the boy, rook

Hey Strangers!

It’s about fucking time, I know, but here ’tis: A pitiful excuse for a blog update!

So at the end of 2011, I got busy, and it was good. Work was keeping me running around, I had to deal with a lot of annoying people, and it was just a matter of not having enough time in the day to do everything I wanted to do. So I put off blogging here, and put it off, and put it off some more. Frankly I was lucky I didn’t completely forget about Christmas (came close though), the end of last year was just that nuts.

Then the new year came. Things got decidedly less busy. Projects at work have tapered off, I still have some work though it comes and goes. We’re not starving (yet), nor have a need to become a professional bdsm sub (wink), but sometimes I think “okay, it would be nice to have a new client now.” And then usually, work comes in. That’s the life of a freelancer, I guess, it’s either feast or famine. Right now I’m pretty happy, work-wise, and not too worried. I’m somewhat of an optimist in that regard, and usually believe things will turn out okay.

But 2012 also brought some new distractions, apart from work, and that’s really been the reason I’ve been gone. I’ve blogged about it before here, but the reality is that I’ve long had shyness and self-confidence issues. All last year I worked hard (mostly) to lose weight, and since the beginning of this year, I’ve redoubled those efforts with a near-crazy gusto. I think I only have enough spare energy to focus on a few big personal projects. Sometimes, that’s kink. Moretimes, that’s fitness. And for the last three months it’s been a focus on fitness.

Basically, because of that focus, I put much of my fetish life on hold. I’m not sure I will ever feel fully comfortable with myself, or have the confidence I need to play and make friends in the kink community, until I complete this journey. So I’ve basically been keeping my kinky side on hiatus while I work on my other demons. So far, so good, though. I’ve lost nearly 30 pounds so far this year. I have more work to do, but I’m feeling great, and hopefully can be making time again for this neglected part of my soul. And I may even have some great real-life stories to share (hint hint).

So what’s happening now, moving forward? 

I want to do more writing. I don’t know what’s happening with Submitted right now. I have an outline and could write it, sure, but there is a big difference between writing a proper erotica novel and writing smut for a blog. On a blog, I have to get to the good shit quickly or no one would care. In a novel, I can develop a real story. So I might actually take Submitted and rework it into something really cool. But even so, I’m going to develop other stories and write little shorts for the blog, because my creativity comes and goes, and I’d like it to cum a lot more often.

And now that I live in Colorado, and it’s spring and summer, I’m going to be spending a ton of time outside (which is not conducive to blogging, but oh well). It’s hiking and camping season, boys! So I fully intend to be outside. Kinky camping trip anyone?

So that’s my quick update for now before I have to run out the door. Stay tuned for more as time comes.

blablabla work blablabla lion king blablabla halloween

I have nothing particularly interesting to say. Sorry. The weekend was … fine. I didn’t work. I should have, but was tired most of it. My dog hasn’t been sleeping well and so I haven’t been sleeping well. Though Sunday was nice – did some volunteering painting the lobby of a local food bank. Last night the husband and I tried to watch a scary movie – Priest – which sucked. Halloween has never really been my thing. By the time I think “we should carve pumpkins,” it’s too late in the season. I don’t really dress up, and haven’t been to a Halloween party in a long time. Maybe next year I’ll go as a gimp … and just keep going as a gimp for the rest of the year.Thanksgiving and Christmas was always more my thing. I love Christmastime. Commercialism and over-hyping, not so much, but in general, I love going all out for the next couple of holidays.

This is going to be a busy week. Nothing really going on today. Tomorrow is dinner with the in-laws (now that’s a scary halloween event).  Wednesday we’re going to see a musical – our first in Denver. Thursday is my husband’s art class. Friday evening is some more volunteering. So, busier than usual kind of week. On top of it I have a ton of work to do with two major projects, both of which need a lot of time this week, plus the innumerable annoying small tasks that will inevitably creep up and demand to be taken care of right now because it’s an emergency and everyone’s going to die if we don’t have this paragraph changed on our website oh my god you suck at life, rook. 

If only they made gags for emails.

I slept wrong last night, and so can barely turn my head today. I don’t feel sexy or kinky. So I don’t really have anything tantalizing to say. This is kind of a nothing most. Sorry.

I did start thinking up an idea for submitted, though. Something big and awesome, but a lot of work to bring to life. I think I’m going to do it … it will just take a while to finish.

Okay, I should stop blogging and go back to work. Those frantic emails aren’t going to ignore themselves.

