Woman of Leisure

It's been about seven months now since I felt like I was physically capable of sustaining a phone sex call in a manner worthy of charging for it. My current neurological makeup seems to favor activities which provide a lot of joy, but require very little concentration, and if either of those aren't true, I run out of steam quickly.

Writing for this blog has been oddly difficult as well. There are stories I want to tell, but I haven't been able to figure out how to tell them here. I write things on FetLife, for my in-flesh kinkster friends who have become my community and local family of choice. Some day I'll figure out how to translate them here as well.

I was talking last night with someone who has also had an online "persona" which dropped off his radar when he got busy or overwhelmed. I don't think Galiana is a "persona" in the traditional sense, because Galiana is all honestly me (except the name), but Galiana is ... filtered me, focused me, a version of me that has been seen through a filter of "ready for the world and ready to please", and maybe that's the filter that I haven't been able to sustain lately.

Thankfully, though, in the midst of this season of not being able to focus on someone else's energy and match it consistently or for any predictable length of time, we settled my disability claim, which has provided significant financial breathing room for now. It would make me nuts not to do anything financially productive forever, unless I really couldn't come up with anything I can consistently commit to.

Also thankfully, I have ample opportunities to do activities which provide a lot of joy, but require very little concentration.

Indulge me, if you will, fine ladies and sirs, as I describe to you the life of Galiana Chance, Woman of Leisure.

Throwing Parties
There's an odd phenomenon with hosting a party. On one hand, yes, having a party requires a lot of concentration, especially with as picky as we are about the physical setup and the cheese selection. It's important. Don't judge.

But my home has the giant advantage of an easy escape to a comfy bed. It's unrealistic to expect other people to set up a separate vertigo station for me. The ability to take a break for an hour or two makes it much much easier to throw a party.

Also, our guests are good about helping clean up, bless their sweet hearts. I think it's a pity thing. And I'm okay with that.

So, every month, we've been throwing a shindig for 15-30 of my closest friends. And I've been attending a few shindigs that others throw, although I wish I could attend all of them.

Hosting a Meet n Greet
I felt like the local kinkster scene was missing a monthly event specifically geared for (a) people who get vertigo in crowds to have an escape hatch, and (b) to help newcomers feel welcomed and give them a way to meet other local kinksters. So I started one. It's a munch / meet n greet / open public meeting, whatever you want to call it.

It's extremely simple, and the layout is such that I can sit outside the room where the crowd is gathered, and I can talk with the few people at a time who are hanging out by the bar, under the auspices of "I'm watching for people entering so they can get a name tag". But really, it's way easier on my vertigo to be out by the bar. Shhhh. Don't tell anyone. We're averaging 30-40 people per month, which wildly exceeds my expectations.

When the Meet n Greet is on the same weekend as the parties we host at our house, I spend the whole week reserving energy for them. By the end of the night, I'm either sacked out upstairs with a cuddle buddy, or I'm endlessly grazing in the snack room, glassy-eyed, giving hugs and encouraging people to make fun of me. I'm useless for two days afterward, but it's fun, and it's worth it.

Halloween Season
We attended one kinkster costume-encouraged Halloween party, and we threw one. I went the lazy route with store-bought costumes from a local lingerie boutique / sex toy shop.

At home, I was the referee, where people kept offering to blow my whistle, and then offering to play me some horrible song about whistle blowing which I am clearly too old and grumpy to properly appreciate.

The one someone else hosted, I was "Major Tease" as it said on my name thing on my costume, but it was hotly debated whether I was a "tease" or a "slut" if I let multiple people grab my boobs. There was empirical testing done.

It was during this season of spirits that I decided my primary role at most parties is to be the best eye candy I can be, plus encourage my friends to grope me, and each other. Also, I engineer hookups for other people: play partners, smooching buddies, and cold girls with my eternally-warm-handed lover. I like the kinds of trouble I cause.

