Kinky Van Winkle awakes to a birthday

Being housebound -- especially with no television -- makes time often feel as warped as a fun house mirror. There are the short, fat moments bursting with life: listening to a spring downpour splatter against the balcony railing or smelling lavender oil amidst the silky texture of the warm bath drawn by my homecare worker or A. down on one knee next to my bed, ring in hand. There are also the moments stretched out agonizingly long like a rope of pulled silly putty: gritting my teeth through the jarring brightness of the overhead light turned on so my homecare worker or GP can see whatever it is I see with my cat eyes or a searing, inexplicable physics of pain reminding me that there are 84,600 seconds in a day and I've only made it through 57,952 of them.

Mostly, however, time is a naughty sprite who is mischievously always just beyond my grasp (and if I could catch it, I'd give it a damn good thrashing). Because I move and think slowly these days, I mindlessly assume that time moves at the same pace, despite the fact that I'm reminded of just how much faster time moves than I do every afternoon at 3 pm-ish when I finally sit down to breakfast (or "brunner" as I like to call it) and wonder where on earth the 2-3 hours since I got up have gone. Because I'm not out and about, I'm often far removed from the rhythms of normal life. Without the ubiquitous Muzak or store displays it only feels like Christmas for the actually day of Christmas. When I was asked who and what I voted for a few days after the 2012 presidential election, I found that my first thought was there was an election recently?

Then there are the moments when I'm made aware of just what a vicious little bitch time has been. Like the day -- was it a year ago or more already? -- when I was actually feeling randy and plunked myself down in the middle of the spankosphere to spend a few minutes reading my favorite spanking blogs only to find that many had folded. Relationships had broken up. The date on a post I'd swear I had just read a few months earlier said it was three years ago (er...probably four now). It was a very Rip Van Winkle sort of moment -- especially so as I'm literally asleep for up to 12-13 hours a day. The reality of how much time has passed, how much of my life has been squandered in this bedroom triggered a tsunami of grief and rage that quickly drowned whatever mojo I had.

This phenomenon is not limited to my reading other blogs. Amidst a stream of Nanny Bea and other spanking story plots running through my mind lately that had me digging through my archives, I discovered that I wrote my first Nanny Bea story in 2006 (I kept looking at the date stamp certain that I was misreading 2008 as 2006). I also realized that today would be the 10th birthday of Natty's Spanking Blog.  Imagine that. A whole fucking decade. That's a quarter of my entire life. And I'm not even spankable for the birthday spanking. ::pout::

I remember that night when I began this blog, sitting on a still bruised and abraised backside at my table-desk in the little dining area of my campus apartment. I had just attended my first BDSM event and was giddy as hell. The writer in me, of course, wanted to write about it, to attempt -- essayer a la Montaigne (albeit not nearly as articulately)* -- to put into words my thoughts and experiences of the subject matter that took up so much real estate in my brain. Not that that particular post had much essayer-ing going on. Skimming it now, it reads like a 21-year-old's diary entry. But the post before that -- "My Natty Moods" -- is closer to what I wanted to do with this blog (as well as take advantage of a free place to park the stories and essays I had already written at that point). What the blog became is a mixture of both. A place to do some essayer-ing and a journal where I dished the details of my kinky sex life to my kinky pals.

There's not much kinky left to my sex life these days -- or sex, for that matter. I wish I could say things were better. That I'm all better. But for the most part, 2014 has been a pretty shitty year. A few changes this summer have given me enough improvement to write this post (I'll find out at what cost over the next few days, though the sore throat I've already got does not bode well). Yet I'm hopeful (delusional?) that the improvement will stick so that I can hang around. After four years away (even if it feels like it's only been a few months), I am more than ready to wander back to into the spankosphere. But mostly as a reader at this point (although, yes, there are some potential Nanny Bea projects forthcoming along with some other posts). Except so many of the blogs I used to like to read have closed.

Which brings me to this question: what current spanking blogs would you recommend? Are there many thoughtful ones left? Given that this Kinky Van Winkle isn't able to spend a lot of time online, which blogs are the must-read ones and why? They don't necessarily have to be bloggers who post every day or even every week (in fact, the less they post, the better -- for me, at least) but rather writers (though they can be picture-based/Tumblers too) who make me think. Or wet. And you get a gold star if they do both.

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*I've always thought it was cool that Montaigne called his new writing style "essai" or "attempt" from the French verb essayer, to try or attempt. And he does read a bit like a late 16th-century blogger. 

What happened to Natty?

