What sexual direction does one go in?

Before my libido flew out my window like a migrating swan (oh come back! Come back!) this thought is what crossed my mind (both genders for blogging purposes):

I can choose to eat different men/women for breakfast
I can choose to eat the same man/woman for breakfast

Which would you choose?

Sexual healing for women

A conversation with a friend the other day who hasn't had a boyfriend for years and years and years and he didn't treat her very well anyway so confidence about getting a boyfriend is at all time low.
"Do you masterbate?" I asked her, quite uncomfortably actually. It wasn't long ago I could ask that question about myself.
Anyway, I suggested to look around a website I found
This is an article I ended up on that I believe could be beneficial to many women:

http://www.the-clitoris.com/n_html/how_to_have_female_orgasms.htm

I've not done the exercises yet, can't imagine doing them as I write this (ie, I've not got my hand down my pants) but it can be isolating being unhappily single, so get to know yourself and start to feel empowered by who you are.

For many women, the answer lies simply in giving yourself permission to be a sexual being, and by taking possession of your sexuality. You need to define your sexuality rather than allowing others to do it for you. For most, it is not a question of creating your sexuality but accepting it in its current form. The problem may not be your body and sexuality, but rather what you have been attempting to do with or to them. Learning to accept and celebrate your sexuality may be as simple as reading through this website to gain a greater understanding of your body and sexuality. (The-Clitoris.com)

OK?

An observation

My nine year old son came back giggling from Kung Fu the other day telling me what he and his friends had been up to in the changing rooms.
Seems one was thrusting his hips out saying "Lick me lick me suck me suck me!"
My son responded similarly: "Bow to me bow to me!" and I couldn't help laughing at his contagious giggle.

"Do you think the girls were doing the same in their changing rooms?" I asked him. "Bow to me, bow to me!"

"Uurgh!" he says. "Who'd want to snog hair?"

It's not the first time I've heard him say this so instead of ignoring him, like I did before I said: "When you're older you'll grow hair too you know but what you have to realise is our bits are inside us where it's not hairy. Your bits are outside, our bits are inside!"

My son looks at me.

"Why did God make us different?"

I give you our conversation because double standards exist in our society. We as individuals may feel liberated but within wider society we are judged very differently to men. Good girls don't have sex ey? A myth propogated by society, by families in many instances.

I also write this because I'm going to put a link to a website I found on a different post - labeled, well, sexual healing I guess!

It's for women like me who have to learn to reconnect to themselves and not be afraid.

Oh, and I do believe God gave me a son because I am such a sexual fuck up there was a danger I'd fuck up my daughter. Honestly, I didn't have the first clue though I'm getting one now. That's just me though, I make no judgement on anyone else.

Bow to me, Bow to me!

Blogging in Two Directions

Instinctively I know that my writing will go in two directions before the end of week when Stiggers and I will take a break.

One is SEX (Oh stigs, love, love baby, let's stay and talk about that, explore that...we've never done that, not really, not positively, hopefully, beautifully, naturally, our confidence only just beginning, so fragile..)
The other is THE USUAL CRAP
I have to mention THE USUAL CRAP because if I am going to blame myself for what I am going through, I believe the cause is not SEX but THE USUAL CRAP.

THE USUAL CRAP is making us all ill and who can change things?
The Government
Who won't change things?
The Government
Who must therefore change things?
US

I will have to go and put Stiggers' words into action. All her words, be they SEX or THE USUAL CRAP, and do something positive with her/my knowledge.

Now I must go away and figure how to post it. Which should I focus on first? Oh dilemmas...they are the making of one's life, no?

Thank you for listening and have a good day.

Bad bacteria on push bikes

Here's what my lower abdomen pain feels like (do tell me if you've ever had the same, it's a horror not knowing as you may know)

Like there are bicycle handlbars down there and hundreds of bad bacteria hanging onto them and when the mood takes them, they pull on the brakes and I go 'aaargh' because I wasn't expecting it.

"You feel a squeeze you mean?" said my sister, and the doctor when I saw her. Oh bless those with command of simple language! Oh bless Stigmum and her creativity!!

The bacteria were braking, nay, squeezing, alot during "Shame" (aargh, there it goes again!)

Michael Fassbender....
Oh MAN!!!
We are a divine species!
I'll say no more....

