A Friendly Musical Visit Every Day

My vacation was wonderful except that I had vertigo the whole time, and such bad nausea that I had to go outside any time my partner made coffee or cooked anything.  I guess that doesn't sound like a wonderful vacation, but when you are chronically ill to the point where you're just used to being sick every day, it's like... I'm glad I got to be sick in such a lovely spot? I don't know if that will make sense to healthy people. I'm not sure it would have made sense to me when I was healthy. There were two lakes close by, and I could swim on this floaty board thing (okay, so I could kick my feet) and that was nice. The only problem was that if I looked at the waves, I felt especially vertiginous. I didn't have my cane in the lake the first time I went in, and when I got close to shore I just kept falling over. Usually when I start falling over, I catch myself on my cane or my walker or the wall or some furniture. But there was just lake, so I kept falling in...

Spent last night throwing up thanks to one of my medications. Today I'm eating rice and drinking Gatorade. My head hurts. My eyes feel like someone's sticking a thousand needles into them again and again. That's all I've really got for you. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a little pocket change when you buy stuff by clicking through  my affiliate links . I also recommend subscribing to my newsletter. I generally e-mail subscribers with a weekly update, and I would LOVE to have you on the list.  Click here to sign up:  http://eepurl.com/R4b11 See you soon! Giselle

My partner and I cycled down to the lake to watch the Perseids meteor shower earlier this week. We brought a blanket and got down on the ground to stare up at the sky. We only saw two meteors this year, but they were spectacular, so I'm happy with that. A couple years ago, we were visiting friends at their cottage during the Perseids. Being far from any town or city, we saw tons of shooting stars. But the most I ever saw was camping with my mother and sister in a dark sky preserve. We went on a guided night hike and the sky was just constant streaks of starlight. We counted well over 100, but there were kind of too many to count. We were spoiled for stars. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influe...

When I saw that the britcom "My Family" was available to watch on BritBox, I was really excited to rewatch it. There are so many more seasons than I've ever seen. I have memories of watching it with one of my sisters, although I'm not sure when that would have happened. We didn't live together when this show existed. But, anyway, it had that sort of family nostalgia built into it. So one day I was watching My Family on my laptop while folding clothes. My partner walked into the room. He was behind me, so I couldn't even see him. I couldn't gauge the look on his face. But the mother and father characters on the show were in the midst of one of their typical screaming matches, and I suddenly felt humiliated. People with childhood trauma often have a warped sense of humour. We don't realize this, of course, because there are enough of us out there to laugh at each other's jokes... which is, I suppose, why my sister and I enjoyed this show so much ...

I set myself to a gardening task I thought would be easy: pulling up forget-me-nots. Turns out nothing is easy for me anymore. I can only do a few at a time, and then I have to go inside and rest. A couple years ago, my partner was talking to a gardening expert in town. She advised him to give the forget-me-nots a good shake after pulling them, to release the seeds back into the garden bed. That way they'll grow again next years. I decided to go all out and scrape the seeds off with my gardening gloves, just to make extra sure they get released. Well, turns out forget-me-not seeds are like burrs. Now they're stuck to my gardening gloves, my clothes... I keep finding them around the house... everywhere. They really don't want to be forgotten, I guess. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioEr...

I haven't been taking my new prescription long enough to know whether it'll turn out to be the best option for managing my chronic illness, but you know what it's doing a miraculous job of managing? My mood! I'd been taking a different medication, previously, that took my depression and dragged it down deeper than it had been in ages. I woke up every morning thinking dark thoughts, seeing no point in living, and not wanting to get out of bed. The second day on these new meds, I woke up with this tune screaming through my mind, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt so happy.  If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a little pocket change when you b...

I'm not very steady on my feet. I experience so much vertigo, dizziness, weakness, and fatigue that I usually use a walker or a cane to get around. You know all this, if you've been reading my posts for a while. On a couple of occasions, my mother has made fun of my disability by laughing at me and imitating the way I walk. One of my sisters commonly looks at me with disgust. Another loses her patience because I can't move very quickly. Strangers on the street have been kinder to me than my own family. My mother has invited me to come on a little vacation this summer. A friend loaned her his cottage. I used to enjoy spending time with my family, but why would I want to spend a week with people who treat me the way they do? In a city of millions, I have never witnessed a stranger pointing at me and laughing and imitating my gait. But my own mother thinks this is okay behaviour? She wouldn't do that to a stranger, but she's done it to me. Maybe my family feels uncomfo...

