Work in Progress….

Something I’m working on…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jordan walked in and plopped herself down on my couch like she owned the place.  Technically she did, she was my landlord, but I still glared at her until she pulled her dirty sneakered feet off my couch cushions.

“Why won’t you just date me?  I’m telling you, that would be the solution to all your problems.”

I’d spent an hour talking to her on the phone about my dating dilemmas and she’d finally announced that she was on her way.  Ten minutes later she came through the door with her grin and her leather jacket and a six pack of beer. And the solution to my problem, not that I hadn’t heard it before.

“I’m not going to date you, Jordan, we’ve been over this.”

“I know, you’re not sure what you want yet and you don’t want to risk our friendship and I’m your landlord, blah blah blah.  Doesn’t mean we couldn’t have some fun while you look for your next Mrs. Right, Or Mister.” Jordan winked lewdly and grabbed my phone. “Let’s see who you’ve got here.”

I lunged for it, managing to knock over the coffee table, and her beer bottle, and landing heavily on top of her.  She was partway on her side and I ended up straddling her hip.

Giving me a sideways look, she said, “You sure this is how you want to do it?  Might be better if I roll over on my back…”

I gave her a dirty look and got up.

“Or my stomach, if that’s what you’re hoping for.” She rolled over and pumped her butt up and down in what I guess was an invitation.

I flopped back down in my recliner. “Dammit, Jordan, you’re not helping.”

“Because you won’t let me.” She took note of my expression and exhaled. “Okay, I’ll stop trying to seduce you for a moment. Let’s talk about the latest one, WideMouth, right?”

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Order Up, Lesbian Erotica Anthology Now Available

“Order Up: A Menu of Lesbian Romance and Erotica” is now available in eBook and paperback.

Amazon, paperback, $14.99.

Ylva Publishing, eBook, $7.99

There is a full menu of tantalizing stories including mine, Daddy’s Hot Appetizer:

Join Chef R.G. Emanuelle and sous chef Andi Marquette as they return to the kitchen to cook up another menu in their continuing quest to explore the sensuous qualities of food and illustrate how the act of preparing and eating it can engage much more than simply taste and smell. Food can become many things, from a gateway to greater intimacy to the creation or rediscovery of a connection. To help them in their quest, Andi and R.G. rounded up another group of cooks who created an array of dishes and meals, which they present to you here in a menu that ranges from sweet and romantic to sultry and seductive, from a relationship’s first tentative taste to the many layers of one that has simmered long and slow.

Order Up Cover 525 x 800Each story also ends with a recipe. Some require cooking implements while others are whimsical accompaniments that don’t require cooking at all—at least not in the traditional sense. After all, food serves as more than sustenance—it’s a trigger for love, laughter, sex, pleasure, and carnal and sensory satisfaction. Whatever your palate prefers, you’re sure to find something tasty here.

This content is published under the Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported license.

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Rough cuts: The First Time

From my pile of unpublished stories, something light and fun to start the weekend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As many times as I have fallen in love and lust, nothing matches the first time. The contradictory combination of confusion, clarity, animal lust and puppy love with liberal doses of straight up fear were intoxicating. I remember thinking I didn’t have any idea how to have sex, and being astonished when my body knew exactly what it was doing.

I was a junior in high school and  I’d gone out with a couple of guys but the experiences weren’t exciting enough to ask for seconds. The idea of dating a girl wasn’t even on my radar yet.

The first time we met was after a basketball game. I was playing JV girls basketball and she was in the stands not far up from our bench. During a time-out, I glanced up to see her staring right at me. She had honey-gold hair, light colored eyes and dimples. We caught eyes for a moment before she blushed and dropped her gaze. I didn’t have time to ponder what it meant before I was out on the court again.

After the game one of my teammates stopped me on my way to my truck and pointed to a small group standing near her car. The girl with the dimples was with them.

“Casey, come over and meet my friends.”