Time to ch ch ch change - Song

I still don't know what I am waiting for
And my time is running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I think I've got it made
It seems the taste is not so sweet
So I turn myself to face me
And I’ve caught a nasty glimpse
Of how the others don’t see a faker
Time to give the blog a rest

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
Turn and face the pain
Ch-ch-Change it
I want to be a richer mum
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
Turn and face the strains
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different mum
Time has changed me
Now I must trace time

I feel the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of cold impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And our children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
We're quite aware of what they're going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
Turn and face these pains
Ch-ch-Change 'em
Can't tell me to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
I must face this strain
Ch-ch-Changes
Where's your shame (coalition)
You've left us up to my neck in it
Time must change me
We all can change time

Strange fascination, fascinating me
Changes are taking the pace I'm going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
Turn and crush the strain
Ch-ch-Changes
Oh, look out we rock 'n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
Rise and beat the strain
Ch-ch-Change it
Pretty soon we're gonna get a little wiser
Time may change me
And I must trace time
I know that I MUST change me
And I MUST find time

(David Bowie featuring Stigmum, my Pretty Thing; only a little messed up, not much!)

Are you prepared to change?

"What do you have to live for? You know you are here for a reason, and it's not to buy a new car every few years. What are you willing to do to fulfill yourself? Are you willing to do affirmations, visualisations, treatments? Are you willing to forgive? Are you willing to meditate?
How much mental effort are you willing to exert to change your life and make it the life you want?" (Louise Hay, The Power is Within You. P.105)

You can drag a Dog to water but you cannot make it...

Drink Bitch

I'll give up Al Cohol for Lent then

We are all connected

Was it an accident that me and He Who Said I Was Hot weren't perfect strangers?
No six degrees of separation for us; only one
Jo
She emailed him. Fancy that! He said to her, not to me.

We are all connected. I'm no different to you. You are no different to me.

My point is this though:

If what I've got is serious (they've scheduled me a scan)

Do I let him know?

"You are powerful beyond measure" - Mandela

Nelson Mandela's inaugural speech from 1994, given to me by my social worker in 2005, recently taken out of the envelope in which it came and stuck on my wall.

Stick it on yours. Read it everyday. Do not be afraid of your light and accept others may be afraid of yours. Take it from one who knows (that's me, I can't speak for Mandela!)

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant
gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God - Your playing small
doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us
It is not in just some of us; It is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

The right person empowers you

"The right person will empower you," I told the man who'd come out of a long relationship and never wanted another again.

I am right.

He accepted I am right.

I know I am right.

It is easier to fear than to love
It is better to love than to fear

Stay...stay stay stay....

I wanted him to stay the weekend. I didn't want him to leave. He couldn't come back, how could he come back = 'I'm free again in two weeks!' - my self esteem wouldn't let me say it, my self esteem wouldn't allow it, but he could stay.

Oh stay. I might have said it, but only once. "Go on, I'll make you breakfast!"
"I need to get my keys," he said. It's how he met me, going back for his keys.

I laughed at his frustration trying to find his things amongst my mess, untangling his jeans from me, from all of me.

"You really are going?" I said as he pulled them on.

As he left he paused at the door, looked at me.

I'd've got out of bed, I'd have kissed his cheek

but my head was nailed to the pillow.

So much for sex curing hangovers I thought, as my head split in two.

I slept for the rest of the day.

A first for my one night stand?

"Do you have a child?"
"Yeah."
"I didn't know you were a mother."
"No?" There are pictures of my son all over the wall.
"Do you have a girl?"
"No, a boy."
"How old?"
"Nine."
"Nine, wow, nine, that's a big child! He looks like a girl!"
"Yeah, well," I say, half asleep, "young people can look quite androgenous."
"Does he still have long hair?"
"Fairly," I look at the pictures which are a couple of years old. "He's beautiful."
"Yes he is."
"Have you been with a mother before?"
"No."
"You haven't?!"
"Well, yeah, maybe, I don't think so."
"Is it different?"
"No, only the context."
"...."

Jobs: Seeking value in post coital chit chat

"What do you do?" he asks me, after a bit of erm, my, my oh my!
"I campaign for affordable housing," I answer without thinking.
"I've never met one of those before!" he says.
"No, well, it's hardly the most interesting of campaigns.."
"Why then?" after commenting on what a nice flat I lived in.
"If I'd won my battle, you'd be waking up on some shit estate, not here.."

change the subject change change change

"What do you do?"
"I work in film."
"Cool, doing what?"
"I own my own company."
"Nice! Good for you! Do you employ interns?"

He was soon to realise he was in bed with the self elected Leader of the I Don't Know Party.

"Win for business! No, win win for business!!" I couldn't help but open his eyes, draw his attention...

"This is so depressing," he said at some point
but that might have been while we were talking about the new North Korean president, whatsisname..."Kim Jong-un" "yeah that's him..who knows if he'll zap us all..."

