New Year's resolutions and self-sabotage in D/s

you should just stop oh normally we can hear ourselves even when the music is on it was weird I was like I don't think my mic is on I'm not stopping I'm not stopping you're just gonna glow cubes hi everybody welcome to intellectual kink and happy new year happy new year here's the problem though I need to turn it like this exactly you see that's what was gonna happen I'm so dejected well my glow cubes died I mean they're still alive if you tune in to skidrowstudios.com and click on live video you will see my glow cubes you'll also see my mistress actin' a fool I swear to god I'm sober I don't know I am I am I'm just I'm really just a child that's the truth anyway so uh we're intellectual kink and I am insidious muse and I'm service slut and uh and this is our we we're gone for a couple weeks cause then there are holidays yeah cause there's Christmas there's Christmas there's Christmas service slut. And this is our, we were gone for a couple weeks because of them, our holidays. Yeah, because there was Christmas and then there was New Year's. And it's, it's so nice to be back in the studio with our fantastic engineer. Yay. She waved. You don't know that, but she just waved. She went like this. Maybe there's video in there. So, I don't know if you wanted to join us other than whatever you're doing on your phone. I'm tweeting for people to listen to the show. Because I don't tweet now. I never tweet now unless it's for the show. And somehow, I'm still gaining followers. How crazy is that? Well, sometimes saying nothing is very powerful. You can tweet. You know that. I mean, we've discussed this. Yes, yes. You just decide to take it upon yourself and be like, well, she's not going to say yes. No, it's not even. I don't deserve it. Well, yes, those are some of the reasons. But also, as you well know, Twitter is very much a place like a now thing. It's very much like in the moment like, you know, you shoot from the hip and like this crazy thing. This is like, I have this zinger and I need to tweet it. Or this crazy thing just happened. I need to tweet it. And so it's a process to get a hold of you to text you and be like, hey, can I tweet? And then wait for you to respond because, you know, you're busy. You're a person. You have shit to do. And then you text me back and you're like, sure, go ahead. Then the moment just passed. Has it really though? Has it really passed? Because the moment somebody might read that tweet two hours from now, and it'll still be fresh to them. Nobody scrolls their timeline two hours in. Nobody does that. Especially if they have a crap ton of followers. I'm sorry, if you follow a crap ton of people. Do you know our good friend, Dirty Hubby? Yes. He does. Really? He scrolls back. He scrolls back for hours. but it could be. I found this out from his wife. But it could be that he just has people like on a list and then you can see all of this. I don't know. So maybe you're on a list. So it doesn't. My point is you're this irrational fear that somehow this immediacy of your experience won't be shared by somebody else's nullified. Hence, if that is true, then there should be no such thing as retweets where there's nothing that happened five years ago. Fuck, I get shits retweeted. There's some, like my top tweet on Favstar or whatever, like gets retweeted and I tweeted it like two years ago. Still valid. Still valid. Bye. I'll start tweeting more. You just gotta fucking ask. I mean, the only time I've ever said no is if there was something else you needed to be doing. Yes. That's it? Yes. That's it. Speaking of immediacy of moments. Yes. So I'm driving here and sorry to all of you people in the rest of the world where it's freezing, but it's, you know, well, it's like 53 now. It's a little chilly for us in the evening. So, but I'm driving and as I'm driving, I'm driving, I see, I swear to God, it's Frankenstein walking a Westie and then about a block away, a ninja riding a bike. And I decided that they were both going to the same party that we weren't invited to and what a fucking party. All right. It was really weird. That sounds very strange. It was, yeah, it was strange. But anyway, that's not what we're here for. No, we're not. So we had this awesome idea for this topic and, you know, it's strange. I was thinking about it today and like, I don't know if you suggested that topic because like you feel like I sabotage myself quite frequently. But. You're so paranoid. I am. Well, you know, I'm a little like hyper aware, you know, just a tad bit. Maybe we should tell them what the topic is. Yeah. Hey, yeah. So the topic really is a new year, a new me. What I mean by that is at the new year, all of us, have all of these ideas of what the year is going to look like. And we're full of hope and optimism and we want to do all of the things to make that happen. Right? And, and so that made me think of, you know, what do we do things? We set ourselves up to fail in a lot of different ways. And we do the same thing within the confines of BDSM, within play, within DS relationships. We do that. We set ourselves up to fail. And a lot of it, I mean, has to do with this, a very common psychological, um, I don't know, it's probably a theory called expectation theory. Hey, it's even in the name. And that is that when the higher your expectations are, when they're unmet, the higher the level of disappointment. And we've all experienced that. We've all had, oh my God, there's this person I'm going on a date with and they sound so fantastic. And then you meet them and you're like, who the fuck is this dullard? You know, it's expectation theory. So it's the same concept, but we're just, we're doing it of ourselves. Mm-hmm. But you like the word sabotage. I don't like the word sabotage? No, you do. You are, you obsessing over it. Why are you obsessing over the word sabotage? Because, you know, it's just such a, I think that, you know, it's a really frustrating thing when you want