Becoming The Answer

I turned 42 this year, which means I am now The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything (follow the link for the geeky reference).

So for my birthday party, I gathered a few local kinkster friends with a very specific set of criteria:

• I had to believe they wanted good things for me
• I had to believe they would not be offended or bothered by sexual play (many kinksters, especially BDSM players, only play with pain outside their primary relationship, but they don't include overtly sexual acts)
• I had to believe they would say "no" to my request if they were uncomfortable in any way (not everyone will)
• I had to believe they would enjoy running their hands over my body (not everyone would)
• I had to believe they would not be traumatized if I cried in front of them

The first unbelievably wonderful thing about my birthday is that I had to pare down my list: there were enough people fitting those criteria in our kinkster community that I couldn't invite everyone who I wished could have been there, because the sheer volume of people in our home would have been counterproductively overwhelming.

So. Yeah. This is the part where my brain goes -splork- from disbelief with how crazy wonderful my life sometimes is.

-splork-

Here is what I said to kick off the party after everyone had gathered, also known as Easily The Most Insane Speech Ever:

Thank you all so much for coming here tonight.

I'm almost sure you all know this, but just in case: in addition to this being a birthday party, it is also 2 days before my disability insurance settlement hearing. We've waited three years for this hearing, and it's been a crazy hard road.

[start to cry, spend the rest of the speech powering through tears as best I can]

So this week, to prepare for the hearing, I am doing lots of things which normally wipe me out - but nothing that would have made me dizzy in 2008 before I got vertigo - and I'm pretending like it's 2008 and I don't need to recuperate between activities. I'm pretending that there is no vertigo wall for me to crash into.

However, what only three of you know, and this is hard to say out loud, but... something shifted in my neurological balance over the summer, in June some time, I think, and some things have been wiping me out even more than usual since then. And unfortunately, one of those activities has been having orgasms, especially with a partner. So, I just haven't been. Having orgasms. With other people. Not really at all for a few months now. Poor guys. [gesture to my husband and my local lover]

My local lover: No, poor you [I nod, catch my breath again, take in the empathy I feel in the room]

So, hmmm, let me see, if I'm trying to do things I enjoy this week without worrying about getting wiped out... what could I possibly come up with that I might enjoy? [everyone laughs]

So I figure that if I'm going to have a non-solo orgasm, I might as well go big and... y'know... throw a party and invite everyone in the party to help bring me to orgasm. Cuz... y'know... go big or go home, right? [gentle cheering]

So that's the goal. Now for logistics. I'm going to explain an insane amount of information and caveats, after which you can make an informed decision whether or not you want to participate.

First of all, I was tested for Sexually Transmitted Infections earlier this week, and they all came out negative, and the copy of my STI report is right here if you want to see it [wave a paper].

Next, before we start, I'm going to be a crazy controlling control freak and ask everyone to wash your hands so I don't get the flu on Monday [everybody laughs at me].

Also, I bought a bunch of those single-use toothbrushes Colgate Wisps, so if you want to kiss me or lick me, feel free to brush your teeth first if you'd feel more relaxed about it, or use the mouthwash in the bathroom.

Also, if you want gloves, we have some non-latex gloves, and feel free to wear them.

Also, in what is perhaps the most embarrassing and awkward thing to admit to a sex party ever, I ... ummmm... deep breath... I started my period yesterday [groans of "oh fuck I'm sorry" from the women], so I just douched and I have in a menstrual cup, so there shouldn't be any blood, but if that freaks you out, feel free to avoid touching my cooch.

Okay. Now I'm gonna die a little. [crazy face while waves of "I can't believe I'm doing this, I can't believe I just said that" wash over me]

Okay, I'm back. So. What's gonna happen is, I want you to help me undress, then guide me to that table, and then you're gonna gather around me, and you're gonna touch me, kiss me, lick me anywhere on my body until I have as many orgasms as I can stand.

Well, except, don't touch me anally, because if anybody did that, it would probably be over too soon, and it would be a harder intensity orgasm than I want. The same for pain - no pain, because it would escalate me too fast, and I want this to last as long as possible.

So you'll use your hands and/or mouth. I got some flavored body butter that smells and tastes like cake [side note: it totally does], so if you want to rub it into me or lick it off me, feel free.

Think gentle in terms of touch. Whole fingers, palms... stroking, not tickling. If you're touching my pussy, think petting, not rubbing. [demonstrate on my arm] If your fingers are inside me, think pressing, not pumping [demonstrate on my fist wrapped around fingers]. I promise it will be enough to make me come, because this is all already very intense for me.

