4/26/2015 9:33:06 AM: There's an old Jewish proverb that goes 'Ask not for a lighter burden, but broader shoulders.'  To paraphrase James Clavell, as my shoulders are broader than most, so I am asked to bear more than most.  Unfortunately, there's a reason I haven't made an entry for the last eight months -- in the last trimester of last year, I sustained a moderately severe injury.  It was a busy time -- moved from the city to the suburbs, was increasing physical & mental fitness, and was generally getting on with the business of life.  Then I sustained a concussion and a fun little neural cascade and wasn't allowed to move for a time.  It's amazing what a few months of inactivity can do to a chap. Along with immobility came hormonal, physical & neurological changes.  Long story short, my brain & body weren't working right and I gained fifty pounds.  Now if I was 5'4' I'd look like Violet Beauregarde, but as I'm 6'4' -- myeh.  It constituted a 25% (ish, people, ISH!) gain in my weight, but I was still 15 lbs below my all-time max.  I've now lost sixteen pounds of that 50-lb gain, and am returning to health.  Every morning I get on the scale, and every morning I'm just the tiniest bit lighter.  Intellectually I can accept that what took months to create will take months to undo, but there is this tiny human living around my middle.  WHY IS THERE A TINY HUMAN IN MY TUMMY I AM A MAN!  The silly scale is NOT moving as quickly as I'd like it to.  :P  So that's coming back under control.  Some things, however, are not.  The most frustrating thing is certain medical professionals' inability to do their **** job.  When I go to a mechanic, I tell him what the problem is and he looks at it, fiddles a bit and I pay him and drive away with a fixed car.  When I am hungry, I go to the store, select food, pay for food and take it home.  When I want something, if it is a service or product you provide, I give you an agreed medium of exchange, generally money, and you provide said good or service.  When I go to a doctor, I expect my problem to be resolved forthwith.  I do not expect you to hem and haw for months and call in your colleagues.  And I also don't want you to go with 'try this for X time and see if it works' without any real hope that it will.  Futhermore, the bloody cure shouldn't cause more problems than it creates.  Ugh. I have come to the conclusion that certain medical departments are excellent, and certain departments & specialties can't tell their ass from their elbow.  If you have a trauma -- a car accident, falling from a height, a gunshot -- sudden & severe injury -- there is no better country in the world to be in.  If you have something less obvious or more uncommon -- you're borked.  Here in the US, doctors are trained in medical schools that are paid for in large part by the pharmaceutical industry.  As a result, doctors leave school well-trained in matching symptoms to pills, and not in diagnosing or curing the underlying condition -- there's no money in it.  I've got buddies who are MDs, and it's WEIRD that some of my friends selected a profession I no longer believe in.  I care about results, and because of that I've joined the increasing number of folks who are choosing primary healthcare providers who don't have MD after their name.    Happily, I've found a protocol that works and am proceeding apace.  God willing, I'll avoid any more skull-first collisions with immobile objects at speed, accelerate the healing process & get back to the business of living my life.

8/16/2014 3:28:35 AM: The following comes from subbieblackgrl.tumblr.com, and reflects the mirror of how I feel. More than sex I am not a bedroom-only submissive.   My desire is not for a vanilla relationship where I am only dominated sexually.  No, I need more.  I need to serve in ways that stimulate more than my body.  I want to feel your control in all that I do.  I want you to guide me in my life-decisions, to make me a better person.  To mold me to be an improved version of myself, and not just your toy.  I want to glow in the confidence your control over my life provides.   When I cook your meals, clean your home, shop for you online, schedule your appointments, and run your errands…I want to feel you there.  When I’m picking out my clothes for the day, I want to think of what you like to see me in.  Whether I’m going for a night out with the girls or a meeting in the office.  When I’m away from you, I want to think of whether or not my general behavior is in line with your ownership and your expectations.  I want to smile when I think about how I am your most prized possession.  That my submission is for ONLY you and when I walk into a room every man should be jealous of the invisible leash that constantly tethers me to you.  I want to serve you as my King.  To provide you pleasure in many ways. To reduce your stress and to be more than just your fuck-toy.  I want you to be proud of me for my service, intelligence, appearance, and personality.  Anyone can give you sex and I have FAR more to offer. Stimulation of my mind is more important to me than anything you do to my body.   If you aren’t creative enough to use me fully, then certainly I am not the girl for you.  Quality submission demands more than a full toy box…and a skilled and competent Dominant understands that.  …and yes, I am quality.  ;-)'

