Category Archives: How To Guides

I Resolve Not To Make Resolutions. Or Do I?

It’s a New Year! Time for a new YOU! Rah-rah-rah! Buy this, do that, be this! Go, go, go! Team awesome, here we come! Resolutions for EVERYONE!
HURRAY!
Holy shit. Are you ready to punch someone yet? You could include it in your exercise accounting. “Punched out Bob. 15 calories.”
I’m not paying attention to any of it because I don’t have the time to be awesome this month. I have the time to be “pretty good.” Maybe “above average.” Awesome’s a bit of a reach for me. Ask me in June.
However, there’s a big year ahead of me. I’m working up to Awesome.
As of this morning, I’ve survived one week without butter or margarine. This has meant I’ve eaten less bread. And because I’ve had less bread, I’ve had less cheese. It’s this whole crazy domino effect thing. Have I lost weight? Who fucking knows?
I’ll tell you what I know — my pants didn’t fit last week. I mean, collectively.
This week, things are better. And they fit again.
Still, I know what I should feel like and look like, and right now I’m not it. But I also know I need to stay sane. I’m moving in a few weeks, I have to respect my back injury and proceed cautiously, and I’m packing as much as I can on a slow-and-steady basis. Gotta tell ya: I feel it in every single muscle and I know I’m already getting fitter. I’m not sure piling on the gym-bunny visits would be smart thinking right now. More walking, sure, less butter, better bending/lifting form, and I’m doing all that.
And that’s a great start. No butter, and a zillion squats and hefted boxes, that’s a good start.
The last time I started a “diet” with a month of no butter, I lost 18 pounds in the first 5 weeks, and went on to lose 65, because I added something new to my changes monthly and had a constantly-growing mentality about the new lifestyle.
I want to have a good start on Doing New Things For a Better Me now, and not wait until I’ve moved to be smarter.
There’s only two goals I have this year; if you break it all down to its simplest terms, there’s two. One is, Be Better. The second is, Be Honest.
There are a lot of areas in my life that need improvement. To “be better” gives me a wide berth of where to go, what to do. If I improve one thing, great. There’s something else that can get tweaked. As far as being honest goes, I’ve been unhappy in Vancouver for a couple of years now and wasn’t being honest with myself about it. My life got away from me as a result. That’s what happens when you lie to yourself daily — whether it’s about a job, home, or your life.
I want to be more aware of the moment, more open about truths, and live that way. It’s better for writing, it’s better for communication and relationships.
So, honesty and betterment, in all their forms, are the goals for my year.

Oh, come on. There’s more, right?

Now, there’re a lot of things I want to do with my life this year, and I’ll be writing those goals out for myself — from weight goals and health ambitions, to money aspirations, writing benchmarks, and more — but you don’t need to know what my plans are there.
I don’t believe in that. I think as much as we can get help and support from others by way of sharing our “goals,” we can get shat upon as well.
Self-belief isn’t some unalterable force in my life. My confidence is often akin to a leaf in the wind. It goes where it blows. I don’t need people’s doubts, questions, or concerns clouding my horizon. And I can’t be finding my strength in their support or my sense of self in some fan club who rallies around me.
One way or the other, it’s on me, right?
It’s not a bad thing, it’s just the way it goes.
I commented on The Twitter last night that I think I’m finding my mojo, and that’s sort of what I was talking about. For a long time, I’ve been feeling sort of uncomfortable in my own skin. I didn’t feel like I had control over my life or my own actions. It was just… unright. I was unright. Maybe even wrong.
A week into 2012, and that feeling’s largely dissipating. Sometimes life just needs A Decision. Once you make the choice and go all-in, it’s amazing how much it can transform your mentality.
Of course, the fact that I’m taking my vitamins and eating better and getting a lot of physical work in the way of moving, well, THAT couldn’t be helping my mentality at ALL, right?
It’s that Domino Effect, I guess. Positive change is coming, so I’ve put other positive changes into play, and thus the Snowballing Of Awesome has begun.
Be better. It’s a start. Next month, I’ll have a new normal in my betterness, then I’ll have to be even betterer.
The best thing about having “Be Better” as the resolution is that it gives a bit of a softer focus on goals met/not. If you fall short, but you’ve still done more and been better than before, well, you met the “real” resolution. We need a kinder, gentler marker to measure against sometimes.
I hope your year is off to a similarly promising and exciting start. We could all use a little “up” in our lives, I suspect.
Happy New Year, and happy Monday, then.