As it's my blog's birthday ("does that mean there are spankings?" A. asked hopefully when I mentioned it to him the other day), I figured it's as good a day as any to post a brief update since my last post was over a year and a half ago. Plus, it might be interesting to see how many of you dear readers still subscribe (I totally understand if you've dropped me; there's hotter and more frequent postings to be had elsewhere). Regular readers can probably guess rather easily as to what has caused the silence (and all the new visitors have had a big clue in the opening sentence of that last post from ever so long ago). Even in the giddy, Neurontin-fueled days of early 2005, I only had the energy to post once every week or two. With each passing year as I became sicker, the number of posts grew smaller (with the exception of 2008 when a hormonal treatment gave me a burst of energy that translated into a burst of posts that summer -- until I quickly used up all that extra energy). I managed to squeeze out a handful of posts in 2010 until finally I could no longer post after January 2011.

Not because I wasn't thinking about spanking anymore. When you spend a lot of time in bed not quite asleep but without enough energy to sit up, you spend a lot of time thinking. In addition to solving the Israel-Palestine conflict, considering ways to bridge the U.S political divide, and deciding how I want to decorate my apartment once I'm well enough, I've also spent my fair share of time thinking about our favorite subject. Mind you, there's been far less fantasizing about spanking than at probably any time in my life since I was, say, seven (instead I've fantasized about interior design and pajama fashion). On better days I have found myself thinking over just how I'm going to beat A. the next time he visits or trying to remember every detail of a typical over-the-knee spanking with A., beginning with his usual polite command of "bare bottom, please" to his sweet sigh of "Okay. All done." But most thoughts about spanking have been on the philosophical and theoretical side, some inspired by the thoughts of other spanko bloggers I read occasionally (and of whom I've felt an insane amount of envy -- not just because you were healthy enough to be spanked but because you could also write about it). For several months I kept a list of the posts I wanted to write when I was well enough. But as the months kept passing and the list required multiple pages, I quit keeping it. I suppose some amount of despair played a part in that decision. And some post-topics were no longer timely. 

As I began to improve this spring, I started the list again. Indeed last November, knowing that improvement was coming, I even started a similarly-titled post to this one that I worked on paragraph by paragraph to explain what had happened (believe it or not, you're reading the shorter version). I had just transferred care to a new GP who makes house calls, which meant I would be able to pay off a bit of my energy credit card that had been maxed out on my apartment building's renovation, my sister's wedding, and lots of trips to the clinic to get my INR checked each week because of so many medication changes. But as the balance came down and I finally had a little energy again, the temptation to charge activities to that energy credit card was too much. Now I'm maxed out once again and in the midst of a nasty relapse that I'm slowly climbing my way out of. The problem with this disease isn't so much that it necessarily leaves you physically unable to do things; it's that it beats the shit out of you afterwards. 

There's more to what has happened to Natty (that's actually spanking related, I swear!), not to mention, I'd love to hear about what's been happening in the spanking blogosphere over the last two years -- what do you think has been the biggest change or event?. But writing, believe it or not, is the equivalent of running a sprint for me, not to mention my heart rate monitor alarm (aka The Bossy Nurse On My Wrist) keeps going off.* Don't even get me started on what Nanny/Nurse Bea would be doing...you know, if she existed...

Thank you to all of you who have visited over this long dry spell. There will be future posts to this blog (and at the Punishment Book). I just can't say when that will be. But then, given my penchant for attention-whoring, it's not such a bad thing for me sit back and read what other people are writing rather than needing people to read my probably-not-as-profound-as-I-think ruminations. Since I'm easing my way back into the spanking blogosphere, maybe you can share your favorite blog or tumblr that you've come across in the last year and a half or so in the comments section. You know, in lieu of birthday spanks (at least for the time being).

One last thing: Reading the depressing ramblings of a sick woman can, at least for some people, feel like an exercise in helplessness (not to mention, is so un-hot and just plain boring). But you're not as helpless as you might think. There are things you can do for me and other people with ME/CFS (or other chronic illnesses, for that matter) -- plenty of whom are also spankos: 

