New column up on Whore’s Boudoir. Eventually I’ll get something for the magazine. 😛

What I like about you

Being in a relationship can be a great boost to your ego… or it can be hell on it, especially if you’ve dated some of the guys I have (what do you mean, change the way I walk so it’ll be sexier?).

The neat thing about being naked around someone new is finding out what it is they like about your body or your personality, because after all, it’s different for everyone.

What they like about it, not your body or personality, that is.

Being regarded as such by different people forces you to look at your body and yourself in a different light. This guy likes my butt, that guy thinks I’m cute, this one loves the fact that I wear glasses, that one loves my freckles, the other thinks I’m smart… all of this adds up to a pretty favourable picture of yourself, don’t you think?

The trick is to date either one guy or girl who sees you in an incredibly flattering light, such that they make you feel terrific about yourself and love every single aspect of you… or date a whole bunch of people that love little individual things about you so you get a good, all around image of yourself.

I find that my favourites about guys have changed over the years. It used to be that I went for what I called “the high school boy” body type; tall, scrawny, bare on the chest. Then I matured a little, and so did my tastes. Instead of the chest being my favourite part of the guy’s body, I got into stomachs (with a little help from someone that had a nice one, if I remember correctly). At the same time, I grew to like guys that were filled out more, and a little on the fuzzy side; guys that had the arms to hold me and the expanse of chest against which I could comfortably lay my head.

Now, I’m even older (and no less wiser, some would say), and what I like in a guy is a bit of furriness, and I’m all about the stomachs. It’s weird, but I really like a furry stomach. I used to love the treasure trail, and it certainly retains its charms for me, but I find the furry stomach fun to rub and pat; it’s usually quite soft, and not too many guys object to having their stomachs rubbed.

It’s this type of behaviour that I like to think might help out someone’s self-confidence. I mean, if I were a guy, I might be a little self-conscious about the fact that I had a hairy stomach, or a stomach that wasn’t perfectly flat (let’s face it, as a girl I’m already super-insecure about the second. I don’t mind my hairy stomach so much), so having someone who obviously loved it might make me feel better about it, and maybe even take a little pride in it. “Hey, look at me!” I’d say, strutting about in a little belly tee or crop top, “I have a hairy stomach! Love the hairy stomach! Pat it! Rub it!” And the girls would flock to me. Either that, or throw things at me. Hrm.

Now, being as rounded as I am (yes, I roll places, rather than walk. It’s really rather disgusting), I am constantly amazed when I get told I’m sexy or whatnot. I figure that these people are all crazy, but it takes all kinds and there’s no accounting for taste. Or whatever. Yet, hearing that I’m sexy – or even getting to see or feel proof that someone finds me sexy – does help boost my confidence and my ego. I feel better about my body, even if I haven’t perfectly perfumed, shaved and exercised it in the last ten minutes before it’s being regarded and appreciated.

And it doesn’t take having a steady boyfriend, girlfriend, or even sex partner to feel good about yourself in this manner. Sometimes all it takes is a smile or a wink from someone on the street or the bus to make you say, “Hey, I’m good-looking!” I know, it’s not very politically correct or feministally good of me to say that, but… I’m only human. I like to be found attractive once in awhile, too.

So, until the next time I get winked at on the street, I’m off to go rub some furry bellies to make some people feel better about themselves.

This little piggy took a bath…

I had a bath the other night, and as I sat in the hot water, my legs fully extended to just beneath the tap (I love being short), my attention was caught by my toes. (I have nice toes – ask to see them sometime).

There they were, at the end of my feet (unlike yours, which sprout from your kneecaps), looking alien to me. I’ve certainly seen my toes before – Hell, I see them every day – but for some reason, that night in the tub, they looked different.

They were pale, white, straight, and just… there. My inner thighs were all red from the heat of the water, but it hadn’t pinkened any further down my legs. This seems to be the pattern for me in hot water; my thighs and lower abdomen turn pink or red, while the rest of stays pale.

So there were my little alien toes, staring up at me blankly. They weren’t going anywhere and my bathwater was getting cold, so I got on with my bath and stopped looking at my toes.

I like my cats

I’ll be the first to admit that, at times, I annoy easily. People cutting me off on foot, people who drive under the speed limit in good weather in the lane I want, my sister or the coworker… but I also tend to amuse easily, too.

As an example (or several): my cats. The fact that Digger (and previously Chloe) likes(d) to pick through garbage cans and fish out dental floss to play with makes me laugh. The fact that one night, Digger amused himself (and me, somewhat) by repeatedly knocking over my garbage can and then ignoring it – all as a signal to me to go to bed – is a riot. The fact that he gets bored and goes snooping through my desk or garbage can to find a toy – then chases a fake flower I give him all around the upstairs – is fantastic.

