Writing While Pondering

(Warning: this blog post contains irrational capitalization and emphasis, because apparently that's What Needs to Happen Today as if my thoughts are the titles of published articles, or as if I were writing in the 19th century. I assume the urge for caps case will fade, but apparently I couldn't write today without it.)

I don't feel quite THIS helpless today,
but it certainly conveys a need, doesn't it?
Plus, I love my boobs in this picture.

I've been traveling for two weeks (decadent of me... the last hurrah from my windfalls from March), visiting family in Houston (which was comforting and nourishing as always), and seeing a friend in a show in Chicago (I am ashamed that I only seem to support the arts when I know participants, but I guess it's better than never supporting the arts). It was an absurd amount of travel for someone with motion sickness issues.

My mode of operation on the trips was, "Fuck It, I'll Probably Be Fine". Practically speaking, that means I didn't save any energy for tomorrow's activities, instead choosing to recover when needed. It was the equivalent of asking for forgiveness rather than permission between me and my Inner Energy Tank. I did indeed need some recovery times, but I think the anti-worrying approach served me fairly well overall. We'll see if it leads to me working more often (/fingers crossed)

So now I'm back at home, with no injury-level back pain anymore (yay!), with some good fuel in my tank of sexy energy (yay!) and ready to Start Taking Calls (yay!). Exciting!

In theory.

I mean, that's what should be happening, right? It should be my top priority, right? Getting back in the game? Kicking off my summer with a bang of being available 50+ hours / week like in the good ol' days when I first started? Enjoying the luscious boost of energy of being discovered by someone new?

In theory, yes. Absolutely. In theory.

In reality, I'm scattered. And I'm not sure why.

I can easily justify some of the tasks I'm choosing to do today while decisively Not Taking Calls: updating bills and budgets, going grocery shopping, taking out trash and recycling, washing travel clothes, that research favor I promised my friend weeks ago, updating my blog. These are urgent things, necessary things, easy to justify, easy enough to do.

But for 2 hours after I woke up, I did things I cannot justify: Looking up literary agents who represent both erotica and non-fiction to propose a book including some of my more popular blog posts. Researching hosting providers for podcasts. Playing with backgrounds and lighting in case I want to do a video Q&A podcast.

Hmmm. These activities are suspiciously not the same as Taking Calls. These activities are suspiciously not helping move me toward Taking Calls. No, these activities sound like a to-do list for someone who does not want to be Taking Calls at all. Interesting.

It seems that I am now officially Writing While Pondering. Hopefully it's not as dangerous as Dialing While Drunk, but my audience is theoretically larger than one phone call, so it could be even more catastrophic. I'll pretend it'll work out all right. Can you please bear with me while I try to figure out what's going on in my sometimes-non-linear-and-irrational mind? Thanks.

What would have made far more sense: answering the dozens of NiteFlirt emails which have now grown into a Massive Reminder of My Failures In Life so overwhelming that I pretend they're not there. That would get me back in touch with callers I know I love...

But scattered in my NiteFlirt emails are reminders I may not entirely enthusiastic about. Either they are coworkers who send me customer mailings which can drive me into feeling inadequate because I compare myself to Every Single Thing I Am Not Currently Doing, or they are callers who ask me to do things I don't yet feel the energy to do.

(By the way, none of the customers I'm currently avoiding read my blog. Even though it sounds like a lie, I really do like all my blog readers. I think I find it much easier to have energy I for people when I think they might care about me as a person, and not just as a service provider. And let's be honest, at this point, my blog has so little phone sex in it that the only readers I have left are people interested in me as a person, right?)

I have said many times that it is far easier to take a call with someone I know than it is to log on for The Whole World. Logging on blind, not knowing who will call or what they may want... that takes guts. Courage. Self-assurance. Energy. That is, I think, the hardest thing about my job: being ready to answer the phone for The Whole Wide World With All Its Craziness. And courage, self-assurance, and guts are probably in a bit of short supply at the moment after three months of trying not to pressure myself while recovering from a seriously unpleasant back injury.

I'm not quite ready yet to convert humiliation aimed at me into erotic energy. I'm not quite ready yet to make up multiple stories in a row about how I accidentally shrink and swallow someone while the caller remains silent, withholding his responses while I spin tales into a feedback-less abyss. I'm not quite ready yet to hang up on someone for violating the terms of service, my personal limits, and my overall interest in interacting with humanity by blurting out, "And then I bring in a horse to fuck you, and you're all tied up, so you can't stop me!"

I just... can't quite get there yet.

(Thankfully, the day the horse call actually happened, I was in a great mood - I laughed out loud and hung up, then mocked the caller to my husband. The phrase "And then you fuck a horse!" said with a raspy, nasally East Coast voice, is still a common source of laughter in our home.)

(FYI: In general, I don't resent people who have fantasies about taboo subjects, but I need those to be respectfully negotiated to ensure I am on board. If I am not on board, the caller needs to find someone else who is. Taboo subjects sprung on me mid-fantasy, clearly hoping for a shocked response, deserve a good *hahahaha*click*.)

(Also, for the record, being non-consensually tied up and violated by a horse is not a fantasy I am willing to participate in. My apologies and regrets to all you nice guys stuck with unpleasant fantasies you would rather not have. I wish you luck in your search, I do, and sometimes I can be a taboo girl, and some taboos I genuinely love, but not that particular one.)

Okay, so I'm not quite ready to take on The Whole Big Bad Crazy World quite yet. That's understandable, right? Yes. Yes, it it is. It's understandable. My Inner Therapist can deliver that message with a lot of sincerity: It is absolutely understandable to be not quite ready to take on The Whole Big Bad Crazy World.

You know what I think I need to get my head back in the game? Appointments with callers I know and love.

Well. That was simple. Why exactly did it take me all this time to reach that conclusion? No idea. It seems so blatantly obvious now. Share a few luscious orgasms with people I trust -- easy!

So if you've been waiting on me to return, please email me. And please include a few date/times that you would like to talk, and what you'd like to talk about, and I'll make a time for us to hang out. I won't even require a 30-minute minimum to make an appointment - let's say for the next 2 weeks. Other than my chiropractor, and other people taking me up on this offer, I have no time commitments.

Also, if we have never spoken yet, but you've been looking for me, drop me an email describing what you want to talk about - it would be fantastic to have a Fun New Caller Boost if we share things in the center of my Lust Landscape, like... ummm... You guiding my masturbation. Or you describing what you'd like to do to me to make me come. Or you begging to be allowed to climax while I masturbate and tell you keep holding on.

Well, now, all of a sudden, I'm short of breath and wondering where my fresh batteries are. That is lovely indeed.

I'm sure after a dozen or so calls, I'll wonder what the hell my problem was, and fall back into a routine of availability again. I look forward to it, in fact. Very much. I don't like feeling vaguely afraid. It doesn't suit me. I'm more of a Grab Life By The Horns and Don't Let the Crazy People Get You Down kind of a gal. I look forward to being so again very soon.

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!

