Memories and fire...

I remember one of the very first times I did fire play. It was at a party at a friends house and I had just gotten that week a lot of flash cotton. I dried it out and painstakingly separated it into wispy sheets with the help of the wife and then I put paper between each sheet and stored it in what I was calling the Fire Box, an old lunchbox I retasked or the purpose.

We got to the party and there were quite a few people there. A lot of friends and a few new people. I remember seeing a few girls all standing together and thinking "Wow" because they were all so pretty and dressed in a kinky sort of style that looked really good. A bit later I asked the host who they were and he said they were all from Lafayette or West Lafayette, a college town a couple of hours north of us. West Lafayette is the home of Purdue University. He said he would give introductions but then wandered off being the gracious host and forgot I guess.

I had talked to a friend when we first got to the party and she asked me if I would give a spanking to her new subbie boy. She said the boy had seen me and was very scared of me so she wanted to surprise him with a spanking since he like them so much. I agreed and later on that night she told me they were ready. She saw that I had brought my fire play stuff and asked me to do a little of that on him too, and after checking with the host of the party to make sure it was OK to do fire play in the garage I told her I would. When it was time I made my way out to the garage and he was there, all tied down on a spanking bench. I walked into the garage and a look of fear crossed his face, I walked over behind him and he actually started shaking. I asked his Master in a loud voice if this was the little bitch I was supposed to spank and she said yes. The boy looked like he was going to pass out. I bent down right in his ear and told him softly that I wasnt as bad or as scary as he thought I was and that I wasnt going to hurt him too badly. I asked if he knew his safewords (red and yellow) and made him repeat them to me and then told him I was going to do fire play on him first but that it wouldnt hurt.

I smacked his back a few times with an open hand here and there to sensitize the skin and let him know we were starting and then laid out a long strip of flash cotton on his back. I lit one end and WHOOSH, it burned the length of his back very brightly and hot. He arched his back up and yelled a little, obviously scared, but then realized that it wasnt hot but was warm and relaxed into the bench seeming confused. I ran may hand over his back a few times and felt how warm the skin was already, then did a few more strips of flash cotton and pointed out to his Master that his back was now very warm. She felt it and was amazed, his back was warm enough for a full force flogging with no warmup or getting ready. I agreed and she said I needed to spank him now for being a bad boy earlier that day. He tensed up again and I asked him if he was ready for his punishment. He squeaked out a reply I couldnt understand and I yelled at him "Answer me, boy, are you ready?" and he proceeded to start crying a little and let loose with a string of "Yes Sir, yes Sir, yes Sir, Im ready ready ready." I found that amusing and proceeded to run my hand over his butt and see if there was anywhere I shouldnt hit. There wasnt so I gave him a pretty hard spanking for the next 5 minutes or so and he took it like a champion. He cried quite a bit but he didnt once try to escape or block me.

I told him I was rather proud of him and that we were done and he was relieved and proud of himself at the same time. Then I told him that it was his Masters turn and he looked fearful again, it was too much for me and I had to turn away and laugh. His Master took him off to start a flogging scene and I was cleaning up the fire play supplies when one of the hot girls from Lafayette came over with the host. She was introduced to me as M. (Not her real name but I didnt ask if I could use her real name so M is what we are going with here) M said she had been watching the fire play and was curious, so I showed her the flash cotton and the lighter and the setup I had, including the fire extinguisher and wet towels for people with long hair. She seemed more and more interested and I asked her if she wanted some flash cotton on her. She said she had a severe fear of fire and didnt know. I told her it didnt burn, it just got hot for a minute but before you could even think about how hot it is, the heat is gone and the warmth starts to spread. She seemed doubtful but asked if it could go on her hand. I said sure and took her hand and laid it flat. I laid a small piece of flash cotton on her palm and lit it. It burned and she flinched but all she said was a very loud and surprised "OH!" which made me giggle a bit. She was pretty interested then so I sacked up and asked her if she wanted some on her back. Part of me really just wanted to see her with no clothes on, I admit, but more of me wanted to see how brave she was and wanted an excuse to talk to her more and interact with her. She decided she did want to have more of the cotton on her and proceeded to take her top off. Jackpot!

I went to get a drink of water and tell a friend who missed the first fire play that more was happening and came back to find M laid out on the spanking bench all ready for me. Good Heavens she was hot. There was a tattoo or two even. I sat beside her and proceeded to talk to her and make sure she was OK with it and calm and she seemed like she was. I started laying out the flash cotton on her back and explaining that it burns very bright and hot but it burns straight up. She was quiet by this time, so I figured she was getting nervous. I started small and lit a small piece near the center of her back. It burned and she arched way up and breathed in really deep. I ran my hand over the spot the cotton had been on and as she relaxed I asked her what she thought, She said it was good so I did a couple of more pieces on her back. She was quite the brave one and seemed to enjoy it. We finished up and she got dressed as I cleaned up the fire play stuff and put it away.