something so bad, you want to do what you, and you know, it's good for you and it's the best thing for you. It's the best thing for everyone. But then your brain or whatever, has like this crazy ass way of fucking everything up so that you cannot achieve the thing that you most want. The thing that's good for you, the thing that is best for everyone. And it's just, it's just like this vicious cycle. That's all. That's what I got about that. Well, and for, let's give some real life examples. Real life examples. Yeah. Excuse me. I turned away to burp. The blue box is too far for me to, and then I never think about it. Anyway. Sorry, people. You don't need to know all these things. For example, you've been working really, really, really hard at getting back on the good girl S track. You really have. I've noticed it. There has been significant improvement. I don't want to like, you know, jinx it, but you know, so far so good. You got a plan. We're trying to make it a manageable plan. We're sticking to the plan. You know what I'm saying? Sticking to the plan. Being consistent. But, but this is very different from what we've, what has happened in the past. And in the past, and this is what I mean by kind of sabotage. In the past, I'm unhappy, you're unhappy, there's unhappiness happening. And so we both, and you, you kind of go out of your way to, to, to commit to everything. Being perfect on everything. Doing everything. And it's just, it's not a realistic expectation of a human being. I mean, if you had unlimited time and unlimited energy and you know what I'm saying? These, then of course, things would be possible, but we're human beings. You know, you work. I mean, for example, for example, you have chores you're supposed to do every day. Every day. Well, they're not going to happen today. Because you're not, you were going to get home at 11 o'clock and you're going to go sleep. So chores aren't going to happen. Yeah. Which is fine, but that's something that needs to be calculated into the weekly scheme. You know what I'm saying? But having the concept that every single day you're going to commit to these, even just these five things, whatever they are, every single day, there are some days that's not going to happen. So we need to accommodate for that. We also need to have, you know, those opportunities to say, mistress, I'm sick, you know, whatever is going on in your life. Mistress, my back hurts. Mistress, I had a shitty day. Mistress, I want my nest. Whatever. So that's, I mean, when we're dealing with a relationship and changes that are trying to be made in a relationship, first, first and foremost, managing expectations, I think is really important. And it's funny because I think that falls on to the dominant part. I think that's kind of the D type role. And so the problem is if we're the person that's setting up these crazy expectations, then that's going to be difficult because then you have an S type that is constantly trying to fulfill expectations that for very legitimate reasons, they probably can't. Sometimes they're not able to. You know, if there are physical limitations, if they're, you know, whatever, I certainly wouldn't ask you to continue working if your back was in so much pain, you couldn't stand. But you would probably do that if I had set an expectation to a level where that's what you had to do to get everything done. Does that make sense? Yes. But that's breaking my toy. I don't want to break you, you know, because you're a fun toy. I don't want to do that. So the, the thing I think is for not just the D type, I think that the, often the responsibility falls to the D type, but I think that, and I encourage S types all the time to do this, to manage those expectations alongside with the D type, to have that open communication respectfully in the guidelines of whatever protocol is set so that you can have that discussion. That's, you had sent this journal entry where, you know, I don't know, something you were really focusing on, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, I really need you right now to focus on being aware of yourself. And you were like, I'm trying to understand. What does that mean? I don't know when you're physically tapped out. I can look at body language, but there can be dozens of other reasons that your body language might be indicating you're tapped out, which may not necessarily be physical. They may be emotional. It may be something else going on. You're having other issues. So I need you to be very aware of that and communicate with me. I can't, I'm not inside you. You know what I'm saying? That's what I need from you. And the truth of the matter is because I've requested that, every time you don't, you're violating my wishes. Well, now see, you say things like that and then it really, really makes me panic. Okay. It should make you panic because what I'm asking you to do is very clear. Just listen to my words. Do what I ask. And it's funny. There was a, this was years ago, there was a thread on FET about anticipatory service. And I kind of went off, not like in a bad way, but like in a, you know what? I don't like anticipatory service. I don't. I don't. I like it to a degree to very common things like lighting my cigarette, handing me a cigarette, asking if I want a beverage. These kinds of things I like. I love them. They're fantastic. Asking me, you know, if I want something, that's fine. That's fine. But presuming, nope. Can't stand it because what if I don't want that? What if I want something different? What if I'm looking for something else? What if I just want to be left the fuck alone? And so for me, there's that anticipatory service thing. I understand that that's something to which S-types, you know, aspire. But I need to, whatever my head is doing, wherever I want, wherever I'm going, that's kind of the direction it's going to be. And you know, I can like literally make a U-turn in the middle of anything from what I think I'm going to do. It's