#365Gratitude Day 202: Shifting Gears

As I told brother the other day, I know I'm really doing well when I'm writing.  My writing is a sort of mental barometer for my well-being.  Recently, I've been doing some short story work.  I've got a bunch of follow-on stories to Concerning Littleton.  I've got a bunch already written, but I decided to do a pair of stories here on my blog, about two of my favorite characters, Adam and Christina Jordan.  

The first one I finished about a month or so ago, it's called Passenger Seat. 

Well, just this morning I finished the second of the pair, Gear Shift.

The two stories take up several months after the last chapter of Concerning Littleton, and are about how Adam and Christina are learning to live their daily life of ageplay, authority, and kink together, authentically.

I got a lot of help with them.  Special, close friends inspired some of the content, test read them for me, too.  My work is a synthesis of what matters to me, what turns me on, what matters to my friends, and what turns them on.  I am so grateful they help me to do this thing which is so important to me.  Check out the story, I hope you like it.

One final, not-safe-for-work note about the piece.  I often use imagery as research and inspiration.  There's a particular very NSFW image I found which inspired the big finale at the end of Gear Shift.  Here's a link to it. 

#365Gratitude Day 201: imaginary & real numbers

So as it turns out, my $12,100 fake dollars I won at my company Casino Night... they turned into $300 actual dollars.  I found the prize on my desk when I went into work yesterday.

One other guy beat my $12K by all of $60!  He won $800 actual dollars.  But as I told my boss, and his boss, and HIS boss, as soon as I saw this card, I'm very pleased to have taken second place.

Sometimes, stuff really does work out.

#365Gratitude Day 200: Light entertainment

My babysitter-something-complicated-whatever-I-just-love-her Maya, and her partner Michael are just as big Steven Universe fans as I am.  I caught a tweet from one of them about an iPhone game based on the cartoon, Steven Universe: Attack the Light

Man, it's really, really good.  Playing it is challenging, and it's filled with story and media stuff that connects you to the characters.  I find myself saying "Neato Burrito!" a lot.

#365Gratitude Day 199: A way around

Saturday morning I had a therapy appointment, at noon.

Traffic was awful in between Woodbridge and Bethesda.  I got off the highway, and found a back way to go. 

There was no question I was going to be late.  I called my therapist, and let him know.  

And then I relaxed.  After all, what else was I going to do? I'd get there when I'd get there.

I showed up, about 15 minutes late, and we did our thing.  As it turns out, this very attitude I had in the car is pretty much what the therapist told me I needed to do in my life in general. 

I am really hard on myself.  I expect too much, too soon, with too little.  I'm constantly pushing myself to do, be, have, and achieve more.  To my great chagrin, he pointed out to me that my own self-narrative is filled with "should."

He taught me something though, a thing I have actually taught my own coaching clients.  It's a technique for meditation called the negative self-talk interrupt. (Here's a good article about some of those ways.)  The basic premise is simple - you talk to yourself in the 3rd person, as if you were your own best friend (which in fact, you are!), and tell yourself all about the good person you actually are.  Talk about the good things you already do, and the kind of person you like to be.

There's good solid science behind this thing, too.  As my therapist told me the limbic system in our brain, our "emotional self" is kind of stupid.  It believes what it's told.  It also stands in front of our thinking/analytical mind.  If you don't give it anything good to chew on, it will find something on its own to process.  Often, that's fed by anxiety.  But you have a choice to do otherwise, and be your own support, and help your limbic mind to like itself.  Which tends to make you feel and operate better.

He gave me a "prescription" to do the self-talk interrupt meditation daily.  I have high hopes for it.

#365Gratitude Day 198: Playing dress up

So I work in technology, which often means I get to dress down for work.  I wear jeans most days, with a button down shirt, and loafers.  It's a sort of business-dressy-casual-techno-hippie-look.  

But Friday night I had a corporate event to go, our yearly party and Casino Night.  It's my first of these, I only joined the company a few months ago.

It was nice.  Dinner was really good, and I got to hang with my boss, and his boss, and HIS boss, the owner of the company.  We passed pleasant conversation.  I had a nice glass of merlot, too. 

Then after dinner, I got to play blackjack.  Now I'm not a very good player, but I know more or less what I'm doing.  My friend Little Kevin has taught me a lot about the game.  That, combined with the fact that I was playing with fake money, made the whole experience very pleasurable.  About halfway through my playing, I realized I didn't care whatsoever if I won or lost, so I adopted a playing style that was aggressive, but not careless.  Every time I won, I would increase my bet by just a little more.

It paid off.  In short order I won over $12,000 fake dollars.  People were blown away.  The owner of the company had announced that the top three winners would get actual cash prizes.  (No, not dollar for dollar.)  I was pretty excited about this.

So I did what any well dressed, sophisticated gambling business-type guy would do - I went home and cuddled my wife, who diapered me and put me to bed.

Okay, so maybe that's just what I would do.  It was still pretty great.