Pretending I Help, Part II

Callers have told me that I have helped them, most often by helping them fall asleep after they climax. As someone who is genuinely, deeply concerned about sleep-deprivation for many of my friends and loved ones, I value "phone sex as a sleep aid" more than most people probably do, and I'm happy to help in that way.

But back in late 2010 / early 2011, I was active on reddit for a while. I had to quit; it ended up being too dizzying to keep up with the amount of scrolling required. But I enjoyed reading people's questions, and offering pithy and/or amusing answers, imagining that one day I could develop a following and become the phone-sex-girl equivalent of Dan Savage (gay male sex and relationship advice columnist who shares many of my thoughts about being, as he calls it, "monogam-ish").

Today, I followed a link in Twitter to reddit and saw my "unread email" light was on, which is weird since I haven't posted for months. Here's what I found:

Last January (5-6 months ago, but it feels like a different world) I posted about "getting over" the fact that I had a "needle-dick" and enjoying my sex life. Something you said really stuck with me - long story short you told me to develop a positive mantra . I did, begrudgingly so, because I really had nowhere to go but up at that point.

(note: some of what I actually said: The idea of using mantra to help change your mental state is a time-honored one. "I will enjoy sex" or whatever, but don't have a negative mantra (ex: I won't let my needle dick bother me, which only reinforces "needle dick" and "bothers me"). I think everyone should enjoy sex regardless of their physiology - it is only one part of who you are, and I wish you much luck in "getting over it")

Within two months my cock insecurity was completely gone. And here's the thing - I found out that I actually have a fairly large penis. It literally started to look bigger to me. I don't need to get into specifics but it's well above average in length and above average in girth. But that's irrelevant.

Your suggestion helped me to realize I had some kind of body dismorphic disorder combined with a crippling case of mental self-sabatoge. Looking back, almost every girl I've slept with has orgasmed from penetration alone, and some had told me my dick was big (no prodding on my part) But I literally erased these memories from my mind, replacing them with negative ones (some of which I only imagined). Your suggestion was the chink in the armor of my crippling insecurity, and once it started to fall, it fell hard. I'm the happiest I've ever been, and in and out of the bedroom my life has never been more fulfilling. Sure, I'm still one crazy and weird motherfucker, but you helped me absolutely ruin my insecurity and the negative way that I viewed myself.

Thank you so much.

Clearly, I was only one tiny push in one tiny step in this man's long journey to heal himself. He had the courage to post to reddit that he wanted to "get over" the size of his penis and learn to enjoy sex, so he was on the very brink of his own healing before he met me.

But seriously. How awesome is that?

While we're on the subject of cock size and body dysmorphia and shit I know that may help someone, here are some hand-to-heart truths:

I will play cock-size humiliation games with someone upon request, but it's all bullshit. I care thousands times more what size your heart is than what size your cock is. If you make me laugh, I will want to make out with you before I know what's in your pants. If you make me feel sexy, I will want to share orgasms with you, regardless of the delivery mechanisms.

Some of my favorite lovers have had erectile dysfunctions of various types (difficulty reaching orgasm, difficulty developing and/or sustaining erections, etc). Many of my favorite sexual memories involve sex toys, fingers, tongues, and/or women without a cock or strap-on in sight.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I love me some cock. Mmmmm cock. But an erect penis of any size is no more necessary for my sexual fulfillment than any other method which brings me great pleasure.

My personal little theory (unproven and perhaps unprovable) is that erectile dysfunctions are so common among smart men over 30 (especially men with tendencies on the autism / asperger / obsessive-compulsive spectra), because they have so many damn thoughts bouncing around in their smart brains that they find it difficult to focus on their pleasure. It took a while for me to believe that my partner could enjoy sex if he didn't get off. Once I let go of that worry, I learned to love the freedom of it.

For what it's worth, I've heard anecdotal evidence that meditation and tantric practices can help quiet your overly-speedy brain, as can prescription anti-anxiety medicines, as can other forms of chemically induced mellowness. However, please be careful when messing with your brain chemistry.

So. Here's the deal: If you squeeze my heart, I will love fucking you, even if "fucking you" involves no penis-vagina penetration whatsoever, or even if the penis doing the penetration is shallow or thin or both. It's what you make me feel in my emotional guts that counts, far more than my physical ones.

(note to callers who have told me I have helped you: if you want a blog post in the "Pretending I Help" series, now that it apparently wants to be a series, feel free to email me your at-least-somewhat-concise version of how I've helped you, in your words, and I'll publish a version of Pretending I Help for you, too... eventually... although, you know how unreliable I am about when I publish which blog posts. Also, that run-on non-sentence was not a good example of how to be concise.)

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!

Two Roads Diverged in a Wood

I am diverging my web presence between those which are NiteFlirt-compliant and those which are not as of... now.

The blog I've been linking to, GalianaChance.com, and my new Twitter account (@GalianaNF) will remain compliant with NiteFlirt rules, which means that I can link to it from my listings, and it will not link to any NiteFlirt competitors.

But everything else will not be NF-compliant, and may contain links to other places. So my new blog location, GalianaChance.net, which I am essentially launching right now (/partyhorn /streamers), and my original blog location, GalianaChance.blogspot.com, will have more a complete "contacts and links" page than the compliant blog.

I spent the better part of two days scrubbing GC.com completely free of all links to my twitter, blogspot, facebook, fetlife, formspring, OKCupid, tumblr, ... basically, it is now only has links to itself and the @GalianaNF twitter account.

Everywhere else will have me posting links like the link whore I intend to become (for example, the previous paragraph... oh, and this paragraph too). Those will include my kinkbomb studio, clips4sale store, images4sale store, TalkSugar listing, and MyPhoneSite listing.

IMPORTANT FOR OTHER PSOs: If you link to my blog from a NF-compliant blog, PLEASE MAKE SURE you are linking to GalianaChance.com! The main reason that I left that one as NF-compliant is because everyone links to it already. When I launched it, I asked everyone to switch references. Even though I have not gotten one referral to the old blogspot address in over three months, this week, I still spent a few hours double-checked any PSO site who had ever linked to me that I could tell, and they were all good. So I feel good that everybody is already pointing to the right place.

Screwing over other PSOs? Do not want that kind of karma. /shudder So I have been very very very careful to scrub it all shiny clean and double-check with Play Fair.

For what it's worth, I'm happy to follow traffic leak rules, even though it means more work; every business has a right to protect itself. Also, if you're a customer, NiteFlirt is still the least expensive way to call me and buy my stuff, and will remain so for the foreseeable future -- out of loyalty, and because they have amazing traffic.

Welcome to my new path. It's linktastic, isn't it?

(P.S. Dear Inner Poetry Snob: I understand that the poem reference by my blog titled described choosing between two paths, not continuously traveling two paths at once, but it was the title that stuck in my head, so get over yourself. Love, Galiana)

Thoughts on Rates

I did not follow one of the best pieces of advice I ever got when I was first starting out: you're new, so you can afford to play with your rates, so keep raising them by $0.10/min every two weeks or so until you find your sweet spot.

