The Ina dressed as a girl update

OK I lost interest after 31 minutes and went home to work in the garden.

The statistics are as follows:

I live in a quiet street.  Time taken until first four men staring at me 41 seconds.

I passed, in total about a hundred people.  Percentage of men that spotted my interesting take on use of underwear – 80%.  The others were busy.

Interestingly, I would have been approached or catcalled at least twice a few years ago.  This has now become unacceptable and people are more interested in their phones.  I could have stayed out and waited but I lost interest and part of the reasoning was the interesting bounce as I walked so I did not think that would be particularly productive.

I did not feel particularly frightened, but I did not bother going through Govanhell, where I was sexually assaulted walking down the street for the first time in ten years. It does seem to have absorbed more families and less single men in recent years however, so it might actually be quite safe now.  I pass through it a couple of times a day, but beyond being an alien Scot in the area my mother grew up in, it seems pretty unremarkable apart from the mess now.

I will probably go out for a walk tonight after I finish this post, but I will leave the corsetting until work tomorrow.  I am hoping it solves the problem with my back and makes me behave slightly better, although I am still unsure what I am actually doing wrong.

In conclusion, I think I can probably be a bit more feminine without feeling frightened now, although whether I can be bothered is another matter.  I am not sure what the point is either, given that I am obviously still quite scared of people generally, and I have not solved this problem yet.

Being treated as an adult might help, although I doubt that will ever happen. I can’t be bothered trying any more.  I was probably more of an adult at 25 than I am now.

I really hope we can get things sorted out, but it is up to him.  I have an interview on Friday, for a job I would be good at but which would not get me where I want to go.

 

 

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For one day only

OK Today I am going to let the evil hormone sprite out and see how long I last outside before some guy tries to drag me back to his cave.

This means I look like a girl today, and have made no concessions at all for other people’s bullshit.

Look out world.

If I continue to feel reasonably safe doing this, which I probably won’t, I might keep doing it.

I will let you know how it goes.

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Post 400 – work etiquette

I got some mail asking questions about the last month or so of posts, so I am going to answer them in this post, which is by coincidence, the 400th post.

In reference to the IBM – “Are you stupid?  Why are you apologising for a compliment?”

It is not appropriate in this situation for me to be complimenting this person, and I heard myself do it rather than thinking about it.  Some people it would not matter but it upset him, upset me and it should not have happened.  If I acted like it didn’t matter then I would not be the very serious and slightly geeky chick that I actually am.

Why would you be leaving over it?

I have had people get annoyed with me for not being what they expected before – despite my having been very driven in the course of my career, I do resemble a slightly upmarket hippy that has just left an orgy most of the time and people do get the wrong idea.  I wish I could be bothered conforming in order to get on with being a work nazi, but I am afraid I am no longer neurotic enough to be as universally good at everything as I used to be.  I do not think that this is a bad thing, to be honest as I was not a happy camper, nor was I much fun to work with.

Are you in love or what?

I’m not likely to be around long enough to find out, but at no point have I made such a claim.  The dude has my every sympathy for the issues relating to nerves and ambition, and I want him to have the career I didn’t get to have.

Why didn’t you get annoyed?

I’m very annoyed – with myself.

What is going to happen to you?

Nothing pleasant, but that isn’t new.

Why is it such a big deal?

I am a person, not a robot, and if I do not treat myself as if I matter, nobody else will.  They like to try to make me feel bad anyway, so I don’t see why I should stand there and take it.  It hasn’t served me well in the past, and it won’t now.

Aren’t you just procrastinating rather than getting on with your project?

A bit, but there are a lot of other issues affecting the project at the moment.  The car is in the garage, Twisty is on the way to hospital, and my family is being unpleasant, so I have to prioritise.  The timing has to be right for Boris anyway.

When are you going to stop worrying about other people and take care of yourself?

As soon as I am not upsetting anybody, which is probably never.

 

Thank you for reading the blog for the last 3 years or so, and I hope to be more progressive shortly.

 

 

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Observational BDSM

Today, for the uninitiated and initiated alike, I am going to talk about BDSM.

You may or may not agree with many of my opinions, but I am going to talk about it anyway.

At my most interested, I was probably at my least active – you can see some of my research in The Best Sex Study Ever on the books page if you want to read some amusing anecdotes about my avoidance in actually participating with anyone I didn’t know.