Jo introduced me to the five of them but the only name that stuck in my head at the time was ‘Keri’. Up close I could see that her eyes were blue and she was wearing a light-colored sweater under a denim jacket. I had a sudden desire to reach under her jacket and feel her body through her sweater. I felt my face flush and I stammered through the next couple of moments of conversation, hoping like hell she couldn’t read my mind.

They were all heading to a nearby drive in and Jo asked me to join them. I was going to decline, feeling flustered and nervous and confused by my thoughts about Keri. I started to pull away, moving toward my car.

“Oh come on, come with us, you don’t want to go home yet, do you?” Keri had taken a couple of steps toward me and behind her, Jo grinned and winked at me. I ignored Jo and looked at Keri. Truth was I couldn’t look away, her sunny sky blue eyes had me pinned, and she was biting her lip, “Please?”

I felt something like butterflies the size of eagles in my belly as I stammered “yes” however, I couldn’t seem to move. I stood there and watched as Jo’s crew piled into her car, all except for Keri who lingered next to the open door.

“You coming or not, Ker?” Jo’s voice carried laughter and innuendo like a freight train. “Or would you rather come with Casey?”

Laughter erupted from inside the car and Keri rolled her eyes for my benefit.

“Come on, Keri” I said. “You can ride with me.”

At the drive-in, we both got shakes and I pulled into a parking slot next to Jo. The group was sitting at a picnic table and we joined them. As we walked up, one of the other girls got up to sit on the other side, leaving a two person space on the bench. We sat down and Jo tapped my shin with her toe and raised her eyebrows at me when I looked up. I gave her the “What?” look. I was getting irritated that she seemed to know more of what was going on than I did.

The irritation quickly fled as my leg registered the warmth of Keri’s thigh against mine. The conversation swirled around us, but she seemed content to focus on her milkshake and me. After a while, Jo and crew got up to leave but Keri didn’t budge.

I looked at her, eyebrows raised.

“Casey, would you mind giving me a ride home?” she said after a moment.

I glanced at Jo, who winked at me and grinned for what felt like the billionth time. They were all grinning at us and I felt myself blush, yet again.

“Yes, Keri, I’d love to give you a ride home.”

We got in my truck again and I asked Keri where she lived. She told me and then said, “But I’m not ready to go home yet. Can we go over to the river park first?”

As I said before, my body always seemed a step or two ahead of me. While my brain was attempting to wrap itself around all of this, my body had started the adrenaline drip and the area between my legs was starting to feel warm and tense. As I pulled into a spot overlooking the river, Keri moved toward me on the bench seat, putting her hand on my thigh.

I looked at her, stuck squarely between wanting to touch her in return and being afraid to move lest I scare her off.

Luckily, she knew what she was doing, “I’ve been bugging Jo to introduce us for a several weeks now. I think she didn’t want to because she could tell I had a crush on you and she’s been trying to get me to go out with her.”  Her hand felt like a warm ember on my thigh and her eyes wouldn’t let mine go. “I’m really glad she finally got over herself. It helps that she has a girlfriend now, I suppose.”

I sat in a stunned silence, color rising on my cheeks once again. The words ‘crush’ and ‘girlfriend’ were echoing in my head as I struggled to make sense of what she was saying. “So you and Jo and the others are….?”

“Lesbians, yes. Wait…” She laughed nervously, removed her hand and pulled away slightly. “Jo said you were, too.”

“No, I mean, I don’t know, I hadn’t thought about it before now, maybe?” I was babbling and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to stop it. The eagles in my belly were circling violently, while the area between my legs had turned into a tropical swamp. My body was in an uproar and so was my mind. I looked at her desperately, not sure how to tell her what was going through my mind and hoping she’d touch me again, “Probably? I mean, your hand felt nice and I don’t want you to feel weird about it and I, uh…”

She got closer again and put her finger across my lips, silencing me. “Here’s the truth, I like you and I don’t feel weird about it. And if you’re open to it, I’d like to show you how much I like you.”

