amusement

is it strange that i don't need a lot of people in my life?

there's a few folks scattered around who matter to me. i live with the most important of them, but i can count only a few more on one hand. i used to have a career where i was constantly in personal contact with hundreds of people. i feel like those days i was living in some sort of fog. my memory of it brings the words "survival instinct" to mind - my home life was going to shit, and i spent hours and hours at work: partly in avoidance of home, but also because it brought a numbing effect to my life, which i desperately needed at the time. but even then, i needed the constant interactions for a reason other than companionship.

i am not an extrovert. i suppose that's putting it mildly. i've been known to have agoraphobic incidents, but i've mostly squelched those. it's not like i'm unfriendly at public events, but i'm horribly shy, tongue tied, and often overwhelmed.

i'm happy to go to a movie by myself.

i love driving long trips and listening to the radio.

i could spend days on the property and never see another soul and not even realize it.

i don't know a lot of other people like this.

a day in the life

copied from my response to a thread on fetlife ('cause i know you're wondering how we're doing):

typical day: alarm rings at 7:15 - mostly to get kids on the bus in time. i usually set the coffee to go off at 7:00 so it's ready when we get up. if i haven't, i'm expected to get up and make it before anything else, including going to the bathroom. if he's awake, i have to ask permission to go to the bathroom - if not, i have standing orders to let him sleep and do what i gotta do on my own.

my owner works out of his home, so sometimes he'll get up later than that, sometimes earlier, but usually around the same time. early morning activities are mostly a joint effort - getting breakfast, kids' stuff together, fires lit. we've usually discussed the night before what needs to happen that day, so by the time the kids are out of the house we're onto that plan. more often than not he'll make breakfast for both of us while i'm doing other stuff, and we'll eat together while finishing up the final plans for the day.

i rattle off my list of chores/duties/errands i'm planning on getting done, and he'll either nod or nix as needed. he tries to keep my time away from home to a minimum, so if i can coordinate errands to keep the time down, i do. i usually get a to-do list to add to my own at that point. then the morning's business begins. i usually ask him if he's hungry mid-morning and then again at lunch time, prepare the meal, and then clean up all the detritus from the morning/lunch. if i've been out, i'm expected to get it done sometime in the afternoon.

afternoons usually include some sort of outdoor activity - working on firewood, shoveling, gardening, whatever's seasonally necessary. kids are home around 4, so i'm back to the business of that until dinner time. very occasionally he'll take a break from work at that point and join in the food preparation (it's fun - not an obligation for him), and then we'll sit down to dinner around 6:30. if he's still working, i try to give him a heads up so he can join us.

our bedtime varies hugely - sometimes very early, sometimes very late - usually dependent upon his workload. i do not go to bed without permission, and that usually doesn't happen until he's ready to go himself. in warmer weather i'll curl up at his feet while he's working, in colder weather, he lets me stay on the couch by the fire. sometimes i'm instructed to handle the firewood before bed, sometimes he's kind enough to do it himself.

our out-of-the-ordinary time is usually mid-week when there's a small lull in his workload. i do try to ask to plan it if possible - i love spending time with him. sometimes just a drive through the hills, sometimes something more kinky at home.

boring. nice. works for us.

it's 4 am

we're both panting heavily. our hearts are racing. he's holding the rope, i'm holding the remote control butterfly. it's four am. we're standing across the bed from each other in the silence. staring at each other. finally, i can't take it anymore.

"where the fuck is that noise coming from?!?!?!"

we've upended the bedroom looking for a goddamned buzzing noise that goes off exactly every three minutes. every item in the room that somehow involves a battery has been smashed or taken apart.

just a slice of domestic life.

lately

i've been feeling more of the daddy girl dynamic than maybe i ever have. i feel like your student a lot of the time, learning how things could or should happen, following you around and imitating you. we've joked about it - i want a carhartt jacket just like my daddy does.

i've always known who you are. somehow, very quickly, early on, we got to the truth of each other. it didn't change anything, or decide a future, but it was definitely different than any other relationship i'd had. whether it was because i was truthful with myself and that made me more truthful with you, or if your presentation of yourself with integrity intact gave me a role model, i'll never know. where do you end and i begin? it's sometimes hard to tell.

we've spent the last few years shedding unneeded baggage. people, things, and places. now, you show me possibilities i'd never seen before, and you are smarter than you know.

good news

from the financial end of things. while it's not exactly paving the sidewalk outside the house with gold, it gives me something more than a shaky ladder to stand on. so, yay. being a good, truthful person sometimes actually works, even if it takes twice as long.

a family of deer stopped by the brook in the yard for a drink of water. they had their heavy gray winter coats on, and stopped cold while i went outside for more wood. i stopped cold too, and we all paused while a chickadee bravely jolted around the trees for us. i'm not surprised by the animals, but it was my first interaction with something alive all day on the property. i didn't want it to end.

my finger tips are cracking from the dry air and the cold. yes, i'm remedying it, but the soreness actually reminds me of the work i'm doing.

i heard an interview on the radio yesterday, about a guy who lives out in the country somewhere with his wife. they've reduced their circumstances - heating only with wood, growing food in the gardens, no more fancy trips - the only logical conclusion of the constant layoffs and belt-tightening. he said, "someday we may one day make that six-figure income again, but we'll still live this way. we've realized it's a lifestyle choice, not just a necessity."

yeah.

photo credit: Ache Of Trees by Kevis Somo

off leash

not exactly. that's never the case. i suppose it's more like "longer leash" rather than off.

my owner is gone for a few days. sort of planned, but some unexpected changes. we've been almost constantly together for almost three weeks, and it feels very strange to be alone again. i went out to do errands, forgot my cell phone, and realized i was out of touch for the first, longest time since we met. i felt lost. i felt a little panicky, and my agoraphobic tendencies tried to take over, but instead i finished what i was doing and calmly set out for home as soon as possible. i had a long list of chores waiting for me when i got there, so i managed to keep everything choked down successfully. a little wood stacking, a little lunch, a little sweeping (i swear, my new name should be cinderella), and it feels a lot better.

i had not anticipated the utter isolation.

i don't have a lot of friends these days. the few i had that i was geographically close to are now, obviously, not, and the few others i have that are close to my heart were never living nearby anyway. once in a while i talk to them on the phone. i'm usually too goddamned busy to spend much time on the internet, either, and anyway, the satellite system goes down pretty regularly. we live so far from our closest neighbours that it's not like i'm seeing anyone at all very much.

but i'm not lonely. not yet. and i don't plan on being lonely. i have so much on my plate, so much to think about and physical activities to take care of that i had briefly thought about settling in for some tea and an old movie (no television here in the sticks) and remembered the other chores that needed to get done before the sun went down. these few moments recording this spot in time are all the free time i'm going to get today.

i think i want to nickname my new home "oz". he's the wizard. i'm dorothy. it's very much like the '40's.

(that's not meant to imply my owner is some weird hairy short guy behind a curtain hemming and hawing about the truth. not so. more like the fiery god-like wizard dorothy initially meets. you know. the scary one.)