Instead, after a month at $0.99/min ($0.55/min to me) to build feedback, I jumped to $1.49/min ($0.90/min to me). It was a smashing success. The 63% raise more than compensated for the callers who quit me. I felt justified at having bypassed the slow, painful rate creep.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, I lost many of my very short callers (under-10-minute average), fewer people insisted that I send them free minutes before they'd try me out, and I found more callers willing to talk for longer. It was fantastic. I was on cloud nine.

And then, a month after that, I disastrously tried to raise my rates again to $1.99/min ($1.25/min to me), at the same time as I was traveling, and also while setting up an invite-only VIP line that stayed at $1.49/min. I confused my callers, knocked my listings out of their top-page spots, and lost the momentum I had with people leaving me feedback. It was a horrible, terrible mess.

So I tucked my tail between my legs, salvaged the points I had made on my VIP line by switching it to an open line, rolled back all my prices to $1.49/min, and promised not to jack with my rates again for at least three months. That was 10 months ago, and the rates on Smart Fun Galiana haven't budged since then.

In the meantime, I created Ms Galiana and Hypno Galiana and toyed with their rates a bit, but I gave up on them when I realized I was unhappy with the way the listings were written. Unfortunately, that was also about the time we had to move, so they got lost in the shuffle for a while. But they're climbing back. They'll find their own ways in the world, I feel sure of it.

(pssst... I'll let you in on a secret: for a brief time, I also opened a purposefully mysterious listing with no pictures of my face, and I had a British accent and I charged $2.99/min. But when the few people who called that line insisted on knowing more about me personally, I hated the pressure of having to choose between lying to them or continuing to play bad cop and say no. Plus, it was nerve-wracking to switch personas like that in the space of 10 seconds as Madge told me which character was getting the call. But I'm not gonna lie, the British accent was super fun. Don't tell anybody, okay?)

My motivation for reconsidering my rates is that many callers have told me I am selling myself short because of my intelligence and creativity. I am acutely aware of my shortcomings, which makes me want to leave my rates low, but also aware that I may be leaving money on the table, which is silly.

Also, now that I am under a bit less financial pressure than I was, a few weeks of "oops well that didn't go as I'd hoped" is more acceptable now than it used to be. Don't get me wrong, the cash I'm making now is going toward non-luxuries like car insurance and vet bills, and my Amazon gift cards replenish my dog treats more often than they provide lipsticks or lingerie, but I am responsible for a smaller percentage of our overall spending.

Ugh, I need to take a break from explaining my financials for a while, and yet I keep feeling the need to do so. Here, this should help: We're nowhere near rich, we have too much debt, we have no savings yet (although we're working on it now), and I still need to work to pay some bills. There. I said it. Now then... Dear whatever part of me needed to keep explaining my finances: Please hush now, for at least a month, okay? Oooooookay.

Back to rates: I have set the rates on my Ms Galiana listings at $2.25/min ($1.44/min to me), which I expect to attract a few callers over time. And after I re-write my Hypno Galiana listings, those will be set at $1.95/min($1.23/min to me). Those rates reflect the relative expenditures of my energy to do those types of calls, in general. Obviously, some submissive calls are draining and some domme calls are refreshing, but in general, I expend more energy leading than I do following.

When Ms Galiana and/or Hypno Galiana take off enough for me to start feeling resentful of taking calls on Smart Fun Galiana, I will start raising those rates by $0.05 / minute every two or three weeks until it feels like the three accounts are balancing themselves out properly.

I will also be logging in to other sites to take calls, and starting those at a minimum of $2/min (announcements forthcoming soon about where else I am listed).

My uninformed guess is that it will take 3 months before I start raising Smart Fun Galiana rates, and I will end up with: Ms Galiana $2.25 - Hypno Galiana $1.95 - Smart Fun Galiana $1.75.

For the sake of gratitude and nostalgia, I will keep a wandering $1.49 line, and I'll keep the blog updated to let you know which one it is. The idea is: there will always be at least one listing where I could use more points or good feedback or a better ranking, so I can direct fiscally savvy blog readers to call me there for a lower rate, and everyone is theoretically happy.

Plus, let's be honest: if you're reading the blog, I like you better, and you deserve it.

So the first step in all this very-slow-moving process was to open Ms Galiana at $2.25/min. Done.

The second step is to raise the rate on my Smart Fun Galiana listings under the Mistresses and Femme Dommes categories. Also done.

The third step is to finish my Hypno Galiana re-write. Mmmmm.... not so much with the done on that yet. But at least I'm mulling it. That's a start, right?

A Year and A Fortnight

Galiana A Year and A Fortnight ago

I started taking phone sex calls July 15, 2010, a few days after my husband took this picture of me in our kitchen to test the camera on his new phone. I hadn't yet started writing my first version of my listing, because I didn't yet know about NiteFlirt, but I had applied with a couple of dispatch phone sex services.

I wrote blog posts about my quarter anniversary and my six-month anniversary. Then on July 15, 2011, I completely forgot to write about my 1-year anniversary. When I realized it, two very socially busy days later, I figured I'd wait until my blog anniversary (8/15) and do something then.

On July 24, 2011, I got an email, with the subject line, "No?" and content of, "No big, one-year anniversary blog post?"

I felt so loved. When I saw the email on my phone, I was having lunch with my mom, casually checking to see if anything time-sensitive had happened in the past hour, and she immediately said, "Well, THAT got a reaction, what was that?" I got choked up while explaining it to her. Although she certainly wishes I were physically able to do other types of work, her response was a very supportive, "Awwww. That's very sweet. I like him."

So much has shifted since I started being a phone sex operator.

A year ago, both my husband and I were working from home in Austin, where he could be in charge of letting the dogs in and out of our quarter-acre back yard. The big yard also meant that ensuring they had enough exercise was as simple as taking a 15-minute break to play fetch, or rile them up via tug-of-war until they chased each other along the well-worn path around the perimeter.

My husband also took care of all the shopping for groceries and necessities. So I was free to lounge in the Fuckatorium for 10-12 hours a day, waiting for the phone to ring, writing blog posts, and hanging out on IM chat in case I could entice someone that way. We had friends in Austin, but I rarely went out socially more than twice per week, so most of my time was free to feel sexy and take calls.

Since then, we've moved to Houston, where I am more social, because my family is close by, which is awesome and emotionally nourishing, but puts a strain on me vertigo-wise. My husband got a fantastic job which requires a lot of travel, so I have much less financial pressure, but more responsibilities: chores, groceries, dog parks.

I started taking horse tranquilizers, which has obliterated my capacity to multi-task (thus the death of my casual IM chatting), but has helped ease my vertigo symptoms drastically, allowing me to go from about 30-40% pre-vertigo capacity to 50-60% pre-vertigo capacity. My increased ability to get stuff done means I regularly overshoot my medicines and wear myself out like the overachiever dork I am. Silly Galiana.

So these days, I'm logged on for phone sex less often. Although there still are bills relying on my income (including the extremely motivating category of "my spending money"), the reality is that I'm not a full-time phone girl anymore.