First Snowfall

Last night around 9pm our first big snow storm of the season came to Denver! Here it is about 9am, and it’s still going! Last night it was rather fast and wet, blizzard even, but now its just gentle flakes falling. 6 – 10 inches in all, is what we’re expecting, I guess. It’s really quite beautiful … it feels like Christmastime, which I love … except that it’s fucking October. The trees – still with their leaves – outside our apartment are so weighed down with the heavy white stuff they’re bending. It’s kind of insane, really. Snow before Halloween feels like sacrilege to this east coast boy.

From what I understand, it melts really fast in Colorado (closer to the sun, all that jazz). And this is just a weird cold snap of a day – it dropped 25+ degrees from yesterday, and the rest of the week will be in the 50s and low 60s again, so this isn’t going to stick around, at least not in Denver.

I just hope this is a sign of what the next few months will be like – because I love snow … only when combined with fireplaces, cabins, cocoa, snuggling and presents.

blablabla ouch blablabla life blablabla sweaty

So in an effort to post more in general, even when I’m not feeling particularly creative, kinky, or otherwise cogent, I’ve decided to post more of the mundane. After all, I can’t be brilliant in every post … in fact, I’m rarely brilliant in any post. I’m just a guy from Colorado moving along in life, occasionally getting tied up, beaten, and otherwise tortured.  But I have a regular life and goals and such. Since I so often say there are many facets to me and kink is just one part of me, I might as well make this blog more about the whole of me, not just the perverted me. Hopefully I don’t get too boring.

My legs fucking hurt right now. Like, really bad. It’s all because on Saturday I started a week of intense training in my fitness regimen … I decided this week I was going to go full tilt in my workouts, pushing hard, fast, and long. I’m calling it a radical transformation week, where I focus intently on my goals and activity and not slack off or wimp out. Saturday was the first day, and it happened to be a day where the only muscles that weren’t already sore from the workouts in the week previous were my legs. So I started with a leg workout.

Quads, Hamstrings (less of those, because apparently I’m a weakling), squats, some sit-ups, but mostly squats, and endurance exercise and leg extensions. I went until I couldn’t stand up. And then I did an hour and a half of cardio, mixed between the elliptical and the treadmill. So, a lot of leg work on Saturday.

Considering these two legs have had to carry my generous self around for a long time, they’re pretty strong as it is. 90+ minutes of cardio isn’t actually a big deal. It’s a little bit of a big deal after doing strength training, but I pushed through. Then on Saturday night we went to the Matthew Shepard Foundation’s Gala (which was really cool), and there was a lot of standing ovations and otherwise, so the workout continued, apparently. By Sunday … good lord, I could barely walk. By the afternoon I could barely get in and out of the car. I had to fall into seats like a pregnant woman.

It’s ridiculous not being able to get up and down stairs without looking like a gimp. I skipped cardio yesterday because I wasn’t sure I could get back up the stairs to my apartment afterward. No such luck today, though. I still hurt, and hobble around like an idiot, but I’m going to have to get a good workout in. No slacking.

At least I enjoy pain I don’t really like being somewhat debilitated in basic movement but generally, I don’t mind the pain itself. It’s a reminder that I’m sculpting a better me. And it increases my testosterone (as does working out in general) so I get a little extra horny too. But I have a distinct feeling the gym is going to suck later today, and I’m going to need to listen to the little Master in my head threatening me to continue on or else. Because if it were only up to me, I wouldn’t leave my desk for the next 8 hours, despite the fact I have to pee really bad right now!

Changes Part 2: Hello Colorado

So more big changes: my husband and I finally made the move from NYC to Colorado. We’ve been here about three weeks now … and we already love it.

We were in New York for about six years. New York is a great city; very diverse, very active, plenty to do … you never have to leave! There are a ton of people there; there’s something for everyone and everyone is there to find it. There are sex clubs and gay bars, kinksters and gay geeks and socially conscious hipsters. It’s a great place to live … for a while.

But we weren’t happy there, either. Yes, New York has an allure, it’s a sexy place full of great eye candy. But the thing about allure is that it wears off, and that applies to cities and people. But in most places when the allure wears off you’re often left with a comfortable peace and familiarity. In New York, though, when the allure wears off, that means it’s time to rush off and find something new and shiny all over again. Building and maintaining relationships was almost impossible for us. If you were more than a stone’s throw from your friends, you would never see them. My husband and I made a habit of living in interesting places – like Roosevelt Island or a quicky apartment on the upper east side. Our home was always open and we were always happy to trudge out to other boroughs to see our friends, but out of sight and out of mind in New York, and most of the time our friends forgot we were there.