After a bit I ran into M in the garage and we talked. That was when I learned that she was afraid of fire because she had once been accidentally set on fire. I cant remember exactly how, I want to say car accident but I may be confusing her with someone else. The point is she had been set on fucking fire and not in a fun way. That had to be pretty traumatic. After that sank in I realized what it must have taken for her to let me put fire on her considering what had happened before. We talked about it and I told her how brave I thought she was and gave her a huge hug. Thats about where we left it, the party was breaking up and we wound up going our separate ways.

I had figured she was someone I would play with one and rarely see again, considering she lived a couple of hours north. I am very happy to report that I was dead wrong, M and I are now very good friends and have talked a few times when one or the other of us has needed it. Im still impressed by the bravery she showed that night but I have come to see that it wasnt rare for her to be that strong, she is one badass mother and one badass motherfucker. I am happy to know her and call her a friend.

Book 1

I finished the first book of the year today. I read Wil Wheaton's "Just A Geek"

Its a wonderful read and I really enjoyed it.

Useless assholes and other thoughts...

So I went and blew out my back on Thursday. Putting on a pair of socks. How old am I? So I laid around in blinding pain until today when I decided I had to go to the ER. A six hour wait and 6 minute visit with the doctor later, I was told to take 800mg of ibuprofen every 8 hours and it could take a week to heal.

What?

I informed the doc that thats almost exactly what I was doing before I came to see them and observed that the trip and ensuing bill was rather useless. They did give me a Motrin, I cant wait to see what they charge me for it.

So now I am back home. Between the wife and her dad, they came up with a satisfactory cocktail of drugs to keep me sane and my back under control. Hopefully it gets better soon, I really dont like being in pain like this.

I have been pondering why this happened now. For a few months, I have been wanting to go back to the security company I used to work for and get a job with them. The only problem was my brain. At the thought of going to get a job or going to work, I would have these mini panic attacks. My heart would race, I would either feel like crying or start crying and my mind would just shut down sort of. I knew what I needed to do, but my brain wouldnt let me think about it or act on it somehow. I tried and tried to figure out what was going on but I couldnt. So I gave up.

For a while I let my depression and fucked up brain rule me. I came up with excuse after excuse not to do things, not to talk to people I knew I needed to, not to do things that would be good for me or good to do. On Wednesday I got a letter from the pawnshop my camera was in because we needed money. My camera is gone, I cant get it back. I spent a great deal of time thinking about this. I had a few text exchanges with people I sometimes lean on, not about this but just touching base and making sure they were still there. And then I decided it. I have got to get past all my shit and make some moves.

I need a job. I need money. There is a lot of money out there and not nearly enough of it is mine. More of it needs to be. Its stupid to be as anxious as I am about working someplace I have worked before. I know some of the people there still, I could get a job that I can do physically and schedulewise with very little to no problem at all.

I need to take better care of myself. I bought a new showerhead last week and its very nice. I like it a lot. Theres no reason I cant shave and shower every single day. I know this isnt a thought that most people have to even have but I do. When I get depressed I can go for a long time without showering or shaving and barely even realize it. I like the way I feel after I shower and shave, all clean and sleek in the face. I like the way showering feels, the water all over and my body wash smelling all good and being all foamy. I like washing my face and my body. I deserve to have these good feelings every day. Im worth it. And I am going to do it.

Basically on Wednesday I decided to get over my shit and myself and just do it. Just go get what I need and want and what would make my life better. So I woke up Thursday with the intention of getting a good shower and getting dressed and going to talk to the guys at the security company and see what I needed to do to get back on the schedule and into the moneymaking again. I was happy. I had no fear or panic in my head. I remember the feeling very well. Then my fucking back went out.

All I could do for the next 36 hours was lay in bed and cry. I had to get up to go to the bathroom, of course, and when I did the pain made me shout and cry out loud. I was in the most pain I ever remember being in in my whole life. I slept some but not much. I had some hydrocodone left over from a previous prescription and I ate them every few hours.

I thought a lot about killing myself. It hurt that bad. There werent enough pills left to do it and I dont have any more, not that I could have gotten to them if I had them. But I wanted to. It scares me now thinking about it. The way I went from so positive and wanting to fix my shit to so far down and wanting to off myself so quickly scares me. I missed three or so days of regular meds because I hurt too bad to remember them or think about them. That scares me too. I am not going to let myself backslide into depression like i was. I have done too much, worked too hard and fucking bled to get where I am.

Fuck going backwards. This is a temporary detour on the way forward. Thats all...

The past, a brief history

I have dealt with depression my whole life. I didnt know what it was for a long time, but I always knew I was different. I was 9 years old when Freddie Prinze shot himself and I remember thinking that it made sense. I could understand what he did and to an extent why he did it. The reactions of the people around me made me keep quiet about my feelings and thoughts, everyone was horrified and sad and mystified why someone would do that. Even then I understood.

