What am I doing?

This is pretty much what I'm trying to say isn't it?





Sorry I don't know Blogger well enough to make this beautiful.

Geeks on dates. Having sex.

Five: Having sex.

Good grief, you have a partner!
You fancy their socks off (or on, you've a flexible nature), really like them (like them, in fact), and you think they're your equal (or better). You, or they, have managed to communicate all of that without being off-puttingly creepy. Now what?

Well, you could hang out. Listen to each other talk, go places together, introduce each other to your friends and favourite activities, and then listen to each other talk about the things you've been doing together. That's fun, interesting, and usually essential for long-term enjoyment of a partnership. Enjoy the flirting, the breath-robbing moments of eye-contact and let yourself thrill to their nearness; this part is fun and once all fear of rejection is gone things change.

You could hold hands, cuddle and kiss (gently is easier to do well; if you're not sure what you're doing just go slow and enjoy yourself, or do a Google search if you like).

You could touch your partner with your roving hands, let them go before, behind, between, above, below. Stroke, slide, circle, glide, hold. Let your hands celebrate your partner's gorgeous individual humanity. Stay still for a while and let your partner touch you too. Don't just touch the obvious places, let those places wait a little, tease them and make them ache for your touch before you get to them. Your partner's body is really quite a lot like yours, do what would feel nice to you, observe your partner's responses and work from there. Aim to please.

And, if you're feeling grown-up enough, you could have sex. We are animals and our urge for companionship is built out of an urge to make long and bushy lineages of our selfish genes, or at least to trick our sex organs into feeling like we might be going to make those lineages. And oh yes, wet friction can feel so very right, so utterly meant-to-be, so deeply emotional, urgently needed, meaningful, spiritual, right there, right now, together; Yes! Let's!



... Don't ask me how you were, I've not yet climbed back up my brainstem far enough to form an answer in language. I've not even put myself back together enough to notice you're not part of me.



Don't make sex a life or death matter. Make sure no-one gets pregnant unless you've discussed it and planned it with your partner. If you're putting a penis inside a person, do pop a condom on it first. Yes, it is worth trying a few practice unrollings (carrots stay hard longer than bananas and you can also peel and eat them afterwards), condom packets have instructions inside. If you have a vagina you should consider the injection which tries to prevent your cervix from suddenly rotting and killing you before you're half finished with enjoying sex (and keep having smears to make sure that if it rots you don't die).

Enough, I was thinking about sex. It's no fun if both partners aren't willing. If you're keen you need to find out if your partner's willing, words are the fastest and clearest way of doing this:
"Would you like to have sex?"
"No thank you" or "Yes please."
If you are telling someone you don't want to have sex with them, try to be honest about whether you'd like to but later, or whether you don't want to at all. Although having sex isn't required in a romantic relationship, not being willing to have sex is a strong negative signal on a deep level to your partner.

If you survived a ghastly past you are still allowed to enjoy sex. Doing so may require patience and understanding from your partner. You might want help understanding yourself before you share the joys of your body.

Sex involves emotions. Sometimes it makes people happy or makes close friends, other times it makes love. It's not easy to know how deeply having sex with someone is going to make you feel before you've done it but let me assure you that the first time you do it with someone isn't when you hand them your personal honour never to be retrieved. You don't need to wait for marriage, the third date, or the First of May unless you (and/or your partner) want to.

Oh, I could cry.

They love each other. They hit each other of course, they're sisters and they're only 3 and 5, but it's usually preceded by something the other could have responded to that was verbal, or at least vocal, and it's definitely an expression of passing frustration rather than lasting enmity. They spent their days together for all of Iris's life. Hazel went to school and now they are separated for over 6 hours of every week day. Hazel did some emotional processing and seems pretty settled by now.

Iris seemed more all right at first, but she never coped well with drop-offs and pick-ups and has become very stressed. She has been night-wetting for the first time since she was 20 months old. Her first response to every suggestion of a change in activity from anybody is negative. She is having to take more and more awkward transitional objects everywhere. She's edgy, demanding and sad. All she suggests doing in Hazel's absence is watching DVDs. We went to the pool with school and she wanted to be left in the classroom. I took her away. She was heart-broken anew and has re-interpreted events to suggest that if she had been able to fold her clothes like a school girl she would have been allowed to join Hazel at school.

Iris has not wanted to go to Hazel's ballet recently, she used to demand to watch it. Last week Sean was home sick and so I left Iris in front of a DVD and took Hazel. Today I asked my father to come over so I could take just Hazel. Hazel said she didn't want to do ballet anymore because Iris doesn't like it and she wants to spend more time with Iris. I explained we've paid for the term and she herself would have to tell her teachers that she was leaving and why and hug them goodbye. Hazel spent the lesson, curled foetally, thumb in mouth, watching the other children dance.

But Lois McMaster Bujold says to lower the wall, not increase the pressure.

I'm trying to help my children through this separation and change. I'm trying to remove unnecessary transitions from Iris's life, I'm trying to empower Hazel to walk to and from school so that Iris doesn't have to come face to face with the source of her grief twice a day. I'm trying to give Iris lots of opportunities to use scissors. I too have been cutting things up in order to make new things out of them. Emotional processing through displacement perhaps; I am trying to remain calm.

He mihi poto.

Tēna koutou te whanau,
Nga mihi mahana ki a koutou.
Ko Susan ahau,
No Orangi Kaupapa ahau,
Kei Orangi Kaupapa ahau e noho ana.
Tēna koutou,
Tēna koutou,
Tēna tatou katoa.

I traded my blog for ...

I have been thinking about Geeks on Dates, and I've even got a little further on writing a few of them, but not far enough on any particular one. I could try to blame the virus or viruses that have been plaguing my partner, or whatever it is that has been plaguing my children (each other?), also, I've been going out, I saw both Ed Byrne and Dylan Moran (I doubt they saw me). But really it's probably the new overlocker.

... a new overlocker.
"Yeah, I think I saw a geek crawl out the back door."
sew sew sew.

My next dilemma is, now I'm here will I stay, I should be making fabulous circular skirts of happiness for the children? Just think how much the utter joy of a three year old is worth when stacked up against a snort of laughter in a thirty year old or two? And that snort's if I did anything but read.

Also, while we're doing a little philosophy, what about those choosy fruit flies with their free will? How bad does that make insecticide? (Seems like there might be a brain region evolved to produce "spontaneous variations in fly behaviour").