Restart - Cutting Out A Graceless Heart

It has been such a process, this decision. Two years ago I was looking for an apartment in Manhattan, cut adrift. I faced a separation that my gut knew was right and I searched to find a home and a haven. The little slice of the West Village I burrowed into is precious to me. Though many would mutter that at his age he should have so much more, I know it is a tribute to my resourcefulness that I have supported my separated wife, myself, my office, and my business.

But now I have more decisions. I love being single and trying to find Mistress Right. But my wife is slowing - withering away - and needs my help. At first I dug my hamfisted heels into the ground. I won't move back, I won't. I'm happy where I am.

But when I see her struggle to even pull up her feather light, elastic-like, jeans and I rush to her aid - I know there is one choice. So come June I'll pack up my bachelor pad and put everything, including my never-been-used-on-me Twisted Monk hemp rope and Victor Tella baby single tail, into storage and move back in to take care of her.

Until another life I shall cut out a graceless heart and trust that time will provide a restart.

A Murder Of Crows

We want to belong to her. We long to belong to her. She will take us and hurt us and heal us. And we will love her for it. It's all heat, confusion, and exquiste romance. In a year of unimagined loss I've gained so much. Pain and fear. Hope and trust. They rock me on the water of a new life that surprises me with each new twist and turn.

My wife is dying a slow death before my eyes. It is the best of it now for it will surely only get worse. But we are closer than we've ever been. Save for who I am deep in my hidden heart.

She-Who-Visits is in touch alot. But even as she plans a trip to see her family in New York, there is no mention of time for me. She knows my hidden heart so well for it has been hers. Some part of my soul will always be bound to her. But it's been a year since I've seen her and all the trust in the world doesn't replace need.

I met someone on a date that I like. In overheated letters we talk of corsets, canes and chains. We've gone from zero to off a cliff in the blink of a lust filled eye. But we've only spent a couple of hours together and the realtime lags far behind the ethernet. I reach to connect as knots to the past give way to just trying to be present and honest and as real as I can.

But despite all the promise; confusion and pain just make me want to get lost on a border road by a barbed wire fence. Just be on my own and by myself.

Holly Came From Miami FLA

Upheaval, cataclysmic transition, adjustment as agonizing as it is thrilling. But at bottom, it is all about change.

A few months ago I sat in the Fort Lauderdale aiport, writing my blog having come up short. Today as I write, I'm a sworn member of the club (I'm told there's a secret handshake), I have an office, and I am reviewing a lease for a huge, cheap, sleek, apartment with a free parking space. For a Manhattanite - this is shangri-la!! My dream of being a bi-east-coastal big shot is upon me. Now the trick is to get work.

On the other hand, my wife has been diagnosed with a horrible neurological condition that may in fact lead to an utter dissembling of any remote quality of life and cause the most horrible of swift, but torturous deaths. We find out more just after the first of the year.

I could talk about riding waves or the best of worst times or worst of best times. But figure if I show up each day and reach for the strength to be present; I'll be here to deal.

Not much kink. Just a lot of life with its fractured and frustrating flights of fancy and fear. I just f'd the f out of that, huh?

With A Little Help

Sunset on my latest effort at a license for a place in the sun. Thanks to everyone who sent me kind words of support. This time around it caught me by surprise how badly I want this. For a future, for a business expansion, and just because. I faced deep, roiling anxiety and came out yesterday feeling good. The lady sings a September song, but until then I content myself that in the middle of life storms that batter some well worn sails, the seas momentarily calmed and the sunset -- gloriously. It's gonna be all right.

A Dreamer Holding Sand

Yesterday my wife and I closed up our coop and handed our keys to our favorite doorman. One last time I gazed out the amazing corner bedroom window with the majestic view of the Hudson River streching south along Riverside Park. I said goodbye to an era of my life. Goodbye to my home and goodbye to my marriage.

I feel the excitement of adventure and discovery entwined with the knotted pain of loss. And though I sobbed uncontrollably all alone last night; choked, snotted echos filling my brand new apartment; tonight, I am home.

Whack-A-Mole

The other week I was sitting in Thursday morning therapy talking about losing my marriage, leaving my home, retaking the bar, trying to get business, struggling with debt, firing an employee who wasn't working out, being chided by She-Who-Visits about how I'm not dealing properly with my impeding separation, my never-ending search for a rental apartment in Manhattan, and on and on and on.

My shrink stops me and says, "Your life seems like that game at carnivals. What's it called? The one where mice pop up and you try to hit them."

"You mean Whack-A-Mole?", I grinned.

"Yeah, that's it. Whack-A-Mole. Your life right now is a game of Whack-A-Mole."

And you know what, no matter how quick I am, how hard or sincerely I whack away, or how often I hit the little squinty-eyed subterranean bastards, they all keep coming back for more. I know this is supposed to be a kinky blog, but right now I just feel completely whacked out.

