Riding Freedom

Seeing we've just started into the new month, I thought I'd kick off the first entry of March with something that goes back a few years where two friends and I read a book together, sharing our thoughts on it.

 Written in 1998 by Pam Munoz Ryan, Riding Freedom is a fictionalized story about a mid 1800's pioneering woman, Charlotte Parkhurst who was raised in a orphanage for boys  that tells the tale of her life from escaping the orphanage, becoming a legendary stagecoach driver as "Charley", getting a ranch of her own in California and being the first American woman to vote.
While the book has received a number of positive reviews from people such as the School Library Journal and I loved the gritty female emancipation theme it contains, I wasn't to taken with the way it was written.
To me it feels more a straight on fictionalized retelling of a life being more an account of  "Charley's" life from the orphanage , escaping life limited to domestic  chores  to owning a smallholding than a actual story, fascinating for the historical detail but lacking in character development in areas like examining in detail how she felt and how whole incidents really played out.
This was especially noticeable in the secondary characters such as Ebeneezer as we seldom really got to know them, having more a cursory description  that lift them more into your minds eye although there was so much that could of been made of it.
A disappointment.

Thoughts on being away

As you may of noticed I was actually away last week and on the other blog  I did publish an account of that time in something like chronological order which is more the how and the what part of this thing.
It's usually the thing on this blog to look more at what I felt about that time and what if anything I had learnt from that time away cos apart from ouchie content, this blog is about the emotional side of life.

 One thing to talk about is unlearning the Cotton Wool  people misguidedly put you in as a disabled child because they feel you need more protection but the trouble is that leaves you not to learn how to survive and to actually grow which requires a certain amount of resistance not unlike in working out you start off low increasing as you become stronger.

You do need risk and being challenged even accepting your limitations so you learn to work at the almost extent of your abilities, getting the most out of life and actually maturing a little, learning to deal with say climbing over rock, walking carefully sideways to get along ledges is something I had to learn rather than run away from this week.

Same goes with dealing with winds even if needed support, I had to learn to accept and trust that rather than chickening out or screaming my head off when the going got tough, finding courage and inner strength.

I've been there and done that and I dare say I'm not alone in it but I need to be better because such an set of attitudes limits my own enjoyment of life with the actual disabilities I've got so I need to use and develop my abilities too.

I know I made one miscalculation in that week but I lived going out of my comfort zone and did stuff I never managed before which didn't just feel good to me but also impressed others not by droning on about my disabilities but actually using the abilities I have.

Ditto helping out whenever I could doing chores to make a contribution to other peoples enjoyment and getting the feeling of being a net contributor to everyone's enjoyment of our time together rather than just using people to meet my own needs.

I think I'm moving on.

n

Past lives that feed into the present

 Following on from last week we're back to Summer 2012 and a classic post at one site.

 I love very kawaii Hello Kitty slipper socks.

I noticed some people have been about concepts such as 'shame' in connection with acknowledging a male past when living 24/7 as a woman but how many of you who have little interest in more childlike interests have ever considered how those of us who do feel?

Depending on your circumstances you may not necessarily be able to share some information about your interests at work or even within your own family, having to remove the evidence before any visits to your place. And then there all that misinformation in the popular press sticking the 'p' word on us with no real justification.

This said I'm not ashamed of this side of me at all because it's always been a part of me in real life as much as I've been at this site. 

Here's to mutual toleration and understanding. 

Moving forward by going back

 

Covid has come and much of what went on before will just not happen thanks to regulations and what naught so really this blogs focus will be lacking less a direction and more an opportunity to so we need to think more about what this will be about.

I feel we need to move away from what had been the "bread and butter" of posts from the last few years and focus more on things around my feelings and emotions as little, finding the time between the regulations to go out on my swing and just play more.

Things will be different.

Sanriotown issues and more

 It was with some shock to find on Friday last an activity that had been a part of my internet life for a long time just wasn't available outside of the other business talked about elsewhere and still isn't available as I type this.

For almost as long as this blog has been going, Sanriotown.com was the first port of call not just for The Game but also things such as the busy forum where by design discussions were never 18+ which suited me as most adult conversations go over my head and don't really fit in my life, offered wallpaper and screen-savers.