7/16/2014 9:40:33 PM: The Darkness InsideMostly, my profile is sweetness and light.  Fairly direct sweetness and light, but clear and fairly expressive if a bit on the lighter side.  I like to think I'm a nice guy.  Unless there's a Competition, in which case this whole other side of me flips on.  Then I get...less nice and more aggressive.  The other situation in which this happens is when you are or possess something I want.  Much of my assertiveness training goes right out the door and aggression reasserts itself.  This frustrated me for at time; most of the folks in those assertiveness classes were passive or timid and I was the opposite.  The urges to Dominate, Destroy, Crush, Conquer...they're just me.  The real me.  In many ways, I'm a barbarian with a thin veneer of civilization overlaid atop my true self. Why am I looking for a slave as opposed to a sub or a bottom?  Sometimes it seems that there are as many definitions of sub and slave as there are humans, but to me it's simple.  I demand higher and deeper levels of commitment, loyalty, and subservience.  I don't want to hit you during a scene; I want to control your body at all times, thereby negating 'bottom' from the list of possibilities.  I don't want you to think about me sometimes, I want you to think about me at all times.  I don't want to negotiate every day or every scene or every month, I want to negotiate once and, periodically, reassess where's we're at on a socioemotional level.  I want to control everything you are and everything you'll ever become.  To me, a submissive is playing at submitting.  A slave, once she submits, is forever.  This isn't a game to me, and it shouldn't be to you either.  You should be looking for a ...wait for it....(BIG SCARY PHRASE ALERT!)...lifetime commitment.  The look of terror, adoration and love in a female's eyes when she knows you can break her, and trusts you not to -- there's nothing like it.  It appeals to the more primitive, basic parts of me that see no problem with hitting a woman.  Or a man.  Or anyone who gets in my way.  I'm fully socialized and don't hit nowadays except in self-defense or the defense of others.  But sometimes...sometimes I'm just begging some overly tattooed arse to throw a punch.  But they never do.  For some reason they pause and walk away.  I don't know if it's because of the look in my eye or the darkness in my soul or that I'm fairly tall and broad-shouldered, but...nobody fights me anymore.  I'm polite.  Civilized.  Kind and considerate.  Objective-focused.  I'm a nice guy, I really am.  But in a relationship, with a trusted & loved partner, I'm...not so nice.  Feminists might consider me an asshole, the worst kind of man.  One who is conversant with their ideology and wholeheartedly rejects it.  I enjoy consensual non-consent and like it rough.  I'm a big guy, and regardless of the size of my partner, I enjoy physically dominating her.  I enjoy getting to know her mind and slowly, over time, asserting control.  I relish being what outside observers might consider controlling, verbally and physically and emotionally.  She and I...you and I...will know that this relationship is what we've both been seeking for our whole lives.  I am gentle and loving and brutal and cruel.  Yes, I'm a conundrum.  I've got the I'm Human, Deal With It badge and T-Shirt and Hat to prove it.  ;P  I want to love you.  I want to hurt you.  I want to control you.  I want you to be pretty and I want to bruise you, and I want you to feel that my marks on your flesh enhance your beauty.  I want you to carry the reminders of my control not merely on your flesh, but indelibly imprinted on your heart and soul and being.  I want a woman who can keep up.  Somewhere, out there, she exists.  Not a baker's dozen or a woman in every port, but one.  One fucking amazing female human model, an Alpha in her own right who will fulfill and complete me in ways that mesh with her own needs.  Brilliantly.

7/13/2014 4:34:35 PM: 'You are so alpha.'Someone said that to me today.  People have been saying variants of that statement for the last few months, ever since parts of me that had lain dormant started waking back up.  I'm a bit confused by the whole thing, so I'm going to ramble and sort out my feelings today.  From the MW dictionary:  'alpha: socially dominant especially in a group of animals,' also 'something that is first.'  I'm from the generation before Twilight, so I've never really considered it seriously.  We used to call it being a 'Man's Man' before the social gestalt shifted and the meaning of that phrase changed.  I've always been focused on getting things done and better ways to accomplish things.  Discovering the GTD methodology was a big help in that department, and moving from the Franklin Covey system to GTD probably helped supercharge my already-accelerated development.  Efficiency and effectiveness are my particular bugaboos; inefficiency drives me nuts.  I believe that we were given two ears and one mouth for a reason, and use them in a skewed ratio.  I have been both popular and unpopular, the latter mostly when I was younger or with those loyal to/working for a competitor.  Socially...well, I wouldn't say I had much of a social life.  In school I was focused on preparing for what came afterwards.  When 'afterwards' came, I woke up, worked out, had breakfast, went to work, stayed there much of or all of the day, ate dinner and, on the weekends took clients and friends out to dinner.  Dinner usually lasted until 11 or two, depending on the group, then we'd break up and make our way back to our respective homes.  Then I'd sack out and wake up on the morrow to repeat.  There are a lot of things that people care about that I consider...silly.  The things that I do care about, I care about passionately.   I care about nutrition and health and making the best use of the short time we have on this planet.  I still care about winning, but my definition of it has changed.  It's about self-actualization and quality of experiences, not the quantity of them.  I care about the legacy I'll leave behind.  I care about America and am concerned for her future.I believe I can handle pretty much whatever life throws at me, and I'm doing far better with planning ahead and anticipating what those things are and will be.  I'm more relaxed than I once was, and while I can still infect others with my passions, I'm practicing being 'assertive' more and 'aggressive' less.  I just do what needs doing.  Anyone can do that.  I don't know that I'd call myself an Alpha.  As long as the task at hand gets done, I don't really care.  :P

7/10/2014 1:47:43 PM: “A man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions.... He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer--because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement.'  -- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged