overwhelming. What if he gets a job here, and I do this, and then this offer comes through, and we shift that...

In happy happy news, though, seeing my family more has been amazingly wonderful. Not so happy: it's been hard on my vertigo - I have definitely pushed myself more than once. Totally, utterly worth it. No doubt.

So that brings us to the horse tranquilizers... I didn't think they would work, honestly. I have tried more than 30 medicines, only two of which have been helpful, so odds were good that these wouldn't help much either.

Let me backtrack a bit: after I got vertigo, before I started phone sex, my doctors and I worked out a list of dozens of meds to try, and a protocol for trying them. I visited two doctors once a quarter, reporting on all the bizarre, rare side effects I had, and getting prescriptions for the next round of test drugs. We all figured that one day, we'd stumble on something that worked, but none of knew which one it would be.

Then I had a few really unpleasant drug trials, which ... ummmm.... discouraged me from continuing to try new drugs, to put it mildly. More accurately, my response was along the lines of, "Fuck that shit, I'm better off limiting how much I do instead of ever feeling that way ever again."

So I stopped trying new drugs. And shortly thereafter, I started phone sex, and it gave me a convenient excuse to keep stalling. After all, I didn't want to figure out that the medicine gave me nausea or hallucinations or mood swings while I was on the phone with a caller - it's funny to think about it, and if I were writing my life as a movie, I would totally have that happen, but it would be horrible if it really occurred.

So in the transition between the hub's third and fourth job, I realized that I was too stressed about those upcoming changes to be feeling sexy enough for phone sex, so I might as well try a medicine that doubled as anti-anxiety, right? Hmmmm, let's see, what's on the list of prescriptions I already have? Oh, hey look, barbiturates! Perrrrrrrrfect.

So I've been seven days now on a very teeny tiny miniscule dosage of a barbiturate. Like, if I were maxing out the anti-seizure dosage, I would be taking approximately 100 times as much... so really, it's an extraordinarily small amount.

This is only the third time I've gotten to seven days, and the other two times ended up having no effect at all. To say I'm encouraged would be a vast understatement.

But I am super cautious about getting my hopes too high. There are lots of activities to try before I know how this stuff affects me in every situation. And the efficacy can wear down, so there are dosages to play with. And side effects can show up over long-term usage that are not immediately apparent. So even if it ends up being helpful, I'm a long, long way from a definitive answer about exactly how it will be helpful.

But that's the caution. Here's the good news: I'm less dizzy on my horse tranquilizers, and I seem to be able to do more activities in a day. On Thursday, I drove in to my sister's, had lunch with her and a friend, helped her de-tangle and sort and organize her jewelry, stayed long enough to greet the nieces after school and be silly, drove home, loaded the dogs in the car, went to a dog park, came home and made dinner, and still felt good enough to go out and get a milkshake. Lunch and jewelry would normally be pushing it for me. Soooooo. Yeah. That's a big deal.

Here's the bad news: chatting and writing seem to be taking a hit. I can't make myself want to log on to chat, and when I have, I am quickly overwhelmed. It just moves too fast for my newly-mellowed brain. And obviously, all the blog entries I have planned have been languishing as well.

Here's more good news, though: I have had a few phone sex calls, and I seem to be fine - I'm no more incoherent than usual, and although I'm a bit more laid-back, that doesn't hurt me. I try to stay relaxed on the phone anyway, so I'm not sure anyone will notice. Family and friends have said they would assume I was a bit sleepy at worst - I can live with that.

Even more good news: I'm nowhere near un-dizzy enough to do data analysis or technical management again, so I'll be sticking with phone sex as a means to pay my portion of the bills. I have tested being in multi-way conversations, like I would need to do if I were facilitating even the simplest of team meetings, and I'm a giant fail. Also, the computer work I've done suggests that sustained data analysis is still way way way out of reach.

So my phone sex schedule will continue taking a back seat to doing the science of figuring out if I can fix my brain somewhat. It'll come back. Eventually. Somehow.

But I wanted to overshare with you, sort of as an explanation for not being available more often, and sort of to share my extremely preliminary joy with you. And sort of just to keep alive my grand tradition of having a phone sex blog that contains almost no sex... dammit. I will fix that some day, I swear.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Horse Tranquilized

Between allergies, dizzies, and prepping for hub to travel next week, I've been out of commission for phone sex. Boo!

When I can work, I tend to not try out new anti-vertigo medications, in case they're counter-productive. But since I haven't been productive anyway, I thought I'd try the next one in line.

