Appointment Widget

My calendar page is useful again! There's a new widget there showing you times in the future which I would love to fill with an appointment with you.

You can request an appointment, cancel an appointment, or reschedule an appointment through the calendar, in 30-minute blocks. If you have questions, please write me.

You have to give an email address when you request an appointment, and it has to be a real one that you check to see if I confirm the appointment (it's not for sure til I confirm it).

I will be able to see your email address, but I'll never sell it, and I'll be far too lazy to use to market to you. I'm already not using NiteFlirt mail to market directly to people who have called me, so why would I use something possibly even more invasive?

This is so fun! It's like I'm a real live person on the internet now!

Oh, hey, speaking of fun... Right now, I have times available on the appointment widget for this Saturday afternoon and evening (July 14). But I have the opportunity to go to a kinkster social on Saturday. But it's out of town, and I'm not sure I want to make the drive.

So, we'll see what happens Friday, and if I don't have any appointments set for Saturday, I'll cancel the availability and go to the social. But if I have even one appointment, I'll stay home and turn on the phones and see who calls!

I guess I'm having kinky social time either way, aren't I? Lucky me!

Family Visit

My mother-in-law is having minor heart surgery Friday (although "heart surgery" never feels "minor" does it?), so we're going to Houston tomorrow (Thursday Feb 2). My husband will be back Sunday Feb 5 to work next week, but I'm taking the opportunity to spend an extra week with my family, so I won't return home until Monday Feb 13th.

I have no idea what this does to my work availability. I think I might log on during the days the week of Feb 6 while my mother's at work, and possibly an evening or two if the gang is all busy, but it's impossible to predict with any accuracy.

However, stranger things have certainly happened than me arranging phone sex calls while traveling to visit family. Much stranger things. So feel free to drop me an email and let me know if you want to arrange a time to play! I know of a parking garage nearby that has remained as secluded at night as when we used to go there to make out in high school...

Meds and Trains and My Missing Superpower

When I was a manager, I encouraged people to find their "superpower". As an example, I said mine was "English translator of English" -- I have an unusual ability to help technical people understand the business side of things, and vice versa.

Apparently, my Missing Superpower is: Keeping People Informed Of My Calendar. I told about five people I was traveling. Everyone else was confused and ignored. I'm really sorry. In my defense, I was using all my energy trying not to be terrified of traveling. It sort of worked (not really).

I just got back from Chicago. I went there for a long-overdue checkup with my dizzy doctor to discuss my horse tranquilizers. He told me about a new habituation treatment that involves a rotating chair and synchronized visual input, so even those with the most severe motion sickness can tolerate treatments in the chair, and apparently after five sessions of just an hour each, 100% of the people in the study had full recovery to allow them to travel without illness!

So while I wait for him to build a hurl-a-whirl chair (as my sister called it... heh), I'll stay on my ridiculously low doses of barbiturates and continue to make incremental improvement, and then wipe out my improvements by over-extending myself socially, or by traveling, which wipes me out, but I love seeing people and changing scenery, so I'll keep doing it!

Speaking of traveling, the car ride up to Chicago was as difficult as expected, but the pleasant surprise was how well I tolerated the elevated train to get to and from downtown -- better than a car! I felt like I could predict the motion of the train (both acceleration and deceleration, but also side-to-side) more accurately than expected.

Then the big success was getting home via train, which was over 2.5 hours of constant motion. Oh, sure, I looked like a zombie shuffling off the train, my voice was flat, my speech was slurred, I was confused, and my muscles were weak, but I still felt like I could direct my body in case of an emergency. That opens up a new realm of possibilities for me, because I can theoretically get all the way to Houston on my own if I gave myself enough recouping time between the train to Chicago, the elevated train to O'Hare, and the plane to Houston. Exciting!

Summary: Sorry I forgot to tell you I'd be traveling. My doctor's visit was fine. If you have brain-drunk-vertigo, Trains > Cars > Planes (FYI: as far as I know, I am the only person in the world who has brain-drunk vertigo, so this information has extremely limited usefulness).

Holidaze

2010 Santa

I didn't write much in November for a few reasons: (1) my allergies have been threatening to migrate to my lungs, so I've been fighting off a cough for a week, teetering hourly between winning and losing the battle, (2) my husband traveled back to Houston via train for Thanksgiving, which left me surprisingly worry-paralyzed that week, and (3) I seem to have picked up a local lover, even though I didn't intend to look for one this quickly.

