"Chit Chat Chew the Fat"

A very slightly modified pasted transcript of a WindowsLive chat with SugarAnne Monday afternoon. My explanations, comments and thoughts appear between the brackets [ ].

BabyMan says:
What are you doing right now?
[I’m initiating contact with SugarAnne, although she’s been “available” and at her keyboard for nearly 40 minutes]


Sugar says:
 I/m working on my post.
why?

BabyMan says:
 i'm curious.

Sugar says:
Whatare YOU doing right now?

BabyMan says:
 looking at the clock.
[It's 2:06. As a result of this missing person incident SugarAnne is tasked to contact me between 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m each day until the end of the June]

Sugar says:
poor baby.
How's your day going?

BabyMan says:
do you know what time it is?


Sugar says:
oh no!
Oh NO!
ok... i let the time get away from me.
 I just got back from the gym and had lunch.

BabyMan says:
you will learn your lesson sooner or later.

Sugar says:
Wait!!! wait, didn't we talk after 11?
[To her credit we did talk and have other chat contact this morning]

BabyMan says:
no.

Sugar says:
oh, come on!

BabyMan says:
and...
you said to me...
"i'll talk with you between 11 and 2". [her last words to me this morning]

Sugar says:
 I know...
But i really thought I had more time.

BabyMan says:
now you know you didn't.

Sugar says:
 I don't know how this happened!
 I'm really sorry!

BabyMan says:
it's okay.

Sugar says:

it's ok?

BabyMan says:
we will resolve it.

Sugar says:
no!
I want amnesty!

BabyMan says:
are you chatting with [online friends]?

Sugar says:
no.

BabyMan says:
have you?

Sugar says:
a little.
But they weren't available.
They had meetings.
I was cooking my lunch.

BabyMan says:
since you came back from the gym?

Sugar says:
uh huh.
FUCK! [nice. the pastor's wife y'all]
c'mon!
I started working on my post.
I'm sorry!
I'm Sorrreeeee!

BabyMan says:
it's okay...we'll work it out.
where are you with the laundry?

Sugar says:
It's almost done. I have to scrounge up 5 qurters for the dryer.

BabyMan says:
check my dresser.

Sugar says:
I used those for the washer already.

BabyMan says:
i should be home around 6ish...

Sugar says:
Ok.

BabyMan says:
find your shortest skirt....
do not put any panties on....

Sugar says:

my shortest?

BabyMan says:

shortest.

Sugar says:

ok. I know just the one.

Are you going to spank me?

BabyMan says:

yes...you will be spanked well.

Sugar says:
I was afraid you were going to say that.

BabyMan says:
and put those [censored (item of my desire)] where you were instructed to put them.
fold them properly.

Sugar says:

yes Sir.

Do you want eggs, avocado, and bacon in your salad?

BabyMan says:

yes...that will be fine.

Sugar says:

ok.

BabyMan says:

put the Heatstroke [the hated, dreaded and feared body brush] in the den...with the oil.

and the "wad" [short for Weapon of Ass Destruction (the paddle)].

Sugar says:

Come on! It's just a few minutes [strokes are determined by how many minutes she's late in contacting] 

BabyMan says:

thanks to me.

Sugar says:

 I spoke to you at 2:06.

BabyMan says:

 I spoke to you.

Sugar says:

oh... oh yeah.

BabyMan says:

You were "baby smurfin'" [A term I use for zoning out to the point of needing rescue. Usually followed by whistling part of the Smurfs cartoon theme]

Sugar says:

 I'm so sorry.

 I didn't think I'd make that mistake after the last time. [She got her bagel toasted big time last week for this very thing.]

BabyMan says:

perhaps you won't next time.

get back to your post.

Sugar says:

Please don't use the heatstroke on me.

BabyMan says:

 i will not (ab)use the heatstroke on you.

Sugar says:

 Is that the best I'm going to get?

BabyMan says:

 i assure you...

you will get my best.

[End of chitchatchewthefat with SugarAnne]

"The Flip Technique"

What’s so hard about completing all of the assigned tasks? As much as SugarAnne gets her basketball dribbled, I have to wonder why she’s not making all of her free throws. Bear with me for a sec while I run this through my mind: First, make a written list of all the tasks needed to be completed that day. Check. This is the equivalent of preparing a lesson plan. Next, go over the list with SugarAnne task by task, point by point. Check. This is sorta like classroom study. Then, hand the list over to SugarAnne. Check. This is tantamount to pointing to the exact page in the textbook from which the questions on the test will be drawn. Finally, leave home and do the “sweat of the brow” thing. Check. Professor leaves classroom during open book exam, right?

For some reason, while I’m out in the world converting “thorns and thistles” to bread, it always breaks down. Well, to be fair, that’s hyperbole. It doesn’t always break down. It doesn’t even break down most of the time. In fact, it just breaks down in some places and only some of the time. But twice this week seems like all the time.

Tasks should be one of the easiest things about “this thing we do”. But for some reason we (that would be SugarAnne) are not getting it. All of our tasks are not done all of the time. It’s not like it’s a pop quiz that’s sprung on you in a moment’s notice. It’s essentially an open book examination that shows up highlighted, in bold and redlined on the pre-course syllabus. Please tell me that every new spanko gets a pre-course syllabus. They do don't they?

