Snowed In!

It’s the dead of winter here, those really long days of tons of snow and bitter cold. Not a good time to be in New England for sure.  I wish like hell I was in a much warmer and more pleasant place!  A big blizzard came through two days ago and dropped 31.5″ of fluffy snow, pushed around by 40+ mph winds and freezing temperatures, the drifts were enormous!  The snowbanks at the end of my driveway are over my head…AND there’s more coming tomorrow (predicting another 10″) and more coming on Monday of next week from what I hear.  Snowpocalypse….2015.  It’s like being battered over and over and not being able to stop it. The problem is where to PUT all the new snow that’s going to arrive in the next few days!  February is going to be our snow month, at least for the start of it!

My SUV transmission crapped out on my yesterday afternoon.  This morning I had AAA tow it over to Portsmouth to Aamco Transmissions to have it looked at.  Looks like it needs a rebuild, it’s toast.  Luckily when I bought it 4 months ago I also purchased the premium extended warranty, so the majority of the work is covered by that, but still it will be a few hundred bucks out of this coming month’s budget.  I don’t expect to get it back before Tuesday, 2/3/15 at the earliest.  I am not used to being grounded at all.  I’m very used to having a vehicle at all times, and not good at living without one.  It’s going to be a difficult weekend of depending on other people for rides and my supply run.  And incoming snow doesn’t help at all.

So I’ve been cooped up in the house since yesterday afternoon, just me and Nola (my dog).  It sucks.  But it’s given me plenty of time to think and reorganize my priorities.  One of which being that I had to extract myself from talking to a person I thought was just a friend.  She said over and over that she just wanted to be friends…even when I wanted more, but then when I made a coffee date with someone else yesterday she had a melt down over it.  Accused me of lying about it, but the part I don’t get at ALL is why?  She said she wasn’t going to be with anyone, and especially not me and we were just friends, so she had no reason to have a kibby fit over me going for a simple coffee meet up with someone else.  It just didn’t make sense, and she’s got another woman there who’s hot on her ass too….so double WTF?  How can you be mad at me for going out with someone else when you are doing the same thing, even more so!  I didn’t think anything of it when I said I would meet my friend here for coffee….I never thought for a second it would cause a problem.  But it did and it ended a friendship.  It’s just as well…she was screwing with my head far too much.  I had gotten pretty attached to her and it wasn’t healthy for me because she would keep telling me I didn’t care and I was lying…all not good for my own psyche.  I wasn’t lying, I do like her alot and wanted more, but not under these crazy circumstances.  So it’s best that we don’t communicate.  I haven’t yet done the deleting thing, but I might as well just do it and be done. It got too dramatic for me, too many people in the mix with her new friend, etc.  I just couldn’t take the fighting and stopped responding.  I know that’s not the totally right thing to do, but I had to stop it somehow.

There is a lot to be said for good communication in a relationship…even in a friendship.  When one person sees it one way and the other sees it another way it’s never good, I have found.  No I didn’t give my friend details of my coffee meeting…I didn’t see where it made any difference.  We were just friends right?  And friends do date other people…at least in my world we do.  Perhaps the customs are different elsewhere.  But one thing is for sure, you can’t have it both ways. And she obviously didn’t want me seeing anyone else, but she didn’t want to see me either…and she had another woman on the line too….talk about having your cake and eating it too….not

So there are good things happening in my life too.  My friend from Vancouver is hopefully coming to spend 4-5 days with me in April!  Yay!  It will be the 2 year mark since we have seen each other. She was here 2 years ago in mid-April we remembered.  I’m really looking forward to seeing her again and having some low key, laid back fun.  Hopefully the weather will be much warmer and more manageable here by then too.  She and I write letters back and forth via snail mail quite often, and I do enjoy her company immensely.  She is genderqueer and on the masculine side, but we get along famously, and she’s very attractive.  I can’t wait for her visit!

I was introduced to the Savage Lovecast by my Vancouver friend also.  It’s a cool podcast that I listen to while I am writing and zipping around the internet perusing webpages.  Here’s the link to Savage Lovecast.  It’s a very sex-positive and honest, queer positive and stresses open communication.  I’ve found them pretty interesting.  I love that the ads are for sex sites, and products….very cool.  Oh, and it’s hosted by Dan Savage, in-case you didn’t catch that inference. warning:  Adult content and Adult language

What are some of you favorite sites?  Sex-positive web pages?  What entertains you on the web related to LGBT issues?