Afterward, after I have an orgasm, I'll probably ask you to just stay with me for a moment while I come down a bit. And, I might crash... I mean, I might have an unpleasant vertigo reaction, and I might cry. It might look like it's hard for me to go through.

But here's the important thing for you to remember: I chose this. I chose you. You are not doing something bad to me. I designed this moment to be exactly what I wanted it to be, and you are here because I trust you and I want to share this moment with you. I believe this will be exactly what I want and need it to be. I'm asking you to do this, even knowing what's going to happen. I am choosing this.

So now... go wash up, and anybody who is willing to participate, gather back here when you're done.

Of course, in reality, all of that came out less well-organized, with clarifying questions, and stuff I forgot the first time, but that was approximately what was conveyed by the time the group re-gathered.

We gathered. I said thank you. I closed my eyes. I took a deep breath and said, "Okay". And I felt my roommate peel my clothes off me, my lover guide me onto the table, my husband's hand over my heart.

And then...

It felt like a sea of hands. Little waves of fingers crested and broke on my skin, replaced by new waves of gentle, rolling touch. It was amazing.

I heard whispering and jostling as the group trial-and-error figured out how to fit everyone into the space - I heard later they were rotating slowly around me so everyone could have a turn, because not everyone fit all at once, with my husband and lover approximately opposite me, with a few people watching from the other room at any given time.

I realized after about three minutes, just as the rhythm was starting to settle in, that I had, spectacularly, remembered to shave my pubic hair, but neglected to shave my legs, which I said out loud in abject shame, and everyone laughed at me and my easy-to-forget peach-fuzz leg hair.

I was rubbed, stroked, pressed, caressed, kissed, licked, suckled, petted.

I heard later that a couple of people got a little overwhelmed and stepped back just to watch, crying quietly, while others continued to rotate slowly around me.

It felt like the same person was gently touching my face the whole time, but I found out later that almost everyone had touched my face. I don't know how that's possible, but it was wonderful.

I felt loved. Cherished. Adored. Supported. It felt like the hands of everyone who ever cared for me were wishing their prayers into me for my good, for my healing, to give me love.

Although it may sound hokey to say, I thought of you some of you: readers, callers, friends I've never met in person, people I would have loved to have be there with us, people who felt like they were there with us.

I could feel the love of everyone who ever loved me.

And I came, twice, I think, although it was more like one that kept rolling into another. As the orgasms washed over me, I was grabbing on to wrists I couldn't identify, pressing against fingers I couldn't distinguish, arching under hands I couldn't place.

It broke over me, and I felt the vertigo washing in behind it, and I tapped something twice and said, "Okay" and then hands all went away, as if they were all one person. "No, no, stay touching, just stay" and they all came back, together, pressing into me, as if they were all from one heart, centered by the hand which was suddenly obviously my husband's over my heart, the hand that was suddenly obviously my lover's pressing into my belly, to ground me.

I cried into all of them, letting that first ugly wave of chaotic backlash hit me. I breathed through it as best I could, tensing up, and releasing, releasing, releasing, as best I could.

Then my breath returned, a bit at a time. I'm sure it was just five minutes maybe ten, but it felt like an eternity. Nobody moved. Everybody just ... stayed.

"Okay" I said again, nodding slowly. "Okay".

Nobody moved.

I smiled a little, snuggled into someone's arm, said, "Okay, I can do this," then let my eyes blink open.

If you've never been lying on a table, surrounded by people pouring intense amounts of love into you, and looked up at all of them all at once, let me assure you: it's incredibly intense.

I believe my response was to curl into a ball, put my hands over my eyes, and say something brilliant like, "aaaaaaaa! too much! too many eyeballs! go away, ya creepers!" At which point, everyone laughed at me, hugged me, reached out for one last touch, and left me with my husband and my roommate and my lover, where they wrapped me in a blanket and cuddled me until I could crawl up one stair at a time to my bed with my husband's help.

A few people came upstairs and cuddled me, thanked me, told me what they had felt, what they had seen, then quietly disappeared again. It was lovely.