1. Enjoy being healthy. There's a reason for the old cliche, I've still got my health. Once your health goes, everything else gets so much worse. And at some point, it probably will go since, according to a staff member at Independent Living Resources, 70% of people will be disabled at some point in their life (that is why we have programs for the disabled like Medicaid and Social Security, not because we're magnanimous people who care about the weakest among us). I know it's impossible to not take being healthy for granted. However at least, in this moment, be grateful if you can spank or be spanked. Leave your home. Take a shower every day. And not in the feeling-guilty-because-others-can't way. Simply really, truly treasure it. Every last sensual detail. 
2. Learn more about ME/CFS. Appreciate that this is not just a benign condition of mere tiredness (and anyone who says that it is, is being disingenuous at best).  I think it's fair to say that every ME/CFS patient hates the assholes who came up with the name "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" in 1987 because it minimizes almost to the point of invalidating the horrible reality of this disease (it was a trans-governmental committee, which, you know, explains a lot). While I'm not sure if "Myalgic Encephalomyelitis" is the right name for this condition, I do know that this is a seriously painful, debilitating and, in some cases, potentially life-threatening (I've had blood clots in both lungs) multi-systemic disease that deserves not only better public awareness but also a moniker that better describes its severity. I mean, imagine calling Alzheimer's Disease "Chronic Forgetting Syndrome." And then hearing everybody say "oh, I think I have that" because they sometimes forget a name or misplace their keys.
3. You can donate money -- and/or your talents -- to organizations like Simmaron Research, the CFIDS Association of America, or IACFSME in the US or Invest in ME, the ME Association, or Action for ME  in the UK** that are working to understand this condition and develop treatments but are woefully underfunded. While ME/CFS is, symptom-wise, quite similar to Multiple Sclerosis and Congestive Heart Failure -- on which the National Institutes for Health spent  $121 million and $1.2 billion respectively in 2011 -- ME/CFS is routinely among the diseases the NIH spends the least on, coming in at $6 million that same year (and the year before and even less the year before that).*** Good research with double-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled studies cost insane amounts of money (which is one of the reasons research about ME/CFS is often of such poor quality) and every last dollar helps. A letter to your congress-person or MP about the lack of funding couldn't hurt either.
4. I can guarantee there is a patient in your area who would think you are the incarnation of Mother Theresa herself should you offer any assistance to him or her (for instance, as someone who is completely housebound, I can also guarantee that housebound person in your area needs something from the store). Indeed you probably already have a friend with a chronic illness, and an ancient blog post, "50 ways to help a chronically ill friend" (originally posted at a blog called "Living with Fibromyalgia," which is now private, which is why I've linked to it on a blog about gastroparesis) is great in its specificity. Saying "let me know if you need anything" is almost certain to get you off the hook of ever helping him or her out. But if you actually do want to help, offer something specific like, say, oh...going to the store (am I being too passive aggressive? Should I just come out and say I need a list of shit from Ikea?). Seriously though, never being able to leave your home is incredibly isolating and just visiting will make their day. (Though I am serious about the Ikea list...you know, if you're in Portland and happen to be going...) Consider contacting a support group in your area, your local county government branch of Aging and Disability Services, or Meals on Wheels if you're looking for someone to help. 

Well, aren't I a wordy bitch? But then, sick people often are. Partly because we have trouble summarizing ourselves well. But also because being sick -- whether acutely or chronically -- makes you more self absorbed. Not because you mean to be. It's an evolutionary response to a threat. Consider what you're like the next time you're in the Emergency Room and that heart attack patient is seen before your tuberculosis-esque cough. Yep. I know. Those nurses are total bitches for seeing him before you!

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*A brief explanation (a 10-minute video) of why using a heart rate monitor can be helpful for ME/CFS can be found here, as well as in an article here at CFIDS & Fibromyalgia Self-Help. The CFIDS Association of America has a longer webinar about post-exertional malaise (or post-exertional neuro-immune exhaustion as it's called in the ICC diagnostic-criteria) and its relationship to significant metabolic impairment in ME/CFS. CAA also has a four-part series on post-exertional malaise that is loaded with helpful information for patients and non-patients alike.

**Some of these organizations are controversial in the ME/CFS patient community and, in many cases, the criticisms have some validity. However the politics are complicated and often pointless -- imho -- albeit fiercely contested by those who think otherwise.

***ME/CFS affects about 1 million patients in the U.S. compared to 250,000-300,000 with Multiple Sclerosis according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes. ME/CFS costs the US economy between $17-24 billion a year in health care, disability benefits, and lost wages and taxes according to a DePaul University study (though would be higher if many of those ME/CFS patients who applied for disability benefits didn't get turned down and, of course, if we actually had treatments for the disease). Congestive Heart Failure rates are similar at 1-2 million U.S. patients and, while I'm unsure of its cost to the national economy, I imagine it is significant. 