Snow…Dating…Sex….What’s up!?

Saturday, 24th…It’s snowing like crazy here today and I am stuck inside watching the flakes rain down from the clouds. There is not even any reason to get dressed, other than to go outside to shovel, today. I’m going to stay in my comfortable clothes, my flannel pajama pants and a sweatshirt and slippers all day, yes, it’s just going to be a lazy snow day! Even the dog has hunkered down and is being ubber cuddly; just wants to snuggle up with me and be petted and made of. I’d rather have a nice hot woman here to snuggle with, but in absence of that I will settle for cuddling on the couch with the dog and a warm blanket.

I woke up this morning sick to my stomach…complete with headache and body aches…thinking I may be have a little flu bug. I’m not bad now, but first thing was pretty miserable for me. I don’t often get sick but when I do it’s always sudden and harsh, then I slowly get better over the course of a day or so.

Monday.…Jan. 26, 2015

Ok, weird thought in my head, about how women hit on each other sometimes. I remembered the time in my life, in my 20’s that I asked a woman to come over and check out my rock collection…true story! On a side note, I ended up in a relationship with that woman for the next year or so as I finished out my time in the Army at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma…obnoxious as it sounds it was a great pick up line, she knew exactly why she was invited over, not naive to think I really had a rock collection…… I think that most women are pretty smart in that respect, they know that a Butch has some lame pick up lines sometimes, and even some cute ones that can’t be resisted 😉  (Tell me your BEST pick up line that worked in the comments below!)

I generally only respond to women who show interest. And I ‘m not one to bug or annoy a woman, I don’t get into calling or texting her repeatedly without response. That to me is just rude. If you can’t take a hint like “she’s not returning my texts, maybe she’s not interested.” I just don’t get it. If she’s interested in me she will respond, if she’s not then she won’t. That’s how calls and texts work. I’ve learned quite a bit about attentiveness and the like in the last year. I’ve definitely learned that if a woman wants my attention then she has to show me by giving me her time and attention too. And if she doesn’t respond then she probably isn’t interested or doesn’t wish to be bothered.

Dating has been a big topic in my social circles lately. Seems every one wants to discuss dating styles and types, and who’s dating who and how each of us goes about the dating “dance”. Ah, and it IS a fine tuned dance for sure. I don’t take dating lightly, when I probably should be more relaxed about it and just go out more often and meet some nice women. I tend to be shy meeting new people, I watch their eyes and their body language to try to start to learn about them. Do they make eye contact? Do they cross their arms across their chests in that “don’t talk to me stance”? How are they reacting with their other friends?

Problem is with ME being shy is that I often encounter the best women, the ones I am attracted to the most are also somewhat shy. Two shy don’t make a date! Eeek! I know that if I just applied myself even the slightest bit more here that I would have no problem dating, it’s just that I am so damned picky, and my being picky isn’t helping me to find a good woman to love. Back in the days when I used to drink/drug I had no problem with shyness, it goes away about drink #2 with me, but I dislike drinking too much now to use it for much. Occasionally I will have a Twisted Tea or a Hard Lemonade, but rarely do I have more than 3…that’s my limit and that’s rare that I even do that nowadays. I like having my wits about me, and I don’t like a sloppy drunk, so I don’t suppose that other women would either.

I’ve been in a pretty good mood lately actually, even though things aren’t going exactly as I wished they were, I’m in a fairly good space personally. I don’t know why, I just feel a little more relaxed inside, less anxious these past few days. I’ve been doing a lot of meditation and deep thinking…I needed to do just that, to relax and just let my thoughts carry me through a bit of a rough patch.

I’ve learned over the years that you cannot force someone to like or love you. That’s just a fact. And I’ve been on the circuit for 4 decades now, dating, long term relationships and affairs, one-nighters, and a little kink thrown in for good measure…yeah I admit it, I don’t deny that I am a sexual being at all. As a matter of fact I think sex is a wonderful thing, but it’s only part of the equation in any relationship, it’s the icing on the cake so to speak, there is just so much more to building and maintaining a good, solid relationship. Plus, I am not looking for just sex anymore, I want more than that with a woman…yes, preferably with one singular woman.