The keys to seducing me seem to be (1) funny and (2) smart and (3) kind. My husband is easily Roger Rabbit levels of funny (yes, I did just make myself Jessica Rabbit, thank you very much), and the new lover is a serious sapiosexual's wet dream come true (his brain is totally bigger than yours). And both of them are wonderfully kind, to others as well as to me.

Luckiest. Girl. Ever.

Now that I've settled into a weekly routine with the new beau, and hopefully won the war against germs in my head and chest, I will attempt to resume a more predictable schedule for the remainder of the holiday season.

I'm continuing to make appointments, 10am-4pm Central, or after 8pm Central. There's a 30-minute minimum for appointments, and I need at least a few hours' notice, but a day ahead works best. Write me at NiteFlirt or at my email to set up a time.

I'm continuing to thoroughly enjoy the whole appointment thing a lot. I love being able to sink into a caller's fantasies even before I hear his voice, to get my head space right, to have time to anticipate and tingle in all the right ways.

Before 10am? I'm asleep or snuggling with dogs. Nobody gets to interrupt snuggle time. Between 4pm and 8pm? I'm feeding dogs and dining with the hub, or doing 2-person chores with him, like deciding how many items we can part with from our obscenely large collection of underused electronics and power cords which no longer match any electronics we own... we think. It's a huge problem in the geek world.

As for logging in for general calls for Anyone In The World, I'm finding 9pm to midnight Central to be my most common hours.

Oh, and I also picked up a volunteer to take pictures of me, so I'm hoping to have some holiday pictures in my new Red Room in my new naughty Santa outfit soon! Yay!

As far as I know, I'm not traveling back to Houston until early in the New Year, so I should be around for most, if not all, of December! I look forward to holidazing with you!

On The Road Again

Tomorrow, I'm traveling back to Austin to have a disability hearing. Although the timing was unfortunate, I'm very glad it's been scheduled and that I get time to explain my weird, complicated case.

I spent the first six months of my vertigo visiting 17 doctors and a physical therapist, looking for diagnosis and a cure.

In months 6-15, I tried a series of medicines, to varying degrees of less-than-total-success, but I also extended the lessons I learned in physical therapy to try to develop coping patterns of activity / rest.

In month 15, I felt good enough about the balance of occasional medicines and my physical therapy gains to attempt to make a living at phone sex. I was not at all sure I could do it. Some days were better than others. I'm still so grateful I was able to make it work.

The hearing will ONLY cover the time period before I started working (months 0-15). I genuinely believe that I could not have worked any sooner - it took that long for the right medicines and therapies to do their thing. Plus, Just Say No to attempting to defraud the government.

So the hearing will be hard: I'll have to remember in vivid detail a difficult period of my life.

And it will be wonderful: I'll get to remember in vivid detail how much more I can do now, and celebrate being the kind of person who chooses to do everything I can do. I choose to work, even at 1/3 of my former salary most months, because I can, and I love that about myself.

And I am traveling on my own, something I feared I could never do again. I'm not gonna lie, it's gonna suuuuuuuck to be on a plane again. But it sucks less than never traveling again. By a lot.

In the meantime, we're happily unpacking our new home to make one room functional at a time. The bedroom works REALLY well!! Yay me!

The Fuckatorium 3.0 will be spectacular, but has not yet been properly equipped or decorated. I can't wait to show it to you! I'm going for a very sparse look, with only necessities. The idea is to keep as little as possible in the room so it's video-ready at the drop of a hat if I get the urge. Less clutter = more videos (I hope). It's a unique room, with deeply sloped walls that obviously used to be part of an attic, 9 feet wide by 22 feet long with deep red walls - it's striking!

So I'll be offline and unavailable for calls Tue, Wed, Thu, but available by appointment only Friday afternoon. I'll probably be offline Saturday, and back on Sunday. Then next week, well, next week is when the real fun starts again: establishing my new pattern. I am so incredibly looking forward to next week!

I'm Stuffed

Paddle In Hand

Summary (extra-short): My stuff has arrived in my home, so I'm all stuffed up.

