Being Amber Rhea

Today Rusty and I are celebrating our 3rd anniversary. And if it weren’t for blogs, I think the likelihood of our paths crossing would’ve been much lower.

So here’s a retrospective…

December 8, 2004: Rusty’s first comment on my blog, wherein he expresses his affinity for PHP. I had found and started reading his blog sometime in the month of November. I don’t remember exactly how I originally found it, but I think it might’ve been through David’s blog. I remember being intrigued and perplexed by all the driveway photos.

March 9, 2005: We met IRL for the first time, at a blogger trivia get-together at Central City Tavern. I also met IRL that night: Thomas, Nikki, Jen, Shannon, Tony, Joseph.

April 22, 2005: Blogger bowling. It was a small crowd (just me, Rusty, Jen, and Joeventures) and I was taking the opportunity to size him up, as they say. I even thought about asking if he wanted to come home with me that night, but due to boring logistical issues (and, yeah, nerves), I decided not to. I knew by that point that I definitely wanted to do him, though.

April 26, 2005: I seized the opportunity to drop some innuendo that could, in the event of disinterest on Rusty’s part, be written off as simply a garden-variety sophomoric joke. I asked for several friends’ interpretations of his response (it seems like he was probably doing the same thing as me; gotta have plausible deniability!) and after getting unanimous opinions that this was, indeed, what you kids call “flirting,” I took the sexual innuendo to email.

April 27, 2005: It just so happened that Rusty had sent me a one-line email regarding the new version of Mac OS X, so I didn’t even need a pretense for emailing him - I just replied.

April 27, 2005 - May 5, 2005: We exchanged a series of emails fraught with business metaphors to refer to fucking. It was pretty funny and entertaining until it reached the point where I started to get annoyed and wondered when we were going to fuck already. There was also a four-day gap where he didn’t respond and I started to wonder if he wasn’t interested after all. He blamed it on working 40 hours a week and getting behind on email. Or was it nerves?

Sometime during the weekend of May 1 (sort of tangential): I was visiting Dacia in New York, and I told her about how there was this “local blogger dude” that I really wanted to fuck, and I was trying to make it happen. After I got back home she sent me an email that concluded with, “Good luck with Rusty!”

May 7, 2005 (tangential): The Great Blogswap of 2005 (a.k.a. the “blorgy”) was set to commence the week of May 9, and there were jokes via email about swapping more than blogs. Little did the rest of ‘em know that would be true for Rusty and me! (He drew my blog.)

May 8, 2005: I finally got impatient with the innuendo and said this in an email to Rusty: “Re: interview scheduling, etc.: I love me some good innuendo as much as the next guy, but it’s about time to close the deal. I can provide references… -oh shit that’s more innuendo. Never mind.” He replied: “I agree about there only being so much innuendo before something has to be done one way or the other. If you’re serious, tomorrow night would actually be a good time since I get off work at 6:15 and don’t have to be in the next day ’til 2. Or Friday night, since I’m off Friday and Saturday. If you’re not, I won’t think lesser of you for it.” And I replied to that: “Of course I’m serious. What do you think I am, some kind of asshole? Tomorrow night eh? That’s fine by me, although we could make it interesting by saying Wednesday after trivia. Or wtf, both! Right? Right.”

May 9, 2008: Monday morning I emailed him directions to my apartment. We’d already exchanged cell phone numbers. At 7:09 p.m. I still hadn’t heard from him and I sent an email saying: “Ok dude I know you’re there, you’re commenting on blogs at the same time as me. What’s your deal? Maybe you are too wrapped up in bestbuysux.org.” Then he went on IM and we chatted for a while, about all kinds of things (including the first day of the Blogswap), until finally at 7:50 I said: “are you coming down here or what?”

evilwilly1: haha, sure
evilwilly1: I need to wash the retail stink off first though
AmberATL30309: gah…
AmberATL30309: now are we clear on what this is or do we need to lay some ground rules
evilwilly1: I’m all about some ground rules… your thoughts?
AmberATL30309: uh, no drama. that’s pretty much it.
evilwilly1: works for me, no strings attached
AmberATL30309: fabulous. i was starting to lose my faith in ATL men.
AmberATL30309: and I’m assuming we’re not repeating this to our blog buddies
evilwilly1: nah
AmberATL30309: i’ll have to tell you about the gay virgin sometime
AmberATL30309: anyway what we have here is a “FWB” situation
evilwilly1: kickass, exactly what I’m looking for
AmberATL30309: excellent

After Rusty and I had been fucking for a few weeks, Sara Beth joked that we were going to fall in love, and she was going to speak at our wedding and recount the dirty details of how it all started. At the time, I scoffed at her; but hey, she was totally right!

And the rest is history. :)

WAM was so so so much fun and so inspiring. I will write a wrap-up post soon. I meant to do it today, but then I wrecked my car for the second time in a week and I feel like a fucking moron and I spent a large portion of the afternoon crying profusely and freaking out. Currently we are waiting for USAA to call Rusty back, because when he called them earlier their computers were down. If we don’t hear from them tonight, he’ll call back in the morning. Then we’ll have to get my car towed to the Nissan dealership where I keep thinking they’re going to make fun of me, and the insurance adjuster will have to come look at it, and I’ll pay the deductible and hopefully not much more.

But god I feel so stupid.

Anyway now I need to get ready to go to pole dancing class. Rusty says exercise will make me feel better… so I’m going. I hope it helps.

And I’m trying to concentrate on the joy that was WAM.

So far both the posts from the “secret” pseudonymous blog involve car sex (or truck sex, really). It’s a coincidence, I swear.