I didn’t think it was possible for my cheeks to get redder, but based on the flood of heat in them at that moment, I must have been at fire engine red. I didn’t seem to be able to speak so I nodded in agreement.

She kissed me softly at first and as soon as her lips touched mine it felt like I was nothing but a pair of lips and a throbbing cunt. Her hands started exploring my body and I sighed heavily at the intense feeling of electricity and heat she left everywhere she touched. I reached an arm around her shoulder and the other hand went up her leg until it was in the crease between her thigh and hip bone. I’d made out with a couple of guys before and it was nothing like this. Instead of the awkward and fumbling experience I’d had before, it felt right to hold her against my body, her mouth tasted good and the feeling between my legs was so intense I thought I would come just from kissing her.

In the midst of making out, we’d adjusted our positions and she was sitting half on my lap when she took my hand and slipped it under her skirt, pressing it between her legs. “Can you feel how hot I am for you?  I am soaking wet just from making out with you.”

I pressed my fingers against the dampness of her panties and she groaned in my ear, hips bucking. “Oh, god, yes, please, touch me, don’t stop.”

I’d never been with a girl intimately but I’d spent a lot of time touching myself, I knew what felt good for me and without overthinking it, that’s what I did for her. I started stroking and pressing against her clit, feeling her lips part for me. I slipped my fingers under the elastic and felt her wetness directly. Her mouth was hungry against mine, pulling on my tongue and sucking hard on it as she pressed herself against me.

She pulled away from my mouth briefly, “Please, inside me, please I need it, I need you.”

Thank goodness my head didn’t get in the way at that moment because again, my hands seemed to know just what to do. First one finger and then another found their way inside her and she leaned back against the door. She was wet and warm and squeezing my fingers and moaning and I was in heaven. All I wanted to do was stay inside her and have her keep making those noises. It was as if a combination had finally clicked into place in my head, I felt like this was something I had been born to do.

I’m always amused at how I can have so many voices in my head at moments like these. There was a part of me sitting in dumbfounded shock that I was fucking a girl in my truck not even a couple of hours after I’d met her. There was another equally shocked part who kept saying “She’s so cute and she likes me? She wants me to touch her?” over and over again. There were other voices, too, barely audible who were sending up warning flares and cautions. The only voice I was really focused on was hers.

“Oh my god, yes, oh god, that’s soo good, please yes, more more more, pleeeeease!” Her head was thrown back and I leaned forward to kiss her neck. My hand was starting to cramp but I wasn’t about to stop, I just wanted the moment to last. She convulsed and grew louder until her voice was a shrill shout and then she relaxed, though her cunt kept its grip on my fingers. Her head came up and she looked at me with wide eyes, glancing around as if she’d forgotten where we were. Truth is, I’d kind of forgotten too, and suddenly realized how exposed we were to people passing by on the street. As if to emphasize that point, headlights suddenly illuminated the cab as a car approached..

I pulled out quickly and sat back in my seat, breathing hard and watching as they drove by, not even slowing down. She laughed, a high, giddy laugh that sounded like it bubbled up from deep inside her. Her smile was huge and she pulled me toward her again.

“Kiss me, hot stuff.”

This kiss was slower, deeper and more intense. I jolted when I felt her hand between my legs. She rubbed against the seam of my jeans and I moaned into her mouth. My hips were on automatic, and I felt my orgasm rising quickly. As I came, I made sounds I had never heard come out of my mouth before; howling and keening into the night. The rest of the world receded again until there was nothing except that point where her fingers pressed against me.

I collapsed against her and she wrapped her arms around me, stroking my back.

“Baby, do you want more?  I’d love to get into your pants”  Her voice purred in my ear as I caught my breath.

I sat up and looked around, once again aware of our surroundings and the potential for discovery.

I looked at my watch and yelped.

She turned my wrist toward her and said, “Oh wow, yes, it is late isn’t it?  Are you going to get into trouble?”

I bit my lip and started the truck. “Maybe, but I can probably talk my way out of it. I’ll just tell them I was hanging out with friends after the game and time got away from me.”