I HAVE A HAMMER, Therefore I DIY Blog

HEY, people.
You know what I haven’t told you yet? I’m blogging over at BUILD DIRECT, your building supply geniuses on the web.
There, you’ll find me doing home improvement and DIY blogs on a whole range of topics.
If you like the content on the following posts, please comment on the Build Direct blog, not here. Share it, like it, tweet it — whatever you like.
Here are the summaries of my recent posts, and stay tuned for more.

  • 6 Ideas for Balcony Privacy: Honestly, sometimes the best thing about apartment living is spying on the neighbors. The flipside is, sometimes the worst thing is knowing neighbours are spying on you. In the summer, the world’s a fish bowl when it comes urban apartment balcony life. It doesn’t have to be that way. With creativity and crafty splurging, you too can enjoy a special outdoor space while not letting yourself be a spectator sport… READ MORE HERE.
  • Picking Paint Colors: It’s Personal, Not Theory: Committing to a new paint color can be nerve-wracking. A friend once taped 15 paint chips to the wall, and asked her visitors to choose their favourite — of 15 variations on beige. Her inability to break the Bonds of Beige isn’t unusual. Embracing color is a lot to ask in a neutral world… READ MORE HERE.
  • Area Rugs as Wall-Hangings: A Magic Carpet Decor Solution: It’s the oldest of decorating truisms: a house isn’t home until something’s hanging on the walls. It’s personalized touches like artwork or family photography that define your space. Today, it’s rare to see original art hanging in a home, or unique knick-knacks. As a result, we have a crisis of decorating identity… READ MORE HERE.
  • Rethinking Storage: A Personal Story: Space: Everyone wants it, but in a square-foot world, it’s increasingly a luxury. A material age presents a lot of space-making challenges. Where do we put all that stuff when urban dwellings are shrinking? READ MORE HERE.

Coming up in May, I have a whole series on DECLUTTERING the home. I also have a two-parter on growing a kitchen garden. And there’ll be other stuff coming up as well.
Are there DIY stories you wish were getting covered? Are there home-improvement ideas you’d like my thoughts on? Here’s where you can tell me that. Thank you! Enjoy the reads.

Miss California: The Boobs Are on the Job

I had to doublecheck my old-school calendar just now. Holy fuck, it really is 2009. Who knew?
Clearly not the folks running the Miss California Pageant.
Yeah, Miss California. You remember her? Perez Hilton went all “oh, no you didn’t [SNAP]” as a result of the ass-backward beauty’s anti-gay marriage stance she posited while she grinned and pointed her perky breasts at the —
[record scratches]
Right, the perky breasts. The now-to-be-infamous perky breasts paid for by the Miss California Pageant, so their homophobic girlie could have her cake and totally, like, not eat it at the Nationals. Continue reading

Doctor, Doctor, Gimme the News

Sex, even mere hanky-panky, is a workout.
All that squirming and groping and thrusting makes your whole body (if you’re doing it right) tense and flex. Maybe even throb a little.
Injuries can happen in sex. Hell, people die shagging when their hearts give out. From orgasm to aneurysm, just like that. Continue reading

Steff’s Easy-Start Guide to Changing Your Life: Part Two

I began this series last month, here’s part one. It’s pretty unstructured, but the early part of the series is focusing on the head game, because without the head game down, you’ll have no success. It’s all in the head game.
The most important thing you need to do if you want to effect serious change in your life is stop bullshitting yourself. No more excuses. Get it done.
What, you want to wait until everything’s perfect and momentum is good, the clouds are gone and the humidity is stable? Right. Come back here to Planet Earth, where rarely do you ever get what you want when you want it, even in restaurants where you’re paying for precisely that.
That’s why you gotta take what you want. Fuck happenstance and trials and tribulations. Shit happens, always will happen. That’s how life unfolds. I’m down 60 pounds this year, even though the last four months have been consumed with bouts of insomnia, several illnesses, debilitating back injuries, cockroaches infesting my home, and even overtime for the last three weeks steady while rehabbing my back injury, and yet I’ve lost 25 pounds in that time. Continue reading

How to REALLY Do Kegels: Things I've Learned In Rehab

PLEASE READ THE COMMENT DISCUSSION ON THIS POSTING, SINCE THERE ARE VALID CONCERNS BEFORE FOLLOWING ANYTHING IN THIS POSTING. Let me be perfectly clear: This is NOT a posting about how to heal back pain. This remedy is for MY back pain, conjured after a few hours of one-on-one time with a physiotherapist who took $65 an hour for his diagnosis. If you have back problems, go to a professional because there’s no way you should be self-diagnosis, ‘cos that could seriously fuck you up.

