I was full-time on NiteFlirt for about 19.5 months, from July 15, 2010 through about the end of February 2012, and I earned all my awards during that time. Awards are based on semi-monthly periods, so two awards equals one month.

Here are my awards.

That means:

• I was in the top 9% for 15.5 months (79% of the time, during which I moved twice)
• I was in the top 4% for 11.5 months (58% of the time)
• I was in the top 1% for 4.5 months (23% of the time)

The “Rising Star” award means that I was one of the top 40 newcomers for all but one period in my first 3 months.

I had NO idea.

I mean, I knew that people said that I rose in rankings more quickly than most people did. But that’s subjective, anecdotal perception. It is incredibly easy to dismiss perceptions emotionally and intellectually.

It is another thing altogether to know that I was in the top 1% of earners on NiteFlirt within 6 weeks of joining the site.

Top one percent. Six weeks after joining.

Holy crap.

I’m blown away.

And then, I was consistently within in the top 4% on the site until my husband got the job here, and I wasn’t our sole source of income anymore.

I’ll tell other Flirts my income numbers if you write me privately. But I don’t want to blow the fantasy lid off anyone’s Financial Domination fantasies by publishing my numbers. Sorry, callers, you just have to wonder.

(Why Ms Chance, is that grin a sign of emotional sadism? Mayyyyyyyybe)

Ohhhhhh data. You give me such delicious feelings of certainty. And you throw such wrenches into my musings about what I want to do next with my professional life. Just like a good lover should, you encourage and challenge me.

I love you, data. I’ve missed you, man.

Also: Holy crap, I’m blown away.

—–

I hope this email finds you well.

I hope your New Birthday Year yields pleasant memories, challenges met, puzzles solved, and a sense of growth.

My 2012 was intense, and ended with a series of difficult question marks.

My January has, unbelievably, resolved into a series of affirmations in a way that makes me suspect, yet again, that my life has been edited for continuity and thematic consistency.

I continue to fantasize, as I have since I met you, that you’ll show up at my door one day, unannounced. There aren’t a lot of happy reasons on your side to cause that to happen, so I don’t wish it to happen, but I wonder about it all the same.

The 2013 version has you arriving with all your intensity intact, determined to do something dramatic, with an attaché case full of cash, uncertain which offer you’ll make… To my husband? To me? To neither?

What you wouldn’t expect, I don’t think, is to be greeted warmly, offered horrifically American tea, and offered sincere condolences on whichever Big D caused you to arrive to us: Divorce or Death. We listen and mourn with you as naturally as if we had last been together yesterday.

Of course I won’t leave him. Of course he wouldn’t take money to “tell me I could go.” You knew that, but it seemed like a good gesture at some point in your sleep-deprived scheming. At least you didn’t bring the gun.

My bed is upstairs, my husband’s is downstairs, so I invite you to lie down with me, to let yourself sleep, with me beside you. It will all make more sense after some rest, some food, some hydration, a shower, and playing with our dogs for a bit. Feeling me hug you, kiss you, hold you close, fuck you if you wish, initiating nothing but nurture, giving you nothing but warmth, in our home, which feels cozy and full and oddly relaxing.

My life is fuller now, more open. We could have now what we should have been able to have back then, from my perspective. Nowadays, we can’t have that from your perspective. But that doesn’t make me sad anymore.

It does, however, make me miss you.

I hope this email finds you well.

The way I got the gig was to write the organizers and say approximately “I’m willing to present free if you need an awkward slot filled.” Saturday morning 9 am after a late dungeon party? You betcha!

So I put together a list of classes I’m willing to teach. I’m sure I’ll be updating it, but I wanted to remember how it started.

* Distance BDSM and Phone Sex
* Kinky Ice Breaker Game: “Choose An Offer”
* Hosting Play Parties
* Basic BDSM Safety & Negotiations

1. Distance BDSM and Phone Sex – sharing my experiences, ideas, mistakes, and advice on distance relationships and phone sex, from long-term distance to a week apart. As a phone sex operator, a switch, and someone who has participated in long-distance relationships with lovers, Doms, and subs, I understand that ache when you want to be together but can’t… And how to turn that desire into intimate shared memories.

2. Kinky Ice Breaker Game: “Choose An Offer” – a fun, flirty, easy, low-pressure way to allow guests to get to know each others, and find out who might be interested in you! The game consists of people making offers of varying levels of naughtiness (spank me, I’ll paddle you, grope me, I’ll rub your shoulders), people choosing offers which interest them, and 60-second rapidly-negotiated warm-up-level scenes. Class time includes a few rounds of game play for all participants!

3. Hosting Play Parties – discussion of some legal, logistical, and community issues to be aware of when you’re considering hosting play parties in your home. How do you structure invites? Space? Toys? Snacks? Costs? Nudity? Sex? Rules? Enforcement of rules? Neighbors? Dungeon Masters / Monitors? Group dynamics? Privacy? Sound? How do you use FetLife? And does hosting make you a community leader, a controlling narcissist, or both? (Hint: it’s totally both)

4. Basic BDSM Safety & Negotiations – An interactive discussion about the basics of safety and negotiations. Where should I avoid making impact? What helps keeps rope bondage safer? How do I talk with a potential play partner before we play? What are expectations at most events and parties? Strongly recommended for newcomers to the scene, but welcome for anyone who wants a refresher.

Bio:
Known personally as “Angela”, on FetLife as “PlaySmart”, and as “Galiana Chance” in her career as a phone sex operator, Galiana and her husband are exhaustingly active members of the Central IL BDSM community. They host educational events, a monthly Meet n Greet, and a usually-monthly play party.

Galiana learned phone sex because Angela is a non-monogamous bisexual switch with long-distance lovers.

Galiana Chance has been a successful phone sex operator on NiteFlirt (the most popular phone sex web site in the US per Alexa rankings). For about six months when she was full-time, she was regularly in the top 10 most popular providers, and very early one Tuesday morning, she was number 1.

