Red Region Inferno

I believe in art therapy.

When life chops you up in a blender and dumps you down the drain – create some art.

At the end of what I call my first life I filled a sketch pad with a ton of drawings.
About a year into my new life I tossed the sketch pad in the garbage.
Most of what I created in that sketch pad I hope to never revisit in my mind.
I did however rip about a dozen drawings from the book before it went in the trash.
Those drawings survived the trash because somehow they still touched me, but didn’t make me sick to my stomach with nasty feelings and bad memories.
Some brought back pain and sadness… feelings of loss… yet no illness type feelings.
I decided since they didn’t want to make me sick I should keep them.

I called this little drawing  Sacrificed.

Sacrificed

I didn’t call it that during it’s creation.

I gave it the title only after it was done and I looked at it to see what my  achy mind had made.

Sketches and drawings in general can tell some fucking crazy stories about what can be going on in an artists mind.
The speed of creation allows them to tell these stories even better than paint because they allow no real time for contemplation and unlike paint they can’t shift into new images.
They are like snapshots of feelings and emotions.

When I look at this it is like looking at a photo from long ago.
It is not however a photo that captures reality.
It is a snapshot of my state of mind.

This image shows a place I pray to never visit again.
The end of my first life broke me in a way I was never able to recover from.
My drive left me for good.
My self confidence and my huge ego vanished forever.
I am and always will be just a small part of what I once was.
My thought is that if I ever reached that point again I would lose what is left of my art.
To never draw, paint, tattoo, or create anything again would be so hard.
No outlet would exist.
I would be done.

My second life is turning out o.k.

It is not the wild whirlwind adventure my first life sometimes was… and it is more stressful.
Yet it offers me calm moments.
I am no longer a megalomaniac and have huge bouts of depression and self doubt, but the pressure of always doing amazing things is gone.
Nothing extraordinary is expected of me in my new life.
I am allowed to just exist.

For the time being… That is what I wish.

To just exist.

To rest.

Ready for a  journey through sexy blog land?

As I mentioned here I have compiled a list of the blogs I have visited over the course of the last week for you all to peek at.

I have not included the art, theological, health, and political blogs that I visit.
My goal was to keep with pretty much just the adult aimed personal creations type blogs that I read.
I have added them in the order I visited them.

I hope you find a few to your liking.

Tiny Nibbles  The fantastic, informative, and sexy blog of Violet Blue.

Hubman’s Hangout - Clean on the outside, dirty on the inside -  A swinging “Hubby” tells of daily life.

Another Suburban Mom  AKA- Veronica and the wife of Hub Man. I never make comment on her blog because you have to use open ID or a google account, but I almost always want to comment.

Ivey Lane: the inner voice of a not-so-average woman  A southern gal with a a lot to say about a lot of different things.

Barefoot Dreaming  A woman’s journey to rediscovery.

The ABC’s Of Swinging  The title should give a hint as to the subject matter.

One Big Holiday  This is some pretty random stuff, but somehow cohesion exists in it.

Hornynecouple  A couple exploring their kinky side.

Gentle Nibbles  Just maybe the best know swingers blog online.

Adventures of an anonymous couple  The last post on this blog was a couple weeks back and they had been talking of quitting with the blog. I hope they don’t. It’s a worthy blog.

TeamkkAdventures  A young couples adventures through sex land together.

The journey to a sexually open marriage  A couple explores their sexuality and tells their thoughts about it.

The Fuck Chronicles  Gotta love a girl with attitude.

AAGBLOG  Something of interest to anyone who is an adult with at least a semi open mind.

Ramblings of a suburban housewife  Day to day ramblings of a not so typical suburban housewife and mother.

Open Marriage Life  They call her the dick diva!

A Poly Life  Musings of a ploy girl named Jade.

Pieces of Jade  Same girl as above, but a more sexually explicit type of blog focusing on her kinks.

Dick -n- Jane  Jane loves dick, and Dick is really into Jane.

Love Hate Sex Cake  Is a wonderful blog to visit for some very sexy writing.

Sapio Slut  Polyamory and BDSM from a curious kitty.

House Ho  The writings of a gal in an open marriage.

the eternal list   Because life may be meaningless after all.

Romantic Vulgarity  Rarely updated, but I keep checking back because I always hope she will start posting. I dig this chick.

NY Swingers  A couple writes about their adventures in the New York swingers scene and give a lot of dang good advice to those interested in the swinging lifestyle.

That was it.
I usually do a bit more blog surfing than I did this week, but I have been busy with work.
If you check them out and find a cool blog you had not run into before then I will consider the time it took for me to write this little post well worth while.

For some weekend fun we went to a sand sculpture contest.

The theme was Science fiction.
I thought it was a strange theme for sand… but what the heck, I love sci-fi and sand sculpture can be cool.

My favorite one was based on the three laws of robotics.
In science fiction, the Three Laws of Robotics are a set of three rules written by Isaac Asimov, which pretty much all thinking robots in his books must obey.