Summary (medium-short): After 10 days of hearing nothing from our movers, we got a call Saturday saying they would hold our stuff hostage unless we paid them $800 more than the estimate. Sunday, after they arrived at 6:30 pm, we refused to pay it, called cops, had a 3-hour stand-off in our front yard, took video, measured the truck, I cried, and they eventually agreed to the $1600 originally estimated plus the $200 tip I had always intended to give them. Monday, they arrived at 11:30, took our money, then informed us they were in too big of a hurry to reassemble our furniture or put any furniture or boxes where we specified ("for $1800 you get your stuff dumped"), we took more video, I cried more, but we have our stuff.

A few details: My husband and I figured out a pretty clever Good Cop (him) / Hysterical Cop (me) routine where we blamed my medicines and the general condition of Being Female for my over-excitability. We used my Hysterical Condition to manage to get everything we need on video to sue them for serious breach of contract, as well as fraudulent charges (they charged us for over 500 cubic feet they admitted we did not have).

Justice will happen through the courts, and through our very eager army of non-smut friends who are, at this moment, filling review boards with factual, non-slanderous reviews of their company.

But I haven't spent that much energy faking a one-down position to anyone in a long time. It was the right thing to do to get through the day, to have our stuff safely returned to us (nothing was intentionally damaged, and the dryer not working is probably electrical).

But here's the deal: If your fetish is humiliating women, calling women stupid, or in any way whatsoever suggesting that the woman you're talking with is anything other than an amazingly capable, whip-cracking, intelligent, funny, productive, bad-ass-motherfucker? Do. Not. Fucking. Call. Me.

Also, I'm not at all your girl if you need me to beg you, cajole you, nag you, manipulate you, or coerce you. I'm all out of Bad Cop juice at the moment. Well, or else I'm allllll filled up with it, but it's not the kind you'll like.

Seduce you? Bring it. Kick you in the nuts while humiliating you? I'm totally your girl. Edge you until you're begging and writhing and leaking a steady stream of pre-cum all over your own hand (or whatever I'm letting you stroke with)? Aww fuck yeah.

My bold diva self should start being available on phone sex again tomorrow night. Or maybe tonight. Or who knows? Whenever the hell I want, dammit! /grin

My nice, normal, sweet, accommodating self should return in a few days. Maybe...

A Bit Better, and Amusements

My current mood

We still don't have our stuff, but our movers have at least called us now. We are no longer playing the game of "maybe they stole all our things." Now we are playing the game of "they claim we owe them a lot more money than they initially estimated before they will deliver our things." I hate playing chicken.

Thankfully, my husband and I play a pretty damn good game of Good Cop/Bad Cop. Usually we just play it alone with each other, but in this case, it comes in handy externally as well. Heh. That made me grin.

We've researched the law and helpful tactics, but if you have suggestions, feel free to shoot me an email and advise away. My legal-name FB has been bombarded with helpful hints from many of our non-smut friends, and I have gotten supportive and helpful emails from the smut side of my life as well. Our communities have been fantastic.

So, to thank you for suffering with me through my tales of woe, I will now share amusing anecdotes:

Thursday evening, an ex-coworker passed close enough to us in his drive cross-country that he stopped for dinner, during which, I confessed my phone sex career to him. He was thrilled for me, and had lots of fun questions and enthusiasm without being specifically titillated because he is solely and voraciously attracted to men.

After discussing how some people use my services in a pseudo-therapeutic way, he started pondering aloud some fantasies he had from early in his sexual development which he felt like he hadn't explored because of his shame around them, but he was being purposefully vague.

This led to me asking him, "Specifically what do you think about when you're jacking off?" He laughed, hard, and said, "It's just like working with you again! I can see you pulling the door to your office shut, and you turning around and asking me that question exactly that way!" Yep. I probably would have.

The next day, I relayed that story to my mother, who has asked not to be told too many specifics, but finds some level of bawdiness amusing. Upon regaining her breath after a burst of surprised laughter, she said, "Oh dear, no. Wait, why? Was that one of your interview questions?" No, no, no, no, no. No, it wasn't. But it sort of is now, isn't it?

In other encouragement, in that same conversation with Mom, when I said "I think I'm ahead of schedule with having made all my major life mistakes twice before the age of 42", she replied, "Oh, honey, I'm sure you're not done."

I'm pretty damn sure she's right.

Control, You Fickle Bitch

Now why would you want to leave me?

I had a lot of control when I lived in Houston - my husband was traveling for work 10 days out of every 14, my family and local friends were trained to call before dropping by, and I was finding my ability to adapt to the unexpected kind of, well, atrophying, because the unexpected was happening so rarely in my daily life.

I mean, sure, there was the whole thing with "you're moving - you're not moving - you're moving - you're not moving - oh okay really you're moving", and anyone would have found that disruptive, but aside from that ennui, I could manage my dizzies, my dogs, my time, and my energy as I wished.

Oct 2, I arrived at my new home in Central Illinois (I've decided I can safely say "Central Illinois" now that I've been here and determined I am not quite at The Godforsaken Ends of The Earth)(plus Central Illinois could be any one of five "metro" areas, so it's still not all that specific)(could we finish this sentence without more parenthesis, please?)(maybe, if you ask nicely...)(ohfuckit)(what was I saying?)(I arrived at my new home...) to find that Control has forsaken me.

Frank Sinatra sang to Luck, asking her to be a Lady and stay with the guy she came in with. I feel like I'm attempting to serenade Control in much the same way, and, as a shocking surprise to absolutely nobody, she ain't playin' along.

In ascending order of emotional impact, from lowest to highest levels of reinforcement of the idea "you really are not in control here": (1) I have to travel unexpectedly back to Austin in two weeks (2) my movers may have stolen all our stuff and (3) a good friend lost a close family member in an accident.

I'm very glad to be a support for (3), especially since I lost my father at age 22, and I remember how helpful it was to talk with people whose immediate family members had passed away when they were far too young. The best advice given to me in that time was, "You're a smart girl, and you're usually able to figure things out, but if you try to figure out Death, you'll make yourself crazy. This is a feeling thing, not a thinking thing. Just feel." She wins the prize for best advice ever. I still thank her periodically.

Control: Big Fat 1, Galiana: Big Fat 0.

As for (2), it's been nine days now since we've heard hide nor hair from our movers, and one of the numbers we were using to reach them has been disconnected. Gulp. I did a lot of research in early September to choose the company, and yet, in the past 30 days, there seem to be dozens of reports suddenly of them doing a horrible job, which has been a big shake to my confidence as well as a big huge giant fat massive annoyance to be living in limbo wondering if we need to start buying replacements to stuff, or if we can hold out Denial and Hope one more day (Hope and Denial make such a cute couple, don't they?) So I'm researching civil and criminal options to recover my things, from a thousand miles away, and trying not to blame myself for picking a horrible mover.

Dear Victim, don't blame yourself. Love, Everyone Sane.

Control: Whopping Hellacious 2, Galiana: Serious 0.

Then for (1), it seems that my change of addresses didn't reach all the right offices, and I'm having a disability hearing about my vertigo in Austin in two weeks. Surprise! The hearing is about the 15 months when I couldn't work before I figured out the right pattern of low-dosage, occasional medicines and resting that allowed me to start doing phone sex. Don't worry, I'm not defrauding the government. If anything, I'm being militantly forthcoming (my lawyer probably didn't need to know I do phone sex now - maybe I could have said "telephone sales", right? But it was kinda fun to tell her). But the practical thing in the meantime is that we had to scramble to get funds and plans for me to travel again, just exactly when I thought I'd be settling down, and it's possible that if I known the date of my hearing before we moved, I would have waited another 4-6 weeks to move at all.

Control: Pow! Pow! Pow! That's 3 in a row, to Galiana's 0... and that looks like a Knockout, folks!

Oh, and my allergies have been bad, too, but that seems miniscule by comparison. Apparently, though, I needed to whine about it. /whiiiiiiiine

I would like to think that I would have learned my lesson not to hold onto control too tightly had it been applied slightly more subtly than via sledgehammer. But perhaps not.

In the meantime, I'll log on for phone sex when I'm able to shuffle these worrisome details out of my busy head enough to feel sexy.

And of course, a reminder: a good number of delicious callers have dropped me an email to let me know a specific date/times they would be available, which I find MUCH easier to accommodate than to log on for Anyone In The Whole Wide World. There's a 30-minute minimum for appointments, but I have been loving those little eagerly anticipated getaways.

And, indeed, writing this, I can feel my mind and body longing for the verdant, luscious, all-encompassing escape of immersing myself in someone else's sexual energy. Maybe I need to stop sleeping as a coping mechanism and do more phone sex instead.