[Originally posted June 30, 2005]

It was like I was back in high school last night… Rusty and I fucked in the cab of his big redneck truck, parked in a church parking lot. Not for very long mind you… it was hot but it was also HOT. As in, humid late-June Deep South hot. And we had to turn the engine off to avoid knocking the gearshift around and whatnot, so that meant no AC.

I think I had more balls (figuratively, of course) in high school; exciting as this was, I was way, way paranoid and kept looking around outside (when I was on top and could actually see outside). Then Rusty kept saying he would run from the parking deck into my apartment without any pants on, and I about had a heart attack. Who knew I was such a prude? We compromised; he ended up putting boxers on. You know, to keep up appearances.

This weekend, Rusty got his truck washed for the first time in years:

Shiny!

Also, we went down to the bird fair in Forest Park and got two new zebra finches. They are named Puff and Stuff. The girl is Puff, because she’s bigger.

I’ll post more (and closer-up) photos soon. I didn’t want to disturb them too much while they’re still getting adjusted to their new home, so I haven’t been hovering around their cage with the camera just yet.

I used to keep a “secret blog,” whose existence was revealed to only a handful of people, wherein I gave everyone pseudonyms and wrote about exciting things like the gory details of my sex life, and boring things like the gory details of job interviews.

The last time I posted to that blog was November 2006. It served its purpose when I needed it. I haven’t deleted it, because who knows, maybe sometime in the future I’ll need it again. But I was going back and looking at some of the old posts, and realizing that they do chronicle a very significant time in my life. This one in particular, I just thought was so sweet that I wanted to post it here.

Fair warning: if you’re going to be weirded out by X-rated language explicitly describing acts of fornication by people you know (read: me and Rusty), and/or if you’re my mom, don’t read below the cut. If either of those descriptions apply to you and you choose to read anyway, well, your reaction is your responsibility, not mine. Don’t act weird.
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We’re back from our weekend getaway. Actually, we got back last night. We had the foresight to take today off work to recuperate, and I’ve spent most of the day alternately uploading photos from the weekend and dealing with Sex 2.0-related business (and attending a fairly strenuous pole dancing class).

Rusty spent most of the day working on a video about PodCamp Nashville. He’s going to post it tomorrow.

I’ll write more later, but it’s been a busy day and at the moment I’d rather let these photos speak for themselves. So here’s some visual documentation of our weekend…

Our first stop was Adairsville, Georgia. It’s a tiny little town with a very well-maintained and (relatively) active town square. It’s important to say relatively active because this was the middle of the day on a weekday and there was hardly anyone around - and the Chamber of Commerce is right there.

Up on a hill we spotted the Gaines House, which has got to be haunted. (If only we had known about Barnsley Gardens ahead of time, we would’ve gone there, too!)

On Saturday, we went to PodCamp Nashville. My tweets from it pretty much sum up what I thought, and Rusty’s going to post a video. So instead, here’s a photo of downtown Nashville at night:

Sunday morning, we had breakfast at the Pancake Pantry, and I spotted these two bookstores across the street:

Back on the road for more visits to small Georgia towns, our first stop Sunday morning was Ringgold. There wasn’t much going on in Ringgold, but they do have a wedding chapel where walk-ins are welcome:

Dalton, on the other hand, was bigger than we’d expected. The highlight was definitely the Wink Theatre. Later, at a Starbucks, we saw the people who run the Rock Bridge Community Church that meets there. They were dressed in all camouflage. Onward, Christian soldiers, marching with your venti latte!

Our last stop was Chatsworth, where there wasn’t much of anything in the downtown area, but on the way out of town, we happened upon this fabulous abandoned motel:

Even though I’m sad about missing SoCon08, overall it was a good weekend and I was happy to add more pins and highlighting to our big Georgia map! Road trips with Rusty are some of my favorite things in the world.

From Ren:

Every once in awhile I do go out and actually spend time with normal people…so I can remember why I do it so fucking rarely.

It’s because you suck and I hate you.

Ha!

On a totally unrelated note, happy Super Tuesday and Mardi Gras, whichever one’s your poison.

Back to work for me, now. See some of y’alll tonight at Amsterdam… yes, I’m coming out to the primary-watching-party, mainly to socialize rather than actually watch the primary returns. Coincidentally enough, I always have mixed feelings about going to these kinds of events, because I know there will be a lot of “normal people” there; but I’m going tonight because I know several friends will be there. And I will even brave it without Rusty… he’s sick. :(

I am pissed off. And sad. At first I wasn’t even going to write anything tonight, because as I told Rusty earlier before he went to bed, I don’t like people who complain all the time, and I don’t like complaining all the time. I don’t like getting mired in negativity, especially when i know there is so much good stuff out there I should be focusing on. And yet, at what point does not dwelling on negativity become flat-out denial? I’m trying to be healthy. But maybe I’m going to the other extreme. Because sometimes it all hits me at once and I feel overwhelmed, like tonight, and honestly it’s a miracle that I didn’t cry when Rusty and I were talking earlier. I cry so easily. It’s always been something about myself that I’ve been embarrassed about. I cry at the least opportune moments, and I think it makes me look weak.

The whole reason I started my blog, back in April 2002, was to just talk about my life. Anything I wanted. Important stuff, silly stuff, random stuff, anything. My thoughts, opinions, etc. And for several years I never felt like I had to so carefully choose my words (well except re: stuff like the situation w/ my ex when all that was going down, but that’s a different kind of thing altogether). And now I feel like I can’t even right about THIS without people basically going, oh, boo-hoo, look at her, feeling sorry for herself, she thinks she’s got it so bad, well what about the limbless migrant workers in Mexico (or whatever), she has it so good compared to them…

Of course I do!