In her spare time, Angela makes up more names for herself while caring for her rescue mutts, PlaySmart uses too many words on FetLife, and Galiana sometimes writes about phone sex and other kinky life issues at her Jane’s Guide recommended blog: http://galianachance.net/blog/about/

Presentation Experience:
I presented at Beat Me in St Louis 2013 (it went well for Saturday at 9 am). I have led kinky classes in central IL, a monthly kinky munch in central IL, and 20 years of professional non-kinky classes and workshops on technical topics. References are available upon request for my presentation / group dynamics skills.

Feedback:
-from Beat Me in St Louis 2013-

Funny, engaging, informative and fun

I am so glad I rolled out of bed for her! Excellent and gave me fantastic ideas

Love, love the ideas. You were descriptively awesome.

Funny, informative and the presenter was super hot! (Ed note: I think this was my husband’s feedback)

Love the examples you gave of various scenarios.

Wonderful examples, tips, tricks that can be implemented in every day relationships.

Loved it! So engaging, funny, warm. Thank you!

Exact description of class. Funny and enjoyable presentation. 

Love the part about role play. Could have sat through an entire class on that.

The names have been changed so I can blog anonymously, but if you wish to identify yourself, please do!

To fully understand what transpired, and still remain anonymous, I’m going to alter some historical details of my life: I’m going to pretend that I used to be involved in the data mining industry before I got debilitating vertigo (I wasn’t, but it was a similar technical industry), and I’m going to pretend that I did a data mining presentation at a conference which was heard by Christian Rudder of OKCupid’s awesome data-mining blog (I didn’t, but someone at least that influential in my actual industry did hear me speak), and that Christian not only said nice things about my presentation but then invited me to work more closely with him on a prestigious data-mining publication with awesome smart people (he didn’t, but something equivalent to that happened), and that working with Christian on his data-mining project is the thing I miss most about my technical career (it’s not, but the equivalent thing absolutely is).

The primary reason I went to Kinky Kollege was to take some friends of mine, a guy/girl couple, to their first big kink event in a big city, because she is a self-identified dominant at a young age, which is rare enough in urban settings, but so rare as to almost be unique in our geographically scattered semi-rural community. I knew she could get the sense of support and community and training she needs at a big event WAY easier than in our “maybe one educational event per month” community where everybody willing to teach and mentor is already giving 100%, so nobody is gearing education specifically toward new young Dommes, because let’s face it, she’s the only one.

So in planning the event, I reached out to the only person on my Fet friends list who was signed up for Kollege: we’ll call him Paul. He went to the camping thing last year which my husband attended but I didn’t, and then came down to our house for a party and played with a good friend: we’ll call her Pixie. He negotiated really intelligently with Pixie before they played, and their scene was super fun: giggly and bratty and wrestle-ey and delightful. She felt fantastic about it afterward.

So I contacted Paul, explained the newbie mentoring situation, asked if he could introduce us around, and said I looked forward to hugging him. He replied that absolutely he’d introduce us around, and he’d love a hug… especially as after care.

~ahem~ My stars. /FanMyself

In case you don’t know, “after care” is what happens after a kinky scene. So he cleverly asked me to scene with him. Shock! Squee! Happy! I had all the yeses to that, especially since, at the time, I didn’t think my husband could come along with us.

Paul has a teacher / professor kind of a vibe, so we arrived at the idea of negotiating and playing in front of the newcomers, as a fun education moment, and to help them with their “what do I do at an event” jitters. Yay. We have a plan.

So it’s Friday night of Kinky Kollege, we all manage to dine together (my husband, his awesome submissive, Paul and his adorable girlfriend, my mentee couple, and me), except during dinner, I go to Dungeon Monitor orientation for 30 minutes. Afterward, it’s just the four of us: two to negotiate and play, and two to watch.

We meet up in a lounging area with tables and chairs outside the dungeon, and we negotiate – we had talked about my vertigo ahead of time, and I had read that he likes coercive role play in his profile, which I rather enjoy as well, but we had not yet negotiated pain or sex boundaries, leaving that to do in front of the mentees.

Paul, as expected, does a great job negotiating with me, including emotional boundaries — what I crave from a scene even more than pain is to have an experience that is SO different from my everyday life that it’s like a mental vacation for my state of mind, regardless of the activity at hand.

Then he cleverly asks the observing couple for feedback, assumptions, what we missed, and has them ask each of us questions separately to make sure we are on the same page. It took an hour, and it was great. Mostly I think it helped the couple realize they do pretty well already negotiating.

So we start playing. He puts a rope harness on me, but leaves my hands free. He starts dropping odd references about coincidences, what he’s heard of me, how he knows me, stuff that makes no sense. I let it go for a bit, settling in to the mood, letting my curiosity build, and I start assuming he is going to say he had been a phone sex client of mine, which would have been quite a shock. Finally, I ask him about it, and he shows me the logo printed on his toy bag: Acme Data Mining (not really the name, but the effect was the same).

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

That was a competitor of ours, of the company I used to work for before I got vertigo. I mean, I knew Paul was a computer guy, but why would he have an Acme bag? He clips my chest harness to the heavy furniture so I can lunge but not escape, and starts revealing things about the data mining industry that suggest he was in it.

Then he says that he has a name, someone I know, a name that would prove that it wasn’t a coincidence that he met my husband, that he played with Pixie, that he flirted with me… A name of someone who would be very interested to know that I liked getting tied up and beaten in hotel basements…

I knew that part was bullshit, that he’d been stalking me patiently for almost a year. Nobody is that patient. He’d been a kinkster longer than that, so Paul had obviously talked to my husband, gotten some piece of information, the clever bastard.

Right?

But….

I was laughing and cursing him and squirming away from him and melting under his hands when he would grope me or hold me close, and yelping at his sudden strikes, and suddenly very very uncertain what exactly was happening.