I think one reason I missed my anniversary is because I couldn't figure out what to put here. It seems anti-climactic to say I've gone from full-time to part-time. I still can't tell which story needs to be told. So I'm making this up as I write, feeling my way along, hoping it turns into something coherent here soon. (We can tell, it shows)(Oh hush, there's no need to be rude to yourself)(Ummmm, too late for that).

Plus, I wanted to have something special to offer, or announce, like a commemorative picture set or a "if you do this then I'll send you free minutes" kind of a thing, but nothing stood out to me as The Perfect Celebratory Offer.

In fact, I meant for this blog post to end a few paragraphs back until I figured out The Perfect Celebratory Offer, but now my Inner Therapist and Inner Writer have conspired, and have momentum, and well, who am I to stop them on the principle of posting an anniversary blog post on an actual anniversary date? Pffff. Details. So on we go.

Of course, there are numbers I could share, because I'm a data girl:

* Callers I've blocked (which means they can no longer contact me): 4 - I am happy that number is so low.

* Customers: 781 - although people who delete their accounts don't show up, so it's actually a tad higher than that.

* Most times someone has called me: 57 - I am supremely confident in my ability to get him aroused and leave him satisfied.

* Highest amount I've made from one customer after NiteFlirt's percentage: $2707 - and it is a different guy than my 57-calls customer, and about a quarter of that amount is from pay-to-views and tributes. Not bad for a girl who doesn't advertise for financial domination, right? And if you're wondering if it's you, then no, it's not you, because he knows his financial totals with me, because the money is part of his fetish.

* Verification of the 80/20 rule (80-ish% of my revenue comes from 20-ish% of my customers): yep, almost exactly.

* Overall Revenue from non-calls: about 5% - pretty good considering I don't do nearly as much to advertise my pics and videos as I could, and I never ask for tributes unless I'm doing something custom.

* Times I have rewritten my main listing: 18. Well. That's just embarrassing.

* Calls: 1840, which technically averages out to a little less than 5 per day, but I've taken off a lot of days (Slacker)(Shut up)(No, you shut up)(No, you shut up yer shuttin' up)(/giggle), so really it's a bit higher than 5. (And yes, these parentheticals are real conversations I have with myself)(Psycho)(No YOU!)

Although numbers can sometimes tell a story, in this case, they don't do justice. Not by a long shot.

A year and a fortnight ago, I thought I was more submissive sexually than dominant. After repeated exposure to the raw, powerful lust I can inspire by bringing my leadership and management skills into the bedroom, I now find the thought of a man kneeling before me, offering his mind and body as my plaything... distractingly, exquisitely, deeply arousing.

A year and a fortnight ago, I thought I would never find sexual stimulation in humiliating another person, and even if I did, I wouldn't be very good at it. After making someone come twice in ten minutes from scathingly deriding his lack of sexual adequacy, leading to an adrenaline-fueled big fat POW of an orgasm for me while I told him he could never get me off that well, I concluded I had been mistaken.

A year and a fortnight ago, I thought I was pretty savvy about kinks. After weekly exposure to new fetishes and the fetishists who crave them, I am no longer surprised when I am surprised.

A year and a fortnight ago, I wondered if my size XL body would keep me in such a small niche in the market that it would not be worth the effort to be a phone sex operator. After being begged to get on cam, produce photos, and shoot videos, I have found even more to appreciate about my body.

A year and a fortnight ago, I didn't know if I would ever be able to financially provide for myself in case of an emergency. After I knew I could, the relief and sense of empowerment has been profound.

A year and a fortnight ago, after a year of not working and not being able to go out in crowded public spaces very often, my circles of social and professional connections had contracted, and I missed the feeling of meeting new people. After developing at least a dozen crushes on callers, and at least a dozen mutually supportive co-worker relationships, and making so many connections that I have to turn off chat because I can't multi-task enough to keep up with the barrage of friendly interaction requests, my social meters are pleasantly full any time I wish.

A year and a fortnight ago, I deeply missed feeling useful. I can't explain how frustrating that was for me, and how much energy I spent trying not to feel useless.

Now, after a year and a fortnight of listening to confessions, playing catch with complex balls of emotional and sexual energy, gaining proficiency in dozens of kinks, and - most importantly - helping hundreds of callers make the transition from "I'm so horny I can't fall asleep, but I'm too distracted by thoughts of my crappy day to finish myself off alone" into the far more pleasant "Oh, wow, that felt good and /yawn and /stretch and /whew, finally I can sleep! Thank you, I needed that", now I feel extraordinarily useful as a buddy, a confessor, an outlet, a supporter, and very clearly, as a sleep aid.

(Oh, no, really, this blog post does not need the Galiana Sleep Aid commercial now playing in my head. Please turn that off. Seriously.)

You, and you, and you, and you, and especially you, you all made my first year and a fortnight as a phone sex operator possible, and fun, and exciting, and enriching, and sexy as fucking hell. Thank you.

(So what's the special offer gonna be?)(Oh, for fuck's sake, I just wrote a lovely little ending. Can we leave it at that until I figure out a worthy offer later?)(Sure thing... ya slacker.)(NO, YOU!)

The List

mmmmwuh!

When we moved to Houston, we managed to sort/categorize/cull about half our stuff (which is fucking miraculous considering we had two weeks' notice), and I've been slowly sorting through the rest since the move, including prepping old computers for donation / recycling.

I found The List.

You know, THE List! Of course you know which one I mean ... /grin. Sure you do. THE LIST: the names of all the people I've ever had physical sexual contact with!

Ohhhhh THAT List.

My version of The List is ridiculously overcategorized. The rows are numbered, then there's name, Location, Year(s), Base (as in: 1st base is kissing, 2nd base is clothes off but no orgasms, 3rd base is orgasms but no penetration, 4th base is penetration, and then 5 means anal sex so I could categorize that separately), and then a column for each of 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th to let me quickly figure out what my total is for that "base" (although with five, I should call it something else, but it's my spreadsheet, so shut up).

It's possible that thinking about the people I kissed in high school makes me juvenile. Sure. I'll blame that.

I started The List when I got to 3, in the back of my diary, and I've kept it in one form or another since then. I thought I had lost it, but the spreadsheet version was on a computer I hadn't used since 2006. Whew! I never would have remembered half of it, but the memories are too fun to have lost.

My List includes such first-base-only gems as "Dean (Crawfish Festival)", "Mike (U of H)", and "Jim (from Numbers)". Numbers was an all-ages dance club in Houston I frequented in the late 80s. I never learned their last names. But hey, at least they were only kissing, right? So I don't claim too much slut cred with those.

But "Random Guy (Galveston)" was third base. I find it amusing I had to qualify beyond just "Random Guy", but apparently that's because the very next entry is "Random Guy (Shane's party)", and there are two more later.

I went to a very fun high school, where taking someone as a date to a formal was free license to make out with them with no expectations for a relationship. I was in a limo for prom with six couples, and we realized between dinner and the dance that not only had I kissed all six of the guys there, five of us girls had kissed all six of the guys. The other girl was only a sophomore, and one of the guys was her first boyfriend, but I'm sure by the time she got to her prom, the same was true for her as well. We were a smoochy crowd.