“Not far from the truth, is it?” She was grinning widely, arm around my shoulder, playing with my hair. She reminded me where she lived and I pointed the truck in that direction. Once we were stopped in front of her house, she faced me with a serious look on her face.

“I know all of this is new and you weren’t expecting it. Are you OK?”

I took a moment and a deep breath. I was already looking forward to seeing her again, and doing all of that again, a lot. As much as possible, in fact.

“I’m more than OK. You’re right, I had no idea that any of this was going to happen tonight, but I am so glad it did. I didn’t know that I wanted this until you touched me. I’ve been trying to date boys but it never worked. I just figured it was my fault.”

“Not your fault, sexy, you were just meant for something different. And damn, are you good at it.”

That made me blush again and I ducked my head, overcome with shyness. She lifted my face and looked into my eyes. “I like you and I’d like to see you again, a lot more actually.”

It was a kissing moment, I could feel it but I was nervous, sitting in front of her parent’s house, which had even a granny house, made with help of the best designer of Granny Flat Plans online.

This time I pulled her lips to mine and kissed her. Her soft, sweet lips were hard to pull away from, but I had to get home and deal with my parents.

“I definitely want to see you again, too”  I bit my lip, feeling certain what I was going to ask next was way too forward and and also that I couldn’t let it go unsaid. “Are you.. would you like to be my girlfriend?”

My heart was pounding somewhere near my Adam’s apple as I watched her face for signs of what her answer would be.

“Well, you really are OK with all of this, aren’t  you?”  she said after a long pause. “We hardly know each other and this seems way too soon, but yes, yes you sexy butch, I do want to be your girlfriend.”

She gave me a quick kiss and got out of my truck. “See you tomorrow, baby.”

I watched her walk to the door, returned her wave and sat for a long moment after she closed the door behind her. I sat there until I saw an upstairs light go on. Then I left, worried someone would call the cops if I sat like a stalker in front of her house for too long.

My folks were pissed but I convinced them not to ground me. I barely slept that night, fingering myself and remembering her hands and her mouth and the way her body felt. I exhausted myself masturbating and fell asleep with one hand between my legs.

When I woke up the next morning, the first thought was of her and my next thought was….

“Holy, shit, I have a girlfriend!”  and then, “What’s a butch?”

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eLust #82, featuring Puppy Love…

Elust 82 Header
Photo courtesy of Teachers Have Sex

Welcome to Elust #82

The only place where the smartest and hottest sex bloggers are featured under one roof every month. Whether you’re looking for sex journalism, erotic writing, relationship advice or kinky discussions it’ll be here at Elust. Want to be included in Elust #83 Start with the rules, come back June 1st to submit something and subscribe to the RSS feed for updates!

 

~ This Month’s Top Three Posts ~

Take Me

How Do I Love Thee:On Comparing Relationships

Asking all the questions…

 

 

~ Featured Post (Molly’s Picks) ~

Erotic Fiction: Fishnet Queen

I Manage My Expectations

~Readers Choice from Sexbytes ~

*You really should consider adding your popular posts here too*

Wanna Have Sex With Me? – Here’s how
All blogs that have a submission in this edition must re-post this digest from tip-to-toe on their blogs within 7 days. Re-posting the photo is optional and the use of the “read more…” tag is allowable after this point. Thank you, and enjoy!

 

Sex News, Opinion, Interviews, Politics & Humor

Maybe I’m not a pervert after all
Bad Excuses
Engaging with Sexuality: A Personal Perspecti
I wish there were more porn
Cock Size: Does it matter?
Blue is not a “boy color.”