Although we have separate residences, my partner and I spend most of our time together--either both of us at his house or both of us at my apartment. It's increasingly rare that we spend time away from one another, and when we do, I am astounded by how much I miss him. Right away!  The reason this amazes me is that I lived alone for 20 years.  I used to be used to being alone. Now I'm not. And I get so instantly lonely that I worry I don't have the emotional resilience (or whatever) to take care of myself. Emotionally. And resiliently. Or something. Was I stronger on my own? I mean... no. I was never not depressed throughout those two decades of living by myself. My mental health was significantly worse back then. I don't love being lonely when my partner's not around, and I'm not saying I'm a mentally healthy person (I'm definitely not), but... But what? I don't know. I don't think I know what kind of point I'm trying to make. I just miss my...

I was in the mood for a little jump back/kiss myself. Hope you're in a similar mood. Damita Jo Freeman is our robot dancer.  If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a little pocket change when you buy stuff by clicking through  my affiliate links . I also recommend subscribing to my newsletter. I generally e-mail subscribers with a weekly update, and I would LOVE to have you on the list.  Click here to sign up:  http://eepurl.com/R4b11 See you soon! Giselle

Happy Valentine's Day! If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a little pocket change when you buy stuff by clicking through  my affiliate links . I also recommend subscribing to my newsletter. I generally e-mail subscribers with a weekly update, and I would LOVE to have you on the list.  Click here to sign up:  http://eepurl.com/R4b11 See you soon! Giselle

Yesterday I was telling you about recording the audio version of my little book Brand New Sexy Surprises . Well, I just got to a story called "Us and Our" that, when I wrote it, I felt was the best short story I'd penned in my entire life.  At the time I wrote it, I was just beginning to realize that PTSD and Complex PTSD were running my life. I couldn't believe all these facets of my personality that I (and the people who know me) had considered horrible character flaws for decades were textbooks trauma symptoms.  I started to feel like I didn't even have a personality of my own--I was just a big, bouncing ball of trauma. It was actually pretty devastating, because I hated myself. I hated that I couldn't seem to leave the house without getting into an altercation with a stranger on the street. I didn't feel I could control my behaviour adequately, so I didn't leave my apartment most days. It was the only way I felt I could protect the world from me, a...

When I typed "Color Me Badd" into the subject field just now, it autocorrected to "Color Me Bald" -- which fits pretty perfectly with the topic I came here to talk about today: old-people sex. Or, more accurately, writing about sex while being an old person. Last week, I released a collection of adult fiction called Brand New Sexy Surprises . I was (and still am) remarkably excited about this little book because it contains 100% original never-before-published short stories written by me. I release short story collections all the time, but in most cases those have been published before, in multi-author anthologies or on websites or in magazines, and I've since gotten my rights back to resell or publish them as I please. I've been a professional writer for the past 18 years. I have written hundreds of short stories. Brand New Sexy Surprises is different because these stories were all written recently. I wrote them after my body got menopausal, developed ch...

Lately, my partner and I have been spending most of our time at his place, only returning to the city when one of us has a medical appointment. The town he lives in is so small that I always have a mental list of errands I need to run when we get to the city. Then we get here, I'm downed by chronic illness, and I accomplish nothing. In addition to my physical condition, I also have anxiety, which makes it hard to leave the house most of the time. You know this about me, by now. So I end up congratulating myself to a ridiculous degree for doing the smallest things, because everything is such a big accomplishment for me, these days. I'd promised my mother I would visit her when I was in town, and I did that even though it was a horrible pain day and I ended up crashing on my mother's couch for most of my visit. It was important to me not to bail because the last time I saw her, I went with her to chemo. Chemo usually takes a couple days to catch up with her, and this time ...

Want to see anxiety in action? Well, look this way, because I'm having a full-day freak-out, over here. I can't remember if I was telling you this, or if I only told my newsletter subscribers, but my partner's health has been declining since he started testing NEGATIVE for Covid. So, basically, when he should have been getting better, he was actually getting worse. Yesterday, I wondered out loud if maybe he'd developed pneumonia. Later that day he talked to his sister-in-law (a retired nurse) on the phone. He didn't mention what I'd said, and, umprompted, she expressed concern that he might have pneumonia. She told him to see a medical professional right away. Last night, we called telehealth. He got a great nurse on the phone, and after he'd explained his symptoms, she told him to go to the emergency room. Immediately. Well, he didn't want to go right away and, considering I waited a week to go to the ER the last time I had chest pains, I was in no ...

