2010 December • aag

A Story That Reflects Poorly Upon Your Humble Narrator

Dec 292010

This is a story that reflects poorly — very poorly — upon your humble narrator.

At 10am one Tuesday I languished in a seemingly interminable pre-holiday crush to pay for my groceries. The cashier (as evidenced by her shiny name-tag) was new and had not yet developed the rapid-fire technique of scanning items without painstakingly searching for every barcode.

I was already late and having forgotten my phone in the car I could neither pass the time in perusal of Twitter nor text my friend to say I was running behind. I was therefore in the grip of two powerful and dangerous forces: boredom and crankiness.

My attention was caught by a group of some half-dozen twenty-something men the next register over. Each made his purchase then joined the growing throng laughing and jostling by the bagging carousel. Any objective observer would have called them loud, at least when judged by the noise level usually found in such circumstances. Their cashier must have been as much of a novice as mine because progress, considering how few items each man carried, was equally slow and the longer they waited the louder they got.

Here is the part I’m ashamed to tell. Why are they even here? I thought to myself. They should be working at this time of day. They’re probably spending their welfare checks instead. My eyes went to my own cashier. Her too. Don’t these people ever work?

And then in less time than it took to think the realization of how awful and ridiculous and shameful those thoughts were slapped hot red on my face. My cashier was working, and while the group of men were not at that hour then neither was I. But reason matters little in these circumstances. It is all too easy to allow messages from the past to butt in on the present and as I nosed back over the filthy trail those thoughts had left in my mind I knew they were things I’d heard from my earliest days and which, if I were not careful, would still be voiced at every holiday, every birthday, every family gathering.

This is not how I think of “those people” when I’m rational, but how often is rational thought lost in the rush of barely-acknowledged half-thoughts from the past? I have to imagine that everyone is at least occasionally ambushed by whispers of prejudice learned in the cradle, whispers that all but those who relax most complacently into their own privilege must address if they are ever to grow beyond their own learned classism, racism and every other ugly -ism.

And now having shared this nasty little episode I’m curious: If I’d written more and more vividly in the fourth and fifth paragraphs and less (or not at all) after that, would your opinions about my attitude be altered? Would you reach different conclusions about the kind of person I am?

My guess is that if I’d given you two hundred lovingly detailed words on the awfulness of that group of young men with no hint as to my thoughts around it you would think I was a very bad person indeed. As it stands you may still think I’m a very bad person indeed, but I bet the context makes it just the tiniest bit more interesting.

“The poet takes from life that which is quite particular and individual,
and describes it accurately in its individuality; but in this way he reveals
the whole of human existence…though he appears to be concerned
with the particular, he is actually concerned with
that which is everywhere and at all times.”
–A. Schopenhauer

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Programming Note: I’m still enjoying a little time off here, so expect posting to be light through the holidays IF I COULD EVER SHUT MY BIG FLAPPY MOUTH THAT IS.

A Welcome Change From Past Disasters

Dec 282010

Long-term readers of this site must surely by now have accepted the fact that when the words “coffee date” appear in a post they will be followed almost immediately by the words “disastrous”, “horrifying” or “bad enough that my soul tried to crawl out my opposite ear.” So awful had it been that I almost preferred to stay in that state of early relationship grace which exists where anything is possible and no one’s been pissed off. But hope springs, as it does, eternal, and in the fullness of time I succumbed to the desire to meet up with a new man.

This is a mistake I thought while dressing for the date. You should have left it at emails and phone calls I lectured myself in the restaurant, pretending to read while side-eyeing the parking lot. Why couldn’t you have been happy with the interesting conversations alone, which will surely be extinguished once you meet and realize he is a great big freak — or he decides the same about you?

It crossed my mind to scurry away but before I lost my nerve he arrived. An hour’s worth of face-to-face conversation showed him to be as attractive in every way as I’d expected and when at some point during the second hour he took my hand to make a point I wanted nothing more than for him to keep on holding it.

Where do we go from here? I have no idea, but frankly the future matters not nearly so much as my overwhelming joy¹ at getting through even one coffee date without wishing to Brillo off my skin.

—————–

Programming Note: I’m still enjoying a little time off here, so expect posting to be light through the holidays.

and relief [↩]

Merry Everything!

Dec 232010

Posting will be light while I spent time with the family (and alone, gloriously alone). If you’d like to stay in touch follow my Twitter and Facebook.

However you celebrate, please enjoy your holidays!

It Never Ceases To Amaze Me

Dec 222010

“Would you consider being in a relationship with someone who has had homosexual sex?” asks one of the personality profile questions on a dating site I sometimes use and every time — I mean every single time — I’ve read through a prospective partner’s answers I’ve seen a big fat NO in the box.

