I haven’t had time to write until now. Nathan turned 15 on the 8th and had a good low key birthday, just as he requested. He starts his new school Thursday and seems a little nervous but ready to start a new chapter in his life. I have a good feeling about this one.

Polly is doing really well in school and has made a lot of friends. She is going to the valentine’s dance on Friday. She asked me if it was ok if she had a “date” for the dance because a boy in her class had asked her. I asked her if she liked him and she said “No. But at least someone asked me.” Ha! I am so not ready for her to grow up just yet.

I have been house hunting with my Mom. We found an absolutely beautiful one today with a full front porch, formal living room, formal dining room, kitchen with a breakfast nook and three bedrooms. It also had another finished room that would have made a perfect art studio and a full basement with an attached garage. Today was the first day it was on the market and we felt so clever getting in there early. My mom’s Realtor is fun and the type of person you can just be yourself with. The basement had a few light bulbs out so we were trying to walk around and check out the foundation and look for any signs of moisture.

We came across a finished room with no light bulbs in it. I tried opening my cellphone to give us enough light to see it but it didn’t work. I ended up fishing out my lighter. The realtor and I went in and noticed a whip on the floor. I pointed and she smiled. The whole room, ceilings and all, were covered in thick carpet. Someone had taken a pen and written all over the door in a fine cursive, “Please help me. Please save me. Please let me out.” Realizing rather quickly what this room had been used for I looked around and saw that my Mom hadn’t followed us. She was busy checking out the furnace and the hot water heater. She asked me what the room was like and I told her it would be a perfect place to put naughty grandchildren. I like to think that my Mom knows nothing about sex, especially kinky varieties. I don’t even want to think what else the room might have been used for. I just know that chills ran up and down my spine when I was in there.

After we left the house we went a couple of blocks to a Starbucks and drew up an offer. Our Realtor called the seller’s agent and he said that they already had two offers on the table, both for over full price, and that if my Mom put in an offer it would just be thrown out. Fucker. I hope that both of the offers fall through. I can’t imagine turning down an offer.

That’s about it for now. I’m off to do a bit of housework.

The Christmas cookie idea worked. Both kids came out of their rooms to help me cut them out and then they both had fun decorating them. Score 1 for me.

Christmas morning Nathan tried to pout around and pretend that he didn’t care about what was under the tree for him or the contents of his stocking. Finally his Dad went and picked him up, threw him over his shoulder, and told him to open his gifts while he (Alex) was still awake to see it. Working the graveyard shift takes a heavy toll. It is hard to flip flop back and forth on your days off. I remember this well from my years as a baker. Nathan ended up laughing and opening gifts.

After breakfast and a couple of hours of present induced giddiness both Nathan and Polly went down for naps. Giddy from the excitement of this unexpected alone time, Alex and I ate sandwiches which he kindly fixed, watched A Christmas Story on TV (I had never seen it) and Alex surprised me with a hidden gift, a Magic Wand. I love trying out new sex toys and haven’t had a new one that I really liked since The Eroscillator. The Magic Wand didn’t disappoint and I was able to achieve mind and body numbing orgasms quickly. It is nice to have a husband who isn’t threatened to bring sex toys into the bedroom.
I have another doctor’s appointment tomorrow with a woman I like quite a bit. I hope that things go smoothly and she doesn’t try to change me from the current cocktail of drugs that seem to be working well for me.

I find myself looking forward to the New Year, college, my spring garden, and whatever lies before me on the path of motherhood. It has certainly been the hardest thing I’ve ever attempted, but the joy is immeasurable.

Yesterday morning I was feeling under the weather, and it being a Saturday, I decided to stay in bed instead of getting up. Alex came home from work, ate and did whatever on the computer, and then joined me in our bed. One of the hardest things for me is with him working graveyard shift, I miss the nighttime snuggles. As he cuddled in beside me I at first whimpered because he was throwing off my intricate blanket system that I need to keep me warm. Our bedroom is upstairs and whoever converted the attic didn’t put in any heat vents. It gets a touch cold in the winter time.

After he had settled down I said, “Hey, we could spoon!”
“Oh we could, could we?” came his reply.

I eagerly backed toward him and wiggled up against him. After a few seconds I noted that something was missing from our spoon, and that it was indeed, half a spoon. He told me that he had just coated his hands with oil because they were getting dry and cracked. I mentioned those cotton gloves you can wear to bed after you had coated your hands with something. My hands used to crack and bleed when I was working as a baker because of the constant hand washing and the exposure to so many temperatures.