Like, for example, on Tuesday night, before any of this happened, I had an amazing time teasing and guiding the new caller who found me through this blog, the one with the gentle voice, the one I introduced to a few pleasures available from the belt of his fuzzy robe... My mouth just watered, and what was that? It seems to have been a little grin.

So write me already, you slacker. It's the least you could do, really, isn't it? Here, I'll make it easy: galiana@ymail.com

The Best Laid Plans

Early Morning Snuggles

The best laid plans of mice and men / Often go awry (or something like that, depending on your translation to modern English).

For the record, I'd rather be the best laid girl than have the best laid plans anyway.

But on to the actual topic of this blog post. As plans go, it was a fine one: arrive in my new town on Sunday, have my stuff delivered on Mon or Tue or Wed, and have a friend visit to help me unpack on Thu-Sat while hub had to be out of town.

The tiny little complication to the plan? Our stuff hasn't been delivered yet. In fact, we don't know when it will be delivered. We do know our truck has not yet left Texas. We've been told someone else canceled their move, so they have to wait until they have another full container from Houston to the Midwest before we get our belongings.

In the meantime, we're living off the spartan furnishings hub had acquired while in his temporary apartment, plus some things we bought from our landlady when she moved out. It's a bit inconvenient, but not impossible.

Still. Better. Than. The Last Move. A bajillion kazillion times better.

Since hub was heading out of town anyway, my friend still came down to visit, and we got The Plan together for where all the big furniture is going to be placed once it arrives, which has provided me a giant measure of mental relief.

As an added bonus, she loves taking pictures, especially of dogs, so when my pit bull mix and I were snuggling on the couch this morning, she captured us. No shower, no makeup, not the most flattering of angles, but I love it.

The original plan was to unpack necessities and feel a bit settled before I started taking calls. The new plan is to take calls until our movers arrive, then take a couple days off again to unpack necessities, then figure out a new schedule and attempt to pretend that my life is stable for a while. We can dream together, can't we?

I started writing this blog post at the same time as I logged in to take calls. I was nervous nobody would find me unless I blog-announced and mail-announced my availability, but I was wrong. I've had three calls so far: and old friend for teasing and ball-busting, a semi-regular for tickle torturing, and a new caller on my hypno line who completely resisted my first induction attempt, but sounded so gratified by the second attempt that he hung up on me after breathing intensely for a few minutes. /grin We'll have to work on his etiquette, but it sounds like the induction worked well. /flex

Welcome back (again), Galiana!

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!

Back and Away Again

These past two weeks, I have finally felt like I was "back" (although I try not to strive to return to the past - I try always to strive for the new thing the future will bring, with the added bit of wisdom and experience I have gained since then... wow, that was sermonize-ish, wasn't it?).

Since apparently I am having an inner conflict about the use of the term "back", allow me to clarify: these past two weeks, I have felt like I finally have a routine with my food, sleep, dogs, husband, family, horse tranquilizers, online presence, and phone sex that has felt productive. It's been months since I felt like I had a groove this strong, and it felt great.

So then, to cap it off properly, I neglected to inform anyone that I'll be mostly offline this weekend for social reasons. /facepalm

But upon my triumphant re-return (Monday? Tuesday? who knows), I have a huge list of things to write about - I've had some fantastic new callers giving me delicious ideas, plus one last announcement of something I recorded a while ago before I start producing new audio / video / picture content (lord willin' and the creek don't rise).

However, as always, if you know ahead of time that there is a specific time you would like to talk, even this weekend, drop me an email, and I will accommodate it if I can - carving specific time for a specific person is MUCH simpler than logging on and being up for absolutely anything the universe of phone sex can toss my way. It's a wacky universe out there. Trust me.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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!

Turtles and Bunnies

Today, I'll be offline until the evening hours because (a) right now I have to rescue a turtle and (b) I'm seeing Hop with my nieces this afternoon.

The turtle showed up in the little back yard of our townhouse a few days ago, much to the consternation of my pit bull with anxiety issues. I put him outside the fence, gave him some salad, and when I went to check on him an hour later, he had taken off.

He came back today, identified again by a ferocious round of especially crazy-sounding barking. So I'm off to take him to a nearby park with a bayou where he can live a natural life and get eaten by something more appropriate on the food chain than my very-much-not-wild dogs.