Erotic Non-Fiction

Watching My Wife With Another Man Story
Afternoon Cunnilingus & Birthday Sofa Sex
Why You Should Shave Your Partner
Oct 2014 Session – Mistress Claire
Two Days Later
Roping a cougarling
Divining Rods
Dorabella’s pink-velvet spanner

Erotic Fiction

Puppy Love
Quick & Dirty
She Says My Voice Changes for Her
THE BLINDFOLD – fear of the unknown
U is for undress…
Stay Baby…Stay.
kink of the week–glasses

Thoughts & Advice on Sex & Relationships

Slutfest Reflection
Love and Fairness
Winnowing
V is for……..
My heart turns blacker: the new rules

 

Thoughts & Advice on Kink & Fetish

Blast from the Fetish Video Past
The whole person approach to Submission
Down on my knees
Dominant Doppelgangers, Dominant Opposites
Four eyes
BDSM and Depression: Therapy or Self-Harm?

Poetry

Eden, Revisited: A Lusty Limerick

Writing About Writing

Stepping Stones
Centering Disabled Characters in My Erotica

 

ELust Site Badge

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This Erotica Anthology is Available soon, so Order Up

Order Up Cover 525 x 800The Lesbian erotic anthology, Order Up, will be available in 5 days through Ylva Press.  This food-themed collection of sexy stories will have, nestled within its pages, an original story from me:  Daddy’s Hot Appetizer.

Though the release isn’t until 5/18/16, you can pre-order the e-book through Ylva Press right now, right here.   It’s available in epub, mobi, and pdf formats.

From the website:

Join Chef R.G. Emanuelle and sous chef Andi Marquette as they return to the kitchen to cook up another menu in their continuing quest to explore the sensuous qualities of food and illustrate how the act of preparing and eating it can engage much more than simply taste and smell. Food can become many things, from a gateway to greater intimacy to the creation or rediscovery of a connection. To help them in their quest, Andi and R.G. rounded up another group of cooks who created an array of dishes and meals, which they present to you here in a menu that ranges from sweet and romantic to sultry and seductive, from a relationship’s first tentative taste to the many layers of one that has simmered long and slow.

Each story also ends with a recipe. Some require cooking implements while others are whimsical accompaniments that don’t require cooking at all—at least not in the traditional sense. After all, food serves as more than sustenance—it’s a trigger for love, laughter, sex, pleasure, and carnal and sensory satisfaction. Whatever your palate prefers, you’re sure to find something tasty here.

If you purchase the anthology in e-book or later in printed format, please post reviews all over the place.  That helps sales a lot and helps the publisher, editors and writers keep getting work.

This is very, very exciting for me.  This is the first mass published erotica anthology I’ve been published in and only the second time I’ve gotten paid for the work.  I AM SO EXCITED.  Please buy it and read it and love it.  It will be available in printed form in May.

I’m using a new pen name for this one, CK Combs, and the story is “Daddy’s Hot Appetizer” – here’s a taste:

She had her back turned, consulting her menu. I lightly caressed her spine, tugging on the apron strings on my way down. She leaned back and shuddered.

“Oh love, you have no idea how turned on I am,” she said.

“I have some idea.” I slid a hand up from her thigh to the curve of her waist, enjoying the way she shivered against me.

“Baby, if you don’t stop now…I won’t want you to, but I’m not quite done yet and I still have to clean up and get dressed…”

Her voice trailed off as I caressed her hips and waist, one hand rising up from her belly to her breasts, the other dipping lower. It was hot like a furnace between her legs and I felt the telltale slipperiness of her arousal through her boxers.

“We’ve got time,” I purred into her ear. “The roast has about 30 minutes left and you can’t do the gravy until it’s done.” Her nipples hardened under my insistent fingertips. “Once the potatoes boil, they can sit for a moment before you mash them.” I slid my other fingers inside her boxers. “You watch the pot, and make sure it doesn’t boil over or something. Think of this as a form of invisible bondage.”

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New Features – Brainstorming and Ask Kyle Anything

As you may know, I’ve been working on a blog redesign (thank you Mel and Matt!) and thinking up new features and fun stuff.  I had an idea today I’d like to get your opinion.