I can’t turn on my feelings and turn them off with some kind of switch. I don’t even have a 3-way bulb type setting which you might be able to turn up brighter at will and down or off at will. My heart doesn’t work on an “at will” basis at all. When I meet a woman I am interested in, it’s a funny little dance, and a scary one for me. My mind goes into the whole “what IF” mode really fast. Like what if she doesn’t like Butches? Or what if she is bi-sexual? Or what if I am not good enough? What if, what if. Then if I meet one that I really like, all hell breaks out in my head.

I get told a lot that I am good looking, that I am funny and that I am sweet, ect. I’m very flattered, but I am truly your run-of-the-mill Butch, in my opinion. There’s nothing really special about me, although I wish there were! I’m not rich, or famous, or a knight in shining armor (I really want to be that last one especially!)

Tonight I had a really nice, long talk with a very good friend (who I hope to see soon) and she helps me sort of talk through what’s going on in my head…she for some reason is a rare person that I can really feel comfortable with in discussing stuff like sex and sexual stuff. She assured me it’s not a looks thing, that I am handsome enough, just a little too shy. She’s taught me a lot in the 5+ years that we’ve known each other, and I respect her opinions very highly. But tonight she reminded me that there are billions of women in the world and a good portion of them are lesbian and eligible to date…I just need to relax and let it happen and not try to force the issue.

I find it difficult to talk about sex…and in today’s world of 2015 EVERYONE is talking about sex, and very openly and blatantly! I hear more things on TV that I would be embarrassed to say myself! I wish I were more verbal about it, then maybe I wouldn’t get myself into that vulnerable space of talking about it and I could relax. I am going to work on that for sure. For now, I am sort of enjoying my sex life vicariously through this dear friend of mine, who tells me of her awesome adventures quite frequently – and I enjoy hearing about them! So why do I find it so difficult to talk about sex myself? If I can read about it, watch it on screen, participate in it and think about it all the time…why the hell can I not verbalize my own needs comfortably and confidently? I am betting that things would be far better for me if I could. I’ve found very few women that I could be really comfortable with in discussing what I like in sex and what I don’t and the such. I do like women who will entice me to talk about sex with them, who know how to get to me. And I’m extremely good at show and tell though….that gets me by! 🙂 hahahaha

I’ve been working harder at connecting with my friends lately. I realize that I am not good at that, that I am not attentive to my friendships the way that one should be. So I’ve made a concerted effort to do just that lately. My buddy in AZ called again tonight too! It was awesome to chat with her for a half hour and catch up on the goings on in her life, and to discuss a possible visit for 2015. I’d love to see her and her hubby sometime later this summer. He has to travel in warmer weather as he’s older and the cold really bothers him. She and I share Army history together, so it’s cool that we have stayed in contact now for 35 years. And when we talk it is just like no time at all has gone by, even when it’s been maybe a year or more since our last conversation, we still pick right up where we left off. This year, I think we are both making more effort, as that’s the 3^rd time we’ve talked since New Years’ Eve. And we also text occasionally and email.

It’s funny, because I think sometimes that I don’t have many friends, but in all actuality I do! They are just spread across the world and our contact is more limited to phone, texting, email and once in a while, Skype. I’ve done well thus far in 2015 in touching base with most of them. Old Army friends, childhood friends, and other friends from different times in my life, as well as today’s friends who live close by. Friendships are important, and have to be nurtured.

Newer friendships that I have made online, like my Canadian contacts…I just love them all. Not a day goes by that I don’t hear from one of them somehow. Canadians seem to be the best at communication online I’ve noticed. And they are the BEST letter writers for sure! 🙂 I have a Canadian friend who I exchange long hand-written letters with on a monthly basis usually. We both enjoy the vanishing art of writing a good letter to someone, and it’s so cool to go to the mailbox and find a nifty letter waiting among all the bills and junk mail.

I think that 2015 is going to be a good year for seeing some of these friends. I have been talking to a couple of them who wish to come up to Maine for a visit this year. And it’s looking like a good year for travel with the fuel prices being down and airfare being more reasonable as a result. I’ll be sprucing my house up for visits, making it look as nice as I can make the little box look. I wish my neighborhood were nicer, people just don’t take the care that I do with my place around here. The unit next door to mine needs to be hauled away and scrapped soon, it looks awful and is just dragging the property value of the other surrounding places down with it’s horrible condition. I don’t know HOW people LIVE in there, it must be some cold and nasty. My unit is only 18 yrs old and is in nice condition. Plus I strive to keep it really nice, I keep the yard nice, don’t let stuff build up and I keep the inside very neat and clean. It’s important to me that it be as nice as possible all the time so that it’s presentable to guests and for me to live happily in.