like, no, I'm going to do that. And you're like, what? I said, well, I was thinking, you know, if I want to get into the methodology, but that happens. So it's always good to verify. For example, it's so silly. The thing that happened last night. It's so silly. I don't want to talk about it. It's not, but it's not a big deal. It's just one of those. It was a big deal to me though. Right. I get it. But it's an example where I'm going to say this example and people will be like, why, why? So here's the deal. So one of the projects that I've asked Nancy to work on is to clean all of my toys. First off, I've got a fuck ton of toys. So we've got to get all of them out and clean them all and realize, what am I using? What am I not using? What am I going to store? You know, that kind of stuff. So, although she couldn't pull my big bag upstairs because it's really heavy, she could clean out like all of the other stuff that I had. And so she had said, when you have time, mistress, can you come up and look at the toys to figure out what you want to put where? And I'm like, yeah, sure, whatever. I'll do that, you know, later. And then it's getting later and it's getting later and it's getting later. And she goes, well, I don't want them to be left out. I don't want them to be left out on your bed. And then you go up and it's, you know, it's late. And so it's fine. I'll take care of it. I'll take care of it. I'm fully, I know what time it is. I stumble up around 1130. I know what time it is. I know how late it is. I don't care. I was expecting to see all of these toys on my bed. And so I would take whatever amount of time I needed to go through it and put it into wherever I wanted to go. I go up and my bed is perfectly cleared off and made, which of course is a beautiful, wonderful thing. But I was like, um, where are are all my toys that you just cleaned? And you were like, but, but I thought, I thought, I understand that, but that's not your decision to make. My decision. At that point that you thought you should have come and said, mistress, may I, if you aren't, in a respectful way. That's it. That's it. But it wasn't sad at all. It wasn't like, just, you know, do what I say. Makes sense. So sometimes, and I think this goes with like, really most New Year's resolutions, just in general, you set the bar really, really high. You tell yourself, I'm going to go to the gym fucking five times a week. I'm going to eat this. I'm going to keep track of, you know, what I eat. I'm going to quit. I'm going to quit drinking soda. Yeah. Do all these things. I'm going to quit smoking. I'm going to start sniffing glue. But, you know, you set up all of these goals and you set them up so high. And so, sometimes you set up goals that are really, really high and you don't meet them, but you get close to it. You know, you, you, you, it's like, it's like, you know, you're not going to achieve them, but I mean, you're certainly working hard to get there. So whatever progress that you've made in order to achieve the goal, however high it is, it's not that bad. It's not a big deal. Same thing here. There's a lot of, it's a lot of, you know, it's a lot of almost chasing your own tail. Because, Which sounds like heaven to you. Well, because there's no possible way that someone could do all of the things, all of the service-y things and still hold a fucking full-time job and get enough sleep. All of that. And have a life. What? I know, right? What is that crazy? I don't even know. But, you know, I don't, I don't know if necessarily setting the bar high for yourself is a form of sabotage. It depends. It depends on the person. I think if you set it too high, then a lot of people almost, by setting it high, you have a built-in excuse for why you can quit. Does that make sense? No. I'm sorry. Maybe I'm misunderstanding. So let's say the bar is go to the gym five times a week. Mm-hmm. Regardless of anything else. You're going to work out for an hour. Yeah. Five times a week. Five hours a week. Well, you know, when are you going to do it? Okay, so you're going to wake up at five o'clock in the morning to do it five times a week, Monday through Friday. Well, the problem with that is, so let's say you stay up too late at trivia one night and you don't want to wake up at five o'clock in the morning the next day. Nope. And you don't. And so you miss it and you're like, fuck, I missed it. Well, okay, maybe I'll, maybe I'll go on Saturday. And then on Saturday you don't because, you know, it's Saturday. And it's your lazy day and you don't. And then at some point it becomes a snowball effect where you start thinking, well, I never could have, I never could have done five times a week anyway. That just wasn't realistic. And a lot of people throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just the whole idea, just fuck it, throw it all away. And then maybe in, you know, when they start seeing the self magazines with the bikini ads, they're like, well, maybe I'll start walking. That happened to me today. I was all like, so I, you know, I had my bowl of cereal, I had my cereal at the house, right? And then, you know, I had a super late lunch and it's like, I was all stressed out because I was like, oh my God, all these fucking people and the fucking complaints, shit, right? And then like just stuff, right? I was super stressed out. And so everybody in my office is like eating super healthy because of course it's the beginning of the year, right? Right. So there's like fucking five salads in the refrigerator. Right. And so I decided, you know what? Fuck this shit. I'm gonna go to McDonald's. Okay. Get myself a motherfucking number one and a damn strawberry Fanta. No pickles, no onions. Nope. And, and yeah, I was just, I was just done. I was like, oh God, I don't want to do this anymore. This is stupid. Right? And it's, it's the eighth. It's the eighth. Fucking God damn it. I tried eating healthy for two fucking days. Fuck this shit. God damn it. If I can't smoke, I'm gonna