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There is a story from when I was 22 months old wherein my grandparents were watching me while my mother was in the hospital birthing my little sister.

They took me to the hardware store with them whilst running errands and I climbed on a small plastic horse with wheels. When it was time to leave the store I threw a fit and kept saying “that’s my horsey”. Now neither of my grandparents were the overindulging, spoiling type, but on this occasion, for whatever reason, after 5 minutes of trying to reason with me, my grandfather picked the horse up with me on it’s back, put it on the counter and said “you heard her, ring it up.”

My dad backed over it with the car shortly after, and promptly replaced it, and I still have a scar on my knee from the sister (who was being born when I got my horsey) ramming me at full speed into a trunk in the hallway where we were playing. My mother offered me the very same trunk recently. I have no idea where that horse went.

We moved to a subdivision shortly after the scar and the neighbourhood kids and I ran wild around the area. The gravel pit behind the subdivision, the pond full of frogs, turtle and tetanus, the empty lot with its underground stream and cedar forest and over the fence down the lane every spring to see the lambs a guy had on his little mini farm.

Further down the lane and across the road was a falling down barn with 3 paddocks and 3 horses. 

I was obsessed. The guy who owned them let me pet them and feed them grass from the other side of the fence. I was brave enough to ask him if I could ride them but they were pacers, sulky horses. But I loved them anyways. I remember I renamed them Gemini, Morgan and something else.

I went to Pentacostal church camp with the neighbor across the street specifically because they had horses. I got the same horse 2 years in a row and we, I should say she won the barrels, she didn’t care about me, she just loved to run. But I loved her anyways.

Fast forward to farm life.

I, and a few other horse ladies. rescued auction horses. Kept them from being sold for meat.

Disclaimer, human beings have done some serious physical and psychological damage to some horses and I think the best thing for them is to live out their last days getting fat and unbothered by people before leaving the earth. They are angry, scared and dangerous. I won’t eat horse meat, but there are things worse than death.

I also need to add another disclaimer. I am not a horse lady. For all my wishing and wanting as a kid, I never had a horse. And somewhere between Angie, my lil spitfire camp horse, and having a farm, I got scared of horses. Nothing happened, I am just really insecure now. About a lot of things. Didn’t stop me from buying meat horses and bringing them home. There were a few instances where I could have been hurt very badly, but my deep, unshakeable reverence for these behemoths in the field, plus the hand of god a couple times I swear, kept me from dying or breaking limbs. I believe horses can sense your heart, and they knew I wasn’t going to hurt them, even though I looked the same as those who had hurt them before. My girls, and boys were silly, stupid, bratty and sometimes mean and I miss them.
RIP Lightning, you deserved better.

I haven’t written enough lately to think of a smooth transition, so ‘this is your captain speaking, the seatbelt light is on, please prepare for some light to moderate turbulence as we enter the next paragraph.’

I was laying in bed with Wolf and we always do a little recap after, once I can remember my name, and since I spend quite a bit of our sessions in subspace, I am not always aware of what I am doing, what time it is, what planet I am on etc.

He has gotten into the habit of counting when I black out just to make sure I am not gone too long. 8 seconds is enough. The orgasms come in waves and sometimes they are tsunamis and I drown for a minute, then break the surface gasping for air. Best description I can muster.

He calls what he does to me his art, and this pleases me. I have extrapolated and understand, that it is indeed art, but like a mosaic. He breaks me apart and puts me back together again in a pleasing way. And the conversations we have after are like a gallery showing. My praise is good for his ego, and his praise is necessary to quell my insecurities. I have never been able to absolutely let go with a partner before, the trust was never there before him.

In this safe space, and exploring subspace I don’t have much control over my actions or reactions. We practice consensual non consent, so ‘no’ doesn’t mean no. Nothing means no, except the safe word donuts, which can be padded with a description as in “breathing donuts” doesn’t mean stop exactly, just reposition so I can fill my lungs. 

I am a vocal submissive. Not loud exactly, and not dirty talk so much. I purr sometimes, I moan before I tip over the edge, I giggle and cry and with him, due to his um…size I tend to say nonononononono as my body attempts to get used to being beaten up from the inside. Doesn’t help, just gives me the illusion of control then I have a massive orgasm and I don’t care that it hurts.

What I didn’t realize is the other vernacular I use.

Which happens to sound a lot like

“Hey” “Ho” something else that sounds like “at tat tat”  and as you may have guessed it “whoa”. As in whoa horsey. In the same tone and volume I would use in the field to communicate with my beasts.

Twenty two months I have been with this man, and this last time was the first time he was ever specific about the ‘words’ I use, and I fucking HOWLED. 

In a vulnerable position with a large creature that could do me harm if he wanted to, I have reverted to the reverence and language I used to stay safe and communicate with my horses. 

I have the same kind of love and respect for him as I did for them, they were never mine, you can’t own something that powerful and magnificent, but I love him anyways.

He’s my horsey.

I am headed for a reunion of sorts.

Today he asked what he perceived to be a difficult question.

“Do we have to wear condoms this time.”

I don’t know why he waited so long to ask. Maybe his hesitation comes from his lack of dating experience, how do you ask that.
Maybe my nonchalance comes from my experiences over the last decade.

I don’t know how long he mulled over this query, I don’t know how vexxed he was about it.

All I know is that for better or worse, I haven’t had any sexual contact with anyone but him, since him. 

I know I can, and honestly, that has been enough. That and my box full of toys.

That being said…

I want you to park that big Mack truck
Right in this little garage (Cardi B, WAP)

There are some ho’s in this house.

I love sex, we all know this. I have had a lot of it. Not in the last while, but in my lifetime, yes.

To me, unprotected sex is a priviledge, not a right or something to be handed out like candy on Halloween. Something that needs to be earned through trust and time and tests. It is a gift we both enjoy and benefit from.

I know I wrote a whole big book about cuck sex, orgies and being used as a cum dumpster. But that was fiction for fiction’s sake. (link below)

Have I always been staunchly safe? Nope. And I have paid for it.

I remember the year after my marriage when I was finally privy to all the exploits of my ex. All the secrets his friends and his harem had kept from me came out like a flood. For the next year and a half, every 6 months, making an appointment at a clinic with fear in my belly and a shake in my voice, and stressing until I saw the negative results. Bullet dodged.

