Ground Control To Major Tom

'Stardate 19123.2 - Captain's Log of James Tiberius Kirk.  We have spent one month with the friendly natives of planet Ohpee Three.  Spock and Bones have said the female natives have been too friendly towards me, but what can I do, I have to engender relations between the Federation and this planet.  Is it my fault I am just so darned irresistable?'

Yes, well, the above is very much a Kirkism, playing on the fact that every episode he seemed to have a different alien girlfriend, 99% of whom were blonde and blue eyed.  Those Vikings got way further than Newfoundland in the 11th C LOL.  Not a reflection on myself and my winning ways at all, I just got caught up in Trek for a minute there.

But, I have been here for a month today.  I have survived, I have thrived and blossomed, I have become comfortable for the most part with my position, my place in the New World.  I have adjusted far better than any of the three of us expected to the situation.  And I am getting the occasional belting or candlewaxing as reward.

However, yesterday taken by itself was VERY up and down.  Very emotional.  I am still tired this morning thinking about it, and I had a full eight hours sleep.

Sir had forgotten to take his shoes into work - for reasons that I won't go into here, he had taken his boots instead.  And then he was having a meeting with the Big Boss, and he needed the fancy shoes instead.  So instead of dozing for a bit longer, relaxing into the day, Mistress and I were in the car with shoes to take into Sir's work.  We didn't even have time to stop for breakfast on the drive in.  Which was kinda good, in hindsight, an 'on the way' breakfast would have been from McDonald's most likely.

Shoes dropped off, Mistress and I then decided to do some shopping in the central city.  After having breakfast at a cafe.  Which was nice and civilised and relaxed.  The conversation that comes to mind from over our coffee and orange juice was how to synchronise our shifts when we both have jobs, to attempt to ensure there is an adult around when the kids go to school and when they come back - Mistress on early shift and me on later, or vice versa.  One of those 'wow I never thought I would have this conversation if I look back a month' moments.

Was a lovely walk into the shopping district, past some historical buildings.  As well as the neo colonial nice stuff, I don't know why on earth they heritage list the Stalinist and Brutalist Just Damned Ugly stuff from the 50s and 60s.  Then into town, and a mini discussion as to how I would prefer to shop for suits at the department stores rather than boutique menswear places.  Mistress picked up something about being in stores in my price range, but I obviously didn't make the point enough, as will be seen shortly.

We went into a place that had a closing down sale - Mistress later said that it was closing down because an outlet store was opening up somewhere else in the CBD - with 50 to 70% off.  The suits were starting price of $1700 to $2200ish, and so fifty percent off that was still hella expensive, so we concentrated on the shirts and ties - Mistress said I needed a Power Tie, to go along with the Power Shoes she had helped me pick out a couple of weeks ago.  Even then, with the shirts, the cheapest before sales was $150, with the average price being around the $300 mark.

I am quite happy to spend up to $100 on a nice shirt - Mistress said I needed a good white one - but it has to be nice.  So the $150 shirt after sales was okay, but it wasn't great.  And then the sleeves weren't quite perfect - they were a bit long on me, so the store could alter them for thirty dollars, so $105 for a shirt I wasn't in love with.  I wasn't convinced, so I retreated to the doorway while Mistress did some shopping for Sir.

Then the next store we went to was the fanciest menswear store I think I have ever been in.  Mistress started off by saying that she was looking for a retro suit for her partner (Sir) and then glanced over at me and said Elf here is looking for a suit as well.  So I felt almost an afterthought already, but I tried to swallow it down as much as I could, I knew I was signing up as a secondary well before I got Here.  So anyways, we got over to the suit area, imported from Italy even, and I thought I was handling it okay until I saw the price on the sleeve, when it was already on me.  $2250.  And I had a heart attack on the spot.

I was reviewing the day with Mistress much later - still heaps to write about here - and she said she saw the look of panic in my eye when the staff member said that the suit only needed one button done up rather than the two.  Maybe I flushed in embarrassment or something.  I dunno whether it was then or earlier, realising I was wearing really daggy clothes in this fancy fancy store, but a tinge of embarrassment about that as well.  And after I saw the price tag, I couldn't get the suit jacket off fast enough.

I see a price tag over two thousand dollars, and I see an airfare to the other side of the world.  Well, that's what I would have seen before getting Here, because I believe that being with Mistress, my intercontinental travel will be curtailed somewhat.  Why go to the other side of the planet when I am so happy Here?  The Paris art galleries would be nice again though.  With Mistress...

