Care and Feeding of Galiana

Too much want

In the probably-forgettable movie Made In Heaven, seen in my impressionable youth, a new soul falls in love with a guy named Mike in heaven, and then, after she's born and grows up, although she doesn't remember him directly, she writes a children's book called "The Care and Feeding of Mike". The sweet little phrase stuck with me, and now when I think of care, I think "The Care and Feeding of..."

Urg. I have so much want.

I want to continue the dialog I entered into with my celebration of male submissives post, reading others' spectacular writings and leaving comments that make me seem like I know what I'm talking about. I want to keep engaging with Fizz and Chaos of Lab Coats & Lingerie, lose myself in the archives of KittyStryker's recently-Janes-Guide-approved PurrVersatility, help Alisa research to fill in the blanks of her archiving efforts at KinkInExile, encourage Tomio to keep writing, and pathetically attempt to keep up with all the insights and research spread by the inspirational maymay, knowledge worker extraordinaire, the one who drew me into this particular dizzying world of rhetoric and ideas to begin with by the brilliantly evocative MaleSubmissionArt...

Maymay, by the way, is also the one who helped me realize the value of contextual linking. I recognize the irony of having no links in that sentence. (trivia: I am always certain I have used the word "irony" incorrectly)

But back to my insatiable want... I want to write more about fairness and negotiation and respect in relationships, BDSM and vanilla. I want to share my observations about community-building from years of church and BDSM groups and playing MMORPGs. I want to start podcasting. I want to release more videos that are like visual podcasts. I want to open an Ask Galiana blog so I can pretend to legitimize my compulsive need to share my perspective.

I want to take series of pictures enjoying my body as I strip out of constrictive clothing to show that I can still celebrate my physicality even though my medicines packed on an extra 15 pounds I didn't intend to gain.

I want to spend every moment with my family for these last couple of weeks while I still live in Houston with them. After 21 years away, it has been soul-nourishing to live in the same town again for 6 months, just barely long enough to develop habits of including each other. I will miss the casual ability to help, and to feel feel caught up.

I want to be spending enough time over the phone with my husband, who is away from our current home, working in the place where I'm moving at the end of the month, to stay emotionally connected to him during this busy time, so we don't get too snappy or resentful.

I want to sort through the crap in my home that we didn't have time to sort through when we moved here in March, and I want to recycle, donate, sell, and throw away as much as possible before we pay by the pound to move it cross-country. I am disturbed by how many belongings we have moved multiple times and never used.

And I want to keep feeding off the energy of my callers, take luscious escapes of fantasy and pleasure, lose myself in the delicious focus of luxuriating in the erotic rhythms of wants and needs and secrets and lusts. I feel useful and sexy and empowered and strong and capable when I spend time having phone sex.

And on the days of the move, I want to be at the top of my game, ready to do whatever needs to be done, strong and willing and able.

Days? What do you mean day? The next 3 weeks include these separate days: hub's last 4-day trip where he has to finish packing everything that is his and sorting everything that is ours, 4 days of paying an underemployed friend to help me pack, movers taking our stuff, my hub driving away with the car and the dogs, my flying up to *static* and him driving me to our new home several hours from there, our stuff arriving at our new place, and a great friend from college arriving to help me unpack for a few days.

Oh, and I'd like to do all that without having any vertigo crashes, please. Because having massive physical limitations is completely inconvenient right now. Could I just not have vertigo for a bit?

Dear Galiana,

Please read The Care and Feeding of Galiana. It goes something like this: Galiana needs, at a minimum: water, food, down-time to let her brain rest, and, separately from the rest, sleep. If you could also work in "having reasonable expectations for herself," that would be peachy.

Love, Galiana

I feel like I'm considering dropping out of a bunch of stuff that just finally got rolling, and I don't want to let any of it go. But that is the thought pattern of people who drive themselves crazy from inexperience, and, for better or worse, I know better.