So when I left for college, I had kissed 36 people (35 males, 1 female), and had sex with 4, and only a few of those numbers would have been considered questionable by my peers. But at college, late one girl talk in the dorm, the other girls were shocked! Stunned! Dismayed! by my numbers. I called my sister and asked, "Why didn't you tell me I was a slut in high school? That seems like something I should have known!" I think she laughed at me. No frikkin help whatsoever.

Then things slowed down dramatically for a while: when I got married at age 25, I had only kissed another 12 guys, and had sex with 3, including my husband. We don't like to talk about those long, boring, dry years...

But then there was The Rampage -- after my separation at age 31, where I rebuilt my bruised ego through the healing power of sexual attention. I kissed 21 people (18 guys, 3 girls), had sex with 12 of them, and tried anal sex... with four guys. I have many happy stories about that period, and thankfully, they end with, "And I was very careful and very lucky, and I never caught an STD."

I met my husband in 2003, and we both assumed we'd be fuck buddies for a while, because it was the period we were both in. We ended up never breaking up, then he talked me into marrying him by telling me he would stay with me even if I didn't marry him (I should be able to see through reverse psychology, but apparently, I can't). Since then I've had 7 lovers.

That brings my totals to ... drumroll please...

77 1st base: at least kissed
46 2nd base: at least clothing removed
39 3rd base: at least orgasms exchanged
25 4th base: at least fucked
5 my silly designation as 5th base: fucked in the ass, in addition to 1st-4th bases

At my current rate, I'm going to be in my late fifties when I hit 100 smooch partners. I just decided: I'm going to throw a Century Slut party and kiss everyone present. Lemme know if you want an invite!

Perfectionism, Insecurity, and Nakedness

This is why I don't do more videos and pictures: perfectionism and insecurity. Well, and the effort.

Logistics first: to get paid for spending an hour on the phone, I need to: (a) feel sexy (b) make sure my dogs are well enough taken care of that if I have to suddenly leave them alone for an hour, they won't starve or dehydrate or chew anything valuable (c) make sure at least one phone has been charged (d) log in (e) wait for an hour's worth of calls.

To get paid for making a video or a picture set or being on cam, I need to: (a) feel sexy (b) shower, do my hair, put on makeup, put on a sexy outfit (c) make sure the lighting and camera and room are set up correctly, including picking up the guts of any toy the dogs have recently shredded (d) try not to lose my sexy while cleaning (e) decide what to say/do (f) make sure dogs... same as above (g) shoot a take (h) watch the take, and about half the time, decide I need to re-shoot it (i) piece all the good takes together into a coherent video with open/close titles (j) upload the video (k) write a blog post / email to announce the creation of the video (l) absolutely die of insecurity until someone tells me it looks great.

In theory, it should take me about an hour to make a 15-minute video. In reality, because I haven't set up a smooth-running content machine yet, and my computer is slow to render, and I can't work on the computer too long at a time without nauseating myself, it takes me a whole day. At least.

Ideally, I'd shoot more than one video in a day, after all that prep, but again, the reality is, once I've done an hour or two of setup and then shot for an hour or two, I need a break, my makeup is getting smudgy, and my creativity is starting to run dry.

All this stems from a video I shot on Sunday, which in theory, I should have released yesterday, but as long as I'm being totally honest and whiny here... deep breath...

I've gained weight since I went on my medicines, and this was a custom video, and he wanted me naked, which I was fine with until about an hour after I shot it, and then all my Inner Cast, all at once, basically started yelling at me, "YOU'RE NAKED ALMOST ALL THE WAY THROUGH THIS ENTIRE VIDEO AND YOU LOOK FAT!"

I know, fuck those voices. I'm trying. I'm doing my best. I actually did just hit send to the person who ordered the custom video, so he has the link.

Now I need to break it up and post it for sale. It's 25 minutes, and it needs to be broken into either two or three shorter videos, because most clips are simply nowhere near that long, so the pricing expectations are geared for shorter videos, so I need to break them up, or else my brain will fucking explode from trying to figure out what to charge.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT, DID I MENTION I'M NAKED IN THIS VIDEO? Like, I have on NO CLOTHES AT ALL. None. Not even earrings. Just inordinate amounts of silver/grey makeup and some pretty awesome silver glittery nail polish.

The nails rock. I'll admit that much. Even though you can't see them for long in the video, they're fucking awesome. Here, I'll distract myself by taking a picture and sharing it with you (which, of course I took 3 times before I just gave up and decided this was good enough, even though my fingers look oddly disproportionate to me, because I'm so fucking neurotic):

I curse a lot when I'm trying to force my way through my insecurities into action. Fuck hell shit damn yeah I do. Oh, and cunt, for good measure.

Well, at least I can still crack myself up. Always. In fact, that is my favorite thing about myself: I can amuse myself endlessly.

Soooo. Back on topic. The poor guy who requested this custom video ... he asked for it almost two months ago, and I said I thought I'd get it to him in a week or two (that was the week before I started taking my new medicines, before everything went haywire for a while). The guy who asked for custom audio asked for it the week before that (I also recorded that on Sunday, two months overdue). Clearly, I have no business making estimates of any kind.

So, if you want a custom video from me, I would be happy to do it, as long as you don't mind waiting approximately forever, and you don't mind if I have a full-fledged insecurity attack before I send it to you. Especially if you want me naked.

Naked. Pudgy. Insecure. Did I mention I was naked? Deep, deep breaths, Galiana. Inhale. Exhale. You'll be fine...

Sugar Daddy Musings

In theory, developing an in-person relationship with a new lover with Sugar Daddy energy would be perfect for me. My husband and I are openly non-monogamous, he often travels for work, and I have bills to pay and love to share.

So earlier this week, I found a few "dating" sites specifically designed for Sugar Daddies/Mommas to find Sugar Babies (also of both sexes - hooray for GLBTQ progress) and signed up for the two with the most interesting combination of features.

After a brief flurry of activity, this letter arrived in my brain: 

Dear Galiana in 2011,

Remember when you developed a fantastic long-distance BDSM relationship with a Dom over about six months, met him in person, it was awesome, then tried to quickly replicate it via an online kink site, and it ended in disappointment?

Remember when you developed a fantastic long-distance flirting relationship with a bi girl / straight guy couple over about six months, met them in person, it was awesome, then tried to quickly replicate it via an online swingers site, and it ended in disappointment?

So even though rumor has it that you might or might not have recently developed a fantastic long-distance lover relationship with a gentleman with Sugar Daddy tendencies over about six months of having phone sex with him, met him in person, and it was awesome, perhaps you have already learned the lesson that you cannot replicate such relationships quickly via online sites.

Do us a favor and skip the disappointment.

Love, Galiana from 2003

Don't get me wrong: I have had success in developing relationships with lovers from online sites. But it takes time, and energy, and patience, and the emotional fortitude to keep up your hope and hold fast to your standards. Add in my bizarre circumstances (I'm married, I'm a phone sex worker, I have vertigo...), and it starts to feel ... well ... it feels like a job.