This is the same cat who waits outside my door until I go to bed to come in and pin my feet and snuggle me. He tells me when he’s getting fed up with waiting for me to go to bed, too; he comes in and meows at me, pacing back and forth and sometimes jumping up in my lap. Here he always steps on my keyboard tray and pushes it in – I’ve unlocked it so as to make more room for him on my lap. Her he sticks his floofy tail in my face and tries to find room on my meagre desk to pace and find trouble, or Post-It notes, a pad of which is one of his favourite playthings. I kid you not.

This morning when I woke up, Digger was camped out on my bed, and not too impressed with being disturbed. He followed me around, telling me I needed to attend to his needs, but Shadow was nowhere to be found; not on my sister’s bed, my parents’, or in the hallway. I thought she must’ve been downstairs, until I sat down at the computer and happened to glace over to the window. There she was, camped out on the register. [Since I originally wrote this piece a few days ago, this setup has become a routine.] Shadow is what we like to call a “heat-seeker.” Registers, warm people, and under blankets (sometimes) are all her domain.

She also started to go through my garbage can, a la Digger. Apparently the security seals from my DVDs are fascinating playthings to a cat.

Johnny Storm… not just a fish, but a legend

As I said before, when I got home last night, I discovered to my dismay, that Johnny Storm, the red fish of the original “red fish blue fish” pairing, had died. He shares a tank that’s divided by a plastic wall with Dr. Seuss, the blue fish of the pair, who appears to be fine physically (as much as I can tell just by staring at him through the water), if a bit down in spirit.

Both Dr. Seuss and Stinky appear to realize that something major has happened. Perhaps they sense a void in the space beside and beneath them, respectively; perhaps his little fishy final gasping for breath was audible to the two of them, and they were able to sense what happened. I don’t know if Johnny Storm (known as Storm, for short) made any final convulsions, or even if he could sense his time was near and prepare them; all I know is that he didn’t prepare me, and I was shocked when I came home.

Unlike other dead fish that I have seen, Storm didn’t want to upset others by floating, belly up, at the top of his tank; rather, he was found lying motionless on the bottom of the tank. Maybe it was a suicide, and he weighted down his little fishy belly with rocks from the bottom of the tank in order to drown himself. Any note he left was long gone by the time I found him, so I’ll never know.

It’s also possible that the plotting that I thought I saw between the fish was not plotting against me, but rather against Storm; fed up with his superiority complex and his bragging about his vivid red colouring, the mottled Stinky and blue Dr. Seuss decided to do away with him somehow.

Of course, having flushed the body, I’ll never know. It’s not possible for the water to have been poisoned, as Dr. Seuss shares the same water. This must have presented quite the dilemma to our little Machiavellians, as they discussed the best way to do away with poor Storm. Possibly they poisoned his food; possibly they shot him in the back of the head, execution-style. I’ll never know.

But alas, poor Storm… you lived a good, fishy life. Your food was plentiful, your water occasionally changed, and you got to swim your little fishy heart out. You are missed by those of us you left behind, including myself, and though other fish may come and go, they will never be your equal. May you go to little fishy Heaven, and not have gotten clogged in the toilet’s U-bend pipe, or I will be thoroughly revolted when we have to fish (no pun intended) your little fishy body out of the pipe, and I will likely catch holy hell for having clogged it in the first place.

Take care, little fishy, and dream sweet fishy dreams of hot mermaids and toes to nibble.

And that other stuff

My witchcraft midterm got delayed a week, which was a bit of a pisser but nothing too bad. I don’t know why; I didn’t stay to find out. When I left, I chatted for a bit with a girl I used to work with at the animal hospital, then headed over to Mark’s.

Mark and I watched South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, which I’ve seen before, but not for awhile. A tip for you, if you rent it on DVD: play it in French, and fast forward to the “Uncle Fucker” song section. It’s funny in French, trust me.

I wrote my English exam today, so it was nice to get that out of the way. Let’s see, my semester is more than half over, and I’ve submitted two papers and written one exam. I feel so productive.

Actually, I am anything but productive. I still haven’t submitted anything to the magazine, although I’m hoping to rectify that tonight, and I still haven’t really done any of those readings I keep telling myself I have to do. I’m kinda not really caught up in English (I was ahead, but then he switched some stuff around, so all I can say is that it’s a damn good thing I’d already started Alias Grace, ‘cause I don’t think I’d get through it in time otherwise), and I’m doing okay in Witchcraft, although now with the exam delay and all, I probably still have a bunch to do. Forget about either CMN course; I haven’t really touched the readings for either of those… and oh, did I mention? I have a paper due on Tuesday, based on the readings. Wahoo.