Socially it was tough. We got burnt out on getting hurt by the people we’d know for years. We wanted real, lasting relationships with friends. We wanted to be where people could generally be assumed to be nice, and the assholes were the outliers who should be shunned, not normalized. The difference between life in NY and almost anywhere I traveled was amazing; even the Starbucks employees in Austin, Texas or Nashville or Denver were heads and tails nicer than in New York, so much so I wondered if I was being swindled. (Jaded much?)

But what of the kink community? Surely a place like NY is the place to go for kinksters. Possibly. There is the New York Bondage Club for gays.  But in actuality, NY is not the center of the kink community. Chicago, Seattle, Portland, San Fran  are all kinkier towns than NY. I never had a session with a New Yorker – all of mine were with people outside the city. New York is a also a highly sexualized and highly selfish city; it’s all about what you can do for me to get me off. Relationships are hard to form. Even our own friends – some of whom we had three, four, and five-ways with – were more about sexualized encounters than just hanging out and talking. You were either someone a person could see themselves having sex with, or you weren’t. In one case, a friend of ours says to my husband, completely out of the blue, “I don’t mean to be mean, but [Rook] isn’t really my type.” Roger that.

So you know what, NY got old. We got tired and worn down and were unhappy. And so far, no one misses us, and we don’t miss the town. In Colorado – in just three weeks – we’ve seen people be more friendly, I’ve had nice “hello” chats with kinksters, the community here seems open and friendly and I can actually see myself getting involved in it.

Not to mention the mountains! I can’t wait to go hiking, skiing, camping, backpacking … I might even go rock climbing again. All these things I love to do but were actually so hard to do back in NY. The weather is absolutely beautiful. We live right next to open fields where we can go playing with our dog. People are nicer. The prices are cheaper (our rent is half as much … for a bigger, roach-free place!).

But mainly, I’m happy. I have hope again to become the person, kinkster, husband, boy, and friend that I envision myself to be(come). We feel like we’re home for the first time in years. And we can’t wait for what Colorado has to offer.

Changes Part 1: Becoming a Fitter Boy

This year is a year of intense change for me, chapters closing, new ones starting, all in the pursuit of a life and lifestyle that I want. I believe in going for the things one wants, never just waiting for life to hand you good things; instead, I try to make the things I want in my life come to reality. So this year, a lot of new things are taking place. I got married. We moved from NYC to Denver. We have a plan.

But the one area where I have, time and again, fallen down on making the life I want is in the realm of my own physical fitness. For all of my life I’ve been a bigger, heavy person; and for all of my life I’ve hated myself for it. There’s a lot of deep issues there; but my weight has been a constant struggle and I decided that this would be the year I finally conquered it.

My weight has always gone hand in hand with my self confidence issues and shyness. I was teased for being fat as a kid, which drove me to use food as a comfort. Still to this day when I get stressed, worried, or just generally anxious (even if its good anxiety), I find myself wanting to eat as a way to expel the nervous energy. (Now I chew gum). But because I was shy and had no self confidence (or had it robbed of me), I did my best to stay in the shadows; that led to feeling bad I could only exist in the shadows and then reinforcing behaviors (or lack of behaviors) that kept me in the cycle.

I’ve always tried to lose weight and be “good,” but I’ve always failed. In high school I went the bulimia route … somewhat successfully, losing 30 pounds in about a month a half. It’s not a pleasant weight loss method. In college I tried on and off various regimens, but didn’t commit seriously to the effort until a few years ago. Then I tried, would do really well for six weeks, fall off the wagon and gain it all back. Six or eight months later I’d try again with a new regimen. But nothing stuck, not until this year.

Losing weight will be the greatest accomplishment of my life, if I can make it happen. I want it so badly, and this year it’s within reach. I’d be lying if I said it was only about my health. Yes, at my worst I was pretty heavy and could barely walk a mile without getting tired. But it’s also about my own vanity. My whole life I’ve been the ugly kid; the fat one, the one that no one would date, or even be friends with. I want to put all that behind me … if someone doesn’t want to be around me it should be because I’m an asshole not because of the way I look. I know its not necessarily that healthy to wrap so much of my self-worth into how I look, but that’s just the way it is for me.

I know I will never be an Adonis; I won’t be the sexy-god-man who’s leather harness perfectly outlines his giant pecs and six pack abs. I may not even be “thin,” but I don’t want to be “fat” any more either. I want to go to a bar and not feel like I’m repulsive, to feel like I could go to Sanctuary and be invited into a scene, and to feel like I’m capable of pushing myself physically in bondage scenes. I want to feel like I could be suspended, or ride in a sling, without worrying if it’ll rip out of the ceiling. I want to feel and look sexy … at least in an average way.