But in the immortal words of Willem Dafoe in Boondock Saints

“IT WAS A FIREFIGHT.”

No idea how I got out unscathed. Call it the grace of god. Or that scene in Pulp Fiction where Samuel L Jackson decides to change his life after seeing the bullet holes in the wall behind him.

I did change my life. Mostly.

Years later I had a whoops with a crazy boy who decided me shirking his request for a round two warranted him lying to me about his sexual health status. I will NEVER forget the 2 weeks I waited for bloodwork, and then another 6 months of not being sure until my blood was collected, tested again and deemed virus free.

He was pretty and sweet in the beginning. He had to have been or he wouldn’t have come home with me. But he fucked like a jackhammer with a loose wire and I didn’t desire another ride. The condom came off mid fuck and I didn’t stop because I wanted it over with. 

A split second decision with 6 months of consequences. He stalked and harassed me. And I was very afraid.

And the Final Boss oops a couple years back that had me taking a Plan B on New Year’s Eve.
I spent the night overwhelmingly busy at work, bleeding profusely and bawling my eyes out telling anyone within earshot, “these aren’t even my hormones.”

Plan B sucks.

I got tested after that too. And again before my current, and one more time when we were trying to figure out why I hurt every day.

Even Giant, who I have been sleeping with on and off since the leap year before last, wore a condom. It’s the ‘on and off’ that deems it necessary. I know he is looking to settle down, I have wandered and because of these things we have never been each other’s only for long enough for the condom to come off.

I am reminded of Sophia’s speech when Celie has a knife to Mister’s throat.
“He ain’t worth it. Don’t trade places with what I’ve been through.”

None of them are. And please don’t.

I never start out writing cautionary tales, but this definitely is one.

I am, by definition, a succubus and a sex eater. I am not myself unless I have my Snickers. I know this. When I hit 4 months with no reprieve in sight, I started looking around for a snack. Thought I found one, but I think I have become spoiled. I’m used to epic sex and if I can’t have that I want things to be easy and honest. He wasn’t. And I don’t do 4:26am ‘babe’ booty calls.

I think back to my first year in Hamilton when all I had to do was think about wanting sex and one of my boys would appear. Or the pseudo relationships that came before/during/after where we weren’t really dating, but someone I cared about was at my house a few times a week doing the dishes after I made dinner, we’d curl up on the couch and watch half a movie and then go fuck until we fell asleep. One would wander off and another would appear.

We never hit the point of monogamous enough for the condom-less sex conversation. 

Maybe I lucked out. Most of them were 20 somethings who didn’t protest the rules, didn’t even question them. I reached into the wooden box by my bed, pulled out a condom and that was that. Maybe there is hope for the future, maybe I chose wisely, until I didn’t.

And then there is the whole idea that sex is an exchange of energy.

Prior to (and during) my marriage I had crappy to decent to mediocre sex, mostly. A couple partners from my 20’s were noteworthy and have been mentioned in this blog. 

But my attitude about sex and my self worth were so far removed from how I am now, I don’t understand the decisions ‘past me’ made. But I forgive her.

It’s easy to say that now. I have sipped the sacred elixir from the Holy Grail of lovers. My ideas of sexual satisfaction have been forever altered. I have attained new levels of subspace and gratification. I have now been loved in my entirety by a lover and it changes everything. I have joined the yang to my yin and recreational sex just seems beneath me.

And I know that if the itch gets too much for me to scratch on my own, I can indulge without consequences from Him. Because he knows me and understands what I am.

That being said, he is my Primary. The only one who is allowed inside me without barriers.
This is my personal rule for my poly relationships.
I remember sitting in the ‘feature’ room above a strip club, holding a porn start while she cried because he boyfriend had broken their personal rule about fucking other porn stars without a condom on and she was devastated. I had an epiphany in that moment as I was wiping her raccoon eyes about boundaries and respect and how any version of a relationship was possible as long as the 2 people in it understood each other and followed the rules of engagement. I was 26 and that lesson has stayed with me always.

And I understand his queries and concerns. 

I couldn’t help but feel a little pride when I told him the truth. I successfully navigated a long trek through the desert of no sex and immerged victorious.

“I guess I have a lot of making up to do then.”

Yes please.

I had a rapid session of good luck over the last couple days and I am grateful.

A couple unexpected windfalls, a tarot reading from my Colorado witch (2 really) and the girl that I was working with who I felt invisible next to, has decided to leave.

Do not get me wrong, I fucking love this girl. She is beautiful, sweet, personable and a really good stripper. I am a bad stripper. I overthink everything, I forget to smile, I don’t talk to as many customers as I should and I talk to some of them for too long. A, B, C always be closing, I suck at closing. I was never a good sales girl. I have that whole ‘freewill is paramount’ loop in my head, always. I figure if they wanted to they would, even though I have anecdotal proof to the contrary.

I look like a bitch.

And I know it.

I have lost track of the number of times some dude has said “I wanted you for a long time but I was too scared to talk to you.”

I am also very sweet, funny and kind when you get to know me but for the bulk of clientele who wander into a stripclub, they want approachable girls who approach them. And although I know this, I am still bad at it.

I am also shy in new venues.

My entire career has been x number of years at club A, B or C.

Too many close call fights over customers. But this place doesn’t seem to be like that.

I should know by now (and have written) that there is no stripper mecca. There is no perfect place. But the one I am in now is pretty close. I just need to get my shit together a little  better.

The old days are long gone and I still maintain my ex husband stole my 30’s where I could have been doing things differently aka ‘right’.

I still danced when I was married. On and off, sometimes in secret so I could leave, after physiotherapy for that bad car wreck, my old boss at one of my clubs took pity on bent and broken me and let me do my 3 stages when there was no one around. I do acknowledge that dancing was a huge part of my recovery. I lost my grace and found it again. And I made enough to put first, last and next on my old apartment and furnish it without him knowing.

And there was a club up in the wilds near the farm.

Where the Birthday Sex fire occurred and I met one of my best friends.

There are a few things worse than being a pimp. Peophile, murderer, rapist, politician, especially the one who approved paying the mentally challenged 45 cents an hour for manual labour, pimp and then rat…in that order.

Hubby knew I worked there and took the money I made, then denied I ever gave it to him and after a while, I stopped giving it to him. After another while, I left him and stayed in the cathouse above the club.