Here’s the problem methinks: when it comes to eluding punishment, Her Royal Sweetness has a quite a knack for escaping the back attack. The woman is the neo Houdinian! Take that missing person thing from the other day. She weaseled her way out of a punishment. Used the “flip technique” on me. Young HoHs beware of this maneuver. That’s where she bends over backward to blame me for her misery, or to highlight my guilt to outshine her own. It's paradoxically unintentional and yet, intentional. I quote Her Royal Sweetness (same post), “I relish the idea of knowing damned well that I deserve a spanking, and getting away with it.” Relish.

Her first effort was a double-barrel approach – misery and guilt:
“I think they heard you yelling next door. You probably ruined my friendship with Dianne” (insert the my life is over and I’ll never ever ever ever have another friend again Ihatechu! pout). I discarded her “misery” like a bent penny. But since yelling is the response of a man who has no solution (with TTWD we have a solution), personal guilt began to rise up around me like the stench of a dead rat.

She added a splash of cunning rationale. “It’s not unusual for us not to talk during the day”, said she, “If my mother hadn’t called you, you would’ve never been worried.” This is both rational and cunning. Rational enough to deflect the fact that she is supposed to have her high-tech 3 ways to be contacted mobile device on her person when she’s out. And cunning enough to point a subtle finger to the fact that I was slow to listen, quick to speak and quick to become angry. The complete opposite of what she knows I feel I should’ve been. Sincere apology successfully elicited.

Finally, a subtle lance to the neck, “It’s not fair. Nothing happens to you when you make a mistake”, and the bull’s head is forced to hang low. That’s the “flip technique”. I may not handle the “flip technique” as adeptly as I’d like to. But that will eventually change. Besides, it’s not a bad thing to err on the side of caution.

But not completing tasks leaves no room for the “flip technique”. When SugarAnne didn’t complete her tasks the first time, I slow cooked her in guilt and anticipation for a couple of hours. The second time? I dropped those panties faster than a skydiver falling under a skirt hiked up like a collapsed parachute. Whatever the approach, I ended up searing that rear until the point was clear.

When it was over all she could say was, “Why was it so har-ard?” (insert scrunched faced spanko booty rub). “Because not getting it, means gettin’ it bad. That's why.”

And that’s why it doesn’t happen all the time.

"Owning Up, Weeding Out and Expressing Darkness"

This State Farm Insurance TV ad has been running in our area. The ad features three different women and a State Farm insurance guy. You could say that these three different women together represent a single woman. The ad also features three guys. It’s clear to understand that the three guys are, together, the embodiment of a single man: the ideal man.



It’s the guys that caught my attention – all played by the same guy (I think). There’s the purple shirt unbuttoned down to here, peering over the rim of his dark sunglasses, foot on the bumper “hot guy” – with his I’m so hot and I know it tone of voice, “W’sup?”

Then there’s the knit cap, unpretentious striped sweatshirt, gently cradling a bunny rabbit, loving smile “sensitive guy”, with his don’t you just love this little bunny tone of voice, “He’s a rescue”.

And finally, there’s the calculatedly mussed hair, tattooed bicep, dressed in all black, sitting on top of car, one boot rebelliously on the trunk “dark side guy”, with his I’m a mystery so don’t try to get to know me but try to get to know me tone of voice, “Yo”.

Whether male and female we are each a conglomeration of different personas. For whatever reason, upbringing, stigma or acceptability, we’re more comfortable with some parts of our selves than we are with other parts. I tend to think that most people struggle with their dark side.

Some women love the dark side of a man (the brunette’s response to “dark side” is priceless isn’t it?) “Dark side ravishes them and taps into their own darkness. With “dark side” they can maintain their “good girl” status while fulfilling their “bad girl” desires.

When me and SugarAnne began “this thing we do”, I often wrestled with my dark side. I struggled with it. My “Domdentity” I call it. I’m thankful for our TTWD “neighborhood” (our combined blog rolls) which has been informative and helpful – not to mention supportive as I experimented with ideas and possibilities as I laid the foundation of my “Domdentity”.

But a just “link-frog” away from our own relatively docile TTWD “neighborhood” is a world wide web that is a veritable whirlwind of titillating darkness of hurricaniacal proportions. Specifics are not important since dark is subjective. What is dark to one is a shining light to another.

In the past I couldn’t get a handle on all this darkness. It became an encephalitic-like bloating that, when reaching its full capacity, would cause my mind to just pop! SFPHUPT! A couple of times I projectile vomited all over your QWERTY little keyboards with some relatively distasteful and uncharacteristically crude unfiltered BabyMan brain matter. Read about the battle royale with Her Royal Sweetness here  (my thoughts) and here (her thoughts).

But over the past few months I’ve had to face front-on my “dark side”. I’ve had to own up to it; weed out that which is not beneficial our relationship; and finally and most importantly, open up an avenue of communication, experimentation (rather than blog vomit) and expression that benefits our marriage and satisfies our souls. That open avenue is an “armor of light” that allows our darkness to be seen – and not dangerously hidden.

Neo Tom Dom said in his "Radical Departure" post the other day, “My relationship with my [wife] is more important to me than fulfilling my every [dark] desire”. He’s right. That’s important.

At the end of the ad the State Farm insurance man commands “dark side guy” quite directly:

“Feet off the car dark side”.

“Dark side”, whether pricked by upbringing or conscience, immediately responds. He takes his feet off the car.

I’ve come to own my dark side. I’ve weeded out some non-beneficial things. And because I’ve opened up avenues of communication, experimentation and expression, I have a pretty good idea of when to ravish rebelliously, and when to take my feet off the car.