After about 2 hours, I think, and some bizarre-but-peaceful vertigo dreams (which feel more like vivid hallucinations than sleeping dreams), I had settled enough to venture back downstairs, one stair at a time, with help again, but this time, dressed in my favorite sleep t-shirt and flannel pajama pants. The group dynamics had livened up considerably, more like one of our normal parties. People were rassling and beating and doing all manners of naughtiness to each other. I floated from person to person when people weren't actively in play scenes with each other, thanking them, hugging them, trying to let the snacks and hugs bring me back to earth. I felt and sounded wasted, forgetting words and being ridiculously confused, but everyone was gentle and kind and amused with me.

We opened presents, one of which was decorated in colorful pipe cleaners, which I drunkenly wove into my hair. There were presents for both me and my roommate, and at one point, I stared at the card with my FetLife handle written on it, which is the name I introduce myself as at munches, a personal nickname of sorts, which I hear and use often among my friends, and I genuinely wondered who to give the present to because my brain could not figure out it was for me, for waaaaaay too long. The laughter when I said, "Oh! That's me!" intensified when it turned out the card was a 'getting older' card about how your memory stops working ... priceless.

In case you're curious, here's how I look when I'm brain-drunk beyond belief, with pipe cleaners in my hair, two or three hours after a vertigo crash.

It was perfect. Everyone was amazing. It was exactly what I needed it to be, and more.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, in case you were wondering, is how you become The Answer to Everything. I would have suspected that it required a giant helping of love, which it did, but who could have guessed it also needed pipe cleaners? Well, now we know.

Bunny Hop Recovery

I seriously injured my back about 2 months ago now, and my recovery has been a bunny hop: two hops forward, one hop back.

I knew I was ready to write a blog post again finally when the thought of putting on pink lipstick and my roommate's bunny ears for a picture didn't confuse or overwhelm me.

(For the record, my roomie is RIDICULOUSLY cute in the bunny ears with her matching pink hair.)

To make a long story as short as I'm capable of (not very), I've been having rolling compensation re-injuries climbing steadily up my back. The first injury was basically compression in my tailbone, so I compensated by shifting pressure up a few vertebrae, which then injured them, but not quite as seriously. So far, it's looked about like this, with the area injured:

* tailbone: 2 weeks out
* okay-ish: 2 days
* between the tops of my hipbones: 10 days out
* okay-ish: 3 days
* just above my hipbones: 7 days out

... and so on.

When I'm actively injured, I can do very little other than go to the chiropractor, do my stretching exercises, take walks, take muscle relaxers, and fall back into a very deep haze which my husband has forbidden me to call "coma-like" because it freaks him out, so I call it "grog-sleep". We tried other medicines, but either they didn't help me heal, or they made me just as groggy. The side effect of being deeply confused by everything more complex than getting dressed has been worth it for the pain relief and ability to knock myself out so I don't push myself too hard to fast (it would have been worse without the meds, I'm sure).

When I've been okay-ish, I've been tackling my personal to-do list, trying not to do too much too quickly, and being more grateful than I can express for the extraordinary generosity of my in-person lover with sugar daddy tendencies for making sure I could take this time off to recover without worrying about expenses.

I've accomplished a lot, actually, in my lucid hour or two at a time. The biggest emotional victory was: I have no more boxes marked "misc" from any of my five moves in the last ten years - not even "misc electronics" or "misc bathroom". The resulting trips to goodwill and the recycling center felt fantastically satisfying. I know what all my things are, and where they all belong! It's wonderful to feel a little less cluttered and a little more purposeful about my belongings.

And I have taken a few appointments here and there on days when I've been up for it. Slipping into someone else's fantasy has given me welcome respites from the navel-gazing.

What do I predict for the coming weeks? Not even gonna try. I'm officially crappy at predicting my abilities ahead of time. But if the best predictor of future performance is past performance, then this much I know: I will do as much as I can. I've been working hard at my recovery, and as soon I can come back to phone sex more regularly, I will.

The one funny solace I have about all this time off is that now I have proof when I say: I won't get on the phones unless I'm feeling sexy. I won't make an appointment or keep an appointment unless I'm feeling sexy. If I'm logged in, I'm feeling sexy, and I'm ready to play, you can count on it.

If you've sent me a check-in email or a note of encouragement and I haven't responded, thank you and I'm sorry. I will reply to them all some day when it doesn't overwhelm or confuse me - I will, I promise, and I'm deeply grateful.

In the mean time, it's a major fucking accomplishment to hit publish on this blog post, so I'm gonna pat myself on the back and treat myself to some peanut-butter-filled pretzels that I save for special occasions. It's not exactly a life of ease and luxury, but I'm grateful to the point of mushy sappy hyperbole to have the chance to live it.

