You’ve heard of PDA…

…which stands for Public Displays of Affection. In that vein, there should be something known as PDS as well. Three guesses what the S stands for??

As open as I am about my spanking fetish, I’ve always felt a little skeevy about public displays of it in vanilla settings. At a spanking party? Bring it. But on the street, in a store, etc.? I get embarrassed, I admit it. Which delights John to no end. I can’t tell you how many times he’s given me a smack or two in a public place, to which I hiss, “Don’t! There are PEOPLE!” He doesn’t seem to care about that. We’ve gotten snickers, whistles, and even “I saw that!” a couple of times.

This past weekend, we went to the grocery store to pick up a few items; three, to be exact. Because of that, John gleefully exclaimed, “Hey, self checkout!” And I groaned. I hate using the self checkout. Not because I’m lazy, but because it’s temperamental and glitchy. If you don’t do everything exactly right, very carefully, it freezes up and you get a “Checker has been notified” message. Well, crap, if you have to notify a checker, why use the damn thing in the first place? I can usually manage okay on my own, but John tends to rush in impatiently.

So we managed to get all three items scanned. I had put our grocery bag on the floor (if you put the bag in the “bagging area” before you scan any items, it screws up the system, because it thinks the bag is a grocery item you haven’t scanned yet), so I bent over to pick it up so I could put our stuff in it. And of course, you guessed it, John let fly with a loud smack to my butt. I jerked up to standing… just in time to hear the checker standing off to the side (watching for people who screw up the system, of course) call out, “Do it again!”

Oh, my freaking God. I sputtered and spluttered at John, while he stood there laughing his fool face off. Finally we got the transaction done and I started to hustle him out of there, but we had to walk by the oh-so-amused checker, who then grinned at us and asked, “Are you two newlyweds?”

!!!!!

“No!” I blurted, making a wry face and walking by… and then John fist-bumped him. He actually fist-bumped the guy.

I swear, I can’t take that man anywhere.

So far, so good, I think?

My welcome back to the blogosphere has been gratifying. I’ve gotten some lovely comments and also some very sweet PMs. It does feel good to have this special place that’s all my own. Social media sites are fun, but the fun can be fleeting. Your posts on FetLife are popular for a day or two and then quickly forgotten. It’s nothing personal and it’s no one’s fault; it’s just a sign of the times, the way things are now in the age of digital distraction. People at any given moment can be carrying on fifteen conversations at once via texts and so forth and concentration is a lost art. Same thing with Twitter. Getting focus on there is a crap shoot, a matter of timing. Some days you can tweet something completely silly and it explodes into myriad conversations. Other days, you could post, “Hey, that hemorrhoid turned out to be Stage 4 cancer and I have six days to live,” and get crickets.

It seems my post about depression resonated with many. I suppose that could be a direction for me in the future — relating to spankos with depression and how to cope. Because depression is the antithesis of spanking fun, you know. When I’m in play mode, I feel sexy and happy and alive, filled with energy, clever, creative, on top of my game. Depression sucks all that away and leaves a shell that looks somewhat like me. And the damnable contradiction is that when I need attention the most, I feel the least attractive. My outsides are saying “Go away” while my insides cry “Please don’t go away.”

So I look at pictures, old and recent, and remember, “Hey! You are capable of this. Look at that smile. Look at that thrust-out confident butt. That woman is still in there.”

I remember that no matter how unlovable I feel, I must be doing something right. Yesterday, John said to me: “I would take you on your worst day over anyone else on their best day.” Somehow, I brought that to myself. Always there, John is. No matter who else comes and goes. ♥

Don’t watch the news when you’re down. And for God’s sake, don’t listen to music. You never notice how many depressing songs there are until you’re depressed yourself.

Sing it, John.

Or how about, “She aches, just like a woman, but she breaks just like a little girl.”

Yeah, I chose this picture on purpose. It captures my mood… but it also reminds me that I’m still a damn desirable woman, no matter what my screwy head tells me.

Anyway, y’all, I’ve got work to do, and a body to work out. Happy Monday.

When life kicks your ass

I don’t know about you guys, but having my ass kicked is not my kink. I’d much rather have it spanked. But life usually doesn’t let us choose.

And sometimes, it really sucks.

Someone dear to me recently said (I’m paraphrasing, but this is the gist) that they’ve had it with people who say all you have to do is think positive and everything will be sunshine and unicorns and you’ll shoot rainbows out your ass. Life is hard. Yeah, it is. And I think it’s OK to acknowledge it. I’m not talking about wallowing in self-pity and “poor me,” and being a passive victim. But being real and saying “Right now, things suck” is allowed. In fact, I encourage it.

