Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

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The House is voting on replacing Obamacare TOMORROW and they may have the votes.

I know we’re all sick of this shit by now, and lord help us it has only been 100 some odd days… but if you live in the US, you need to call your representatives.

They are calling domestic violence, depression, acne, sexual assault, pregnancy, among other things PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS which can cause you the denial of healthcare options.

This is absolutely absurd.

If you live in an area with a Republican rep, take a few minutes and CALL – 5Calls has a handy script you can use (and will identify your rep for you by zip code, too.)

If you don’t think your rep will listen on moral grounds, try a financial angle – the new AHCA has not been evaluated by the CBO yet and we have no idea how much it would cost.

The first AHCA stalled because it wasn’t conservative enough, so the Tea Party caucus spiked it. The new one is even worse, so it gets the far right on board… but it may lose moderate votes off the other side. But only if  enough people flood them with protest.

Even if your rep is already voting against, signal boost for others who might be able to use some leverage here.

aragorn decided he was going to marry arwen when he was like, six.

and everyone thought it was just the cutest thing, baby estel with his little crush on the great immortal evenstar, and everyone would tease him about it relentlessly and he would get so mad, and pout, because how dare they doubt his word.

(arwen spent a lot of time biting back smiles and nodding very seriously when aragorn brings this up with her. no, estel, I do not know why they are laughing perhaps they have remembered a particularly funny joke.)

and then aragorn grows into this gangly teen and oh my god can you imagine being a pimply greasy teenager around fucking elves it’s a wonder he has any self-image left. His voice breaks every other word and the laundresses are beginning to wonder if something is wrong with the sheets because estel keeps washing them himself and aragorn wants to die, god, arwen is never going to marry him if he stays all elbows and skinny knees and he can’t even look her in the eye anymore without blushing, eye contact is probably something to look for in a husband–

(arwen, who never had to go through puberty because elves don’t do anything so undignified, tries to comfort him by saying she likes his blemishes. aragorn gives her a look of such utter, miserable despair that she starts laughing.)

(this is a mistake. he spends the next three weeks nursing his wounded ego and refusing to see her.)

estel is twenty when he asks for her hand. he is lean, slender and fair as a new tree, and so arwen does not feel guilt in kissing his cheek and gently refusing. he is still green, he will weather greater storms than this–and he takes it as he should, clasping her hand and swearing to ever be her loyal friend.

they write to each other–when she is in lorien, when he wanders with the rangers of the north, fights alongside gondor, travels to distant lands. it is an inconstant tie–he is rarely afforded time enough to put pen to paper; she is reserved so as not to encourage what may not be. (she signs her letters always, your friend. She likes him too well to be cruel in this.)

the years pass. his weariness and strife creeps onto the page, and she sends him tokens to fend off the darkness–leaves from lothlorien, the ribbon from her hair, snippets of poems. it is not enough it is never enough I am sorry, she writes.

his reply is gentle: you are enough. do not stop writing.

(she carries that letter tucked inside her sleeve for a long while, like a talisman–though against what evil, she does not know.)

she is in the house of her grandmother when a familiar voice calls out to her: my lady luthien!

this is when arwen looks up, sees aragorn–broad of chest and rugged, still wearing his battered mail, with one hand balanced lazily on the pommel of his sword. All the trees of caras galadhon are gold but he is shadow and silver, kingliness resting lightly on his shoulders–

Anyways, from there, the appendix explicitly states that they don’t meet for another 29 years.  I think they probably don’t communicate in that time.  Even if Arwen wanted to write to a man she’d only met once, Aragorn was constantly traveling and often under disguise or an assumed identity during those years.  I’d be shocked if he managed to exchange letters with his mom, much less an elven princess.

There are true parts of this, though.  The “oh fuck” moment, though--that’s real.  Aragorn shows up in Lothlorien when he’s 49, dressed up in elven finery, all grown up and kingly and wise.  Arwen happens to also be there, and “as he came walking towards her under the trees of Caras Galadhon laden with flowers of gold, her choice was made and her doom appointed.”  That’s it, one look and she’s ready to give up immortal life with her beloved family for him.  “Oh, fuck” indeed!