Family Visit

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

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

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

Heartland Kink

This is a story of how to get involved in your local BDSM / kink community, as well as a little smut about my life.

The short version: my husband got to consensually smack an adorable masochistic college student in her early 20s, and I got to grab her boobs, and it was awesome. The rest of this blog post is the long version.

When we moved here in October, we knew the fastest way to find open-minded friends would probably be to involve ourselves with the kink / BDSM community. FetLife seemed a good place to start: a high concentration of people who won't disapprove of my phone sex career, and FetLife is excellent at discovering community events.

We went to a "munch" first, the name of a group event held in a public place for the purpose of socializing, but also to screen newcomers. You don't want newbies' first contact to be at a play party. You want them somewhere else first to give a less-charged place to ask questions, and to screen them. To pass that screening, most groups only require that you seem non-pathological and non-tar-babyish (a tar baby is someone who won't let you go once you touch them).

Here's how you seem non-pathological: Smile when you meet new people. Don't touch anybody until they touch you / offer to be touched (offering a hand for a shake, offering a hug, etc). Don't assume you have any rights - ask respectfully about everything, even if you're a Dom (especially if you're a Dom). Ask engaging questions about the interests of others (which types of play do you enjoy? which types of events do you enjoy? how long have you been in the community?). Ask questions about the community (how often do you meet? are there play parties? are there educational events?).

Here's how you avoid seeming like a tar-baby: Approach every event with the attitude that you'll find a play partner at the *next* event, but not at this one, to take the pressure off yourself - today, you are only building your reputation as an awesome person. If someone has spent more than 10 minutes with you, thank them for their time and attention, tell them you'd love to take up their whole evening, but ask if they need to mingle instead, thereby graciously releasing them if they wish to move on, and if they say no and stay with you, smile and thank them casually. If you compliment someone, don't follow it up with an awkward pause that communicates "see? I'm nice, now don't you want to fuck me?" and instead move on to the next topic as if you didn't just compliment them.

Other anti-tar-baby tips: Don't ask anyone to fuck you, or if you must and they say no, DO NOT ask again because that shit will get your ass thrown out. Don't ask anyone to play with you, or if you must as they say no, DO NOT ask again... You see the pattern here, right? It's best to wait until at least your third event before you ask to play (but accepting another's offer can happen any time) to avoid being seen as needy.

Never assume you have the same privileges as someone else. Story time to explain this point:

At our first introductory munch, the woman sitting next to my husband was playfully choked by two attendees. My husband DID NOT have permission to choke her, for two reasons: (1) he had never asked to choke her and (2) she had never offered to let him choke her. This is not complicated.

Along those same lines, because it was our first munch, and the first time my husband had met that woman, it would have been awkward for him to ask to choke her. Wait till he meets her for the third time.

Instead, my husband watched her being choked, and after the first choker left, he complimented her on how beautiful her expressions were when it was happening (compliments are good as long as you don't fall silent and stare expectantly after them), and before she had the chance to be awkward about accepting a compliment, he asked her how she found out she liked being choked. She got to tell a sexy story, he enjoyed hearing her sexy story, then they naturally wandered off into other topics with other people, with no awkwardness. She friended him on FetLife after the event. Who knows if they'll ever play together? But at least she isn't creeped out by him.

Anyway, the woman sitting next to me was AWESOME about explaining the structure of the community, who organized events, and what happened in the area. She was a natural greeter, an information fountain, very sweet. We friended each other on FetLife. The important thing is that we did not creep her out, which we did by being friendly and relaxed and grateful for her information.

Four days later, she posted on FetLife that she and her boyfriend/Dom had broken up (we had met him too). We asked her to dinner to take her mind off things, and to say thanks for the kick-ass introduction to the community she had given us, and she accepted. After dinner, she came back to our house and hung out with my husband while I worked upstairs. I heard a lot of giggling. They didn't play. My husband had all kinds of amusing stories to tell me later of how he cheered her up and learned a bit more about the locals. We engaged her and her friends on her FetLife posts in supportive, amusing ways.

So now we had a munch and a private dinner, and nobody has played, and we hadn't asked anybody to play. We were just nice. Neighborly. Kind. Supportive. That's it.

