The Middle Layer is where I live...in-between the extremes, without a label that fits.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Rheumatology Appointment




Tomorrow is first appointment with rheumatology. I'm equally afraid of being given a "diagnosis" and of being told they don't know what's wrong with me. The pain in my hips started 10 years ago, but I minimized and ignored it for a long time. Back in Texas the doctor told me I had bursitis in both hips and gave me cortisone shots with giant, scary needles directly into my hip joints. The last time they did that, the hit a nerve and I was in excruciating pain for more than a week after.

When I finally went to the doctor here, at The Mr.'s urging, I was sent to physical therapy and "diagnosed" as OBESE. Losing weight seemed to be the only thing that mattered to my doctor. After 2 sessions of PT, I was told that the pain was clearly too bad to continue the basic exercises she wanted me to do.

It was only when I told my doctor that my daughter had similar pain and rheumatoid indicators that she sent for additional blood work for me. I almost wish we didn't have the access to the results that we do. One of the tests came back at such an elevated level that I was marked as "severe cardiac risk." It explained the difficulty I had getting through jazzercise without seeing stars that led me to stop going. It's given me a way to rationalized and not beat myself up so badly over my inability to do things like roller skate (which I LOVE and is low-impact) for more than 15 minutes before I start to get dizzy and sweat profusely. It makes me less guilty over how out of breath I am whenever I come home and climb the stairs to the apartment.

It's a relief in one way to know there's a reason for how I feel, but I wonder if it's a chicken or egg situation. Did I gain this weight because it's so hard on my heart to exercise? Or did the 15 pounds I've gained this year cause the cardiac issues? Am I fat because of the sludge in my blood? Or did is the sludge to blame for my inability to exercise like I used to, causing the weight gain?

Looking over the questions they ask in the first visit paperwork I am grateful for my mobility. I CAN do all of the things they asked about, but more and more I find myself avoiding things because the pain I will feel after is so bad. The number one thing that causes pain in my hips is sex. I've found myself not being as involved and enjoying it less because I'm afraid of how much I will hurt the next day. It is a vicious cycle that impacts so much more than my body...

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Finding OUR PEOPLE at last!

So much awesomeness to write about from this weekend!

Friday night date with the lawyer went well. Not sure I’m feeling any romantic chemistry, but he was super cool and a lot of fun to hang out with.

The emcee of the burlesque show spent some time with us at the table, and said he really liked having us there. Now, that’s usually just good hosting, especially given the fact that The Mr. had organized MeetUp events for these shows that were successful to the point that nearly a quarter of the audience was from the group last time. However, the emcee made a point of stating he really liked US and distinguished that as a personal statement. I asked him about social networking (we have his e-mail, but Facebook or FetLife friending is a whole other level) and walked him to his car to pull up my FB profile on his phone.

Once back inside, we started a great discussion about the kinds of MeetUp groups we were part of: Poly/Swinger/ Alt Lifestyle stuff that’s based all over the area. My neon therapy sign lit up and we ended up in a fairly personal discussion about his recent interests in opening up and moving beyond the “nice guy" box he’s spent his life pigeon-holed into. Looking forward to hanging out with him socially.

There was an unfortunate incident at the end of the night involving the Mr.’s consumption level and an undisclosed bar policy that could be described as an “Asshole tax.". We ended up having a long talk with the manager and in the end, not only didn’t have to pay it, but had her business card in hand and the request to contact her directly next time we bring in a group so she can be sure things are more smooth.

We went to the monthly discussion group Saturday and stayed until 9pm playing Cards Against Humanity with The Dom, his wife and the BBW from Truth or Dare who I need to re-nickname. She is 10 years younger than me and doing so many things I want to do: writing (on one of my favorite sites and for PAY), Sex Education through a boutique shop, and a webcam model. I’m trying to find a way to be her friend without being creepy, stalker-like and just gushing over how fabulous she is.

BF1 was at the meeting, as was the Creme Brulee girl he’s gone on a few dates with, and her husband. I was happily surprised to see that she is not as petite as others he’s expressed interest in. I was really wondering what his level of physical attraction was to my body type. Creme Brulee girl and I could comfortably borrow from each others closet and she is super pretty. The dynamics of her marriage looked exactly like we’d imagined after talking to BF1 about it. The hubby was tattooed with a shaved head, totally my type physically. However he emitted a nervous energy that, coupled with his smaller stature made me think of a chihuahua. It made me sad for him to see how less-than-interested and almost anxiety-ridden he seems to be about the poly/dating stuff while she’s happily enjoying the lifestyle.

BF1 did a great job of socializing and floating around the room sitting beside me holding my hand for a bit, then sitting beside Creme Brulee girl and snuggling up. The energy of the whole day was like that. There were lots of hugs, and even a half-assed snuggle with The Dom at one point. We are hosting the next 2 discussion groups at our place, as The Dom has to be out of town.