We all know and agree that doing so via text is pretty much the worst way to do so and is considered A Dick Move.

But what if that’s the only avenue they’ve left you because they’ve fucked ghosted for a month, only dropping in to give you a single wall of text about how life is just so hard and stressful and he doesnt have time to text you but once every couple of weeks…

hi nonny

i do have some advice. this is something even i struggle with, and something that several close friends of my involved in the kink world also struggle with. 

my advice– and how i’ve helped myself– is to think that under ideal circumstances, you don’t have to trust the person the way you’re thinking. if you’re looking for a dedicated top or dom/me? yes, you’ll need that sort of trust. but if you’re just looking for a play partner for a scene or two? 

if you are at a play party, some trust is required– i’m not going to suggest just walking up to someone you don’t know and have never met and going “hey, do XYZ with me” 

but full, dedicated trust? that could be directed more at the surroundings. 

if you have a healthy community and you know people at the event, you can place your trust in the dungeon monitors, the people observing your scene, and to a degree, in the game itself. 

Anon, darling, my interest in what I would later recognize as BDSM started when I was proooobaly 10. I was a fan of trashy romances because my mother had terrible parenting skills and I learned too many things way too early.

And that is pretty common, yes.

My first advice is to figure out how far you’re willing to travel and on how regular of a basis. 

After that, I suggest looking into communities in surrounding cities. Or you could try to start your own. 

You can find some more specific advice about finding people in these posts:

https://reconfemmandoforares.tumblr.com/post/151570163490/hey-there-i-was-wondering-if-you-had-any-advice 

My coworker is talking about leaving the company

Which… since there’s only two people working in my office… leaves me totally alone again.

Which means… back to the twelve and fourteen hour days.

If she has: First talk with your boss and ask what his plan is for covering her hours.  It may be that he has a plan other than ‘Sher will just do it all until we hire someone else (which may take months if past experience holds true)’!  Or that he’s entirely willing to come up with one once he realizes you don’t actually want to do that!  It never hurts to ask, at least.

If his plan is indeed ‘Sher will do it all’, and he is unwilling to come up with an alternate plan: It sucks that your job is putting you in a bind like this.  You have a couple options to consider.

Decide it’s not worth it and start job hunting ASAP.  This is the best option if you decide you can’t live with the plan your boss is implementing. 

Decide you’re OK with doing it....for the right compensation.  This is the best path if you don’t want to quit and find another job.

Ask for a raise.  You’re being asked to do multiple people’s work on a probably long-term basis (since we know your boss isn’t the kind of person who will find a replacement within a week or two).  That is higher-level work than your current job, and deserves increased compensation.

Ask for your title to be updated to your new responsibilities.  You’re being asked to take on increased responsibility and do higher-level work here.  You should get to put an updated title on your resume showing the work you’re actually doing.  (This might not apply if you were just covering for a week or two while someone was hired, but as above, we already know your boss is not good at hiring people quickly.  If you’re going to be doing this for months, your title should reflect that.)

For the record, when I say ‘increased compensation’, I don’t just mean overtime.  Overtime is for when your normal job takes longer than 40 hours a week.  It is NOT for taking on a ton of new job responsibilities, the way that taking over for someone else would require--that is a change to the job description, which is, like, the classic scenario to ask for your compensation to be adjusted accordingly.  (However, ‘increased compensation’ can mean things like ‘extra PTO’ or ‘extra 401K matching’ or various non-increase-in-base-pay things like that, so if there’s some perk that you’ve been wanting and think your boss might go for, that can be worth mentioning.)

If your boss is unwilling to give you increased compensation or an updated title, and also does not hire anyone within a week or two to replace coworker, reconsider the not-quitting thing.  If they’re willing to ask you to increase the responsibilities you take on, and they trust you to handle two people’s jobs, but they aren’t willing to pay you accordingly?  That says that either they don’t value you much (they’re fine taking advantage of you), or they can’t afford the basic costs of business (which, yes, do include fair compensation for labor).  Either of those things is reason to reconsider whether you want to keep relying on them for your paycheck.