My mind was reeling. I thought of a dozen names. My old CEO, my old Director, project managers… And I honestly didn’t give a shit about any of them knowing anything. The company was sold, so even if my vertigo disappeared, I wouldn’t go back that path to an IT career again anyway…

But…

But the guy who invited me to work on the highly respected data-mining panel, an honor my bosses had not been able to achieve for anyone else in the company in ten years of trying… Him. Christian Rudder. One of the smartest, kindest, most all-around awesome people I’ve ever brushed up against. He once told a room full of my peers that I was a “mythical creature – a technologist who can also speak English”. He is literally the only person from that industry that I would give a rat’s ass about his opinion of me.

“Do you want to know the name?” No! No, oddly enough, I didn’t. And yes, I did. But the anticipation was incredibly mind-fucking, and what I really wanted was to have an experience that was different than my everyday routine, and holy shit, this counted already just from the sheer “what the fuck” ness of it.

Eventually I said yes, I wanted the name, thinking in my head, “Don’t say Christian Rudder, don’t say Christian Rudder…” And out of his mouth comes…

Christian. Rudder.

After that, it got blurry. He was smacking me, struggling against me, while I tried to buck free so I could think straight. I was so pissed. I was so amused. I was so confused. I was so flipped around mentally. I was so sure it was my husband who had told him… Wasn’t I? Paul wasn’t really there when Christian heard me speak, was he? He hadn’t heard the mythical creature comment, had he? What the fuck?!?

In the following 20-30 minutes of struggle, I said “Fuck you” a lot. Sometimes, very loudly.

He threatened to tell all kinds of things about me unless I agreed to fuck him, to let him abuse me, to keep going after the event. He told me what he’d do to me, how much fun he’d have, knowing I was no longer doing it for my pleasure, but because I wanted to protect my reputation. And I kept pushing him off, sometimes shoving him or beating against him, wavering between doubt and belief.

But every question I asked him, he answered, down to shit my husband could never have remembered – the names of my subcommittee, the name of Christian’s conference overseas. The publication where things had been published.

Sonofabitch! No. Fucking. Way.

He had my arms pinned down, my ankles tied together, and a vibrator wedged against my clit with his thigh while I was telling him to go fuck himself, while he told me what a kinky dirty slut I was and watched me struggle not to be turned on, not to come, but… nooooo, that was a losing battle. I came, hard and loud and struggling against his arms.

And then I paused. And then I called it. Red. We’re done.

And I reached for his heart while he reached for mine, and I burst into tears while he held me close and told me it was all a game and no, he would never tell Christian anything. My response was a relieved, “Ohmygod thank you… and seriously, fuck you.”

Turns out, at dinner, when I had gone to DM training, my husband asked Paul what he did professionally, and he is in my old industry. My husband mentioned I used to be on the conference with this semi-famous guy…. and Paul said “Christian Rudder, I’ve published papers with him – he’s why I’m in this industry now! I’m gonna use that on her!!” He had always wanted to do a coercion scene with a touch of reality in it, but how often do you have something like that on someone?

It was awesome. And hilarious. And random as hell. But mostly, awesome.

So the newcomers said later they enjoyed watching us, plus it gave them an excuse to watch the other scenes in the dungeon, without feeling awkward about lingering for so long. My husband and his submissive had also played in the main dungeon (we were in a smaller one), so a good night was had by all.

Intense and HOLY SHIT FUCKING INSANE, but great.

And, Paul, if you’re reading this: seriously, dude, fuck you.

I think it’s time to admit it. Out loud. Here on my blog, which purports to be about my life, and yet, has remained heretofore silent on the topic of my religious beliefs.

My Christianity is clearly non-traditional, utterly different than the Christianity portrayed in most 21st century American mass media, very complicated to explain, and deeply personal to me.

It’s Easter today, a big deal in my Christianity. So to help me contemplate, I looked up the words that moved me to first truly commit myself to following Christ.

It was Winter Quarter 1989. I was in a comparative religion class. Our textbook was then called “The Religions of Man” but has since been retitled to “The World’s Religions” by Huston Smith, and since it has sold over 2.5 million copies, I assume everyone else’s comparative region class used it, too.

Six pages in the Christianity chapter changed my world completely. I excerpted them here: The Good News.

When I re-read those words today, I was also inspired to finally get around to reading a Biblical interpretation of the issue of homosexuality, which I was delighted to find I agree with 100%, which concludes that the Bible does not indeed condemn loving, committed, consensual homosexual romantic partnerships. The video & transcript are here: http://www.matthewvines.com/transcript

Together, those two pieces of writing pretty accurately sum up the emotional and intellectual cores of my faith, with one addition: I believe the conclusions reached by Matthew Vines about homosexuality extend to loving, consensual sex of all types, even outside the confines of a lifetime monogamous commitment, because I don’t fundamentally believe that the cultures represented by the Bible had the context for non-exploitive, consensual, respectful sexual engagement in the way we do in the US in the 21st century.

I don’t want to preach to anybody. What you believe is between you and you, and your higher power if you have one.

But I don’t want to hide my beliefs anymore, either.

If my vertigo clears up enough, or even if my Summer-2012-to-Spring-2013 anti-concentration fog clears up enough, I may launch a podcast, or an advice column blog, or something like that.

I see non-monogamous advice on the web and podcasts, polyamorous advice, swinger advice, BDSM advice, kink advice… But never from a Christian.

I see Christian advice on the web, progressive Christian apologetics, Christian relationship advice… But never from a kinkster.

I don’t see my own voice out here. Not yet.

So if I do manage to crawl out of the hole which has been waylaying me, I have slowly become convinced that I need to include both my non-monogamous kinkster truth and my Christian beliefs, and let my really freaky flag fly.

I plan on incorporating my beliefs as part of my opinions, for context, to explain why I would approach a situation in a certain manner. I hope I won’t get obnoxious or pushy about. Y’all will help keep me in line, keep me honest, keep me respectful, right? Thanks. I knew I could count on you.