The laws are:
1.A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2.A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3.A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

The robot holds a man in it's arms representing the connection between man and robot.

This next sculpture I thought was pretty awesome, but I actually have no idea what it was about. It just looked cool to me.

I think it looks like a time travel type thing, but maybe I am wrong.

Maybe something to do with time travel?

My other favorite at the event was one made with a lot of humor in it.
Bender from Futurama vs the Alien from the Aliens movie series.
Talk about awesome!

Considering how Bender always seems to survive and have a drink... this Alien may be about to bite off more than it can chew.

Looking at these things makes me want to try and lern the art.
One of the things that makes sand sculpture so cool to me is how temporary it is.
To create and know that any day – even tomorrow – the wind and rain will sweep it away.
I like that.

Got a note from Ivey Lane that she had listed me on her blog – Ivey Lane: the inner voice of a not-so-average woman .
In regards to an award type thingy.

My usual response to such a thing would be to ignore it… but I actually follow that blog.
That makes it cool!

This Sugar Doll Award image is part of it I guess, but I am no sugar doll... so it makes no sense in regards to me or my blog... but what the heck.

Now what is asked (required?) is for me to tell 10 things my readers don’t know about me or some such thing.

I babble a lot on this blog, so that could be tough.
I will attempt it however, and if I fail I will at least expand on some things.
Lets get started.

1) Religion:
I am a Christian.
I also practice a bit of zen philosophy and yoga (not just exercises – I am into the entire system)
Nonetheless – I identify as a Christian.
I am against pretty much all forms of organized religion and do not attend any church.
I was raised Lutheran, and consider it a form of Catholic lite.

People ask how tattooing, alternative sex/relationship lifestyles fit into that.
Pretty simple really.
I have found nothing in the bible ever to make me feel as if tattooing or non monogamy is wrong.
I don’t attend church… so no self serving liars to tell me what to think.
Just the bible.
I have read the bible many times. Even from front to back without skipping around a few times.
That is more than most self proclaimed ministers can say.

2) Reading:
I read to much.
Reading can be a terrible addiction.
I am a natural speed reader and read everything that I can get my hands on – including pure crap.
On average I read one plus fictional novels a day plus 300 plus pages of various non fiction of differing subjects not including magazine articles or the Internet.
On a day off I sometimes read 2 or 3 fictional novels and 800 plus pages of non fiction.
My magazine addiction makes me purchase/subscribe to over 30 magazines a month.
So… as I said – It is a terrible addiction.

Sometimes people say they wish they had such an addiction or that they think it is cool to read so much.
It isn’t. I have no control over my crazy compulsion to read and absorb knowledge.
Just like any other addiction it affects my life in ways I do not like.
Can’t sleep unless I read a few hundred pages minimum that day.
My amazon bill is more monthly than my rent, phone, electric bills combined and I spend just as much at Barnes and Noble and my local used book store.

3) Freckles and red hair:
I am fine with them on others, but I have always hated them on me.
Being red headed sucked as a kid, and I am so happy my hair went dark in my mid 30′s.
The freckles however seem to be settled in for the long-haul.

I will say that I am often told by women how much they love freckles.
That is nice and all, but I don’t put much stalk in it.
They are with me… of course they like them.
In general I think most people don’t like them. If they did … freckles would have permeated society much more because of breeding and selection.
Instead – we freckled people stay a huge minority.
It just shows we are not all that popular to the masses.

To all you lovers of the freckles… “Thank You!”

4) Just learning to enjoy porn:

It has only been the last couple years that I have learned to enjoy porn at all.
My wife talked me into trying it. It took many attempts to get me interested.
I am very selective about image quality, attraction to the actresses, realistic acting, and sound quality. They must be enacting sexual scenes I would actually participate in or I can’t dig it.
Porn is used for us as a mood/fantasy maker as part of foreplay.
We rarely watch it… and I just don’t seem to be able to develop a taste for it as a solo experience.

5) I used to take naughty pictures:
One of the good things about my not enjoying porn was that I had no attachment to it.
I was able to get into the mind of the viewer and create what they wanted rather than cater to my own over the top fetishes.
For many years I did erotic photo work for websites. I also did video work, but I enjoyed the photo work more… so tried to stick with that whenever I could.
I specialized in realistic B&D style stuff, latex fetishes, and I was one of the kings of next door amateur girls back when the fad first started. I was shooting amateur style first time girls before almost anybody else. I was one of the pioneers of Internet amateur sites.
The market is flooded now… but that is o.k. because I have been done with that stuff since 2003.

6) Depression:
I suffer from huge bouts of depression.
Usually it starts because of a just cause. Medical issues, bills, family squabbles, career problems, boredom, frustration with others and often myself.
When these huge waves of depression hit me because of things happening in my life I get over them mighty quick for the most part by telling myself that all things change and pass.