That was a happy thought, and then to dive back into my heart attack land.

So yes, $2000 suits, $900 shoes, $300 ties.  It was soooooo not my type of store.  I was edging closer and closer to the door, and would have been quite comfortable standing outside, but Mistress was quite happy to wander around, and again, reviewing later, she was quite oblivious to the panic rising up my throat.  For some reason my confidence was crumbling, massively.  Thinking on it now, maybe it was a feeling that if Mistress was in the store, that it was the type of store she wants her guys to shop in, and the feeling of inadequacy that I couldn't afford, that I wasn't comfortable in there.  Yeah, I think I may have hit the nail on the head there.  I could have wandered around looking, but to have that suit jacket on, yeah, my mind went haywire at that.

By the time we walked out - without buying anything, may I add - Mistress had finally twigged that I was a bit unhappy, and was trying to uncover the reasoning.  At the time, I thought it was more about being an afterthought to Sir, but the more I have dug into the issues since it happened, it was just about my comfort levels around expensive things.  I did need to sit down and have a coffee though, rather than head into the next store head on.  I had been in the mood for shopping, but that enthusiasm had been strangled by the episode in fancy store.

Sat down, had a coffee, tried to talk my issues out, still hadn't been sorted by the time we left the cafe, but then we found a Body Shop style store, but better.  I had always been on a winner sending gifts from there to my exes, and Mistress, even though she had walked past the place a hundred times, had never been in.  The smells, the scents of the body washes, the soaps, the hand creams - lovely.  Mistress was happy, and I was happy, she caught me smiling again a couple of times.  I wanted to buy her something, but nothing was jumping out and grabbing her, and she led me out of the store, bank balance intact.  And that had cheered the both of us up.  Need to remember that for next time either of us have a central city meltdown.  Coffee, then Body Shop or similar.  Or maybe in reverse.  Nah, we needed the sit down time in the cafe to start recovering from the previous experience.

We then did some girly shopping.  As in, Mistress went around her kind of stores and touched heaps of stuff, and tried on the stuff that I wanted to see her in.  But she always kept finding something wrong with the stuff she tried on.  And we have discovered that bubble dresses do absolutely NOTHING for her.  Even though coral or a similar shade of orange looks sooooo good on her, even that can't undo the bubble butt effect.

So, about half a dozen of these stores.  This particular store, Mistress said I would love something like this, but I'm not even going to look at the price tag, and then wandered off again.  Sales assistant came over when she was at the other rack and said, can I help you, would you like to try anything on.  Mistress started saying no, and then I piped up, I was still at the rack that she liked, and said, you know you want to try this on, go on, go on - not quite like the tea lady in Father Ted, but close enough hahaha.  Mistress demurred, but then decided to try it in two sizes.  I assumed the position on the seat outside the changing room, like all the other men before me haha.

A little bit later, a light tap on my shoulder, I looked up and Mistress did the head movement to come and have a look.  That should have been my first sign, usually she stomped out in front of me and looked in the mirrors in the actual store.  This time she wanted me to look in the changeroom area with her.  She was almost fluttering like a butterfly this way and that, no words, until I said, do you like it.  Second sign, usually when she was trying stuff on, she was the first to speak to point out the flaws.  She absolutely loved it.  And it does look absolutely fabulous on her.

She went back into her changing area, like a prisoner being sent to the gulag, unhappy at the thought of the pretty being taken off her.  I wandered to the rack, had a look at the price tag, had a bit of a heart attack, but acceptable in the circumstances - those circumstances being that Mistress didn't see ANY flaws in the dress, which was a first in my experience, and I have been following along behind her in clothes shops for about three weeks now - and resolved that, if Mistress didn't actually Order me not to buy the thing, then I would bring the debit card out.

I have a job coming online very soon, and I am - well, was - kinda sorta rich at the moment.  Mistress came out of the change area, slinking out of the store, almost pouting, the precious eluding her yet again.  I stopped her, said, how much do you want that dress.  She kinda tried to put the Boss eyes on, trying to get the gumption up to say no, absolutely not.  But when she said no, it came out as more a whimper than any type of Voice ordering me around.  I asked her a couple of more times, and she was getting less and less strength in her denials of wanting it.

