Archive for May, 2008
Revisiting Buddha
Hypomania?
Feeling sorry for myself – depressed – is fucking arbitrary but then so is feeling fucking happy. One is celebrated and held up as an example of every thing being right and good with the world, one is “self-indulgent” and something I should work to change. Something I end up feeling guilty about. It’s all fucking bullshit.
All I want is some fucking space. Some time to think. Some no voices. Some no meaningless work. Some no wallpaper-pasted smile. I am just trying too hard. Trying to mould things that should flow. Need to let go. Need the wu wei wu, dude. Need to yield.
Tuesday tick-list of happy
Last night (in this order) I:
•Finally put the wedding itch into words that made sense – think all the ants have gone now, everything feels good
•Had crazy monkey sex – think I have jogger’s nipple
•Finished the wedding ceremony – think we’ve nailed it, and only draft five
•Had yummy scrummy food for dinner – think of it! Jonty liked carbonara all along
•Watched some great crap telly – think Gil Grissom has a submissive side?
All these things made me happy.
All aboard the hell-bus
I went to church yesterday. I’m surprised I didn’t burst into flames when I walked through the door, but there you go.
I like going to church. There’s something comforting about it, I think because it reminds me of my childhood. It also makes me feel intellectually superior, sitting in my atheist tower watching the superstitious rituals of the noble savages.
Apparently being atheist could mean I actually am smarter, rather than just feeling smarter: clicky yon. I learned this from Dawkins in the God Delusion, but he rather naughtily doesn’t mention that this study (I think there is a Danish one too) was self-published and non-peer-reviewed, so make of it what you will.
The service yesterday was long – nearly two hours – because Jonty’s family are evangelist-flavoured so there’s a lot of singing. I got a bit bored, although one of the kids in the band looked something between Daniel Radcliffe and Elijah Wood, so I entertained myself for the last half hour contemplating the ways one might initiate a young and pious boy into a life beyond the lord.
Blasphemy makes me horny as hell.
My first sexual fantasy
There has been far too much wedding navel gazing lately. I was tempted to write some more, re. a sudden spate of friend kissing that I think might be marriage-related, but really, I’m bored of myself now, so everyone else must be even more fed up.
Instead here’s something silly:
I started fantasising when I was about 14 (the same time my periods became regular – hormonal association?), and can remember my first fantasy very clearly.
In it I was naked and tied spread-eagled to a big, cold, stone block. A faceless guy in a long black coat, leather gloves and a surgeon’s mask loomed over me in a menacing fashion…
And that’s it.
That was enough to make my 14-year-old self come. I had a vague idea that the man was about to do painful things to me, but at that stage I didn’t have the imagination to furnish any details, but I simply didn’t need them – the expectation was enough.
I’ve always been comfortable with my fantasies being kinky or gay (or kinky and gay), but there is one aspect of that first little vignette I’m quite embarrassed to recall – the reference material.
The big stone block was inspired by The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – the part when Aslan is sacrificed by the White Witch. And the black-coated faceless man was inspired by *cough, mumble* Herr Flick from ‘Allo ‘Allo!
More on soap bubbles
From Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass:
More on marriage
So, already feeling committed is one challenge (in the sense that I feel the wedding undermines my previous feelings).
Other thoughts, in no particular order:
• As I’ve said before, I feel like getting married might jinx us. Stupid and superstitious, I know, but why fuck with a good thing?
• I’m reading The Sexual Life of Catherine M, and it’s making me nostalgic about the days when sex was an ice-breaker. Once I’m married, am I going to be old, spent, done? Un-fuckable by any one but my husband?
• Maybe everyone feels like this in the run-up to a wedding. Maybe it’s like having a baby, and it never really feels like the right time until you finally do it. Perhaps I am seriously over-analysing normal nervousness.
Le sigh…
Wedding ownership – ur doin it rong
Had a bit of a chat with the Boy yesterday about the fact that I haven’t really (cue more touchy feely language) taken ownership of our marriage.
I’m fine with the wedding bit in terms of planning, organising, throwing a fuck-off amazing party, but nothing’s quite clicking in terms of the “holy shit, I’m going to be married” stuff.
Jonty said he would’ve preferred it if I’d proposed to him, but he knew that I never would. Which sort of sums up that I’m finding it hard for all this to really, truly feel necessary.
I feel as if I’m being held up against a benchmark that has no meaning for me. Sure, I value communication, commitment and longevity in my relationship (and other people’s), but I look for evidence of those in the structure and substance of people’s connections. It’s not something I really feel is confirmed by the events of a single day, or a new bit of jewellery.
My thoughts are quite muddled about it all (hence the trying-to-figure-things-out post). Part of me is scared that I’m going ahead with it simply because it is the path of least resistance.
I’ve certainly been thinking about it as something I’m doing to keep my parents and in-laws happy, something that Jonty really wants, something that doesn’t really matter because it won’t change anything.
But… I fantasised about Jonty proposing to me before we actually got engaged, and I cried (with happy emotion) when I was writing my vows.
But… I see getting married as challenging our relationship rather than confirming it.
A challenge in one sense because I made my commitment to Jonty years ago. I can remember exactly where I was: in bed in our old flat, with the sunlight coming through the crappy curtains.
Without thinking, I said for the first time, “I want to love you forever,” and it really surprised me, like a soap bubble bursting in my face.
Soap bubbles kinda feel like enough for me. What’s that say…?
Not in my name
How quaint, unnecessary and unpleasant. Especially this bit:
The man spearheading the case, publisher Dimitris Lambrou, claims that international dominance of the word in its sexual context violates the human rights of the islanders, and disgraces them around the world.
I can see that the locals might get fed up of leery English tourists cracking jokes, but is a gagging order really going to stop that? All they would do if they won would be to invite the same sunburned tourists to taunt them further (playground psychology 101).
Or are the 350,000 extant Lesbosians worried the the rest of the world assumes they are *gasp* gay? What would their parents say!!? Oh wait, their parents are from Lesbos, right…
Fortunately this is all very silly, and unlikely to have much effect on the precariously Foucouldian world of lesbian labels. For a start, they’re unlikely to win, even if they did they would struggle to enforce any changes. Plus the Beeb doesn’t mention how many people are supporting Mr Lambrou in his cause – might be a one man crusade.
Final thought; what other Greek island has been so quick to look the gift horse of an ancient goddess in the mouth? Think of the tourist board marketing opportunities…
Cheese sammiches and sex 