Ok…I will finish this long rambling blog up by saying PEACE! And everyone in the North Eastern US I hope that you are safely, and warmly, hunkered down in your homes while this wild blizzard rolls over us in the next 24 hours. I know I will be here online, writing and reading and playing on Facebook most all day unless we lose power…which I hope and pray we do not, because heat goes with power….and it will be mighty cold! If that happens I will retreat, in my 4 wheel drive SUV, to my sister’s home about 5 miles away. She has a beautiful woodstove in her nicely finished basement.

Writing Challenges, My Adventurous Day

I follow most of WordPress’s blogs and one that I particularly like is the Daily Post, which often gives great topic and writing suggestions, you’ve seen me previously address some of their topics. Today’s is to write about anything, and then end it with “and all was right in the world.”  Again, a pretty interesting and intriguing challenge!  Gotta love it.

Now I also follow Dancing with Fireflies, a wordpress blog “where creative writers network and show off their talent” as their tag line says.  They often have the BEST of the BEST writing prompts!  Today’s prompt is to write a resignation letter to something/someone you want to “quit”.  It’s best explained in the link, where you can read all about the challenge.  I thought this is a super idea!  Just think of being able to anonymously write an “I quit” letter to that nasty boss of yours, or quitting something that you really dislike doing.  It’s like writing a Dear John letter to just about anything.  I love this one…and for those of you who are also writers, I challenge YOU as well!

So these will be the two things that I will be working on for the time being.  If you know of any more inspirational blogs that you think that I would like please drop me a comment about it!  I’m always looking for something new to spark my interest.  i need a good muse 😉

I spent the day today driving up the coast of Maine and stopping at about every antique store along the way.  My buddy from the neighborhood tagged along with me and we had a splendid time crawling through some dusty old places full of dusty old stuff.  It’s just something that I love to do.  We picked up a few little trinkets and treasures…I’ve been into collecting little fish statues, mostly the colorful saltwater fish like these in the picture below.  I am not sure what started the fish collecting thing, but I have been noticing them much more lately and the four little ones in the front are what I picked up at Arundel Antique Village…a massive collection of awesome junk!  I have a few friends who are also pickers — the slang name for people like me who pick treasures and resell them for profit usually, and for pleasure always!

This is a United States Census badge from 1900 that I happened upon in a tray of junk at one of the stores, I thought it was quite interesting and just had to have it.  I have a penchant for badges and the like.  Especially if they are official ones.  This one will most likely be resold through one of my venues.  I have a booth at an antique shop on Route 1 in York, Maine and I sell quite a bit from there when the tourists are all in town especially in the summer months.

And for fun and because i found it, I got this little truck with the Captain Morgan’s Rum, I now have it sitting in the front of my liquor supply cabinet, proudly on display.  It’s dorky I know, but hey, it’s Butch Cave decor!  I laugh, but it’s funny to look around my place and not know that it’s inhabited by someone with very eclectic taste.  

Nola had a great day riding around with us.  She is so well trained all I have to say is “back seat” and she hops right back there no problem, no complaints.  Once she is back there she will begin to “leak”…which is what I call it when she starts those soft little whines that are barely audible and increasingly become a little louder until I have to correct her with the statement that I am going to ship her to Siam or something equally dog-scary.  It’s a constant battle because while she is just fine in the big back seat of my SUV she would rather be sitting in my lap as I drive or be sitting on the passenger side (if I am alone) or sitting on the passenger’s lap.  She’s a royal pain in the ass sometimes to drive around with, but it’s part of owning the cutest Chiweenie dog of all time, I have to take her everywhere with me, or she will sit home sad and lonely…and we don’t want THAT!  (*snicker, snicker*)

Once I got home around 4:30 or so I was pretty tired.  but I’ve rallied and found the energy and desire to write!  After a long long day of thinking about things and pondering the possibilities, I decided that writing would be a great exercise and a nice relaxing thing to do tonight.  So I heated up left-over chicken cacciatore, rice and sat down to another great home cooked meal, and my buddy and I had great dinner and conversation.  She’s a writer too, so it’s cool taht we can swap ideas and give each other feed back, although her blog is on another platform and I don’t get over there enough to read her stuff.