The shop assistant, who obviously could see a sale coming here, piped up and said, oh, your husband seems to like it.  Which made both Mistress and I crack up completely, with her saying she wouldn't know what the husband thought, and I added, as I was almost crying with laughter, well, she's going through a divorce at the moment.  By the third time I had asked, I had made my mind up, and the dress was bought.  I think Mistress melted into a puddle against my back, when the assistant was wrapping it up into the bag.  It was exactly the style she had been looking for for weeks, summery, colourful, and all the rest.

For about the next half hour, I was kinda just leading around this puddle of squee, the artist formerly known as Mistress, as she luxuriated in my generosity.  Towards the latter part of this squee time, I was kinda starting to go into shock myself at the amount of money I had just dropped on one dress.  But, heh, being comfortable enough to hold hands with The Boss, for the first time since I got here, and just having her lean on my shoulder as we walked down the street, would have been worth almost any cost.  Gah, not only am I generous, but I am overly sentimental as well hahaha.

We were feeling peckish and were thinking of lunch, when Mistress saw this suit shop that had a good sale on, and came out of her squeeness and directed me in.  She had been leading me out of the chain store menswear places because she didn't think the service was up to scratch, or the suits were too trendy and would be out of fashion tomorrow.  She wanted somewhere with a bit of service, where I would be measured up correctly, and the staff weren't Gen Y brainless blondes who would just raise their eyebrow quizzically or giggle if I - or more to the point, Mistress - had any questions.

So, as soon as we walked in, the guy had already pegged my general measurements.  He had me try on two suit jackets, was all over me in a way that I haven't had shop staff EVER pay attention to me.  As well as letting me show off to Mistress, but only after he had made sure the suits looked good on me.  Before we got to try on a third colour, a shade of blue which has taken over from navy in suitware - navy never looked good on me anyways - he had another customer come in.  So I tried the charcoal pinstripe, and the grey, and after much oohing and ahhing from both Mistress and myself, we went with the grey.  Needs to be taken up somewhat, which will be ready by Friday.  White shirt, $120 - by this stage I had been dropping so much cash that I was in somewhat of a spending shock.  And Mistress chose a couple of ties for me - one of which she paid for herself.

Mistress may have been squee when she left her store after I bought the dress, but after I left the suit store, I was just kind of exhausted.  And realised we hadn't had lunch, but it was too late to grab some before we had to head home.  Got some holding hand time again, with the knowing smile and all from her, as we walked back to the car park.

Got home, we were planning on going out for a bit of a lecture last night, but Sir apparently was working late, and both Mistress and I were exhausted and a tad hungry, so we changed plans and were going to have an evening at home with Mistress' parents coming around for dinner.  They had been tapped on the shoulder to babysit, so they were coming over anyways.  Then, just as Mistress was heading out the door to pick up child two from after school sports, Sir bounded in.  Mistress had appeared unhappy on the phone at him working late, so he decided not to.

At this point, I was hungry, and Mistress was reorganising the day in her head in about two minutes flat, and there seemed to be about four changes of plans in five minutes, and I was confused, but the end point was that we were heading out as per Plan A - to this speech thing that Mistress wanted to take us boys to.  Both of us are interested in the subject of the speech, so that is why we needed a babysitter.

So, into the car about half an hour later, Mistress telling Sir what an awesome day it had been shopping with me.  Me kind of being uber quiet in the back, and Sir turning around and saying what was up with me.  Just tired, at that stage.

I think what started it off was Mistress saying how uncomfortable I was in fancy store, and Sir brimming with excitement at the thought of going in there to view $900 shoes.  Which you can send back to the manufacturer in England to get refurbished when they get a bit worn.  The phrase 'you get what you pay for' from Sir comes to mind.  I believe I was rolling my eyes in the back at this stage, at the thought of paying that much for shoes.  Then a bit later on, Mistress said that she was dragging me out of the 'cheap and crappy' chain menswear stores, and I piped up and said oh, those cheap and crappy stores are where I have mainly been shopping my entire adult life.  Feeling cheap and crappy myself.

Then Sir said 'you dress for where you want to be, not for where you are now'.  And I literally hit the roof.  I don't want to be anywhere in the work environment other than where I have been in the past, and where I will be in the near future.  I have no driving ambition to be management or anything.  It just made me feel as if what I do well in my job wasn't valued at all, that I have to be a go getter and earn the big dollars and climb the corporate ladder to be anything in the workplace.  To be anything at home as well.  I didn't articulate it like that at all though, it came out more as a strangled shriek, with a side order of 'thank you for making me feel utter crap' attitude thrown in.

