Dry spell is over!

On Thanksgiving, I worked and danced at Grind after spending all day cooking and enjoying the company of Russell, Kaylee and her husband. Then the next night, I had the first play-focused overnight date with Max in two months. I can confidently say I feel my life coming back in some of the most important ways. I have a mental image of a big wet thunderstorm washing over a dry and dusty town. I can almost smell it. (inside note: I'd go out and play in it more if I didn't hate getting water in my face so much *grins*)

That's not to say that my body is no longer full of frustrating quirks--things like I can dance off and on for hours but can't comfortably sit on my couch without the risers, or I can play to remarkably intense levels but can't easily change position in bed.

Still getting better.

I put in a 6-hour day at work today and really wasn't tired or sore at the end of it.

Also, I got a full night's sleep that resulted in me waking up before 9 AM this morning.

The sleepful night may have been a result of the impromptu fun that kept me awake much too long on Monday night. Note the complete lack of regret in that statement please :)

I think I'll sleep and feel better more consistently if I start getting more exercise. The plan was to start water aerobics at the fancy gym a mile or so from work where I currently have a suspended membership. Trouble is it's really dark even when I leave work at 4PM right now, and I don't like getting wet, and I don't like wearing a bathing suit, and I don't know how the group of older heavy women would really feel about young little me dropping in on their class. I've avoided the gym all together because of this. The current plan is to drop the fancy gym membership and join the chain-gym that is 3 blocks from my house... still waiting on the follow-through for that.

Stop Comparing

Comparing has been a source of lots of unproductive self-talk lately. This blog entry serves mostly as a note to myself.

Dear Red,
Stop comparing your stamina, your looks, your emotions, your bank account, your persistence, your resilience, your social status, your athletic ability, your entertainment preferences, your sense of responsibility, your healing capacity, your. . . ANYTHING to that of others around you. 95% of the time it just makes you miserable and the truth is they are having completely different life experiences and challenges. Stop comparing also applies to your previous existence. Not only were you having a different experience of life 3, 5, 10 years ago, you don't even remember things the way they actually were. (Here's a little secret: Nobody's actually keeping score. There will be no ranking posted at the end of the world. You will never find a list with your name on it saying "Red completed life with a rank of 127,638,461 in her class of 500,000,000 people." SO QUIT WORRYING ABOUT IT!)

Give yourself the freedom to be in awe of people around you and even yourself, to praise without needing to reduce anything in comparison. Let's start here: You are more than enough. Strong enough, disciplined enough, rich enough, busy enough, healthy enough, pretty enough, thoughtful enough, loving enough, GOOD enough.
Sincerely,
Me


Dear Me,
That's a hell of a lot easier to type than it is to believe, but thanks for the sentiment.
You Truly,
Red

I fell down today

Honestly, I've been waiting for this to happen pretty much since I started walking around on my own. I'm not a total klutz, but I do have wobbly ankles and, like most people, sometimes I'm not exactly paying attention to the ground under my feet.

After leaving the grocery store on my way home from work today, I caught a lump in the road just wrong and down I went. I'm betting I'm not the first nor the last person to wipe out in that particular unmarked spot. I landed on my knees not directly on my but and I wasn't going all that fast so I don't think there will be any lasting damage or major setbacks. I did however manage to spread my groceries in an even 4' diameter in front of me. Thankfully, I live in a city full of nice people. Someone held parking lot traffic while someone else helped gather my stuff and made sure I could get up alright. I was not shy about explaining why an otherwise healthy looking woman was just sitting there looking a little puzzled and stunned rather than getting up and trying to salvage her dignity. "I just had spine surgery and I don't want to mess anything up."

I drove home okay (though checking my turns and corners was a little more difficult than usual). When I got home Russell helped me get settled and fetched the groceries from the car. I've been laying on my back since then waiting to see how things shake out. All-in-all if it had to happen, this wasn't such a bad way for it to go.