Yay bewbs

Last week, that same young woman let us know about a local party: bring a dish to share, and a kinky toy to trade, white-elephant style, worth $5 or less. My husband whipped out his maker skills converting a dowel rod and an unused wooden spatula into fierce-looking converted pervertables, and we brought dip and chips.

Since I had not been able to show my boobs the previous weekend at hub's holiday party, I busted em out for this one (picture taken before we left, when my lipstick still looked good).

We found ourselves at a cozy party of 10 where we were the only ones in our 40s, and only one guy in his 30s, and the rest were young whippersnappers. We mostly succeeded in the unnatural effort of "not dropping 80s references".

The hostess had obviously played before with one of the guests, since he kept picking up things and hitting her with them... hard. It made her giggle. Another guest brought her floggers and crop to show off. Several of the other kinky gifts were also things to beat people with. People started asking to try out toys, getting smacked and smacking for a few moments at a time.

Here's the important thing: everyone asked first, before trying a toy, and before hitting someone else. Everyone started out soft. Nobody hit harder until they were told they could. Everyone stopped when the person getting hit said "That's good, thanks!" I got to feel the spatula, the dowel rod, the crop, and one of the floggers. I got to use all of the above on others. Fun!

I wore the hat the whole party

Then the hostess was against a wall having a flogger tried out on her, and it went on for more than a few moments, and it got intense. She mentioned she was feeling warm, and we kindly offered she could remove her top, assuming she would not. She did. So we shut all the blinds, and enjoyed a topless woman with amazing boobs getting flogged. Oh yes, we enjoyed it a lot.

After they took a break, the hostess, clearly happy with the flogging, invited anyone at the party to hit her with anything. She was standing close to me at the time, still topless, and I said, "What about grabbing your awesome boobs?" and she said, "You can do that!" so I totally did. They were awesome.

About half an hour later, my husband wanted to see how the crop handled, so he asked the hostess if he could smack her with it. Note: she had already given permission to everyone to hit her, and yet, he still asked. She enthusiastically agreed, and after a few good swats, it was obvious that she really really really liked the crop a lot (she'd never had one), and he was really really really enjoying hitting her with it, and the room got quiet and watched, which obviously turned both of them on even more.

Twenty minutes later, when she was starting to bruise... badly... he slowed down, thanked her profusely, told her that he was so honored to have beaten her, and stayed with her until she hugged him and insisted she didn't need aftercare (he wasn't calling it that, but he was behaving in an aftercare-ish kind of a way), at which point he quietly faded to a different conversation.

Silly hat and awesome boobs,
as we were leaving,
with vertigo goofiness kicking in

We wrote her after the party and thanked her again for hosting, for being willing to be groped, for being willing to be beaten, and for welcoming us into the community.

So now we have new friends on FetLife (everyone from the party accepted our invites), we're signed up for another munch and another party in January, and we have a start on a fun sense of community.

The key to success? We weren't assuming we would play. We weren't pushing for play. We approached opportunities to play cautiously, with a lot of mutual respect and double-checking (my husband checked in with the hostess he was beating constantly because they didn't negotiate ahead of time). We approached the entire community and each interaction as if we were cultural anthropologists entering the temple of a religion we didn't know very well, but needed to learn more about. Respect everyone, ask permission for everything, assume nothing, and accept offers graciously.

And maybe you'll get to grab a coed's boobs. Squeeeee!

Settling In

I realized today that I've been doing something extraordinary for the past ten days: settling in.

I think my time in Houston never felt permanent enough to feel like I had settled into any kind of pattern. I remember a stretch of four days where I felt a calm sense that I knew what to expect, and I didn't have any looming, unknown, massive tasks. Four days out of seven months is not a fantastic record.

But we plan to be here in the great plains of central Illinois for at least a couple of years (where the sunsets have, I must admit, been far more spectacular than I remembered... I think it's a ploy to lull me into a sense of welcome. It's working.). Hopefully, we'll be in this same quirky, slanty, cozy house with the nice neighbors and the gorgeous trees.

So now that most of the functional unpacking has been done, as well as enough decorative unpacking to make the place feel like it's ours, I'm finding a pattern emerging:

* Early mornings on weekdays, since the hub has to get up anyway, he feeds the dogs and lets them outside, then puts them back in their crates to let me wake up on my own rhythms. On weekends, the dogs get morning routine from whoever can't sleep through them whining at us anymore, or from whoever needs to get up to go to the bathroom first

* When I wake up, I've continued a thing I started in Houston, which is: snuggle time on the couch with the dogs. I set aside about an hour to wake up slowly, sipping caffeine, making a coherent to-do list for the day, playing iPhone games, and giving the dogs the freedom to choose the activity: I always say yes to tug, fetch, and tummy rubs during snuggle time, and eventually I am rewarded with two dozing lap-warmers. Snuggle time ends when they inevitably bound off the couch to investigate a neighborhood noise and I need to stretch my legs and get my day started.

