Deepmind Darkwood Was Awesome!

I'm sitting on the plane waiting for departure on the way back from Deepmind Darkwood, a small hypnosis weekend retreat in New England. I got to see friends I hadn't seen since Hypnoticon, meet some new people, present on Finding Your Power Animal, hold a sort of pre-Samhain ritual around a fire under the waning moon, and get an amazing massage to boot. In fewer than 18 hours, I had a whole weekend of awesome.

I wish I could have been there for longer (had to work Friday and Sunday nights), but the chance of it happening next year is incredibly high. I really hope it does!

Special thanks to:
LeeAllure and MrDream for making it happen, for getting me there and for friendship
Lee'sMandy for picking me up at the airport
Everyone who volunteered in the kitchen! We'd be lost without you!
My sleepykitten for tending to me
My Vassal for ongoing awesomeness
Everyone who participated in the ritual

Now I need sleep!

Seven Things That Cross My Mind A Lot

7. Sex. :)

6. My spirituality. I'm very pagan. Especially at this time of year, I feel a keen connection to the Earth and Nature. I tend to listen to music with a spiritual bent at work, f'rinstance.

5. Science. I also love science and get very annoyed when people get stupid about topics like evolution. It works, bitches!

4. My family. I don't talk about them on a kink blog for obvious reasons, of course!

3. Random bs. What would the spawn of Reid and Garcia on Criminal Minds be like? Why is the music for Bladerunner so loud... It makes people annoyed with Vangelis? What kind of bird is that? Did my cat mean to bark just then? (Jukebox and I abet each other in this.)

2. At the moment? Holiday gifts. :)

1. Love. For my Chosen, for my pets, for my friends.

Eight Ways To My Heart

8. Be geeky. I really can't emphasize that enough out of my last several partners, I met almost all of them online, and the one I didn't I met at DragonCon.
7. Back scratches. Back rubs. Foot rubs. Brush my hair. Touches that are sensual, but not necessarily sexual.
6. Be willing to put up with my cheesy fascinations for things like true crime, The Amazing Race, big weather and Earth science, and other completely random but fun to me things.If you those things as well it goes a long way.
5. Bring me wildflowers. I don't care much for roses. I am not a hothouse flower kind of woman. Unfortunately I am also really bad at keeping live plants alive.
4. Similarly, forget expensive jewelry or "standard" romantic gifts. I like the funny, the practical, and the thoughtful.
3. Show me you can have a good time without needing to drink. I am not a fan of alcohol. While it is okay if you personally enjoy the taste, don't expect me to join in, and be aware that drinking to excess is a sure way out of my heart.
2. Watch sports with me. I enjoy curling, American football, sumo, hockey, and (in small doses) what most of the world calls football. During the Olympics, I will watch just about anything if I'm bored. I don't play fantasy leagues and I don't gamble, but man, it's fun to watch!
1. Be willing to sleep with me. I'm not talking about sex. I'm talking about curling up for a nap together. It feels wonderful, it's cozy, and it builds trust for me.


This is the first blog post dictated on my voice dictation software. It didn't do too badly! I'm learning to use it so that I can do things with my hands while I'm also telling a story, working on trance scripts, or other fun things. If you see something that looks a little odd, and you don't think I noticed, please tell me.

Nine Things About Me

1. When adoring me, it is far better to pet me lightly than to hold me tightly.
2. I am straight down the middle bisexual but my relationships with women haven't gone as well as I'd have hoped.
3. I watch a lot more TV than I did five years ago, but I also read far more than I did then. DVR makes it possible for me to enjoy TV without my ADD kicking in too hard. It never bothered me when I read.
4. I am not grabby with my Chosen. Still, ask first before play!
5. I would much rather watch two of my beloved have sex than be in the middle of a threesome.
6. I am talentless in the kitchen.
7. It's as if my life has a divider right along the line of the century. My 20th and 21th century life are radically different.
8. I am a much calmer person with adequate sleep. I never get it, though.
9. I've spent ten minutes trying to think of what number nine should be!