SteamPunk Night

On Saturday, the Wetspot (centerforsexpositiveculture) hosted a spectacular steampunk-themed pansexual play party. (Here's a link to a NY Times article for those who have little or no background in this little subculture) Once I committed to going, I finally had something to entertain my brain while I waited to go back to work: "OMG What ever will I wear?!"

I tapped back into my amateur costume design days from college theater. First I spent hours and hours on research and generally soaking up images from the genre. Then I produced about 5 sketches of possible costumes built mostly out of things I already owned. Then it was time to scour the city for the missing costume pieces, always keeping an eye open for previously unexplored possibilities. It wasn't until the morning before the party while standing in the table linen department of Goodwill that I knew for certain which costume I was going to wear.

Words cannot do justice to the costume in its completed state, but I failed to take any pictures so you'll just have to deal: A floor-length black satin skirt with a crimson brocade "bustle" below a black satin waist cincher and low-cut crimson cap-sleeve top underneath a black velvet and satin waist-jacket all topped off with a sparkly black top-hat with crimson ribbon trim. Twist the hair up carefully and apply some dramatic make-up (the only kind I know how to put on) and voila one high-class steampunk lady just waiting for an urchin to pick on. Kaylee and her costume were more than happy to oblige said lady.

I'm sure there's more to steampunk than playing dress up, but really that's all Kaylee and I needed to get out of it. Exhibitionist that we are, Kaylee and I just couldn't resist the temptation of a lively audience so I topped again for the first time that night. Things went marvelously well though a few days later my legs did have something to say to me about the amount of up and down I did that night. When you're not bending above the waist (surgery + waist cincher = NO bending), it's possible to look extremely prim and propper while paddling your girlfriend's breasts and butt. I'm sure this is a trick all the pros already know, but I thought I'd pass it on for the rest of you.

Back to Work Report

Oh Em Gee my back really really hurts. I'm going to try resting for a little bit, but I'm not above finding my pain-med bottle again if this doesn't feel better soon.

So, besides the post-work back pain, how was it?
I got up later than I'd planned and with a tweak in my back. I seriously considered not going in today at all. Then I woke up a little more and just let things move at their own pace. By 12:30 I was ready to go give this whole office job thing a shot.

I wandered into my office where my office mate was fully embroiled in a writing project. We exchanged happy returns noises, but there wasn't the "Squeee! I'm so glad you're back!" reaction I was expecting. It wasn't a big deal as I know she loves me and there were plenty of people checking in and looking for tales. I didn't get much actual work done. I don't think anyone expected me to get much done today though. Most of the "work" I did today was simply remembering what my job is. I'm looking forward to actually accomplishing something tomorrow.

Tangent about sitting at the desk: Getting my chair adjusted was quite the little comedy. My boss has been using my workstation and she's considerably shorter than me. There were several aborted attempts to sit and/or adjust the chair. It requires a silly amount of core muscles to adjust an office chair. One of the reasons I know my office mate still loves me is she was quite gracious about helping with the chair.

I brought print-outs of the most recent x-rays to work with me and did a bunch of show and tell. More than once people asked "Were you wearing a necklace?" when they looked at the profile x-ray. This is where the long-held kinky tradition of smile and nod came in to play. It's not that I think there would be a problem if I explained more about the collar (my whole department knows I'm poly), I just knew that wasn't the conversation they were looking for.

Physically, I could have done better, but it could have been much worse too. After an hour and a half of sitting at my desk, I needed a walk. Even after the walk though, my back still wasn't happy about going back to the chair for long. I have to admit I'm a little surprised I was so exhausted after only three and a half hours at work. The pain when I got home was a lot more than I expected too. I'll be calling the Dr's office to have them revise the back-to-work authorization for fewer hours per week until the end of the month.

Now that I've had a rest (took a dinner break in the middle of typing this post), I can safely say I'm happy to get back to work. It's nice to have a little more routine and a few more people to talk to in a day.

