Midnight ushers in the first day of the month that marks the beginning of winter, cold and snowy sweet December. The final month of this not so blessed year, December brings us (at least in Illinois) our first real snow, the first sub-zero temperatures, higher heating bills and best of all, Christmas and New Year's Eve.

For all those who have had the lights dimmed in their eyes from years of playing grown-up and putting aside childish things, I apologize wholeheartedly. This entry is about the magical things in life - things that require belief without fact and devotion without proof.

Jingle bells, candy canes, wrapping paper - my life couldn't get much better than this. Dashing out excitedly in the middle of the night because you've just thought of the perfect gift and you don't want to wait another minute couldn't compare to the joy gained from watching their eyes light up as they open it. This is a time of the year where people are at their least selfish - charitable donations increase as the giving spirit takes over even the most grinch-like of people.

The magic is in the air, I can feel it already. The days begin to hold a special allure for me, one that I can't quantify. It is so much more than giving and getting presents, just like it is much more than waiting for the clock to strike midnight and give me a whole new chance to reinvent myself. It's not religious for me; these days I tend to gravitate more towards an atheistic point of view. It's more spirituality in the most literal sense of the word - something that relates to or affects the spirit. My spirit soars this time of the year. Its importance to me is beyond family or god. It's in my bones.

As I write, the first real snow shower of this season has begun. I hope to awake to a white blanket covering everything, the perfect beginning to this perfect season. Bring it on, Santa.

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."
--Albert Einstein

At twenty-four years of age, I won't even pretend to have complicated blueprints of my mind. Much of how my mind works (especially my reactions to different stimuli), is still a mystery to me. To be honest, I really do not intend to ever try mapping it out one hundred percent; that would take all the fun out of discovering more fascinating things about myself with the dawning of each year of my life.

I do not possess, and have never possessed, a silver tongue. Words and prose simply do not flow out of my lips and fingers quite as easily as they do for other people. I have to work at them, have to pull them kicking and screaming out of my subconscious, and still I am left with the impulse to alter them again and again. Even now, I'm not sure what I want to say or where I'm going with this. Maybe I don't even have a point, maybe these are the ramblings of a creatively challenged girl with nothing left to say.

Somewhere, deep in my mind, I formed a picture of the perfect life. I'm not sure how this happened, or even why it happened, but I am sure that it does exist just as surely as it taunts me to an unattainable standard of beauty and perfection on an almost daily basis. I've always condemned this vision as my downfall, but I believe I need to embrace it before I can move past it and begin to form my own reality of what I want versus what I always thought I should have. Happiness is fleeting, as are so many good things in life, and I can't look towards any picture of perfection without admitting that even that will only last a certain amount of time. I need to embrace my "here" and "now", rather than my "could have been" and "should be".

So that's why I've made this change. Decorus Poena used to stand for the beautiful pain of sexual sadism and masochism, but I've come to understand that it encompasses so much more than that. Life is beautiful pain. Living, loving, growing up, making hard decisions... all these things bring beauty in their pain. Life is simply a set of impossible situations that people spend more time agonizing over than reveling in. The beauty and pain of life is, indeed, in the living.

There are a few more customizations I need to make, but this is the finished product so far. I intend to alter it by the seasons, much like my mind and mood changed during our journey around the sun. A longer (and more inspired, perhaps) post to come this evening, along with the links I need to re-add. :)

Surface, surface, surface. My own little enemy echoes in my head, daring me to write something deeper and more meaningful. Write something! Anything! More heartfelt! Less superficial!

And yet, here I am. There will be a change coming to this blog soon, but I'm not sure just what quite yet. It will obtain a new look, a higher state of being. Hopefully that will be the final push I need to get over this writer's block and start writing with my whole soul again.

That's the usual look I have on my face after work. Exhausted, emotionally checked out, etc. Today even more than usual - I did my very first euthanasia and it was even more difficult than I expected. Dealing with the aftermath of a pet's death is hard, watching it shuffle off the mortal coil (and having an active hand in it's death) was even more awful than I could have imagined. It's been a bad week for pets, we've had to euthanize more than I can count and lost three more in a house fire. I can't wait for this week to be over.

It's been awhile since I've posted, guilty as charged. I wish I had new information for you, but I don't. Bear and I had a great mini-vacation in Chicago, as long as great also equals having to leave concerts early so men with the flu don't pass out and having to pay 40 bucks for a taxi ride back to the hotel because some dumb bitch (i.e. - myself) decided it would be a better idea to stay out by the airport to save money. We did see a great show, eat lots of great vegetarian food, had wonderful sex and I arrived home to find out I lost 6 pounds! Whoo hoo - go me!

I also applied at Purdue this week; I'm still waiting to hear back. I can't wait to get started on my career, springboard myself into the rest of my life. It's the next logical step, and I'm ansy. So all in all, life is similar. My head is still clear, my heart is happy and in love, my pussy is getting used to letting him go down on me... life is good.

There are times that the words flow directly out of my mind and onto paper (or, in this case, the keyboard). I think in rapidly exploding segments of thought and they immediately come out exactly the way I want them to, just perfectly.