And you know what? I have a job already, thank you very much. A job I love. Honestly, Galiana, the last thing you need is to be distracting yourself by having to politely turn away dozens of men who can't read or write complete sentences. If I wanted to do that, I would answer my email on my OK Cupid profile, which states I'm not looking, but I still get email (I set it up to be see callers' profiles to help them with their listings - I'm a damn fine profile coach if I do say so myself).

But just like with other dating / hookup sites, the majority of people on the Sugar Daddy sites are of average intelligence. It makes sense mathematically - the majority is average - that's not cruel, that's just the math (well, it might be the mean... heh, nerd joke).

I will not be a good long-term match with someone of average intelligence. So in order to find a good match, I need to take the time to sift through the majority to uncover the gold, which is less than 1% by volume. Hmmm, in that metaphor, the majority is dirt, and I'm not comfortable with that, because all people have value, but I can't quickly think of a better metaphor at the moment. But just to be clear: nobody is dirt, even if I don't happen to want to fuck them. 

I'm picky. I know. I need a someone who is smart, funny, honest, free of STDs, willing to use condoms, committed to usually doing the right thing (however it's defined for him), understanding of my circumstances, patient with my limits, has Sugar Daddy tendencies, and is filled head to toe with insatiable lust for me. Quite a combo.

Also, frankly, the whole dynamic still freaks me out, because it feels like I would be whoring myself out if I evaluated a potential partner based on how much of a girlfriend allowance he could give me. I mean, it would be whoring myself out. That's clear to me. And it doesn't fit me right, like a new shoe with a pointed toe in the wrong shape: it pinches me, and I want to take it off and walk around in my hippie free love bare feet again.

Maybe I'll return to the idea some time when I feel like I have an extra hour or two per day to sift. That day is clearly not today, because this afternoon, I'm going to the airport to pick up my smart, funny, honest, STD-free, do-the-right-thing, compassionate, patient, generous, lusty husband, and that makes me the luckiest girl in the world already.

See ya tomorrow :)

Groggy Warning

I have a new pattern of grogginess: midnight to noon.

I try to counteract with caffeine, and sometimes that helps, but most days, the deeper I am in the midnight-to-noon time frame, the more I behave and sound like I live in California and have a medical marijuana prescription.

The odd thing is, it doesn't necessarily mean I'm sleepy. I can be wide awake and groggy, which is occasionally annoying, but usually it's more dreamy and relaxing for me as long as I'm not trying to problem-solve or intellectually analyze anything. My groggies have often been amusing to others who have witnessed it.

Last night, between about 8:30 pm and midnight, I was having a lovely time with a series of callers, when the start of the groggies hit me. I logged out, assuming that would be the end of my night, then I got an email from a favorite regular requesting time, so I logged back in to connect with him. We got on the phone, and he said, "You sound sleepy, or maybe a little stoned." Oops.

Thankfully, he thought it was cute that I was slightly incoherent, and since his normal modus operandi is to tease me until I'm begging to come (at which point I'm rarely totally coherent anyway), it all worked out fine.

But just in case, I thought I'd warn you: I turn into a pumpkin with a smooshy brain at midnight, and only get gigglier and dreamier from there.

Adjustments

I took a while off from blogging (several of you dropped me a note to ask if I was okay - thank you!) for a few reasons, which can be summarized in this statement:

I had a bit of an adjustment disorder

(the wikipedia article is pretty good for explanation)

In the two months before Feb 15, we knew that we might need to move, and that my husband might need to find a different job. In the three months between Feb 15 and June 15:

• we found out we would need to move (adjustment to new home)
• we moved - not just into a new home, but from Austin to Houston, which was somewhat unexpected (adjustment to new city)
• I had to figure out how social I could be living closer to my family without trashing myself vertigo-wise (adjustment to changes in social opportunities)
• my husband got a job which required him to be mostly in Austin, even though I was in Houston, so we went from spending almost 24/7 together for two years to being in a long-distance relationship (adjustment in primary support relationship, adjustment in living arrangement logistics, adjustment in finances)
• after a week on the new job, my husband got a better offer for a better job which requires him to frequently be out of state, which required a whole host of logistical adjustments (adjustment in primary support relationship, adjustment in living arrangement logistics, adjustment in finances)
• I started a new anti-vertigo medicine which seemed for a while like it might give me a life free of vertigo crashes, so I significantly ramped up my level of physical and social activity (adjustment in health and activity level)
• I had a severe vertigo crash on the new medicine, which was, to put it mildly, hugely disappointing, and it helped me realize I needed to re-think the level of activity I had been attempting to maintain on the new meds (adjustment in health an activity level)

It was a lot to adjust to. Apparently I needed a bit of time to obsessively play DungeonRaid on my iPhone and wander around Houston dog parks engaging other pet fanatics in long conversations about training tips and breed-specific behaviors.

I am in week six-ish of my "new" horse tranquilizer anti-vertigo medicines, so I will now stop calling them "new" and will heretofore simply refer to them as my medicine. 

I am absolutely delightedly grateful that my meds my have allowed me to go from an activity level of about 40% of my pre-vertigo potential to about 60%. I thought for a while that I was gonna get 80% and I won't lie, I didn't take it particularly well when I found out that 80% was out of reach. 80% would have been nice.

But 60% is a damn fine improvement, and I plan on enjoying the hell out of it, now that I seem to be mostly recovered from the shock of losing the dream of 80%.

The most peculiar change, is what happens when I push it too far: before I get dizzy, I get sleepy, as if the sedation effects of the horse tranquilizers kick into high gear, accompanied by an intense craving for baked sweet goods like donuts and cupcakes. If I don't rest immediately, I'm out of commission for a while with dizziness and nausea. Well, maybe the nausea is caused by convenience-store-quality pastries, like plastic-wrapped honey buns and powdered sugar donuts. It's hard to say, really.

But I am a lucky lucky woman indeed: I can do more, my recovery rest periods are shorter, and I am more productive overall.

Well, as long as I don't reinstall DungeonRaid...