But Jesus! This blog is about ME! Or at least it’s supposed to be! And I’m not supposed to feel badly for writing about MY SHIT in MY SPACE (but not MySpace, ya understand; har har). And all the time I hear that echo in the back of my mind, from all those years ago… “Selfish! You’re so selfish! You think you have it so bad? A lot of people have it much worse that you! Stop being so selfish! And stop being so sensitive!”

I think I go in cycles, because for a few years there I thought I’d really gotten over and moved past that shit. But maybe you really never do get over it. An online friend emailed a week or so ago and mentioned things reopening old wounds. Maybe that’s what happened here.

And now I feel like nothing I can say will be right. And I just want to say FUCK IT! And yet another part of me wants to eternally explain, because if I could only explain clearly enough, surely everyone would understand, right? Except, no, they wouldn’t. Because they’re them and I’m me and never the twain shall meet.

I told Rusty the Sex 2.0 stuff is wearing me down. Once again I have done what I always do - pick up other people’s slack, and as usual, it’s taking its toll on me. I said from the beginning that I needed a lot of help on this, and yet, I haven’t gotten it; and so, what did I do? Suck it up and do it myself. Because otherwise the conference wouldn’t happen, and that would be MY fault.

I really do think Sex 2.0 is going to be a lot of fun and really interesting, but all the bullshit surrounding it lately (venue, money, etc.) is really dragging me down.

And then there’s the whole Creative Loafing thing, and the Midtown people (same shit-heads who shut down our Sex 2.0 venue), and all the people who are so hateful to sex workers… I want to help make good things happen, but I feel sometimes like nothign changes, no one listens. It’s so discouraging. I’m trying so hard. And for what?

There’s also shit going on w/ my family that I haven’t written about here, but is really weighing on me. Now that stuff, I don’t feel the same kind of bad oppressiveness of not being able to say what I want. The stuff I was writing about above is BLOG DRAMA… just look at the “Summation” post and you’ll get a hint of the massive headfuck of it all.

(And also, I’m afraid I might sound like the guys who act like assholes in feminist spaces. I don’t want to sound like those guys!! I can’t stand those guys!)

I *have* been tempted to write about some of the stuff w/ my family. but then I stop, because I know my mom reads this, at least once in a while, no matter what she might say to the contrary. It’s always in her browser history when I go to Augusta. I don’t really mind if she reads it, I just wish she woudln’t pretend like she doesn’t. I wish we could relate more on an adult level. We’ve made progress in the past several years, but… god, I’m 28 years old, isn’t it time to REALLY act like one adult talking to another?

Anyway, I have to admit, that there HAS been a lot of shit going on and it’s just all getting to be a bit much. THings have just been rough. But, also, I want to say, *everything* hasn’t been bad. I’m so fortunate to be with Rusty. I love him so much, and him being in my life makes everything about 100 times better - he even makes the already-awesome stuff 100 times better!

I am also thankful for Jenny, and I’m glad we’ve been chatting on GTalk, even though sometimes I have to sign off hastily because I can’t multi-task very well at work. She understands me and I trust her completely. She is awesome. (And I am so happy that she has a blog now… it cracks me up. I won’t link to it though, ’cause she might act all weird about that!)

So, yeah, there’s shit. But there’s also good. I don’t know what to do… I feel pulled in a ton of directons. I hope my new shrink will help me get some calmness in my life, but I’m not going to keep going to her if my insurance claims don’t go through. :p Why can’t they file insurance for you? I dont’ want to file my own fucking insurance, I’m sure I missed some tiny little checkbox and now they’re not going to reimburse me the hundred bucks.

Anyway. I should stop. This is totally stream of consciousness ranting, and I should probably break it up w/ a “more” link, but I’m not. I’m even resisting the urge to read back through it for typos and such. I still don’t feel like I’ve said everything, but at least I’ve said something. Hopefully soon I’ll be sleepy enough to climb into bed next to Rusty.

I decided to take Rusty’s idea and run with it. I probably got a little carried away, but hey, I like photos. You’ll notice I only posted photos of positive/happy/fun occasions - not because I’m trying to rewrite history, but because I think it’s important to focus on the good. As such, you won’t see any photos of the crappy old apartment and related drama, the Platinum Stages pole saga, or other stupidities of 2007. This is a retrospective of all the good stuff that happened this year!

Also, this is not a post that will be kind to folks on slow connections. I’ve placed the photos below the cut (as they say on LiveJournal); you’ve been warned!
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We’re back from our trip to Columbia, and on the way home we also stopped in three small Georgia towns: Washington, Warrenton, and Camak. I love the peaceful feeling of driving along rural Georgia highways… and then coming upon little ramshackle towns (or remnants of towns) to photograph… good stuff. Road trips with Rusty are some of my favorite times.

I managed to get all the photos from our trip uploaded - and properly labeled! - on Flickr. I have yet to begin scanning all the interesting family history documents I found; that’ll be a separate post, or more likely, series of posts. I spent a good chunk of time in the Records and Deeds department at the courthouse; the Probate Court office; and the South Carolina Archives and History Center. And my quest is not completely over, as there are still people I need to call and/or write.