The other day, I mentioned a dream I had that characterized marriage as being locked in a dull, dark room. Well, the next night I dreamed that I showed up at my aunt's cottage (my aunt doesn't have a cottage) with my wedding dress (I don't have a wedding dress). Clearly, marriage is bubbling around in my unconscious mind. I never wanted to get married, when I was young. Now... I'm not sure I have particularly strong feelings either way. If I lean toward wanting marriage in my life, it's more for practical (legal, financial, etc) reasons, at this point. My partner and I were both self-sufficient adults when we joined forces. I don't feel like we ever really "built" a life together. I still have my own home. He has his. His is better. We spent the summer at my place while he underwent daily cancer treatments in the city. I've never taken care of anyone as intensively as I've taken care of him, except when my siblings were young. We've kn...

I'm currently proofreading my book Sharing the Nanny, which is third in my "The Boss and the Nanny" series. (If you want to prepare for its release and you haven't read the first two, they're called In Deep with the Nanny and Married to the Nanny .)  In this newest installment, three adults get a baby to stop crying by singing this song to her. It's one of the cutest family fun scenes in the entire book, because the whole cast joins in and it turns into an adorable little dance party. We've already listened to the  Martha and the Vandellas  version here on the blog, so today we're listening to... these guys! If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can ma...

I've had a couple of horrible migraine days lately. My migraines are triggered largely by changes in the weather, but I don't think staying up half the night to clean the house and get some work done helped. The funny (not actually funny) thing is that I stayed up so late to work because I knew my partner would be driving into the nearest city to do a big grocery shop. He said he could do it himself because he didn't want to take me away from all the work I'm catching up on. He lives in the tiniest town. There's only one food store here and it is miniscule.  Because of his cancer treatments and us spending so much time at my place this summer, we haven't stocked up on food at his place in months. So I wanted to come. I wanted to buy tart shells.  Last weekend I bought local fruit from a farmer here in town (so, yes, there are alternatives to the tiny food store) and I'd prepared tart fillings with these beautiful fruits. I'd even gone so far as to mak...

There are so many things the doctors warned us about, but we didn't understand until we did understand. Radiation burns. We were warned this would happen. My partner's oncologist told us to treat his skin as though it were badly sunburnt right from the beginning. Even before it got red, we were treating it with lotion three times a day. Well, the thrice-daily treatments are a little more intensive now. One of the nurses at the hospital taught me how to treat my partner's burns. Another nurse informed us that, at this stage, he probably has second- or third-degree burns, and they will get worse over time.  Before my partner started radiation, I didn't really know much about it. You hear about chemo more than you hear about radiation. I was surprised when I learned that your hair all falls out at the radiation site. I was even more surprised when I watched it happen--all in one day, pretty much. His hair fell out in my hands as I was treating his skin. Radiation is no jok...

Yesterday I told you about the Dwayne Gretzky concert I saw at the CNE last Friday. Earlier in the afternoon, my mother and I happened to be walking by the bandshell while Dwayne Gretzky was performing their soundcheck. Well, this was one of the songs they went through. They performed it again in concert. The whole time, I was wondering, "What is this song?" Usually I recognize the songs they cover, but I don't remember ever hearing this one before yesterday. Not sure how I missed it.  I spent way too long asking Google what the song could possibly be, trying to describe the sound without remembering a single lyric. Google didn't come close to finding me an answer. ChatGPT got it right away. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also...

When we were talking about shooting stars the other day, this was actually the first song that popped into my head. I didn't make it our song of the day at the time because I don't exactly love it, but it did remind me of a TV show I used to watch in the 80s. I had to look it up just now, because I couldn't remember what it was called--or anything else about it, for that matter. Apparently the show I had in mind was called "Out of This World." Based on the opening credits, it looks like it was a sitcom about a teenager who is some kind of alien with superpowers? I love that I'm 100% sure I watched this show, and yet I don't remember anything about it aside from the theme song. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugel...