A Liberal spanking

This week's cover of The Nation (hat tip to newsgroup reader ngtybtnice) with an amusing picture pertaining to the topic of this blog...

Not particularly fond of either Olbermann or O'Reilly, though I do like The Nation a great deal.

So, liberals spank with rulers, eh? Who knew?

More weird spanking dreams and my funny boy

I think my spanking mojo is returning after my icky two weeks.

I had a dream last night that I was in a sort of auditorium of spankos including friends Mija, Haron, Bailey and lots of people I don't know. And it was like some sort of improvisational spanking story was occurring with a medical bent. Like, it looked like a doctor's office. And I think I was supposed to take my clothes off and put on a gown. Then Aunty Agony came out looking very stern in a gray suit. Except, I've never met her or seen a picture of her so I suspect it was a picture of someone posted on her blog -- that I was reading last night before going to bed. After she came out I think I was about to be laid out on a gurney and spanked, which I was very embarrassed about.

That's when Meals on Wheels knocked on the door and woke me up. It was surreal.

But, I have felt a bit more frisky. Have actually been craving a bit of spanking today. Though I'm probably still too tired for one. Which is fine since A. isn't here.

In fact, today marks six months that we have been apart. It's not the longest we've been apart. That record was set in 2004 when I was last in England that April and we expected I would return in a few months for doctoral studies. My body had other ideas and we didn't see each other until that December when it became clear I was not going to be well enough to go over there and A. would have to come over here if we were ever going to see each other. Now we rely completely on A. coming over here as he's the one who is capable of earning an income and enduring trans-Atlantic travel. So far we've been remarkably lucky considering neither of us makes much money. But there are always lean times, and we make it through those times as best we can.

We're luckier than a lot of people in our situation: we can talk on the phone everyday for free (I have Vonage and he has some sort of funky free deal there). No matter how icky the day has been, he always makes me laugh -- which makes me feel a little better no matter how much pain I'm in or how nauseous I may be. When I started reading about endometriosis a few weeks ago (as this might be what's been causing my pelvic pain) and told him how one of the treatments is with hormones that make women grow facial hair and develop lower voices, he was quite excited. "Cool. I'll get to date the bearded lady from My Name is Earl! And we'll be able to sit and watch football together!" Totally made me giggle as well as feel less fearful of whatever might lie ahead.

Yesterday he talked about the new upcoming Billie Piper show called The Secret Diary of a Call Girl. "Billy Piper in sexy lingerie. Does it get better than that? I mean, monkeys could write the dialogue for that show, and I'd still watch it. In fact, I bet when they pitched the idea and ITV wanted to know about the script they were like, 'it's Billie Piper with a whip. We don't need a script.'" What a funny boy my A. is.

But, alas, he felt differenlty this afternoon. "I take back the part about not needing dialogue." Apparently Billie Piper in sexy lingerie wasn't enough for him. And the dialogue they had was too slick. "I thought she was more sexy in Dr Who."

Hmm...now I'm probably going to dream about Billie Piper and being a bearded lady or something.

Kinky distraction, dissonance and Real Life

Distraction

Help me forget the burn in my hip.
My fingers swollen with hot.
The currents screaming through my body at
An even higher voltage today.
The constant bickering between my muscles and gravity.
The circuits in my brain straining to remember while
My lungs ache with memory
Of books and hiking and driving myself to the store.
My chest tight with reminder that the State declared me useless
And keeps us apart just to be mean.

Lay me over your lap.
Spank my sit spot with the hairbrush
So hard that I finally cry real tears you can finger.

Slam your cane down onto my wide fundament
And make my skin explode with tiny red kisses.

Order me over a hill of pillows and strap me
Until my writhing crumbles it all over the bed.

Spread my cheeks and force your manhood in,
Extracting screams I muffle for fear of the neighbors.

Squeeze my nipples, wet my hungry cunt
And produce at last that long elusive orgasm.

Yes, hurt me, my love, and take my pain away.

When my mother attended my fourth grade Parent-Teacher conference, my teacher greeted her with "Michelle has such an amazing imagination!" I think it had something to do with the fact that no matter what the topic was for our creative writing assignment that week, I always managed to transform the subject into a magical trip through time. And said trip often involved meeting Laura Ingalls Wilder -- though she was lacking the "Wilder" part of her name when I would meet her.