So I will put my activist urges on a shelf, carefully schedule blocks of time with family, resign myself to still having clutter after we move, watch my days-between-blog-posts climb again, savor the escape with the callers who catch me on the phone, email the ones who let me know they missed me, and do the best I can to get through this as productively as possible.

Moving Right Along, Again

Can't I just lounge and masturbate?

Hey, long-time blog readers, remember this blog post from mid-February called "Moving Right Along"? How I announced I was moving, but I said I'd be up and running again in a few weeks, so no worries? And then, as it turned out, everything went to hell in a handbasket and it actually took me like ... four or five months to really get my groove back?

Well, hey, guess what I found out today?

Those of you playing along at home who guessed, "Ohhhhhhh noooooo you have to move again?" are absolutely correct! You get a gold star! But this time, the circumstances are better. By far. Here's how it went:

Hubby's Job: (in a secret rural Midwestern location) Turns out, you're awesome, and we need you to do this big important thing, and work more hours, and not travel back to Houston to visit your wife nearly as much.

Hubby: Cool, as long as you pay to relocate her, and the dogs, and all our stuff, here.

Hubby's Job: Sure, we can do that. Because, you know what? You're awesome.

Galiana: So, I get to have movers do most of my packing for me? And the whole move is free for us? And I get to live with my husband again? Awesome!

Well, mostly awesome. I am moving away from my mother and sister and nieces, who I will miss like crazy. That part sucks.

But I'll be traveling back to Houston more often, for holidays, plus every couple of months, so I'll spend a lot of time with them then. And by "spend a lot of time with them," I really mean, "I will probably crash on their couches to ensure I spend every moment possible with them." So when when I travel back to Houston, I'll probably be offline, but I'll warn you when that happens.

I may end up with less energy to log on for phone sex because I will have less financial pressure after the move. Or more energy because I have less stress and a more consistent schedule. Or more energy because my husband will take care of the dogs in the morning. Or maybe less because my sleep schedule may shift earlier. Or maybe more because I might feel socially isolated. Or maybe less because I'll make a ton of friends and hang out with them all the time.

In other words, I dunno what's gonna happen after I move. In fact, I don't know yet when exactly I'm moving. Probably some time in October.

I do, however, know I will have much more time than I had last time to prep and pack, and I will be able to afford a lot more help, so I should still be able to log on for phone sex between now and when I move. Yay!

I have a confession: in the last six weeks, I have thought I might be moving 3 times. You're moving! You're not moving! You definitely are! You maybe are! You ... oh, no, nope, you're not! Oh, hey, lookit, yes, you are!

And in that six weeks of bouncing uncertainty, I have managed to log in a lot for phone sex, reconnect with callers from my past, rewrite listings, pick up the pace of blog posts, publish pay-to-view content, and sometimes even hit my daily goals on the phone. That means (a) my medicines are really helping me and (b) the thought of this move is much less stressful for me than the last.

Also in the past six weeks, with help from my mom and sister, I've been able to sort and organize most of the stuff we didn't have time to sort through in the last move. Three carloads have been hauled away already, and there should be another carload or two after this weekend's visit.

Oh, I almost forgot... this part will be weird: I won't tell you exactly where I'm moving to. I'll refer to it as the Secret Rural Midwestern Location (SeRMiL). That's an amusingly horrible acronym. But one of the BDSM groups in Austin used to meet at a place they called the "Secret Rural Location" and I can't think of another name for the place we're moving, because that name is so firmly stuck in my mind because I think it's funny. SeRMiL, USA, here we come.

The reason for the uncharacteristic secrecy is that the town is small enough that I am pretty sure it wouldn't take long for my blog to show up on town-related internet searches, which violates everything I have read about ensuring your safety when you're doing online sex work. I'm sure you're supportive of my safety. Thank you for your understanding.

So, as I'm sure it's not hard to imagine, I won't be logged in much this weekend, because the hubby and I will be up to our ears in boxes and bins marked Keep / Sell / Donate / Trash. However, my sleep schedule is usually later than his, so if you want to hang out late at night, drop me an email, and I'll let you know if I'm up for it!