New Lover Warning Labels

I should have the following warning labels attached to me when meeting with new lovers in person for the first time:

• I tend to avoid looking directly into people's eyes for more than just a brief moment at a time because it makes me dizzy faster (eyes are wiggly)
• Although I go limp and submissive when some people get all rough and tough and toppy with me, other people inspire giggles when they attempt to be growly
• I need to take a break about once an hour; thankfully, I've never been with a lover who can go for longer than an hour straight with no break, either, even without vertigo
• If you are in from out of town with no rental car, and I am providing your local transportation, my car will probably smell like dogs who went straight from a dog park pool to my back seat, because I will probably forget to get my car washed or detailed
• I will probably get a manicure and pedicure before your arrival, just to feel pampered and pretty, but I will probably guess completely wrong whether you prefer women to look natural and neutral or vamped up and slutty
• Our first moments together spent in person, adjusting to each others' energy, might be spent at a grocery store to ensure there are beverages and snacks in the hotel room, and it might not occur to me until later that some people may find this bit of practical planning utterly unromantic
• I'm the type who figures things out by trying, which sometimes results in the jacuzzi jets positioned for the middle back to spray me unceremoniously in the face
• If you insist on trying the whole spend-the-night-together concept despite my repeated attempts to explain my extraordinary levels of sedated grogginess before and after sleeping (anti-vertigo med side effect), I will feel free to use the phrase "Go away now" liberally
• Conversations attempted before noon sometimes result in me staring at you in silence for an inordinately long time; if this happens, please know that I am trying to figure out if I still retain the ability to speak
• I lose track of time in the shower, especially before noon, so if you postulate that "45 minutes should be enough time for you to shower before they close down the breakfast bar", I might stare at you like a grumpy child and shake my head "no" with no further explanation
• If you talk me into seeing where I live, and I do not straighten and clean before your arrival, I will spend at least an hour in an utterly non-sexy "getting stuff done" mode where I straighten and clean, during which any attempts to interact with me around sexy topics will be met with confusion at best, and the phrase "Go away now" at worst
• If I forget to stay caffeinated enough after 11 pm, I may slip into a nighttime version of the pre-noon grogginess which would work fantastically well for someone with Real Doll fantasies, but perhaps might not work as well for people who primarily find stimulation from intelligent interactions with coherent human beings
• If we are staying at my place, and I slip into my Real Doll imitation about midnight, but wake up to go potty in the middle of the night and remember that you have no idea what to do for breakfast, I might leave a bowl, spoon, packets of instant oatmeal, measuring cup, and insane amounts of Splenda in front of your room so you will trip over it in the morning, and neither of us will be able to figure out how any human being could ever require that amount of Splenda in that sized bowl
• If you want me to wear an outfit that you have seen in pictures and do not inform me of this ahead of time, it may not have been worn or washed since I took those pictures, which will certainly cause delays
• If you want me to cook for you... no, no, no, really, honestly, you don't want that, just trust me on this point

None of this is to imply, of course, that I have been a bit preoccupied with having a new lover visit me from out of town for multiple days in a row. Pffff. That would be ridiculous.

Heartbreak and Phone Sex, Part VI

This time, the heartbreak is for me.

As I've explained vaguely elsewhere on the blog, I have mysterious neurological vertigo which makes me feel drunk all the time. And every now and then, it causes other glitches as well, as if my brain's electrical systems got fried: I mix up words, I can't finish a sentence, or writing no longer translates into words.

Or, in extremely rare cases of extraordinary exhaustion and vertigo combined, I have little episodes where I don't make sense for a few seconds, as if I've drifted into another reality, and I hallucinate a bit, as if I haven't slept for days.

The basic theory behind my vertigo is that my neurons in part of my brain aren't recharging fast enough, so once they fire, they need more time than normal to right themselves. So when I do certain tasks which require certain types of concentration, those neurons wear themselves out and become unable to fire after a while. As neurological impulses are re-routed to pathways which are not designed to handle those processes, chaos ensues.

In the flesh, sex makes me understandably dizzy -- fucking is a wiggly thing to do with a lot of sensory and visual stimulation, but as long as I'm rested when I start, I can have satisfyingly rambunctious sex for about an hour before I need to take a breather. Each round gets a little shorter until I give up completely after about round four. It's not ideal, but it works.

Writing, doing data analysis, and riding in cars work about the same way.

Phone sex has the advantage of mostly just being wiggly in my head -- I can keep fairly steady when I masturbate (although I do thrash some even when I'm alone, and when I'm on camera, I thrash like I do in the flesh, because I find masturbating on camera so ridiculously sexy).

So phone sex almost never triggers the deepest kinds of vertigo for me: most conversations don't last an hour; I almost always have time to rest between calls; one call is almost never cognitively similar to the next call, so different neural pathways get used, so the part of my brain that got tired on Call 1 can rest up during Call 2. So I often can go a whole night without needing to log out to grab a breather at all.

All of that is good - I can do this phone sex job because it almost never dizzy-fries me.

... almost ...

That's such a persnickety word, isn't it? Almost.

I've had three callers who trigger my vertigo to an unfortunate depth. They have the following things in common:

• they like to talk for more than an hour at a time
• they like it when I do most of the talking
• what they like is repetitive in some way
• they like me because I bring freshness and creativity to their somewhat repetitive request
• their request does not focus on trading orgasms or engaging in direct sexual activity

For example, I have a caller who loves to talk about a woman having orgasm control over a man: cock tease and denial, blue-balling, and forcing interrupted orgasms when the male is allowed to climax, to ensure male sexual frustration remains high. He likes to repeat topics and questions, because he says the repetition helps enforce his will to remain in chastity, yet he loves that my answers are slightly different each time I give them.

Emotionally, I love talking to him, because I have to search for new phrases and metaphors, and I feel creative and smart and powerful to be able to play with him in such a specific niche space.

But physically... well... I hallucinated with him once. I don't think he knew that's what it was. It might have sounded like I drifted to sleep and starting having one of those dreams that was somewhat based on reality. I apologized for drifting and said I'd spaced out, and let him know I needed to head to bed at the next time we got the one-minute warning.

I felt guilty and weak for not being able to give him what he wanted. Then I felt angry for beating up on myself. Then I realized I was beating up on myself for beating up on myself, and that made me sad. And then I decided if I was too uncontrolled to stop having feelings about my feelings, I should call it a night and go the fuck to sleep already.

He's doing nothing wrong. I'm doing nothing wrong. It's just an unfortunate series of events, a peculiar twist of circumstances, the exact unforeseen set of parameters that cause the program to start throwing errors.

Another one is new. He's adorable, happy and fun. He wants to do role plays where I objectify him. I get to be creative, and bitchy, and have fun with the situations and the characters and the descriptions... and he wants long stories, at least half an hour long each. And he wants two. Or three. Or four. I've told him I'm running out of ideas, but it's not true. After two stories tonight, I found my cognitive processes in a rapid downhill slide, and the situations themselves no longer made coherent sense to me.

I don't know how to tell someone, "I'm so sorry, but fulfilling your fantasy accidentally makes me stupid."

It's fucking... unfair, dammit. Or, as one of my favorite callers says, usually in amusing contexts, "Dammit so much." But that's seriously how I feel. Dammit. So. Much.

I want to feel like a badass. I don't want to be fragile. I love the gusty, lusty, go-hard-or-go-home attitude that I almost always have when I'm on the phones. I want to tell one more story, answer one more question, repeat that patter one more cycle, and not have to rest. I don't want to have to feel so damn human so often, with all the dumb limitations that dumb humans have. Can't I be a robot or a machine that never breaks down?

Yucky.

And yet, I know I need to keep myself off of the slippery slopes that lead to real downtime. I'm not helping anyone with those.

So. If I send you here, to read this blog post, and I tell you that you are one of these types of callers, I will have to impose time limits on you. I'm sorry.

I don't want you to worry about me: (a) worrying is the opposite of sexy and (b) I know how to take care of myself and stop the slide from happening, that's not your job. Your job is to enjoy the time we have together, and not take it personally when I have to go.