Spanksgiving

I know at least two people in St Louis who are going to be super mad to discover this information this way, but ... The week before Thanksgiving, I went to the StL3 Spanksgiving conference, where I changed outfits far more often than was necessary.

I forgot to take pictures of at least two outfits at the conference. The costume changes were seriously out of hand. But super ridiculous fun. Cameras aren't allowed in the main area, so the pics were in side areas or bathrooms, but that was the best I had. I felt like a stripper about to go onstage all weekend, but people kept telling me they loved my outfits, so what was I gonna do, disappoint them by staying in one outfit? Pffff. Clearly not.

I spent a wonderful, affirming weekend learning, smooching, getting groped, getting spanked, and distracting the off-duty cops working security. It's not my fault one of them is 6'8" and gorgeous and has a British accent! What was I supposed to do, let him feel neglected? When he works so hard to protect and serve? Noooooo, clearly the right thing to do was to bring him women and let him whisper naughty things in their ear so he could watch them melt. And maybe offer to let all the cops grope me, including the woman cop. It's not my fault I was raised to be friendly and inclusive.

But seriously, the presentations were amazing, the company was spectacular (Devant also had an amazing weekend - she got her name cut into her shoulder with a scalpel! Yeouch! She loved it), and the energy was fantastic. By the end of Saturday, I was a loopy weirdo space cadet, but I was getting so much happy energy that I just kept wandering around soaking it up. Thankfully, nobody expected me to be coherent. Whew.

Thanksgiving & The Formal Dinner

We had Thanksgiving dinner with several friends who did not have family-of-birth plans, and it ended up being a delightful family-of-choice time, with mind-blowingly delicious food and lovely conversation. I realized I was still recovering from Spanksgiving, which had ended four days earlier, when the spirited multi-way conversation going on around me no longer made sense, as if everyone was speaking gibberish.

That was when I understood for the first time that my vertigo crashes had adapted to stimulus of pleasant social overload by blocking my cognitive processes instead of giving me overwhelmingly unpleasant whirling sensations. Oh, silly Brain. Thanks for the adaptation. How about you work on adapting to not be dizzy at all? No? Okay, well then, I'll take "pleasantly confused" as a consolation prize.

A mere two days later, we had a Formal Dinner at our home, where people who wanted to be in service/submission for the evening literally served the rest of us, as if the ones being served were Victorian lords and ladies. I was asked? forced? encouraged? to step out of the limelight and let other submissives in the community organize and arrange everything. It was harrrrrrd! I kept wanting to help with stuff! But they were all mean to me and made me sit back and relax and be served! Crazy!

Our home looked amazing, with table linens and individual menus made especially for the event, and I honestly had to do very little in support. It was easily the most delicious dinner I have ever had outside of a fancy restaurant. And honestly, more delicious than some Zagat-rated meals I've had. Each of the four courses caused at least one foodgasm. And how do you top the memory of having flaming bananas foster in your house?!? It was so amazing that it felt like a dream. Was I really served ... in my home ... by a bunch of willing submissives ... exquisite pork loin and perfect mushroom risotto and creme brulee that brought tears to my eyes? In my home? I'll never forget it.

Then we went to someone else's home for a lovely play party afterward, where I got spanked a bit. It was a mild scene in terms of BDSM culture, but it was enough to melt me into a pile of useless vapid staring and giggles, so I became the after-care zombie cuddle buddy, which suited me quite well.

And More

That was just October and November. In December, I went to three kinkster holiday parties, one of which we hosted, and traveled back to Texas to see my awesome family. There were a lot of outfit changes. And I smooched a lot of girls. And I made my teddy bear servant cum without touching him (heh, that was fun). And my husband and I rekindled some mischievous energy. It was a fantastic month.

I got to confirm my growing understanding of my limits without the pressure of wanting to save energy for work, and the truth is that I can go a long long way socially, as long as nobody asks me to calculate a tip, remember the name of anything or anyone, or solve a puzzle involving rearranging objects in a limited amount of space. I would be utterly useless without my phone chirping reminders and storing lists for me, but I've figured out how to use it to manage around the lapses in my unfortunately spotty memory.