Yes, I was a regular Anne Shirley when it came to utilizing my imagination in an effort to survive an otherwise unbearable home life. Not only did I imagine being friends with one, Laura Ingalls, but I imagined coming across the prairies in a covered wagon, or living in a medieval monastery, or being a pampered princess, or comforted by a guardian angel. And, of course, being the little spanko that I am, every fantasy contained punishment of some sort.

I never did lose that imagination. I continue to live much of my life in fantasy world, though now I have a partner to include in my wicked reveries. Indeed, since he's so far away most of the time, phone calls and fantasies are how we stay close. His absence, the isolation of illness, and my otherwise unbearable physical life make my kinky flights of fancy just as important a tool of survival as they were when I was in fourth grade.

But there are dangers that accompany living in a perpetual kinky mindset, as Sparkle discussed at the Punishment Book recently. I'm not a parent (though did get my share of parenting my siblings and mother when I was a teenager), but over the last few months it has begun to dawn on me that there is value to real life. I spend hours each day laying in bed while not quite sleeping, and my habit from childhood is to retreat into my imaginary punitive worlds. Retreat into the childhood I wish I could have had. But I have a soul, an intellect, a non-kinky mind that also need utilizing. That need to contextualize and process and grow from loss and take advantage of the ability to live the examined life that a career would not have otherwise afforded me. Plus, if I ignore the body I'm in too much, it has a habit of screaming to finally get my attention.

A week and a half ago my right pelvis started screaming bloody murder and there wasn't much anybody could do to make it stop until it suddenly did all on its own -- thank God! Though I then proceeded to sprain my ankle good and proper. I was still physically and emotionally spent from the pelvis agony from before, so the ankle thing has put me into a serious pain deficit. Now when I go to peruse my stock of kinky fantasies to lull me to sleep, it's like thinking about food after Thanksgiving dinner. I've had to rely exclusively on a cocktail of narcotics and Valium to get me to sleep instead (or narcotics and lemon balm tea, which I don't recommend unless you plan to sleep all the next day).

Dissonance

The commandant has made me
His plaything this week.
My tongue still craves
The taste of pain,
But the commandant has left me
Bloated with suffering.

Not only has pain stolen my sleep, comfort, and security on some level (since we don't know what caused the pain, there's a good chance -- not to mention precedent -- that it will return, though hopefully not quite at that level), but it's stolen my fantasy world for awhile. Now I'm left to face life. Real life. The life without A. Without naughty adventures. Life with crutches and a messy apartment (long bureaucratic story: I'm without a caregiver for awhile) and more doctors appointments and books I can't read and a grocery store I can't walk to and nieces and nephews I never get to play with and a social life that consists of me talking to my laptop and the television and a career that's long gone. It means spending time being aware of my body. Observing and letting go of things I've been hanging on to even if I wasn't paying much attention to them. Appreciating who I am instead of trying to be someone who feels more fun or beautiful or...better.

And, well, if reality just gets too beyond my ability to cope, my sister did bring over two whole seasons of the Gilmore Girls. Not quite the same as pretending I'm a recalcitrant but immaculately uniformed schoolgirl, but maybe my sister and I will have more clever conversations after I watch 40-some episodes of witty speed-talking small-town Connecticut lefty chicks. Who knows? There may even be more amusing posts forthcoming... ;-)

You know she was so asking for it...

A friend IMd this animated pic to me the other day (you have to click on the link for the animation to work), and I thought it was adorable. The reddened bottom. The eyebrow rising while her jaw drops with each swat. Her bottom cheek smooshing under his hand.

I don't usually like animated pics (such as used with a lot of spanking porn advertising -- and don't get me started on those flashing ads), but this one is just so subtle and cute.

Spankos who make ya go "hmmm"

Three years ago, the very first comment I ever got on my blog was from Patty (and boy has this week so been deja vu of that first commented post). And through the years she has often had funny and friendly words to say which I've appreciated very much.

