Bestuff - early social media

Thanks for everyone who read and enjoyed last weeks outdoor edition of the blog not least the pictures.
This week I'm going back a bit in time to around ten years ago before some of you were online even and looking at one site I loved in the before Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr were the social media of choice.
The main reason you join any kind of social media is to form connections with others,  in other words it's the cyber equivalent of face to face networking so you need to find thinks that link you to who share things in common.
The mainly British social media of choice in the 2000's was Friends Reunited that worked though connecting you to schools, colleges, university and workplaces to others who had connections to them.
Bestuff was an international site that did things in way that soon become more the norm.

Rather than looking at where you've been, it looked at what you liked such as favourite films, foods, pets, hobbies, dating likes and so on in groups created by users which you'd mark up as likes that added into a mosaic collection of your "Bestuff".

 New Stuff, new categories were listed you you could keep up and by going through categories you could find your "Bestuff" and share it.
It was a bit like a game where you'd go around looking for and creating things you'd share.
It's a bit like Tumblr where you look for thing you like, reblog and follow each other except it was a bit less high tech and didn't have the messaging sophistication.
There was a Friends section you could add those you shared the most stuff with and a messaging board and my best buddy on there is in that screenshot, Tribble, to whom we had a keenly felt relationship between us.
It closed down after a period of graveyard languishing a few years back but part of my past includes this early social media so when I think  back to things when this blog was in its infancy, I do think of those days by the "Big Computer" on sites like that before joining Google Plus and Tumblr.
Of the two I'd say Tumblr is the busier by far and Google Plus is one of those things I file under was encouraged by a group of friends who seemed to want to leave Facebook but then decided freebees were worth more to them than better privacy and control of who you posted too and promptly left me on there as I refuse to do facebook. Actually I have two accounts but do wonder from time to time about scrapping one completely since I seldom use the other.

Outdoor week

Phew, it's been a warm week out with plenty of sunshine so I've been out for quite a while so if I haven't been as active as I might on social media, that's unfortunate but I honestly feel it's better to prioritize my physical and psychological well-being.
Fresh air and exposure to sunlight  ultimately are better for me.
One recurring problem I have on social media is the lack of respect  a number of people have for your own boundaries such as being followed by very graphic pornographic  accounts that leave absolutely nothing to the imagination and them to even reblog your posts to accounts full of such material when then starts to bring more of their followers interacting with you.
Why does anyone think I want to be seeing endless genitalia on display often engaged in highly sexual acts especially when I have it clearly shown on my accounts I don't wish for it and will remove people that disrespect that?
One the other hand my second best friend furry ab comic is coming along quite well at a point the main character not giving the story away is at an important stage in her immersion into the world of littles and how being in that position plays out with the all too real consequences and emotions.
While it's never a text book of it, it does help in illuminating and bring to life the concepts and 'how would it feel if I were to' parts that anyone with an interest around Caregiver/little relationships in the broadest sense needs to consider before jumping in with both feet.
The comments section also has helped in explaining the importance of consent, the use of safewords and so to anyone who *may* be curious themselves.
As well, I've been in touch with a friend to get arrangements all fixed to travel to Susan's funeral as it's a few hundred miles away which should help with closure.

Closing the chapter week

I guess the first thing I wish to do is to thank everyone who either left comments  on the blog or at certain sites regarding last weeks entry cos I wasn't in truth sure how to write something that payed homage to my friend that also acknowledged those differences between us.
I have been in touch with that common friend since.
Things are slowly working there way through which these things do with the date for the cremation being fixed and so at an emotional level I've been tying up as many loose ends as possible to help that whole process of moving on.
I have been continuing on with my exercise even with the heavy rain and as at this weekend heavy intermittent showers, pausing as I felt the need to reflect on past events and let those emotions out rather than holding them in as I have in the past.
Just being in the open air, looking at the fields, watching the lambs going 'Baa' while the birds twitter overhead and the horses are also out dashing toward the fence as you look on all is helping reset me.
It's certainly more settling than current international relations are I can tell you.
I'm also working on a pet project that despite one  false start should prove useful for me as time goes on.

R.I.P Susan

First off thanks two my two recent followers on this blog.
Secondly we're looking back this week at the life of a person who was an important part of my life recently.