What I Can't Do These Days

Thank you for all the emails and twitters of concern over the past few months. The truth is, my vertigo isn't doing particularly well. I'm often confused. I often feel unable to drive safely, even short trips in town. I spend a lot of days on my own, snuggling with my dogs and limiting my sensory stimulation.

I thought maybe I'd be able to start up a podcast. I'm sure I would have a modest, loyal audience if I launched it. So for most of January, I slowed down my social calendar and tried to build enough juice to make it happen.

It turns out, I can't. It's not that I don't want to, I just can't. I can't sustain the concentration I need to do even short bursts of podcasting, because there are so many other technical pieces which go along with the podcast, other than just the recording, and I can't get myself from here to there. Not yet. I hope someday, but not yet. That's been understandably disappointing.

And clearly, I can't write blogs very often. This one took me two weeks. I'll keep doing it, as I can, because I like keeping in touch with the few readers who continue to pop in. And I like having it to return to when I get better again. Hi! Thank you for still checking here! Mmmmmmmwuh!

What I Can Do These Days

I am obviously finding ways to enjoy myself in this season. Clearly, I'm not suffering. I'm attempting to let go of the shame and sorrow of not feeling productive. I'm over-compensating by telling my friends on FetLife my opinions of their personal issues way more often than I probably should.

And sometimes, I have given people a different perspective on their situations in ways they have found helpful. Or at least they've told me it was helpful, which was nice. So I'm doing best to be an encouragement to my in-person friends and family here.

Since I can't figure out how to do financially productive work anymore, I have gone back to trying new anti-vertigo medicines. The first one was hopeful at first, but after 4 days, I had horrible rebound, so that was an unfortunate no. It made me go back and try a few fast-acting ones that had worked in the past, but they all had the same effects as before.

Today is Day 4 of a new medicine that needs to build up slowly in my bloodstream. I can't tell what it's doing exactly, but I did have the urge yesterday to talk like a hick all day. Really. This big, fat Texan twang kept coming out of my mouth. It was deeply amusing. It seems to be gone today, but it certainly counts as the most bizarre and hilarious possible side effect yet.

So I'm doing the best I can do with what I have in this season. It is good enough. I am extraordinarily grateful that if I have to be in a season where I can't be financially productive, at least I don't have to worry about bills being paid. It's a good life, and I'm glad I get to live it.

As always, feel free to drop me an email (see the Contact and Links page) any time to check up on me, tell me your good news, tell me your sad news, whatever. I'll write back when I can, but it often won't be right away.

That Went Well

I've built successful communities before: at church, at work, in online gaming, and socially. And I've organized group meetings and get-togethers all those places, too. So I had a high level of confidence that hosting my first kinkster community event would be a success...

Until about 2 hours beforehand, at which time waves of doubt crashed over me. What if the discussion format bombed? What if nobody shows? What if the food is terrible?

When I first organized the event, I was expecting 15 but secretly hoping for 20 just to feel badass.

I got 38. That's right, thirty-eight people showed up to mingle, listen to me give announcements about upcoming community events, and participate in the discussion groups (which were widely referred to as "semi-structured", an accurate description I love a lot).

And we had newcomers! One couple hadn't been to a community event in two years. Two people were complete newbies. I had non-newcomers on the lookout for newbies, and they were warmly greeted and welcomed by the community leaders who we want to be when we grow up (/sniffle they came to my thing! /sniffle)

But... back to that number. Thirty-eight is like a turnout you could expect in Austin. Or Houston. Or some other giant metropolis. You don't expect that for a non-mainstream fetish event in a town where corn fields are always no more than 10 minutes away. I mean, yes, within an hour's drive, there are probably about a million people, but still. I was pleasantly shocked.

So the food worked pretty well, but needs some tweaking, the drinks worked well, the traffic flow around the room worked well, and the venue loved us and can't wait for us to return. The manager even congratulated me on having such a good turnout. Awww. (I totally wanna smooch him, by the way)

Anyway, enough bragging about my thing. After it was over, my husband and his live-in girlfriend Devant kicked off a party at our house while I recovered upstairs for a few hours, playing a silly flirty party mixer game we made up, and helping the crowd feel welcome.

The only picture I took of myself was at the end of the evening, when I felt drunk as a skunk from my vertigo dizzies (I consumed zero alcohol), and I look like a wino. Guests said I looked "happy cute drunk" but clearly from the picture I refuse to share, they were merely being polite.

However, I did manage to get this picture of Devant, which should give you an idea of how the party went:

Devant in her natural habitat

She was being put into a straightjacket before getting beaten on the bed. A moment before this picture, Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" came up on the rotation, and she made her eyes all googly and sang along, "I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind!" which cracked everyone up. A pink-haired 21-year-old in a straightjacket got beaten on my bed while playing brat and giggling hysterically. How great is my life?

Also, someone who was present for my Hand Orgy has been thinking she also wanted one, so she got one, and it was magical and wonderful and awesome. She also cried a lot, which made me feel less silly about crying at mine.

Then there was a guy there with the most awesome afro-like-but-surprisingly-not-on-a-black-guy hair (maybe he's Jewish? Middle Eastern? I'm not sure), and word spread to texture-lovers that he'd let us run our fingers through it. Oh, and maybe he likes being scratched. So maybe his shirt needed to come off while one... okay, two... no wait, four... I think it was five women eventually were surrounding him, playing with his hair and scratching his back and chest, and sometimes biting him. It was his first party ever, his first scene ever, and he was hiiiiiiiiiigh as a kite from happiness.

In case you're jealous. to. death. of that guy (as well you should be), here's how he got that scene: he went to three public meet-and-greets (aka munches) before anyone invited him to a party. He was polite and respectful at the public events. He never asked to be invited to the play parties. At the play party, he sat back and watched, declining to join in to the hand orgy or anything else other than watching because he was, as he said, "watching to see what the rules are so I don't mess up". He was approached by someone who asked what he liked. He negotiated with her about the hair playing and the scratching and the biting. He knew his safewords. He kept his hands at his sides because nobody had invited him to touch them. He moaned appreciatively when surrounded by women pawing at him, which made it more fun to continue to do so.

In short, he was polite and respectful and patient and open to new experiences.

Also, he had yummy lips, which I brain-drunkenly said aloud, so one of my friends dragged me over to him and told him I wanted to kiss him. Could not be more junior high. Ridiculous. He was gracious enough to oblige me, so we made out for like 2 minutes, only interrupted because I realized it was making my vertigo worse, and if I didn't stop kissing him, the party would be over for me. It was almost worth it to keep going, but not quite.

For those of you keeping track of my smooch slut record, I also made out with another friend who is quitting smoking. Y'know, as encouragement! I do what I can to help my friends be healthy, right? They were kissing partners #91 and #92.

It was a fantastic weekend, an amazing event, a great party, and I made it through more of it than I expected to, because I fortuitously got happy-vertigo-drunk instead of miserable-vertigo-drunk. The evening ended tucked in bed with my lover, extremely satisfied.

Big Weekend Ahead

In my typical way of doing more things at once than I can reasonably keep up with, this weekend, I am:

• hosting a community event designed to help newcomers to the kinkster lifestyle get their questions answered
• attending an after party in my home, organized by my husband and Devant (my husband's live-in girlfriend), which I will attend after my vertigo zombie-brain calms down
• spending the night with my lover after the play party, probably just for cuddles, due to aforementioned vertigo zombie-brain issues
• having a friend switch my hosting providers on my domains, which will probably generate a lot of questions which need rapid resolution
• mentally gearing up for a second photo shoot with Devant, tentatively scheduled for Monday

I think that's it....