Today, I looked longingly in the window at the Louboutin store on Horatio and thought to myself that there was nothing about the way I feel that a woman wearing a pair of those shoes and wielding a nice cane couldn't fix with a few little whacks of her own.

Here's to whacking! Here's to Christian Louboutin! Here's to the ones with the high heels and the red bottoms. Hit me slowly, hit me quick. It's nice to be a lunatic!

A Long Time Comin'

I have this routine in the morning. I'm an early riser. I'm up by 5:15am for a cock-crow run with the dogs through the park and by the river no matter the season or the weather. But before I go, I make coffee. I grind rich, dark, oily beans for a combination of a decaf and high-test drip brew along with a shot of espresso. These days I'm into Irving Farm beans. There's a couple of Irving Farm cafes in Manhattan and one in Millerton, a little Dutchess County berg with a great movie theater and the coolest sporting goods store around.

I was introduced to Irving Farm coffee by a pro-domme with whom I had a deliciously disasterous frolic. Sometimes, as I mill my perfect morning infusion, I'll absent mindedly and fondly flash on the frilly little red, yellow, and white apron we bought to accessorize my service that was hung on a hook in her kitchen and never used. Or her asking the Meatpacking waitress to top up my glass from the Voss bottle - tinged the faintest of golden. Or pleading with her to slash yet again and harder at my urgently offered upper thighs with the rough leather horse crop, as I deleriously wriggled on the polished pine strip floor of her Horatio Street studio in the throes of a two week stint of on-my-honor chastity.

I love a good cup of fine coffee in the morning.

But it's a ritual of process and transition, my morning routine. From sleep I spend fifteen minutes of labor over the literal daily grind. And this morning as I write these words I really have to remind myself that my life is in complete makeover mode. In a little over a week I learn my bar exam fate from the gods of grading. In four months I'll be in a new apartment. There's nothing like looking at real estate in Manhattan to make you feel like an inadequate slacker who has utterly failed to attain a remotely respectable level of financial firepower.

This week I was out at a work related meet and greet and met two attractive, divorced women. Despite a fun chemistry with one, my fet-detector told me she was clueless about kink. I woke up this morning festering that I'm just flat-out undatable. Who wants to deal with a workaholic, aging hipster of a submissive, who comes to a romantic little restaurant with a separation agreement, a domme in the Caribbean who he adores, and huge pile of debt. Oh come on! It'll be fun. You'll see.

But the french roast rites of an April dawn hold aromatic promise. After the grind, the exertion of the run; the stretches, crunches, pull-ups and downward dogs - I get my reward. I just have to keep the faith because ready or not - a change is gonna come.

The One

As the ordeal of examination gradually drifts into the past, the future stretches out like a lazy, calm river pool. Around the corner could be rapids leading to a precipitous waterfall, but right now I'm just floating along enjoying the scenery -- content not to be trying to figure out the riparian rights of the people I see waving to me from the banks.

Do I rent or do I buy? Will it be the FiDi, the UWS, or the East Village? Will I go visit the Sunshine State this month or next? Tough questions, but someone's gotta answer them. Ms. Kiss and I were sitting in the late winter sunshine yesterday talking about these pressing issues as I had sought her counsel about the rent or buy question. She's got a banker brain and I do not, thank you very much. We got snagged on property division.

"Your wife should not have a future interest in any apartment you buy. Are you crazy? You're getting divorced! When you meet someone and are living with her in your new place, how do you think she's going to feel when you have to give half of the apartment sale to your ex-wife?"

You know the catagory on Facebook or online dating services marked "It's complicated." I don't think Ms. Kiss gets that catagory. I've spent the past 30 odd years of my life in dedicated, long term relationships or marriages. I know alot about the clinches of committment. I suppose what I'm looking forward to most about my impending separation is my new single life. I know very little about being single. No doubt it will be an "it's complicated" bachelorhood. But that's the allure.

Unlike Ms. Kiss, who is and should be looking for Mr. Right -- I'm looking for a life. Part of the life I hope will be meeting new friends, some of whom will be kinky. I recently wrote to Yin and asked to be favorably considered for an upcoming "Writing Cage", which she'd advertised publicly on her blog. I don't want to have to lie and sneak around to read my writing at such a cool event if I get asked.

I'm not looking for the one. I'm looking for a life.

Well...maybe Ms. Kiss and I could visit Madame Ruth...

Loss & Gain

There's just been too much of it lately. Favorite employee of all time goes home. Other employee goes home with husband. Accepted offer means selling my home. Too much loss.

But with it comes possibility. Closing and opening doors. New employees to hire, new neighborhood to learn about. The Miami adventure becomes more real. A separate but new relationship with my wife. Waves of sadness give way to excitement about a new future. Gains inside of loss. Life goes on.