What, what?! It's only Wednesday?!?!

Is it just me, or is this week dragging it's ass? 

I haven't posted in a while.  I've had a lot of visitors, a lot of family drama mixed in with several exemplary acts of stupidity that make me question my genetic makeup.  Add on to that a sick kid, and I have been all too willing to lose myself in a book. 

My husband has enabled my addiction distraction by giving me one of these for Mother's Day.  YAY!

 Excessive book reading aside, I'm in a funk.  I feel almost like I'm withdrawing from society.  Right now, I could be perfectly happy spending a few weeks on a deserted island or out in the woods by myself.  I haven't picked up my computer in days...and even then it's only to check for something specific.  Yesterday was the first time in a couple weeks that I actually looked at the news and browsed my regular sites.  

I'm soooo looking forward to summer.  Not the heat....I'm definitely not looking forward to it getting hotter than it already is.  But I'm ready to shed this school time routine for a little bit.  I hope that will pull me out of my "blah-ness".  I had made several "first summer in Maryland" plans that got squashed when Hubby was shifted to his new job instead of the one he was supposed to get.  But with a little planning, they might be doable next year and there is still several things me and the kiddos can get into around here. 

Plus, I have a nine year old's birthday party to plan.  

Neglectful

I have been slightly neglectful of this blog for the past two days.  I'd apologize, but it'd be a lie.  Because the reason that I've been MIA is because I became slightly obsessed with this fanfic novel that I've been reading online called "Wide Awake" (by AngstGoddess).  It was really, REALLY good.  I'm serious.  Hands down, The. Best. fanfic I have ever read.

It's technically a fanfic based off the characters of Twilight.  I very rarely like fanfic (to be completely honest, I only like the smutty short stories about my favorite fiction couples.  Don't judge.  A girl's gotta have her literary porn).  But the names and couplings are the ONLY things that this story has in common with the original.  It is dark.  And sad.  Of course there's a happy ending, but I literally cried my way through 1/2 the story.

This.  Except Bella's covered in knife wounds and Edward is covered in burn scars.  And no one is a vampire.  And there's no obnoxious Jacob. Which is really the best thing about this book.

After all that angst and darkness, I'm ready to move on to somewhat lighter fare.

LIKE THE SUPER BOWL!!

I don't have a dog in this hunt, but I'll be lovingly providing my hubs and sons with spinach dip and drinks while my hubs cheers for the Steelers and my oldest son cheers for the offense.

 

But really, I'm just watching to see this dude.  He's hot.  And I really want to play with his hair.

Oh, and as an update:  I'm pretty sure we're gonna be rolling into Mardi Gras with a 3.5 year old still in fucking diapers.  The kid is stubborn.  I don't know where he gets it.

So what I'm saying is,,,.sexually, I can see it...as a lifestyle, not so much.

I’m in the process of reading a trilogy of fanfics about a Dominant/submissive relationship.  They are really well done, and I am enjoying them immensely (so much so that I’m actually reading three books at a time right now, because I can’t choose which one I like best).  I walk a fine line with enjoying these types of stories.  My favorite books are the Kushiel’s Legacy series by Jacqueline Carey.  The heroine in the first three books (Phedre no Delauney de Montreve) is a masochist. 

I am decidedly not.

But Phedre is far different from the submissives in all the other stories I’ve read/watched.  Anne Rice wrote a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story (under the pseudonym A.N. Roquelaure) called The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty that I literally couldn’t force myself to finish.  It disgusted me.  I was telling someone about my reaction to that book and they asked me how I could love and re-read 1000x the Kushiel’s Series, when a lot of the same actions were taking place in both books.  The difference is most definitely choice.   

Phedre, like the submissives in other stories that I enjoy, choose to take part in their lifestyle because it brings them sexual pleasure.  No one decided it for them.  They don’t submit in every aspect of their lives.  They had selected periods of time where their Doms lord over them and when those times are over, they shed their submissiveness and take back control of their lives and actions.  

In the stories that I can’t stomach, like The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, the women are forced into these roles.  And usually, they learn to love their place under the heel of their oppressor.  It really just smacks of patriarchy and misogyny.  I have definite knee-jerk reactions to these themes that I will get into later….but suffice it to say, I don’t find these types of books entertaining.  They actually kind of infuriate me.  I think they tend to normalize these types of abusive relationships whether they mean too or not.  We need look no further than the patriarchal religious ideals of “Husband as the Head” and the wife submitting to the husband as the church submits to Christ to see just how easy it is to convince someone that they can and should be happy in their own oppression.  But that’s a subject for another day (oh, but I will get to it, rest assured).  

So I’m enjoying this trilogy, but it once again reaffirms that I will probably never really understand these relationships. 

 (That is not to say that my lack of understanding equates into judgment on my part…your gig is your gig, and I don’t understand a lot of things.)

(Or rather, I should say if you’re choosing this for yourself, I’m not judging you.  If it’s being dictated to you, and you submit because you feel you have to for religious or safety purposes, I pity you.  If you are simultaneously trying to push your oppression onto me through religious dictates or by changing societal mores….I am probably judging you and pitying you at the same time.) 

I'm so thankful that I've finally found a use for my massive random picture collection.

  

PS.  I watched The Tourist last night.  I don’t know what all criticism was about; it was great!