I enjoyed the moment beside him, remembering when we first lived together we used to spoon all the time in the mornings. We both usually selected jobs that were either on the swing or the graveyard shifts, and so in the pre-kid days hours in the mornings were often spent spooning and cuddling and making love.

Then came Nathan and three years later Polly. Our mornings were soon filled with feedings and diapers and kids who got into our bed in the middle of the night. Mornings often brought crying and fighting over cartoons, cereal spilled all over the floor from attempts made in vain to pour one’s own, soon met with milk splashed on top of it.

I can certainly only speak for myself but I’d say it’s not that the love and passion have subsided since those mornings filled with hours of love years ago. The time was filled with love of a different kind, and we became older and more tired as the responsibilities added up. As Alex’s breath turned to a light snore, I wrapped my legs around him and reveled in the warmth and beauty of the moment.

Some of those tricky bastard spammers leave me such nice comments that I want to keep them, until I see they’re trying to promote porn sites or cheap Viagra or something. But I almost feel happy when I read,”So interesting site, thanks! Beauty is only word that comes to mind after viewing this website. Very nice work!”

Then I see they’re advertising buying diet pills online and my heart sinks, just a little.

I just got home from a full day of working at my Mom’s. At first it was hard for her to throw her junk (and it is junk, ask anyone) into the dumpster, but as the day went on she was more able to say, yeah, toss it.

My 19 year old niece Audrey (my brother’s daughter) came over to help today. Despite the fact that she can drive and I don’t know how and it makes me feel like a bit of an idiot I was so happy to see her. My sister Monica stopped by after work and helped pack some boxes and I was relieved to have some help. We had to set my Mom up on a chair and bring things to her to sort through. My Mom was kind of mean and grumpy all day. I started thinking around 8 pm, Shit, why is she being such a bitch when she has all these people here helping her? Then I realized that she was stressed and in pain and embarrassed by the sheer magnitude of her stuff. She truly has more stuff then I’ve ever seen one person have. She has about 50 times more stuff than my family of four. I only snapped at her once when she refused to throw away an old pair of moldy glass shower doors. She said that she had a plan for them, and I told her they were garbage, but not in such nice words. I apologized later. This has been tough on us all.

Polly and Nathan worked their little butts off and I am very proud of them both. Tomorrow, more of the same. Audrey said she was willing to have my kids come over to spend the night anytime. I might just take her up on that. Alex and I could spend some alone time together without being constantly interrupted and maybe even have the chance to make love without the fear of someone walking through the door. (Note to self, get lock for door). Oh who am I kidding? We are both way too tired for that. We’d end up watching TV and passing out.

“Being a housewife is just glorified prostitution,” my mother said, turning her head as she drove to make sure the back seat heard her too. While my two sisters and I were held captive in the car my mother gave us what little sex education we got. “Men want sex all of the time, and as a wife, it will be your responsibility to give it to him”, she declared with her mouth set in a straight line. The thought of my parents having sex was repulsive to me, but the vision of boys wanting sex more than I did was exciting. I was only five at the time, but I thought about sex more than anything else, even my dolls. I hadn’t quite figured out how it was done, I got the penis in the vagina bit, but I knew nothing about the in and out movement that accompanied the whole act.

As the youngest child of four, my brother preceding me in birth by six years, my eldest sister by four years and the next sister three years ahead of me, I was always seated in-between my parents in church. Mass lasted about ninety minutes and I found the whole ordeal dreadfully boring. Sitting, standing, kneeling, over and over again. When I complained to my mom about it, she explained that the catholic mass was set up to emulate the walk Jesus had on his way to be crucified, when he fell, we sat, when he stumbled, we kneeled, when he walked we stood. “I wish he would have fallen down more”, was my reply. I was slapped for that comment and I do remember the disapproving look that I received. I was tired in church. Years later I remember hearing the stories from my siblings of how when I was little I would sleep my way through a lot of it, snoring and farting during the homily. I don’t remember any of that, although a snore and a fart just about summed up my feelings on the whole matter. I do remember waking up with a kink in my neck, an imprint of my dress sleeve on the side of my face, and a line of drool running down to my neck. I was getting off easy, but I didn’t know it at the time. My siblings were never allowed to sleep in church. Later I would be expected to sing and keep up with the flow of things by reciting the same prayers and responses from memory as the rest of the congregation did.

It wasn’t long before I learned that the silent times to bow our heads in prayer were the perfect time to think about sex. I would close my eyes imagining people doing it, animals doing it, and if I was feeling brave enough, me doing it. I would become extremely excited from these thoughts as I sat on the hard pew and tried not to wiggle around. When we were finally home, after the coffee and donuts that came after church had been consumed and the idle chit chat of the average Sunday had come to a close, I would go home and wait for bedtime to come so I could rub myself between my legs. I hadn’t then mastered the ability to bring myself to orgasm, but I knew that there was something to what I was doing, so I continued on with it until I was red and raw and breathless.