Conversational highlights of the day were when BF1 quoted something I’d written to the group. “Eating a salad does not make you a vegetarian." (About the concept of fluid expression of sexuality and the use of labels.) And a question that was posed by an older man we hadn’t met before. He asked The Dom’s wife: “Is that freeing? Or do you find yourself shackled to rebellion?"

There are e-mails to send, more coffee to drink and then that crappy job thing. Next weekend we are doing karaoke then “Sharknado" with friends  and I am so excited!

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Job Stuff... Ugh!




I have to be a grown up and make some hard decisions. More than that I have to take a step into the unknown in a way that could potentially impact our daily life... Fucking job stuff!

I've been doing this kind of work for 2 years now. After working in restaurants, then mental health/drug rehab, small gigs cleaning houses for acquaintances, respite care and other such domestic assistance jobs I was hired at a call center in Texas. I was still doing the on-the-job training when I interviewed to be a trainer and was promoted. There were so many things I liked about that job... and SO MANY I HATED.

Last year when I announced my move to the company, one of the Corporate Big Wigs pulled me aside and told me that another vendor for the product had work from home jobs doing what I'd been training people to do.

It's a year later and I've been on the escalations desk for most of the time. The thing is that my job revolves around being yelled at by entitled assholes over things we have no control over, or being yelled at by entitled assholes over things that are completely our fault but I personally have little or no way to fix for them. I do all this in the comfort of my yoga pants, mostly due to the fact that my 'office wear' no longer fits.

We just did another "shift bid." What that means is that if you want to change your shift you are gambling... They take all your stats and rank you amongst the others who want to change their schedule.  Only after you've committed to the process do they tell you what your rank is and what shifts you can choose from.

Last time we did this; I ranked #2 and ended up going from 4/10-hr days with Thursday, Saturday and Sunday off to a 5-day work week with Friday and Saturday off. I used to get off work at 9pm, and now I close the desk at 11pm or later. I lost that gamble, but put in again for this bid.

Yesterday I got the e-mail. "You are ranked #1."
 
And then I looked at my options... I can go back to 10 hr days with Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday off (still working too late to really do anything on work nights). I can work an earlier shift (but still too late to go out after work) with 3 consecutive days off- Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. OR I can keep my shift and start job hunting. As of right now, I'm looking at the latter of the options and it scares me to death.

There are so many things about my job that are great:

·         I work from home, so no wardrobe, no commute, The Mr. can keep me company when it's slow, I eat in my own kitchen on breaks...
·         My stats are always above average and my evals are near-perfect.
·         Tonight I've got a meeting scheduled with a team lead to go over the eval that will determine my raise, and I'm going to max that out as well.
·         My co-workers are great, even though I've never met any of them in person. We help each other out and I have become Facebook friends with several, including a bunch of the supervisors.

But then there's the rest of it:

·         I work for a company that's renowned for their customer service, but most of our employees are 'barely min wage' factory workers without any actual customer service, let alone basic knowledge of their job. I spend my day apologizing for those employees lack of common courtesy and cleaning up messes that could have been easily avoided... Messes that cost thousands of dollars and countless hours of frustration.
·         We service a product that sometimes just doesn't work. When the website goes down all we can do is say, "Whoops. Sorry. Guess you'll have to try again later." Or, "Whoops. Sorry about those thousands of dollars in charges, we'll work on getting them refunded. It'll take a few days and more than likely somebody will screw things up so you lose the thing you DID want along with the ones that it *said* didn't go through that you were charged for anyway. Oh. And even then you'll have to pay the higher cost when you figure this out and we'll take another week or so to get you the difference back. Yep. Totally our fault, but I still have to try and work on saving my multi-million dollar company a few hundred dollars so I'll get back to you next week."
·         I work in an industry where, basically shit happens and people lose money and time and then nothing is done to make it right. The regulations are set up to screw over people who have already spent thousands of dollars for something that they may not even get. And I have to tell people, whether they are cursing at me and telling me to kill myself (Yeah. That really happened.) or they are crying and begging for my help (that was most of yesterday) that they are just fucked. And rather than just saying, "Suck it up, Buttercup! You should have read the fine print!" I have to be *nice* about it and hope that they don't send a nasty gram to the wrong department of our company about me. 

So it brings me back to the tough choice. Is it more of a "grown up" move to find something else, despite how bad it looks on my resume to only stay at any given job for a year or less?

Or the better question: Do I have to be a grown-up about this?