So, way, way back in April, Patty tagged me for the Thoughtful Spankos meme snaking its way through the spanking blogosphere, as well as listed me as one of the blogs she deemed thoughtful. Unfortunately a combination of illness and laptop woes had diminished my blog reading significantly at the time, and I missed her post and kind words. Indeed, I would have missed the post altogether had I not found it by accident one night a couple of months back during one of those all too familiar circuitous jaunts of "follow the link".

It is now time to address my dereliction of duty and attend to my tagged responsibilities.

I should say at the outset that each of my fellow bloggers at the Punishment Book would always be on my "most thoughtful" list. But listing them seems a bit cliquish.

And it's certainly not like there is a dearth of thoughtful spankos aside from them. Indeed, picking only five is very difficult. So consider the following list to be blogs that just happen to be resonating with me lately, or have resonated so much they immediately spring to mind when I'm asked by a competent psychiatric professional to list the first thing I think of when he or she says "thoughtful spanko."

I've been reading Vivian at the Disciplined Feminist for awhile and, like a number of other people, I've found her very thoughtful. I don't always agree with her, but in the process of trying to decide whether I agree or not, I do, you know, a lot of thinking.

Probably the newest blogger of the bunch is fellow Portlander, Abby, who has proved to be a detailed, introspective, thoughtful spanko blogger at The Little Red Schoolhouse . And, you know, she's local. And since I like to support local agriculture and local businesses, why not support local spanking blogging?

I have always found Raven at Skin Prayers to be a thoughtful spanko, whether commenting here or at the Punishment Book or posting on the soc.sexuality.spanking newsgroup. As a fellow practicing Catholic, I appreciate her continuing effort to blend faith and kink. As kinky reader, I also appreciate her ability to write some damn fine erotica.

Now in its first few years, it seemed that women dominated the spanking blogosphere. And while I dislike generalizations -- particularly when it's in regard to gender -- I do think women tend to share feelings and fantasies more comfortably than men.

However, in the last couple of years, more men have started blogging about their fantasies, if not always their feelings. Though as men tend (again, I cringe as I write the word tend) to be more visually oriented, their blogs have often been dominated by pictures rather than text.

But there are a few male spanko bloggers whose primary medium remains exposition, commentary and analysis.

James Stephenson is one such blogger, sharing memories and insights about his spanking kink that often remind me of my own memories and get me thinking about my own kink.

Matt Anglen, who is running a Shadow Lane Marathon at the moment, is another male blogger who freely shares his kinky observations. One of my favorite posts is this one about how being smart as a kid sort of steals your childhood in a way and spanking is a nice way of getting a bit of it back. It helped me articulate something I'd sensed (how many times did I hear from relatives and Sunday School Teachers that I was "too mature" for something even though I was no older than the other kids?) but had never properly formulated in my mind.

So, that is my very, very late list of five thoughtful spanko bloggers. And again, I should emphasize that there are a lot of other bloggers who I could just as well have listed. And if I wrote this post a couple of weeks from now, it would very well be an entirely different five. Oh and one I didn't list was Bonnie, but that's just because everybody listed her -- and rightly so.

And since this meme is at that "it's so moldy does anyone even remember what it was?" point, I couldn't possibly begin to tag people because I suspect just about everybody I'd tag has probably already done it. If you are reading this, have a blog and haven't been tagged at some point, well, go ahead, tag yourself and give us five spanko bloggers you think are thoughtful.

Another line I love to remember

I just posted over at the Punishment Book about a punishment I love to remember. But there wasn't really room for me to fit another anecdote that I love to remember into that post, so I thought I'd share it here.

It again had to do with a missed bedtime (I go through phases of not getting to bed on time, but most of the time I really am between the sheets right when I should be). When A. called at his usual time he was a bit drunk, which I thought would work in my favor as he tends to be a bit subby when he's been drinking.

"Actually, I'm more in a switchy mood," he announced.

Alright. Maybe it would still be okay as whiskey was involved. So, I confessed that I'd been to bed quite late.

"You really know how to put me in a dom-y mood," he said sternly.

Damn!

"I thought maybe I'd get away with it since you'd been drinking whiskey," I explained sweetly.

"No. This is important." Still stern but mixed with a bit of tenderness.