On a less happy note, I’ve been feeling an unpleasant sense of blog inertia for the past several days, where I feel like I can’t write about anything “controversial” anymore, and like I don’t have anything worthwhile to say and/or nobody wants to listen. But I don’t want to talk about that right now. Instead, here’s a sampling of some photos…

Unknown pair, First Presbyterian Church cemetery, Columbia, SC:

The Leaning Christmas Tree of Columbia:

Busted Plug Plaza, Columbia, SC:

The Wilkes County Republican Party has their headquarters in a trailer:

Knox Theatre, Warrenton, GA:

Camak City Hall:

Check out the full set here.

Rusty and I are back from our 4-day road trip to the Carolinas. It was a good combination of planned and spontaneous; I just wish we’d had a few more days.

First we went to Greensboro for ConvergeSouth 2007. We got there in time for about half of the final session of the day, wherein Jason Calacanis demonstrated the power of Twitter by Twittering his phone number and then Robert Scoble called him. Based on what I’ve heard and read, people seem to be split into two groups - those who thought this was cool/amusing/impressive, and those who thought it was obnoxious. My reaction falls somewhere in the middle, but leaning toward the “obnoxious” side, I think. Part of that is just because I’m non-starstruck with Scoble.

Speaking of which… well, I’ll get to it in a minute. Friday night we went to the ConvergeSouth barbecue at David Hoggard’s house (and they actually had veggie burgers!) and met BlogHer co-founder Elisa Camahort and contributing editor Laurie White. They were both so nice, funny, and down-to-earth; I really enjoyed hanging out with them. Oh, but how this relates to Scoble… well, somehow he came up in conversation, and I mentioned being disgusted with his behavior at ConvergeSouth 2006. Elisa said she’d seen he and Maryam give the same presentation at a different conference, but they were very much co-presenters. We wondered whether she had seen them after I had, and maybe Scoble took my criticisms to heart. Later that night I did some research on Google and it turns out, Elisa did see them after I did. Ha!

Saturday we had a good time at ConvergeSouth; I liveblogged Elisa’s keynote and did a bit of Twittering throughout some of the other sessions. Of course, the inevitable J-School/B-School session - otherwise known as “journalists vs. bloggers” - got ugly pretty fast; but I’ve yet to be in one of those sessions where it doesn’t turn ugly. At 1:00, I led a session entitled Podcasting and Beyond. It seemed to take the folks there a few minutes to understand that they weren’t just “the audience” and I wasn’t going to talk at them for an hour; once that became clear, we had a good discussion. I recorded it and will put it up as a podcast soon.

Sunday morning, we left Greensboro and headed to the Carolina Raptor Center. This is a place just outside of Charlotte where they rehabilitate injured birds of prey. Their goal is always to release the birds back into the wild, but some birds aren’t able to be released, due to the nature of their injuries. These are the permanent residents at the CRC.

I highly recommend this place to anyone who has even the remotest interest in birds! (Which should be everyone.)

After leaving the raptor center, we decided to head to Columbia, SC. We’d been meaning to go there eventually anyway, so we figured there’s no time like the present. Columbia turned out to be a pretty neat town. We didn’t have as much time as we would’ve liked to walk around taking pictures, because it was almost dark by the time we got there, and on Monday I spent most of the morning doing research at the courthouse. I’m trying to track down some family history there… but I’ll do a separate post about that. Rusty did sneak away and photograph two Kress buildings for me, though:

We’re planning to go back to Columbia the weekend of December 8th. At that time, I’m sure we’ll take five million photos.

On the way back home, we stopped in Augusta for lunch with my parents. It was a totally last-minute decision, so I was glad they were available for lunch!

So that’s what we did on our 4-day vacation. I love road trips, and I’m already ready for another one. Hopefully we’ll be able to get in a few day and weekend trips between now and December.

Tomorrow night, Rusty will be doing a presentation on podcasting with Drupal, at the monthly Drupal Atlanta meeting. It’s in Alpharetta, at the 5 Seasons Brewery, starting at 7:00. Here are the details:

Drupal core contains everything you need to post podcasts without any third-party modules, so just come with a working Drupal 5 installation if you’d like to participate.

The method I’ll teach uses the stripped-down CCK (Content Construction Kit) that’s built into Drupal 5 along with the core Upload module. It’s not the only way to podcast with Drupal, but I think for most purposes it’s the best way. During the opening presentation, we’ll briefly discuss the pros and cons of using this method versus other methods (like using the Audio and/or Video modules).

We may play with SWF Tools if there’s time to show you how you can add Flash players to enhance the user experience. The module is currently broken but expected to be fixed soon, and in the very near future will be the best and easiest way to add Flash players to your podcast. If time permits, we can also discuss how to add Flash players using PHPTemplate.

I think he should do this presentation at PodCamp Atlanta next year, too. :)

Sorry about the lack of blogging… I just haven’t felt like it, with everything that’s been going on (sporadic net access included). I’ll be back into the swing of things eventually. Today, I feel delirious.

Tomorrow morning, we’ll be heading back to Atlanta. I’ll be glad to be home, but we’ve had a great time in Chicago. I really like this city. In fact, I’ll even go so far as to add it to the short list of cities other than Atlanta in which I could realistically see myself living. (Well, “realistic” might be a stretch; I haven’t been here in the winter!)

I know I haven’t been doing much blogging since BlogHer concluded, but that’s because we’ve been having a lot of fun being relatively off the grid.