They also has something I just adored, a oh so kawaii email with customization of the domains for whatever sanriotown character you liked  which for me meant I had a me @hellokitty.com email address that linked directly to things such as ecards you could people at Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas and that

When I went to look at it, my email had gone with over a decades worth of stored emails from past organizations and acquaintances 

The overall impression is that sanriotown.com and Hello Kitty Online is for all intents and purposes dead joining other sites we used such as experience project, friends reunited, beststuff and the GeoCities blogging platform in the internet graveyard. 

Something else I wish to get off my chest is I have no interest in sissification and all it's female dominate misandry driven tropes having had more than enough people on tumblr and on other no longer with us sites try to bracket me in with all that stuff.

I'm into age regression, being an adult but acting from a age regressed little/middle girl mindset where everything is from my own childhood era what it was and seen as suitable for an actual child not some kink based game.

I like boys as in adult males who are age regressed to be just that, with gumption, purpose and to act and dress like one not in ridiculously exposing super fussy dresses that no girl would be seen dead in while being treated in grossly humiliating fashion by bossy women.
I feel it's wrong to 'make' boys like that and a insulting parody of real femininity.
  

Is there a place for the Adult Age Regressor

Sometimes  back to places at the bequest of a friend can bring some matters back into focus such as the differences between terminology between Age Regression and Age Play cos in some respects we tend not to fit in so well with Age Play groups not that I'm saying anything against individuals at all but sometimes long for places free from those eighteen or under from the drama and need to be super careful about not messaging them least anyone make out you were doing things you shouldn't (even if like me you just wouldn't) and teen spats.

For us being Little means being child-like in the mindset of a child even if legally we're adults acting upon those feelings and emotions as if we were that child again all (emotional) age appropriate.

The thing we find is Age play communities tend to go with kink such as BDSM and they seem to see a Little as a Submissive in a power dynamic to a Dominant  whole very much rules the roost often involving submissive gains with props, some of which do inflict pain and frequently a sexual side that is controlling.

Of course it need not be all like that, everyone is an individual, but the online version in particular seems to lack any protective,nurturing sides with empathy more a power trip mutually agreed to.

For us while there are Caregivers, those people are about providing the stability, guidance and love that perhaps we didn't get when we were younger or because of trauma or abuse we find loving ourselves and trusting others so much more the harder even if some situations they may chastise us (by consent).

Age Play communities often don't really want us around and trying to find places that do like over 18 age regressors who may prefer time with legal adults and who may have meetings and the like going on seems so hard at times.

Check your privilege

One modern trend is the "Culture wars" that are played out on social media, on campuses, in the courts with the battle cry "Check your privilege" as  its supports hold being in whole social groups gives you unearned and unwarranted advantages that effectively hold others back.
At least that's how they see it.

The retort to the proposition that criticism of one Meghan Markle is racially motivated suggesting it had more to do with how her actions are seen as met on BBC Tv's question time with the person being told they were not fit to comment as a white male and to "check their privilege" by a minority rights lecturer.

Their proposition runs black people only know how in lots of ways they are discriminated against and put down verbally and so any time a criticism is  made by a mainly white source such as the Mass Media, then it is. The end.

The Mass Media here have things to answer for, obsessive interests, playing people off  and yes sometimes racially motivated (or at least culturally insensitive) commentary but in this instance many in Britain's BME community do agree with that man.

A bigger argument can be made  that the process of comparing and contrasting similar people by gender and role (the obvious example being Catherine and Meghan) that it's less about race so much it is about what the roles of "Royal" women should be that editors are trying to shape.
Less racism, more misogyny if you like.

More to the point, can a blanket assumption of white privilege be upheld as if just being white puts you further forward on the starting block ignoring poverty, education (the lowest levels of attainment are white working class males). chronic disabilities and even the extent to which you applied your abilities studying or training?

If a black women in her twenties and a white male of the same age both win a 200 metre race can we say he's had every advantage and didn't earn his win? What if she'd of come from a well off background background and he hadn't possibly having health issues in his early childhood? 

Because I'm white does that mean I'm privileged beyond that anyone who is black even with many many long term health issues and disabilities? Things that have resulted in discrimination, verbal and physical abuse even?
Do you even 'get' me and my needs?

I suspect as a tool for saying we ought to be sensitive to others needs  and think before we make wide statements this term really is inadequate for the complexity of what constitutes advantage  and the extent to which any group of people use it.
It also has the ability to promote discrimination itself.