So you know how 12-step programs start with you saying your name, and then admitting your addiction, like, “Hi, I’m Angela and I’m an Adult Child of an Alcoholic”, and when you do that, the others in the room with the same reason to be there answer back, “Hi, (your name)!” and when it happens, you realize that at the very least, for this one moment, you’re not alone?

Well, this is my first step:

Hi. I’m Angela, or Galiana, or PlaySmart, depending on the context, and I’m a Kinky Christian Slut.

… deep breath in … deep breath out …

I wonder how long it will take for someone to answer me back.

—–

At a public kinkster event yesterday, I had a thoughtful conversation with a couple of people about their social anxieties, and found out later that two people had chosen to leave the event due to anxieties. Each person’s circumstances and triggers and other contributing factors were different, of course, but I’ve been mulling, so I thought I’d write.

Indulge me for a moment, and mentally roll the issue of kinkster gatherings and social anxieties WAY back in time to the moment when any of these people admitted to themselves they may be interested in attending a kinkster event in the first place. Who admits to themselves they have kinky desires, much less that they want to talk about them with others? People who consider themselves “normal” and strive for “normalcy” as if it were a good thing? Probably not.

(Side rant: in my fanatical-and-not-at-all-humble opinion on this matter, “normal” is a terrible thing to want to be… It represents the mathematically most commonly occurring state. Would you strive to be “average”? No? Then don’t hope to be “normal” either, because they represent the same thing. I hope for “healthy”, which isn’t normal. Be healthy. Don’t be normal. Normal isn’t healthy, it’s just common. End of rant. Maybe.)

So if your perspective on your life is already outside of the box marked “normal”, because you’ve always been OCD or ADD or on the autism spectrum, or anxious, or unusually fascinated by leather, or overweight, or underweight, or a closet anorexic or bulimic or compulsive eater, or an abuse survivor, or attracted to people of your gender, or prone to acting like a kid even though you’re an adult, or … Or… Or… (Fill in anything not considered normal here), well, then you’re potentially more open to follow your own “abnormal” desires and wonder if others have them too.

Summary so far: if you’ll never be normal anyway, then the entire world of abnormal behavior kind of opens up as a possibility for you. Why not, right?

Result: Kinksters are likely to be people who had other reasons to consider themselves abnormal before they were kinksters.

Therefore, kinkster communities can sometimes feel like an Island of Misfit Toys.

And that’s kinda awesome, in my opinion. I’ll explain.

So yeah, maybe there’s a higher-than-average occurrence of social anxieties even without play going on. Then when you add in play — which we do because we really really crave something about it from a primal part of ourselves which isn’t particularly rational to begin with — the odds of people bumping into quirky, darker, rougher parts of each other go up even further.

So someone gets overloaded and has to walk out without saying goodbye. Good for them for taking responsibility for their struggles, and not barfing their challenges all over a group of people gathered for a different purpose. I vote we applaud that choice as a mark of maturity and respect for consensual interactions.

So someone negotiates a scene, but freezes up before/during/after, or has a flash of strong emotions (this is assuming everything stayed within negotiated boundaries, and the emotion is expressed in a way that’s not blaming or malicious). Good for them for getting far enough to hit a wall, and good for them for learning something new about themselves. It probably took a metric ton of courage to even try whatever it was in the first place.

But these quirks, these bumps, these flashes of fear or anxiety with all these people already starting outside the normal box, you know what it gives us? The real possibility of connecting with each other in ways which are emotionally honest, deeply encouraging, and affirming down to the core of our self-images.

I think when people talk about the sex / play / kink they like, they can often end up sharing views on spirituality, family histories, emotional struggles… The stuff you talk about with your very best friends, the stuff that matters most.

And when people actually share the experiences of kink / play / sex together, it can invite others into places in ourselves that feel really honest and pure and true, and knowing that someone saw that inside of me and still likes me, and even thanked me afterward… It can be healing on a visceral level that’s hard to replicate other ways. At least for me.

So then, all of a sudden, less than a year after moving somewhere where you didn’t know anybody at all and you feared you’d never make friends here, you find yourself on an island so full of other awesome misfit toys who are really amazing friends that you wonder why anyone ever wants to find friends from anywhere else. Because the toys here may be missing parts, but they are unbelievably awesome to play with.

Y’know?

I love you guys.

—–

I have a good friend turning 30 soon, a good friend turning 30 soon-ish, and a good friend turning 50 soon. Got me to thinking.

When I was in college, I was in therapy for family reasons, a theater major “because I learn more about what it is to be a human through stories than I do psychology or hard sciences” (that was my standard answer, and yes, I know it was pretentious), and heavily involved in a close-knit religious community which encouraged emotional honesty. So I basically thought about myself and my emotions ALL THE TIME. It sounds exhausting now, but obviously, it was what I needed then. Don’t judge.

My religious wrestlings, therapeutic processes, and artistic growth often fed each other, but never as much as the week of The Identity Exercises.

In acting class, we had to make a list of our identities: daughter, niece, sister, student, actor, lighting designer, girlfriend, friend, dancer, mathematician, tutor, teacher, comedienne… Then my acting professor had a guy named Joe read his list. It included “boyfriend”. She asked whose lists included “girlfriend”, and I was picked to go up to demo.

I stood on stage with Joe, and the professor asked us to talk with each other as if we were interested in dating each other. She told him to start with the question, “How was class today?” and so we chatted, flirting. Within minutes, we were well on our way to our first kiss if nobody stopped us.

Then my professor said “And now, you’re father / daughter.” (which, first of all, was a brutally emotionally sadistic move, because I had only recently begun talking with my father again, but hadn’t seen him in two years, and she knew that… but her irresponsible bitchery is not the point of this story) It was suddenly VERY AWKWARD as we both adjusted and he asked me again, “How was class today?”

The class told us afterward what they observed – when we were boyfriend/girlfriend, we stood closer, we touched more, we met each others’ eyes, we laughed more easily… when we were father/daughter, we stood further apart, stood up straighter, both our hands went in pockets, our eyes narrowed… We both looked and acted completely differently.