Sunday we went to the Museum of Surgical Sciences, walked around the Lincoln Park area a little, and chilled in a random downtown Chicago Starbucks. Then we spent about four hours reading in the hotel room. Today we went to the Museum of Science and Industry for the specific purpose of visiting the baby chick hatchery. The baby chicks were unbearably cute, and I took a bunch of photos and a short video, which will be posted soon. Then we headed to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs lose. Rusty has already posted a video of the 7th-inning bleacher-bum rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

I would write more, but I’m too wrapped in up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and want to read a few more chapters before bed. I’ll write more about our trip and post plenty of photos in the next few days. Then I’ll spend the rest of the week cleaning out my inbox (current unread message count is 112; I’m sure there’s at least twice that many waiting for me at work) and combing through Bloglines.

Oh, and also I just found out I’ll be a speaker at ConvergeSouth ‘07, but more on that later.

I heart Chicago!

Well, we’re here - at the Navy Pier for the start of the BlogHer conference. Right now most people are doing this “speed dating” introduction thing, but Rusty and I opted out because it’s just way too damn social. I know I should probably be taking this opportunity to force Sex 2.0 MOO Cards on people, but I just can’t handle it. So, instead, I’m doing what my T-shirt says I’m doing: blogging this. The wifi here is great, the schwag bags are amazing… well, generally everything is amazing so far.

The best way to follow me today will probably be Twitter, but even with that i don’t know how many updates I’ll be posting, since my top priority will be having fun, participating, and all that good stuff.

We had breakfast with AAG, Viviane, RKB, Susan Mernit, and a few other people whose names I can’t remember. Last night we had dinner w/ Viviane, RKB, Susan, Cunning Minx (who called me “perky and adorable” - ha!), and Lisa Williams. I’ll post photos when I get a chance!

So far I think Chicago is a great city. One thing we learned: there is apparently a shuttle from the Orange Line train to Navy Pier. We did not know that, and instead spent $75 on a cab this morning. Oh well, live and learn. It was the cab driver who told us about the shuttle, actually; and he was a really nice guy, he and Rusty had a grand old time talking about sports. So it could have been much worse.

Okay, that’s all for now… off to enjoy! :)

I am so excited about our soon-to-commence trip to Chicago.

We’ll arrive tomorrow afternoon at (purportedly) 4:35 p.m., whereupon we will travel to our accomodations* at the luxurious Midway Airport Sleep Inn. We’re classy like that.

Later that night, we’ll be meeting some sexy bloggerati for dinner: namely, Viviane, Cunning Minx (whose podcast was nominated for a Podcast Award; congrats!), Rachel Kramer Bussel, and Susan Mernit.

Friday morning is the start of the BlogHer conference. We’ll be meeting Always Aroused Girl at breakfast. Even though I’m sure I’ll be doing a fair amount of wandering, these are the break-out sessions I’m interested in attending Friday:

• 10:45: Digital Exhibitionists or Chroniclers of their Time: Will Naked Bloggers Make History?
• 1:30: Privacy, Exposure, Risk: Can you maintain safer spaces online?
• 2:45: Still a toss-up between Media Training and Does the Blogosphere Need an Intolerance Intervention?
• 4:30: Don’t feel strongly about any of ‘em, so it might be a good time to wander from room to room or do some blogging.

Friday night, we’ll be having dinner with some of the same folks from Thursday’s dinner, plus a few more - possibly including (OMG FAN-GIRL) Susie Bright. (!!!)

Saturday morning, it’ll be back to the conference! I’m planning to attend these break-out sessions:

• 10:30: Women Across the World
• 1:30: Blogging: the Voice For Silenced Communities
• 2:45: Sex & Relationship Blogging Behind Closed Doors, an Off-the-Record session

Not sure what’s happening Saturday night, but I think there’s going to be some sort of sex bloggers’ happy hour.

Sunday I think we’ll probably spend a fair amount of time relaxing, and then go to the Museum of Surgical Sciences. I doubt we’ll try to pack a whole lot of activity into that day. (It’s the Sabbath, after all.)

Monday we’ll be going to the Museum of Science and Industry to see the baby chick hatchery (squee!!) and whatever else we might want to look at that’s not as cute as baby chicks. Monday night, we’re going to a Cubs game.

Then, Tuesday morning, it’s back to the ATL! There will be tons of photos, and a decent amount of blogging and podcasting, too.

Btw, the BlogHer web site just launched a redesign, and it looks great!

* Firefox spell-check does not know the word “accomodations.” Weird.

First of all, I hate it when people give blog posts titles like “Random Thoughts.” Even worse is when they name their entire blog something like “Random Thoughts.”

And yet, there it is.

I need to go to bed. But sometimes when Rusty isn’t here (he’s in Marietta tonight), I feel scared in the apartment alone. I know that might sound totally lame, but you know what, that’s just too damn bad, because everybody has things about them that might sound lame and yet are true.

One of the Georgians for Choice directors doesn’t like colloquial use of the word “lame.” She’s a PWD (gotta love the acronyms ’round here) and finds it disrespectful. I don’t have any opinion on it. I understand why she would feel that way. I also understand why some people find “crazy” disrespectful/offensive toward people with mental illnesses and such. I’m a diagnosed clinical depressive but I don’t find “crazy” offensive; in fact, in many cases, I find it quite apt. But if I know someone doesn’t like it, I make an effort not to use it around them. Inasmuch as Republicans flap their lips about “free speech” and “it’s just a word!!” you never see them acknowledging that if it is, in fact, “just a word,” then why’s it such a big fucking deal for them not to use it? Just pick another word FFS.

Oh! I found out some good news. Turns out, Club 2Risqué isn’t closed for good after all. They’re just preparing to open a new facility. And the grand opening is four days before my birthday. (Hard to believe I’ll be 28. Argh.)