Sunday, July 21, 2013

The Girl in the Fedora and Pat Benatar



Despite my regret over the ice cream I had after dinner and the initial weirdness of somebody bringing a baby into a bar on a Saturday night, when the bartender exclaimed, "Yes! I remember you two... you sat over there and you couldn't finish your bucket because you had to drive!" I was sure we'd have a really good time there. We were mostly people watching at the bar, noticing the definitive age divide: over 35 on the right side of us, barely legal hipsters in skinny jeans and colorful plaid shirts to the left. The karaoke guy was the best looking guy there, other than The Mr. (I'm not being biased here, I promise!)
 
Directly to our left a guy we dubbed "Tex" was already good and happy when he got up to sing the first song of the night. It was a country song, and when he sat down we were sure the accent was genuine. While he'd been singing, a cute couple that looked just a little younger than us sat down in his place. She was blond, wearing shorts and a tank top with a fedora that complimented her well. He was black, athletic looking, and probably a soldier. When Tex came back, he started chatting them up as though they were old friends. The Mr. heard Tex say to the girl, "I've seen you here before!" To which her boyfriend replied, "Yes, but has SHE see you?"
 
At one point, about 2 yummy rum drinks in, The Mr. had gone to the bathroom and the blond looked down the bar at me and asked, "Are you going to sing?" Her name was Melanie and she talked me into going up with her to sing Pat Benatar's "Love is a Battlefield."

I had been looking around at the crowd, singing, dancing and having a good time and feeling a sense of jealousy and nostalgia for the days when I had a group and a place like that of my own. Here I was being invited to join in and I was terrified. When she initially asked me about singing, I had stammered something about how I hadn't sung in years outside of my kitchen, but it didn't take much prodding on her part before I just said, "Sure. I'm down!"

I'm convinced that the Mr.'s reply to my asking how bad it was was kindness in that he said he heard her voice more than he heard mine. I thought I was pretty loud and it is a song I know well. I was drenched in sweat and felt like I was going to hurl, but I made it through with a smile on my face and a picture to prove it.

We chatted with Melanie, "Tex" and her boyfriend Eric bit more before settling back in our spots a few chairs down the bar from them. I was drinking water at this point, not out of inebriation, but out of hydration issues and the nausea that just wouldn't quit.

I sent The Mr. to the car for some gum in the hopes it would help my tummy. While he was away, Melanie came back down and talked about singing together again. Eric had put her in for the karaoke staple, "Summer Nights" from "Grease." I hadn't exactly agreed but hadn't declined either.

The next thing I knew, the temporary crown from my recently root canalled tooth popped off into my mouth. I was flung into an anxiety attack so bad that I was barely able to maintain composure long enough to apologize and say goodbye to the first people we'd met organically out here. I felt awful, but there was no way I was going to be able to stay, let alone sing after that.

We made it home where I promptly lost $14 worth of yummy rum drink, $6 worth of Cold Stone ice cream and a portion of my dinner. I felt much better after that, and ended the night testing out some goodies we picked up at the "toy" shop earlier in the evening.

Another awesome weekend officially ends in 2 hours. Boo for the work stuff. Yay for Pat Benatar and cool people that talk to strangers in bars!

Thanks, Melanie! Hope we bump into each other again.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Truth or Dare Night



The Mr. spent the better part of last week creating a digital Truth or Dare game for a party we initially waffled on going to. He slowly talked the organizer into more clearly defining the rules until it was tamed down to something more our speed. At first the impression we had was, “This sounds fun, but it also sounds like a road straight into orgy-ville.” The rules initially stated something like, “you will be harassed if you pass on a dare.” By the time the final draft came out, rules included “Play to your own comfort” and “No nudity unless it‘s part of a dare."

We drove down to the hotel early and assisted in re-arranging the hotel suite and then finished cutting and numbering the cards. The Mr. was hungry, and ended up taking a pre-dinner trip to a cafe downstairs for a sandwich, then another trip to the grocery store across the street for beer and napkins. The Sub and I chatted about how The Mr. and I met, how long she and The Dom had been seeing each other, and how that works for them. It was her remark to me that he had “told her” to wear a new latex dress, despite the obvious impracticality of that kind of clothing in the setting. She said, “I do what I’m told.” The thing was that after dinner, The Dom also changed clothes. He remarked, as he laced up his boots, that if The Sub was going to wear that dress, that he agreed to be in uniform and choose his volunteer fire fighter uniform for comfort. There was a compromise on his part which makes the power play seem a lot more balanced than one might imagine in a true D/S relationship.

After The Dom woke up from his nap, the four of us went downstairs to the hotel restaurant for dinner. Our restaurant mojo with the D/S couple continues to revolve around the service. The waiter was one of the worst we’d ever seen. The Dom ordered a beer and the waiter asked if he wanted it with his meal, as he had also just poured a cup of coffee. The Dom said yes, and not 1 minute later the waiter was placing his beer on the table. When the food did arrive, the waiter went to hand us our food and he got every single person’s order mixed up, except mine. I only got my plate placed directly in front of me because it was not on the tray with everyone else’s dinner.