* My days have been mixed. I've tried to group together times when I had to wait for return phone calls, service or repair people, or freecyclers to pick up our packing boxes, because waiting on things like that means it's impossible to log in for phone sex. When I've had appointments (between 10am and 4pm Central time), I've given the pups rawhides and left them safely on the other side of the baby gate in the dog-proofed downstairs, while I head upstairs to The Red Room (aka the Fuckatorium 3.0) to lose myself in delicious fantasies.

* From 4pm to 8pm has become family time: the dogs need dinner and an outside break, the hub gets home for an hour or less of domestic chores, then we have dinner and unwinding together time, possibly mixed with more snuggle time on the couch, and then I lose him to his very steady girlfriend The Internet, with all her fun things to learn and ridiculous memes to giggle over, or to his primary lover Video Games, with all her things to build and strategize and shoot, and I head back up to The Red Room to log in. Eventually, sleepies overtake me and I stumble downstairs and crawl into the bed he's been keeping warm for me.

It's a lovely rhythm. It feels sustainable and calm. It protects enough time and energy for my primary romantic relationship, provides enough affectionate touch to keep me sane, and yet leaves plenty of time and energy for all my other connections: friends, family, and the gorgeous lush playgrounds where I luxuriate with callers.

And luxuriate I have... I've discovered a distinct advantage a roof-slanted room: when I'm lying on the couch, I can anchor one foot against the wall-ceiling angled above me, which lets me buck my hips up in a really interesting way.

Ooo, and I had an extraordinarily happy re-discovery of my Feeldoe: it was the only "dildo" I could find one day on a call before I unpacked my sex toys, so I used the long end of it to fuck myself while using the short egg-shaped end to press against my clit (that's the side that is inside me when I use it as it was intended, as a strapless strap-on). And holy overload, Batman, the sensations are an amazing mimic of the pressure against my clit during missionary fucking if a lover is grinding his pubic bone into me. Which I love. A lot. It's my new favorite thing to feel when I'm masturbating.

The room seems perfect to hold my sexual energy, the couch and desk chair offer lots of options for comfy positions whether I'm typing or fucking, and the glare-free lighting is easy to spend time in. It seems perfect so far.

Welcome to the next season of my life. I think it's going to be wonderful.

How'd It Go?

Last Wednesday I had my Social Security disability hearing for my vertigo, covering the period from March 2009, when I got sick, to July 2010, when I started working as a phone sex operator. Beforehand, my lawyer prepped me what to expect, and we went over the evidence to ensure my she had the important findings at the top of her notes.

We discussed whether to tell the judge I do the generic "phone consulting" or to tell him I'm a phone sex operator. The reality is, I chose this profession not only because I'm a giant slut who loves playing with callers' sexual energy, but also because I can set my own hours, I can rest when I need to, and I can't sustain any visual effort longer than about an hour. That leaves... ummm, well, phone sex! My lawyer advised me to play it by ear, but if it came to a choice of "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" then of course, I had to tell the judge.

Five minutes into the hearing, I was saying, "I'm a phone sex operator, Your Honor." He snortled, blinked, and asked, "Excuse me?" I repeated myself, "I do phone sex, Your Honor." I could feel myself blushing, and panicking slightly about whether or not it was the right choice. He raised his eyebrows at my lawyer as if to say "Nice curveball, counselor", but declined to comment.

I answered questions: Could I work from home as a PSO? Yep. Why could I be a PSO in July 2010? A combination of physical therapy and medicines improved my condition enough. Why couldn't I be a PSO between March 2009 and July 2010? The vertigo precluded concentrating long enough to sustain intense dialogue. How much do I make as a PSO? I've averaged only a few hundred dollars per month more than if I were still disabled and collecting Social Security disability benefits (my monthly average has been decreased by all the time I've taken off for my moves, but also, my monthly benefit amount was substantial because I made a lot / paid a lot into Social Security before I got sick - I think I maxed out my SS contributions for the last 8 years of my IT career).

