Busted!!!

In a house with nothing but women, we are a little lax on the rules of running around 1/2 dressed, so the following conversation, which occurred this morning, feels...inevitable.

"Mom? What are those purple marks?"
Um...
"Someone ran into me and I backed into something..."
My daughter is scary smart...but she's also 9, so occasionally I still have the blessing of being able to get away with something so clearly a lie.
"Did it hurt?"
"It did at the time, but not now..." Okay, that's true!
"Did you say bad words?"
"A few..." Another truth. My Friend actually gets amused when I cuss.
"Did you say Ow?"
"Yes I did..." Big time!!!
"I'll bet!" and she was gone.

However, as the pictures can attest, we are back in business!

Dating

Dates: a social appointment, engagement, or occasion arranged beforehand with another person

Well that's romantic!!! So I spent an hour setting up a very cute, fun profile on plentyoffish.com. Then I had, what can only be described as an aneurysm and I posted this stream of consciousness post on craigslist. (The craigslist ad did have the work spanking in it). This is how I met C. Super cute and just so funny. He's the first person I've ever dated who has been shorter than me (although if we are both barefoot, it's not that noticeable) and he is probably the loudest human being I've ever met in my life. His voice is very loud and gravelly and he tends to shout in a very animated way...well all the time. We seem to click and we're having a good time. He has spanked me, a little. Mostly playful swats, nothing serious. It's fun and free of any baggage. He is divorced, has no kids, just fun to spend time with and makes me laugh and calls me baby, which I like.
I have told my 12 Step Sponsor that the minute I got engaged (or something along those lines) that My Friend I want to date would come calling. Now I am MOST DEFINITELY NOT engaged, but once I started dating C., My Friend came. Turns out he found my blog, a long time ago. So not only is he vaguely aware of my preferences (which I knew), he's been reading about them in great detail, along with the occasional picture. He wants a cool blog name. I'm toying with Captain D. (D. for discipline but then Captain D. is like a fast food restaurant, so that won't work). Anyway, My Friend (sorry, that may be as creative as I can get) decided his mourning period was over (in as much as it ever will be) and that he was ready for a relationship and he wanted that...with me...

Shock? Awe? Uh...to say the least. But I said yes. There was no way I was ever going to say no. Not to him. I've maintained all along that it may blow up in my face, but no...there was never any possibility that I was going to turn him down. Also, in the interest of being honest (my new goal in life), I told him about C. And My Friend seemed fine with it. And so we are dating. I later told C. about My Friend. And he was cool with it too. So now, I am dating two men.

My relationships with Mr. Wonderful and Ninja ran concurrently, but there were vast differences between that pair and the current pair. Mr. Wonderful's schedule was limited, due to his marital status and Ninja lived 90 minutes away in the middle of the woods. I am currently dating two single men. So logistics may become a bit of a challenge, but it is very important to me, right now, to keep them both, to have them both near me, because they are both truly amazing. I'm not getting married, I'm not going to have any kids, I just really want to date both of them.
I'm going out to dinner, I'm walking around book stores holding someone's hand, I'm going hiking, I'm watching movies and going to trivia nights. I'm having fun and laughing and having sex and getting spanked. Again, I can't predict the future and God knows I can't control it. I'm enjoying the present.
I don't have the time or energy to get into the details of my relationship with My Friend tonight, but apparently, recent developments have refeuled my interest in my blog, so maybe there will be more about him to come.

Mr. Wonderful & Ninja both read the blog when they were the central characters in it, so maybe having My Friend read more about himself wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Time will tell, I guess...

April 30 - Mark your Calendars!!!

Hey there everyone! Just wanted to mention that April 30 is National Spank Out Day and while "technically" it is used by organizations all over the world to promote the elimination of spanking as a means to discipline a child...I'm sure we can all come up with better celebration techniques.

WoW!!! I mean...WOW!!!!!!

Now What?

#1: He lives a very long way away. We met on the internet, through Facebook, as all good couples do in the 21st Century. He is married, says its a very happy, fulfilling marriage, but somehow he still wanted email fantasies and phone sex. Nice guy, but this completely screwed up my already messed up perception of monogamy, commitment, etc.

#2: He lives in my state, maybe an hour away. He is married but free to pursue interests outside his marriage, according to him. He is a spanker and found me through my blog. We emailed and chatted and made plans to meet next week to discuss his spanking me. I already told him I would not have sex with him.