A few times a year my depression hits for no known reason at all.
It just washes over me in a second and I feel as if I am drowning in it.
These bouts of depression are the worst because rather than me be able to point to a cause I find millions of reasons to be depressed.
I become lethargic and lose all reason to do anything in life.
Every interest becomes stupid and a waste of time.
I just wish to lie down and never get up again.
I want people to come take me away in their white coats and put me in a bed and feed me with a needle.
Never would I have to speak again.
Never would I have to work or make a decision.
The only thing that forces me out of it (and sometimes it takes a long time) is duty.
Duty for my children.
My duty to keep trudging along in life.
Eventually it passes.

7) My sweet tooth and my health.
I eat pretty darn good.
Way better than the average person to be sure.
I’m also pretty athletic. I stay in shape for the most part and when I fall low on my personal health-o-meter I make sure to get up off the couch and get working out.

That is not my normal way of living.
By nature I have a huge sweet tooth and I gorge myself on stuff in a way most wouldn’t believe.
I can eat 2 whole  pies all by myself and be craving some strawberry shortcake less than an hour later.
A dozen donuts doesn’t even start to satisfy… I can eat 2 dozen with a half gallon of milk while watching a movie and not even think about it.
It sucks… and I always crave sweets.
It is a daily battle.
A small sampling doesn’t curb the craving. When I give in I simply must gorge myself.

I became a health food junkie and exercise junkie only after my bad habits had taken their toll.

Metabolic syndrome can be reversed for the most part.
I no longer get dizzy spells, my energy doesn’t ebb and flow with the tides of insulin uptake, swollen feet are no longer and issue (though I still use diabetic socks if I am not using low cut athletic ankle socks) my heart doesn’t have to work double time for no reason… but my arteries will always be filled with nasty goop from years of previous food abuse.

Still, I try to do good. I know I must stay in o.k. health.
Again it is duty that makes me do it. My 2 year old doesn’t deserve her daddy to die because he couldn’t resist a donut.

8 ~ I’m a shoe whore:
I am a huge shoe whore.
I love shoes and buy them all the time.
The last few years it has been mostly athletic shoes, but I also buy a lot of casual and dress shoes.
If I need retail therapy… it it shoes I shop for.
Most girls that consider themselves shoe fanatics can’t hold a candle to me.

9) My big bubble:
Maybe it is because my parents are not the hugging type.
Maybe it is because I was always a loner.
I don’t know why, but I have a huge bubble.
My personal space limits reach out a good 3 feet in every direction unless you know me well and then it is still a good 2 feet out.
I don’t like people in my space.
I become uncomfortable when people get close. I become hostile if they don’t back off.
Stay the fuck back!

So… I tattoo for a living. I used to do hair and nails for a living.
I want to someday go to massage school.
These are all very touch specific jobs.
I have no problem touching people when it comes to work.
My job makes me touch people all over.

I swing.
That is touching.
Sex is touching to the extreme.
I let these people into my bubble.

Still… I don’t want people in my bubble.
I don’t want to shake your hand Mr Salesman.
If you make me shake your hand or you act offended when I decline… I will go buy from somebody else even at a higher price.

10) Kill your TV:
I gave up television back in 1999.
I friggin hate TV.
I hate TV because I love TV and it melts the brain.
Television is capable of turning me into a zombie.
I can sit for hours watching the little box with the stupid moving pictures.
My solution was to give it up.

We own a TV.
We watch movies on it.
Usually I watch a total of 3 movies a month on video and I watch another at the theater.
We have cable, but we have never plugged it into the wall.
A cable package came with our Internet service for free.
For all I know it doesn’t work… we will never try it out.

It may be the only thing my wife and I actually have in common besides being a tad on the slutty side.
She had not had cable or watched TV for almost 2 years when we met. We met in 2003.
What are the chances of 2 people that NEVER watch TV meeting each-other in this word?
It has to be slim.

The only downside to not being into television is that we have become very out of date.
TV shows are a big thing for people to talk about and we simply have no idea what they are about.
Oh-well… small price to pay for my brain not being melted.

So… That is my big 10 things.

Now I am supposed to pass on the award to others.
This is something I really can not do because I could not pick just 3 or 4…
So, I am going to do something a bit different.
I am going to keep a list of the blogs I visit over the next week or so and post them all.
For the most part I pretty much visit all the same blogs (and only go to new ones through links off the ones I read) so it will make a fine little list of various blogs on various subjects slightly based on my mood over the next week.

So make sure and check back to see my list.
I am sure you will have fun with it!

My wife told me she had never been up in the Seattle Space needle so we just had to go.

I had not been  in many years…

The food was excellent, the service was excellent, the view was excellent.

What a view

If you have never dined at the top of the needle you really should.

If you are visiting Seattle make it part of your trip.
It is a famous part of the Seattle sky-scape that shouldn’t be missed…
and if you live in the area you certainly should if for no other reason than to eat some great food while checking out the Emerald City from above.

A word of advice…
You will need reservations and the cost is on the high end for Seattle dining.