Why can't I do my old job, be an IT Manager? I thought about opening a wall of SQL text, reviewing discombobulated spreadsheets with inconsistent data to import into a central database, reading hundreds of emails a day, running a project team meeting starting with "guys, we have a problem, and I have no clue how to solve it"... and I started to cry. Crying made me panic about seeming disingenuous or manipulative, and made me embarrassed to be crying, which, of course, only made it harder not to cry. Great.

There were more questions. The judge had clearly read my medical evidence, and knew what he wanted to uncover during testimony. I didn't interrupt him, I tried to stay on target, summarize without missing critical subtle details, and not let it distract me that I was starting to spin, stutter, feel foggy, drop words. The timing was horrifying, yet poetically impeccable: I was having a concentration-triggered vertigo crash in the middle of my disability hearing. Things were getting blurry, but I had to hang on enough to answer questions.

The judge thanked me for my creativity and willingness to work, which I thought was odd until I considered it later: I'm sure he sees a lot of people who are just trying to scam the system or get out of working to be lazy. But there I was saying, no, I really genuinely couldn't work for 16 months. But then I could work, so I did. I work, making less than a third of what I used to make. I work, making only 10% more than I would make if I were not working and on disability. But I can work, so I do.

Then he said "I'm granting disability for the closed period of March 2009 to July 2010. Counselor, are you all right with that?" My lawyer looked surprised, stammered, and said, "Yes, Your Honor". And then she was gathering her things and the judge was saying "This concludes the hearing" and I had the feeling I should leave the room, but there were things we had reviewed before the hearing that had not been stated, and my attorney hadn't given me the chance to tell the narrative I had been practicing... and what the fuck was going on?

Thankfully, something in my rational mind overruled my panic and said "follow your lawyer" so I packed up, stood up, turned around, stumbled into the wall, and drunkenly made it into the attorney consultation room. "What happened? Why didn't we... my narrative..."

She said calmly, decisively, and slowly, "You won. He said yes. He granted your disability. You're done."

"What? When? You said that wouldn't happen..." Then she laughed as my brain caught up, and trying to look professional instead of delightedly happy as she explained that the phrase "I'm granting disability" means he affirmed my total disability in the months I couldn't work, and granted me benefits.

My legs gave out; I had to sit. For two and a half years, I faced repeated denials of benefits because neurological vertigo is wickedly hard to prove. A part of me didn't believe the day would ever come when anybody would give me any disability benefits whatsoever.

Over the past few days, I keep having a feeling of dissociation from the reality of what has happened, followed by huge rushes of emotion: relief, gratitude, anger, joy, frustration, peace, and giddy giddy giggling.

The money will be exactly enough to: repay my mom and sister the money they've loaned us, pay off the last of my student loans from my MBA classes (I didn't finish my MBA because I got a management job without one), pay for the last step of the dental work I've been putting off for months, and then pay for about 10 celebratory dinners at in the $50-and-under range. Perfect.

So, how'd it go Wednesday? It went perfectly. I'm barely starting to come out of my shock at how perfectly it went.

I deeply appreciate each and every note of support I got. Thank you. Thank you more than you know.

So. Now I need to figure out how to get this damn blog back on track. Phone sex, Galiana. That's what people are here to read about, phone sex. Try to write about phone sex next, would you?

You know I don't make promises, but I'll try.

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!

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!

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!)

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.

Safe Check In

I've registered at Safe Check In (http://www.safecheckin.com), a site that is providing a service I had imagined a few years ago (but of course never built, and now someone else is making money off the idea instead of me... good for them for not being lazy like I am).

The concept is that I give them information about me which would be helpful if I needed to be investigated as missing, including a recent picture, the make/model/color/plates of my car, and contact information for my husband and mom and sister.

Then, each time I leave the house, I check out with specific details for the outing: what I'm wearing, the route I expect to take, and who I am meeting. If I do not check in by the specified time, an escalation path starts where they first try to contact me, then my family members, then local authorities.

At home, I feel safe because of my pit bull mix with anxiety issues, but now I feel a little safer when I'm out and about, too, without having to pester my husband when he's traveling or working (or both) with the details of my boring daily activities.

I could feel on my trip to the grocery store today that I had let go of some tiny measure of concern which I didn't even know I had been feeling. I was very slightly more relaxed.

Isn't that neat?

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...

Turtles and Bunnies

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

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

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

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

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

Busy Weekend, Just Not With Phone Sex

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Relief and Pride and Change

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

I felt that way yesterday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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