Ten Things I've Wanted To Say To Ten Different People

I assigned my pets and Chosen this one... might as well jump in myself!

1. Hell froze over when you apologized. I'm so glad you did. The healing isn't perfect, but it's a damn sight better than it was. Thank you for owning your mistakes. I own mine too: I saw you as idealized, and I kept hoping you would find comfort and peace in us. We were too different. Namaste.
2. A part of me is missing tonight and every night until we are together in physical space again. I worry I am not strong enough to be ethical every time we part. I love you.
3. You have no idea how much I want you... but there's that lesbian sheep thing. I am trying to overcome my paralysis. I love you.
4. I keep thinking someday you're going to grow away from me and leave. I can't tell whether that's common sense or abandonment issues talking! I love you.
5. I love you and your rage scares me. Please get help.
6. You are so strong. Own your strength. I love you.
7. To multiple people: I miss howling together. I miss the Parkway under the full moon. I miss the time when the world was so simple that what happened online seemed to matter. I hope those memories make you happy as they do me. I love you all!
8. I don't even know if you're alive, but you imprinted me and shaped me. I don't know if I feel joy in what we experienced or pity for what followed. 26 years later, a full quarter of a century, and I can still see your eyes and smell your scent. I hope you are well. I fear you aren't.
9. I am utterly and completely shattered on a primal level by your loss. I hope you would be proud of me. I still cry thinking of you. I hope you are resting in peace. I fear that my grief prohibits that. The world is darker and less safe.
10. Please forgive yourself. You are not perfect. You are a good person who has sometimes made less than ideal choices. You are talented and creative no matter what your inner tape recordings tell you. You are worthy of being loved. Please let go of the energy of the memories that make you cry out aloud like a whiplash. Failing that, get yourself beaten so you can do penance and be done, OK? I love you, even when you can't accept it.

Helping My Chosen Succeed

I love giving my Chosen assignments and then doing little things to help them. Not the actual work, mind, but just some... like assigning one to start a blog on his favorite TV show and then DVRing episodes so that he can watch while he visits, perhaps seeing new episodes and building up a backlog for the fallow times.

It's a happy.

On Loss and Mourning a Pet

I know it's been two months. Let me explain the silence.

As you know if you've been reading, I lost one of my beloved Chosen to offline and non-D/s life needs a few months back. It happened shortly before NEEHU, while my life was insanely busy with family and cons and new job.

Then right after NEEHU I got my current non-D/s job, and I put hypnosis on hold to get back into having a 9-5 again. (And it is 9-5, two days of the week. The other two it's 9-9. It's just pm-am instead of am-pm.) And that was an easy call to make, because I didn't want to hypnotize anyone except my Chosen and a couple of other people.

I beat myself up a lot over this, but over time I've come to realize that I hadn't allowed myself to mourn the loss of one of my best friends. I didn't want to write. I didn't want to trance.

Then I got the package he sent with his hypno-stuff, and that was an emotional (although not malicious!) gut-punch. His under-pillow headset for listening to files. His files, all carefully labelled. And the saddest part of all was my Valentine's gift to him from a couple of years back: a cross-stitch that said "Be Mine."

It sounds so silly. We'd joked that we all knew it was a command, not a cheesy statement of cliched romance. But love was what it meant.

I hear so often that Dommes don't love their subs, they only use them. Nothing could be further from the truth. My Chosen are family. They are lovers. They are loved.

I had known him since 2000. Staring at the snow-white cloth with red flowers and letters, I felt the loss brutally keenly.

I still completely support him. I trust him to do what he needs to do. But admitting I missed him while shoving the feelings away didn't help.

This last week, while dealing with unrelated strong sadness (don't worry, everyone is fine), I came to realize why this fallow period has been so strong. I miss my Seran, my star. It hurts.

I just want him to be OK.