I don’t normally talk about this journey with anyone. I even had another anonymous blog just for my weight loss journey but I stopped focusing on it in order to focus on the actual journey. But I’m posting this here, now, because it’s a major aspect of what’s happening in my life. I’m doing this not just to get thinner, or healthier, but to make myself better. To improve myself. To become a better, fitter boy; to remove the obstacles that keep me shy and sedate and to build my self confidence so I can become a more active person in the community.

So far, it’s working. I haven’t stayed on the wagon every week this year; but so far this year I’ve lost 50 lbs. I have a ways to go, still, but I’ve come pretty far. Even in the last few weeks of busily bustling about the country and not eating well, I stayed right around the 50lb loss mark.

I’m healthier, I’m smaller, I’m more active. Whereas at my worst I couldn’t walk a mile, now a mile isn’t enough for me. I love working out. I love sweating, gasping for breath, feeling my heart pound out my ears, hurting afterward. I love this journey and I love what I’m becoming.

What Have I Been Up To (Or, “Why the Fuck Haven’t I Been Blogging?”)

So … yeah … I suck at blogging, apparently. I’ve been meaning to update, but life gets in the way, and that is not an excuse according to the great Scott at BIE. He wasn’t talking about me in that ass-kicking post, and he doesn’t link to me, but I heard the message clearly anyway: no excuses. So here’s what’s been going on lately, and I’ll probably post more about these various things in the days and weeks to come. And if I’m not regular enough, feel free to email me and tell me to fucking write a blog post already. Or come up with a good punishment. Heheh.

Well I knew at the beginning of this year that 2011 was going to be a big one, and so far it has. The hubby and I got married in April and then went on our honeymoon, which I think I talked about already. Then I outlined the next many chapters of my painfully slow serial, submitted, but suck at making the time to write, so I’m sorry about that. I’ll get on that soon.

But there are two big things that have been keeping me from regularly writing:

Becoming a Fitter Boy

I’ve never been a svelte guy, in fact I’ve always been unhappy with the way I look or all around fitness level. Over the course of this whole year I’ve been endeavoring to change that, in fits and starts. The first couple of months I did well enough, then the stress of the wedding derailed me a bit and I didn’t make it to the gym as often as I should have.

Then after the honeymoon I really ratcheted up my health and fitness commitment, and that’s really when my blogging here took a hit. I tend to throw a lot of energy into one or two projects, depending on work, and much of the time the choice has been between gym-life and kink-life. I justify it partly because if I can get fitter and thinner and better looking, it would probably improve my odds in the kink-life, but also, I just really throw myself into personal projects and don’t balance them well all at the same time. So that was part A of why I’ve been a bad blogger – because I’m trying to become a fitter blogger.

Hello Colorado!

But then after all that focus on revitalizing my fitness life, we also started gearing up for our move to Colorado – and we’re finally here! We arrived about 2 weeks ago, and the apartment is a wreck and our stuff is everywhere. But we’re here! It’s been a long time coming but we’re already happier than we were in New York. And I’ve got some goals to really break out of my shell, get to know the kink community  here rather than a heavy emphasis on hookups that NY instills in a person.

I’ve also started working out again pretty hard, recommitting to those goals – again. And it’s easier now with a fitness room (more like a fitness closet) right in our apartment complex.

So all around this boy is happier, getting healthier, and will blog more.

And if you’re in or around Denver, let’s get a drink.

Random Career Goal…

Want to know what I did today? I spent hours and hours creating a database migration protocol for a client. That means writing a program that will take all their gobbledygook data that’s sitting in the old database, and rework it so it fits in the new database in a slightly less awful way. If it sounds like a boring, tedious venture fraught with unknowable pitfalls, that’s because it is!

I actually love this stuff, most of the time. I get to work for myself, work from home, and work with the web and other interactive doo-dads in ways that I truly enjoy and have fun with. (This site is not my best work.  :P ) But a lot of times, it’s boring old database migration crap. And it’s days like this that I think, “man, I would love to work on a porn site …” or something like that.

I used to have a gay friend in California who edited straight porn movies. I was intrigued in doing that as a career path, if slightly grossed out by the content. But the problem with adult websites and especially bdsm sites is that they’re kind of low tech, old, dated, poorly designed, whatever.

