Sex Talk

I didn’t correct him, partly because I had hoped he was being sarcastic, and partly because I wanted to drop the subject, but the more I thought about it the more I started to analyze things.

Was this a form of misogynistic influence in our culture?

I mean, the assumption was pretty blatant when I thought about it. I was a married woman, had no children, was not interested in children, and liked sex…therefore I must be a sex addict.

I took it as a joke and tried to move on, but it kept bothering me. If I was a sex addict, I probably would have started sleeping around by now. My husband’s lower libido and emotional sensitivity to stress certainly keeps our sex life from being as frequent as I liked, but I didn’t feel my libido was overactive by any means.

There still seems to be this cultural shock that women enjoy sex for pleasure and intimacy building. There are probably tons of factors that play into this, much of it is perpetuated by media, though I see that starting to change as media and society become more informed, but there is still a surprising lack of accessible information out there.

Medical science didn’t start bringing women and minorities into the research until about 30 years ago. Only in the last 20 has there been an outcry for accurate representation of women in medical science. Cultural influence in America, media, censorship, and a dedication to ignorance as well as other complex factors are to be blamed for the lack of information out there about women and their sexual health (with a emphasis on the separation from reproductive health).

So let me talk a little bit about my sex life, and feel free to stop reading if you’re afraid of TMI. But know at this point I’m explaining to ask for recommendations from my readers.

My husband and I are about 5 years into our marriage and have a pretty vanilla sex life. We are both very affected by stress when it comes to sex, and complications in the bedroom to work stress all factor into performance. My husband has a lot of anxiety and a lower libido than I do, both of which impede our sex life in many ways. Giving him instruction during sex can lead to him taking things personally and not being able to continue. I often rely on masturbation for release because it’s less stressful than asking for sex.

We have decided more recently that it’s best for my husband to do his own research if he takes my instruction too personally. However, there is a surprising lack of reliable information on sexual techniques to help in the bedroom. That which is out there is pretty generic and not very detailed or graphic enough to be understood. The rest is offered by social media, but additionally, requires vetting, testing, and sorting through practical jokes. Sure they claim to be a sex therapist, but how do you know? Who can really vouch for them? Plus there is so much red tape and stigma surrounding the female body that useful information ends up being reported.

There is plenty of kink culture info out there too, but again, that doesn’t help those of us with more vanilla lives.

The lack of reliable information or extremely generalized information makes the research frustrating, but wats even more aggravating is the lack of well done advertising for stuff like OMGYES.com. Great it exists and all, but its expensive for something that doesn’t do much to advertise. It’s also targeted mostly for women. Again, great to have something out there self for women, but wishing for more to educate men.

My husband even approached his doctor at one point to ask if he had any suggestions and his male physician recommended porn. Which was not at all helpful and extremely disappointing. If you can’t even trust your medical professional to help you, then what is left to try?

So we are leaning more towards wholistic approaches. Herbalism and vitamins are not off the table.

Personally I’m looking for podcasts that talk about female sexuality and sex, but my husband is still left in the dark. He’s not much of a podcast listener. He’s more of a video guy and needs to see people and their body language to engage with media content more effectively. So if anyone out there has recommendations for podcasts or YouTubers that talk on the subject that would be very useful to us.

Last Weekend Shift

“There are a bunch of administrators in the building today.” My coworker warned me seeing that I was sitting down at the front desk, worried I’d get scolded.

“What’s he going to do? Fire me?” We both chuckled, knowing I was only 3 shifts away from my last day by that point.

Honestly with how busy everyone’s summer was, he couldn’t afford to fire me. I was the only person available for the Saturday shift. Which is my final weekend opening to close shift.

But seriously my back hurt. I needed to rest it for only a few moments. All the other receptionists got to sit down at their stations in the building. Why was it such a big deal that we not sit? Because we are a gym and not necessarily a medical clinic despite our health and medical focus? Still didn’t track.

So here it is. Saturday morning. After today I only have two more shifts at the gym and then I’ll be at the museum all the time, which I’m quite happy about. I was even telling my therapist how it felt good to have some sovereignty back. Some power in my corner since my days here are numbered and I can definitely say no to a few things here and there. As long as I don’t slack on my duties I feel like I’ll finish strong.