THIS is about the proper way to do Kegel exercises, why getting the technique is right, and a bit of a warning about doing them wrong, as I’ve learned from personal experience.

Again, got back problems? There are professionals you need to see, not laypeople’s blogs because you think they know their shit, right? Okay. Good. Disclaimer done. Here you go:

________

Well, I’m seeing a physiotherapist for rehabbing regarding my sorry-ass back after blowing it out in September. I’m apparently on track to be “healed” sometime in February. No, seriously.
Despite losing 50 pounds via cycling a couple thousand clicks and climbing some 45,000+ steps and yoga and shit, my back just up and died something fierce. Apparently all that activity is precisely why
Physiotherapy’s interesting when you have a good practitioner. I landed myself a geek who recognises the smarty-pants geek in me, and he’s breaking down very clearly all the ways my body works so I understand the mechanics behind what’s failed inside me, and how to circumvent such failures in the future.
Part of this means I’m learning about my body in a very new way.
Ironically, the number one thing I’m supposed to be doing in order to prevent this injury from ever, ever returning? Kegel-based exercises. As I wrote on Twitter, at the end of the next three months, I’ll have the strongest, most powerful twat in the world. Why? Because I’m to do 360 Kegel-based repetitions a day. Yes, 360 vagina-clenching excercises. Not like I was Little Miss Stretched-Out in the first place, either, so I’m a little daunted by the extent of these, urm, repetitions. I shall be She of the Vice Grip, I tell ya. Continue reading

Steff's Easy-Start Guide to Changing Your Life: Part One

So, a Twitterer made the comment that, with the holidays almost here, the annual malaise of reflection and regret would soon be upon him. And I thought, “Wow, this is gonna be the first time ever I sit down at the end of a year and go, “Holy fuck. I accomplished THAT?””
16 months ago, I acknowledged a few things to myself. I hated my job, hated who I had become, hated the way I treated my friends, hated the negativity I was constantly caught in, and hated my body. I was initially overcome with despondency. With so much to work on, where in the fuck would I start?
The trouble with being an unhappy person, or at the very least unhappy with your life, is precisely that: Where in the fuck do you start? Continue reading

Update, and How to Be When People You Care About Need Your Help

Hello, world!
I’m still in a mad spiral as I sort out everything to do with my loan, and then I can slowly segue back to mostly-broke time-on-her-hands Steff that brings you tons to read. It’s been WEEKS since I’ve been able to sit at my writing desk to write for you, but I think the day is nigh. I miss my desk, I write nowhere like I write at my desk!
My new bed seems to be incredible. I think I never bought the right bed to begin with last time, and ten years of sleeping on it just destroyed me. Four NIGHTS into my new bed and the difference in my back is profound.
It’s easy when you’ve been a crash-test dummy like me in four MVAs, thrown from a scooter, thrown off a motorbike, and fallen down a flight of stairs, to dismiss bodily creaks and groans as just collateral damage from a life lived on the wild side of the “klutz” divide, but only four days in it’s obvious I’ve given my inner Little Miss Disaster too much credit. Really, my bed just sucked. Continue reading

On Oral, A Reader Asks: Can I Really Tease Her For More Than An Hour?

some days are clean slates, just waiting for some input, a spark, a suggestion. some days are lazy days of slack, and on such a day, it’s nice to receive a great email from a snazzy reader, especially when it’s something worth spending a little time writing on. if you have something you think i could shed some light on, you just wanna say hi, or you just wanna wind me up and watch me go, here’s where to send it: smuttysteff(at)gmail(dot)com.
just a reminder, though: this isn’t a gig that pays my rent, so real life often (and rudely) interferes, and if i forget to respond to you or I fail to post a response I say I’ll post, please, please, write me back and remind me — like this reader did! yay, reader!

__________________________

A young lesbian reader has written after reading my three-part (evidently not so) Man’s Guide to Cunnilingus (click here to read: part one, part two, part three). I may have to change the name of that. How hetero of me. Shame!
Awwright, let’s start off with the 18-year-old girl’s question:

In your cunnilingus post, pt.3, you exhort to torturously delay her cumming in order to give her one “mind-boggling” orgasm. That is exactly my question, how do you do it? Because, in order to do so, if I start varying the rhythm of my tongue or even stop for a moment to lick other spots I’m afraid her orgasm might vanish.
In your post “Giving Great Head” you say that your “record” for delivering oral on a guy was over an hour and that his reaction was mind-blowing. Is it possible to do the same to a chick?