Some people go through their whole lives looking for that special best friend. I was fortunate enough to have been born with her 3 years ahead of me. From my earliest memories I can still hear the story as my sister Maria told it to me. Growing up in my house was rough. I know this from experience. With an alcoholic father and a mother who was forced to spend all of her time trying to keep him calm and happy, there was little time for childhood. I am my mother’s fourth and last child. One son was born, then two girls, so when she became pregnant with me they wanted another boy. My sister was excited about this new baby coming. She got down on her knees and prayed to God, “Please, send me an angel.” My mom was working the graveyard shift while pregnant with me. Her job was to pop sliding glass doors in to frames, one every three seconds. My dad was unemployed at this time, turning down job after job because they weren’t good enough for him, with his college education and all. So he stayed home and looked over the three kids. All stories that I’ve heard seem to suggest that this consisted of locking them outside to fend for themselves, eating dog food and wild berries while my mother slept, oblivious to it all, with a belly full of me. When I was born, my dad brought his three oldest children to the hospital to see their new sister that was supposed to be a brother. Maria tells the story of looking through that glass, seeing me for the first time, with my golden hair and blue eyes, and knowing that god had answered her prayer. Her angel had arrived. My mother went back to work and my sisters cared for me. They tell the tale of learning how to put a diaper on, one little girl four, the other three. My mom recounts riding home on her bicycle as fast as she could during her lunch breaks, her breasts full and leaking of milk. My brother tells me of the crying that wouldn’t stop sometimes, until my dad, screaming in anger at my hunger, would fill a bottle with beer or whiskey and hand it to me. My brother still recalls the horrifying thud of my head hitting the floor after falling from my high chair,drunk.

We moved from that house to Australia, then after 11 months to Washington State. This is where my memories begin. In the deep forest behind the house we ran and played with our St. Bernard, Bruno. We buried the few toys that we had deep in the ground because the next door neighbors would steal them, busting the heads off our dolls and the wheels off of our cars. Maria would mix together butter and sugar for me as we would sit and play afternoon tea with water. When the beatings came she would often take mine as well as hers. Anything to protect her angel.

Always moving, when I was three we ended up in Portland. I remember the first time I entered our new house, eating McDonalds on the living room floor and marveling at the blood red shag carpeting. Maria was off to school then, and I would play in the backyard of the house alone, carefully making mud pies for her that I decorated with flower petals. When she came home from school I would run for her, and she would eat my pies, declaring them the best that she had ever had. I would sit in her lap and she would read my favorite book “Puss in Boots” to me again and again. At night my mom would stick the four of us in the shower together, or bathe us one after another, using the same bath water. Everything always went according to age, so I got the last bath. By this time it would be brown and sometimes I would cry to my mom, “It’s pee mommy, they all peed in the water.” She would say, “it’s only dirt.” I never believed her. I longed for clear water with bubbles and dresses that were mine, not handed down from two sisters with the rips poorly sewn and the stains a glaring reminder of our poverty.

It was at four that I discovered sex. Saturday mornings my mom and dad would lock us outside bright and early. The four of us would play in the tree house, which had a cup and string telephone that went to the garden shed .I remember shouting back and both to each other, then declaring our phones a hit. In my mind it was always raining on these Saturday mornings, and knowing Portland the way that I do now, it probably was. When the rain got particularly heavy, we would all pile in to the shed for cover. I hated being in that shed. It was right next to my parent’s bedroom window, and I could hear the disgusting sounds that they made. I was confused as to how my mom could be beaten bloody one day, and then be in bed with that man with the evil hands the next. It gave me a fucked up view of love, let me tell you. My mother preached at her girls, “Being a housewife is just glorified prostitution.” And her favorite, “Girls, stay away from all men. They each carry a loaded weapon.” That one scared me, I thought every man had a gun, and it was awhile before I understood.