Sir took exception to my attitude.  And when I wouldn't back down, he pulled to the side of the highway, and glared in his I Am Going To Order You Around way.  And attempted to order me around.  I assented, but with attitude.  He then said if you don't wind back, I am going to take you out of the car by your lips and beat you in the middle of the highway.  I was still seeing red, and I hesitated, and almost said 'go ahead then'.  And I know it wouldn't be one of those fun beatings, it would be painful and I would deserve it and everything, but I almost, almost double dared him to.  That's how angry I was.  And also, that is how much I am screaming out for a good beating.

I backed down, with bitterness still in my voice, and Sir ordered me to look out the window for five minutes and think happy thoughts.  I looked out the window alright, as we got back on the highway, but the thoughts were anything but happy.  About five or ten minutes later, when I had cooled down somewhat, I recognised signs in my behaviour similar to when I have self sabotaged my previous relationships - not that I would ever attempt to sabotage Mistress (or Sir) like I did exes in the past, but I recognised the attitude, the behaviour as similar.  Which didn't come across as a good sign to me.

Delving deeper, my innermost being doesn't yet accept me as being worthy of happiness.  So with the last month being 99.9% happiness, my innermost being, where my depression, my low self esteem, and low self worth are still battling all these new things coming into my life, tooth and nail in some instances, my innermost being is rebelling, subconsiously or unconsciously even.  I recognise these things in myself, after analysing the issues for the last twenty years, but I still am unsure how to overcome them.

With Mistress and Sir assisting me, hopefully.

Sir said something funny the other day.  When he was out and about doing his own thing, and Mistress and I were at home, he came back and said it was funny, he had missed the BOTH of us.  I smirked at him, and then he tried to reverse his initial comment by saying he would beat me later.  If only.

So, back to yesterday.  I had burst into tears at the back.  Sir asked whether anyone had ever had a go at me about my lack of ambition, and we tried to get the conversation rolling back onto some semblance of positivity.  Mistress said that with me almost saying yes to being beaten on the highway, that was me perhaps needing a reminder of my place in the grand scheme of things - she goes through similar phases herself, by the way.  I tried to explain that I always had a self image of being George off Seinfeld.  Which didn't work all that much, because Mistress dislikes Seinfeld, and Sir apparently never watched it.  But the fat, short, bald one.  Mistress tried to cheer me up by saying George was much more a wanker than you will ever be, but it is an idea that has lodged in my head for fifteen years or so, so it might take a while to ease that idea out.

Went to speech.  Was a good speech, but I was famished by this stage, and tired, and emotional, and feeling very much the fifth wheel in the relationship again, and not up to large groups of people.  So when Sir and Mistress socialised over coffee afterwards, I consumed cookies like there was no tomorrow, and was very wall flower off to the side, trying not to attract any attention.

Then when we got home, Mistress' parents were just starting their dinner - I assume they had already fed the children - and therefore I felt I had to be social, rather than collapse in a quiet corner like I was wanting to.  The question of me driving came up, and I said yes, I would be learning.  Child one piped up and said but you can't in your condition can you?  Meaning the epilepsy.  I snapped back but managed to bite my tongue only two words in, and counted to ten.  Which is progress for me.  As Mistress said later, he is only <insert age here> and therefore doesn't know when he puts his foot in it.

And she said that I should be less sensitive.  I am trying my best.  Juggling about five different things in the air, and trying to keep everyone happy.  When the parents left and the children went to bed, I was trying to explain myself to Mistress, explain what had gone off track with me for the day.  I told her that I thought that it would have gotten easier the further into this situation we get, but it has gotten more difficult.  She said of course it is difficult, 24/7, trying to cope day after day after day without being able to - escape, I guess would be the best word.  I need to learn to retreat to quiet spots when I get stressed, well retreat better and quicker than I have been doing the past few days.

Or I need to learn to manage my stress better, to stress less about the little things as I have been doing the last few days.  Maybe I need to go back into therapy again.  Mistress joked this morning that me talking to them, and writing stuff in my blog is better than therapy.  I said yeah, well this way I get candlewaxed or beaten every couple of weeks, as I then kissed as far down her cleavage on her dressing gown as I could see hahaha.

As she said this morning - We love you.  We will only ever upset you accidentally.  We hate to see you upset.  We want to help when you are struggling.

And as she said last night - You won't fuck this up.  We won't let you.

Now, long hot shower and refresh myself for the day.  Oh, and breakfast.  Before midday, today, methinks.  Wash all this negativity away, and be happy smiley again as soon as is elfily possible.