fucking eat my emotions. Fuck it. If I can't, if I can't wash mistress's feet every day, I'm not gonna do it. Fuck it. I'm not gonna do anything. I'm gonna just sit here in my cuddle puddle and do nothing. You know, that has happened to me. I mean, well, I mean something similar in the same vein. And I, I haven't brought this up to you because I feel like. I love it when you do this. You don't bring things up and you fucking bring them up on the show. Really? You fucking bring it up on the show? Wow. All right. No, I mean, oh God. No, I just mean like, it just, it's a hard thing to talk about, but since we're here and we're being open, we're both always open on the show. It's just easier. Oh, but we're not open in real life? Oh my God. No, we are. We are. We are. Please, please. Go. I'm waiting now. I'm waiting. Now I don't want to say anything. Well, now you have to say it. Oh God. Yeah, this whole preamble, you gotta fucking say it. Okay. So, remember, so before everything went to shit, because, you know, I think we've, let's do the whole, you know, pre-shit, post-shit, right? Remember that we had, I had a morning ritual that I did. Yes, I guess. Oh, I loved that ritual. And an evening one too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I remember when you just stopped doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so go on. I'm having fun. I'm off my light cubes. See, light cubes. I have light cubes in the eyes. Sorry. Go on. Morning and evening ritual. I loved that morning and evening ritual. Yeah. I worked hard on coming up with this and something that I thought that was really going to help. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, no. And it did. And then things kind of started to be, I don't know. I don't even, I don't even know what happened. I don't know what happened that then culminated in me, me not doing that anymore. I don't know either. Right. It was a unilateral decision. I didn't tell you to stop. No, you didn't. You just stopped. I, and I, yes. And I mean, I feel like that was one of those things where, you know, I started to fail at, at stuff and everything went out the window. Yeah. That's what I meant. Throw the baby out with bathwater. No, I was just giving an example to support that. I think, before you said you didn't understand. No, but now I do. So that's, I'm giving an example. You know, seriously, you guys, this is how we talk every fucking day. Somebody gave us a really awesome compliment on Monday night that we, we actually get it a lot. But no, but this one was, but this was very specific about how we, we have our ideas and we, we're totally like BFFs. And, but like we, it's like a weird dance where we know, we like, we both know when we're shifting gears and everybody gets into the place that they need to get into for whatever gear that we're in. You know what I mean? Was that the compliment? Cause I heard a different compliment. Okay. You say it then. Well, no, the compliment I heard was that, you know, people are like, you have the ideal relationship. And I'm like, really? Well, no, he talked about all our shit. He said that. He totally said that, but he, he said, in addition to that, he, he also said that he liked how we could go from being BFFs to dominant and submissive. Yeah. So, which I mean, yeah, whatever. Well, and the interesting thing is if you listen to the show, we do it on the show too. I mean, you can hear it. There's, we do, we're just kind of talking like equals and then something happens and we're not, you know, it just, we do that. Do you like that? Do it again. Sound effects. I really do that all the time. All the time. You guys don't even know. there was some sound effect on some movie that you're like, oh my God, that's the sound Mistress makes whenever she does whatever it is. Throws something. Vroom. Right. Seriously. Yeah. Focus. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, totally, totally, totally. But see, but here's the thing that we're both bringing up these, it's two different sides of the same thing where you set up these goals that are totally, like completely impossible to 100% achieve with the hope that you'll somehow get close to achieving them or you don't achieve, you don't achieve them so you decide to just throw everything out the window. You know, so then, then it produces the question. So where, where is that happy balance where you can set up these goals with reasonable, with reasonable expectations and with practical implementation? I saw a quote and I can't remember. I think it was Calvin Coolidge. Don't commit to doing everything well, commit to doing one thing well. And I'm bastardizing the quote, please. Look it up if you want, but there's something like that. And I think that that is probably the key. Start with one thing. And commit to it with excellence. And then add another thing and commit to that with excellence. And then add another thing and commit to that with excellence. And the truth of the matter is everybody has a maximum, a maximum capacity for doing things. We all do, but we don't know what it is because we're flighty and we jump from thing to thing to thing to thing to thing and hitting microphones because we do that too here. Hello, microphone. Hello. Hello. And I think that if we as human beings and we as Ds and we as Ss take one thing and really focus on that and have that be our firm commitment, I think that we would all ultimately, our relationship would improve, relationships would improve, our dominance or submission would improve depending on what it is. And I think it's particularly important when it's, when it's something that's in line with, if you have established what your needs are, with your needs. So, you know, and that's interesting. I've, you know, I threw away the whole resolution thing. Fuck that shit. Resolutions are bullshit. If you're going to do resolutions, you should do monthly resolutions. Oh, I like that. Or weekly resolutions, you know, because if you just do