That gave me a smile then (you know, for a few minutes before I was getting smacked), and I've got the same smile now as I write about it.

Paper paddles anyone?

I just asked A. to reinstate my bedtime this evening. Yes, it's true. I really am that much of a good girl.

Well, alright, it's really more like I'm a "the adult part of me wants to get a decent night's sleep but the kid part of me keeps wanting to stay up just a little bit longer on the new laptop and wins out and then both the adult and the kid part of me are groggy all the next day, not to mention while I try to get ready for bed" sort of good girl.

"You just want to get spanked," A. adduced.

"I do but I don't want to get spanked for that," I replied. "I want a fun spanking. A good girl spanking."

"A fun spanking, huh? Would a fun spanking include your school uniform?"

"Oh, totally." We were going to do an over the phone school scene last week but the day we planned to do it ended up being a bad pain day and was therefore canceled, which I was quite sad about.

"Do you have any appointments tomorrow?"

"Just acupuncture next door at three or so," I answered.

"Well, I think you should wear your uniform there," he said in his deadpan voice. "I want you wearing your hair in pigtails and sucking on a lollipop when you check in."

"Wearing my skirt would make getting to my hip and upper right ass a lot easier," I deadpanned back.

"So, you could say, it would be very appropriate."

"Absolutely."

"Excellent."

Then I laughed. When I finished he continued -- for real this time.

"Right, so you will you put your uniform on when you get home."

"Yes, Sir."

"Good. Now, let's see, about implements...can you use the strap?" he asked.

"Well, I can use my belt. Can't really do the strap."

"Right. Well, okay. What about the ping pong bat?"

"Yeah, I can do the ping pong paddle." I really should have given him crap about calling it a "bat."

"I was just thinking the long-armed brush seems a bit harsh for this spanking."

"Yes, I think so too." I said. "Though, I should say that the ping pong paddle does sting."

"It's a spanking, it's supposed to sting! What, you want me to use a feather duster? A rolled up magazine? 'No Daddy, not the paper!'"

Gawd I love it when he gets sarcastic. It so makes me laugh.

"I think paper would be an excellent material for a paddle," I said.

I mean, don't you, dear reader?

"Paper, indeed..." A. clearly thought my idea was absolutely brilliant.

"Actually, Sir Thomas More used to whip his daughter with a feather," I pointed out.

"Ah, so some sort of symbolic thing, huh?" Then his voice got very stern. "Well, look here, we will have no such symbolic talk in this house."

I laughed.

"So, when you get home tomorrow you will put your uniform on."

"Yes, Sir."

"Good."

Then, reader, I'm afraid the conversation turned to more mundane matters of business.

But just after I got off the phone with A. I ended up talking to my sister, who has been getting pissy lately over the fact that I seem to be on the phone with A. every time she calls or wants to come over. When she said she wanted to come over tomorrow, I paused for a second and agreed. "But, let me know what time or if you're not because A. and I are planning to do something."

I could visualize her shaking her head and making the "wtf?" face on the other side of the line.

"Wha...I don't want to know."

"Yeah, I was just going to tell you not to ask."

"Seriously. Don't tell me. I don't want to know." She was serious indeed.

"I'm not telling you anything. I'm just saying let me know."

It's a tough one, gentle reader, because I do love my sister. And I know A. and I can always play Slutty School on Tuesday.

But, I really want to play tomorrow...

Revising

Not quite five years ago I wrote a story called "...To the pain," about a spanking which brings a previously dry-eyed woman to tears. I've always liked it very much but felt it had a major flaw in it, namely that while I referenced the Princess Bride in the title, I didn't in the story. It's something I've been meaning to fix for awhile and tonight -- er, this morning -- I finally did. The original version that I posted to the soc.sexuality.spanking newsgroup can be found here, while the revised version is here on the blog. Not only did I fix the Princess Bride lacuna, but I also added names to the two characters giving them a little more depth. Though one could argue that there is a sort of "everyman(woman)" feel to them remaining nameless. I dunno. Let me know what you think.