Every cathouse I have ever stayed in is a bizarre palette of mistints from the local hardware store coating the walls either in all the colors of an easter egg or varying shades of band aid beige. Lists of rules that no one really follows, aged and water stained, peeling up at the corners placed randomly throughout, punctuated with artwork salvaged from the garbage leftover after rummage sales, always slightly crooked and a clock, like we want to know what time it is. The air is filled with ancient and fresh cigarette smoke, steam from someone’s shower and a hint of expensive shampoo and cheap body spray.

This particular one was garish shades of pink, like pepto bismol left in the sun to darken and harden or in the rain to dilute and fade and by the time I moved in, streaks of smoke from a house fire.

It all started with the Birthday Sex song.

…

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It has been a long minute since I spoke to you fine folks. This is going to come out like a diary entry.

The catfish poet was constantly criticizing my blog posts. “You’re too open, it’s not a diary darling.” But it is. I say my truth, and this part of what I write isn’t for the money, it is for my memory and sanity, so ya, it is a fucking diary. Neglected as of late, but here I am, trying and shit.

I had plans to bring my Roku north so this old laptop wasn’t my only source of entertainment and stuck on the weird side table at the end of my cat house bed and instead, in my la[p where it belongs. But I forgot, for like 3 weeks straight.

My routine is not great. Up at 11 or so. Down for coffee, watch a movie or two while doing stretches in my room. Eat a tapas style lunch around 2, nap til 3, shower, work, eat, rinse, repeat.
Kept meaning to bring my yoga mat too, forgot that also.

I got stuck in the new book at the part where they finally get together because for a long while that felt like an impossibility, but i think I can now.

I also meant to take a couple pics of my stripper room, I don’t think most folks understand how that works. Why would you, unless you yourself are a traveling stripper. I had one whole experience in my 22 years dancing and that place got lit on fire during a fight about the birthday sex song. But that whole experience was atypical and a story for another day.

I could just buy another Roku. But I haven’t.

Stripper money is a funny thing. It comes and goes in waves. Sometimes overlapping. I was treating myself to a blow out the day before heading to work, a polish change on my claws or new nails, pop into the grocery store across the street to feed myself for the week and suddenly a night or two’s worth of money, poof, gone. Then the phone bill comes due on a bad week and my car still needs fixing, I paid my taxes this morning. I keep waiting for a bonus night at work, and it hasn’t happened yet, in 5 weeks. Just steady, always with one garbage night to throw off my average. 5 weeks running. I am due 5 bonus nights in the near future. Let those overlap instead.

Last week I made meals with what I had on hand, snapped a nail moving furniture the day before I was to work, my roots are coming in and I just left all of it. An experiment to see if it made a difference, it didn’t. I have bigger goals, I don’t need to be fancy. I do need to work harder.

I have decided to lean into what is. Roommate moves into his new house in Belize in 4 days. That leaves me the house I am in all to myself. In all of it’s smoky, leather, grey, bachelor glory.

For at least a year.

I spent last tuesday decluttering, wiping down, sorting and ultimately filling 2 bins worth of donations at Value Village.

I got rid of 8 bags of my own clothes and leftover crap. Next will be the uncomfortable leather couches and the glass tables.

I’d be a fool to move. And it might be foolish to redecorate, but the stuff I salvaged from Newfoundland sits 200 yards from my front door in a now unnecessary storage space. The money saved in storage fees is enough to justify a coat of paint and a new couch. Besides, I nest, it’s what I do. And I will have this place looking like something out of a magazine soon, Good for resale when we get there right? And good for my brain, I hated feeling that ‘ugh’ when I walked in the door after 4 days gone. Anyone who follows my Instagram knows what I am capable of as far as making houses into homes goes. It’s my thing.

My favorite saying, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” One of the Roosevelts, Teddy I think. I have nice things across the street and I live here now. It is what is.

There are some downsides. My last friend here left last Thursday. I am doing all of this alone. I mean, it’s just Milton part 2 after the Potato moved out. I did all of that alone. We are back in grey lockdown so I couldn’t go meet new people even if I had any idea how to do that. No social media. I am isolated as fuuuuuck.

No fuck boys to play with neither here nor there, which sucks.

I did try. Only found one that might work and after 2 failed attempts I got a 4:26am ‘babe’ text. That is a privilege, not a right. After which I did give him a shot at redemption and he made out with a 19 year old at the bar 20 minutes after inviting me home, so that is dead in the water. I think the idea is dead in the water really. I should know better than to think anything viable would be found at a small town strip club. That only ever happened 3 times in all my years.

And besides, it is just a distraction. I am there to make money and lots of it. I have a condo, a jeep and trailer to buy, and now a couch. I am seriously thinking pink, never had a pink couch before.

And then there is the tit issue.

I really should have written something last week after the appointment. I finally got to the consultation stage of this horrendous adventure and wow that was not what I had expected.

Apparently there is no rupture.

Which means nothing is covered by insurance or the manufacturer and they still don’t know why I am sick exactly. I know 10 things it isn’t.

Doesn’t explain the lump I keep feeling, nor the way I have been feeling in general. I mean Breast Implant Illness isn’t dependent on a rupture, my body could just be fighting and rejecting the intact implants. And there is an anomaly and a lot of swelling they can’t explain. But now it’s a multi thousand dollar venture for me to get these out to see if I feel better and ya. Fuck. 

I am waiting on a mammogram and another ultrasound, then I will be getting a second opinion. But for now, I am still in expensive limbo. The stretching, constant movement and my renewed drinking has helped with pain management. I limp most mornings, exacerbated by giving myself a B 12 shot and having that butt cheek grabbed extra hard by a customer 12 hours post injection, that wasn’t a fun morning. But at least I knew what was wrong.

So that’s it. You’re all caught up.

Still sick, but better. No good dick at work or home. No tit replacement, yet. But I get to redecorate. I am safe, relatively happy and about to go get my nails done and refill my vegetable crisper and in 2 days I can keep filling my coffers.

It’s been over 3 years.

The whole thing lasted less than a year, but it was an important and strange time in my life.

He will protest this, but I was good while he was away. I know my truth and that is enough.

The trend for being faithful was started then and there. I decided to do the thing and I did. It was not easy, an angel of the lord came down and flirted with me, stole my heart really, but I stayed stubborn until I wasn’t.