My idea is to get you, dear reader, to send me questions.  They can be about anything, though I reserve the right to reject disrespectful ones. My plan is to answer them via video, on my YouTube channel.  I hope this will be fun for all of you; I’m pretty sure it will be fun for me.

With that in mind, who wants to give it a try?  Leave your question in the comments section for this post or email me at kyle at butchtastic.net.  And if you’ve sent questions to me before, feel free to send them again, even if I’ve answered them previously.  Times change and maybe my answer will, too.  Besides this is video, so who knows what will happen.  I might even be able to talk Red into joining me for some of these shenanigans.

Some topical areas to consider, but not feel limited to:  writing, erotic writing, gender, transition, partnering, polyamory, relationships, parenting, queer activism, LGBTQ+ youth support, life, the universe and everything.

Other ideas and feedback are also welcome.  Let me know what would make your Butchtastic experience more entertaining and worthwhile.  I’m still working on my list of incentives for people who want to become patrons, so if you have ideas for that project, send them my way.

Hope you are having a great day and if you’re not, I hope it gets better soon.

Take care, Kyle

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Bloglovin’

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Just now checking this blog aggregator out.. there are 11 people already using it to follow this blog.  If you are one of them, I’d love to hear from you what you think.

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For those of you visiting for the first time…

Some of you are visiting Butchtastic for the first time because you’ve read a guest post I have on NeutroisNonsense.  Some of you are friends of mine, some are friends of my wife, some are friends of both of us.  You probably already knew about me being trans, you may have also known that I was a writer.  You might not have known that I’m an erotica writer. You may also not have known that my wife and I are in a polyamorous relationship and have been for about 8 years.

Until I redesign this site, everything I post is visible right when you visit.  That means that if I post a kinky sex story about role play – for example – it’s going to be right there when you come to this blog.  In the future, I will have different content channels, so that if you do want to read sexy stories, you will be able to choose that content and if not, you can read about other stuff – like parenting, and gender, and activism and poly relationships.  Until then, reader beware – if you scroll down from here, you’re taking your chances.

Some concerns have been raised that this poly thing is all about me and she’s not getting any benefit from our arrangement.  That could not be further from the truth.  This is a mutually beneficial relationship. Like any long term couple, we are always working to strengthen and improve our relationship AND being poly has been a very positive change for us.  And we’ve been doing this for 8 years already, so it’s not new.  This blog focuses on my adventures on purpose:  my wife is more private than I and I respect her wishes to keep her adventures private.  I’m an exhibitionist.  If you have any other questions on that, feel free to email or message me.

 

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Sleep Issues

For about eight years now, I’ve been aware that I had an issue with sleeping.  I remember my girlfriend waking me up and being very alarmed.

“You stopped breathing!”

Oh, that’s what that is, I thought to myself.  I’d been aware that I’d been waking up periodically during the night and vaguely aware that it had something to do with breathing, but now I knew for sure.  I had sleep apnea.

Fast forward to this past year when both my sleep apnea, and excessive and loud snoring have made sleeping difficult, both for myself and my wife and partner.  Between the snoring and the sleep apnea, I haven’t had a solid, deep night of sleep in a long time and it shows.  I’m tired most of the time and not just physically, but mentally.  So, after thinking about it and saying I should do something for more than a year now, I finally went in to talk to a doctor about my problem.

I should mention that I’ve found a way to stop a lot of the throat snoring.  My NP, who is also a throat snorer, recommended a mouth guard type device that helps create a bit more space in my throat.  It works fairly well, though if I lie on my back, I’ll go back to snoring as usual. It also didn’t stop my nose snoring, though my wife says she can sleep through that.  With the appliance in place, I’m getting better sleep – I’m not waking myself up from snoring anymore.

I still have the sleep apnea, though.  And that means I still have the potential to develop a variety of nasty illnesses and conditions if I leave it untreated – high blood pressure, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, acid reflux/GERD, headaches, mental illness. Oh that last one.  I remember when the girls were each babies and we were dealing with sleep deprivation on a grand scale – definitely within a hair’s breadth of depression and mental illness. Post-partum depression is easy to understand when you get no sleep for months on end.