Story: Natty and the Confiscated MacBook

(Dedicated to A. & P., whose MacBook made this story possible -- Thanks!)

“Do I have to watch you every second?”

Natty nearly dropped her MacBook at the sound of Nanny Bea’s voice

“I...I just needed to check something real quick...”

Nanny Bea set a basket of clothes down on the chair and walked over to the bed where Natty lay with with her MacBook propped up against her thighs.

“Hand it over, please.”

“But...I promise I’m going to sleep right now.” Natty promptly closed the lid in a demonstration of good faith. “I won’t go online anymore.”

 “I’m not going to stand here all afternoon. Hand me the laptop now, please.”

Natty gazed up at her nanny with an expression of utter pathos sure to move even the hardest of Dickensian villains. But not Beatrice Seymour, who responded with her own steely, implacable gaze demanding submission -- which came quickly and with a grim sigh. And then a gasp when she placed the MacBook on top of the wardrobe, far out of the reach of her five foot charge.

“You can just wipe that scowl off your face right now...” Nanny said as she picked up the hairbrush on the dresser and sat down on the edge of the bed. “...And get yourself over my knee.”

This made Natty scowl even more.

“But I wasn’t on there for very long,” Natty whined with a huff and folded arms. “And besides, you took away my laptop, which is way too much punishment already.”

“‘Too much punishment’ indeed.. .” Nanny Bea grabbed Natty’s left ear lobe and yanked it hard. Natty quickly unfolded her arms, and with a deep guttural groan, laid herself across Nanny Bea’s lap.

But she was still scowling. With eyebrows deeply furrowed and lips pressed hard together, it was the scowl of defiance mustered by many a little girl in the face of such grave grown-up injustice.

The scowl, of course, gave way to yelps of pain once Nanny Bea had taken down her pajama bottoms and panties and began slapping the solid, ebony back of the hairbrush on Natty’s tender fleshy cheeks.

“When I put you down for a nap, young lady, I expect you to take a nap,” Nanny Bea scolded as she delivered two dozen smart smacks. “I do not want to find you on the computer, or reading a book, or watching television, or doing anything else but resting -- preferably, sleeping. Is that clear?”

“Ye -- oh! -- Yes!” Natty answered as she squirmed and squealed.

“And you still fail to understand that when I ask you to do something, you are to obey at once. I am not at all interested in debating the finer points of my instructions.”

With that Nanny Bea gave the back of Natty’s thighs five sharp slaps of the brush each, producing fresh sobs, blubbering apologies, and promises to be good.

“So, we’re going to try this again.” Nanny Bea set aside the hairbrush and stroked Natty’s hair. “You are going to lie down for a nap. In your bed. Without interruption. Got it?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Natty mumbled. She sniffled, crawled off Nanny Bea’s lap and back under the cotton sheet and quilt.

Nanny Bea bent down and kissed Natty on the forehead before leaving her. “Now be a good girl and get some rest.”

But Natty did not feel like being a good girl. Her repentance was a bit like her computer -- of the laptop variety.  Once she was no longer over Nanny Bea’s lap, she no longer felt particularly penitent. She lay in bed sulking and pouting over the many outrages she had suffered under Nanny Bea’s tyranny. Indeed she was even plotting how she might free her beloved MacBook from its confinement high upon the wardrobe when sleep - which so readily follows a good spanking - overwhelmed her insurrectionary aspirations.

The MacBook was still in captivity when it was time for bed that night. Daddy was there to cuddle and tuck Natty in, sitting on the bed with his legs stretched out as she lay her head against his chest all wrapped up in his arms.

“And were you a good girl today?”

“Well...mostly...”

“‘Mostly?’ Go on...” In a way that was prodding, stern, and resigned all at the same time.

“I just...well...Nanny was making me take a rest. But then I remembered that I needed to check something online so I opened my MacBook real quick but then Nanny --”

“-- What exactly demanded such immediate attention?”

Natty bit her lower lip.

“Um...something on Twitter...” she mumbled, knowing well Daddy’s low opinion of Twittering.

“I see. This is not sounding good...”

“But I just needed to see something really quick. And it was only going to take me a few seconds but Nanny took my MacBook away and put it on top of the wardrobe so I couldn’t get it back, which was way too harsh a punishment but then she still punished me more and it wasn’t fair!”

“Excuse me?”

Natty pressed her lips together. Hearing the subtle stringency in Daddy’s voice, she knew she had tripped onto very treacherous ground.

“But...but it wasn’t fair...” she stammered.

“Are you complaining about Nanny Bea, young lady?”