Once back upstairs, The Sub set out cold cut platters, fresh fruit and her ‘famous’ bacon wrapped dates. We sat around chatting and trying to come up with more dares for the list. At a few minutes past 8pm, the first guest arrived. He was an older Cuban guy with a set of maintenance man keys on his waist that smelled like smoke. The smell was so strong that I ducked out of the living room of the suite to assist the Sub in wiping the baby powder from the outside of her latex dress. The next guest to arrive also smelled really strong, only it was cologne that overwhelmed the room when he walked in. He attempted to sit down beside me on the couch, but when he got up for a drink I all but pulled The Dom down onto the couch beside me. I was a little worried that I would spend the night buried in the corner of the couch avoiding eye contact with creepy guys, but eventually a little conversation sprung out of the awkward silence of waiting for the remaining guests and I discovered the awesomeness that is s’mores flavored vodka on the rocks. Yum!

By the time everyone had arrived, the guests included a fabulous BBW in a retro-style polka dot dress with her petite friend in leopard print leggings, the deaf guy and his very talkative girlfriend who we met at a previous discussion group, a plain-faced girl in gym clothes who we later realized was the chick BF1 had been attempting to flirt with at a barbeque earlier this month, and a gorgeous black woman that was new to the group who impressed me not only with her fabulous heels and matching lingerie, but with the confidence she had as a single woman to show up alone to this sort of event and immediately get into the game.
   
The dares varied from silly things like singing the hokey pokey or doing the robot with bonus points for doing it in your underwear to three-way kissed (the Creepy Cuban got that one and nobody volunteered to assist) and the underwear clad push-ups over a participant who was also in their underwear (The Mr. and the Sub took part in that dare.) The talkative chick was stripped down to her underwear several times over the night, and the BBW in the dress bared her lacy-panty clad ass for several dares. The two of them were of comparable size and switched clothes in front of the group for one dare despite the BBW's lack of a bra. 

The BBW's energy, confidence and presence really made an impression. In the past I’ve had a tough time understanding the appeal of women of size in that extreme, but she really was the sexiest chick in the room in a lot of ways. The Creepy Cuban was the only person that provoked the cricket chirping when a volunteer was needed for a dare. Most everyone else had the whole room to choose from for even the racier dares.

My presence did not go unnoticed, and I also stripped down to my underwear for a few dares. The petite chick in leopard print was sitting beside me when I took my pants off and she was enamored by my ass. She made several comments about how fantastic it was and, that she couldn’t take her eyes off it. The Mr. said that she had a look on her face that said if permission had been given she would have reached out and touched it in a second. 

In standard chick fashion we had all oohed and ahhed over the BBW’s dress and talked about each others bras and where to find cute clothes for fuller-bodied women. I was not the smallest chick in the room but I was not the largest by any stretch. It was a really balanced group full of varied body types that were all sexy and attractive in their own ways. Even Cologne boy wasn’t unappealing and partnered with me on a couple more tame dares.

At the end of the night prizes were awarded to the top three players then The Dom gave the, “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here” closing. 

I had one last “stupid human trick” I was eager to show off and ended up showing everyone except for Cologne Boy, the gorgeous black woman and Creepy Cuban. As kids, I think most everyone discovered that holding a flashlight to your hand makes it see through and glowy. We recently learned that the same thing happens when you hold a flashlight under a boob. Fun stuff!

After everyone else had cleared out, we were left chatting with the D/S couple. They had extended the invitation to stay over but I gave my traffic light euphemism and said I didn’t want to cause a car wreck. The Sub has been very clear in the fact that she’s got a crush on The Mr. One of the “truth” questions were, “Who in this room would you like to go on a date with?” Her reply was that “with permission” it would be The Mr. Her clear interest combined with her explicit respect for our boundaries makes me like her more and more every time we hang out. One of her “truth” answers surprised me a little and we talked about that a bit as well. She shared that she has “not yet” down on another chick. We talked about our previous experiences in threesomes and all varieties of the theme. It surprised me that my experiences were more varied than the D/S pair given both her age and his level of lifestyle.

The Dom continues to express interest in me, but still doesn’t approach me or even really flirt with me in person. His reassuring pat on my knee early in the night when I used him to shield me from Cologne boy and the kiss that was attempted as part of a dare was more contact than we’ve had before, barring hello and good bye hugs. His lack of confidence and presence really take down the cool points and any interest I have had in pursuing play with him. I know that if I had approached him and paused long enough to lay out some boundaries, the four of us could have had some euphemistic pretzels. I was just too tired to be the instigator, and the over-all energy would have made it a distinct and possibly awkward maneuver for me to get up and initiate play. Instead, we left around 1:30am with hugs from The Dom and kisses from The Sub.