Gearing Back Up

I've had a week to sort of be brain dead. Although that wasn't a very good plan as I had a lot of things I could have (and should have) been doing. But I needed to recharge so I mostly did it through work-related inactivity. I did take the opportunity to meet up with various people so that was nice. An entire morning spent in bed. Some time spent at home.

In fact, when I think on it, it's a bit of a haze. I don't know what I did really this past week for the most part, except that I tried to do as little work as possible. Except now I have work to do again, and it's pretty much going to be a push from now through December 10.

I have two meetings this week- one with my supervisor and the other with my adviser, for their comments on my first year report draft. That's due on the 3rd. So once I get the final comments I'm going to need to get back into that. I think I've taken enough of a break from it that I can bear to look at it again. As an observation, my first year report is about 24,000 words and 76 pages. The maximum for a PhD in the engineering department is 65,000 words. So my final PhD will be not quite 3x as big as what I just did. Holy shit.

I'm somehow in charge of organizing a workshop for 'very important people' on the 10th. Preparation work for this workshop has slipped a lot and it needs to gear back up as well. But this is overlapped with getting my first year report done. Obviously my own work takes priority, but only by a small amount as this is sort of related. It will all come together, but it's going to be a rough go.

At least I had some fun. A good portion of this weekend was spent corrupting the young jackrabbit. We met up on Saturday night and spent the evening wandering around the city so he could take some photos. We headed back to mine with a pit stop for him to get coffee to drink in the morning since I don't drink coffee and only have instant which was apparently not good enough. Got home and fooled around and went to sleep. The previous two times he's slept over I haven't snored but apparently I snored. So he kept nudging me. Which doesn't really bother me but means he didn't sleep that well, alas. At least he had his coffee in the morning. Eventually we got up and managed to get down to my local nice cafe for brunch, then got more coffee from an Italian place I've never actually eaten at on Lower Clapton Road but keep meaning to, then came back to mine again.

As the boy is addicted to oatmeal raisin cookies and his favorite ones have stopped being sold at Tesco, I made a batch of cookies. To pass the time while I baked, I gave the boy a pot brownie and set him up on the computer. Eventually all the cookies were done, and only some had succumbed to the munchies and we went back up to my room. I had invited the boy last weekend to come with me this Sunday to the return of Peer Rope London. I figured this was as good a way to corrupt someone as anything. A generally low-key event full of kinky people and lots and lots of rope. So he was a bit nervous about this and had some questions about rope. So I showed him some pictures online and then, of course, offered a demonstration. So I tied the high boy up in a chest harness and started fooling around with him. This was fun. I'm really not overly toppy- so this was slightly awkward for me in that I don't like being the one in control, or having the focus on me and what I'm doing. But the boy makes me feel very comfortable and so that made it a bit easier. Plus I wanted to ensure that he was enjoying the experience which gave me some focus.

We had quite a bit of fun with the boy moderately disabled. He wasn't as disabled as all that, just without the use of his arms. But he managed to be sneaky about reaching around from behind his back where his wrists were secured and a good time was generally had by all. Eventually we made our way to the PRL and got there perhaps not quite an hour after it started where there was some group lessons going on. The jackrabbit and I ended up talking to Heathrow which was interesting, though thankfully not awkward. Luckily the lessons ended so soon the mats were free. And a very lovely lady came in looking to be tied up so I had my first bunny.

I felt very out of practice with my ropework as I haven't done any for many months now. But it apparently didn't matter. I think I manage to provide a good... service if that makes sense. In the meantime, the jackrabbit, who had all his camera equipment from the night before, got permission from my bunny to take some photos. As per usual, she simply asked for no face shots, but that's sort of standard within the community and he agreed. So as I tied her up, he was taking loads of photos. And a lot of them came out really well. Eventually I let my bunny go and had H ready and willing to be tied up. So I had a second practice round. With her I wanted to try something different. I don't mind doing that with H because she knows me so if I screw something up it's not so bad, I wouldn't really want to do things too experimental with someone new because it could be less fun for them if I keep undoing something. But it worked okay. Not exactly what I wanted, but pretty good. And the jackrabbit was taking photos of that as well which was fun. Then I asked Mr.G to tie me up, and he did, although it was a bit short, and it was certainly rough. Not that I minded the rough part. At some point I was showing the jackrabbit how to do a two-column tie on me which is the basic tie for attaching any two 'posts' or 'columns' together (like two wrists, wrist to thigh, ankle to ankle, chest to arm, etc.). And at some point K was tying up H and asked for some advice so I helped out there with some ideas but generally left them to it. And a very good time was had by all.

I'm looking forward to the jackrabbits photos, as they were somewhat abstract, I might put some up here. But eventually he had to go. Now,I knew that he was off traveling shortly, and had only learned on Saturday that he actually leaves in 2 weeks. I thought okay, well, I guess I'll get to see him one more time before he leaves. But as he left the event he said he wasn't sure if he'd have time to meet up before he took off as he had so much to do so that was a bit sad. I mean, I guess it's a toss up- do you say something early and taint the entire time together or do you say something at the end? Well, it's obvious which one he did, I'm just not sure which is better. He left after our goodbyes and I sort of had this small hole of 'oh'. Disappointment that perhaps that is all there was. But manageable. After all, I did always know he was going. It just sort of came abruptly.

At any rate, Heathrow gave me a lift back to Cambridge so I'm up here now but without my bike as it wouldn't possibly fit in his car. I suppose the walking is good for me, although my legs are incredibly sore. It's amazing how many muscles sex uses. Seriously. It must be a better workout than them gym for me to feeling it this much. Clearly the answer to my physical fitness is more sex! Ha.

So that's it. Pleasant memories of the week gone by to fortify me for this next uphill battle. Probably just what I needed.