Scratch that, I have always been faithful. I waited 26 years and destroyed every relationship I was ever in for High School Sweetheart even when he had 3 babies by 2 other women and married the second. He got his shit together a couple years after I had given up and I did not bend.
When I am with you, I am with you and when I am done I am done. I will still be kind, that is who I am. All of these things are in my marrow. Time doesn’t matter to my heart. Never has.

Less than a year after I met Final Boss I helped him pack his things and kissed him goodbye in a hotel parking lot as he flew away to go make a better life for himself. He said he’d be back for me and I had all the anecdotal proof in the world that it wasn’t going to happen, and I was already done.

I followed suit that same winter and here I be. Life is better.

A year ago right around now farm hubby and I went out for coffee as I tried to be the sympathetic ex and help him get over the loss of sisterwife. I had my own issues that needed airing out about that whole situation and it should have been cathartic, apologetic and full of forgiveness.

Except he called me the next day with plans for me to move back in, 8 years later. I cannot begin to imagine the mess he has been able to make in the last 8 years and the 7 years of busy work and constant cleaning was more than enough for me. I will take my little attic and my weird little life over that chaos any day. I was pretty insulted that he thought me no better than some girl who would wait on hold for someone else to die and then move back in like nothing happened.

No. Fuck no.

Honestly, I should have known. The others have done the same “wait here while I go try this girl on for size and wifery” and when she doesn’t fit, I get a phone call. It isn’t flattering. Appreciate me in real time or leave and stay gone. 

When Final Boss got on the plane he was (and I believe this) trying to do better, be better. And to tell the god’s honest truth, from the day we met until the day he left, I would have stood by him as he did do that very thing. And I would have been really good at it. I am the girl who carried aspirin in her purse in case he had a heart attack. Did triage in the VIP with his friends while they were bleeding. Picked him up at all hours and made 5am sandwiches.

A few months later he was back in town, back at his old shit and back with his ex. We all know this story. I didn’t like the way my name sounded coming out of his mouth and I told him so. I cried and I was done, like really done.

I both understood what he was doing and didn’t like it. A concept he had a hard time wrapping his head around, ya, I get it and ya, I was still angry. Understanding doesn’t have to denote forgiveness.

I have seen him once since, met his new pupper and he paid me back.
Then I forgave.

We talk on occasion. 5 minutes here or there. I ask if he’s okay, spit a little truth, he tells me to give it up (playfully) and I remind him I have (seriously). He called me at 5am when I was heading to the airport in November, he was also heading to the airport. I was landing at my destination as he was landing at the airport I flew out of. Metaphorical actuality.

The last conversation he was asking for the address of a place he had been to 4 times in the 4 days prior to the call. And I am not the kind of girl to wonder what a dude meant when he said ‘x,y,z’…but ya, it was an excuse to talk to me. Subtle this is not.

Turns out he has been building his empire like he said he would.
And it is going well from all accounts and there is a space for me.

This is a twist. And I am flattered.
Field of Dreams with dogs and drugs instead of corn and baseball.
He built it, but I am not coming.

I understand better than most how awful the universe’s timing seems to be on occasion.

And, full disclosure, as I struggle being the new girl in a new bar, the familiarity and status I achieved out east is so tempting. But I remember the price I paid for it. My sanity and sobriety.
But, being the Queen of Everything in a microcosm is just big fish, small pond. There is no challenge there for me anymore. It has been conquered, dissected and learned from. This latest revelation is just one more jewel in a tawdry crown that was always too small.

There is an old adage which dictates “god will give you everything you ever wanted and then send you a distraction to see what you will do.”

I feel like I could reach back into the archives and find something similar that happened years ago. I mean I did have the trailer, I was ready to go and I panicked and settled for the familiarity of the town I am in now and my stable full of fuck boys. But they are all cuffed now and my girls are gone. 

And I have indisputable proof that I was supposed to be exactly where I was, when I was. Arduous journey? Yep. Worth it? Absolutely.

His job was to keep me there a bit longer, not to bring me back.

I don’t want to go back and redo the things I have already done. 

It is time for something new.

For a minute there, I lost myself ~ Radiohead

We all knew that. I am tired of talking about it and I am sure you are all tired of hearing about it.

But for a minute there I was also a writer with no pen.

The lesser known horseman of my apocalypse, Frustration. He rides a dumpy lame nag of a non descript color and she is very slow and kinda blind.

A song came on my Spotify and I am desperate for better sets to dance to so I was scrambling for pen and paper before the newly formed brain bubble burst and leaked out.

Wednesday night work was not, not great.

I had this renewed sense of hustle and higher purpose, I looked stupid cute. Did lame shows, but kept my balance and rhythm and my legs doth not protest too much during the transitions from kneeling to standing BUT the clientele was 90% coked out townies with no desire to go for dances but they all said I am SOOOOOO PRETTY. I cannot finance my fabulous future with their words, but at least I didn’t feel like a total bag of shit.

I stumbled back upon the realization that sometimes I allow my nightly income to affect how I see myself and when my period is added to the mix the results can be disastrous. But I did not cry. I logically assessed the situation and just said fuck it by the end.

I did end up reminiscing like a motherfucker that night. I had a mini audience at rapt attention.

One of the girls asked me about perdition, and the diet red bull I consumed had me both rotted of gut and loose of tongue. She specifically wanted to know about the process of firing the girls who had flown to that strange little island to work.

It was never easy, except when it was.

I waxed nostalgic about getting a split lip for firing a very aggressive girl who was terrorizing all the other girls while holding a tray. The descent down the stairs with an intact tray full of shots and my other hand cupped under my chin to catch the blood, I really liked the shirt I was wearing.

I did have a theory that there was some kind of malevolent spirit that resided in the bar who, in order to be appeased, needed a blood sacrifice on occasion. It was just my turn.

And I realized the only other 3 fights that ever happened inside the bar while I was working happened during my stage shows, except the one where I saw it coming, warned the bouncer and then walked out the door because said bouncer gave me attitude and I figured an “I told you so” would be more fun and satisfying if he got a couple shots to the head. He did. It was.

I am contemplating a Twitch account wherein I can deep dive into my strip club memories and keep them safe while simultaneously broadcasting them. I have really good stories, some you know, some you don’t. I am fairly locked in my room from noon to 4 doing stretches and bed yoga. Why not? 

I am also having a hard time adjusting to the 3 song sets instead of 2 songs so I am going way back in my playbook and digging into the oldies sets. My body remembers them and I flow differently. It works, I am in a retirement town full of farmers. I realized one of the sets I picked was from a time long long ago in a city pretty far away.

I looked out into the audience once upon a time and saw 3 out of 4 men that I had slept with, during the same time period, never all at once.
Faithful readers will recall the Four Horsemen of My Apocalypse.
This second great conjunction happened probably 7 years after the first. They knew OF each other and as I climbed down from stage and got dressed, they all followed me outside for a cigarette and it did not take long for them to figure out the connection. They all teased me gently and I felt very loved, cherished and safe in that moment.

The last song in the set was 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover and we all had a good giggle about that too.

I hadn’t danced to it since then. Until Wednesday night. No such magic happened except that I smiled reminiscing about my 30 something self who was in yet another bad relationship, and for a minute got to remember what it was like to feel loved.

When I look back over my life I see many high places, many chances taken and for the most part, no regrets. Dancing has both been a part of my low self esteem, before I accepted it for what it was and myself for who I am. The highs are bookended with lows of course. Everything is cyclical. And honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way.

My life got better when I started being honest. About who I am, what I love and the things I have done. Shame is a terrible burden to carry, it is heavy and it is really just made up of other people’s opinions of us, and like compliments at a strip club on a Wednesday, they don’t pay the bills so, pretty useless really.. 

I have also decided that things will get better (and are getting better) as I accept where I am and what I am doing instead of living in a future that is unpredictable at best. Yes I am holding the vision, but for a good chunk of time there, I forgot to trust the process. I am sitting in my cute attic now. My room at the girl’s house is clean and smells good at least. I have my screen grab from A Streetcar Named Desire tucked into the side of my mirror and although he was never on his knees, it pleases me. I left my crystals to charge in the window. Found some acceptable incense at the health food store and brought my sheets home to wash, next week is a new week.

This past week at work was the transition from the county’s yellow to green phase. We knew going in work was going to be hard, the clientele would be unpredictable and the extended hours were going to be exhausting. It really really was. 5 shows instead of 2 meant I was on stage doing cardio in stilettos for about an hour a night. 5pm to 2am instead of 11 or 12. The last 2 hours being the busiest of the night. I barely left my room unless it was to prep for work or go downstairs to work. I watched some movies, did bed yoga and started this article last Thursday. I needed to be nice to my body and except for a decent amount of tequila, I was.

I accepted this.

I did a mini spell and would have hit that amount, except a friend from high school showed up and I chose to chill with him and his woman instead of hustling. No regrets.

I also made zero on Wednesday, a little harder to accept, but I came home with the same amount as the week prior, so I am not mad about it. Every dollar brings me closer to my goal. I have almost stopped comparing myself to the other girls. So that is good too. I did my squats and my bed yoga. I corrected my behavior from the week prior and there is still room for improvement, but I am getting better. 

Spring is coming, I can feel it. I am driving myself up this week after my MRI. One step closer to getting this silicone out of my body and time has started to move faster than the molasses of January and February.

This week was a little better than the last and I am excited for the next one and the one after that.

Now I am off to find sexy knee pads and look up this Twitch shit.

The rest of this article is available on Patreon for a $1 subscription per month. Link at the bottom.
Half Wild Thing goes live at midnight tonight, $5 subscription gets you digital access to both books I wrote.

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Good Morning my loves. A warm hello to my new patrons and a huge thank you to the ones who are sticking around while I fumble through this bumpy transition. It’s getting better.

The groundhog days of February wherein time slowed to a standstill and I would shovel 8 inches of snow just to have 8 more fall, seem to have left us.First night in my own bed in a few days. That is a nice feeling. Both being away and back to it.

Walked in the door to no power. S’okay. Didn’t last long and I am ⅓ of the way through American Gods (the book), plus I was so anxious to get home I was the first girl awake in the house and got a nice long and hot shower.

Oh, girls house life. I think I kinda missed it.

Although the first rule of staying in a stripper house is if you decide you have time for a nap and the house has been quiet all day everyone else will wake up and invade the kitchen as soon as your head hits the pillow. I remembered a black out curtain and forgot ear plugs.

Once upon a time my room was this little dormered thing on a cracky street in Newfoundland. On government cheque day we could hear them celebrating through the walls, there were always fights outside at all hours. Inside our house was less chaotic most of the time. I got launched out of bed to stop a few fights and make sure the puking girl hit the toilet. There were enough beds for 15 or 16 girls. I had one of 2 single rooms, a reward for being the keeper of the keys and the taker out of the trash. My room was always too hot or too cold, too bright or too dark. The walls were the color of bandaids and my door was always open. The third floor was like that, unless we were sleeping or jerking off, there were rules.

It got hot up there so we had strategically placed floor fans and a pact to keep our doors open for the cross breeze.

Plus, I gave out the room assignments so I got to be in charge of who my immediate neighbours were…mostly. I rarely locked my door and was never robbed. The doors were so old and had been broken down so many times they barely shut right, I had a butter knife outside my room for the days I forgot my keys, worked just as well.

My room was the meeting place, the venting place, the chilling place and the safe space.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-cathouse-48179794

Okay, something weird happened when I went to post this article.
I was looking for a quote, I had the Chuck Palahniuk stuck in my head “all god does is watch us and kill us when we get boring, we must never, ever be boring.” But that wasn’t it.

I have been boring lately, I admit it. I said ‘I lost my voice’ and someone took it literally. No, I just lost a huge part of myself. I can’t think of anything to say, mostly because I not doing anything.

Anyways, after 19 days of solitude and staying home I went out and did stuff, but we will get to that in a minute.

I was looking for a quote, had the wrong one stuck in my head and decided to google “god and plans” because my theory is that the gods think its funny that when we do make plans, it’s just an open invitation for them to fuck with us. That’s been my experience anyways. (gestures broadly at my life)

So, wow I am rambling…I google the thing and God’s Plan by Drake comes on, which happened to be crazy popular my first few months in Newfoundland and Stompy Magoo, the stripper that made my life miserable used to sing it at the top of her off key lungs at really inopportune times.
In the way that a lot of things become funny years later, I giggled. It is funny. That someone so inconsequential had so much sway on my life for a bit.
She had all the strippers convinced I was an evil witch. Witch yes, evil no.
It got better when I leaned into it. All the girls who were making fun of me started asking me for wishes and spells.