-Eager Beaver
Excellent question!
Let’s all just take a deep breath for a second here and think on the basics that everyone needs to know about sex:
First, orgasms don’t just up and vanish into thin air. It’s not like a Hogwart’s class on spellcasting or something here. Don’t be so scared of failing to bring an orgasm that you don’t explore the realms of human enjoyment, all right? It’s not about achieving orgasm in 18.67 minutes. There’s no time-limit involved. Taking the slow scenic route may mean you need to build back up to a cadence that’ll yield an orgasm, but so what?
The fact is, one of the best things a woman can do to increase her orgasm potential for later in the evening is to masturbate to the brink of orgasm, then stop, denied, before showering and/or getting ready for her plans/date. If she knows she’s getting laid later, she’ll typically have a better, more fulfilling orgasm because of “masturbatus-interruptus“. Same thing as if you get interrupted during sex, can’t finish, and then finish later, it’s a much hotter orgasm, isn’t it?
So, if worse come to worse and the arousal should dampen, which it often can and will, just take charge and take her right back to where you want her. Who cares if it takes a while? What’s your rush?
Spending an hour on oral means semi-constantly making sure you’re somehow stimulating her vaginal areas, whether it’s tracing a finger over her and just lightly toying with her, or during a more overt clitoral rub to heighten things, or working her as part of your oral arts. Always be aware and be conscious of her vagina. You can detour away for a few seconds here or there, but make a grand return by kissing your way down her torso or introducing a sex toy into the equation.
There are no rules, get creative. Think “If I were a vagina, how would I like to be toyed with” and get creative about finding items you can tease her with over the course of an hour or two. Spend an afternoon sometime when you’re by yourself just going through your place and finding unusual items (that need to be clean) for teasing a body with. A feather, a powderpuff, a silk tassel, sex toys… use props, put the “play” back into playing with each other.
If you’re talking about stimulating your lover for an hour, two hours, or more, mostly via oral, you have to remember that you can absolutely pull back and just lightly toy with them, using a finger or a small prop, for a few minutes to take a break. God, even just hovering over her vagina (or over a man’s cock), an inch away, and breathing hot and hard against her vagina will be arousing, and you have to do nothing but breathe, so that’s a good “breather” to take as well. Just try to keep them in a light state of arousal throughout, and when you’re recharged a bit, go back to your pleasure-giving duties.
Understand, everybody, you are NOT going to kill orgasms! Not usually You are going to ENHANCE them. Yes. Yes, you are. That’s what it’s about. The longer someone is aroused and the longer that pleasure is denied, the greater the orgasm will be. Do we understand now? Making them wait is a good thing. It’s the difference between an “ohh…” orgasm and an “ohh!” orgasm, all right?
You’re not the first person to not realize this, Eager Beaver, and, god help me, you ain’t going to be the last. But overcome the fear of “losing the orgasm” and adopt the confidence of giving the orgasm on yer own damned timetable, all right?
Besides, again it’s all becoming about the orgasm, when it really isn’t about that. Sex, oral and otherwise, is about so much more than just blowing our loads.
It’s about showing your lover they’re worth you spending an hour or more of your time literally just making them feel great. It’s about enjoying the mingling of human saltiness and sweetness on your tongue and the millions of crazy nerves firing off inside yer lucky lover, beneath your touch, as they squirm and groan softly as you playfully dart here and there, licking and kissing and nibbling and sucking.
The orgasm is just the briefest of moments, and, in the end, it’s never really the orgasm we remember anyways, is it? It’s the delightful tortured waiting in which we think this fury of feeling we’ve got is going to explode from within us if we don’t get to orgasm soon, isn’t it? That feeling’s so fucking hot. THAT is the feeling you want to work to create. That place between heaven and hell that we could all spend an eternity in, provided we get release every now and again.
You won’t lose the orgasm.
You will, however, find a whole new definition to what it means to please your lover. Trust me.

