27 February 2007

Musings on S-E-X

Things I've been thinking about lately, in no particular order:

1.
You can't hold a relationship together with sex. I've learned this the unpleasant way (though there were some great moments to offset all the heartache). Sex alone, no matter how good, does not a 'relationship' make. It doesn't matter how good it is. It doesn't matter if it's often intertwined with conversation and feelings of 'connection'. Of course you're feeling connected when you're fucking. It's not enough.

2. Once you've had great sex, it's very hard to settle for the less than mind-blowing. I'm sort of dealing with this now. Once upon a time I didn't know you could have it so good. Unfortunately, as per point number one, that was the only good thing I was having. Still, once someone has made you sing in this way, how do you not miss it? How do you not compare? It's impossible frankly. And it's just something you have to deal with- though how, I'm not quite sure.

3. Experimenting is good. I will never get tired of the infinite variations that come with sexual exploration. I wish I had fewer hang-ups. I wish I had better skills. Regardless, I will never keep trying new things. Learning new things is fantastic. There is nothing worse than sex that becomes routine. It's good to shake it up, have a repertoire of moves. Be able to keep your partner on edge. Be able to surprise your partner with something unexpected. Sometimes things work out, and sometimes they flop, but being scared to try is pointless.

4. Knowing what you like and being able to communicate that are critical to your own pleasure and enjoyment. Now I know this sounds obvious, but it amazes me how people either don't explore this, or find it impossible to communicate to the person whose fingers, tongues, and other appendages may be lodged in their own dark places. Otherwise known as the 'if you can't figure out how to give yourself an orgasm, how the hell do you expect someone else to do it' theory. Of course some things are difficult to communicate. How do you explain to someone that you like finesse? Tricky.

23 February 2007

Of Lions and Lambs

Well it's a bit early isn't it? I mean, it's not actually March yet, that's next week.

Today is Friday which is a good thing. This has felt like an amazingly long week at work. It didn't start well with two evening meetings- one on Monday and one on Tuesday. Add to that trying to study which is tedious at the best of times, and pressure from another client on one of my projects, it's just been a very long week.

Met up with J last night and am feeling a bit strange about that at the moment as well. It's not that one expects all time together to be great. And to be fair, he's coming off being sick- which is bad enough, but he was holding a slight grudge that I wasn't being sympathetic enough I think, which is no way to gain my sympathy really. Still, the differences seemed stark and large. From enthusiasm for food to drinking habits to television watching to evening listening choices. It was the sort of evening where I wanted things to match up and all they did was seem to lock horns. So I felt frustrated and annoyed a bit too. I don't know. The beginning of the end or a one off? We have plans for Sunday so I guess I'll wait and see.

Distracting me from thinking about all that too much is the planning for the arrival of my friend AS who comes on Thursday and SH who comes on Friday! It's great when friends come here, and it's great to see people I don't see often at all. AS I haven't seen in over a year I think? And SH not since last August. So even though I have to squeeze in studying, I'm very excited to have parts of my 'other life' here with me in London.

Another thing swilling about in the periphery is that SA has finally reached a point with his business that they may be ready to hire. This means I may have a serious job offer on the table and an opportunity to move. While this could be a really substantial opportunity, I'm always edgy about change. Change generally works out for me, but the process of changing I never enjoy. Well, does anyone really? Still... things are afoot I guess. Better than the alternative.

20 February 2007

Add It To The List of Reasons

I think this is a wonderful idea. My children would always have these. Maybe on their foreheads. (Alerted to this warm and snuggly goodness via boingboing)

19 February 2007

I Love the Smell of Napalm in the Morning

I've done my job to increase my exposure to carcinogens today. Before I left the house, I sprayed the entire stairwell with moth poison. Of course the bottle was crap and it dripped all over my hands. Then I read the bottle and it said 'do not get on skin'. So if I hadn't already poisoned myself enough in this lifetime, lets just add that to the list.

Still, I hope the stuff works. I saw a couple of moths in the carpet when I was spraying and it did seem to kill them instantly. Die moths, die.

My weekend was reasonably good, but as always too short. SA, MO, and I went to this place in central London called Sketch because MO really wanted to use the toilets there. All I have to say is, the tea was fantastic and it is completely worth it just so you can go and use the toilets there. In fact I suggest making sure you have to go once when you arrive, and staying long enough to go again just so you can use a different one.

Sunday was a bit of a waste because I was supposed to go out with tlsd but she cancelled on me. Or rather, I had to chase her down after noon to see if we were going out as we'd planned, and then she cancelled on me. That sort of sucked because we'd had long-standing plans all week, and I'd already waited all morning which is my most productive time. Also, we hadn't met up the weekend before because she was working, and I'd been looking forward to our outing, but it wasn't really something that was going to be as much fun if I just went on my own so I didn't bother. Instead I stayed in my pyjamas all day, did some studying, some knitting, some cooking, lots of laundry, and watched television. D&V were home all day as well working, which was alright. They're very easy people to live with, even if they are a couple.

I feel slightly ill today and I'm not sure if it's the moth poison or that J has a minor cold and maybe I've caught it? Very hard to tell. Hope I feel better soon, queasy is no fun.

16 February 2007

Wearing

I am wearing my new shoes (as pictured in the post below) today. With red/pink socks. I have made a small effort in my appearance. Changed my earrings even. Put on my favorite ring. Though I'm drawing the line at make-up at the moment. But I may put on a dab before I go out later.

Date with J tonight. Sometimes it's nice to make a small effort. Though part of me wonders if it will be noticed. Often my small efforts aren't except by girls. Girls always notice. What does that tell you?