I need to get off my ass and send my photoset to Project ISM (link NSFW). I took over 100 photos yesterday, and they turned out really well if I do say so myself. I am inching, excitedly and nervously, toward finally being naked on the internet. Encouragement would be appreciated. Anything else - including boring interrogation about “oh but why do you feel you have to do this??” is highly unwelcome.

Songs I’ve been listening to on repeat tonight:

• Birdhouse In Your Soul - They Might Be Giants
• This Love - Maroon 5
• Coming Undone - Korn
• Dip It Low - Christina Milian
• Sister Havana - Urge Overkill (remember them??)
• Bring Me To Life (Original) - Evanescence

I have not yet turned on my new MacBook, which arrived this morning. Delayed gratification!

And now, I really do need to go to bed.

Rusty and I went back to Trapeze last night. You might remember it from my less-than-stellar (and Too Hot for a Certain Aggregator) review here. Well, this trip was a complete 180.

One major difference that should be noted upfront is that no single men are allowed at Trapeze on Saturday nights. That certainly contributed to the difference in atmosphere.

We got there only slightly later than last time. As soon as we walked through the door, the contrast to last time was stark and immediate. There was so much energy, and everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun. There was a lot of laughter, and the dance floor was packed. There was also just a much bigger crowd that last time, and the average age of the clientele appeared younger (late 20s - early 30s). It seemed like a lot of people knew each other.

We got a drink (orange juice) and sat at a table watching people dance and taking in the atmosphere. Over the course of several songs, couples and groups of three or four made their way toward the mandatory-naked area in the back.

Soon we headed back there too. There seemed to be more attendants working in the locker room this time. We had brought our own padlock this time, but as it turned out, the attendant had a key to lock and unlock each locker.

When we went through the doors into the back area, the first big difference was, again, a much bigger crowd, and a much higher energy level. We started to walk around, and then Rusty noticed a door that we had somehow missed before. I don’t know how we missed it last time, but we did; and it led to a very large area (about the same size as what we had thought was the entirety of the Naked Area) with three hot tubs, a pool, another bar, several beach futon thingies, and two semi-private beds.

And there was fucking.

After the initial shock of “how the hell did we miss this before??” wore off, we decided to get in one of the hot tubs. We sat in the hot tub and watched a couple fuck on one of the futon thingies. I was also able to watch another couple on the other side of the pool, but someone was blocking Rusty’s view. We sat there for a while, very pleased with how the night was turning out. After the hot tub became too hot to bear, we got out, spread our towels on one of the futon thingies by the pool, and sat there fooling around and such.

I don’t recall how long we sat there, and I think at one point we got up and walked around to see if anything interesting was going on in the other part of the Naked Area, before coming back; but eventually we went to one of the semi-private “rooms” - a bed in a little hut-looking thing (I think they were going for a tiki theme) with tied-back curtains on each side. We ended up fucking in there (we laid out our towels, of course; etiquette is key) with great gusto. One couple remained a faithful audience the entire time, while other people came and went, peeking in occasionally. After that was over, we laid there winded and extremely warm, and finally staggered back out to the clothing-optional front area for drinks and a plate of fresh fruit.

We sat, recovering, and watched a small group of people on the dance floor, including one woman who was a really good pole dancer, despite the dangerous pole. I wanted to ask her if she took classes anywhere, but I’m generally terrified of going up and talking to strangers, so I didn’t.

After we finished our drinks, we went back and sat by the pool again. There were two orgies happening in it, which we watched for quite some time. At one point a woman came up and asked me, “Do you play with girls?” I said no, sorry, and she smiled and walked off. She did find a girl to play with soon enough.

Eventually we got a second wind and ended up fucking again, on the futon by the pool. The couple sitting directly across from us certainly got quite a show. Round two was fairly quick, and then we were both exhausted and tempted to fall asleep. After sitting around for a few more minutes, we decided it was time to go home.

It was nearly 3:00 a.m. when we left, and, strangely, when we got home we weren’t even all that tired. We ended up going to sleep around 4:00.

Last night was, in a word, awesome. We had a blast, and would like to go back again. I am pleasantly surprised, to say the least! We have a three-month membership, and if it’s fun again the next time we go, we might spring for a full year. Saturday night, couples-only, is definitely the way to go. It’s pretty expensive, so it’s not something we can afford to do every weekend or even every other weekend; but we’ll be back eventually.

The two major events of last night involved me scraping up my leg while pole dancing at a sex club, and the police coming out to our apartment building at 2:00 a.m. These two things are not related.

We decided to go to a sex club to (here comes the big surprise) watch people fuck. I didn’t exactly have high expectations, as I had been to a sex club about 6 years ago and was underwhelmed to say the least. But, I thought, that was one night at one place; why not give it another shot? It might be fun and hot; and if not, well, at least we went, and we could laugh about it.

I did get my hopes up a little after talking to a friend who had been to a club called Trapeze about 3 years ago, and reported that it didn’t suck. And, according to their 1999-esque web site, they had a pole. (Side note: I do not recall the name or location of the club I went to ~6 years ago. It was somewhere in/around Atlanta, but that’s all I remember. It might not even exist anymore.)

So we went out there, and plopped down the $115 to get in ($50 membership + $65 door fee - they don’t waive the door fee on the night you buy your membership). They had a full buffet, and I’d heard that the food was really good, so the first thing we did was go get some food. And indeed, the food was awesome. Honestly, it was the highlight of the night. (Close second was a furtive blowjob we witnessed near the dance floor, but really, the mashed potatoes and broccoli still win in my mind.)