For all these very good reasons, I got a referral to a sleep clinic in town and had a consultation.  There was a stack of paper work for me to fill out including a little questionnaire to gauge my sleep issues, along the lines of ‘How likely are you to follow asleep in these circumstances’.  I scored a 10+ which put me in the “Yep, you sure do have a sleep issue. Please don’t fall asleep in the waiting room.”  Doc asked some questions, I filled him in on my history with sleep issues.   I told him about my parents, who are both on CPAP machines to treat their sleep apnea. He took a look at my throat opening and reeled off a medical term that meant narrow throat opening’. It’s hereditary.  Sometimes extreme weight gain will bring on sleep apnea, for me, even if I dropped a bunch of weight, I wouldn’t lose the sleep apnea. When I lie down on my back, and fall asleep, the base of my tongue collapses into the back of my throat and cuts it off.

Yep, not much question I’ve got sleep apnea, so I need a CPAP.  And to get to that point I need to take a sleep study.  He talked a bit about what a lab sleep study entailed. Then he asked about my insurance – which has a high deductible.. Yada yada.. So I’m holding off on all of it for now.  Sleep apnea testing and treatment aren’t cheap.

Since then, I’ve been thinking about how I inherited this condition and about Darwinism.  My genetic makeup is such that my body is likely to choke me in my sleep. Think on that for a moment.  That’s a lovely thing to inherit from your ancestors, don’t you think?

The bummer about this, besides the list of health issues that can arise because of my condition, is how effing tired I am every day.  I would take a nap every day if I could manage it.  Sometimes I begin to nod off at work – usually in the afternoon, but sometimes in the morning, too.  You might suggest that I go to sleep earlier in the evening but if I did that, 1) my sleep quality is such that I’m not sure I’d get more quality rest and 2) I need that time to socialize, hang with my loves, have sex, do creative work, etc.  It’s a bad cycle, I know.  I stay up until at least 10 at night, I’m up fairly early most days, I’m sleepy throughout the day. I fantasize sometimes about being well rested and what kind of difference that would make in my ability to focus on my relationships and creative work.  And feel better.

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Catching Up and Ranting

All month long, I’ve been challenging myself to do tangible writing work every day.  I called it the 1,000 word challenge in my Camp NaNoWriMo description, but success not always about writing a certain number of words a day.  Some days the right (write) work to do is business planning for the blog, to provide me with a platform for my writing, a place to promote my published work and related activities.  Some days the work is editing my work so I can submit it for publication.  And still other days are for visioning, for doodling new website layouts and drawing diagrams of how my social media accounts will fit in.

Coming up, I have a new way to hit my 1,000 words a day goal.  I’m taking my third online class from LitReactor.  I’ve taken an erotica writing class from Rachel Kramer Bussel, and a grammar class.  This one is called “Writing from your Queer Heart” by Cooper Lee Bombadier.  The class starts tomorrow and runs to May 24th.  We already have lectures and assignments uploaded, I’M SO EXCITED.  There are only 6 people in the class, which I think will be really cool, given the topic.  Right now I am having difficulty not just diving in… but I have to finish this post and also, do some work.. I guess.

Work has been really tough lately.  Not the actual work, which is actually not very challenging normally.  I’ve gone up the learning curve and now I’ve plateaued.  The really rough part of my current job isn’t the work, it’s the culture, the management style and sometimes, the difficulty collaborating in a highly hierarchical organization where I have responsibility for the success of my projects, but not much power over the resources I use.  Throw in the changing priorities, requirement to do multiple kinds of status and activity reports and… I don’t fit in well any more.  My company got bought out almost 2 years ago and myself and my co-workers went from super high morale to ‘get me out of here’ before we hit the year and a half mark.  I’m actively seeking a new job and doing my best not to completely phone it in while I eagerly search for my escape route.