I found trying to convert my existing partners largely futile, and then there was one that it just didn’t pan out with, but, for those who are interested in bonking strangers here are my rules of thumb from observation in the past:

  1. Do not bonk anyone who quickly develops a sexual obsession coupled with complete refusal to listen to anything you have to say.  This is unlikely to be a happy pairing unless you are very beautiful and a full blown masochist, and most of us are not.
  2. Try both Dom and Sub, so that you have some idea what you actually want, because anyone who is reasonably talented will expect a lot of communication.  One dom told me that subs were the bossiest people he had ever met.  This is the kind of relationship you should really be shooting for unless you are very boring or crazy.
  3. Do not agree with everything suggested unless you really dig humiliation in a big way as not everything works for everyone.
  4. Personally, there are quite a few things that I have no time for or interest in, so I tend to regard it as a kind of expansion pack rather than a lifestyle choice.  Many people I have met who do regard it as a lifestyle choice are basically just scared of relationships.
  5. If anybody tells you you do not need a safeword, then it is probably time to leave.
  6. Investigate what you think you might like quite thoroughly so that you know what you are doing, as there are an awful lot of stupid people out there who have no idea and will go some way towards killing you if you are not extremely careful.
  7. The ‘scene’ – as in people who regularly participate with a large group of people, is quite superficial and bitchy by all accounts, so probably best not to start there.  Similar to the gay scene in that embarrassing incidents are circulated without your knowledge.  I was told a horrifying story about some poor girl at university who was torn inappropriately as she sat right in front of me drinking a pint of cider.  This is not something you should regard as a good thing.
  8. Not everyone is gorgeous, and it is surprising what actually floats your boat when you get talking to people.

Having also met swingers and tried to talk to them, to no avail, I stopped my investigations quite quickly, but some of the chattier BDSMers were quite enlightening.  I was, I decided, more interested in an imaginative and aesthetic perspective.  It is also unlikely that I would fully express myself outside a relationship as I am not particularly confident in this respect.

However, as discussed with one of the exs, from the perspective of making your perfectly boring long term relationship a lot more interesting, it is a useful interest to have, and so I recommend doing some reading for that reason if nothing else.

Be careful, however, what you wish for….

 

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Ina Disguise Recovery

We have just reached the user level I was at before the website crashed at the end of 2016.  We have never reached post Brexit referendum figures, which I am glad about, because I like to be able to keep track of at least two of my daily visitors.  I am very grateful for their continuing support.

Blog readers seem to be mainly separate from readers of the books or viewers of the other pages, which is a shame because I like to veer between different skillsets.  I am almost over my uniform rage following my mother’s death (see posts from August to December 2017 for why that would be)

I have been pretty lazy about pushing some things forward of late.  This job, which I fought to get because I wanted to get back into this particular arena, is quite intensive in terms of mind space use, mainly because the shifts are very long and the job relies on your ability to follow complex documents.  I am not as great at that as I used to be.  I am better at some things, and worse at others.  I need to work on that, but I think I am better at deciding on alone time than I used to be.

Nevertheless, I am now at the point where I need to sew, which is good, although I would like to also work on Lucifer Ogilvie, as it is more cheerful than real life.  I cannot think about Boris for long without feeling a bit happier about life in general.

So, given that I will inevitably need a new laptop soon, I will need to push on with the stuff I can do.

Hopefully I should be able to make some progress on the Toby Jugs and Wolfe’s cameo before I make serious headway on the chair.  Call me Al needs some finishing work, which will take a few days, and I have some resin to go ahead and complete Darius Guppy and Iain Duncan Smith at last.

Otherwise, I am feeling a bit sad, as the car is seriously ill again and I do not want to let it die.  This is not a good time of year for that, but I have a couple of interviews for additional work on the go, so hopefully that will make life a bit easier pending my probable change of job.

It is tiresome, doing the right thing, but then so is the predictability of humans.

 

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FTAO the Incredibly Beautiful Man

Started work on story five, thought it was a bit too overt so I am awaiting a less raunchy one I think,

I probably need some help in the form of another person before I lay down the overhead design on the chair, so I will need a visitor to come and sit in the shell.  Twisty may do it if he feels better soon.

