Adventures in Emmieland

When did I start dreaming in not only color but surround sound? Last night I had a crazy fun dream about dancing at church and weddings. Not the dancing one does at the reception or when getting the Holy Ghost but full on leaps and splits, tango and hustle the likes of which are usually only found in musicals. People I used to know made appearances as did current friends and a few unknowns. The sight of the dude I was engaged to in my teen years doing a routine that looked suspiciously like the one in the bar from MJ's Bad video had me laughing even while asleep. I love it when my dreams are happy. It didn't make a whit more sense than many of my other dreams but I woke up wiggling and smiling and that is a win.

I'm pretty sure my priest finds me just a wee bit odd. There are people in his class who haven't yet committed to being catholic in years and then there is me. Tonight I asked about the nature of angels, about whether Joseph is understood to have taken a vow of chastity and wanted clarification on whether or not Jesus was considered to have been an immaculate conception. Everytime I ask a question he looks at me like I'm speaking a language of which he has only a vague understanding.  He never gives the impression of being upset, simply confused. I've always been inquisitive so I forget that not everyone wants to know and understand the way I do, particularly at the 101 level class I'm in. So I'm either a pain in the ass or a good person to keep him on his toes. Probably both. :) When we ended class tonight and went into the sanctuary to pray as we always do, the lights were off. I wanted to giggle at how freaked out people were I mean seriously why is a dark ...

I've been looking at style tutorials since it's getting hot and it feels good to have my hair up. This is attempt number 3 or 4. Not a perfect bun yet but getting better.  I haven't yet ventured into using pins, that is scary territory. :)  

Preparing to get married in the Catholic Church we’ve run up against the idea that although we got married we’re not actually married.   I get that a fair amount of people think it’s pretty arrogant of the church to tell married people they aren’t really married and decide whether a previous marriage had the merit to stand or be nullified but I’m not one of them.   It occurs to me that using the one word for both a civil union and a religious/spiritual one is what is causing a lot of the controversy surrounding the idea. In my mind they are two distinct things, one is a legal somewhat impersonal entwining answerable to the government.   The other is a very personal bonding and binding experience answerable ultimately to God.   While it is convenient to have clergy invested with the gov’t power to conduct marriage ceremonies it creates a blurring of lines that I don’t believe ultimately serves either entity.   Nor does the usurping of language better lef...

In your relationship would you rather understand or be understood? Between the two I would have to say I would rather be understood. Learning and understanding things is important to me but not as important as the connection that comes with being understood or known as a person. With Das sometimes he says or does something that I am positive means the man has no understanding of me whatsoever so sooner or later I give him the information he needs to know me in whatever way I think is lacking.   On occasion it has made him change his mind about a course of action but most of the time he simply files it away and moves onward with the previously made decision. Separating being understood, and being agreed with took a long time for me to get.   Understanding my feelings, my ideas, my position on something didn’t mean he would automatically fall in with it himself.   Learning to accept that he could understand me quite well and not agree with me was hard; it’s sti...

During last night's class talk rolled around to kid movies and whether the current popular ones are setting up the villain as a likeable sympathetic character and one of the movies used as an example was Maleficent.  There was also the statement made that the movies in the 80s/90s were more innocent, examples used was The Lion King and Aladdin.  Now it just so happens that I've seen all three of these movies and frankly can't see the huge difference in them that was being put forth. I admit that I loved Maleficent. Maybe if I'd seen it as a child I would not have picked up on the subtle themes of unconditional love, redemption, revenge discrimination and basically a look at humanity. Maybe but I don't think so, for one kids aren't in general as clueless to allegory as we like to think. Just because something isn't spelled directly out doesn't mean they have no hope of getting it. The villain here was shown as a complex person and yes sympathetic withou...

We took muttly to the dog park again. He's liking it and it's pretty funny to watch him. He's so much smaller than a lot of dogs there since this city is filled with big assed dogs. Lucky for him he's strong and quick because I thought he would surely get clobbered a few times otherwise.      

"obedience is easy, wanting to obey someone is a whole nother ball game"  I saw this statement and started thinking whether or not that applied to me. I have to say I don't believe so. For me obedience is easy, i like being obedient the hard thing actually is not obeying the wrong people. I have a history of being quite obedient, sometimes to my detriment. I want to veer from someone else's game plan and yet I've found myself in the past going along seemingly unable to exit.  Now I realize that I am actually able to not do as I'm told but it took a while to learn that. I swear the urge to obey was practically Pavlovian, get someone who feels dominant to me and I fall into line. It's one reason I love having a master, no longer am I fully responsible for me. I found someone else who frankly takes better care of me than I do of myself.  I'm pretty sure that is not a popular pov to express even if it is a more common one than people like to admit.  It...