Last night, I was talking to another dear friend, one who suffers with a chronic, auto-immune skin disorder that flares and causes painful, scarring damage. She was dealing with a new flare-up and infection, had had a nasty procedure to excise it, and was in pain and feeling down. And yet, she was saying things like “It is what it is” and “I’m grateful I have such a good doctor” and “It could be much worse.” And I could hear her voice breaking.

“Fuck that,” I blurted. “You know what? Yeah, it will heal. Yeah, you’re going to feel better and it’s going to pass. But right now, you’re hurting and you’ve got a big infectious hole in you and it sucks. It’s OK to say that at this moment in time, you feel like crap and you feel like life dealt you a shitty hand. No one would blame you. Give yourself permission to just be pissed off about it. Everyone else out there is an expert on denying and invalidating your feelings — don’t do it to yourself.”

Every one of us deals with something or another. Some with many somethings. And yet we’re told to think positive, to count our blessings, to be grateful. That’s fine. That’s a good practice. But sometimes, you just can’t. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

I don’t have a chronic physical condition. I have depression and anxiety, which fucks with my mind instead of my body. People who don’t get it trot out the platitude of gratitude du jour and say we can be happy if we simply decide to be. Screw them.

Any of you familiar with that eczema commercial? A woman stands in front of the mirror, surveying her raw, red, weeping skin. So she cancels social plans, she wears long sleeves, she wears a jacket outside in the summer. And anytime she’s asked about it, all she parrots over and over is, “It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine.”

Depression is internal eczema. I can pretend I’m fine, and I may even look fine on the outside, if you don’t look too closely at my face. But I’m raw, red and weeping on the inside.

“Normal” people don’t get it. They have their challenges, but their own mind isn’t one of them. If they want to participate in a marathon, they train for it and they do it. For us, a “marathon” can be getting out of bed and dressed.

“Normal” people have no idea what the difference is between active and passive suicide ideation. Or even what suicide ideation is. Depressives know.

Why am I blathering on and on about this? Because I think it’s crucial that we give ourselves a break. Break free of the judgment and the false positivity and just give ourselves permission to feel bad. To mourn our losses, our limitations. The sooner we get off our own backs, maybe, just maybe, life won’t feel like such a heavy burden.

Last night, I was on the phone with John, bawling my guts out. He didn’t deny my feelings, he didn’t beat me up over them, and he didn’t try to fix me. At one point, he said, “I’m so sorry, bunny. Sometimes it really sucks to be you, doesn’t it. It hurts.”

(Yes, he calls me “bunny.” Shut up.)

Just hearing that lightened me up, a wee bit. Because yeah, in that moment, it sucked to be me. It would pass. I knew it, and he knew it. But it was all right to be flawed and fallible and weakened. Tomorrow, or the next day, I’d be stronger. I’d rise back up.

So, kids, remember this. When life kicks your ass, don’t add insult to injury and try to deny your perfectly understandable feelings. Be kind to yourself. Be gentle. And of course, if the PC world tries to tell you to “SMILE!” and “Put on a happy face!” and so on and so forth, there’s always Erica Scott’s tried and true method for dealing with that.

(Now you really know I’m back, don’t you. Only took me two posts to flip the bird.)

Have a great weekend, y’all. ♥

Well, look who’s back

It’s true. I have been toying with the idea of restarting this for a while now. And I’d keep deciding not to, because I felt a little silly after making such a grand exit over a year ago. So why am I back?

Because I still have things to say. I don’t know who will want to read them, but I need to express them. I need a place to call mine. Facebook? Forget it. That’s mostly for playing Scrabble/Words With Friends and a few other vanilla odds and ends. Twitter is fun and I’m very active there, but one can only say so much with 260 characters. FetLife? Meh. FetLife is a mixed bag these days. There are, quite literally, millions of people on there, the attention spans are short, and you never know how your writing is going to be received. Sometimes, it strikes a chord and you get lots of loves and comments. Other times, no one notices. And then there are the times when, if you say something controversial, you swat at a hornet’s nest and bring a fuck-ton of sting down on yourself. FetLife can be a fun, playful place to connect with kinky friends… and it can be a minefield. Here, I have a bit more control. Here, I can fully be myself and know that (hopefully) the people reading like me and want to see what I have to say.