The conversation flies off to Iran, to America, to nuclear war and that familiar feeling of being powerless in the face of impending doom..."The whole thing, our planet, is controlled by a small bunch of egos who'll do what they want to do, we have no control over it," I say. "What you've got to do is rise above it all somehow and look down on all of it with no judgement."

"That's very hard," he said.
"I know..."

We might have kissed then. Flip.
It just kept getting better, getting better all the time.

"Cougars"

For a moment I let him think I was a pensioner, and from the corner of my eye saw him do a double take, as if realising he'd gone home with QuiteSomething and woken up with Stigmum. I got the giggles.
"How old did you think I was?" I laughed.
"My age," he said.
"And how old is that?"

Oh....!

No Jo, the bunting on the bedroom wall is not coming down, not yet.

Fab. I am Fab.

I am.

I am at home in my body
(Louise L Hay You Can Heal Your Life)

(We really don't like that word 'cougars', me and stigs don't, but an 'older women' title didn't sit too well with us either. I mean, who cares?)

Taking a stranger home

Here's how it happened.
This is long by the way, and badly written, given I've used my notebook. Oh well, life mirrors art sometimes..that's my excuse anyway...

Two Friday's ago: Leaving party in the flat downstairs, the hairdresser's going back to Italy:( I am invited:) I turn up with a bottle of Prosecca; Italian's like that. Their friends arrive, beautiful, striking individuals. They invite me to Old Street with them so I finish the rose wine I've moved to and run upstairs for my jacket.

A friend of theirs is a manager of the place we go to; people told to move from the bank of seats, for we are VIPs. I order a beer because I don't want to get drunk (hic) but there's vodka and rum at the table and when they do the Jager Bombs (Jaegermeister mixed with redbull) well, one won't hurt!

The hairdresser's going straight to the airport. My other neighbours leave but I want to stay with the hairdresser's friends. I hit the dancefloor.

I man glides up to me. I ignore him and carry on dancing.
Another glides up (honestly, their movements were really fluid) and I turn from him too.
When another glides up I think 'oh for fuck's sake' and dance over to a group of young guys but realise this isn't the answer, make some comment about how good the music is then go and chat to some of my group.
Soon I'm dancing again and soon the same thing is happening and I become convinced these men are being paid by the club to pull women. I want them to leave me alone so I can enjoy myself but when I turn to the group I am with our area is empty; they've all gone.

I can't stay. I don't want to stay, I feel vulnerability crawl across the floor ready to envelope me and know I must leave now. I grab my jacket and I go outside. The air soothes my face. It's been a great night.

HOME.

I'm not entirely clear what went on next .

I believe I went up to a pretty approachable looking group of guys and asked them if they knew where the 214 bus went from.

How I wound up sitting down, I don't know but I got talking to one of them, and must have felt some kind of relief because I told him, in order, no doubt, to relieve my paranoia, that: "There are men in there paid to come on to women." I think he might have laughed, and I might have said I was serious, before wondering if he was one of them too then telling myself to chill out.

"Do you want to go back with me?" He looks at me and I might have laughed thinking really fast, faster than I've ever thought anything, ever, when I've been quite drunk, why not? He seems alright, and I do really really want to have sex.

"OK."

He asks if I want to go back to his place and I say no, mine (I'm so glad I don't live on that estate anymore) and we get a cab.

I don't recall talking to him in the cab. I do recall thinking, I do recall wondering whether I had to pay him. How do these things work? Do I have to pay him?

"I don't have any money," he says breaking the silence.
"Oh, there's a cashpoint just up here, we'll get the cabbie to stop and you can get out."

What am I doing, I'm thinking while he's out of the cab. I take a deep breath and I let it out again.

Once in my house, again I don't know only that he made the move to kiss me and I said at some point that I had condoms or maybe he asked me if I had any. Either way, we had sex.

In many ways, the first I knew of all this was when I woke up in the morning. I woke up feeling skin on my skin and thought '"huh?". Slowly I turned, oh yeah... when he says:

"You said the guys in the pub were being paid to talk to you last night. You remember? You must have no self esteem."

Later that morning he tells me he can be arrogant. "Well," I say, my head on his chest, "that's just another form of low self esteem isn't it, only wrapped in different packaging."

His kiss. That I remember, his kiss I remember.


Others mirror the love and self approval I have for myself. I rejoice in my sexuality.
(Louise. L. Hay You Can Heal Your Life not under Self Esteem)

1 in 4 people have a mental health illness

Alistair Campbell, Blair's old spin doctor turned depression campaigner said on the BBC's This Week last night that one in four people in this country have a mental health illness.