The after party is really the awesome part. I said that I wanted to give something back to the kinkster community which has not only given us Devant, but also a gaggle of other friends here who I am growing increasingly close to.

I had the idea of hosting my own event, optimized to be as non-dizzying as possible, so I wouldn't feel as guilty about not being able to keep up with Everything Everyone Else Is Doing (which I totally am not managing to do - I'm a very sporadic attender to the extraordinary volume of other people's things I'm invited to attend, no matter what it sounds like here on the blog)

But in general, kinkster community events are far more populated if there is at least one play party afterward. Sure, the public event is public and the play parties are private, but still, more people show up for the public non-play thing if there's a play destination afterward.

But I knew I couldn't do both, host an event and host a play party afterward. It's too much to do.

Hubby and Devant came to my rescue, agreeing to host an after  party when they can. Yay!

So here's what this looks like: I do nothing to prepare for the party. I host the event, which requires very little setup from me. I come home, go upstairs, and fall into a deep coma-like sleep for a few hours. I wake up and come downstairs, making a grand entrance to a play party in full swing. I gather attention, adoration, hugs, kisses, and gropes for an hour or two. Maybe I help someone beat or tie someone else. I float back upstairs with my lover and fall asleep cuddling, knowing that my vertigo is not causing anyone else to forego fun for the evening, and, instead, I have helped facilitate fun.

Seriously. Who the fuck has a life this ridiculous and awesome. I'm not used to it yet. I hope I never get used to it.

I'll try to remember to take pictures, but I might be too busy smooching women and grabbing boobs. I trust you to forgive me.

Three-Day Party

With only two days to prep, we decided to have a New Year's Eve party for all our new kinkster community friends who were "holiday orphans" this year (my mom's term for friends we invited to our holidays when I was growing up - it's a fabulous tradition that I'm glad to carry on).

The party didn't really end until Monday evening around 9pm when my lover went back home to sleep in his own bed after 2 nights with me, and I crawled, exhausted and deliriously happy, into the guest room so my husband could keep fucking his new girlfriend.

Wh-wh-wh-WHAT?

To back up a bit: at noon on Saturday, my husband had never met my local lover, and although my husband had been texting the college student he had smacked with a crop before Christmas, neither of them really knew if they would hit it off in person after she came back in town.

Also, we hadn't really finished unpacking. So party prep, in addition to normal cleaning, included tucking away all our boxes of miscellany safely out of sight, and coming up with House Rules for play times in case someone wanted to beat or fuck someone else. You know, the usual.

The morning of the party, hub invited my lover to the party. I knew he was ready to meet him, but still, it was a big invite, a big step forward in my dream of blissful-hippie-free-love-dom for us. Things got more interesting when his now-new-girlfriend came over a few hours early in a smokingly sexy short dress with her lovely cleavage delightfully on display, and the reddest lipstick I have ever seen. Yeah, they hit if off in person just fine.

A word about the pics: we didn't photograph any guests at the party to protect their privacy, and I forgot to take a pic of me, but I was in the same cleavage-tastic top as the kinky holiday party from before Christmas.

The party was simple and intimate: about 10 guests in all. The before-midnight shenanigans were relatively tame, but super fun. We created a light-hearted party game which worked out remarkably well as an ice breaker. Here's how to play:

1. Set up: Everybody gets paper (one color for kinky, one color for non-kinky) and writes down offers of activities which can be delivered in less than 90 seconds, like "Galiana will spank you bare-handed" on the kinky paper, or "Galiana will rub your feet" on the non-kinky paper
2. Set up: Everybody gets a unique token (we used six-sided dice of different colors because my husband has a lot of them)
3. Set up: Have two bowls: one for kinky and one for non-kinky (ideally, they'd match the paper if you're that coordinated)
4. Have someone blindly pick out one kinky offer and one non-kinky offer (ex: "You get to crop Jack" and "Jill will give you a quickie palm reading").
5. Everyone choose which bowl to put their token into - or whether they want to sit out this round.
6. Have someone blindly pick out one token from the kinky bowl and one token from the non-kinky bowl.
7. The two people who offered and the two people who won have a few minutes to make good on their offers while everyone watches.
8. Repeat steps 4-7 as often as you wish.