it once a year, you forget about it. I mean, it's eight days in, you're at McDonald's. You know what I'm saying? You forget about it. So if you, if you recommit yourself once a week, it makes a big difference. And I, to use the parallel of 12 step programs, you go to meetings to stay on the fucking path. That's what you do. And some people just need to go to one meeting a week. Some people I know go to nine to 12 meetings a week because that's what they have to do to stay on the path. So why would we not, you know, take the tools that are available to us from various different things and use those in our everyday life, in our BDSM, in our DS? I think, well, I think what happens sometimes is that it's really hard to, or not hard, it's really easy to fall into old habits because it's what you're familiar with. It's your comfort zone. It's your comfort zone. And when you're trying to achieve a goal that maybe you didn't try as hard before, or it's brand new, and you have to go out of your comfort zone, that shit's not fun. It's stressful. Well. And it's not second nature. A lot of times our comfort zones aren't fun either. A lot of times in most people, our comfort zones are fucking shit. We're comfortable being shit, getting treated poorly or accepting, you know, less than what we deserve. A lot of us are very comfortable with that. That is our comfort zone. And it's just, we're used to it. The devil you know versus the devil you don't know. You don't know if you're gonna be out of the frying pan into the fryer. You know what? I'm just gonna throw up a whole bunch of fucking like lame ass idioms and shit. Throw them all out today. Devil you don't know, frying pan, fryer. Everybody get that? Anyway. So my point is, it does break you from your comfort zone. And it's not even that it's any harder or more painful than your comfort zone, but it is unfamiliar. And therefore, we're resistant because we know, we know exactly what to expect. Even in my abusive marriage, I knew exactly what to expect. I knew there was a rhythm to it. I knew it. I knew what to expect. And I didn't know if outside it would be better trying to leave. And there were the moments when it fucking sucked. Oh my God, trying to leave was horrible. And I think that's what, you know, for me, I have to parallel that if I'm trying to make changes. How can I do that? That's for big changes. I think we need to focus on like the pick one, pick one thing, pick one thing, whatever that is. If you were to pick one thing, what would it be? One thing that I would make a change on? One thing that you would commit to excellence. Oh boy. Right? It's a tough question. Yeah. Well, with today's development, I mean, it would probably be, it would be to stay aware of myself because that kind of feeds all the other things that I want to do, you know? Because if I stay aware of myself, then I can tell you, hey, this is happening. Hey, that's happening. Or this isn't happening. This isn't happening so that I can do this other thing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Trickle effect. I mean, that's, yeah. And that's big, you know? And that's something that's gonna impact every aspect of your life. Not just DS, every aspect of your life, you know? It's kind of a big deal. It is a big deal. So. It's a big deal. It's good. It's awesome. That's pretty cool. Yeah. You know, I've just, but you know, I'm a little anxious to commit to that. That's why- Because it's a big thing. Yeah. So I was thinking, what do I want to commit to? The one thing that I talk about, to myself, not to anybody else, to myself, is that I need to be more consistent. That's like my thing. I need to be more. I'm fucking shit at consistency. And you know that. Because everything that I do is completely and totally dependent upon my mood. And fuck that's just bullshit. But I don't commit to consistency because I'll fail. And I'll be like, ah, I knew I'd fail. Right? Mm-hmm. I was thinking, what can I do that I can guarantee or improve my odds of being successful, growing towards consistency? I need littler than baby steps. I need like little fucking microorganism steps. The littlest, tiniest, tiniest step you can possibly imagine. And since this is a BDSM show, I figured I wouldn't say something like, you know, wake up at the same time every single day, no snooze. And I'm pretty good at that anyway, except for sometimes I'm not. So if I, you know, that's kind of a little thing. But since we are living together. I don't know why that makes me laugh so much. I think we should both commit to morning and evening rituals. I am here. You can do your ritual right there to me. That is a big deal. And incredibly powerful. And a big deal. But that means you got to wake up when I wake up. Which I kind of do, except I'm really not awake. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, fall on the floor, kiss mistress's feet. Just shuffle back to bed. That's what you do. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. You don't even let me pet your head. You just shuffle away. I'm all, oh, there, her head is gone. Okay. I think you like. You grazed my head this morning. I tried to. And then you moved your head. I was like, oh, okay. All right. Well, bye. Go back to bed, I guess. And even when I got up like an hour later, I was still asleep. Anyways, that's a big deal. You're asking a lot. A big deal. Not because I can't. Once a week? No, no, no, no, no, no. We're going to figure out a ritual. But I'm asking you, I'm going to tell you something I would like you to do. Once a week. To start. Uh-huh. Get my coffee. Shut up. Bring it upstairs to me. Shut up. Really? That's an even bigger deal. It's a huge, huge deal. Like, really, really, really big deal. But if I had coffee and I didn't have to go downstairs for it, oh, the joy. Oh, the joy. Right. That's a big deal. Yeah. I keep repeating that it's a big deal because, goddammit, you know, it's not uncommon for anybody who's a kinkster and maybe has a live-in situation where, like, there's external factors that you can't fucking control. Right. Like, mom, I want to sleep in bed with you tonight. Like, that kind of stuff. There is that. There is that. You know? Those are the things. You know, external things are the things that, you know, prevent, I think, consistency on some level. So that's... Well, you know that it can happen half the time. Yes. No, absolutely. Absolutely. I'm just pointing that out as just a general thing. I understand. Yeah. That's a big deal. You trust me with your coffee? That's crazy. It's fucking crazy. I'm willing to try. Because you know what I'm probably going to end up doing is waking up at the butt crack of dawn, going to Starbucks, getting you a fucking venti Americano with extra room. Just, no, there's downstairs, there's coffee in the pot. Just do that. But, you know, I don't know how to make coffee in Coffee Maker. I have no clue. I do instant coffee. You just fucking, you know, take a spoonful and just... Stir it and shit. What is wrong with you? Why would you do that to coffee? It's like brown water. Jesus, woman. No. Coffee. That whole no, I felt like you were going to bop me on the nose with a rolled up newspaper. You just would have gotten wet if I did. Well, yeah. No. No. No. We'll discuss the... You will be educated on... The ritual beforehand. How's that? Okay. I like to equip people to succeed, not to fail. Right. So, we can do that. That seems reasonable. Sure. It's not, you know... And how do you eat a whole elephant one bite at a time? It seems kind of one bitey. Sure. No? No? Yes? No, no, no. Yes, yes. We'll do... We can... You're such a child sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes. I'm always a child. Why do you think I get along with my kids so well? I'm just a fucking kid. I am, people. I'm sorry. I'm just a kid. Wow, I'm moving the camera. I think that's me because I'm fidgeting. Sorry. It's me. I'm shaking the camera. Hey, come back. You don't really have to. Look at my hands. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm like... This is supposed to be like an informative episode. I feel like we've completely gone... Well, you know... You made it very, very clear that you didn't want to talk about anything serious, serious. Well, because... And I was like, oh, that's a good... I have all these topics. And you're like, well, can we not talk about that now? Well, here's the thing. I'm trying to be really emotionally balanced, right? And by talking about really intense things, like that really, really kind of fucks me up, like straight up in the beginning of the year, you know? Why? Because sometimes I'm already kind of... Because I'm already kind of... I'm already kind of... I'm already kind of on a pendulum, right? And so sometimes, you know, discussing things that are kind of intense, make that swing from one way to another. And so I really would like to just enjoy a little bit of right down the middle, you know? So that's why for me, at least. I'm not saying that like, you know... I'm not saying that I want to completely avoid anything that could possibly elicit some sort of negative emotion. Not what I'm saying. I'm just saying, hey, I've had enough of that. All my own. So... But you have enough of that normally. Thanks. I mean, it's just... It's the nature, you know? Some people just have bigger issues with that. So... But I'm not saying we're doing it now. So we're having more of a lighthearted episode and I'm playing with my cubes. Clearly, yes. Playing with my cubes. Don't make fun of me. Are you? Yeah, no. So I don't think I have to make fun of you. You should try this. It's kind of blinding, actually. I can't see. Oh, my God. I can't see. Oh, my God. I think this is our first live streaming show on skidrowstudios.com. So there you go. It's a gift. It's a gift. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I'm like Sauron. No. No, that guy from Ghostbusters. See, because how... Right? Right? Right? Single. Single kids. Yeah, come on, get a slice. No. No more of that, please. Please. All right. So we've talked about like making a plan. Making a plan. Making a plan. Not a crazy plan. Well, but... A simple plan. Well, and then you pointed out, you know, giving yourself the resources to make sure that the plan succeeds, you know? And you're such a fan of lists. Oh, my God. Such a fan. Such a fan. Guess what I found on my Dropbox. What'd you find? Something you had sent to me many a moon ago. I wonder where my Dropbox is. Huh. Anyway, many a moon ago, you had sent me a bunch of lists. A bunch of lists. A bunch of lists. Lists. Lists. Yes, I did. I remember that. You did. And it was really, really cool because there were... Say something interesting while I scroll through all the shit that's in my Google Drive. I know for me, like, just on the same topic of resources, for me, like, one of the things that really, really, really helps me... And it's weird because I don't ask a lot of questions. I don't ask for permission for a lot of shit, but I do ask for permission to go online and, like, look at shit like submissiveguide.com, which I love to death. There was another website. It was McKinkey. Well, yeah. I mean, there's, like, other websites that help with, like, domestic shit, you know? But, I mean, sometimes even just, like, reading things that reaffirm the goals that you're trying to achieve are really helpful, you know? Not because you need reminders. Not because you need reminders about, you know, how to be submissive or anything like that. But, you know, reading something or someone else's thoughts that match how you feel about something, it kind of helps just reaffirm that you're on the path that you want to be on. So, that's really important to me. But one of the... Did you find it? No! I have it somewhere, I'm sure. So do I. Apparently, I have all my fucking mashups on here. I have all my goddamn mashups on here. Because... That's me. And all of my various text tones that I apparently thought I was going to lose. And so, you know, one of the resources that I started using this year was Evernote. Because... Oh, my God, Evernote! You know, there are things that are long-term projects in the house that need to get done. But then there's things that need to be done on a daily basis. And it's not a long list. It's so it's not a long list. But it's just a fucking list. It's to have it somewhere, right? And it's something that even... I mean, even though it's a short list, and I know what it is, every single day when I've been getting to the house, I open it up. Just to tell... Just because it's a checklist. Yeah. You know? Because I can very easily forget to do one of those things. And then maybe I can't do all of the things that are on that list. For instance, what did I not do last night? Oh, I didn't take out the trash. I didn't take out the trash from all of the rooms because there were no trash bags. So... There you go. I couldn't do that. You know? But it... I mean, even just that, it just gave me... It was like a legitimate reason for not being able to do it. Yeah. I think that utilizing the various tools that are available, you know, via technology is the smart way to go. I mean, most people have smartphones now and there are a bajillion apps. I love Evernote. Love it so much. One of the reasons I also like Evernote is that you could take a picture of something and save it to a note to remind you. Like, oh, take a picture of, I don't know, the dirty corner in the bathroom that drives me crazy. That would be a nice reminder. But there was a website that you used to go to that where you got all these lists, like a crazy number of fucking lists. There were all these spreadsheets. Probably flylady.net. I don't know. And you downloaded all these things and then... And there were things like all these spreadsheets and then you made this one workbook with lots of tabs for, you know, mistress's house. And it was very... It was very... It was very detailed. It was really, really... That was one of those all of the things moments. And when I did that, what I was thinking was, I will not always be the only person that's like doing shit in her house. That's true. So, like somebody else would need to have like a, hey, these are the things that need to get done, you know? Because why reinvent the wheel? I agree. I agree. But the point being, not just specifically to you and I, utilize these things. Create, you know, a list and give yourself little bite-sized things to do every day. Bite-sized things. Bite-sized things. Make it possible so you can succeed. Set yourself up to succeed. Don't set yourself up to fail. Right. That's the point of the episode today. May I ask, with the goal, the thing that you said that you wanted to do in the vein of consistency, what kind of resource would you use to support yourself in that endeavor? What tools would you use to make sure that you succeed? What did I say? What did I say I was going to do? Wake up every day? Oh, my God. I don't remember which part. I said waking up every day, right? Right at the same time. I don't know. Just not hitting the snooze. There's nothing else I can do. So, in high school, I used to have the alarm right next to my bed and I would hit snooze and then I would be, I don't know, like you, where I would literally roll out of bed and have to leave in five minutes. That happened a lot in high school. And I was really grateful that I had great hair. I didn't have to actually do a lot to make it look good. But I'm older now. My hair is older. It's not as pretty. So, it's like I got to do shit to it. So, I learned that I would hit the snooze a lot. And so, in college, I started putting my alarm clock literally across the room, partially to annoy my roommate, partially so that I would actually have to physically get out of bed to hit the snooze to do anything, right? And that worked for the most part. Sometimes I would climb back in bed, but it was less likely because I'd be like far enough away that I'd be like, okay, I'm up, swaying a little because I'm not really awake. The bathroom's right there. Just go to the bathroom, you know, and then start my day. So, I think if I do things from my various knowledge of myself, part of the thing is, and I'm going to regret saying this, going to bed early. And not staying up to play Assassin's Creed? Black Flag, I'm sorry. Oh, I don't know. And the reason, which is Assassin's Creed. And the reason that I mentioned that is because I already was going to go home and play it for another hour. I'm like, okay, I'm going to play till midnight and then I'll go to bed. Oh, my God. I'm going to play till midnight. No. It's a really good game. I understand that. Do you, okay, let's just take these last few minutes. Do you realize that when you play games... When you play games like that and, you know, like Skyrim and this one, you completely, completely shut everyone out. You mean there are other people? Like, so yesterday when I got to the house, like you spoke to me, like, I mean, it was monotone, but it was so like robotic. It was kind of weird. But I don't like being objectified like that. The house could have been burning down. That's not true. And you would have been like, wait, I have to get this loot and I have to go get this whatever the fuck it is. You have to assassinate people. It's part of the job. It's in the name. I mean, I want to be true to the title. I don't want to just be Creed because that's a band. I want to be Assassin's Creed. Different. Right. Not the same. Yeah. No. It's bad. It's bad. It's fun. You really resemble one of your children. I don't care. It's bad, though. I don't care. Judge me all you want. And this weekend, you're going to judge the fuck out of me because I'm going to do my Elder Scrolls Online beta. Oh, I judged you from the moment that even left your lips. I could have not said anything. I could have said nothing. That would have really been. Okay. No. Then I said something. I said, you're going to judge me. And this is what's happening because this is my beta this weekend. I'm going to fucking do it. I missed the beta last time. Not missing it this time. Hashtag priorities. If that's what pleases you, mistress, then I'm on board. It makes me happy. I like those games. I know. I'm a geek. I know. Okay. Just don't disappear for hours on end, please. I cannot. What? Maybe. I will. I will shower. Which is saying something when, you know, because people that like play video games, they'll be like, no. We're missing a play party because she's going to play this video game. I would like everyone to know that. And I can only do it this weekend until the game is released in April. So. So what's the plan? So what's the plan? Come on, people. You're with me. Feel on me. I don't think they are. Feel on me. You can be my footstool. Promise? See? Now it sounds like a better game, doesn't it? Well, it sounds like a better game because I'm not sitting there watching you play. No, but you can, you know, you can always, you can always do my feet while I play video games. I don't have any problem with that. That's like heaven. Heaven. I'm in heaven. So what kind of plans do we have? for this year. And I, um, we're, so the crew's coming up and, the crew's coming up. Oh boy. And I can't go to the crew. And she can't go to the crew. I can't go to the crew. And I'm like really nervous about going without her. This is the third crew and we've been to both of the previous crews and it's been really fantastic and I love Gray and I'm bummed I'm gonna miss him. But, I mean, maybe Julie will let me come to the dinner on Friday night. But, um, I can't, can't go to the crew. Yeah. I have commitments that I can't move. Yeah. I tried. Um, so, there's that. It's the crew and if you're local or even not, go, it's fantastic. Or if I had a crew close to you. There's so many people that come in from out of town for that. Um, I, I wanna go to Sanctuary more. Yeah. I really do. I really like the crew and the girls there. Well, I mean, they have, they have a lot of fun events. You always say, well, I don't see them anymore because I'm not on FET that often anymore, which I can ask to go on FET, yes. But then it's, so the whole thing, well, what are you, what are you gonna do on FET? And it's just turns into a situation where, where there can't be anything that could be remotely arousing, which let's face it, if you've ever been on FET, there's shit like hiding everywhere that could potentially be arousing. I would trade Tumblr time for FET time. Yeah, but I mean, come on, Tumblr time is kind of precious. Oh, Tumblr. I use so much Tumblr. I saw some today. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. So I want to go to Sanctuary more. What else? I want to continue my rope expansion personally. Mm-hmm. Um, by the end of this year, I'd like to be doing suspension. Oh. So. I want to learn, um, like proper tea service. Like, not just, hey, I think this is pretty and this might be nice. I want to learn like, you know, the legit, the legit tea service. So, yeah. We should research this. Mm-hmm. Hey, I'm turning 30 this year. You're turning 30 this year? Yeah. Dirty 30? A lot of spankings. Dirty 30. Dirty 30. You are going to get dirtier? Well, it's possible. Will there be a mud pit at the Dirty 30 party? Well, we can discuss the Dirty 30 party after the show. Well, I mean, we should because like, we should. Dirty 30. Dirty, dirty, dirty. And then we discussed how last year was supposed to be the year of the peonies. It'll be this year. And so, now it's apparently going to be this year. So, the chosen cock, who's a fantastic human being, just is not geographically and time-wise available. We love him. We love him dearly. We do. So, we feel strongly that we have a very good, strong second place contender. Mm-hmm. We have a potential third as well, but that hasn't been addressed with the penis. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, I know. I was waiting for you to figure it out, but you figured it out. So, I have a strong feeling that that can happen this year, but it does have to be totally arranged. It has to be totally arranged. It's a situation. Situation. I think it should happen at our place and you should have your nest so that you can aftercare in there. Yeah. We're building you a nest. We're building me a nest. This weekend. Maybe, maybe, maybe I can tweet pictures once it's done. Yes. Yeah. Yes. So much work. Yeah. So, I mean, well, I would, we have this list of show topic ideas that we're working on and stuff, but we've been doing this show for a while now. I wonder if we're running out of things to say. No. We're going to, I mean, more than likely, what we're probably going to do is like maybe repeat some of the topics that we've done in the past only because, I mean, shit, everything changes like every day, obviously, but I mean. We should go back to some of the first ones and be like, yeah, we should do that one again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Especially because our first ones weren't that awesome. I don't know. Maybe they were. I haven't gone back and listened. We should though. Yeah. So, we're back, you know, now. So, you can start getting that in your iTunes to download and share them with the Peeples. Follow us on the Twitter. I'm at Insidious Muse. And I'm at Service Slut. And, you know, that's where we are everywhere else, FetLife, et cetera. If you send me a Fet message, I'm sorry if I don't respond. I just never respond. And if you send me a Fet message, I mean, I'll see like a little small blurb of it because Gmail, you know, email, it's there, but I'm not gonna click on it because I have to ask her first. It's just a situation. But anyways, tweeting is good. Tweeting is good. We like the tweeting. Please review us on iTunes. We appreciate any and all feedback. And, and that's, just stay tuned for what we have in this year. And a happy fucking new year. Yeah. Hey, look, time.