Beginner's Fun with Role Play

In Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, we’re given a great beginner’s demonstration of how to perform low-stress, low-prep role playing games.
In that scene, Viggo Mortensen’s character is seduced by his wife, who says, “We never got to be teenagers together… I’m going to fix that.”
She abandons him in the bedroom for an uncomfortable length of time as she vanishes into the washroom to prepare for her antics. Finally, she emerges in a high school cheerleading costume and stands there in the doorway, toying with her oh-so-short skirt to reveal a pair of girlie white cotton feminine briefs, complete with a little frilly ribbing.
Just standing there, hiking her skirt up enough to show these oh-so-innocent little panties is enough to drop his jaw.
The fact is, role playing may seem stupid and weird, but why should it? As children, we grow up pretending to be other people and we think it’s fun. “You be the patient and I’ll be the doctor. Open up and say, ahhhhhh. And maybe a little oooooh.
When does the switch get flipped that tells us pretending to be someone else is bad? Why do we feel so silly? What’s so absurd about remembering to play over the age of 18, hmm?
The thing about sex is that it’s supposed to be that one time — that one time — when we let our guard down enough to be utterly vulnerable. We’re there, naked, in every sense. Splayed and ready for enjoyment. And then, we lose a little control. For the good? For the bad? You decide.
Men and women tend to be pretty different in some regards, outside of the obvious, I mean. For instance, the reliability and comfort factor of a relationship tends to be really important to a woman’s sense of security. Men can get a little nervous about that, and they like to have things shaken up sometimes so they don’t begin to feel trapped. Don’t get all silly and think, “Oh, my man doesn’t feel trapped.” What, YOU never feel trapped? Admit it. You KNOW he does. It’s primal. Who we are. Get over it, but bloody well accept it. Everyone knows what feeling trapped is like.
So, it’s simple — you just change things up. Cook a different meal, wear a different perfume. Wear a wig, even, on a playful night in. Or, adopt a costume. (Change the decor of a room to be more masculine and dark for the night. Anything that adds new elements or airs will make the experience richer for the guy. Just cleaning up and tidying it will make a woman happy, sadly.)
And why shouldn’t variety make it richer? Variety is the spice of life.
One of the things I always loved about sex in the car was that it meant never having to have sex in the same place twice. Nothing quite like a game of strip Monopoly come rent time in the back of a hatchback, you know what I’m saying? One time by a river, another on a lonely stretch of rural dirt road, another in the abandoned car lot on a full moon night. It’s almost worth the handle imprint on the ass, the rug burn, and the crick in the back, you know?
There’s a digression for you. (Hi, I’m Steff, and I’ll be your tourguide tonight.)
What I loved about the role play scene in A History of Violence is how incredibly simple it is. It’s realistic. It’s easy to do. It doesn’t take a whole night of arranging and wooing. It’s reasonably spontaneous on one partner’s part, and is almost like a gift. Or, you can plan to play in advance. Set a date on the calendar… “Saturday, July 29th, 6pm: RP Games.”
Role play ain’t just for dungeons nor dragons, you know.
The advantage in booking the night and time in advance, where you explicitly say “This is what we’ll do” is that you get this wonderful goodness that comes in the form of committing to be together in every way… and the anticipation it brings. Guys LOVE to know they’re getting laid at a certain time. Let them look forwards to it with a little idea of what the night is to bring them, and man, you could find yourself with a pretty eager guy. Don’t you agree, boys?
If you’re a newbie to this shit, there’s nothing to be concerned about. You’re playing dress-up and having a cheap evening in, okay? That’s about the size of it. The pay-out is a little no-holds-barred fun that allows you to forget about who you are for a little while and adopt a fantasy life. It’s not stupid or childish, it’s just fun. Let your pride take a walk, and have a little fun, will ya?
If you’re a vixen-wanna-be, then check out the beginning of the movie (15 minutes in, give or take — I haven’t watched it all yet, so I’m not giving a whole-movie review; just scene approval!). Watch the scene where she seduces him, and pick up cues from that. The “Let’s go, Wildcats!” jump was a little much for me — after all, do you really want to risk jumping on your loverman’s mid-section when you’re about to try to get nailed? And another point, if you’ve taken the time to get a costume and have an idea in mind for playtime, take a moment and clean the kid’s toys off the bed! Jesus Christ! Get them out of sight. That happens at the beginning of this scene, when Viggo’s cleaning the toys off his bed, and that’s not really the cool thing to have happen. You’re about to get shagged — who wants to think of their kids? Again, Jesus!
It’s not rocket science, people. It’s fun. It’s carnal, it’s biblical, it’s illegal in some states, but it’s just downright fun. Why, someone oughta charge some admission.
Photo from filemag.com.