I am going to make one last stab at this, since we are not at work at the moment.

Ina Disguise exists to look at beautiful men.  The name was created in honour of Wolfe, for reasons which he will fully grasp due to one of his naughtier habits on facebook.  I have no issue with failed romance, because that is what sparks off any work I do.  The only aberration so far has been Boris.  Boris is here because I like Boris, and because he provides a very helpful counterpoint to my other work.

I have no idea how to make things OK between us.

I have tried conversation to redirect us a bit, and we seem to be heading in the direction of frustrated aggression.  I do not want this to be the case.

I had no idea you were with anyone, and to be honest, I did not intend to say anything to you in the first place.  It was out of my hands entirely.

Twisty would verify that you had not even been mentioned before I told you your seriousness was astonishingly beautiful.  Basically every other particle of me knew before I did, to cut a long story short.  The only other thing I can say I remember is you telling somebody on the shift you would need to think about something (relatively pointless) before answering them, and I apparently found that rather charming.

You did not appear to be worried or upset by it until last weekend or so.  I do not know if your relationship is new or if something bothered you about me knowing about it, but it doesn’t really matter now.  You should just have said in the first place.  I said the wrong thing, and I fully accept that, although it was not apparently something I could help.

Now the problem is impending hostility, and I would rather there wasn’t any.  I have every respect for your management ability, with the exception of the brusque bits, which are not necessary and which will not do you any favours in the future.

When people seem to double-talk you, it is usually because they are scared or anxious for other reasons, and the most helpful response is to laugh so that they are comfortable to explain things to you.

My computer, which I advised you was not connecting with the drive, has now been flagged by bank security systems as being faulty, so I was not lying to you or being difficult at all.

Thank you for staying outwith a four foot radius, as the rockets are not nearly so bad, although there does seem to be some cumulative effect from being in the same room for twelve hours.  The constant ovulation thing has happened twice before, but not with the associated physical symptoms making it incredibly difficult when we are in a training room, for example.  Chemistry is a strange thing, and it is not something either of us can do anything about.

I am very sorry that I cannot get off the shift and leave you and your friend in peace, especially as the entire situation is very upsetting for me.  I appreciate that you have other things that are of far more interest, but I am not at all happy to be trapped in this situation. I do not need any more unpleasantness in my life when my family are busy planning to destroy my home.

Please can we either sort things out so that you are reassured of my continuing support, or avoid future communication so that I can get on with my work?  Either way will have little impact on completion of the work as Ina Disguise.  I do not require more feeding to produce output.  I just don’t want to be frightened any more, and I would rather we did not fall out over something I cannot help.  If this cannot be resolved then I have to leave the job very soon.

Ina

 

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What is CPTSD?

  Difficulty with relationships may seem like a natural progression since each area mentioned thus far can affect how fruitful your relationships are. But, these challenges go beyond a lack in quality or richness. This refers more to a survivor’s potential to feel completely isolated from peers and not even knowing how to engage, to harboring an outright refusal to trust anyone (or just not knowing why they ever should)

From https://www.beautyafterbruises.org/what-is-cptsd/

 

I self-diagnosed CPTSD after looking over some material on Narcissism as a result of looking for answers as to why my family was so dysfunctional.  My eldest sister is a fairly clear-cut histrionic Narcissist, who successfully warped everyone’s relationships for many, many years.

I do not have all the symptoms of CPTSD, and those I had are mostly gone or re-emerge only rarely.  I out-grew my parents by the time I was in my mid-thirties, so finding out what had gone wrong became something of an obsession.

It was not until I met Wolfe in 2008 or so that I realised how fucked-up things were for me.  Wolfe and I were born twelve days apart, and since I am very interested in alternative health anyway, I found his approach to the business fascinating.

To cut a long story very short, I did not stop crying uncontrollably for about three years. Then some stuff actually happened which made me cry some more.

The disbelief involved was astonishing.  Then my friend Twisty, who has a more clear-cut case of CPTSD than I do, didn’t really understand what was happening and pulled me back into the lobster tank for another few years on the grounds of some of his other health problems.

So, it has been a long story, but I am glad I had the career break and very glad that I fell in love with Wolfe, ridiculous though it was.  Oh God, I still can’t stop weeping LOL

Anyway, this type of post traumatic stress has a significant effect on your life, although it does not actually constitute a mental disorder as such, and has little effect on your ability to function.

