Writing

Before shayla came down, Master had her e-mailing him daily. It didn't need to be much, sometimes it was nothing more than one or two sentences. What was important to him was that it was done daily. The e-mail every day changed to a journal entry when shayla joined him. Which she still does religiously. A place where she can let her thoughts and feelings flow, vent, cry, debate with herself, whatever. It's a window into her mind that he uses to help him manage her better.

Shayla was more than a little stunned when he had her start this blog. As is often the case, he didn't tell her what was happening until it was time for her to do her part in it. And then he simply called shayla to the computer, handed her the keyboard, and told her to start typing.

Talk about writer's block.

Writing had always been difficult for shayla. Aimless rambling in a personal journal, that wasn't any problem. But putting things together in any type of cohesive form for someone else to read was a different matter entirely. In high school the most difficult class for her was creative writing, which was a required class. Somehow her essays always wound up with the introduction & conclusions almost exactly alike. And the entire process was torturous.

So she started, at the beginning of things for her Owner and herself. And every day wrote something. At times coming up with something was easy. Others she needed to snoop around, see what type of topics came up that she could write about. Once or twice she begged her Owner for suggestions. Those suggestions proved to be difficult topics. Hard to write about.

But over time things got better, easier for her. Shayla's writing has improved considerably. She can go back to older postings and see the difference for herself.

So this period of months that shayla's blog has been dormant have been interesting. As you can see, she'd still been writing all this time. Though not as prolifically as before. But she's working on fixing that little issue.

She's missed having her posts up. When Master suspended the postings, shayla was surprised to have an e-mail or three from regular readers, wanting to know why'd she stopped writing so abruptly.

It's awfully good to see those drafts that have been sitting for weeks now on the blog. Good to think every day what she can write about. Funny, it used to be that she couldn't figure out what to write about. Now she can't figure out what to write about first.

shayla

Rodeo

The Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo's in full swing right now. From what shayla understands it's one of the biggest in the country. Master took us all to it yesterday. He was more than a little surprised to learn that neither miranda or shayla'd ever been to a rodeo before.

Most of what we did was for Catherine's enjoyment. A lot of kid stuff. Petting zoos, some of the activities in the animal displays. Master took us to a pig race. A pig race, something shayla'd never even heard of. 4 piglets running around a tiny little track. All for an Oreo cookie. Of course, there's not quite as much order in a pig race as there is in say, a greyhound or horse race. Two pigs trying to occupy the same chute. A couple by-passing the finish line & prize entirely to run up the chute & back into their trailer. It was ridiculous, it was funny as hell.

We walked around the carnival for a while. Looked at the games, the rides. We didn't ride any, simply observed. We'll be going back another time for that. Turns out that shayla's terror of being upside down is matched equally by miranda's fear of heights. So Master spent a little time asking us which rides we'd be willing to be on, which we'd not be. Shayla could tell that we'd not heard the end of that little topic when we reached the rodeo arena.

Rodeos have always been something that shayla's enjoyed seeing. On TV. Miles & miles from the actual event. Seeing it in person, up front, is an entirely different matter. And a whole lot more fun. Much like baseball games, you can see a great deal more of what's happening than just what the camera crew wants you to see. LIke what the steers and horses do *after* the contestants are done with them/get bucked off. Some animals took a tour of the arena before strolling back to where they belong. And during the steer wrestling one of the contestant's horses got a little too excited, and rushed out of the gate before it was time. The rider tried to get his horse back under control, but not before it side-stepped into one of the judges & knocked him down. Nobody was hurt, nobody was penalized. And the contestant actually wound up with a good time.

There was a calf scramble at the end of the rodeo. Chaos in and of itself. 14 calves, 28 kids. The kids are lined up at the mid-point of the arena, each armed with a halter. The calves are released at one end, funneled by God knows how many handlers to where the kids are. & when the two collided everyone went everywhere. The object of it all is pretty simple, halter the calf, & lead it to the middle of the arena. Piece of cake, NOT. The calves aren't quite as obedient as kajirae are, & the kids had to literally tackle them to get the halters on. Some kids ganged up on a calf to catch it. Others grabbed calf-tails & hung on for dear life as they were dragged. One girl literally got knocked over by a calf. The handlers helped out tremendously. It was hilarious.

Afterwards Clay Walker had his concert. Rode in on his horse to the stage that'd been set up in the middle of the arena. It was enjoyable. He, as expected, had songs that made you laugh, or made you cry. Beautiful.

When the concert was over we sat for a while, waiting for the crowds to clear. Master brought up the fears of heights/inversion that miranda & shayla'd mentioned before. About how the only way to face such terrors was to meet them head-on. He used himself as an example, talking about his rappel training in the Marines. How he was so scared his vision narrowed to a pin-point, & he 'crawled like a baby' down that rope. Neither miranda or shayla could blame him. How two years later he was training men in rapelling. He said that it was cowardice to not face down a fear like that. He's right, of course. Shayla looked at miranda & said 'yep, we're cowards, alright'. We high-fived in agreement. She's petrified of heights, shayla's petrified of being upside down. We're not ashamed to admit it, either.

However, we've both said more than once that we'd do anything for him. And we will. Some kajirae would balk at following through on such a belief. 'what if a Master tells you to kill someone, jump off a building, do drugs?' But we've not yet and we'll not start now. He takes his commitment to us to care for us and our well-being vey seriously. And we both know that he'll not put us in harm's way. Even the worse he's put shayla through, while incredibly difficult, has been for her ultimate good. And he never once faltered in his support of her, even when she was collapsing from the strain of trying to do his will. So it's pretty well set in stone that we'll be going back to the Rodeo & that carnival. & on those crazy rides that'll put us upside down and way up high.

He'll be with us. Backing us in his almost brutally honest way. Going up on those things with us. Doing what he's always done for us, pushing us to improve ourselves. Not for his sake, but for ours.

How could any woman not be as madly in love with a man like that as miranda and shayla are so much in love and adoration with him?

shayla