Really? That few? Or was that one in four MP's have a mental health illness?

I had an appointment at Jobs in Mind the other day. When I booked it with the guy, I really thought I'd be ready to go by the 1st February! Oh yeah!

I told my "adviser" jobs weren't really on my mind, that I was on antibiotics. He said it was only an assessment anyway, no pressure.

He made me cry you know, with his questions. He didn't mean to, it's just the conversation bought into view That Which Makes Me Want To Kill Myself - the fact that other than love, I cannot give my son the security he needs. His education is not "safe" with me. His home is not "safe" with me. I cannot offer him the kind of foundation that his father can for example. Don't make me talk about it; it makes me cry.

We, I, got talking about depressed people with him, people worse off than me and I know because I've been where those people are. Things are so Black you can't even recognise the comfort of it being a Dog.

Ruby Wax said it was an illness, like a physical illness, a chemical imbalance in the brain, and there is medication.

What I know of depression though, is only you can get yourself out of it, pills or no pills. The support, books, cd's, prayer groups, this that and the other, is all there but if you don't want it, you don't want it. You can drag that Dog to Water but you Cannot make it drink.

It is good depression's getting a media airing because there really are too many of us to help. My advisor admitted as much.

"You are very depressed," he said to me.
"Really? Am I?" I was quite surprised because I'd stopped crying and was talking about people on benefits with him in quite an empathetic 'them not me' kind of way.
"Yes you are."
"Am I really negative? Am I being really negative" (I try to control that in the outside world...)
"Yes, but you've got every cause to be."
"Oh."

I came out of the appointment and it was my son's school assembly. Gift. Thank you World.

I'll say this though, the worse your depression is, the closer you are to God
Seriously, I'm not being funny
It's when I got so low, so so so low, that I realised I could not escape myself. When I get so low I'm reminded of that. This is me.

A breath.

It's been a long trip, my depression, I won't deny that. Some people's depressions can be a long trip. It's not been aided by the recurring evictions, job application rejects, I've got a bloody infection I've never had before that makes me think of nasty diseases I may have bought upon myself. I've kept wanting to escape myself; run away, run away die as you know if you've followed this blog for a long time.

But no.

Recognise that you are in the world. You are in this moment. You are meant to be here.
Take a very gentle step from there
With a deep breath

Men and self help books

This doesn't need to go on the One Night label but it is, just for the flow.

Self help is traditionally a female domain isn't it? Helping yourself is seen as some kind of weakness and men, traditionally, don't want to be perceived as being weak. Hey, with Kindle's now, who's to know?!

Anyway, this post isn't about that.
This post is about how I walked into a charity shop the other week and came out with three books:

The Power Is Within You by Louise Hay
Chicken Soup for the Single's Soul by a bunch of writers
The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield.

Stiggers and me mention all these books because they all carried an inscription and they were all gifts for men!

To Ross
To Jaybes (John, a flight ticket from Sydney to Adelaide inside..small coincidence, He Who Said I Was Hot was from Adelaide! He wasn't called John though)
from their mums!!
To (another) John and I love this inscription so sorry Eric, sorry John, I'm going to copy it out:

"Dearest John,
This book was a revelation to me + so I'm passing it on to you. May the pages within provoke and inspire you to greater awareness.
I'm awed by your talent + Inspired by your Spirit. Your [sic] Very Special.
I'm Happy our path's were able to cross. All the Best!
And Good Luck wi "Dolly", I'm sure you'll be Great!
Until we meet again - My Cosmic Friend (each word underlined twice!)
Peace - Love - Light
Your Friend, Eric C.."

"When the student is ready, the teacher appears." (The Power is Within You. P.75)

Thanks guys!!!!!

If you are drawn to any of these on the back of this post reader, don't thank me!!
(Though you can thank Stigmum if you like;))

What are we doing to ourselves?

I wasn't looking to blame myself last Thursday night as I pissed blood into the toilet alerted by clots on the paper.

Sure, my first instinct was sex and I was so angry, angry at myself, I blamed the blog. I don't want to admit to being a sexual cripple, I raged. Is that why this has happened? I'm not a sexual cripple. My one night stand was a positive experience. Don't take that away from me

Here'a a thing..The week before He Who Said I Was Hot, was standing in my room, by my bookcase, but I couldn't see what he was looking at because my eyes were closed.

Later I stood where he'd been standing to see what he might have seen. Photo's, a piece of writing by Nelson Mandella, given to me back in 2005 by a social worker when the church was evicting me and my son, which I only took out of it's envelope about two weeks ago and stuck up on my wall to teach me.