Then I'll serve my role as "the aunt who thinks it's important to analyze art" and attempt to engage my nieces in a conversation about animation, plot, characterization, themes, and whether or not they agree with the moral assertions of the film. They are still receptive to these conversations - surprisingly so, considering the feminist marathon we went through about the Disney princesses last year - but I expect the eye-rolling and disdain is not far off.

So no sexy time for me until the evening, which makes me a little twitchy, because I've had a really fun week on the phone this week. I've had so much phone time that today has kind of been a little odd to switch back to off-phone life-in-person mode! But I'm sure I'll adjust nicely and be back in the swing of things in no time. Hope to see you tonight!

Busy Weekend, Just Not With Phone Sex

Since we found out my husband has a new job, things have been a flurry of activity.

We need a second car so I won't be stranded at home (I can drive close places with vertigo, as long as the dizzies aren't severe). Mom has been holding off getting a new car until she knew if we wanted hers (hell yeah, she takes great care of cars). So yesterday I went with her to buy her new car, and take possession of her old one.

(Side note: she decided to buy Ford because they didn't take federal bailout money, but they've been vastly improving the quality of their cars. Her new Escape got strong reviews on Consumer Reports, high reliability since the '08 redesign, and the integrated hands-free phone interface was a breeze to set up and use. Yay America! My next car will be a Ford. In fact, anyone wanna give me $30K for the hybrid Fusion with a moonroof they had in stock?)

(Thus ends the totally unpaid commercial portion of this blog entry)

Mom kept thanking me for going online with her to do the title transfer and the toll tag deactivation. She didn't seem to understand that I came out ahead: her selling me a car in great condition for $2,000 less than I could have bought it anywhere else? vs one hour of online time? I totally win.

Then today is Easter, so it was family time, which meant 7 adults and 5 kids at my sister's house, which meant I needed anti-dizzy medications. I took the one that made me spacey, hoping it would mean I could nap through the rebound, but nooooo. Nooooo. Nooooope.

Instead, since I got home, I've just been telling HILARIOUS stories to my dogs, who do not seem to be getting my jokes. The nerve of some quadripeds, I tell ya...

I would have logged in for phone sex yesterday, but I laid down to rest -- not to sleep, mind you, "because I'm just dizzy, not sleepy" -- and woke up six hours later completely groggy and useless.

And then today, I would have logged in for phone sex, except I'm stupid. It's the meds, they make me feel stoned. Like, totally, utterly, uselessly dumb. I spent a good ten minutes trying to look up the prices for a new iPhone 4 via Sprint .... except that Sprint doesn't carry iPhones, and we have AT&T. And we've had AT&T for years. We have two iPhones now on AT&T. Wut... thuh... hail... /blink /blink

So I'm hanging out with my sorely under-appreciative dogs, watching them play "king of the (couch/bed/stairs)" until I start crashing or get sleepy.

My hope is that tomorrow will mark the return of my ability to keep up with my calendar, and be logged in for phone sex for 10-12 hours most days. Fingers crossed!!

Relief and Pride and Change

I wrote a story in 2002 that includes the sentence, "Relief and pride flood me so completely I almost faint."

I felt that way yesterday.

My husband has been looking for a full-time job for "a while". I've been holding my breath, waiting to see what changes his job will cause for that exact same "a while".

Yesterday, he got a great job offer. Then he negotiated it well, so he accepted an even better job offer.

I'm so relieved. I'm so proud.

And I'm so... brain-spun. I can't stop thinking of all the what-ifs and what-it-might-means: for my schedule, my energy, my availability for phone sex, my disposable income, my ability to relax and "forgive myself" when I can't be on the phones...

And the issues of today are still the issues of today until we get his first full pay check, so I am attempting to budget for three versions of "then" while attempting to responsibly live "now".

At least I'm not concerned about feeling safe when he's working, because I have a rescued pit bull mix with anxiety issues. Anybody stupid enough to try to harm me will not. be. pleased. (She's also a handy deterrent for door-to-door solicitors...)

I suspect my schedule will shift again, like it did after we moved, but I'm not sure in which direction. I will probably log on with with my dominant and hypno listings more often again (after I rewrite them), but I don't know for sure.

I like predictability. My body likes routine. The move tossed me off the schedule I had in Austin, and I've been struggling to get back to something regular again.
I cannot begin to express how much I am looking forward to settling in to this new version of my life!