I remember someone saying once that crying during a spanking can be the Holy Grail for a lot of spankees, and I must admit to being among that group. There have only really been a few times that I've genuinely sobbed during a spanking. Once was while I was being flogged with a riding crop full force, though mostly it was tearing up during the flogging with the sobbing coming afterwards. Another time was this last March after a mere three strokes with the strap when I was still just a bit too sick for spanking play. I keep thinking there was another time but I can't think of it now.

However, this now-improved story remains a fantasy.

Overheard at the doctor's office

Yesterday as I spent an hour and a half in the waiting room at the doctor's office, I remembered a delightfully startling conversation I overheard a few months back that I wrote down in my notebook but never got around to sharing here because of all the laptop problems.

While sitting in the exact same seat waiting for my anti-coagulation nurse back in July, I suddenly heard a female voice say, "I'll take her home and spank her." I looked up and realized the threat came from a slightly tired, rose-cheeked young woman leading another young, attractive, giggling brunette in a flowery dress.

"Yep, I promise I will spank her when we get home," the rose-cheeked woman said even louder as they started to walk toward the elevator.

A young man, who I believe was friends with them, laughed. "Hey, might be fun."

"Yes, don't you wish you lived at our house?" The spankee-to-be said. She then began to make small talk with the young man as they waited for the elevator. An older, wiry, stern looking woman who I suspect was the young man's mother, told him to stop talking to the brunette.

"You be quiet now," the rose-cheeked woman ordered the brunette, "or you're going to get him grounded."

That's when the elevator showed up and the waiting room returned to it's normal, vanilla ambient noises.

A. threatened to ground me once several months back when my shoulder became too sore for any more phone spanking (I'd been having problems getting to bed on time). It gave us both a good laugh (I'm housebound or a "shut-in" as some of my Meals-on-Wheels deliverers call it) .

I'll be in the clinic again three hours from now waiting for my anti-coagulation nurse. I'm kinda hoping for a bit more kinky eavesdropping.

Too much spanking thinking

As Lele mentioned in the London Bridge post below, I have been rather chatty this last week. It's sorta been like, well, you know how when you have to pee really really badly and you've been holding it for a really long time and then you finally get to go? And you know how it just feels SO goddamn GOOD? That's what it's been like finally getting to empty my brain. It's been throbbing with too much spanking thinking for far too long -- a good year and a half or so as my old laptop crumbled bit by bit, and I could no longer use it on my lap in bed. But now that I've got the new (old) Thinkpad that, you know, is really a lap-top, it's just such a relief!

Actually, the whole thing has made me hyper. Like a little kid who's been far too overstimulated at Chuck E. Cheese. I can hardly sleep. Indeed, this has been a week of erratic slumber. It'll take me until the wee hours of the morning to fall asleep, but I'll wake up five or six hours later with my brain turning right back on again to the relentless refrain of "computer...must get online...must blog."

If A. was here, a good spanking would probably solve that problem. But work is keeping him in England far longer than he anticipated. This is actually the longest we've been apart in three years. Usually he's managed to come over every six months for three months at a time. So in July, when our time apart hit four months, I was climbing the walls with longing to be with my beloved. I'm still dying to have him cuddle me after he's soundly spanked my ass, but by last month I started to calm down a bit. Maybe it was knowing that one, hopefully this will be the last time we'll have to worry about where the money is going to come from for another plane ticket, and two, if he doesn't make it until October (which is quite likely), he'll be able to stay through my birthday (Dec. 8) and Christmas.

And in the meantime, I'll probably be channeling all that pent up spanking energy into blogging, not to mention relieving the rest of my spanking thinking both here and at the Punishment Book.

Spanking blog archive

Just happened to be doing a quick browse at Spanking Blog before I try to sleep and this post, which takes the reader down memory lane to a superb but now defunct blog, ends with Dan asking for spanking bloggers of the past to consider archiving their site. He's offering free space (d'oh -- almost typed that out as spank) and will build a mirror of your blog to maintain on the web in perpetuity.

As a trained historian, archives of anything have a certain appeal to me. And when I was reflecting back to the early days of this blog on my third anniversary a few weeks back, I started thinking about how many good spanking blogs have gone by the wayside without a trace. Very unfortunate.

That's why Dan's idea and offer are so brilliant that I hope any of you former spanking bloggers reading this will consider it.