Readers? (also, sex-related things and Florida)

What's this? There are readers? Ooer.

(Essin'Em even commented, but see below for why I was too silly/busy to OK it for publishing until now, oops!)

In between receiving the Gigi and my trip to Florida (ugh, planes!), I was able to try said toy (sorry, Pleasure Object *g*) out a few times, once with the SO "coaching" me by phone. Long-distance sucks, but just hearing his voice saying something as (theoretically) innocuous as "I love you" is enough to send a little thrill down my spine.

You can imagine how the words "Rub my clit with it, slave" make me react. I swear I could "hear" his eyes lighting up when I said "five functions and ten speeds for each one" in response to "tell me what it does."

Yes, Essin'Em, I definitely have a different opinion of the Gigi's size now that I've tried it. For something that small, it really, REALLY hits the g-spot. My one complaint/whinge about its actual functioning is that it has this irritating tendency to randomly shut off. This only happens when I'm nearing an orgasm and when it's inside of me, of course. I keep poking at it to see what I'm doing to turn it off - I know I'm not accidentally hitting the control pad, but I'm not sure what does it. Of course, it doesn't happen when I'm just holding the Gigi. Clearly LELO makes sentient toys and it wants to tease me!

Florida was fun; I actually have a smidgen of a tan, which will probably fade in the next day or two. I relived my childhood, since my family dragged me off to Disney World, which was more fun than I thought it would be (the long drive from my parents' place to Orlando was not so fun, since their car is small and I was stuck in the back seat). My elderly great aunt and uncle are down from Queens and staying at my aunt's house, and so I spent an afternoon with that part of the family.

I don't "hope I'll never get old" or anything, but it's difficult watching my family bicker over the pair of them - mom and her sister have guardianship, and the entire family fights over every goddamn decision, including whether to send them to a nursing home, whether to visit on day x or y, who's calling which doctor/insurance company, what restaurant to go to (my great-uncle is particularly determined to make us all crazy; my aunt's husband is particularly determined to be selfish and want it all HIS way), etc etc etc. Talk of the situation inundates nearly my every interaction with my family, and my mother's every interaction with...everyone she knows. Also waiters. Also clerks. Etc.

Florida was fun and I love my family but I am really, really happy to be safely ensconced back in my little dorm, where I'm only reachable by cellphone. I can plead homework, a trip to the bathroom, or some other excuse when someone really gets going on the subject.

I can't imagine how stressed out my mother is, but sometimes I just can't take hearing about it - like when mom had a two-hour conversation with her best friend (my aunt-by-friendship), her friend's cousins, my dad and I, over dessert. I actually got up and cleared the table, washed things, cleaned up the kitchen, etc, because I was going nuts and wanted something to do other than listen to my mother give extended voice to her frustrations for the 5th time that day.

Safer Practices vs. "Wait until marriage"

If you live in the US, you've likely been inundated with 4parents.gov's commercials about abstinence until marriage. Kids who can't possibly be older than 14 say "mom and dad, please talk to me about sex, tell me what you want for me, and tell me to wait until I'm married."

On the one hand I understand that STDs/STIs are out there, so is pregnancy, and that many teenagers just aren't ready for sex. I believe parents SHOULD talk to their kid about these things in a balanced manner, because if the religious right has its way sex outside of marriage will just be illegal before too long. The site does talk about birth control, surprisingly. On the other hand, I find the "until marriage" slant distasteful and ill-advised and their "marriage is just better" attitude distasteful.

4parents advises that parents not allow televisions or computers in a teenager's bedroom, and that parents carefully monitor their children. Who they hang out with, what they do on the Internet, etc etc. Is this in the name of keeping your kid from being too...sexualized? Something like that, I suppose. Somehow I managed not to turn to drugs, sex and alcohol despite having a computer in my room. Maybe I'm a fluke!

How about not buying your kid a bunch of FPS games that will likely desensitize him or her to violence? How about protesting things like the gratuitously violent "Saw" series or "Hostel" duology? Why don't we have children on television saying, "Mom, dad, talk to me about violence. Help me learn the difference between reality and fiction and help me to be a good person" or some such? Why is violence more OK than sex?

Disclaimer: I Find Complaining Cathartic

So, being a student, especially a student of history, it is my responsibility to read lots and lots of historically relevant texts for class. Sometimes these are really interesting (check out Jeanne de Jussie's "The Short Chronicle"). Some of these are, unfortunately, extremely boring (at least to me; I find Polunov's "Russia in the Nineteenth Century" dry as a bone).

Most unfortunately, however, some of these books are extremely depressing, however well-written they are. Primo Levi's "Survival in Auschwitz", Anna Seghers' "The Seventh Cross" and Graham Swift's postmodernist novel "Waterland" are all, frankly, a drag; and I'm reading all three of them at the same time. In fact, I should really have finished Seghers and Levi, since I have a relatively short essay due on the pair tomorrow.

Instead I'm 100+ pages short of the finish in Seghers' novel and about the same amount in Levi's (which is sad really, because Levi's book is only 172 pages long!). What this should tell me is to stop procrastinating.

What it does tell me is that, for all my ranting and raving (don't worry, it's upcoming) about feminism, women's rights, liberation and whatnot, I am quite nearly pathetic in my preference for fluffy novels. Give me a book by Mercedes Lackey or Christine Feehan. Give me a book by Robin McKinley (admittedly, "Deerskin" is about as fluffy as broken glass), Sharon Shinn, Kelly McCullough. Argh! I want something with romance and a happy ending, not books of human pain and suffering.

This is so un-sexy. Oh well. I feel as sexy as an elephant, between the need for chocolate, my depressed mood (due 90% to these books I do assure you; the rest is general stress-related at the moment) and the realization that yes, I really should lose weight. I've switched from excessive sugar in my coffee to stevia; that's a good start, right?

Time to read another 100 pages of Levi and maybe bullshit a little on the Seghers book; I'm not sure I can take another 200 pages of sadness and desperation.