Oh!  And I found a phone app for WordPress today too!  So you can write and post on the fly, so to speak!  I did download it, but I won’t use it for much because half of my writing relaxation is sitting in front of my computer and looking at the big screen as I type like a banshee!  But it’s always nice to have, and it’s got the reader on it as well, so I can read blogs on my phone when I’m waiting in the car or stuck somewhere with time to kill.

So that’s all folks…remember, check out the challenge at Dancing with Fireflies (hot link for ya!) and let’s see what you can resign from doing today!  I think it will be a fun exercise.  Euphemism could even play a key part if you are creative that way!  🙂  Rock on….and Peace!!!!  ~MB

I Want Love.

What do I want the most right now? A girlfriend. A woman to hold my hand and my heart; someone I can love and cherish.

I just need to take care of my own emotional and physical needs now and dammit, I want a girlfriend. I want someone who wants to be part of my every day; who wants me and likes me a lot more than as just a plain friend. I want someone to love me.

And I want to give love back to her. I want to talk to her about everything in our lives, to be close to her and know everything that she likes, everything that she dislikes, and what she fears and what brings her great happiness and joy. I want to honor her, love her and protect her with all my heart. I just need that kind of connection with another woman so badly, and that’s not even talking about the physical stuff….after I got to know her I would obviously want to be physically intimate as well. I love to make love and to be wholly connected to another woman. I love the smell of her skin, the taste of her kisses, and the feel of her body next to mine, with her relaxed and just enjoying me and her and the moments we have together to be like that.

I want to feel my heart race when she texts me, I want to feel great when we are talking and when we are together. I want to feel secure and settled when we are apart, knowing that when we see each other again it will just be a wonderful thing. I want my eyes to light up like crazy when I see her beautiful face.

I know this is just a dream for me right now. Someday that woman will walk into my life and take my hand into hers and I will know that it’s right, it will FEEL right and I will know that I am home. She will feel like home to me.

It’s not so hard really, love is easy when you let it in and treat it right – like it’s super special and has to be protected against all that would hurt it. You have to nurture love, feed it and water it daily. But with dedication, devotion, loyalty and trust two people can really put together a safe space for both to flourish and grow. I want this so so so badly. And it’s just time for me to stop being so foolish with my time and start to open my heart more so that she can find me when she’s ready for me.

Sounds hinky huh? Yeah, I think so too. But dammit it’s true as hell. I am a good damned Butch, but I just haven’t met the right woman yet. She’s out there, everyone tells me so. And I’m a good person, with a kind, nurturing and supportive personality. I can be quite funny, serious when necessary and I’m very laid back, relaxed and I want to just live a peaceful life and have a good solid love in it.

I do come with some complications, but nothing that can’t be worked around, and I expect that at my age I will encounter women who have seen their fair share of life as well. Dating after 40 is no picnic, but it’s something many of us seek to do. I just refuse to do the bar scene, and prefer online meetings at first, then in person after we have gotten to know one another a bit.

On a side note….I recently also mentioned the poly-amourous lifestyle….it continues to roll around in my head. Would it be easier to just have basic friendships, that come with benefits of physical interactions. But that seems difficult in itself. I’m more of a monogamous soul, I would rather have one very special girl in my life if possible. Poly is great when you’re younger I think, maybe I’m wrong, but at 53 I think it might be more difficult for me not to cop feelings for someone when I am not supposed to let that happen. I am a very passionate person, and I can also be a little jealous…so poly probably just isn’t going to fit into the equation for me in the long run.

Hiatus…naw…

I was thinking that I was going to take a hiatus from writing in this blog.  Seems that you can’t write without self-censorship today.  Whenever I have written about other people in my life in my blog I have kept them as anonymous as absolutely necessary and possible.  I give people nick names and my lips are sealed with their real identities….  Yet it’s not enough.  So, I was thinking that unless I have something that’s not about my life to write I would not be writing about it here, because I would rather be silent than to self-censor my words and thoughts.  And I don’t care to hurt anyone’s feelings or make them feel uncomfortable with my writing, I seriously don’t.