I took the list to my therapist. After she helped me through wanting to strangle my professor, my therapist asked me to fill out the list more – recognize positive attributes of each role, identify roles where I could borrow confidence (student had confidence to spare for daughter…), and generally ponder the complexity of human interactions by mapping how I wanted to behave in each role.

(Hooray for competent cognitive/behavioral therapy: that therapist was an amazing gift)

Then the topic for the Fall Retreat was announced, with the kickoff talk, “What Would Change If You Really Believe God Loved You?” and there were all those identity roles and behavioral choices rolling around in my head, so I spent a week in a daze, imagining God pouring love over me in each of those roles, and soaking in the understanding that I could simply… choose to believe it. Or at least, to do my best to fake it until I believed it.

My next time in therapy, I was barfing all my thoughts to my therapist, and she asked, “So, with all this information, how do you see yourself in the future?” And I closed my eyes, and I imagined.

I was 50. I knew I was 50. I was wearing a sun hat, kneeling in earth, planting things, or maybe tending things that grow. I knew I was on my own land, and I knew that I enjoyed the gardening, and I looked up at something in the sky and wiped the sweat from my brow, and grinned, and I was… So. Amazingly. Peaceful.

I wasn’t a peaceful kid. I wasn’t a peaceful college student. I wasn’t at peace with my family, my body, my career choices, my intellect, my talents… None of it. I saw myself as a constant barrage of insecurities and facades. Sure, I was honest, but almost I was almost unbearably messy. Spastic. Chaotic.

But she… This 50-year-old. She was… well… You’ve met peaceful, happy 50-year women, right? They’re strong and solid and trustworthy and comforting and huggable and funny and amusing and wise, and … y’know… awesome. I grew up in a big multi-generational church with many confident, awesome women in their 50s. And in that moment of imagining, I could see myself as one of them.

And I wanted it. I wanted to be her. I wanted to be guided by her. I wanted to know what she knew. I wanted to skip 30 years ahead and go to be her, immediately. Of course, I couldn’t skip my 20s and 30s and 40s. Darn it.

But that vision of my 50-year-old self has continued to be my North Star. Literally everything else I thought I wanted for my life has changed completely since then, but in every season – reconciling with Dad, losing Dad when he died, my first marriage, my unexpected technical career, my divorce, my discovery of kink, my relationship now with my husband, my vertigo, losing the house, becoming a phone sex operator, and this past crazy year of explosive polyamory – in all these wildly disparate seasons, my 50-year-old self has always looked back at me with kind eyes and a peaceful-but-mischievous grin, and encouraged me to be like her.

So I guess I’ve lived my life as “What Would I Do If I Were 50 And Awesome?” And then I try to live up to that, as best I can.

When I turned 30, I was “happily” married, living in a house that we were “going to be in forever”, and we were going to start having kids soon. I felt good about the external circumstances of my life, but I was growing increasingly uncomfortable with my emotional realities, how I felt about myself and my increasingly angry husband.

My 30-year-old reflections on my 50-year-old self led me to leave it all, so by the time I turned 32, I was divorced, redefining my faith and romantic relationships and sexual desires, and rebuilding my sense of self-worth from the ground up.

It felt, at the time, like I had wasted a huge chunk of time, that I would never “make it up”, that I would always feel stunted by the choices and mistakes of my 20s. But now it’s laughably easy to see that I had so much time ahead of me to make whatever I wanted. Several times over, in fact. For that matter, I couldn’t have predicted my current life 15 months ago, much less 20 whole years!

So getting older doesn’t bother me. I’m excited every year. I get to be closer to her, that vision of myself. Someday, I will meet her in myself, I think, although it may not be exactly at 50. Most importantly, every year, I can see ways that I become more like her.

So, to my good friend turning 50 soon, congratulations on getting to experience the awesomeness. I’m a little jealous. You may not always be peaceful, but neither will I. But you know stuff. You make good choices often. You’re full of awesome. I hope you can appreciate it.

And to my good friends turning 30, I urge you to imagine a version of yourself at 50, full of every drop of awesome that you want to become, and to think about becoming her, more than you think about what you’ve already done or not done, and even more than you think about who you are today. Let her love you, nurture you, and assure you that you’ll make it. Because you will.

I know what she’ll say: you’ll be amazing then, even more amazing than you are now. But let’s face it, you’re pretty damn amazing now.

Happy Birthdays, friends. I’m glad you were born. I’m glad I get to journey with you now. I’m looking forward to our journeys from here.

And hey, wait a minute: why don’t I own a sun hat?

1. My first name is Angela.

2. My username for my personal profile on FetLife is PlaySmart.

When I was first starting phone sex, around my 40th birthday, I wrote about choosing the name Galiana, and whether or not Galiana is my real name in some sense.

Along the way, I told a few callers my legal name, for various reasons. The guy I met real-time with sugar daddy tendencies. The first caller I told that I loved him, and from the same blog entry, the man who fell asleep to my voice for a while. The one who helped me start accepting my Inner Whore. The guy in a wheelchair who has become a great friend. The one who fleshed out the non-flesh part of me.

But ironically, I had not yet told the man who is secretly the real reason I’m still writing blog entries – according to him, anyway – the one who helped me know I could do the job of phone sex. He would have gotten my name from me sooner or later. He has his ways.

Now I’m wondering who’s gonna get pissed that I never told them, or that I told them and then left them off the list. In my defense, my memory has been well-documented as terrible. But no, I’ll leave the list there, with all its almost-certain-to-result-in-a-complaint awkwardness, because it’s interesting to me to get lost a little in those memories.

When I told someone the name Angela, it was always a matter of trust, that they didn’t wish me harm. It was always a matter of respect, especially respect for my marriage and my life situation. It was always a moment of intimacy, when I believed that they would feel something in their gut in a deeper way if I told them.

