Grace @billiegrace@v.st

Made it to Dark Matter in Berlin. There are three specific pieces that I really loved, this was a nice example of projection mapping.

Unfortunately I run into folks using Zelle frequently now, without other transfer options. To access Zelle I must go through my bank’s website, and they limit me to three transfers per day. It’s 2022, Venmo and Paypal and Cashapp have all set the bar for user interfaces for transferring money. Zelle is like a 90’s website from your bank. That this became the dominant paradigm for self-service inter-account transfers is pretty vexing.

I accrued 100,000 miles on Lufthansa this year and made their second highest status. I’m not a German resident and I’m not traveling for business. Transatlantic dating.

I woke up in a bed in a flat in Marbella, ES this morning, it’s 20C here while back in New York it’s -9C. Wild.

But I’ll keep coming back because of the techno. :)

I’m in Berlin, headed to the airport. I’ve been coming here since 2016, often. I flirted with the idea of living here. I fell in love here twice. Both with messy endings. I used to have more sentimental feelings for places here, but now it’s so familiar that it seems small. I see the same places where I marked new experiences as unremarkable now. The familiarity smothers the wonder and the heartache kills my desire for it.

Flying to Berlin today just for a night, Spain on Saturday to visit my friend’s parents (and to be in a warmer place with new experiences). I’ll be in Berlin for a bit longer from January 29 or so through at least January 4. I may extend that stay a bit, and afterwards I’m considering a stopover in Amsterdam for a few days to see friends.

Working remotely while getting a pedicure at a salon is truly the future I had expected at this point in my life. Better still would be having enough wealth not to have to work remotely, but I’ll take what I can get right now.

Idle musing: We use the term “computer” to describe machines that we all have (at least if you’re accessing Mastodon here) but the term doesn’t feel so appropriate anymore for what the device represents for most of us. And in the US, we often call our mobile computers “phones” even though the phone part is a small part of its overall purpose. So few things have become as ubiquitous and essential a companion as the mobile/handy/smartphone yet so inadequately termed.

Fun fact: I stayed at this hotel with my friend back in 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/16/huge-cylindrical-aquarium-housing-1500-exotic-fish-bursts-in-berlin

@benjedwards - we should catch up about that BBS article. -- Former sysop of Online's Place.

2021 was my first year in a poly lifestyle, or something poly-ish but definitely ENM. I'm making all the mistakes though, and in 2022 I'm effectively single now, unpartnered. This article has been enlightening about one of my most challenging failures, worth a read if you're also ENM: https://www.polyfor.us/articles/common-nre-mistakes

applied objectification -- the past few weeks have been more extreme in terms of being valued more for what I look like than what I do or feel. I've been thinking about kink as a way of dealing with embodiment and existing within social dynamics that are often both traumatic and rewarding. It imposes concreteness and reality over the abstractions of mind and identity.

... not because I think I have enough experience to satisfy them all, but because I understood them so poorly at the time that I didn't even know to try, to grow, or to see how far my innate sadism could go.

This lesson comes at an unbearable cost, and I tire of only learning hard lessons through experience. My advice to you, should you be following the sadist's path, is not only to act as is your innate nature, but to explore beyond it with curiosity and clear eyes. <end>

... my understanding some of this, as I am not so experienced in sadism (it comes naturally but not easily,) does not prepare me for how hungry the one I loved was for a deep, all encompassing sadomasochism.

All my learned and natural tendencies toward her were noble and good and abundant, but left her needs unmet, and in the end that contributed to a fracture between us that I regret... (continued)

...we are embodied in flesh and constrained by unnatural systems of being in societies, power dynamics, sentenced to gender and class roles, saddled with our own emotions and understandings that are often at odds with our lived experiences or circumstances. Masochism can be a response to those discontinuities and expectations. To be hurt is an experience, and to be lovingly denied agency by a partner, always, always with consent can be a gift of peace and excitment...(continued)

...but as I fall down this rabbit hole of sadomasochism, I find the faults and fractures within myself fuel a desire to expand to fill those spaces of sadism, and they hold an allure that I'm shocked to find and titillated by.

Those that know me, even casually, see an uplifting light, and this is real. What I'm coming to terms with is that wielding sadism with love, skill, and empathy is also an act of care and a gift for others...(continued)