Tomorrow I’m getting together with a classmate to prep our Tuesday presentation, and I’m also getting my photos taken for grad. I’m hoping I don’t look all exhausted for them, and I have to remember to wear a white shirt, pack my contacts (or wear ‘em) and grab my makeup. Gotta look purdy!

On a tangential note, Digger apparently stole the sticky paper that wrapped up one of my socks from my garbage can when I wasn’t looking, ‘cause he’s since brought it back into my room to show off. Or play with. With him, it’s hard to tell. I give him the flower.

Bah. Distractions in the form of conversations. Good ones, though, so I don’t mind. I just keep noticing how it’s getting later and later and I need sleep so as not to look like death warmed over tomorrow… *grumble*

Okay, time to wrap this up and try for an article. I think I’ve covered it all, and if not, then I’ll add it later.

Y’know, if he weren’t such an asshole, I might find his presence just a touch more tolerable. As it is… well, I don’t.

What an asshole.

Holy depressing. Johnny Storm, the red fish, has died. 😦

Another for the quotes, by request: “Thats how Jen writes her blog. When you’re reading her blog it’s like you’re plugged directly into her brain”.

The Three Rs: Reeling, Writhing and Revealing

Life is a series of experiences from which we learn, and relationships are doubly so.

In my short little life, I have learned a few things; don’t date someone with baggage, don’t date your coworker, and don’t sniff when you’re chewing carrots, or else you get little bits of carrot in your sinuses and it feels really weird until you swallow a few times and they disappear.

Anyhow, foodstuffs aren’t my topic of choice today, so just tuck that one away as a helpful bit of information and I’ll carry on.

There are a number of things that we learn about ourselves and others in the course of a relationship. Some of us learn we don’t like to be hit, degraded to, forced or coerced into having sex, or that we don’t like to be cuddled when there’s a full moon about. Sometimes we learn that we like to be held when we’ve had a bad day at work, or that just telling about what a jerk our coworker has been can make us feel better, or that having someone rub your feet when you’ve had a rough day is fantastic.

I know, a lot of this sounds really obvious, doesn’t it? But those are things that you don’t always fully appreciate until you’ve been in a relationship with someone that does them; or when you’re in a relationship with someone that doesn’t – after you’ve gotten used to having it happen. Going from a girlfriend that tells you how good looking and sexy you are when you’re feeling rough and down on yourself to a girlfriend that doesn’t pick up on your woe-filled comments and give you the ego boost that you crave can be difficult. It’s time to learn that not everyone is the same and sometimes if you need a boost like that, you’ll have to explain it to him or her… some other time, when you’re feeling a bit less vulnerable.

But sometimes it’s the little things that you don’t realize you’ve learned or absorbed until long after the fact; someone else’s appreciation for the genius that is Charlie Chaplin; the wonder that is making love to the strains of U2; or the hilarity that can be had from the pages of a Terry Pratchett novel.

If it weren’t for my ex-boyfriends, I wouldn’t know of or appreciate U2; Cake (my favourite band); Rufus Wainwright; comics; dressing up for sex; MUDding (okay, it was an ex-boyfriend that helped me break the habit through his continuing presence); Gabriel Garcia Marquez; betta fish; coming from sex alone; Luigi’s Mansion (less of an ex-boyfriend thing); shaving; and any other number of things that aren’t coming to mind at the moment.

It’s amazing how much we learn about and appreciate from one another, sometimes consciously, and sometimes not. After I broke up with one boyfriend, I couldn’t bear to hear anything from the U2 canon for quite some time; that, anime and comic books all reminded me of him (and no, I wasn’t twelve when we broke up, either). Another boyfriend got me into the music of Sublime; I still think of it as stoner music, but I still enjoy it.

It’s things like that that make me say that I’ve learned from all of my relationships. I find that the good ones leave me with something tangible – like an appreciation for Thai food or the fun of being tied up – and the bad ones just leave me with another entry on my “what I don’t want in a relationship” list.

I wonder sometimes how much others learn from me. I dated one guy who claimed that he adopted a more liberal attitude towards sex because of me, but based on the way he completely didn’t change while we dated, I have my doubts (he was much more interested in impressing his attitudes and behaviours on me than on being open-minded enough to learn anything from me). I can’t think of much influence I’ve had on anyone, so perhaps I’m more of a sponge than the guys I’ve dated.

Maybe a really good relationship is one where the learning goes both ways; where both members of the couple learn about new things from the other.

New article posted to Whore’s Boudoir. I know, I know; it’s late. And it kinda sucks. Sorry. 😛

I’ve updated the Quotes page to incorporate the last few good ones. 🙂

Quote of the day:

“I need to figure out how to say “Women” and exclude you from all the negative connotations. 😉 *grin* You’re kindof like a rational man, with boobies. 🙂 And you’re hot.”