My mom always told me to do that. To finish strong. She said that to me all through my school career and then continued to say it into my adulthood when I was moving from one job to another when the desire to be more lax on things would tempt me. I had no desire to end poorly, but I definitely felt I needed to let a few things go here and there. To pick my battles so-to-speak.

So I let go.

People would be upset about something on their member accounts and I felt more empowered to just tell them like it is than I did before. People were rude and I felt better about calling them out on it. I mean they signed contracts…and it’s not my job to babysit and hand hold over 1,000 members. Sometimes my hands are tied. Sometimes you just need to let people suffer through their own ignorance of the contract they signed.

They’re adults. They should know better.

So I’m taking the day in stride. I brought a book incase it gets slow. I have my phone charger incase I don’t want to read and just want to zombie scroll in the meantime. I’m practically counting down the moments to when I no longer have to worry about getting up to come to the gym and just focus on being one place for work and have time to take care of my own LLCs in my down time. Because I’ll actually have down time. Thank God.

Museum Babe

With the decision made, I parked my car in the Panda Express parking lot to help me stop shaking and called my mom.

I had no reason to be anxious or have a panic attack. Everything happening was good, but things were changing. Change is hard, and my anxiety was already at an all time high. Weather or not is was from over caffeinating I wasn’t sure.

As we spoke mom reassured me. She understood that I had more options to grow at the museum than at the gym. She knew the museum was my passion and happy place. The fact that they wanted me there more was a huge deal, and she knew that I was burned out on having two jobs and pretty much no free time.

Ultimately, I missed my family and freedom, and getting some of it back was the biggest draw for me. That and the thought that I’d probably take better care of myself if I had the time and less burnout to deal with. My husband already prepared himself for getting me on his insurance. The family was supportive.

All the preparations were in motion.

As I was at the desk at the gym I prepared myself to write my resignation email. I started to tell my coworkers. Most of them were supportive. Some were obviously stressed out about me leaving and how the schedule was going to be reworked. Which was entirely understandable. It could directly affect their lives and schedules a lot.

Still, I wasn’t going to let their stress get to me. I had to do this.

The gym has not been bad to me. I missed having family time in the evenings and on weekends because of my schedule with them and the museum simultaneously, but honestly it was one of the most socially healthy places I had ever worked besides the museum. Everyone gets along pretty well. The pay is very good. Conflict is scarce. Everyone has great work ethic and works well together. The company wasn’t bad either, good benefits, lots of perks, and low exploitation rate for the most part. Even the members are pretty good. Many showing their appreciation or at least verbalizing it to let you know what you do is worth something to them.

The place is just full of really good and kind people, which made leaving it somewhat a hard decision….but not too hard a decision.

I like the gym, but I love the museum.

I love the museum so much that I’ve volunteered for over 7 or so years and did all the things I’m doing there now for free. It’s my dream job. Why wouldn’t I want to be there more?

The museum just makes the most sense for me.

Besides proximity and hardly needing to use gas to get there, it definitely lines up more with my goals and design experience to be at the museum. I love my coworkers and have been working with them for a few years now, so we already know each others nuances and personality quirks. We’ve been there for each other during good and bad. We have seen a lot of life happen to each other. It’s like family now, but with better emotional boundaries and a lot less trauma.

I’m really excited about everything. I’ve only got 10 days left before my last shift, and I only work 6 of those days at the gym. The rest are at the museum, and I’m loving my time there and really looking forward to continuing my journey with them.

The Weight of Culture

“Have you lost weight? You look good!”

I told her honestly that I didn’t know if I had lost weight or not. I’ve not been paying attention to that. I got rid of my scale ages ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if I did though, but I disliked the compliment afterward. How do you know the circumstances under which a person loses weight?

We live in a culture where we always assume weight loss is a positive thing, which is infuriating. Not all of us are happy about it. In my case it means a lot of bad things because of my type 1 diabetes. It means my blood sugars run way too high. It means I’m in Ketosis which can become Diabetic Keto Acidosis very quickly and is an extremely deadly and dangerous situation.

But people only notice the external result, and because our society tends to be superficial they applaud the external result as if I’m taking good care of myself when it is the opposite. The complexities of human bodies aren’t often taken into account. Neither is the complexity of the psyche. The assumption that the person who has experienced weight loss is healthy doesn’t account for chronic illness or mental health issues. We don’t think of eating disorders. We don’t think about exercise addiction. We don’t think about the struggles of being a type one diabetic. We don’t think about chronic pain that can cause either weight loss or weight gain. We don’t think about thyroid conditions that do similarly.

Because as a culture we want thinner bodies to be healthy bodies. Even when they aren’t. It needs to stop.

One Star

They ended up giving me one star, which seemed a little harsh considering they got a free gift with the items. Granted the items were destroyed, but in a condition that looked more pulled apart than crushed with the potential to be repaired from the photos they sent. I was just as disappointed as they were, but then even more so for a moment when I saw how harsh the review was.

Originally I was going to use this post to pull the buyer apart and also be insulting, mainly for the things they lied about. But customers exaggerating to the point of lying isn’t new to me. I expected it to a degree with any interaction that is less than ideal after my many years as a retail worker. That will never change. Some people you just can’t make it right with and this person is a product of an instant gratification culture. Their response is expected.

I mostly feel badly for them for taking a 6 dollar purchase so seriously.

I’ve decided instead to talk about what I’m proud of in the interaction instead.

I’m proud of myself for having gotten the package out in time at all in the first place. The purchase had been made during that week of opening shifts that basically had me mostly zombie. So the fact I got the items out on time at all felt like a win. Even if they arrived broken. I had no reason to think they would arrive broken anyway. Others of the same item arrived intact to their destinations and were packaged the same way.

I’m proud of the fact that it didn’t “take a week+” to respond to the request for a full reimbursement. It did take me 5 days, and I’m glad to have had that win despite the customers exaggeration otherwise and how busy that following week was too. I’m also proud of not having apologized for taking so long to respond. I’m allowed to be a busy worker. I’m allowed to have a life. My customers are not entitled to my daily attention.

I’m also proud that I expressed that I too was disappointed about it all in my response to the customer: “Oh how disappointing. You’ve been fully refunded! I’ll be sure to leave commentary in my next post office survey and be sure to take more care with my packaging in the future.” Was my response. Indicating that I learned from the experience and their concerns were valid. Like I said before, I had sent items before just as I had to this customer. This was an item outside of my usual items and it was a bit of a learning curve, but having had others of the same item arrive safely packaged exactly the same way I had to this disgruntled customer, it seemed safe to assume these would too.

I’m proud that I do not have any more of these to sell so thankfully I do not have to worry about trying to send anymore.

I’m also proud that I’m taking this as a learning experience instead of as the insult it was intended to be. I’m allowed to be human. To make mistakes. To grow from those mistakes. To not let those mistakes define me or my buissness. I’m allowed to give myself far more chances than this customer did. I’m allowed to forgive myself and move on, and I’m proud of myself for doing so.

I’m proud of myself for losing this customer. Mainly because I don’t want people who have this kind of energy about small makers trying to make it work. I don’t want to continue to attract that kind of energy and I don’t want to give off the energy that I tolerate people who are determined to lack understanding that sometimes things just happen and it’s out of our hands.

I’m proud of myself for knowing I can do better and being determined to do better. A bad few weeks doesn’t make a bad life. I’m a human and allowed to have off days.

Wednesday Morning Coffee

The coffee here isn’t good, but it’s cheap and I need to caffeinated and warm up because the AC makes the building a huge refrigerator. I feel the heaviness behind my eyes lingering relentlessly. That feeling like something is pressing just enough that you are very aware of the placement of your eyeballs in their sockets. Katy Perry is singing California Girls over the speakers, but I’m in no mood. Generally I’d at least head-bop to this one, but I cannot even think straight. I’m literally just typing the first thing that comes into my head as I sit here attending half heartedly to the front desk.

I’m a bad employee today, and quite honestly I don’t give a damn. The fact that I even showed up proves otherwise. I could have very well bailed out. Something that keeps tempting me. I met my deductible on my insurance though, and I’m desperate to ride that out as long as I can. The insurance is a huge plus.

So now I’m here brewing coffee. Twice the amount of coffee than usual because today the cafe has the special. A 12oz cup is only $1 instead of a $1.25. You wouldn’t believe know knobby the customers get about that 25 cents. There are people who will only drink coffee on Wednesday to save that 25 cents. Crazy fucks. As if it matters.

How ironic that they spend the dollar just to save the 25 cents.

The Wednesday morning coffee clutch has gathered. With coffee in my own hands I eves drop. So and so is pregnant. So and so died. Such and such happened. Nothing that touches my own life, but knowing is harmless.

As I listen to the ladies talk I wonder to myself if this is how the ancients did it. A warm beverage or at least something cooking. The women gathered. The passing of information. The oral history that my generation lost with the recording of everything in the internet. Like writing on the wall. For what purpose?

Opening Shift…Again…

One of the factories on my commute let’s out around 4am. It’s a funny thing to watch because the industrial park is right across from this residential area and there’s this line of cars exiting the parking lot of the factory and turning right into the residential area. Like a mass exodus all making a left hand turn into various avenues toward home and their beds.

I was envious that they got to go home already when I wanted nothing but to be back in my bed. Wishing for a few more moments of sleep as I drove towards work.

It’s too damn early. Waking up at 3am. Today it was particularly difficult. The worst actually than it’s been the past few weeks. I anticipate that being a consistent issue as the week goes on without our usual opener, who is on vacation…and I really hope comes back and doesn’t suddenly retire.

I’ve drank more Mountain Dew in my life this week than I think I ever have…and I mean ever. Which I’m sure isn’t a good thing. Caffeine is pretty hard on my body. I crash hard when the crash comes and I’m exhausted, which just becomes a perpetual problem throughout the day. I have to drink more to keep the crashes at bay.

At least Mountain Dew has multiple zero sugar flavors now. So the only thing affecting my blood sugars is the stress. Have I mentioned I haven’t been able to get my blood sugars below 300 mg/dl for the last week and a half? Yeah that’s been fun.

I’ve been open for 20 minutes. As Soja Boi blasts across the gym I can almost hear the collective groan. Our clientele is not exactly cut out for todays music. Often times on weekends I just play classic rock because it tends to make everyone happy. Today I agree with the groan. It is too damn early for that song. Plus it’s my least favorite. Burned out for me when it came out in my high school days and never quite redeemed its self.

I quickly take a moment to duck into the bathroom, knowing if I don’t now I won’t get a chance later when things pick up. Even my early personal trainer shouts “Go! Go now.” As she sees me b-line for the restroom door. She knows. She knows well. Plus my coffee from this morning won’t let me hold it anyway. So people will just have to wait if they need anything from me.

My coffee acts as a thin veil keeping the cranky early morning me concealed. My poor husband will see that side of me later, like he has all week and graciously loved me though all the same. This morning I miss him. I’ve hardly seen or spoke to him. If he’s home I’m sleeping or working. I can’t recall the last time we were intimate much less just able to have a fully functional convo. I’ve been too tired to brain. Too tired to be intellectual…at least out loud. To think and speak feels like too much some days. Especially when I’m exhausted like this.

I’m just really sick of being tired all the time and I’m at my wits end.

On The Edge of Things

Oh have I been broken and built on the edges of things lately. The edge of sleep. The edge of sanity. The edges of my eyes holding back tears and hopefulness. The edge of the bed as I try to keep my place encroached by a husband and 3 cats.

The past week and for the next week and a half I have been and will be waking at 3am to prepare for work. My husband, who is a naturally early riser, gets the coffee ready and turns on the light which violently assaults my eyes while the alarm continues to assault my ears every morning. Each day is a fight to shed the sleepy tears from the edges of my eyes as I struggle to keep them open. To shake the sands of sleep from my lashes is the greatest fight as of late.

The beauty of waking and going to work so early is getting to leave with so much day left to do things. Things which I do not do, because I’d much rather sleep. Still I’ve been trying to get at least some things done around the house, even if it is just laundry or dishes before I pass out for several hours. I try to feed myself in there somewhere and perhaps do some self care like shower and brush my teeth if I’m lucky. Or I try to schedule my Dr appointments right after work so I can do those on the way home and then head home to sleep it all off.