It does, however, severely affect your personal happiness and interactions, and for this reason, the ‘I’m OK, you’re OK’ brand of self-help is extremely helpful.

The book I have about it is extremely practical, and is more about regulating your stress response than telling you you are a dreadful human, because chances are you are not.

For those who are not about to get it as a gift from an eccentric stranger, here is a link:

Complex Post Traumatic Stress, from surviving to thriving

I hope that explains things a bit, and will now go and do something other than beat myself up.

 

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Being upset doesn’t help anybody

I have removed a lot of posts, not because I am denying that I lost my cool over this situation, but because my being miserable helps nobody.

You can decide, if you are fortunate, not to be miserable and negative about almost anything.

In this case, I am not genuinely upset that the dude is with somebody.  She is a much steadier kind of person, and she is lovely.  She shook her lovely hair at me the other day and I noted that it had taken a great amount of care.

It is unfortunate that I cannot currently get away and leave them to it. That is the part that really bothers me at the moment.  A lady gets the fuck out the way at this point. I feel very nervous about the potential disaster of this combined with the dude’s nerves.  I have a book on CPTSD which I may pass on which will help with part of this.  I think I will give it to her rather than him.

Being messed with at work?  Well I guess that makes life less dull.  Who knew that my nuclear hormones cannot allow my brain to work properly?  I had certainly forgotten.

Unexpectedly writing an extra book and starting a new collection ought to be a good thing, particularly with the apparently interminable delays in the Boris project.

Anyway, should they stop by, I have removed my personal response to the situation and left up only useful bits in terms of storyline.  I am sorry, but there was no other way of communicating and I do not do silent forbearance any more.  I learned from the Wolfe episode that it does not matter how loudly you shout about things, nobody is listening anyway and even when they are, they only hear the bits they want to hear.

So today it is back to my real job, which is taking care of this place and being Ina.

I am thinking about taking on some extra work, with a view to doing one of my usual crab like sidesteps, since this garbage has taught me that 1.  Half my week is now wiped out with emotional crap and sleeping, and 2. I’m very lonely despite the best efforts of my friends.  The impending three months of ovulation is not going to help with either of those things.

The car was damaged last week and is away.  I will feel more positive once my horizons are a little bigger.

I think I will fast for a month or two and maybe get corsetted for the good of my poor spine.

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Some Notes on Creative Process

This is a difficult general topic to approach, as everyone is different and you change in the course of your career.

In the case of Ina, the person behind this website was, I think it is fair to say, repressed.  My mother in particular, who latterly admitted that I was ‘a bit too sexy’ wanted to dissuade me from getting into terrible trouble.  I managed to get into some anyway, but probably not enough.

So, my artistic process usually arises from emotion.  I don’t really have a normal way of dealing with lust, love in a romantic sense, so my approach is to find a way of intellectualising or analysing it with a view to killing it dead as being undesirable.

Feelings are very inconvenient things really, especially when they are unrequited so I have often been glad of the outlet, but I see from the difference between my work and the work emerging from art schools that I have an unusually childlike and robust approach.

The pieces are very rarely designed, as such.  It is more of a process of gathering some random bits in a pile and then something emerges.  The writing is very similar.  I have a bundle of ideas which I reassemble into something coherent.

Some things, like my mother’s children, render me incoherent, so the quality tends to be more erratic.  Romance, however, seems to benefit from delays, problems and distance, so it is ideal for this emotional form of creativity.  The motion of making a carpet or sewing also emulates penetration, so it is quite a barbaric way of expressing myself.

Hence, it does not matter what happens, it is all useful. I can see from the last two posts, for example, that despite my fury I am extremely fond of the IBM, to the point that I don’t really want to touch him in case he breaks.

Creativity does give you a method of stepping back from things.  Things that upset you directly are often funny or extremely helpful in the bigger picture.  I had no idea I was so seasoned in people management until very recently.  I knew I was a decent boss, but I had no idea how finely tuned that is.

I also understand the safety of the Glass Wall, which is what my current project for Boris is all about.  It is not useful safety however, and I will not be retreating to suit anybody.  It is, sadly, a no compromise situation.

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