#3: An opportunity recently for sex. A very safe situation with very clearly drawn boundaries. An opportunity for physical release more than anything else. The entire experience was physically satisfying and nothing that was done ever crossed a line into unacceptable. But when it was over and I was alone, I got depressed and very upset.

I want to say I'm not sure what is going on with me, but I do. I'm being honest about who I am, and who I am is someone who wants a relationship. This came as quite a shock. Sex and spanking without strings and commitments were going to be the cornerstones of my new single life. And even if I still decided I wanted a relationship, then in the meantime, I would certainly not have any problems having sex with someone I trusted or finding someone to spank me. No worries. Just go with the flow until someone comes along.

This is who I want to be. It's not who I am. I thought I was, but I'm not. I want a relationship. Anything else that comes along is not going to work. Part of the problem is this:
I take up with ABC "just until I meet someone I want to pursue a relationship with" and its all well and good, until I convince myself that what I had with ABC is what I really wanted all along and I end up with a relationship that has absolutely nothing I want. Or, more likely, I'll look at the relationship with ABC and think to myself, "Oh I can turn this into exactly what I want...if I just work a little harder..."
Story of my marriage. Story of my life.

A few weeks ago, my friend I would like to date and I were driving to listen to music. It was my 40th birthday. I was asking him if Tiger Woods' wife and Sandra Bullock were really dealt the ultimate betrayal or were they really just women who got sucked into the lie that is monogamy?
He was discussing how he certainly wasn't emotionally ready for a relationship, but he had certain physical needs and then he went on to discuss some pros and cons of a "friends with benefits" situation (not addressing this TO me, more just speaking in generalizations, but it was all I could do to NOT offer myself as a "friend with benefits". I really care for him, I love him, I'm physically attracted to him and then, we went and listened to music and I had a drink (I NEVER drink so it went straight to my head) and he drove me home and it was even harder to not invite him into my empty house, on my 40th birthday. I didn't and I didn't because I don't want to be his friend with benefits. I want to be in a relationship with him. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but I don't want to start out settling for less than I want.

Also, in this situation more than any other, I really will start out with the best of intentions and very clear boundaries which will instantly get muddy. "I already make him laugh, we already share a lot of common interests, so if I can just fuck him well enough and look for the right things to do, I can turn this into a relationship. I can make this work..."

Now I'm not delusional and I'm not looking for Mr. Perfect and I'm not thinking that the first person I meet with be "the one" and all will be roses and whatever. I'm not that far gone. But I'm done going into a relationship that, from day 1, has no future. If they aren't available, I'm not available.

And having sex with someone "temporarily" is not something I want to do. That's hard because I am a sexual person. I want someone to spank my ass, fuck my brains out, let me fuck their brains out and then tell me they love me and kiss me before we go to sleep.

The websites I've found since I started looking for spanking websites, they have skewed my thinking from what it used to be, because so many of them (at least the ones I've looked at), involve people who are doing things that would freak out much of the general population it seems, but at the core are these loving, committed relationships. These people have found them, they have what I want.

And in the meantime, I'm okay alone. Truly. Yes, it would be nice to have someone to kiss and hold hands with and have sex with and get a spanking from, but I've always been okay alone and I'm still trying to decide what monogamy means, what commitment means, what relationships mean. I'm still trying to figure out some things about myself, so I guess its best to return to my celibacy and figure some things out.

And honestly, I'm just making this up as I go along. There are no hard and fast rules. Am I going to get into a situation that only involves spanking? Right now, no, but if my good friends Todd & Suzy are in town and wanted to visit and spank me, no worries. Would I say no to spanking at a spanking party, probably not. I can't predict the future, I can only do what feels right and all of this is scary and hard and really sucks, but it is all growth for me and really, I think that should always be the ultimate goal.

I don't know where this puts my future and this blog. I just realized that this blog is 1 year old. The first post is dated May 9 but it says I set it up in April, which is probably true. I know I haven't kept up with it since Mr. Wonderful & I parted ways, but I hope all my friends out there keep me in their thoughts as I keep all of you in mine and stay in touch. I may keep posting, just not sure how often. It feels like I've had this blog for years and years and it feels like I just started it yesterday. It has been really helpful in so many ways. I feel more confident in my ability to express what I want. Maybe all this personal growth needed time (and 2-3 dozen good spankings) to really make its mark.

But I can assure all my friends, that by no means, are my spanking days over. They have only just begun.