But these days, it’s only complicating to have such bold lines drawn between Angela and Galiana. The truth is, I would welcome any of my old callers as FetLife friends, and I am secure enough in my guard dogs, my marriage, my kinky community which includes a policeman, and my crazy home where people irregularly come and go (anybody trying to case our house would be quite frustrated) to trust that I am at least as safe as other public-facing kinksters who give away equal amounts of information. Plus, I don’t have kids to protect, so my stakes are lower. Much lower.

Besides, I’m not producing things as Galiana anymore. I never log in to FetLife as Galiana, and the thought of keeping both FetLife profiles maintained is overwhelming right now. So this blog, and my FetLife handle of PlaySmart are the best ways to keep in touch with me. I’ve been wanting to open that up for months. I haven’t talked myself out of it. This blog post is a good excuse to open that up.

So, anyway, I wrote this for some friends on FetLife. I thought a few of you might enjoy it.

—–

It started as a joke of sorts. Our domo house servant for the Formal Dinner asked what I wanted as my place setting name (calligraphy done by hand, of course), and since I was playing the role of “Lady of the House” for the evening, being served by literally a dozen willing servants, I answered “Lady Angela”. We giggled a lot about the name. So everyone called me Lady Angela for the evening, even though I left a trail of accidental sequins from my clearly-not-well-made dress wherever I went.

At Spanksgiving the weekend before, someone had called me elegant. I believe my response was to guffaw. Maybe I snorted. Me? What? No.

I see myself as dorky, goofy, geeky, and klutzy. Oh sure, I can be fun and smart and sexy, too, but in a cute dorky way. At best, I’m the eccentric, nutty professor; at worst, one of those coltish young women in the Girls Gone Wild video commercials falling over and crashing into things (and why is there always at least one of those?!? what is the appeal?).

But the name stuck, even after the party. I assumed it was kind of a loving teasing thing, like my childhood experience of being a tomboy who fell out of trees a lot – new bruises and scrapes were usually greeted with a grinning, “Way to go, Grace” from my dad. The phrase “Way to go, Grace” still makes me roll my eyes.

Shortly after the Formal Dinner, I had a couple of new offers to provide service to me. Like fetish service. To me. I mean, yes, sure, I already have a cross-dressing fetish servant, but I consider him an anomalous reminder of my abnormal life, and a practical bit of help, not a sign that I am overall deserving of Service in some way. Because I honestly don’t think I am. I mean, I’m able to receive Service and understand why it feeds someone and appreciate it as a gift, but I don’t deserve it.

So then people who know me and love me started seriously suggesting I change my Fet name. Really know me. Really love me. And… they weren’t making fun of me. They were honestly seeing some good fit between me – bumbling clumsy me – and the term “Lady”.

Lady? Really? A college roommate had a publicly stated goal to “turn me into a lady” our senior year, because I was such a goofy tomboy. She has since often declared me one of her greatest failures, because I still curse, and knock things over, and cross my legs wrong, and prefer to wear comfy pants, and turn and start walking and run into walls (even before the vertigo!). I literally publicly failed at being ladylike in any way in my formative years. That’s how much not “Lady Angela” I am.

So I started asking my loved ones why they liked the name for me. They pointed out ways I graciously allowed others to assist me (which caused me to ask for more assistance, which further reinforced the idea). They pointed out ways other people irrationally went along with my narcissistic suggestions (like me hijacking someone else’s New Year’s Eve party so I could get smooches an hour early). They pointed out strengths I took for granted (“you always seem to have a plan, even if you’re making it up” and “you almost always stay calm even when others are freaking out” and “you don’t get flustered when people say no, so it makes people want to say yes to you” and “you’re good at being grateful and saying thanks, so people want to help you” and “you give a lot, so people want to give back to you”).

I would never go so far as to call myself elegant, because that implies I wouldn’t burp out loud (I totally do), or get my hands dirty when there’s work to be done (I totally do), or enjoy lowbrow things like velveeta-based queso (I totally do) or eating spoonfuls of peanut butter straight out of the jar (I totally do, all the time).

But I guess I can see that I’m gracious sometimes, that I tend to expect the best from the people around me, and that expectation of goodness frequently ends up bringing out the best in people. It’s amazing to me how that works.

So although I have been uncomfortable with being called Lady Angela because it feels pretentious or demanding, I hate rejecting an idea purely out of insecurity. I try to treat insecurity was a sign, pointing to something I probably need to ponder.

I think maybe the name “Lady Angela” reflects parts of me that I love, that I strive to be, but that I often dismiss or undervalue. And yet, the reality is, in this kinkster world, I’ve tried to give people spaces to get questions answered, to encourage people to explore their desires, to give gentle nudges and mischievous grins to bolster courage, to set an example of seeing myself as sexy eye candy (even with a heavier-than-average body shape), and to encourage others to embrace their sexy, too.

It started as kind of “well, since I can’t play very often because of my physical limitations, at least I can help others have fun.” And that focus has reinforced my compersion, my ability to enjoy the joy radiating off others. And the more transitive joy I develop, the more I want to encourage others’ joy… I can see how my compersion is a little Lady-Angela-ish.

I have opened my home, and I have opened my heart, as wide as I can without overextending myself (well, okay, sometimes I overextend, but I try not to). I can see how that’s a little Lady-Angela-ish.

And before my December party, I found myself saying things like, “I told guests that if they arrive early for the party they’d be put to work, so don’t worry about the disassembled Christmas tree in the living room – the minions will take care of it” … and realizing that I honestly do have willing minions to help me set up my home. I mean, not full-time, but certainly for community events I’m organizing. So yeah, okay, that’s definitely Lady-Angela-ish.

But then there are utterly practical considerations: I intend to re-activate my professional life as Galiana Chance when I can. One profile will stay my personal one, and Galiana will be my professional one, but I have decided to link the two, and explain the differences on each profile. My professional foray will be a podcast, I think, and right now, I want to call it “Play Smart with Galiana”.