Problem here is that writing is what I do and do best.  and If I can’t write about my thoughts and what’s happening in my own life when I feel like it then what’s the use?  It saddens me that my words get picked apart and sometimes someone will focus on just the one line of a post and not read the more important parts of the post.  It saddens me that I have to go back to trying to write about my life, without really writing about my life.  I’ve always done my best to protect the identities of people who require it in my blog posts.  And I think I have done a good job of it.

I write a fucking stupid blog online that a handful of people read.  My blog is not famous and is definitely not front page fodder for gossip.

I’m a very even tempered kinda guy. I’m also fairly outspoken and opinionated, I know it.  But, I don’t hold grudges or let negative shit hang around in my brain long.  Get over it is my motto.  If it’s not going to affect your paycheck or you won’t die from it then get over it.  Maybe I am too laid back about it all.  I don’t believe there is much in life that’s worth getting too riled up about, if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. Sometimes that’s that fun of it all too.

I have actually given some serious thought to giving the poly lifestyle another chance…it would be so much easier I think to develop friendships that include casual sexual encounters for fun and a good time.  No strings, no commitments, no attachments and no copping feelings for someone.  It sounds so fucking easy and I suppose that it is for someone like me who can delininiate between sex pure and simple and loving/making love.  But I seem to be attracted to women who are more into monogamy, and I too have some desire for that security as well…sometimes I just think it’s a toss up.

Thoughts on “Stone Butch Blues”

“The landscape of LGBTQ life is so different today ,Stone Butch Blues is an important reminder of how the world we live in today came to be” This can’t be said better. This book is the Butch bible basically.

Hardest Loss

A fellow blogger friend of mine is going through the HARDEST loss of all – her wife is dying.  Here we complain about little things, and she’s dealing with this completely life altering experience that is going to leave her and their son devastated…I am ashamed that I ever complain at all about anything.  The hardest loss of a lover I have ever experienced has been the common break up…where you split up but everyone lives and everyone gets over it with time and space.  This loss my friend will be enduring here is one where there is no make up sex, no apologies, no forgive mes and no second chances.  This is permanent and forever.  I am so incredibly sad for this friend.  I don’t know what to say or do.  It’s a fellow Butch…and we all know us Butches like to stand as strong and as tough as we possibly can regardless of circumstances. She will be strong for their 13 yr old son, he will need her to be there for him.

and BC67 says to us all…’Please do me a favor…. tell those who matter that you love them and truly mean it, take a break from your busy lives and just take in the sunset with the ones you love, make each moment count and even if your atheist …. just this once say a small prayer of thankfulness for those you love.”

I can’t even imagine what it is like to lose a partner to death…I can only believe that it has to be THE hardest way to lose someone that you love, and that who loves you.  These two are supposed to celebrate their 18th anniversary on Valentine’s day, but now BC says they may not even have that long, the cancer is spreading very fast and aggressively throughout D’s body.

BC has kept us all abreast of this battle with cancer and how it’s affected her little family there in the great Canadian plains.  She’s wrote about how life on the plains is tough to begin with, a real challenge to survive and thrive in a very cold and unforgiving climate.  She’s written about how great her son Hammy is and how devastated he will be upon losing his mother, and how raising him will now be her primary focus.  The loyalty and commitment that exists in this relationship is truly one example of unconditional love and devotion.

I’m often inspired by BC67’s writing and often it’s my “go-to” blog when I come online to read daily.  I feel like I have come to know this blogger and am honored to call them Friend.  during this time of sadness in their household, I will hold them all tenderly in my prayers and thoughts.

We all tend to bitch and moan about trivial stuff days, and we should take a moment today to realize what is most important to us in life and make sure that those we love know that they are loved.  And I hope that each and every one of you out there has someone close to you that will love you beyond all.  Sometimes we get lucky and we get to have that once in a lifetime chance at real love, and I believe that BC and her wife have found that love and that love will carry them all through this very hardest part of the journey.