Hi anon!

I guess… I guess my question for you is, why are you embarrassed? By your own admission, it’s a common and mild kink.

I’ll tell you a story while you think about it.

Long ago, when I was a teeny, tiny little thing just realizing myself as a sexual being, I realized I was into certain things. I’m a firm believer in that some people– maybe not all, but some– are simply wired for kink. They’ve either never had or never felt fulfilled in a pure vanilla relationship. I count myself as one of those people.

My very first girlfriend– my first relationship of any sort, really, now that I think about it– involved some very mild BDSM play; it was non-sexual but involved a little making out. We were like fourteen and we lived in the Bible Belt, so the shock on people’s faces was pretty much about half of the thrill.

And this relationship was very short lived, even though we remained and have remained casual friends to this day, over a decade later. But during this relationship, and the subsequent disaster of the next two (sexual) relationships, I realized I was not into Normal Things™.

I especially liked belonging to someone. Bearing bruises and bite marks and fingerprints. Knowing that those meant, in my very consensual situation, that I was loved and cherished and very much desired. It was like having a secret, something I could carry around with me for a couple of days, a tangible reminder. I could look at the bruise on my shoulder and remember exactly what her teeth felt like, or the hand prints on my hips and remember how his palms seemed to burn as his gripped them.

I am quite territorial over those I see as mine, and I can give as good as I get. My current partners can attest to this. So being that I’m a little possessive, I love having that matched by my partner. So I don’t just like getting bruises, I like giving them. I like giving that gift to someone I love– with their express permission– so that they, too, have a tangible reminder of our playtime. And I get a dark little thrill when I see their skin marked by me. There’s a side of me that I’m not all that proud of that slithers up and whispers, “That’s mine. She’s mine. He’s mine. And now everyone knows.”

Now, please, before I get angry people in my inbox, I know how that sounds. But this is specifically and especially in a consensual agreement. I am not referring to abuse of any sort, this is all negotiated and agreed upon and welcomed.

Back to the story.

I always felt a little ashamed of this specific kink. I had no idea that BDSM was a thing, really, at this point in my life, even though I vaguely knew what a dominatrix was (and had said before that I wanted to be one). I thought I was just weird. I liked being tied up and tying people up and having rough sex. I didn’t know there was an entire community out there, and the way my second and third partners acted about my kinks, they treated me like I was a freak but they went along with it.

And because America in particular is quite… puritanical about sex and what consists of Normal Sex™, I knew I didn’t fall into that category. So I thought of myself as a freak, too.

Then I started hanging out with some friends as I got older who were vastly more kinky than I was at that time. They talked casually about orgies and BDSM and equipment and I realized: hey. I’m not alone. In fact, I’m pretty tame in comparison. I resolved then and there to learn everything I could.

So, back to you, nonny.

Are you feeling ashamed or embarrassed because you’re afraid you’ll be judged for it? Or do you think you’re alone? Or that it’s “weird?” Or, conversely, are you afraid it’s “too mild” to tell your friends? Or are you afraid of outing yourself to friends or family?

If it’s any of those things, I can promise you that most likely, your fear is unfounded. I can guarantee that you are not alone, and you will not be judged, and that it’s probably not that weird (I’ve heard some very, very weird things!). And yes, there could be some smiles at mild kinks, simply because the BDSM community is full of full-on “freaks,” but that’s okay. It’s usually not malicious and you can always preface your stories with “I’m a little afraid that it’s too mild for you but…”

Friends and family are a little trickier, but that can be done if that’s what you want.

When you actually want to play with someone, though, you do eventually have to have the ‘what are you looking to do here’ conversation.  It's understandable to be bashful or on edge about this, especially at first--many of us have been taught that talking about this stuff is either kind of dirty and weird, or pretty intimate and private, so opening up to a new person can be hard.