Go Read Autumn's Blog

I start back at work part-time in two days (technically tomorrow, but I intend to sleep twice between now and then).

My most recent days have been filled with the pursuit of a glorious steampunk costume.

I'll write more about all that later. Right now, go read Autumn's blog.

Making it through the scary parts

A couple days ago, Russell and I ran into one of the challenges I've been dreading for a long time. I think I described it best back in May when I wrote about porn that made me cry. In a pair of sentences, the author managed to sum up the thing I was so blessedly afraid of having to say after surgery:

"I need you to stop fucking me like I'm dying, I'm not dying. But every time you touch me soft, every time you ask if I'm okay, another little piece of me falls off."

After a month of being barely touched and constantly tip-toed around I was going crazy (the PMS wasn't helping matters either). I was beginning to wonder if our relationship had shifted permanently when I wasn't looking. This led to a conversation much more grown-up and less dramatic than the one depicted in the story. We identified the biggest problem: He couldn't touch me much because he didn't know how to do it safely, and I couldn't tell him how to do it safely, because I wouldn't know until we tried. So, carefully, slowly, and with a lot of courage and respect for each other we started to explore the safer limits of what we could do together.

We've got a ways to go in rebuilding our confidence, but I'm glad we finally got to this point. It turns out, I was right. There really was no way around it, no way to avoid it. But I was also right in believing that, no matter what, we'd make it through together.

Hooray for OUT!

Okay, I'm heading to bed quickly, but I just wanted to say: Hooray!!! I got outside my 6-block radius all on my own.

I went to the Bondage is the Point party for a couple hours tonight. Hello to all of you I saw tonight and thank you so much the encouraging "OMG! You're doing so well!" remarks. It's really what I needed to keep to feeling like I'm moving forward. This was the right low-key party to start my gradual return to the Wetspot. No bondage for me tonight, but I wore an outfit that let me show off my scar and brought print-outs of my most recent x-rays for show and tell. The people, the tasty treats, they eye-candy, the careful hugs, but most of all the SMILES were just fantastic!

Mind you I was out of the house a full 3.5 hours and now I'm wiped, medicated, and ready for bed. Still, I'm definitely marking this up to a success. There was a lot of up and down out of couches, and standing around talking, and crouching to get water--not to mention the joys of driving.

Things to know _before_ surgery:

So here I am, precisely one month after surgery and I have a few more things I wish I'd known or thought of before surgery.

• Cut your toenails really really short as close to surgery day as possible. Your toes are a looooooonnnnnngggg way away from your hands. I finally managed to get to mine today, but not without some large amount of effort that almost required a nap afterward. I suppose you could schedule a pedicure (I did consider this a couple weeks ago) but you're still dealing with getting out and hoping you can sit in the chair comfortably for the duration.
• Cars don't like sitting in a garage for a month completely untouched. I took Ziggy (yes, my car has a name and gender now shut-up) out for the first time this afternoon and boy did she sound rough for the first 10 minutes or so. If I'd thought more about it, I would have asked a friend to drive Ziggy around for a day or two a couple weeks ago. It's good to remember too that all the mirrors will need adjusting, cause you sit taller now. Also, backing out of the garage was a treat. I didn't realize how much subtle twisting I did for that every day.
• Orgasms will probably change shape and flavor. This is in part a sex blog so I'm happy announce that I had my first orgasm since surgery last night. Don't panic, my orgasm-prone pre-surgery readers. Your mileage will probably vary. Despite being pretty in-touch with my sexuality, my orgasms were tough to come by even before surgery. However, since surgery I've been slowly learning how to wind up into arousal without arching and tensing my back. It's a delicate line to walk between being in controll and aware enough to not break something and still being able to release and enjoy the ride. However it's a dangerous thing to start eroticising a pain designed to tell you to knock it the hell off before you break something.