My hair was long now, down my back. Maria would brush it carefully and put it in rollers at night. I remember the soft words that she would whisper to me as she brushed my hair, making me feel beautiful and special. She taught me how to brush my teeth, wear my clothes with the tags in the back, ride a bike, and tie my shoes and jump rope. She showed me the meaning of love, every day. We are now as close as ever, if not closer. We have one of those bonds that transcends time and space. When we are apart we are still together, because she is always with me. I don’t even have to talk and she knows. Sometimes she calls me and we talk for hours and I’ll hear her husband yelling in the background, “What the hell do you have to say that can’t be said in 5 minutes?” We laugh at him, because he will never understand. When we do see one another we pick up right where we left off. She still calls me “her little angel” or “Boo Boo Bear” a nickname she found for me as children watching the Yogi Bear cartoons. “You’re better than the average bear, Boo Boo,” she would say to me in her best Yogi voice. I could tell her now, how my mom gave me life, but she kept me alive. I can’t count the times she stopped me from suicide when I was really at the end. Sometimes when I feel like shit, I remember, “Maria loves me.” Then I can breathe again. I have an angel too.

http://www.superdickery.com/seduction/1.html

I was glad to see this site, because all these years I have been thinking it was just me reading something into it with my admittedly dirty mind.

It was 1989.I had left my job at the Italian restaurant for a job at a health food store run by Seventh Day Adventists. “A geriatric insane asylum” one of the customers used to call it, motioning with his head at the workers. I couldn’t disagree with him, so I didn’t. I was hired for the register. I stood all day, banging those keys and trying to smile at the customers and greet them according to store policy. I was a phony and they knew it. I was good though. The second fastest checker and I hadn’t been there long. I remember one particularly busy evening, looking for a second at the long line at my register. It spilled down the aisle. The other cashiers had much shorter lines and as I hit the keys, I contemplated that. Then I overheard two women in my line talking about me. “Why are we in this line?” one asked the other. “Because she’s so gentle with my fruit.” the woman answered. Well it made sense to me. I had always hated going to the store, carefully picking my apples and other produce items and then having some one slam them down on the scale, bruising them all anyway. So gentle with the fruit was I.

The best part of the job, other than lunch, breaks, and quitting time, was when they would release me from the register and let me stock the shelves. In to the back I would go, loading up my cart with boxes. To the front then to price them and place them on the shelves in neat little rows. It was an easy job that left my mind free to wander wherever I wanted it to go. One such day I was stocking the shelves and longing for my Grandfather. He was sick, dying of cancer and heart disease. I was stuck in Portland while his days were numbered in N.S.W. I knew that I’d never get back to see him alive, not working away my days for $6.00 an hour and eating the produce that they threw out, declaring it inedible for human consumption.

So I’m placing the cans on the shelf, cursing geography, when I see a man walking towards me. Not walking really, it’s more of a shuffle. He is thin and his face is heavily lined. His coat cracks me up. It is puffy and looks quilted. On it is a map of the world. It reminds me of my shower curtain at home. I watch him with his little red basket as I work. When he gets to the cereal he tries in vain to reach a box of this sugar free crap that is supposed to taste like Cap ‘N’ Crunch but actually tastes more like the cardboard that it is packaged in. He can’t get it. I walk over and take a box down for him. We begin to talk. He tells me that he is taking a break from work to get some shopping done. I am instantly curious; I mean he appears to be up in his ‘80’s. Where does he work? So I ask him. He runs his own business. “Really,” I reply. “What sort of business?” “Well, um, I, um, oh, you probably wouldn’t be interested”, he stammers. Interested I am. I mean, what this little old man could do that is making him blush. The possibilities! So his story was told as I stocked those shelves. He is 88. Single, with no kids. His name is Glenn. He owns and operates an “Adult Store” if I know what he means. I do. This is where he starts to really open up to me. He tells me where his store is, how it used to be mainly a male customer base he was attracting, although now the females are frequenting the store as well. “The ladies love to stop by late and pick up a video and a vibrator on their way home to their husbands.” I wonder to myself how many of them are going home to men, but it really doesn’t matter. I am called to check and to the front I go, leaving the old man that doesn’t remind me of my Grandfather any more behind. He pays in my line, reminds me of his store’s location once again, and leaves.

I don’t think of Glenn again that night. It is busy and the hours are spent at that damn register, banging those keys, smiling at the strangers and trying not to bruise any fruit. Right before closing I hear my name called over the intercom. I’ve got a phone call, line two. Not unusual, my boyfriend often calls me late to say hello, he misses me, when will I be home? I answer in an overly exaggerated sexy voice, “Hello Baby.”

“Hi, this is Glenn”, I hear. Oh Shit, I think. He continues, “I have a couple of plane tickets to Hawaii here. We can stop by my store, pick up some videos and sex toys and take off tonight.” I stand there in my 17-year-old body, speechless. Uncertain of what to say, I tell him thanks but no thanks, I have a boyfriend. He doesn’t care. We’re going to Hawaii anyway. We argue this point back and forth for awhile until I say goodbye and place the phone back in its cradle. I tell the manager not to take any more phone calls for me.