Please, please, please, believe me: I wish, I wish, I wish, with all my heart, that I could hang with you as long as you wanted me to. If I didn't enjoy our time together, I'd break up with you and tell you to find another provider (yep, really, I've done that several times), but I'm not doing that.

I want to share the thing we have. I do. I just need to do a little less of it.

I'm so sorry. I know it's for the best, and yet, it breaks my heart a little for both of us.

Another Reason to Love the Job

If you've been following this blog, you know a few things: (1) I've been inconsistent lately because I've just moved and (2) I have a mysterious neurological vertigo that makes me feel like I'm drunk all the time, and makes some things tricky for me. Some things like... moving, for example.

Yesterday, I'd had a day where it felt like there were too many decisions coming at me from too many directions, and the feeling of chaos increased my vertigo significantly. I didn't do well collaborating on tasks, even collaborating with people I love a lot, and I ended the afternoon by drawing the only-sort-of-kidding conclusion that I no longer know how to play well with others.

It was not surprising that I had a difficult day; difficult days happen. I'm adjusting to a new home, a new rhythm, and being close to family who love me a lot, but who haven't been with me day in and day out with this crazy brain-drunk thing I have going on, so they're not sure what I need yet, so we're all learning together how to be in closer proximity and make it work for all of us.

It was very surprising, however, to feel how strongly I wanted to get into my not-quite-fully-set-up-yet Fuckatorium and turn on the phone sex lines. Really? That seemed illogical... I should have been wiped out and cranky, but no, there was an almost overpowering urge to have sexy time on the phones.

When my first caller said hello, I consciously understood what my sometimes-not-so-addled subconscious must have already worked out: it felt fucking fantastic to narrow the whole world down to the energy of one person.

On the phones, I can do: just. one. thing.

Turns out, that after a complicated day of having to fight with myself, and sometimes with others, to remember to keep my focus, keep my cool, stay on target, use the Force... after pulling out all my Jedi mind tricks to try to figure out whether or not these were actually the droids I was looking for...

He said his name, and it felt like the rest of the world melted away, and I found myself with just one thing to do: talk with him. Just one thing to focus on: his lust. Just one thing to concern myself with: this exchange of delicious emotional and sexual energy.

Wow. I needed that.

So, to all six gentlemen I talked with last night: thank you. You were exactly what I needed. You reminded me of why I can do this whole crazy phone sex gig, even when there are other things in my life that I can't do as well as I used to. You reminded me of why I feel stronger and braver and more whole now than I did eight months ago. Thank you.

Reluctantly Considering Time Limits

The business of phone sex is wildly unpredictable on an individual level, as I've proven by my unsuccessful attempts to find trends in my calls, and as backed up by the anecdotes of other phone pros.

So I was pleasantly surprised Thursday night by having an almost-3-hour call (cock-teasing and the philosophy of orgasm denial). Whew! That's a great way to come back online! Plus I had a couple of shorter calls (a guided masturbation and a fun "pleasure genie" fantasy), all from regulars who had been awaiting my return.

Last night started with a common rhythm: a 34-minute call, followed by a short break, followed by a 10-minute call, followed by a short break. That's a pattern I can easily sustain, especially since the callers were people I already knew I enjoyed talking with.

I was pleasantly surprised when the third caller was new - he had found me while I was away, and we'd emailed back and forth, but it is always encouraging to attract new friends. Imagine my surprise when I realized we'd been on the phone for three hours! The time was flying getting to know him: he's a delightful mattress-humping humiliation junkie who shared his exquisite fantasies of extraordinary emotional degradation. I had no idea we were going to go that long! 

(side note: understandably, once again, I did not send out a mass email on the phone sex system announcing my return. Nor did I double back and send a more personal response to the nice emails I got while I was gone. I will send those emails some day soon, when my schedule is a little more consistent, and the phone isn't ringing steadily, because I'd hate to send that email and then be completely unavailable - it seems (a) rude and (b) counter-productive as a marketing technique.)

When we were done, I flopped into bed, happy, but exhausted, and I stayed there for 13 hours -- sleeping, then being brought "breakfast" in bed by my hub, then snuggling with the hub and the dogs, and then, unbelievably, going back to sleep! So although I didn't feel like I was pushing too hard, last night, I was probably was pushing a bit too hard. Phooey.

(side note: "breakfast" was a Gino's East deep dish pepperoni pizza, sent by a friend as a housewarming gift -- YUM -- I have the most awesome friends)

I usually sleep 9 hours at a time, tops, and when I'm fully rested, my average is more like 7.5 hours. Because of the vertigo, I have to rest more than most people, but even so, 13 hours is crazy, even for me.

A possibly contributing factor: my husband and one of my nieces is fighting off a sore-throat version of The Crud (my nickname for flus and colds and other unpleasant short-term maladies), so it's possible that my body is fighting off an impending crud attack as well (so far, I'm blessedly crud-free, but sniffly from mild dust allergies, so I'm monitoring my health).

So. I'm considering imposing a time limit for a while to ensure that I rest enough. But I hate the thought of it. But I probably should.

I'll never answer the phone if I can't talk for at least an hour - that's my minimum limit. But even at the beginning of my evening, I'm considering a 90-minute cap for a while, until I feel like I'm 100% post-move back on my feet, and free and clear of threat of the crud.

Part of me despises the idea of time limits. Ugh. A long call is the very essence of using your time efficiently: with a multi-hour call, you're not wasting time being ready, waiting for the phone to ring. And since my long calls tend to be people I genuinely enjoy spending time with, having conversations I genuinely find interesting, it's also somewhat emotionally painful to cut the conversation short -- I don't want to convey personal rejection! I have had a time limit caller call back after I took a break, and that worked out fantastically, but I feel guilty... entitled... princess-ey... grrrr.

Plus, enforcing time limits sucks. If the caller is someone who I know likes to talk for a while, I can say up front, "I need to take a break after 90 minutes" but then it's up to me to keep an eye on the clock, and I hate having to tell someone, "I'm sorry you haven't finished yet, but I have to go."... so I tend to push for a finish, which sometimes just backfires into both of us feeling frustrated... Byuck. Pthththth. I don't like it.

But long calls have down sides: you don't get to take a break to catch your breath, go to the potty, get a drink, get a snack, check email, and breathe deeply and ask yourself honestly if you have the energy to keep going.

Blarg. I hate having to have boundaries and limitations. Can't I be Superman and simply fly a little closer to the sun to recharge back to full? Surely I don't have to do anything icky like admit that I'm human, do I?

This is the best kind of problem to have as a phone sex operator -- people wanting more of me than I have to give at the moment. I totally understand that I am very fortunate to have such a concern.


I also understand that a day / week / month from now, with no explanation or warning, I'm likely to be feeling full of energy, staring at my phone, wondering why it's not ringing, and thinking I was crazy to ever think of imposing time limits on long calls.

In conclusion: if I tell you that I can't talk for more than 90 minutes, or 60 minutes, I promise promise promise that it is not at all personal. And I will trust you to ensure that you get what you want from me in that time.