We sat at a table near the dance floor. There was really bad porn on two TVs, but fortunately the sound was muted. After we finished eating, I sat there waiting for the DJ to play a song that didn’t suck, and for annoying people to get their asses away from the pole so I could go up there and show them what’s up. Finally, I just decided to go up anyway even though I didn’t really like the song and this one couple would not move. So we went up there, Rusty stood on the “sidelines” so to speak, and I wiped the pole down with a napkin. This obviously wasn’t good enough, but I thought it might be better than nothing. Well, I ended up not being able to do a whole hell of a lot, because the pole was really slippery and dangerous. I tried a few spins and such, but for the most part I couldn’t get enough grip to do anything 100%. When I tried the fireball spin (Darcey will know what I’m talking about) I damn near fell off. Discouraged, out of breath, and bruised, I sat back down. Rusty said I did a great job but he could tell the pole was holding me back. Later, I noticed that I’d not only bruised the crap out of my legs, but they’re peppered with scrapes and cuts, too.

After I caught my breath, we decided we might as well go to the back area and try to see if we could watch people fucking. So far the clientele hadn’t exactly blown our skirts up, but we thought we should at least see what’s up.

The club was pretty clearly segregated into a “naked” and “non-naked” area, which annoyed me. And to go back to the part with the beds and stuff, you had to get naked or mostly naked. They had lockers, but they didn’t actually lock. That annoyed me too. Look, I don’t have a problem getting naked, but I don’t know these people; I’m not going to trust a bunch of strangers just because we all happen to be naked. But, still, we put our clothes in a nasty little locker, in a cramped locker room with a leaky shower (and some woman spilled her drink all over the floor right next to us), and wrapped threadbare towels around our waists. I kept my purse with me.

We walked through the double doors to the designated fucking area to find… not much fucking. Really, not any fucking. We walked around the whole place, and there was no fucking to be seen. A few old people had gone into one of the semi-private rooms and were groping each other, but I didn’t want to watch them fuck anyway. Mostly, people were just sitting around naked. WTF. Why do you go all that way and pay all that money just to sit around naked? You can do that at home. (Yes, you can have orgies at home too, but that’s a digression for later.) And most of the people were significantly older than us. I have nothing against people having awesome sex at any age, and indeed I intend to be having awesome sex until I’m seriously geriatric; it’s just that at this point in my life, if I had my druthers, those aren’t the type of people I’d like to watch fuck.

So, we stood in the corner for a minute or two, nonplussed. Some older men leered creepily. Finally we decided to just leave. So we got our clothes back from the nasty little locker and left.

I guess I’m a little disappointed, but not exactly surprised. However, we’ve decided to do a little more “research” and do a podcast about it, hopefully within the next few weeks. Since we have the three-month Trapeze membership (we didn’t have a choice), we decided we’ll go back on a Saturday night, and see if it’s any different. For one thing, single men aren’t allowed on Saturday nights. That might help create a less lecherous dynamic.

We also want to check out Club Venus (why do these places always have web sites that look like a bad mid-90s Geocities home page?) and see what it’s like. That might be the club I went to before, but I can’t remember. I don’t know of any other clubs that are still open (Velvet Heaven and 2Risqué closed; shame about the latter, they had an under-40 rule) and aren’t BDSM-themed or something. If you know of any others, let us know; but our podcast research may remain fairly limited in scope anyway, ’cause this shit costs money.

Later I want to write about why the whole “swinger” concept annoys me; but I’ll do that in a separate post, because this is already really long, and I have to talk about the person on the roof.

So, after coming home, we were lying in bed at around 2:00 a.m. or so. The lamp on the bedside table was on. Naturally, we were lying there naked. I was lying on my side, facing Rusty… we were relaxing and talking, and then all of a sudden he says, “Holy shit, there’s a person outside the window.” (When he was at the “there’s a…” part, I thought he was going to say something like “a ginormous insect on the bed.”)

I dove under the covers; I didn’t even look up to see the person. Rusty yelled, “What the fuck??” and apparently the guy ran off. I was scared and stayed under the covers. Rusty got up and called 911. He told the operator that there had been someone on the roof peeking into the window, and it looked like the guy was fiddling with the window as if he was trying to get in. (He wouldn’t have gotten very far… it’s like a 20-foot drop inside those windows.) So about 10 minutes later, a cop came out, and looked around the building and the roof, but didn’t see anyone. So that was that. We didn’t file a police report or anything. Oh and apparently the cop said something to Rusty about, “Most people have drapes.” (This was over the phone.) Excuse me?? For the most part, I was happy Rusty was dealing with cop and such, but I wish I had been on the phone at that moment. I would have pointedly asked exactly how us having drapes on those 20-foot high windows would have made it okay for someone to be creeping around on the roof at 2:00 a.m. A million other questions about this stupid non-sequitur spring to mind as well. I mean, also, I shouldn’t have been wearing that short skirt. And what was I thinking, walking through that part of town alone?

So anyway. That was our night. My leg is still sore from the shitty pole dancing. I’m pretty much over the “dude on the roof” incident now, and am just pissed more than anything. (Yes, we told our landlord; but you know how things have generally been with her. Strained, to say the least.) We’re thinking it would be nice to have drapes up on those windows, but we’ll definitely have to hire a professional to install them, because there’s no way in hell either of us is getting up there.

Stay tuned for, eventually, a podcast about our experiences with Atlanta sex clubs. And I’ll also write a post about the whole “swinger” thing, and the concept of sex clubs in general.