So I watched the video. The beginning is a black screen with the words “The budget for this video was $999 000 and we gave it all away.” I almost cried a couple times, it was really sweet. Also, a million bucks for a music video is insane by the way, but what he did made me feel good.

I am currently in a rocky relationship with money and hope it turns around soon. I wish I had money to throw around like that. I could help so many people.

So anyway, Back to the post I meant to write.

I adulted yesterday and got my taxes done.

I owe money. I don’t recall if that has ever happened before to be honest.

Lil mad, no gonna lie. But I am not surprised.

This year, so far, has been a bit of a financial drain. The first leg of my last trip was budgeted beautifully. But everything since the beginning of January has been one bit of fuckery after another. Broken snow shovel, grocery delivery, crazy phone bill, car fixing, customs on a suitcase of dirty clothes.

No, wait it all started with paying $275 USD for the extra bag on the plane. December 9th, things started getting stoopid.

I was supposed to leave January 9th and stretched it out another 26 days.

That’s on me.

Add the zero income and ya. I need to get my ass to work. I am guessing it will take me this 2 weeks of schedule to get me back to zero, then all gravy moving forward. I am officially breaking this cycle. Money comes easy and frequently.

The last day of my first stretch is a full moon, go big or go home I guess.

The way my current work works is we get booked for one or 2 blocks at a time. A block is 4 days on 3 days off. We stay on premises with the option to leave on our 3 days off. Once the weather gets better I can see myself sticking around. It is a 3 hour drive and it is truly beautiful up there. My lake is there. And the summer shifts are 5 on 2 off. Seems silly to drive home for one Monday just to turn around and go back again.

I am actually really looking forward to this summer now that I think about it.

I left my home town  in the 90’s and didn’t go back for 20 years. I do miss it.
Thinking about it prompted a memory which turned into a montage of memories of me leaving places to start over other places. I do this a lot.

I have been sitting here making imaginary budgets in my head. Imaginary because the particular county where I am currently employed is in yellow and could easily slip back to red, I have no idea when surgery is and there are 1000 other reasons why I can’t really plan anything.

I know what not to do which is get involved with a mediocre dude and go live somewhere expensive. I have done that way too many times now.

My grandmother passed away the year before my friend Greg died and she left me a bit of money. $7000 to a minimum wage 19 year old kid seemed like a million dollars, and I used that money to leave my home town and move up north.
I felt that Greg’s death and the events that surrounded it coupled with the sudden boon was a sign to leave, and mayhap it was.
A year later I was pregnant on a greyhound bus moving to Toronto and I love my kid more than anything, so sure, let’s call it fate.

I enjoyed living in Toronto too. It was mostly a fun decade. Especially after 24. I wouldn’t go back now, but it served me well. I left to move to the farm 14 years ago?
Moving to the farm put me in debt and trapped me there after I had been doing quite nicely on my own for a while. I miss the apartment (and job) I left at the behest of ex hubby. It was a beautiful spot. Well, I made it beautiful and I think he was shocked I paid for it just fine on my own after he left. Lord save me from men who need to be needed. 

And my last pilgrimage east, well, let’s just say the money I made on a two week stint as a new girl in the fall was about as much as I made in 2 months in the dead of perpetual spring. I was reliant on a piggy bank stuffed with $2 coins and $5 bills. Just getting there was expensive. The moving, the storage etc. I did not plan that so great but it all worked out eventually. Somewhere around the end of March Tina 2 Chainz and I landed a whale in the VIP and suddenly all my bills were paid and there was food in the fridge again. I had a lot of $1000 nights after that first one.

Something in me decided that if I ever do another leap of faith, I want to have x amount of dollars and this and that and the other fucking thing.

I realized this morning, that isn’t a leap of faith, it is a life maneuver of preparedness.
Who am I?

When I did my budget in December to move where I wanted, I had 6 or 12 months rent put away and/or paid before I left my current house, in my head. The plan now is different, but I am chuckling at myself for being so pre-prepared. 

I know from 30 years of anecdotal experience you can think you have all your bases covered and think you know what’s coming and the hand of god will come down and flick you into a different direction entirely.

I used to pay big city rent, feed myself and my son on minimum wage. $229 a week. I used to feed 4 people at the farm for that same amount every couple of weeks. Like I do know how to do this. My second grocery order of $90 was a stupid splurge, add the indian food take out and that could have been my food budget for the month. I have become spoiled somehow.

Most of my exes sponged off me, so the last 7 years of being single I have had more money than I am used to. I am no longer looking after adult children that I didn’t give birth to. This is a good thing. I have traveled, had adventures, bought (and left behind) some beautiful furniture, lived in lovely places and never gone hungry or without anything really.

And I keep saying it, because I cannot afford to forget it, 9 years ago I could have started building my tiny empire but instead I moved back to Toronto because my crappy boyfriend at the time wanted it and then we struggled for a year and a half. But at least he got to get beer and wings at the pub 5 times a week.

Not repeating that cycle, I refuse. No man is cute or sexy enough for that shit. Yes, my vagina is yodeling her song of starvation and loneliness, but this too shall pass. 

And in the immortal words of Aerosmith “can’t say baby where I’ll be in a year.”

I can’t, I do not have the slightest clue. 

But right now I am warm and safe and tomorrow I go to work and I think it is going to be good for me on 57 levels.

I need out of my house and out of my head. I need some structure and discipline. And the money will be nice too. 

I have a leg up as far as survival goes.
And this is all coming too late to help anyone now, but serves as a good list going forward, plus a reminder for me.

My mother and father raised me in a converted Mennonite farmhouse, with no indoor plumbing until I was about 22 months old. The story goes, she told my father she wasn’t going to potty train me with an outhouse and the bathroom got built. 

We moved from the country to a subdivision when I was 7, but I remember remnants of the time before running water and electricity on the farm. The well outside with the hand pump provided fresh clean potable water. The bureau in the kitchen held several well maintained kerosene lamps. We had one of those ancient wood fired oven + stovetop, and that is how our food was cooked, bread baked and house heated when I was little. 