12 February 2007

Shoes and Deep Thoughts

As it turns out, I accomplished very little this weekend that I should have. Did not do laundry. Did not study. Did not clean. I did on the other hand, catch up with at least three people I don't work with and two that I do, got out to Hampstead where I go rarely if at all, read half of a book, and had plenty of time to navel gaze too.

On Saturday I met up with CS and MO for the afternoon at CS's place in Bow. I was finally able to give her all the very pink things I've been knitting for her since she left my office as her belated birthday/holiday gift. So that was very exciting. We had a good time, as it's always nice to catch up with folks.

Sunday I met up wit BG who I had somehow missed meeting up with a few weeks earlier. We met at Hampstead Heath silverlink station and walked to this place called 'The Holly Bush' (which I thought sounded particularly naughty) for roast lunch. Then we wandered our way back to the train stopping at shops along the way.

It was in this way that I ended up purchasing two pairs of shoes that I do not need. One pair I want to see about turning into a more 'daily' pair of funky shoes. But the other was purely frivolous. Of course, they were reduced from £120 to £39, so it wasn't too much of a hardship, still, it wasn't my intention to buy shoes. But I guess it's entirely true, a girl really can't have too many shoes.

Then I spent a reasonable part of my weekend pondering the ethics of vegetarianism vs the ethics of your personal carbon footprint. Whether it is more or less ethical to eat fruit and vegetables flown in from the opposite sides of the earth versus eating organic locally raised meat. I'm sure even by how I've phrased that statement, my personal view is clear. I've started to make an effort recently (I've noticed) to try to limit the distance travelled of my fruits and vegetables, so this is of particular interest to me. Being ethical about your food choices is a really messy bag of worms I think. I guess everyone has to just be comfortable doing the best they can and what they think is right.

Okay. Back to work!

04 February 2007

No Catchy Title

Sitting in my house on a Sunday. I dread the idea that I have to go to work tomorrow, but at least my boss is away for the rest of the month. So I should be able to avoid the feelings of paranoia I occasionally have from his proximity.

Currently I have a load of laundry in the machine that needs to come out and get hung up before it sits too long and needs to be washed again. I hate how quickly things start to smell in the machine. Of course I should just be better about taking out the laundry when it's finished, but perhaps that's asking too much.

I've been more preoccupied with knitting a new scarf, having finished the pink one for CS I had been working on for a while now. I'm pretty excited about this one because the pattern is complex enough that I have to pay attention every row. This means I shouldn't get bored. The downside is that I think I'm using wool that's a bit too thick for the pattern, so it's not coming out exactly like I anticipated. But it looks cool so far, so I think that's okay. Plus I may try blocking it when it's finished and that may help it expand and loosen up a bit.

So I'm thinking of course, about the events of the past 48 hours. Everything went well, so that's cool. Still, I'm not the sort of person to rush into anything. I recognize we have significant differences in social history and interests and we need to spend some time establishing more of the commonalities. What's important is how it plays itself out. Either we will get along in spite of our differences, or these differences will grow into road-blocks and become insurmountable obstacles. On the positive side, even though I recognize we have differences at this point, it hasn't put me off J. And he doesn't seem to be put off of me yet- I'm the one who is spacing out our time to spent together at the moment. So I guess that's positive. I feel like the next couple weeks should be spent out and about in the city doing things together to work on establishing our shared history (outside of intimacy of course, starting off on a very, very interesting shared path at the moment but sex isn't enough to make a 'relationship' as I've painfully learned the past couple years). I'll consider some options and make some suggestions. I already have a couple of possible outings in mind. So we'll see.

I need to get in some good studying today- at least a couple hours. Am supposed to meet SA for lunch or something which will be nice. We originally planned to do more, but he's changed his plans due to work commitments. So that's not too bad. I can focus on cleaning up around here a bit. I'll tell you, I didn't anticipate that J would be staying over here two nights this past week. Usually I clean up my room significantly before any possible overnight guests. So he got to see my room in it's ultimate state of disorder. How embarrassing. It's even been worse than usual lately. So I need to fix that pronto. At least the rest of the house is fairly in order.

02 February 2007

Nookie On the Horizon?

Well, things are moving rather quickly around these parts. Just barely a week on from meeting up with my date, tonight is third date time. And considering how things went on the second date, it looks like we're heading to be cliche. So he needs a name. For now though, just J.

At any rate, the dates went well. J is very British though, for lack of a better description. I don't mean this as a criticism, but I mean it in the way that he is not as easy to read or get to know as say, a dumb American, and I believe this is due to innate British qualities. I mean, he watches darts for crying out loud!

But conversation has been good, as well as cuddles. So we'll see what happens. We also touched further on my 'interests' and while I don't think he's had too much hands on experience, he seems positively interested in trying things, so that could all work well too.

However, as usual, I'm reticent. Mostly because I don't jump into anything quickly (well, not emotionally at any rate- I know, it's confusing...) and it does take me a while to trust someone. I have to feel I know them better until I open up my personal thoughts (all other thoughts are up for grabs however). So I'm not out to say anything about what I think about if it's going to work out or not work out because I simply don't know enough yet. It could continue to go really well and build into something, or there could be some giant snafu and it could completely go to shit. But it's rather fun at the moment and that's certainly the important thing.

Meanwhile, work is killing me, blah blah blah, trying to get me taking the month of April off signed off, blah blah blah, need to study for the three exams I plan to take in April, blah blah blah, etc etc.