This is the wallpaper on my cell phone:

Sassywho’s post about her two ectopic pregnancies - and how she was treated like day-old shit by the ER staff - has me feeling all shaken up. Not because I’m shocked at the cruelty and mistreatment she endured; but because I’m not shocked, since I know that this kind of thing is all too common, and if anything, it’s the rule rather than the exception.

And I’m angry. And I feel powerless. I hate that feeling, anger coupled with powerlessness. It’s one of the worst, and it usually sends me spiraling down one of those “what the fuck do we do and why are we here?” tunnels - and I don’t like when my train of thought heads in that direction. I don’t like the powerlessness, because it ultimately means the anger usually ends up getting turned inward and is damaging to me, so I usually have to find some other way to deal - such as distraction by focusing on good things. Some may call it sticking my head in the sand, but I call it fucking survival. What the fuck else am I going to do? Sit here and be miserable? Like it or not, I - one person - can’t change the sorry state of healthcare in this country. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop voting for the right people, and donating to the right organizations; it just means, simply, that I don’t have the magic wand I wish I had.

But, that last paragraph was a tangent. The other thing about Sassywho’s post is that it’s quite timely. Because today when we were at the hospital, I was feeling very nervous. Obviously, I was nervous simply because I wanted Rusty to be okay, and it’s hard not to be nervous when the love of your life is having surgery. But I was also nervous for another, more insidious reason: I don’t trust hospitals. I don’t trust the medical establishment in this country, in general.

I was pretty surprised at how friendly and helpful everyone we encountered was, for the most part. Then I was irritated because something that should be the expected default came as a surprise. And, when there was that one nurse in the recovery area who behaved as if we were inconveniencing her with our presence, and seemed to be trying to shoo us out of the place as quickly as possible even though Rusty was barely lucid and in quite a bit of pain - well, I thought, “Yeah, the truth comes out.” That’s how I expect it and remember it, and have experienced it. It goes without saying that the fact that I expect rudeness and dismissiveness is fucked up.

Then I started to wonder, too, if all the other staff members we dealt with - nurses, surgeon, anesthesiologist - would have been just as nice if Rusty weren’t insured. I tried to stop myself from having that thought, because I recognized how unfair it was. And I did get the feeling that many of the people we dealt with, especially the nurses, were genuinely nice, caring people. (They might not even know about patients’ insurance status or financial situation. I don’t know how that works.)

But my mind kept going back to how my dad was treated when he was in the hospital after his stroke last year: like a second class citizen, to put it bluntly. Uninsured and without a stable source of income, they treated him as an inconvenience and a liability. They were trying to get him out of there as soon as possible, and they barely made any effort to pretend otherwise. He stayed in the hospital for a way shorter period of time than he should have. Instead of physical therapy, they photocopied some pages of exercises intended for orthopedic patients and told my mom, “Have him do these.”

My mom has never liked to admit that we’re not the middle-class suburban folks I think she thinks we’re supposed to be. She does that extra-vengeful classism thing that I guess comes out of embarrassment, or guilt, or god knows what. When we were staying at the hospital with my dad, she recounted a conversation with the hospital social worker; she had made sure to stress that while he didn’t have insurance, it wasn’t because he was “lazy” or “a bum.” You know, like those people. The other people who don’t have insurance.

Eh, another tangent there. Point being… well, I don’t know what my point is, really. Just that I distrust the medical establishment in general. This is already long enough, so I won’t even get into the time I was hospitalized for depression in 2001 as a broke, just-married college student. I hope to [insert deity here] that I never have to go to the ER for something as serious as what Sassywho went through, where I literally might die because the people working there are “jaded” and “burnt out.” Excuse the fuck out of me for not giving a good goddamn.

I don’t want to end this on such a pissed off, powerless note, because like I said earlier, I don’t like that feeling, and I don’t want to be passing it along to y’all. So I’ll go stick my head in the sand now, and you do the same if you’re so inclined. Keep voting, writing letters, and donating whatever time or money you can; beyond that? Well, life’s too short to feel powerless all the time. So find the good where you can, and enjoy every nanosecond of it.

You’ll get something like this again tonight at 11:59 thanks to my daily Twitter updates, but just wanted to put up a post letting everyone know the surgery is over and done with, and my “strapping young lad” (heh, thanks Veronica) did great. He’s sleeping on the couch now. I’m glad he managed to get to sleep, because he was in pain (which is to be expected). Debating over whether to wake him at 3:00 for another Percocet.

Everyone at Crawford Long was very nice and helpful (except for one nurse who acted like she wanted to get us out of there as soon as possible) and the doctor said he should be fine. So that’s the update!

While waiting at the hospital, I managed to finish reading Full Frontal Feminism. Review coming sometime this weekend, whenever I’m not compulsively cleaning. One of our windows won’t close all the way - converted industrial buildings have “charm” and “character,” you see - and a bunch of dust-like crap got inside on the furniture from where a crew was pressure-washing or something on the outside of the building, and it’s making me sneeze and generally pissing me off.

Off to tend to the patient now! :)

Rusty’s gallbladder surgery is tomorrow morning, so please keep him in your thoughts, prayers, or whatever’s your thing. We’ll be at the hospital at 7:00 a.m. and the surgery should be underway by 9:00. He has not yet decided if he’ll take his cell phone with him to the hospital for Twittering purposes. I know the surgery will go smoothly, but I’ll be happy when it’s over and he’s back home recuperating on the couch.

Not much else to say… that’s the main thing that’s going on. I bought a delicious-looking salad from Publix for dinner, but ended up eating cake instead. Oh! I should also mention, we now tentatively have a venue secured for Sex 2.0! I also put up a preliminary wiki. More on all that in a few days, though.