Ladybug Apron

We only played about 10 rounds, but I got to spank someone, watch someone get bitten hard on their shoulder, watch a plate of food be served in a deeply caringly submissive way, hear a quickie tarot reading, and, best of all, watch an absolutely adorable redhead in her mid-20s put on the apron pictured here and then peel off her dress and underwear underneath it (she spent the rest of the evening in JUST the apron... how fucking adorable is that?!?)

I had gotten this apron for my sister as a birthday present, but hadn't mailed it to her yet. The guest in question said, jokingly, I think, that she would be willing to wear only an apron if she had a pretty apron, at which point I jumped up and yelled, "I HAVE A PRETTY APRON! YOU CAN'T TAKE IT BACK! YOU SAID YOU'D GET NAKED UNDER IT!" (I might have a bit of a crush on her. She's a redhead, and a geek, and she sometimes breaks into a super-dorky-awesome version of The Running Man when she dances, and she's so damn cute it's painful. Seriously. Huge crush.)

So at midnight, everyone kissed everyone (cheek kisses were an acceptable option), and I might have made out with the redhead in the ladybug apron for just a few minutes longer than was really socially acceptable...

After midnight, it got really interesting. Hub's now-girlfriend wanted to jump his bones, but she was nice enough to point out that one of the other guests was sad she didn't get a longer midnight kiss from my husband, so he was kind enough to remedy that. Then he offered if anyone else wanted a longer midnight kiss... and the redhead took him up on it.

And then hub and the redhead closed the door to his office, and sounds of leather on flesh started popping out. Twenty minutes later, he called me in to assist with aftercare because she was so deeply affected by the experience, so I got to hold her, naked, while she pulled herself back together, while I told her how fucking awesome she was. See if you can guess what this did to my crush on her? Damn.

After we finished in the office, hub and his now-new-girlfriend disappeared up to the foldout couch in the Fuckatorium where the condoms and lube and sex toys were set out, the redhead took the blow-up mattress in the office, the woman who had wanted the longer kiss got our bed, and my lover and I were in the guest bedroom.

In case you were wondering, overhearing an adorable college student in the throes of passion, knowing it was my husband making her thrash? It worked for me. I was ludicrously happy.

New Year's morning, as the six of us rolled out of bed at varying times, we managed black-eyed peas in the crock pot, cocktail sausages to snack on while omelets were mangled into scrambled eggs, and an utterly mismatched set of stemware to wash from our champagne toast at midnight.

The kisser and the redhead left at some point when I was curled into a ball upstairs (my vertigo medicine finally wore off, and the rebound hit me). The rest of Sunday and Monday (hub and lover were both off work) were spent enjoying casual meals, comedy specials, and snuggling with the dogs (who were delighted to have two more people to beg for pets and fetches).

Then, as the credits rolled on the last comedy special on Monday, my to-do list rolled in on top of it, and I felt the haze of the holiday dissipate. I have a robot video to edit, pictures from the pinup photo shoot to list for sale, hosting setup for podcasts (I'm toying with the idea of starting one), and I have to blog about this crazy weekend!

So my lover left, but hub's now-girlfriend is still here. Her roommates don't return for a few days yet, we like having her here, and, ummm, she's thinking of joining my ranks as a phone sex operator, so I'm probably going to be spending time setting her up over the next few days.

I'm totally not kidding. There is an adorable college student living with me who is fucking my husband, and I'm going to show her how to be a phone whore. I'll let you know when she's online. You're gonna die - she's too damn cute. Then you're gonna wanna punch my husband for being such a lucky sonofabitch.

I used to have a life I could share on Facebook...