I got married when I was 29 to a woman I should never even have been with. the dynamics of the relationship were all wrong, I didnt want to be alone and she wanted to get away from her ex husband and claimed to be very in love with me. I have no idea how true this was, Im not claiming she wasnt , but she cheated on me with her ex within a year of marrying me and again and again during our 9 year marriage. I was no saint either and the whole thing was a mess. Im still in touch occasionally with the daughter of the woman I was married to and we talk sometimes. Its nice, I like her.

I have never seriously tried to kill myself. After my first marriage ended was as close as I have ever come. I was severely depressed and weighed around 675 pounds. I was trying to kill myself with food, taking a passive aggressive approach to it and figuring I would die eventually. When she left to go live with her daughter and told me she wanted a divorce I felt like such a failure. I had a bottle of painkillers and a bottle of Jack Daniels and a note written, but a friend happened to call me as I was settling in to take the pills and we talked for a few hours. I decided to give it one more day because she said she wanted to see me and we talked some more and hung out. I never told her what was going on when she called me. Time and circumstances have driven us apart and we arent friends any more but there will always be feelings for her somewhere inside me.

I took a look at my options and wound up moving in with a guy I have known for now for almost 30 years. He is pretty much my brother. I lived in his spare bedroom for almost as long as I had been married and slowly got a little better and better as time went by. I started taking a little better care of myself, there were even hours at a time when I didnt think about killing myself. I hated where I was living and my life in general but things were improving a bit. I made a few friends and started having a bit of a social life. Then I met the girl who helped me discover BDSM and the local community in Indianapolis.

Within a few months of my first BDSM related event, I met a lot of people that I know and treasure to this day. They accepted me. They didnt judge me. Sure, there was drama here and there but it was like a big family and what family doesnt have drama? It was within the BDSM community that I met the people who mean the most to me today and are the reason I am still alive. I married one of them, her name is Amy and she is my wife. I will love the other one as long as I live and then some, her name is Jessi and she is the one i turn to when I need someone to talk to. She fights the good fight against depression too and I can talk to her about things that I cant say to other people. She can with me too and we lean on each other when we need to. There is also Sarah, a great friend who helped me get rid of some baggage that plagued me for a very long time. And a lot of other people both in the distant and not so distant past that have supported me, loved me or just plain listened to me.

I still think about killing myself sometimes. Its just something I live with. Sometimes it seems like the best option of all the options I have. But not nearly as often as it has in the past and I dont think about it nearly as much. Where before I was lucky to have hours or even minutes when I didnt think about it now I can have whole days where I dont. I am working on being happier a lot more now than I ever have and I am lucky to have people around me to help me. I dont always remember that but I always try to.

.

Flickr Upload

This is Dogge the dog. Apparently Dogge is pronounced the same way the fist syllable of Dojo is. 

Begun, the New Year Has

So.
Its January 1 2013.
Another year.

I guess I should begin by introducing myself. I am Bill. I just turned 45 about a week and a half ago. If I had known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself. I have moderate to severe depression and anxiety issues, a lot of self doubt and adequacy issues and more assorted baggage than a large department store. I am hoping this blog can help me deal with and change some of that. I was turned on to the idea of therapeutic writing by a girl I am very close to and I have been toying with the idea of starting something like this for a while now. The beginning of a new year seems as good a time as any, right? I usually think New Year resolutions are just so much bullshit, and therefore dont make them, so I figured I would make a list of stuff I want to try to work on this year instead. Things that I know would do me some good if I can accomplish them. With that in mind, here are a few things:

* I have created a Flickr page. I will try to put at least 200-300 pictures in it in 2013. Most, if not all, will be linked here.

* I have a 10" Android tablet and have the Kindle app on it. I am going to try to read 30 books this year. Again, most if not all will be linked here.

* I will try to improve my self care. Shower every day, brush my teeth every day, make sure I take all my meds every day and get prompt refills when I run out.

* As a side benefit of taking my meds every day, I will make sure the pets get their meds every day when they need them. They dont deserve to suffer because I feel lazy or out of sorts.

* I am going to try to do the dishes every day as needed and laundry once a week. In addition I want to try to get us a washer and dryer so laundry isnt such a hassle.

* Of course getting a washer and dryer involves getting a job and going back to work. Depending on the day, I have anywhere from a tight feeling in my chest to a full on panic attack when I think about getting a job these days. I need to get over that shit and get back to work, there is a lot of money out there and more of it needs to have my name on it.

* I will try to be more social and not give in to real or imagined feelings of wanting to isolate myself and be unsociable. I have some good people in my life and I dont see enough of them. I need to remember that more often.

* I am going to try to take more pictures and get more serious about photography in general this year. I love photography and have since I was a kid, there has to be something I can do with it

I figure this is a good start for now. I am hoping my friends will help me with this stuff and keep me accountable this year. I would really appreciate it.

Speaking of which, one more thing I want to work on is people. I need to try to pick out the people that are good and healthy for me to be around and spend more time with them and leave the people that I cant trust or that arent good for me alone. I have always loved The Crazy when it comes to women and in the immortal words of Roger Murtaugh "Im getting too old for this shit"