I love the idea of having my personal, community, real-life profile named PlaySmart, and my professional, link-to-all-my-podcasts-and-blog-posts profile named Galiana, because then in order to get the full picture of everything I’m doing, you’d have to have PlaySmart with Galiana. Get it?

See? Dorky. I told you.

But then there are introductions. How do I introduce myself if I’m a sex podcaster with two Fet names, neither or which are Angela? PlaySmart? Galiana? Angela? Lady Angela? The Girl With Too Many Frikkin Names? Thankfully, I think the scene is used to people having multiple personalities, so I think everyone will figure it out eventually.

Ultimately, at a gut level, I love it when people choose to call me Lady Angela. But I don’t think I’ll ever ask anyone to call me that. I love it as a pet name, a term of endearment, or even friendly kidding when I do something supremely unladylike.

But for those of you who have thought of me that way, thank you. You’ve held up an interesting mirror for me to look into, and I have enjoyed the view. And I look forward to continuing to discover parts of myself there. And I very much look forward to doing what I can to help my minions be the best they can be as well.

Galiana as Lady Angela

—–

Then about a week after I wrote all that on FetLife, a local friend gave me this:

It’s a jar of my favorite brand of peanut butter, labeled “Lady Angela”, with a spoon taped to it. I’m saving it forever. I mean, not the peanut butter – I’m eating that! But the labeled jar with the spoon.

I have the bestest life ever.

Writing for this blog has been oddly difficult as well. There are stories I want to tell, but I haven’t been able to figure out how to tell them here. I write things on FetLife, for my in-flesh kinkster friends who have become my community and local family of choice. Some day I’ll figure out how to translate them here as well.

I was talking last night with someone who has also had an online “persona” which dropped off his radar when he got busy or overwhelmed. I don’t think Galiana is a “persona” in the traditional sense, because Galiana is all honestly me (except the name), but Galiana is … filtered me, focused me, a version of me that has been seen through a filter of “ready for the world and ready to please”, and maybe that’s the filter that I haven’t been able to sustain lately.

Thankfully, though, in the midst of this season of not being able to focus on someone else’s energy and match it consistently or for any predictable length of time, we settled my disability claim, which has provided significant financial breathing room for now. It would make me nuts not to do anything financially productive forever, unless I really couldn’t come up with anything I can consistently commit to.

Also thankfully, I have ample opportunities to do activities which provide a lot of joy, but require very little concentration.

Indulge me, if you will, fine ladies and sirs, as I describe to you the life of Galiana Chance, Woman of Leisure.

Throwing Parties
There’s an odd phenomenon with hosting a party. On one hand, yes, having a party requires a lot of concentration, especially with as picky as we are about the physical setup and the cheese selection. It’s important. Don’t judge.

But my home has the giant advantage of an easy escape to a comfy bed. It’s unrealistic to expect other people to set up a separate vertigo station for me. The ability to take a break for an hour or two makes it much much easier to throw a party.

Also, our guests are good about helping clean up, bless their sweet hearts. I think it’s a pity thing. And I’m okay with that.

So, every month, we’ve been throwing a shindig for 15-30 of my closest friends. And I’ve been attending a few shindigs that others throw, although I wish I could attend all of them.

Hosting a Meet n Greet
I felt like the local kinkster scene was missing a monthly event specifically geared for (a) people who get vertigo in crowds to have an escape hatch, and (b) to help newcomers feel welcomed and give them a way to meet other local kinksters. So I started one. It’s a munch / meet n greet / open public meeting, whatever you want to call it.

It’s extremely simple, and the layout is such that I can sit outside the room where the crowd is gathered, and I can talk with the few people at a time who are hanging out by the bar, under the auspices of “I’m watching for people entering so they can get a name tag”. But really, it’s way easier on my vertigo to be out by the bar. Shhhh. Don’t tell anyone. We’re averaging 30-40 people per month, which wildly exceeds my expectations.

When the Meet n Greet is on the same weekend as the parties we host at our house, I spend the whole week reserving energy for them. By the end of the night, I’m either sacked out upstairs with a cuddle buddy, or I’m endlessly grazing in the snack room, glassy-eyed, giving hugs and encouraging people to make fun of me. I’m useless for two days afterward, but it’s fun, and it’s worth it.

Halloween Season
We attended one kinkster costume-encouraged Halloween party, and we threw one. I went the lazy route with store-bought costumes from a local lingerie boutique / sex toy shop.

At home, I was the referee, where people kept offering to blow my whistle, and then offering to play me some horrible song about whistle blowing which I am clearly too old and grumpy to properly appreciate.

The one someone else hosted, I was “Major Tease” as it said on my name thing on my costume, but it was hotly debated whether I was a “tease” or a “slut” if I let multiple people grab my boobs. There was empirical testing done.

It was during this season of spirits that I decided my primary role at most parties is to be the best eye candy I can be, plus encourage my friends to grope me, and each other. Also, I engineer hookups for other people: play partners, smooching buddies, and cold girls with my eternally-warm-handed lover. I like the kinds of trouble I cause.

Spanksgiving

I know at least two people in St Louis who are going to be super mad to discover this information this way, but … The week before Thanksgiving, I went to the StL3 Spanksgiving conference, where I changed outfits far more often than was necessary.

I forgot to take pictures of at least two outfits at the conference. The costume changes were seriously out of hand. But super ridiculous fun. Cameras aren’t allowed in the main area, so the pics were in side areas or bathrooms, but that was the best I had. I felt like a stripper about to go onstage all weekend, but people kept telling me they loved my outfits, so what was I gonna do, disappoint them by staying in one outfit? Pffff. Clearly not.

I spent a wonderful, affirming weekend learning, smooching, getting groped, getting spanked, and distracting the off-duty cops working security. It’s not my fault one of them is 6’8″ and gorgeous and has a British accent! What was I supposed to do, let him feel neglected? When he works so hard to protect and serve? Noooooo, clearly the right thing to do was to bring him women and let him whisper naughty things in their ear so he could watch them melt. And maybe offer to let all the cops grope me, including the woman cop. It’s not my fault I was raised to be friendly and inclusive.