Then there are times like today, where nothing seems to come out right. I feel like a fumbling junior high school student, frantically jotting "meaningful" poetry in my notebook. I write things, then delete them only to rewrite them again a different way or with a different voice. I get frustrated, I get angry with myself... writing seems like a chore instead of a hobby.

Even now, I'm not exactly sure what I want to say. My mind is all jumbled up right now, a mixture of different emotions that aren't in their prime yet. They don't seem to want to come out yet, but I keep trying to force them. I want to seem savvy, intelligent, deep... but today doesn't want to portray me that way. Today is satisfied with letting me seem mediocre. But I disagree.

My head is right lately. It's wonderful. I feel like I complete myself these days; that Bear is a special addition to my life but that I don't need him to survive. He makes my life so much better in so many ways, but I won't die without him. We're a much better partnership that way. I honestly feel like he's on my side. It took a long time, but I now trust him with my heart and my life. I'm smiling on the inside.

Say goodbye to that ass, ladies and gentlemen. I'm officially on a diet.
Really though, I doubt my ass is going anywhere. I was 107 pounds in high school and my ass is pretty much the same size now as it was then. I just got great pin-up ass genes, I guess. :)

I just got done doing yoga and I feel fantastic. I had forgotten what an invigorating workout power yoga is - how I can feel tired and energized at the same time after completing even 20 minutes. Tonight it's strip aerobics and another round of yoga, either before or after I clean up and study the mother of all genetics' exam that I have one week from today. I'm just a busy little bee these days! :)

Bear and I have been doing better lately. I'm trying this new technique called talking about my feelings when I'm having them. I know, I know. Totally foreign, so let me explain. When I feel something (fear, anger, etc.), I tell him. I don't wait a few hours or a week and let it blow up. I tell him then. It seems to be working alright. ;) I just bought him a Xmas present too, which means that his ban on buying me gifts is up. Oh, and if anyone would like to buy me a gift, you can get me this or this. Medium please! ;)

I also have been a little bit more honest with him about my sexual tastes. We had great sex last night - it was so much D/s as it was play rape, sort of. I like to be hurt and forced, more than calling him "sir" and complying. I think every man in our culture today has some sort of issue with that, but he's been so good about giving me what I want that I barely see any of that left in him. Probably every man would agree that watching a girl grimace in pain while telling you "no" would make you at least think twice about continuing, but he soldiered on. It hurt, and I loved it. I didn't orgasm (I usually don't in that sort of situation), but it's not about the end result. It's about all that fabulous middle stuff. ;)

So, I'm off to work. Tired, energized, fucked raw. Lovely.

Mmmm... chocolate skull sucker. Both delicious and morbid at the same time. Fantastic.

Just thought I'd put that on there as a testament to my new diet. It fucking sucks, but I eat like shit and I really need to stop that. More veggies, more fruits, no soda, less snack food. What the hell type of vegetarian am I anyway!?

I'm having ugly body issues today. I just feel blah. I feel un-extraordinary, un-pretty, un-skinny, etc. I get this way every once in awhile, which is usually a symptom of my inability to control other aspects of my life. I can control my face, my body... I can't control other people. I guess that's about as vain as it gets.

I'm still not sure what drives me to this need for constant back patting. Perhaps that's even why I'm here, on the internet. The need to feel special and worthwhile. A little piece of recognition for being unique. It makes me smile when people tell me they look up to me, because I can't even begin to understand why that is. If I've been brave, it's simply because I had no other choice. If I've stood up for myself, it's only because I've been backed too far into a corner. I'm nobody's role model and it scares me that anyone would look to me for that.

Anyway, I'm getting sick so that might explain why I'm feeling so weird. I'm going to go work on some homework. Getting A's might make me feel a bit more worthy, at least intellectually. ;)

Ah, sweet November. Both the title of an awful movie (oddly, though, the point is much the same - a month is all that it takes to change your life) and the dawning of the month that contains a holiday entirely devoted to giving thanks for the wonderful things in your life. It couldn't be a more perfect time to work on changing myself just a bit more.

For one, my house is a mess. Yes, I know that people don't have enough time in the day, they have crazy kids that run around and mess everything up, etc. My problem is deeper than that. It's all in self-motivation. I've recently realized that I have a voice in my head that does not belong to me. No, I'm not talking about schizophrenia. I'm talking about being told over and over since I was a child that I simply wasn't good enough. That, at an early age, a subconscious memo was drafted including all these little parts in my life - my unfaithfulness, my ditziness, my lack of cleanliness... all these damn -nesses that dictate my behavior. The problem is, no one's life is so easily broken down and written out. People are constantly changing - whether willfully or not. The part that details who and what I am is bullshit. I need to stop living my life that way. Every day that I wake up is another chance to re-invent myself. The fact that I keep falling back into the same behavior is simply habit, not genetics or destiny.

So there it is. My only conclusion, for now. Tomorrow, when I wake up, I get to decide how to act. I might be the vixen, waking up extra early to put makeup on and dress especially cute. I might be the girl next door. I might be a bitch. I might be a sweetheart. But, from now on, I decide.