Natty had to think about her answer. If she said no, Daddy would say she was being dishonest. But she couldn’t acknowledge she was in the wrong given how justified her grievance. It would be admitting defeat -- and if there was one thing Natty hated, it was losing.

“I’m just saying that...it was...unreasonably harsh...”

“You’re just digging yourself deeper and deeper, aren’t you?” Daddy said with a raised eyebrow. “Right. I think you need a trip over my lap.” He patted his thigh.

“Please don’t spank me, Daddy! Please! Nanny already spanked me today and --”

“-- This is a poor choice of moments to argue with me, young lady.”

Would the injustice never end?

Natty tried desperately to think of some way -- any way -- to avoid the fate before her. But after a few seconds, when she could think of no means of escape, she finally sat up on her knees and lowered herself over Daddy’s lap.

“Let’s get these down,” said Daddy as he tugged at her jammie bottoms and panties. Once Natty’s bottom was bared, he peppered her fat cheeks with crisp smacks that quickly turned a keen pink whatever wasn’t mottled with purple and red from the prior spanking.

“I’m disappointed to see that you still hesitate before doing what you’re told.”

Daddy increased the force of his spanks, eliciting whimpers and yelps from Natty.

“Anything short of immediate obedience is simply not acceptable, and I should not have to keep reminding you of this.”

He dropped his hand down to the back of Natty’s thighs but the force of his blows remained the same.

“I’m also sad to see that you never stop trying to justify yourself.”

The sharp sounds of slaps and sobs reverberated off the bedroom walls as the words “disappointed” and “sad” began melting Natty’s defiance and self-pity into a puddle of regret and contrition.

“I’m...I’m sorry,” she said during a lull in the smacking. An apology of the heavy, permanent sort.

“I should think so,” Daddy responded. He struck her blushing cheeks several more times before he stopped. “No more stalling when I tell you to do something, yes?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good.” Daddy petted his little girl as her sniffling and staggered breathing gradually subsided. “And no more excuses?”

“No more excuses.”

“Good girl.”

He bent his head down near Natty’s face and stroked her hair.

“Now we still need to talk about what happened with Nanny Bea...”

Natty’s shoulders fell even as she nodded stiffly.

“Would you agree that you were moaning about her even though I have specifically told you not to?”

Natty’s nodding remained awkward.

“Excuse me?” Daddy cupped his ear.

“Yes, Sir...” was Natty’s tepid response.

“And would you agree that you were being very willful toward her this afternoon?”

“Yes, Sir...” With a gulp.

“And what happens to whiny, willful little girls?”

Natty blinked the sting and wet from her eyes as she let out a little whimper with her answer.

“They...um...they get...punished...”

“That’s right.” Daddy caressed her chafed bottom and bent over so that his lips were right next to Natty’s ear. “Best go fetch the cane,” he whispered tenderly.

“Yes, Sir.” Natty’s voice cracked.

Pushing herself up off the bed, she waddled to the door where the cane hung from a hook, her panties and jammie bottoms still scrunched around her knees. By the time she had made her way back to the bed, Daddy had already placed several pillows in the middle of the bedspread.

“Right. Over the pillows, please.”

Natty obeyed. She was almost shivering as her raw, exposed bottom waited for the cane.

“I’m going to give you twelve strokes, and I want you to count them, please. I want you to think about the fact that your Nanny does nothing but try to keep you healthy. When she makes you take a rest, it’s because you really need to rest. When she took your MacBook away, she did so in order to remove what was clearly a tremendous impediment to your getting the rest you needed. And you know full well that you never just spend a ‘couple of seconds’ on the computer. Indeed had she not caught you, you may well have missed your rest time altogether.”

The puddle of regret and contrition grew as Daddy delivered the twelve cane strokes. They were not particularly severe. After all, Natty was a rather sickly and fragile little girl. The twelve angry red stripes were, however, just hard enough to leave her feeling properly punished and penitent when she climbed back into bed.

However there was yet one last punishment left for Natty.

“Once you get your MacBook back,” Daddy said as he tucked and smoothed the blankets securely around his little one. “The first thing I want you to do is write a 300-word essay about how Nanny Bea takes care of you and why what she does is important.”

And for just that moment -- but only that moment -- Natty was actually a little glad her MacBook was well out of reach.


Copyright 2009 Natty


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You can find the first Nanny Bea story here, as well as her guest appearance here. Casey Morgan has written her own Nanny Bea story here, which I think is far more elegantly written than mine.