Part of what lead to more exploration of this life of mine is tied up with someone, namely Susan who had MS that died Tuesday last and whose death I have been struggling with over the last few days.
They had a Grammar School education with a bias  toward the arts and humanities that showed itself in the breadth of general knowledge they had coupled with razor fast wit.
Like much of this side of my life it started out when I got online and I joined a site which is no longer with us called Experience Project was set up by a lot people with M.S. as a means of sharing experiences but it wasn't long people they moved beyond  M.S. and into all sorts of things that were in peoples lives.
It would of been around 2010 that I encountered user NaughtySusi around a period where I had looked at some sites connected around people whose lives are more like a child's but had a ton of issues with and I found groups she had joined and written stories and experiences connected around being a little and in particular around adults who relive their school days in various ways  such as restudying school subjects, the wearing of (traditional) school type uniforms and particularly here in the UK, those who do have a longing for and prefer to get school type discipline such as spanking that existed in state schools until 1987.
It was through reading these entries and corresponding through comments, messaging on site and later on email that we both explored our interests in all three and after a while, I was able to meet several people face to face on a site that was more around Adult Littles without  a constant backdrop of at the time very out of hand sexual content and contact by 'sissies'.
It was no accident the first time I met her and two other people I was dressed as a school girl because through a fairly austere upbringing and personal disabilities I wasn't given nor capable of going down the more frilled and pastelish pretty little girl side and at the first big gathering where I met a good many others including my second bestest friend I presented to them as that.
It wasn't long before I started to go to bigger meet ups and when I did until mid 2016, I was always with her and a n other staying with them before travelling down to where we all stayed for several days before returning and making my way back home.
One of their strong points was cooking and until retiring they had been a Meat Technician for a Butchers so she could turn any piece of meat into a delicious meal and on a number of occasions had cooked with the help of others full cooked dinners where we met up as it was self catering with a big kitchen area.
Another was their general knowledge which she put to good use in running quizzes at various events.
As I mentioned in this blog in late 2014 because of issues I was having around my attitudes and behaviours that lead to the resumption of spanking and parenting but this was a topic that initially both of us had talked of some years before which after a while I did openly show  my interest around having this as an 'adult'.
It wasn't long after we met up face to face that I actually saw first hand she had actually got it arranged that she was and while much took place in private, more lighter hand spanking and corner time was done in my company.
I began to feel that I wanted to experience this whenever I was with them and their friend not least because in many ways I was being supervised more like a child and so I plucked up the courage to broach the subject.
They formed an agreement to spank me with no exceptions starting very much as they meant to go on with a paddling, brought in more chores and contributing in my relationship with them and Susan took an interest in this understanding how much I badly needed it.
Given how much this helped to change things for the better  for me, this is something I am most grateful for her exploration and encouragement to have myself spanked for my own good.
In any relationship, there are always somethings you may not see eye to eye on and it is fair to say gender politics and devolution were two we strongly disagreed over and whereas I was for being more circumspect around giving opinions not requested, she was not. What you saw was what you got unwrapped up.
As time went by, it became more obvious to me at least, her MS was progressing as she felt more in discomfort, started to have more issues with balance, eventually requiring a electric wheelchair to get any distance.
Indeed in some respects the last big meet up she attended brought much of this into focus not being able to take part in the outdoor activities or those that required going upstairs and spending quite a bit of her time having a drink and the odd smoke (although she was cutting them down) whereas in the past she was involved more to the point of being able to go to nearby park and 'play'. I think while there she sensed that.
Telling she didn't make the 2016 Halloween meet up at her friends nor any of the subsequent events we normally attended although if I was at her friends she'd phone and talk with us such as at last years Halloween party.
As painful as this is for all of us who were in her life right now, I feel she's very much at peace and so its better to give thanks for the life she lived, her involvement in ours and personally for what she gave freely to me.
Thanks for being in our lives, Susan.
x

Comic memories

After last weeks ouchie experiences my mind drifted back a bit to when it was my Gran was still about and not least comics cos she always bought me a comic every week I'd go visit here or if I couldn't they would be saved up until I could.
I didn't generally go much for superman hero type comics but more regular girl or mixed gender ones although I did read the cartoon strips in newspapers .
I also did buy cartoon books usually a yearly annual that collected the whole series on better quality paper and in hindsight it had to be said some of them did have spanking depicted in them because in that era it was just a social norm as it was for us too.

We'd just laugh our socks off at this whole situation envying Superman for his heat resistant can take anything behind.
I also at one time had a annual that had a multi page strip series about the a well to do mother struggling to control her teen daughter using the then contemporary pop psychology of just ignoring episodes as they were 'phases' you'd go through and grown out of which I suspect was a thinly disguised dig at Doctor Spock's child rearing guidance and his followers where she just tears up that guidance and takes her across her lap for a hairbrushing!
Actually this week I've been pretty good, helping out, not making messes and have managed to walk the furthest I've done for years without getting out of breath that helps with weekends as the meals tend to be bigger and more loaded with fats and that although this weekend I had some community magazines to deliver on foot plus a card for Mommy.
I'll just slowly work my way through the easter egg and chocolate concentrating on being good I think.