We are the proud owner's of an suv. Now we had said that a car really wasn't a necessity before winter but we bought one since it was a good deal and Das really hates taking buses.  I just laughed when he mentioned going to see it this afternoon but I like it. It's a 2000 I think, in good condition and best of all we paid cash. Yay for no car payments. I really am trying my darndest to keep our expenses down which since we just moved isn't the easiest thing but we're coming along.  In the world of evil puppies I bought a different style halter for him and was able to easily walk him today with a minimum of pulling. I swear I was despairing ever being able to take him out on a walk without dislocating my shoulder.  The pet store down the street is addictive, I keep seeing more things (toys) that he must have. So far I have shown considerable restraint and only bought a cloth chew/tug toy. Since he is still teething and has an affinity for our socks it's workin...

Yesterday I had a Beyonce video marathon. The music was enjoyable but what captured my attention was watching her dance. I take part in various classes on getting and keeping touch with your femininty and I even just finished a short class about pleasure. Connecting to your body is a big thing. So while I was watching the videos I was riveted by how in video after video Beyonce touched herself. In some she was sex on a stick while in others her touching was so worshipful it should have been accompanied by a choir. It trips me out that we don't see more of that. Hell that we don't do it. I could see that her entire body was a source of pleasure and not just someone else's pleasure either. I had the overwhelming feeling that her own pleasure was what she was after. Sexual sensual sublime pleasure. When I dance alone in the house I am highly likely to caress myself and move without shyness. Now add an audience and it is stifled.I start worrying about what I look like to t...

Last night we stayed after class to chat with one of the priests. In the course of telling him about my life and finding out answers to questions of what will be required of me as a new catholic I mentioned the fact that my baby was adopted by his stepmother after I sent him to live with his dad. His reply was that I obviously loved my son very much to do that.  Frankly that nearly made me speechless. I've heard a lot of questions about why I made that decision and of course there were those who flat out said that they would never do that under any circumstances. It was pretty cool that the priest, someone who doesn't have children, got it right off that parenting sometimes means sacrificing your desires for the good of the child.  He didn't ask me to explain or make comments that led me to feel I had to defend my decision. His easy acceptance and assumption of love really helped to put to rest the recent angst I've been having about it. It's nice to have his voice ...

After a couple of days of running around the mall and spending too much money I now have enough basics for warm weather, even some stuff I can wear to church. My parents have been surprisingly good with my conversion to catholicism especially since I remember growing up it was always preached that catholics aren't christian. Of course they could just be happy that I'm attending any church and I now own a few dresses longer than mid thigh. I like our neighborhood, it's on the cusp of a trendy neighborhood and a rough one. That means I can find pretty much everything within about 5 miles from home. I can now see how some people in large cities never leave their area of the city. So much right there. Dog training is tiresome work. I have almost gotten senor puppy to sit on command and to walk on a loose leash if no other dogs are around.  I don't think I appreciated the idea that he will take up to three years to mature but now that I have a 60+ lb puppy on my hands,...

Last night we took the puppy out to the dog park. The dog park is about 5 and a half miles (9.1km) from the house the short way and we took a slightly longer route at first. We get there and pup falls right in with a pack that includes a large german shepherd and a huge golden retriever. The romped ran wrestled nipped for about 20 minutes before the other dog owners had to take their dogs home because our dog had worn them out, lol. So about halfway home we stop and let the pup play with a dog that looked like a black cotton ball only he came up to the top of my thigh, they played for another 15 minutes and we finally dragged him away from his new friend and finished the long walk home. We get him in the apartment and realize that he is still not tired. We on the other hand are quite exhausted. At this point I'm thinking my dog is made of batteries and that I should have named him tigger.

It's funny that play is most often associated with floggers, canes, fire... the use of implements. Things that put a separation between the players. What I have found are the most intense aspect of playing is talking & touching, even on the occasions we utilize toys it's the things he says and the fact that he never stops touching me, there is always some skin to skin contact and that takes things up several notches. Most of the time we don't even have anything but our bodies since sex with talking is our most common form of playing. It's amazing how much can be conveyed with whispers and bodily manipulation. I've discovered that pleasure can be just as effective as pain in reinforcing our dynamic. People have asked me if we play and I've always had trouble answering because every time we have sex it's an intense session but I know that's not what people generally mean so I usually just smile.

Yet again I saw something that was supossed to be encouraging but in reality only reinforces the splitting of the self. Someone in a group I am in that is geared toward femininty posted a picture with the caption "why be eye candy when yiu can be soul food"  my immediate thought was why can't we be both? I don't see who it serves to deny that we can be profound and simultaneously beautiful. Why are we  pushed to deny an enjoyment of being seen as beautiful? I think to be taken seriously in our lives as whole complex and messing human we cannot sacrifice parts of ourselves even on the alter of consciousness.