So what’s happened in the past year and two months? Everything and nothing, I suppose. Life. John and I will be together twenty-two years next month. He is still navigating the Nine Circles of Hell with his job, and that’s a long story unto itself, but I’ll shorten it by saying that he’s doing the best he can, and is determined to stick it out there and take their money and his pension. Health-wise, the news is good; he is the strongest he’s been in years. His heart is doing well; it’s been three years since his surgery. He walks a lot and keeps fit. He got a device for his sleep apnea, so he is now getting the rest he needs. I still worry about him all the time, and it’s still stressful hearing about the daily BS he has to endure at work, but overall, I’m breathing a little easier.

Scene-wise, we still do our two parties a year. I wish we could do more, but my distaste over traveling hasn’t changed and we are being very careful about spending money, because who knows what the future will bring. I had pretty much retired from doing videos at the end of 2016, but a couple of months ago, Alex Reynolds got a special request from one of her clients for a custom video with me in it. Couldn’t say no to that! It was a joy to shoot again, with her man Paul Kennedy, one of my favorite tops.

This will be released on the Northern Spanking site, but I don’t know when. And speaking of Northern, around the time we shot this, they released a video I’d shot with them in 2016. Paul plays my husband, a filmmaker… and I just happen to be a film critic. Who trashes his latest production. Small wonder the clip is called Critical Erica. 😉 Here is a fun shot of the pullover — note Paul’s grim determination and my “righteous indignation” face.

What else… I still get stupid correspondence. Today on Twitter, some weird guy kept insinuating himself into my conversations with stupid irrelevant comments, and then liking and retweeting his own comments! #BLOCKED  People still ask me scene questions, and I thought perhaps restarting this blog would make me more accessible. And let’s face it, I’m still a grumpy pain in the ass and like to rant about stuff, so this will be my outlet once again.

I didn’t order this coffee cup for no reason.

One thing I am not going to discuss here? Politics. I made that mistake before and I will not do it again. That is what Twitter and Facebook are for. I want to keep this space on point, especially since I’m entering a different stage of life now and writing here will help me process things.

It is not easy being an older female bottom in this scene. I am well past the age where I can pull off being a Little or a Middle. Not that I ever felt comfortable in that head space anyway. When I was in my late 30s, I let friends dress me up as a schoolgirl and I went to a party like that. But instead of feeling cute or sexy, I just felt… foolish. It’s simply not me.

I get the appeal of Littles and Middles, I truly do. What’s not to like? They’re cute. They’re adorable. They’re playful and fun. They wear cute clothes. And they get a lot of attention and care-taking. I am a Responsible Adult. I am fiercely independent and don’t like asking for anything. I have never wanted a Daddy; I’ve always been attracted to younger men, so hardly a Daddy image. (Those of you who have read my book might remember the story of 32-year-old me and my rather torrid infatuation with my 22-year-old coworker.) I am not comfortable with appearing needy.

And yet, I am. Sometimes, dammit, I just want to be taken care of. I want to be spanked, cuddled, kissed, pampered. I want attention. And I don’t want to have to ask for it; I want it to happen organically. But what comes more easily to a Little or a Middle is not so easy for a Very Much Grown But Still Vulnerable Person. (What the hell would be a name for that, anyway?)

When I was gathering my thoughts for what I was going to write, random memories of past scenes and tops were floating through my mind. I remembered a time about ten to twelve years ago, when my then play partner and dear friend and I were talking, for whatever reason, about childhood books, and he was shocked and appalled that I had never read The Little Prince. I don’t know why I didn’t, since I was a voracious reader as a kid and had read everything else that was popular, but I guess it slipped through my awareness. Anyway, the next time he came over, he brought me a copy. I was having a hard time that night, emotionally, as I recall; I don’t remember why. After we played and I had had a tearful release, he stuck around until I’d gotten undressed and he got me settled into bed. And then… he got on the bed with me, and read to me, from The Little Prince. I didn’t ask him to do that. I never would have thought of asking him to do that. But in that moment, it felt so soothing, so loving. I felt like someone else was taking over my cares for a while. I could fall, and he’d catch me. Because he wanted to, not because I asked him to. He just knew. What a sweet moment that was.

Because sometimes, adulting blows. Sometimes, life is fucking hard. And this is my escape. This is how I feel cared for, protected, loved. This is where I get to be that oh so bizarre and twisted and delicious combination of sexy adult woman and vulnerable, childlike person. I’m still kicking ass. I’m still working out. I’m still assing hands. 🙂 I’m tough. But inside is another story.

So… as I carry on, trying to figure out my New Normal and how to get my needs met, how to deal with insecurities and all the bullshit that comes with ageing, I hope you guys will stick around. Relate. Comment if you want. I don’t know how often I’ll post; when the spirit moves me and the muse bites, I guess.

It’s good to be back.