I heard stories of the renovations that I couldn’t possibly remember wherein there was no insulation against the cold of Canadian winter, save some newspapers from the late 1800’s.

And that is another thing. I am Canadian.

We understand cold, our houses are built to withstand it. That being said, I have had a burst pipe (once, my bad) and many a flooded basement in my day.

I grew up in that farmhouse and the power went out a lot. But we didn’t need it. My mother had the radio on from the minute she woke up to get my father off to work, until we went to bed. If there was weather coming, she knew it. The bathtub was filled with washing/flushing water, the lamp wicks trimmed, the kerosene filled. And the garage always had enough wood to get us through for months lining the walls from floor to rafters. We had a root cellar and a deep freezer lined with ice, just in case. My mother had an impressive one acre garden and canned or froze everything she grew, all lined up in organized rows in the pantry. Of course we went to town for coffee, sugar, flour etc. but in the dead of winter where the roads were impassable, we never once went without.

I wonder what it was like for them to adjust. Both of them from Michigan, both from sizable towns. My mother and her best friend had been heads of the house at a commune for years and my father’s stoicism and capabilities to fix everything are the things of myths. But they weren’t raised on farms, they chose that lifestyle in their 20’s, before I came along.

I made a similar choice and was pretty dumbfounded about the lack of preparedness when I went to live with my husband on his farm. The garden was in ruins, the soil tainted by a leaking rototiller. A barn full of his hoarded mechanical crap instead of providing shelter for the sad looking chickens. If the power went out it was dark and miserable. And I had to give my horses lake water to drink every summer because our well would inevitably go dry, 2 trips a day, 13 buckets in the back of my jeep. I bathed in various lakes 3 months of the year too. But I made it work.

In retrospect I think it might have been easier for me to flip a Mennonite farmhouse into a productive homestead than it was to deal with his patched together hoarders paradise. Start fresh instead of constantly fixing what hadn’t been done right in the first place.

But I kept the animals alive, got the garden going for a couple of years. Fed us 100s of meals sourced within a 30 km radius by cultivating the land, raising meat birds and goats and forging good relationships with the neighbors, and when the power went out, we were fine.

I also remember the big eastern seaboard blackout of 2003, we weren’t so lucky. It was summer and my ex wouldn’t stop opening the fridge. Lost a lot of groceries and I actually had to walk home 2 miles uphill because transit stopped working when my boss finally let us close the restaurant.

We were in a grid of mostly industrial businesses, actually, our building was not zoned for residence so we were one of the last neighborhoods to have power restored. But at night we had light, because I had my mother’s kerosene lamps, wicks trimmed and ready. And I traded food with the upstairs neighbor for the use of his barbeque. I do remember how amazing it was to sit up on the roof and actually see the stars.

10 years later the ice storm of 2013 had us powerless for 8 days.

But, I was living in the snowbelt far out of town and everything I learned as a kid growing up in the nether reaches of nowhere had already been put into place.
Lamps, candles, batteries, non perishable food that didn’t need cooking, a freezer lined with ice, plentiful jugs of potable water.

Mostly prepared I should say, my piece of shit (now) ex boyfriend didn’t bother to fill the tubs and sink up so we scrambled for washing and flushing water. I was 2 hours away at work battling an ice storm to get home. But it did force me to completely drain the pipes so none of them froze. 

I had a big beautiful fireplace, we stashed the contents of the fridge on the back porch and lived quite happily until the power came back on. Even had wood fired pizzas from scratch and I made a mean batch of fajitas. We lost some produce sure, all got a bit ripe a few days in, which could have been avoided had my pos ex filled the ample tubs we had with water like I asked him to. But we made it by melting snow.

It pointed out to me that there is a huge juxtaposition between city preparedness and country living. But with the weather getting weirder by the year, everyone should have 

1. Enough potable water on hand for 3-5 days of power outages.
   1 gallon per person per day. More if you are me.
   That means one of those 5 gallon jugs each, stashed away somewhere in the house. And a hand pump for the tops.
2. Sterno pods and/or a camping stove and fuel (alternatives listed below)
3. Canned goods and a non electric can opener, other non perishables 
4. A battery powered or crank radio, also batteries.
5. A cold temperature sleeping bag for each person in the house
6. Candles, candles, candles. You can heat a room with a few tealights and a terracotta pot. Ikea sells 100 pack tealights, get 3 packs
   (I’ll post a link to a “how to” below)
7. a) leave your taps to run a bit on cold nights or
   b) know where your main shut off is for your house and empty the pipes completely.
   Fill your bathtub(s) prior to a power outage so you can wash dishes and flush toilets. (Good way to drain the pipes too in case of freezing)
   Potable water treatment tablets work too, if you can’t boil water.

Every item mentioned above can be stored in one rubbermaid (per person) at the back of a closet, labeled with the name of each member of the family. Make it fun if you have little ones, stash colouring books and crayons or non electronic games and treats in their bins.
Just make sure to rotate the canned goods and pick nonperishables that you actually want to eat.
Do a deep freezer clean out and layer bags of ice underneath everything, you lose a little space but it is better than losing all of your food and you know you aren’t going to eat those freezer burnt tater tots anyways.

I lived a long weekend of -20 degrees Celsius in a house where our oil heater went empty on the Friday by barricading myself in the living room and nailing blankets over the windows and doorways, I had one tiny space heater, candles aplenty, snow pants and 2 dogs. We made it until Tuesday morning.
A tent in an insulated room in your house also conserves heat when sleeping.

I am writing this, not to gloat or brag, but as a warning of sorts.

I grew up knowing how to do these things and I have realized how many people don’t know what to do and the weather just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

Rotate your food goods in conjunction with time change, just like the batteries in your smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors.
Also, any combustible source of heat can lead to carbon monoxide poisoning, so be careful.
Stash an extra cord of wood in the garage if you are lucky enough to have a fireplace and a garage.

I plan on living in a tiny house living starting next year and have had to mentally reconfigure my space allotment in my head so I have all of these things on hand. Down south trailer living sounds great until the snow falls where it isn’t supposed to. I am currently looking up the pros/cons and specs for installing a tiny pot belly woodstove in a trailer.

We live in a technologically great age, but we have gotten away from being able to make it for a few days without power and running water, and it scares me. A quick trip to the camping supply section of the department store and basically the same amount of money you would spend on a couple dinners out, plus a little forethought and knowledge about how your house works is enough to save your ass when the weather gets weird and the government does nothing.