Speaking of things that are tough, the bumper crop of transphobic bathroom laws and proposed laws popping up across the country have made it pretty tough to be a non-passing trans or gender non-conforming person.  There are stories from all over the country about people being harassed trying to use women’s restrooms.  So far I haven’t heard anything about someone being harassed in a men’s room, but that’s not surprising.  The target of bathroom policing is non-passing trans women and others who don’t conform to the viewer’s idea of who belongs in a particular gender segregated space.  None of the rhetoric has been about men concerned about trans men taking  pee in the same room.  The groups sponsoring these bills talk about ‘privacy’ and ‘safety’ and use scare tactics about sexual predators dressing up as women in order to find victims in women’s rooms.  We all know that’s a smoke screen and none of their reasoning holds up to scrutiny any more than toilet paper is going to help you clean up an overflowing toilet.  In North Carolina, calls to the suicide hotlines have doubled since the governor (whose name I will not type for fear of invoking his malevolent presence) signed a law that not only restricts bathroom use according to what’s on our birth certificates, but also prevents local jurisdictions from enacting laws that support equal rights for LGBTQ+ people (< though I bet the target audience could be expanded) and overturns any that have been enacted.

I haven’t heard any increased stress and anxiety expressed in my Pizza Klatch groups – yet.  My co-facilitator and I have been keeping them informed of the efforts in Washington to introduce bathroom policing and imploring the voting aged students to get registered and be ready to vote against the initiatives that have popped up to continue the work that died in the legislature earlier this year.  We hear about students being harassed all over the country for being gender non-conforming or trans and I am not confident we won’t have instances closer at hand.  PK has done a great job of creating more awareness for LGBTQ+ issues in the area schools, but that doesn’t mean that all students, staff, faculty and administrators are on board with preventing transphobia.  My heart already breaks every time I hear about a young trans person being harassed, assaulted, murdered or committing suicide – I can’t even think about it happening to one of the youth in our area, or my own group or my kid.  But that’s where we are, that’s the world we live in right now.  Bullies who have grown up and gotten elected and promoting hate under the guise of safety and privacy.  We all know what it’s really about, don’t we?

Transphobia overwhelmingly targets trans women and contains elements of misogyny and homophobia. And all of those have roots in the idea that women are inferior, that anything feminine is inferior.  No one is safer because of those laws.  You want to stop sexual assaults?  Figure out how to stop straight cis men from raping.  But we can’t do that, can we?  Because that would start to look like we were going to hold men accountable and boys will be boys, won’t they?  As some memes have pointed out, given the complete lack of evidence that trans people have assaulted anyone in a bathroom, ever, the real way to make those spaces safer is by restricting the access of Catholic priests, Republican politicians and other statistically prolific sexual predators.

Instagram shot, 'It wasn't just about water fountains then, it's not just about bathrooms now"

Anyway, I know I’m mostly preaching to the choir, but I needed to vent a little bit.  I’m scared, scared and exhausted.  I want to get on with doing the great, beautiful, amazing things of life and we keep getting dragged back down into this mire with people who can’t figure out that they are the problem, they are the enemy of safety and privacy.  They are the enemy of love and I just want to concentrate on loving.

Hug someone you love today.  Take a moment to reach out to a trans person or someone who is nonbinary or gender nonconforming.  Come out as an ally, please.  If it’s safe, of course.  And if it’s safe, speak out when you can to shut down people stuck in the ignorant mud bog of believing that trans people are scary and dangerous.  Conservatives are making us the new boogie man, the new scary monster to replace gay marriage.  People crossing and obliterating gender conformity have always been an easy mark. Sometimes those people become revered super stars, but not everyone can be Bowie or Prince.  Most of the time gender outlaws are the ones getting beat up on the playground, spit on in the hallways, beaten or murdered in alleyways and homes they might have felt safe in.  If you can, if it’s not unsafe, please show your support of gender outlaws in your life.  Do it today, do it tomorrow, keep doing it.  Hopefully others will join you in that support. Ok, enough rambling.  Take care, love each other.

 

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