It’s Saturday…I think I have another day down to try to get rid of this chest infection I have.  It’s turned into bronchitis at this point, and my coughing is horrible.  I have plenty to get accomplished right here, and in my office, today, so I will definitely stay busy. Perhaps even more writing later on, but for now I shall sit and have my coffee and contemplate what I have to do.  ~Peace~   MB

Balanced Conclusion

“Each of the myriad decisions we make every day has the potential to have a deep impact on our lives. Some choices touch us to our very cores, awakening poignant feelings within us. Others seem at first to be simple but prove to be confusingly complex. We make the best decisions when we approach the decision-making process from a balanced emotional and intellectual foundation. When we have achieved equilibrium in our hearts and in our minds, we can clearly see both sides of an issue or alternative. Likewise, we can accept compromise as a natural fact of life. Instead of relying solely on our feelings or our rationality, we utilize both in equal measure, empowering ourselves to come to a life-affirming and balanced conclusion.”….Daily OM

It’s bizarre how some of what I am guided to read every day has some weird twist on things closely related to my life at the time. I guess what you need comes to you when you need it.  I could really relate to this article today.

I think that I do confusingly complex really well….hahaha.  Yes, that is the balanced conclusion that I come to.  The rest of this article is really good too, I have put the link for anyone who wishes to read it all.

Suretta, my buddy here who lives really close by, has come over to my place tonight to hang out and be foolish with me.  We decided to test out the Coke theory, will it eat the corrosion off of an old cookie sheet?  So we (or Suretta primarily) put some Coca-Cola in the cookie sheet, which has lots of old burnt on cookie stuff on it from YEARS of use making Butch Chocolate Chip Cookies (affectionately known as, Nestle Chocolate Chip cookie dough, break and bake!)  Now she has BOILED the Coke in the sheet, and unbelievably the old burnt on stuff IS coming off.  The pan won’t look “new” but it was a cool experiment anyway.  Coke IS very corrosive. Don’t drink it.

Nola has mended.  I’m still not quite sure what was wrong with her.  She was definitely in pain and very unhappy for those two days.  I thought it was her back, as she was favoring her hind end.  But this morning when she went out she came back in and then went racing back outside and had the liquid poops.  Poor baby girl.  She made several repeated trips back out and I think she emptied herself pretty well.  She then acted absolutely FINE from then on.  So perhaps she had a very bad belly ache…most LIKELY from her stealing some stray Reeses pieces.  I noticed these gone today, and I know that I didn’t eat them.

The other scenario is that she fell either getting on to or off of the bed. She has a stool to access my bed.  Since I removed the carpeting and put down the hardwood floor in the bedroom the stool slides on the bare wood floor…so it’s quite possible this happened.

OR  (Envision this) Nola was standing on the edge of the bed, reaching as far as she could for the bowl of Reeses pieces on the nightstand AND after eating several she slipped and FELL…thus BOTH things happened…and she was not well for 2 days.  HAHAHA…Whatever she did, and only she will ever know for sure, she has recovered fully and is her spunky self once again….as she lay snoring right here next to me tonight.  Lazy girl.

So that’s what’s going on tonight in MainelyButch’s cave…I’m feeling kind of silly, or frisky, or something…I have a lot of extra energy that needs to be expended.  Tomorrow is Friday and I have a list going already of things I need to get done.  Including taking the truck in to the garage to get a price on the front driver’s side tie rod which needs to be replaced.  Yeah I’m going to drive it…before anyone asks.  I’ll take it easy.  It’s the only way to get it there unless I have it towed, which I would rather avoid doing.  I had the engine serviced last week and the mechanic informed me of the tie rod problem, which she couldn’t fix at her garage so she recommended I take it in to O’Reilly’s as soon as I could do so, which is tomorrow.

So starting with a planned breakfast at The Wooden Spoon and then off to do errands around town, get the truck checked, hit the pharmacy and a few other things.  I’m excited about breakfast, because I am dying for some French toast, thick slices with butter and warm maple syrup…slathered…omg, I can taste it already…with a tall, ice cold glass of milk.  Yes. I am hoping that it will be a busy day, and the weekend as well.

Peace!

~MB

My Wife and our Life with Cancer (sorry for the lengthy post)

I read this blog with such mixed emotion. It fills my heart with hope that there is love such as this in the world. The way these two love one another is proof of that…and it makes my heart heavy to think that one day Butch will have to continue the journey alone…that just breaks my heart. The son is one lucky young man to have such strength in 2 partners, and to be shown such incredible love in his life. BC nominated me for a Pemio Dardo Award…but THIS blogger is MY inspiration, and deserves this type of award 10 fold…Rock on ButchCountry67…Rock on….~MB

Writing / Blog 2015 Updating

Oh what shall I blog about this week?  I was cleaning my desk in my office and found several notes about topics and the such for blogging or vlogging.  I keep several note books, each with various things from cool and interesting sayings that I stumble across, to websites that interest me, to lists of topics for blogs…there is an abounding list, I just have to be in the right mood to do the work to do a decent blog.  Writing about daily stuff just gets boring to me and I am not so sure it’s really what I want this blog to be about.  I don’t mind an occasional life update type of blog, but I’m sure that readers would rather be provoked into thought by something other than my mundane descriptions of the weather in Maine.