As a person who explores new technologies and strategies daily, I’d love to find ways to develop really cool shit for really naughty sites. I dunno if the economics of it would work out, and I couldn’t use any of it for my portfolio, but still I’ve always kinda wanted to be a webmaster to the (porn) stars.

Of course such grandiose ideas are a bit silly and unprofitable, but maybe there’s an in-between. Maybe I could barter something.

As a good sub/boy, I could (should?) use my skills in service. People like Master Taino or groups like MaST are the most revered and respected stalwarts of our community, but you know, they’re not web people. I am a web person. In service or in barter, be it for training, experience, or just a cup of coffee to chat, I wish I could use my talents to serve folks like this and help improve the overall standard for the BDSM community online.

Or something like that. I just always like to try to give back to the communities I’m a part of, some way or another.

But for now, I must get away from the computer screen before my brain rots out.

I can finally breathe again … at least until I’m gagged

What. A. Year. And it’s only April! I don’t even know where to begin … so much so I’ve been dawdling instead of starting this post for the last two hours. But I really want to blog and get writing again, here. It can’t all be porn porn porn all the time, right? Or maybe it can, but that’s a little depressing after a while.

So I guess I should start with the bigger news – I’m now officially married to my beau of 6+ years. It’s quite a relief, not because of him or us or anything, but because January, February and March were positively awful in terms of getting everything ready. We went for a DIY wedding a bookstore, and we handcrafted a ton of shit from paper and books and stuff … it was intense, and way more work that I realized. All in all though, it came together really well, all our guests loved it, and I’m really happy with how things went. Then came the honeymoon, which was 10 days traveling across Europe, basically every 36 hours or so we were off to another city. It was the Amazing Race of honeymoons, but it was a lot of fun and a good way to do it.

Other than preparing a wedding, I was still working, and for a while there it was pretty intense with deadlines and tasks and not-fun travel. The longest stint was in Dallas, where of course the one time I choose a different hotel down the street, the cute guys were staying at the one I usually am at. C’est la vie. I’m too much a coward to go out to bars or the local Eagle or anything, too, so I spent my free time chatting with the occasional person and sitting around the hotel (or in the hot tub) with a butt plug in my ass.

The hot tub would have been sexier had there not been families running around. Le sigh. I think I need to find me a Dallas Sir/Daddy/Dom, because it looks like I’ve got more Dallas coming up this year.

But I can finally breathe again.

And I’m so very ready to get back into the swing of things. I am a kinkster, a boy, a sub, maybe in some ways a slave, but I’ve neglected that part of my identity – my soul – and I can feel it. Sure I’m horny, but I know that I’m also unfulfilled, incomplete in a way. Don’t get me wrong, my husband (feels good to say that) is wonderful, and is learning – and even enjoyed going into kink shops in Amsterdam with me. I’ll post more about this whole conundrum in a bit but suffice it to say, I’m still allowed to play, in fact, I need to play, to experiment, to grow. I don’t know when or if I will find the right Dom or get the courage to go deep, something else I’ll write on soon, but this is a year for growth for me, and I’m itchin’ to get movin’!

New puppy, so tired.

A little over a week ago I decided to see how long I could go without cumming. No devices, just sheer will power to not let myself orgasm. It was probably the stupidest week ever to try such a thing. Not because I was insanely horny, but because I’m really just not. The whole idea started because I was going to be traveling for family last week and away from my beau. But the reason for travel was because my mother was having surgery, so between driving for hours on end, staying awake in a hospital until late, sharing a hotel room with my sister, then driving for hours on end home, the first three days were just not all that sensual.

I had sex with my boyfriend on Friday and didn’t come, got pretty pre-cummy on Saturday morning, but then Saturday was the day we brought home our new little girl. We talked a long time about getting a dog and finally did it, but spent the whole day cleaning first, and then playing with her, getting her acclimated and generally okay with being in our home has just left me in a hazy tiredness this week.

She’s sleeping through the night without a light on finally, so we should be able to finally sleep through the night ourselves soon, too. She’s slowly getting used to this being home, so hopefully by the end of this week she’ll be less anxious when we leave the house. But until then, I’m kind of on lock down since I work from home and take care of her, I haven’t been all that available to play or indulge in sexiness. That and I’m tired! So when I’m tired, I just wanna cuddle and curl up on the couch, not get tied down and facefucked. Strange, right? I haven’t even looked at much porn lately! Maybe I’m getting ill…

That’s my work-avoidance-rambling-update for now. In the mean time, the pornostream continues on its merry way. So enjoy, comment, write, tell me what you’re up to since clearly I’m boring this week.