But seriously, the presentations were amazing, the company was spectacular (Devant also had an amazing weekend – she got her name cut into her shoulder with a scalpel! Yeouch! She loved it), and the energy was fantastic. By the end of Saturday, I was a loopy weirdo space cadet, but I was getting so much happy energy that I just kept wandering around soaking it up. Thankfully, nobody expected me to be coherent. Whew.

Thanksgiving & The Formal Dinner

We had Thanksgiving dinner with several friends who did not have family-of-birth plans, and it ended up being a delightful family-of-choice time, with mind-blowingly delicious food and lovely conversation. I realized I was still recovering from Spanksgiving, which had ended four days earlier, when the spirited multi-way conversation going on around me no longer made sense, as if everyone was speaking gibberish.

That was when I understood for the first time that my vertigo crashes had adapted to stimulus of pleasant social overload by blocking my cognitive processes instead of giving me overwhelmingly unpleasant whirling sensations. Oh, silly Brain. Thanks for the adaptation. How about you work on adapting to not be dizzy at all? No? Okay, well then, I’ll take “pleasantly confused” as a consolation prize.

A mere two days later, we had a Formal Dinner at our home, where people who wanted to be in service/submission for the evening literally served the rest of us, as if the ones being served were Victorian lords and ladies. I was asked? forced? encouraged? to step out of the limelight and let other submissives in the community organize and arrange everything. It was harrrrrrd! I kept wanting to help with stuff! But they were all mean to me and made me sit back and relax and be served! Crazy!

Our home looked amazing, with table linens and individual menus made especially for the event, and I honestly had to do very little in support. It was easily the most delicious dinner I have ever had outside of a fancy restaurant. And honestly, more delicious than some Zagat-rated meals I’ve had. Each of the four courses caused at least one foodgasm. And how do you top the memory of having flaming bananas foster in your house?!? It was so amazing that it felt like a dream. Was I really served … in my home … by a bunch of willing submissives … exquisite pork loin and perfect mushroom risotto and creme brulee that brought tears to my eyes? In my home? I’ll never forget it.

Then we went to someone else’s home for a lovely play party afterward, where I got spanked a bit. It was a mild scene in terms of BDSM culture, but it was enough to melt me into a pile of useless vapid staring and giggles, so I became the after-care zombie cuddle buddy, which suited me quite well.

And More

That was just October and November. In December, I went to three kinkster holiday parties, one of which we hosted, and traveled back to Texas to see my awesome family. There were a lot of outfit changes. And I smooched a lot of girls. And I made my teddy bear servant cum without touching him (heh, that was fun). And my husband and I rekindled some mischievous energy. It was a fantastic month.

I got to confirm my growing understanding of my limits without the pressure of wanting to save energy for work, and the truth is that I can go a long long way socially, as long as nobody asks me to calculate a tip, remember the name of anything or anyone, or solve a puzzle involving rearranging objects in a limited amount of space. I would be utterly useless without my phone chirping reminders and storing lists for me, but I’ve figured out how to use it to manage around the lapses in my unfortunately spotty memory.

What I Can’t Do These Days

Thank you for all the emails and twitters of concern over the past few months. The truth is, my vertigo isn’t doing particularly well. I’m often confused. I often feel unable to drive safely, even short trips in town. I spend a lot of days on my own, snuggling with my dogs and limiting my sensory stimulation.

I thought maybe I’d be able to start up a podcast. I’m sure I would have a modest, loyal audience if I launched it. So for most of January, I slowed down my social calendar and tried to build enough juice to make it happen.

It turns out, I can’t. It’s not that I don’t want to, I just can’t. I can’t sustain the concentration I need to do even short bursts of podcasting, because there are so many other technical pieces which go along with the podcast, other than just the recording, and I can’t get myself from here to there. Not yet. I hope someday, but not yet. That’s been understandably disappointing.

And clearly, I can’t write blogs very often. This one took me two weeks. I’ll keep doing it, as I can, because I like keeping in touch with the few readers who continue to pop in. And I like having it to return to when I get better again. Hi! Thank you for still checking here! Mmmmmmmwuh!

What I Can Do These Days

I am obviously finding ways to enjoy myself in this season. Clearly, I’m not suffering. I’m attempting to let go of the shame and sorrow of not feeling productive. I’m over-compensating by telling my friends on FetLife my opinions of their personal issues way more often than I probably should.

And sometimes, I have given people a different perspective on their situations in ways they have found helpful. Or at least they’ve told me it was helpful, which was nice. So I’m doing best to be an encouragement to my in-person friends and family here.

Since I can’t figure out how to do financially productive work anymore, I have gone back to trying new anti-vertigo medicines. The first one was hopeful at first, but after 4 days, I had horrible rebound, so that was an unfortunate no. It made me go back and try a few fast-acting ones that had worked in the past, but they all had the same effects as before.

Today is Day 4 of a new medicine that needs to build up slowly in my bloodstream. I can’t tell what it’s doing exactly, but I did have the urge yesterday to talk like a hick all day. Really. This big, fat Texan twang kept coming out of my mouth. It was deeply amusing. It seems to be gone today, but it certainly counts as the most bizarre and hilarious possible side effect yet.

So I’m doing the best I can do with what I have in this season. It is good enough. I am extraordinarily grateful that if I have to be in a season where I can’t be financially productive, at least I don’t have to worry about bills being paid. It’s a good life, and I’m glad I get to live it.

As always, feel free to drop me an email (see the Contact and Links page) any time to check up on me, tell me your good news, tell me your sad news, whatever. I’ll write back when I can, but it often won’t be right away.

Enjoy

And if anybody feels like transcribing it so I can have the whole text of it at the end of this blog post, please feel free to do so and send it to me.