***Please note anything that produces a flame also sucks the oxygen out of the space you are in and can cause carbon monoxide poisoning, and in the last video with the pop can/alcohol stove 91% alcohol or higher and 1983 penny or older to be safe.

Sometimes, often, when things go wrong I get an urge to light everything on fire.

Wait, that is not entirely true. 

I’ve stayed and fought to preserve things that were not worth preserving. (gestures broadly at 7 years of farm life)

Let’s talk about that for a minute shall we.

Examine my stubbornness and folly.

He used to call me his sexy chocolate alarm clock.

At the beginning of our relationship, I would drop my son off at school and had 2 hours between then and when I had to be at work. So I would stop at the Starbucks on the corner, grab us coffees (he liked mochaccinos) and jump on the streetcar in the opposite direction I needed to go, back to his house and wake him up with a coffee and a blow job. It was a $15 venture 3 or 4 times a week now that I think about it with the coffee and the extra trips. 

This is who I am as a girlfriend. I figure out nice things to do for my partner and I do them.

If I am awake before you, you are getting coffee and a blowjob.

So, a month or two in, I went into his room, he was sleeping, I did my thing and started to gag, not in a funny sexy way, he wasn’t very big at all. No no dear reader, I pulled a long auburn hair out of my mouth. My hair was black. It had been wrapped around his cock and ended up in my mouth. So gross.

Took me about 30 seconds to realize what was happening and I started crying and left.

He was obviously cheating. I obviously didn’t want that. So I left the key on the coffee table and bailed while he was still naked in bed, half asleep trying to figure out what happened.

That could have been the end of that story if the streetcar had come to take me away.

But it didn’t.

He caught up with me at the corner and gave me this bullshit story about how his brother’s girlfriend put her laundry in with his and it must be her hair and I was being silly and stop crying and did I want a ride to work.

I am not a stupid girl, but I wanted to believe him, even though logic and physics dictate a hair cannot get coiled around the head of a dick under the foreskin from laundry transference. Its scientifically impossible. But I was cold and tired and sad and the streetcar wasn’t coming and that moment changed my life for a long time to come.

He got a way with it once and kept pushing the envelope.

Had I known then even an inkling of what was to come, and maybe I did, my gut was doing somersaults and not from my chai latte, I would have said no and save myself the $60 bucks a week and 7 years of cheating, fighting, financial abuse and bullshit.

He is the one who extolled the wisdom upon me that ‘we train people how to treat us in the first 3 months of a relationship’ anything we start or let slide, becomes habit. The ex before him never grocery shopped, cooked, cleaned or did laundry, that was all on me for 5 years. Because I did those things for the first while we were together without question or hesitation. Again, I figure out nice things to do for my partner and I do them. Sometimes to my detremement.

I would love to tell you that I have found some balance, but if you ask any of my recent exes, they would all tell you I was generous and kind and nice. Final Boss got me out of bed repeatedly to go get him wherever he was after multi day benders and back out of bed making 5am sandwiches when his hangover would kick in.

I am too nice, and part of me is still holding out for the person that will appreciate me as is. I don’t want to become cold, I have had so many opportunities.

But what does that have to do with anything?

After I left him finally, I lit a match and set that whole part of my life on fire. Purged everything, including friends. It has been 9 years and 5 days since the Valentine’s Day hotel incident that was my last straw of a million that broke my back. I have maybe one thing left that I owned when I lived at the farm. So much of my shit is in storage that I can’t even be sure about that one thing anymore. I tossed all of it 3 moves ago. And I had some cool shit. I just don’t want to remember.

Wolf pointed out that I was having an abusive relationship with social media. He isn’t wrong wrong, but I did that thing wherein I complained about it more than I explained why I liked it.

I also left the blog as is for its entire existence and never allowed it to evolve or grow. I would write a post, post it to Facebook, people would read it and I would do it again on Thursday.

The Catfish Poet proposed years ago that I get rid of everything, and then backpedaled when he saw the numbers and potential and wanted to use me and my platforms to sell his shit. I have almost walked away 3 times now.

There is a post in there somewhere called “Before I Go”. 

I left it up for continuity even though it was folly and turned out not to be true. Same with the couple of posts about the fake soldier, the year of Lumberjack wherein he had a secret girlfriend the whole time. I think she had his babies, good for them.

So, I finally got out of my abusive relationship with Facebook and I thought a full purge was the only way to go. Fuck the blog, fuck everything really. I was torn between filling a shopping cart with my belongings and going to live in a tent city and getting a mediocre job and a mediocre husband. Barring those things, just going back east and doing a do over. Reno another room in Brian’s house and wait to be rescued, but accept that I wouldn’t be.
I am not exaggerating for dramatic effect, those were my 3 choices for the better part of a month. 

Except, I still want all the things I wanted 7 years ago. Little trailer down south, revenue streams from writing so I wasn’t tied to rent in one place or one job.

I have proven that I can write a novella from idea to published in 60 days if properly motivated. 

Selling them/myself is the challenge now. But it always has been. I just keep being good and hoping someone notices.

It doesn’t matter that I am a really good writer, the market is saturated.

I have a month of bed rest post surgery looming. Instead of migrating the blog to Patreon, maybe keep both instead of setting my life on fire. 

I don’t know what I am doing to be honest.

I had a very long talk with a very old friend last night and he kinda kicked my ass a bit and offered suggestions. Mind you he is ‘mister technical web guy’ and I am a luddite. But 7 years ago I didn’t know how to navigate wordpress either so there is that then. I still don’t use it to its full potential but the groundwork is there, so much groundwork. And he pointed out that women writers have to work 10 times harder than our male counterparts, he is not wrong.

The things I learned and the skills I honed over the 7 years of living at the farm have made me what I am today. Self sufficient, good in a crisis, I can fix a car, unflood a basement, live without power and even my polyamory is a direct result of what I lived through there. I also know I never want to have another farm in Ontario or Canada really, ever. Nor live through another winter here.

I must have learned something good from the blog over 7 years. I just have to figure out what.

“Its only after we have lost everything that we are free to do anything” Fight Club

There are parts of me that are fighting to remain. Including this blog.

Extras still available here

https://www.patreon.com/sarahthegoodwitch