Before sleep I’m finding the exhaustion adding up. Making me more emotional and holding in all the stressors of the day makes for an unleashing once my head hits the pillow. A good stress cry is often overdue, mainly because I do what I can to endure for as long as I can…until I can’t.

While usually bottling up emotions doesn’t always end in tears for me, I’ve been so vulnerable without sleep that it’s hard to control my emotions even at work, and I find my ability to deal with conflict and other issues that I’m usually very good with, a lot harder. Social interactions are overall harder of course, but particularly the negative ones. So I’m forced to bottle things up until I can emotionally deal with it later. Thus, just crying and sleep become my respite.

Which is probably why my naps take up to 4 hours.

My waking hours are lived with my lips on the edge of some kind of caffeinated beverage, until the moment I’m ready to sleep. Then my lips wrap around some kind of gummy, either a delta 8 edible or a melatonin gummy these days. If not my sleep CBD vape. mostly I’m running on coffee and Mountain Dew while trying to hydrate in between.

I’m spending a lot of time slipping things in between.

The in between things are probably things I ought to be prioritizing better, but it’s hard to prioritize yourself when so much else demands your attention. Work takes all of me. Sleep takes all of me. I feel like I have none of me left to offer to anyone or anything else. I have no self left to care for at the end of the day, and the best I can do is sleep.

I only have glimpses of self in between. In small moments of lucidity.

I let things trickle into those in betweens. Little love notes to remind what little self I have left is worth loving and caring for even if the day feels like it took all of me away from me.

I feel so taken away from myself lately. So disconnected and out if reach. Like all I’ve been doing the last week is suspending myself in an out of body experience from within. I’m in my body. I’m doing the things. But I’m mostly observer. Just on the edges of myself watching and hardly stepping in while the subconscious who sorta knows the routine takes over and muscle memory does the rest. It feels elusive and primitive, but I let it happen. I let it all happen. Because I’m spending so much time clinging to the edge trying to hold on.

Then I let go when I get home, and sleep does the rest for me.

They

“Grammatically it’s wrong. There has to be another way.”

She complains because of the plural. Confused as to why a non-binary/gender fluid person is considered plural in the They/Them choice of pronouns. It felt wrong to say in her opinion and she was hoping that there would one day be a more accurate singular.

I chuckled internally.

To me it made perfect sense for it to be plural-ish. Aren’t all people multitudes within an individual? Don’t we contain different selves that we put on and show to others regularly? Does a gender fluid/ non-binary person also contain multitudes in their gender identity? Especially if they have gone through the struggle and journey to come to the conclusion that they are what they are?

I’ll never claim to fully understand of course. What I’ve rationalized in my own head is my own mind making sense of a thing I’ve not exactly experienced, though I struggle some days to identify with my own gender identity. My journey is different and unique like anyones might be. It has its own complications and nuances.

My struggle with gender identity is more or less with the societal construct as well as the toxic Christian construct of womanhood, and me deconstructing it and making my own conclusions about femininity and what it means to be a woman. Though I do have the rest of the queer community to thank for much of what I’ve been able to deconstruct. Just being able to give myself permission to explore it because others were inspiring themselves and others to do so worked wonders for me.

Still the idea that there are certain levels of self we share with one another depending on relationship and circumstances makes a plural pronoun seem appropriate to me.

Insurance

This morning I made tea to help me facilitate my thoughts in a better manner. No more coffee this morning. The anxiety would be too much if I had more. I had serious things to consider. Very serious things.

The museum hired me last month. I was thrilled and I loved being able to persist in my passions. Recently they asked me if I wanted more hours, which would be awesome. I want that for myself, but I’m anxious about going to those in charge of scheduling and talking to her about changes in my availability.

I shouldn’t be. This is capitalism, and it’s not often that your passions get to line up with your work, but my other job has full benefits for my part time position, and I really like those especially since my deductible is so low and my diabetes had Hashimoto issues aren’t going anywhere. The medical care is excellent, and I like my team there too. Things work for me, so I don’t want to leave that job.

If I could work for the museum full time and get benefits I would, but they’re too small and underfunded to be able to offer benefits to part time workers right now. So I have to stick to my guns for my health’s sake, which feels awful to say, but I have to be realistic. I need healthcare. I need to stay alive. I need help with my medications.

I need the insurance.