So I've been trying my 34th medication: phenobarbital, which is a horse tranquilizer. It is prescribed for anti-seizure, anti-anxiety, and as a sleep aid, so it definitely mellows out brains. It certainly isn't a cure-all, but I'm experimenting with motion and visual stimulation to see if maybe I can use it for trips, or to movies, or something.

The funniest effect, though, is that I Do. Not. Care. About anything. I think someone could punch me in the stomach, and I would respond approximately, "Whoa. Uncool." and then go back to staring at a virtual fish tank on my iPhone.

I will stop experimenting with it when it's time to get back to work (hoping for Friday, but I've been wrong before), and then I'll return to my perfectionist, high-strung, driven self.

On the up side, at least I'm not worried about traffic returning... I'll probably freak out about that on Saturday, but not yet. It'll happen. Everything will be fine. The Dude abides, right?

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Question of the Day

Since my two other usernames have been dormant for so long while I'm (ostensibly) rewriting them, I am considering renaming them as well as reworking them.

The one that was known as "Mistress Galiana" (which I'm about halfway done rewriting) will be changing to "Ms Galiana". I considered and rejected "Lady Galiana" "Queen Galiana" "Domme Galiana" "Vixen Galiana" "Minx Galiana" "Goddess Galiana" "Galiana In Charge" "Galiana Leads" and plain old "Galiana Chance". My reasons for rejection were many, but it basically boils down to "I think too much about details like this, but fer fuxx sake just pick one already".

I was planning on leaving my hypnosis-focused username as is: "Hypno Galiana" but a long-time caller suggested the possibility of "Galiana Trance".

I can't decide if it's wonderful, or too clever for my own good (or, y'know, both).

Your opinion is eagerly requested.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Quote of the Day

I may work in the only profession where it is not altogether unexpected to receive a work-related email with the subject line, "Pantyhose and Aliens"
~ me, sent as a text last night to a few friends and family

Consistent Availability

The number one key to success as a phone sex operator, according to most phone sex operator forums and blogs I've read, is: be consistently available.

Guess what I suck at?

Well, yes, cocks, but I meant "guess where I need to improve" not "guess what I crave to adore with my lips and tongue and shove to the back of my throat to relax me after a hard day".

Back on topic... it seems that last week I pulled one of my signature oops-I-pushed-myself-too-hard moves and knocked myself out of commission for about 36 hours longer than I hoped to.

The next two weeks won't be all that predictable either, because my husband will home during the day again (the job he had for two weeks kicked him out when he gave two weeks' notice) until he starts his new gig on the 23rd. I got in a lot of phone time during his first week of work, so I'm hoping things will settle after the 23rd, but probably not.

However, since I have a whole day of life to live today, regardless of what happened yesterday and regardless of what will happen tomorrow, here's what I'm looking forward to tonight: escaping the ever-changing realities of my ever-changing life by reconnecting with an ever-changing group of phone sex callers (several of whom I consider lovers and friends), and their ever-changing whims and desires.

Maybe I just like change. Change, variety, tomato, tomahto...

Thursday, May 5, 2011

More Away Time

There are two end-of-the-year type events this week for the teenager in the family, which, now that I live closer, I'm determined to attend.

Saturday, my husband and I have to re-configure our budget and expectations because he's been offered a better job than the one he started last week, which will involve more travel for him (still not worried about my safety because my family is close, and I have a pit bull with anxiety issues), so we have to figure out what needs to be set up.

I knew this spring would be a time of upheaval for me / us. I just didn't expect it THREE MONTHS of upheaval... Every week, I keep feeling like "next week, it'll probably feel like I can settle in a bit" and then something big changes.

I trust that I will get into a steady rhythm / schedule over the summer. Since last fall, I had a hunch: spring will be crazy, summer will be lovely. Fall is still a blank slate. I vote "sexy" - let's have a "sexy" fall, shall we? I'll focus in that direction :)

In the meantime, I'll do my best to answer emails, but I won't be taking many calls for the next few days, which makes me pouty and sad, and it makes me miss all of you, but I look forward to catching up upon my return!

Monday, May 2, 2011

Special Thing

"It's a special thing to be able to tap into someone else's fantasies like you just did. Thank you. God, seriously, thank you."

~ a new caller, apparently satisfied, almost moving me to tears with his sincerity and gratitude

edit / update: he followed up with this in writing, "Tapping into someones fantasy is a powerful gift. Thank you for sharing it with me."

Wow.