#365Gratitude Day 287: Feeling better is viral

So, no secret that I've been sick. I've been blathering about it for days now.

Other folks around me​ have been going through tough stuff too.

My wife and my sister-in-law have been grieving over their mom's passing. 

They both got my cold, too. When it rains, it pours. ​

​I have dear friends coping with depression, job issues, suddenly having to find a new place to live, gender dysphoria, loneliness, anxiety issues, all sorts of trouble. 

​I know things can look bleak. Sometimes it feels like life is just pressing down on you. 

But I promise, no one and nothing stays the same. In lots of little ways, life is always changing, always improving. ​

Just this morning, I went to get my car emissions inspected, and it didn't need it. Instead it needed a safety inspection. I was able to get that instead, in the same amount of time. ​

I made a train that was late for its scheduled departure, and earlier for my day. ​

On the train, I saw a woman wearing the most awesome silly pink rain boots. They made me feel so good about my day. She unwittingly shared her good feelings about this rainy day with me. Now I get to share them with you.  

Lastly, as I began writing this entry, I heard the most amazing cover of Ooh Child by Halll & Oates on the awesome podcast Coverville.  I wanted to share it with you, because the song is right. Things are gonna get better.  

#365gratitude Day 286: Better is great

I felt a ton better Monday, and it's just been getting better since. 

Image courtesy of http://ummlovetheworld.deviantart.com/art/Lots-to-feel-good-about-211194703

My lungs and nose are mostly clear.  I can smell and taste things. 

My brother Spacey says that beauty is often found in contrast. Sometimes being laid low for a while helps you see how great an ordinary day of good health is.  

I forget sometimes how very much I have. I'm grateful for the reminder. 

#365Gratitude Day 285: 橘子汽水 Jú zǐ qìshuǐ

That's Chinese for "orange soda."

It's pronounced (roughly)  "joo-tzuh gee-shway".

When I was a kid, my dad did a lot of business in mainland China.  I traveled there twice, on long trips.  It was a formative, memorable experience that's stuck with me my whole life. 

They didn't have a lot of western food there at the time. One thing they did have though was orange soda. I learned how to ask for it in Chinese. 

I never knew how to write or spell it though. 

36 years later, I needed to know. It's a detail in the new novel I'm working on.  

I called my mom to ask her if she knew, and asked my Twitter friends, as well as googling for it. 

I'm grateful I found it. And that my life has been so rich with experience. 

#365Gratitude Day 284: Getting pegged down under

OK, so not this kind of pegging

So sometimes I enjoy chatting on Omegle, a sort of chat-brokering-service that lets people chat with one another anonymously.  

I enjoy chatting there for a number of reasons.  Sometimes, it's fun to just randomly talk to another person with absolutely no context whatsoever.  Every once in a while I'll enjoy role-play with some random out of the blue stranger.  You can set the system to connect you to people with like-minded interests.  

Just this morning, I set up for just such a chat, as a way to get my juices flowing for some writing later in the day.  I wound up talking to someone in Australia about their desire for pegging.

What I didn't know would happen was that it would become a great lesson in the unexpected benefits of exercising compassion.

One thing that happens a lot on Omegle is that when you get connected to the other party, they'll open the discussion by asking you the dreaded "ASL?" question.  That's short for: What's your age, sex, and location? 

It's very irritating.  It's usually shorthand for "I'm a straight man, and unless you are a woman, and have a pussy I can put my penis into, and are nearby, I don't want to talk to you."

I tend to skewer folks who "ASL" me on Omegle, in various funny, often mean spirited ways.  But today, for whatever reason, I chose to do otherwise.

When my yet-to-be-friend asked me the dreaded question, I explained to him why I wasn't going to answer it.

Then, I dominated the conversation and insisted that they tell me what their interest in female domination was exactly, since that was the shared topic that Omegle had used to put us together.

As it turns out, it was about pegging. Which I know a little something about.

We talked about it some, but then things really got interesting.

Stranger: see i have a girlfriend of about 6 months

Stranger: and i'm afraid to ask

 My soon-to-be-friend, Y. admitted to me that he has been dating a lovely girl, R. for about six months now, and that he really wanted to tell her about all this, but was just too scared to do so.

Now this was my jam.  I gave him a lot of good advice about how to bring the stuff up to her with confidence, and not be selfish about it either.

At this point, we were connecting like real people.  So I told him who I was.  That's when things really got bonkers.

You: You can call me Mako.
You: I'm one of the hosts of a podcast about age play, if you know what that is, called The Big Little Podcast.
You: I've been a male submissive, and an adult baby for years.
You: I'm also an author and a life coach too.
You: I help folks like you all the time.

Stranger: wow

You: Do you listen to the show? :-)

Stranger: every now and then

Who knew that in this random chat site I'd connect with a listener to the show?!   Crazy.

But it helped us to connect as real people, and have a meaningful conversation.

So we got down to it.  

We had a good long talk about what he was scared would happen when he told her, and why being scared, and having negative or even positive expectations wasn't doing him any favors.  He told me all sorts of lovely things about his relationship with R., which made him (and me) actually pretty hopeful that she would be open and positive to his wanting her to be sexually in charge, and to give-him-what-he-needs-where-he-needed-it.

It was great.  It boggles my mind that technology, and the work I do with the podcast, enables me to connect with people thousands of miles away, and help them to live a more fulfilling life.

The thing I'm grateful for, the thing which really rocked me was this - instead of caving into my usual instinct to dismiss someone in a venue filled with people who treat each other like things, I treated him like a person and found out that he was one.  Moreover, that he was one who had common cause with me, and whom I could help.

It's amazing to me how when you practice compassion for others, you make the world better, not just for them, but for you.  I'm grateful to be back in compassion school, and that my doing so is bettering the world around me as well as for me.

#365Gratitude Day 283: Sleep

I spent most of yesterday asleep, recovering from being sick.

I'm still not out of the woods, but today feel so much better.  It was really, really hard to admit that I needed to stay home, and rest.  But I'm glad I did it.

I wanted to go to the DC littles munch, and the LF&P.  But I knew it was better for me, and for everyone else that I not do that. 

Today I feel like a human being.  I'm grateful for that!