I am considering opening a new blog…or renaming this one.  I’m going with the name “Private Label” and I am going to revamp the blog and it’s contents to some extent.  I think I have too many Catagories as it is now, and I should pare down to more generalized catagories such as “Daily Life”  “Butch Life” “LGBT Interests”….what do you as a reader think of this?  Do you think that my blog is messy?  Does the platform look decent or should I attempt to add more multimedia for 2015?  I mean pictures and videos and maybe do more poetry and creative stuff than I have done.  I’ve kept this blog pretty reserved, some would say that I can sometimes be “inappropriate” in my speech, well I have a mind that goes along with that inappropriate speech as well, a very Butch and somewhat twisted mind…yeah I think about sex a lot..I’d be lying if I said I didn’t, and it comes up in the photos that I sometimes choose to post here and elsewhere.  And we all know that a picture is worth a thousand words, so wow, I am really inappropriate I guess!  Hahaha, I am laughing at myself here.

I talk to you here in this blog like I would probably talk to you in conversation were we having one.  I like a natural flow to follow when I read, thus I try to write the way I would talk, so that it flows more easily and is a smoother read.  I’ve tried other more formal styles of writing, but this is the one that suits my personality best…I tend to fly by the seat of my pants, so to speak, quite often, and thus I write in a similar style…a conversational style I guess you would call it.  I’m sure there is some fancy, schmancy word for the style, but I’m not aware of it at the moment.

Writing in my blog is something that I started doing around 2006.  In the old days of AOL I had quite a written blog online.  In cleaning part of my office last month I happened across a full printed copy of those old blogs.  I recall printing them out because I was killing my AOL account.  Hell, I think I may still have an AOL presence, but I have NO idea how to access the account anymore..what email I used to use back then or what the password might remotely be!  If I did I would remove any trace of myself on there.  But back in the day, yeah the day…heh heh…AOL was the platform that everyone used, kind of like Facebook is today.  Although I think that we were all so inexperienced in web communications back then that we all managed at some point or another to screw up…I know I did.  I met a super woman via AOL and fell in love.  That wasn’t what I had intended to do at all, since I was also in a very long term relationship at the time.  Unfortunately it ended my LTR and while I was with the other woman for a while, I didn’t stay with her out of guilt and confusion mostly. She herself was an extraordinary writer, published a few books of her poetry and prose, and that’s how we connected, through our mutual love of writing and of the Butch-Femme dynamic as well.  She was my ideal idea of Femme.  Beautiful, poised and just delightful in all aspects.

One of the things that those old platforms did offer that I miss is music.  I liked that you could go to someone’s page and hear their musical choices.  Facebook doesn’t do that, and hell it’s a whole different platform, but I wish you could set some kind of background music. And I’d love to know what other people are listening to these days. I am a hard-core country rock fan. I like Jason Aldean, Clay Walker, Big & Rich, Keith Urban, Reba, LeeAnn Womack, and a slew of other country rock artists…then I also go for bands like Parmalee, Rixton, Plain White T’s, Little Big Town, One Republic, One Direction….and the list goes on.  I love music and I make sure that every month I add 10 new songs to my iTouch.

I wish there were a way to build a blog page that had a music player on it…I bet there is and Butchcountry67 is going to tell me just how to do it!  🙂  I’m sure there’s some blogging platform or some app you can add to a WordPress blog that would add music.  Hmm..I shall be researching this now as I go through revamping my page.  I may register my name also and go to having a main web page instead of going via WordPress.  That may give me more options like music and video.

So this is what I will be working towards on this blog.  Follow along and please, please give me some feedback and guidance as you see fit!  I am fully open to creative criticism, and to topics, if you have a specific topic or idea for me please let me know either in the comments or by emailing Mainely Butch.  I’d love to get some conversational blogging going on too, or some collaborative project with other bloggers if anyone has any good ideas on that I’d appreciate hearing them!

Peace!  ~MB