When I hit the time clock, I am scared. I think this man might be waiting in the parking lot. He is not. I walk home alone. Sitting here today in my 33 year old body, I wonder about Glenn. What ever became of him? The only thing that I’m certain of is this story would have been a whole lot different had I jumped on to that airplane that night, and flown through the sky, on my way to make love with an 88 year old man that couldn’t raise his arm up to get a box of cereal off of the shelf, and shuffled his feet when he walked.

Years ago, long before I was emotionally ready to be having sex, I thought that I was pregnant. Being very young and even more afraid I called Planned Parenthood.
The woman on the phone told me to bring in my first morning urine sample the next day.

I searched our house to no avail for a receptacle to hold the urine. Not able to find one, and certainly not able to say, “Hey Mom, what’s the best container to use to bring pee on the bus for a pregnancy test ?” I finally spotted a jar of pickles in the fridge. It seemed perfect except it wasn’t empty, or even close to being empty.
I spent the rest of the day munching on pickles, waste not want not, and then rinsed the pickle jar out and hid it under my bed.

The next morning I awoke, grabbed the pickle jar, wrapped it in a bathrobe and ran for the bathroom. Now if any of you haven’t tried to pee into a pickle jar, bare with me. It’s not easy. Except of course for you men reading. You could put my pickle jar peeing to shame I am sure. When I finally got the jar positioned between my legs (I did this while sitting on the toilet) and let go I felt a tremendous amount of relief. I peed and I peed some more. I peed like that scene in Austin Powers where he takes his first piss after he has been frozen for 30 years. It never ended, and I finally became afraid that this first urine of the morning that I needed to deliver to Planned Parenthood would spill over.

Finally I was finished. I screwed on the lid and tried to think of what sort of bag to carry this jar in.

Those plastic bags from the grocery store have handy handles, yet they are see through and notoriously thin. With visions of pee filled jars hitting the sidewalk, or worse, dropping and breaking on the public bus I decided on a paper bag.

I carefully wrapped the jar in paper towels and placed it in the bag.

For moral support, my sister came with me. We told my Mom we were going shopping. I hugged her goodbye, blinking back tears. As we were walking to the bus stop my sister asked me if I had brought my sample and I replied that yes, it was in a pickle jar in the bag I held in my hand. I can’t be sure, but I think she looked at me strange.

Our bus finally arrived and we boarded her first, then me. As I got on and paid my fare the bus driver looked at me, grinned, and said, “Hi Squirt!”

I made the mistake of looking at my sister who was already shaking with laughter.

I quickly sat down, bag in lap, contents still warm.

“He called you SQUIRT! And you’re carrying a bag of….”

“I know.”

All of the sudden this fear came over me a feeling that everyone on the bus knew where I was going and why.

At the Planned Parenthood office I waited for my name to be called and then was promptly brought back to a room.

“Did you bring your first morning urine sample?” the lady in the white coat asked.

“Oh yes.” I pulled the jar out, unwrapped the paper towels from it and showed it to her. That’s when I saw it. Something on her face that resembled a smile combined with a look of confusion.

I stammered, trying to explain that I had done as I was asked to do.

“Oh, we only needed a small sample”, she said, no longer smiling.

As she left the room I began to fear that I hadn’t rinsed the jar out well enough. After all, can you ever get that vinegary smell out? Would that change the results of the test?

I lay on the bed, gazing at the posters of puppies and kittens they put on the ceiling, wondering who selected the posters. I wondered if it would be hard to clean your ears with those really long swabs they have in a jar.

I thought about a lot of things, trying not to think about the reason I was there.

I remembered whispers, “Don’t worry, I’ll pull out.” “I can’t wear these condoms you bought, they’re too small.” “You can’t get pregnant when you have your period.”

The soundtrack of naiveté.

I have found a new doctor who is just wonderful. I long ago got into the habit of seeing women for my healthcare. This might have had something to do with the male psychologist I saw at the age of 14. He spoke in a strange manner, his voice increasing in volume as he got the words out, and he ended each sentence not with a period or a question mark but rather a spray of spit. He also liked to ask of every single person I mentioned, even family members, “And have you had sexual intercourse with him?”

It got to the point where I would start talking about someone and I would preface their introduction into our session with, “and no, I haven’t slept with her.’

Anyway, this new doctor is great. I thought he was going to bat an eye when I listed all of the different antidepressants I’ve been on over the years but instead he asked me which ones I like best. He decided that in addition to the Prozac he is starting me on he wants me to start taking klonopin everyday, twice a day, whether I have a panic attack or not. I actually feel a bit optimistic about this treatment. I can’t say that I am feeling better already because of the pills. I think I am feeling something I haven’t experienced in a long time. Hope.