What books would he have noticed? The Story of O, The Sorrow of War, Marx, Angela Carter's Fairy Tales, You Can Heal Your Life, Marukami, Robin the Hoodie, On Photography...a real mix

You Can Heal Your Life? I've probably not opened that since, ooh 2005.

I was in a real vacuum of fear and not knowing on Thursday night. I couldn't phone my mum and frighten her, or my sister. I could've called Jo, I'd only seen her two days before, but she was flying out to Italy. A single mum friend had called earlier, asking if I'd come in with her on a 'plant project' ("plants die on you mummy," my son said later). I couldn't tell her, "My pee hurts, I'm bleeding and I don't know what's wrong," I couldn't, I wanted to, I couldn't.

You Can Heal Your Life. You Can Heal Your Life is in your bookcase. At the back of the book are 61 pages of problems with its possible cause and new thought patterns along side it.

Littered all over this label are the new thought patterns I copied out and read and reread that night. I barely glanced at the possible causes.

Here they are for you now though - in relation to bladder problems, urinary problems, female problems (though listen in boys, we share some). I don't know what's up with me but something is and hopefully it's gone now, my seven day antibiotic course ends today.

Bladder Problems (Cystitis) - Anxiety. Holding on to old ideas. Fear of letting go. Being pissed off

Cancer - Deep hurt. Longstanding resentment. Deep secret or grief eating away at the self. Carrying hatreds. "What's the use?"

Urinary Infections (Cystitis, Pyclonephritis) - Pissed off. Usually at the opposite sex or a lover. Blaming others. (Not pissed off at lover I thought at the time, but well pissed off with government, life situation, welfare reforms...)

Uterus - Represents the home of creativity (Stigmum?????)

Vaginitis - See Female Problems, Leukorrhea - Anger at the mate. Sexual guilt. Punishing the self.

Female Problems (See Amenorrhea, Dysmenorrhea, Fibroid Tumors, Leukorrhea, Menstrual Problems, Vaginitis) Denial of the self. Rejecting femininity. Rejection of the feminine principle.

If we go back, if I go right back..

Whatever I have is a WARNING

What was the very last thing I posted that Thursday before the big OW?

Peter Paul and Mary - I hammer out WARNING. I hammer out DANGER.

You see, I feel I have to write down this stuff.

It's up to you if you want to change

but my time has come

I hope I'm listening.

I am Velcro

Self realisation is an epiphany

I am Velcro
I allow things to STICK to me
I allow negative things to STICK to me
So fast they are stuck that I can't peel them off
So old
Men don't rape women
Women rape men
You're a hole between two legs
So new
Cancer cancer
Y Mama Tambien?
We have a duty to ourselves
That's what I wrote
I wrote that
ON HERE
before all this
We can change
We can all change
You Can Heal Your Life
In my bookcase Thursday night
Stick a positive on you
Right Here
Right Now
I am beautiful
I love
I am
LOVE

Peeing in the bath - Urinary Tract Infections

After giving birth naturally, it's a relief to pee in the bath, because it fucking stings.
With a urinary infection, you can't. I tried. It hurts big time.

Peeing with a UTI (Urinary Tract Infection) which is not the same as a torn vaginal passage was a new sensation for me, and because I don't know if I've got a UTI, I don't know what I've got, I don't know if what I'm about to tell you is what a UTI feels like. (Comments from other women, or even men who have had UTI's, would be handy here, but hey, if you don't want to, you don't want to, that's fine)

The peeing itself is not bad. It's the end of the peeing experience which is bad. The end when the last drops are dripping. It did make me feel like I did at the end of giving birth when I was pushing my son's head out. It's not a burning sensation exactly (which my son was I think) but flip, lucky we girls sit, I could bang my feet together as the intensity got bigger and bigger and more and painful as though it might explode down there.

You need to go to the loo so often but you'll be scared so drink LOADS of water so at least your passing through something instead of hardly anything. Subconciously it helps and physically water is the best thing for you anyway.

I'm laughing at a memory

He Who Said I Was Hot told me he'd taken the morning after pill before. "Really?" I said, laughing. "Have you? I took the morning after pill with the Foca and bled for two weeks."
"That's too much information," he replied at which I laughed even louder. "You're not squeamish are you?!"

Oh fuck, another memory, not so funny.
I told him one night stand's were easy.
"This is easy isn't it? No-one gets hurt."
Oh yeah? Oh yeah??????
Easy for who?

I comfortably and easily release the old and welcome the new in my life. I am safe.
(Louise.L.Hay You Can Heal Your Life under Cystitis see Bladder Problems)