Interesting, I’ve always thought. He’s not into girls who have sex with other girls. I used to think that was kind of strange, but considering the magnitude of strange I’ve seen lo these many years this hardly even rates.

What surprises me, however, is when I delve deeper into the questions I find that the same men who answer NO to the above question answer YES to this question: “Would you date someone who is bisexual?” Yes, they say. Yes they would date someone who is bisexual, but no they would not be in a relationship with someone who has had homosexual sex.

Whut?

Is reading comprehension lacking to the point that people don’t get that when bisexual people have sex with other people of their same gender they are having homosexual sex? Do they not understand this?

Or is there some fine distinction I’ve heretofore missed between bisexual and homosexual sex? If there is, I surely do wish someone would explain it to me.

Or do they think that bisexual people don’t have sex at all?

Is there some other explanation? What do you make of it?

A Moveable Feast

Dec 212010

Coming soon to a town near you:

All the best feasts are moveable feasts.

What They’ll Remember

Dec 202010

I wish I could say that I was coated head to toe in a superfine aerosol of cocoa, dried milk and sugar because of an afternoon spent indulging in some esoteric sexytime enterprise. The fact of the matter is that today was the day we endeavored to assemble our homemade offerings just in time to be handed out on the last day of school before the holidays.

The project ended the way it began: in extreme annoyance. I’d left the house with the recipe forgotten on the counter and only the foggiest notion of what ratios needed to be maintained between the main ingredients and an even less tenuous grasp on how many times it would have to be multiplied in order to gift everyone on our list. Imagine me in the grocery store surrounded by the elbows and ill-tempers of my fellow shoppers attempting to work out an equation with no knowledge of the variables. Suffice it to say that my final stoichiometry was very bad.¹

At home things were no better. Asking my little elves to pick up their rooms prior to the festivities served as utterly no motivation for speed; because of this we began the project far later than I intended and during an hour which otherwise would have found them screaming out their late-afternoon frustrations while I tried to get dinner on the table.

It all ended in tears; mine as a particularly ill-timed cupful of sugar collided with a scoop of cocoa sending up into my face a great gout of powdery annoyance, and theirs as I ordered them out of the kitchen for licking² the resultant spray from the counters.

As I stand in the shower tonight with sticky sugarwater pooling around my feet and the twitch in my eye finally³ easing I’ll wonder what my children will remember from today. No doubt it will be the grouchiness of the mother, which makes me wonder two things: If I cannot accomplish this kind of task with joy instead of crabbiness, why not give a gift that requires no more preschooler participation than a single scrawled signature?

And am I the only mother so unnatural that a single afternoon of crafting with her offspring drives her to extreme stabbiness?

Does anyone need eight cups of unsweetened cocoa powder? [↩]
Licking!!! [↩]
I hope [↩]

On the Occasion of My Son’s Father’s Birthday

Dec 172010

It was his birthday, and as my babymama, babydaddy and all their various and sundry partners both past and present¹ live their lives out on Facebook I used that venue to wish him a very happy day. It was a big birthday for him not because it was one that ended with a 0 or a 5 but because his newest child² was set to be born quite literally at any moment.

If you didn’t read the note in the last sentence you should. I’ll wait.

Got it?

So not only was this babydaddy celebrating his birthday but he was also waiting for the birth of his child, and it should here be noted that this baby would be only the third one that he’s seen born, or been a part of the mother’s life during the pregnancy, or had any hope of raising. The others gestated and arrived with this young man wholly or entirely out of the picture. Two of these cases are the most known to me as I was at the birth of both. One I am raising; the other I watch being raised at a distance of some sixty miles with a measure of sadness and joy the relative levels of which rise and fall depending on the day, my mood, and how well I manage to shove it completely out of my head.

I’ve watched this man, the father of my son; in the six-plus years we’ve known each other I’ve seen him age twice that, and while we’ve never had the almost parent-child relationship I enjoy³ with N. I do care for him not only for his sake but for the sake of our little boy who will someday need to know more about his paternal ancestry.

On his birthday as I left my brief wish on his wall I noticed that N. had beat me too it. “Happy birthday, honey,” she said. “Call me as soon as you can. Can’t wait to see you next week. I love you very much.” I’d been under the impression that things were good⁴ with the woman who would soon be bearing his child and that he and N. were at that point only friends. Hm, I thought. I guess that’s recently changed. And I thought nothing more of it until later that day when a reply to my birthday greeting brought me back to his wall and I saw the Springeresque shitstorm that in the interim had rained down upon N’s head.

“Leave him alone,” most of the respondents said to her, except not nearly so succinctly⁵. “Cause trouble between him and the new girlfriend and we’ll fuck you up,” the rest said, and if it had been just that I would have thought Oh N., you poor young fool, what did you think would happen in declaring your love like this? and nothing more.

One reply, however, stunned me to the point that I blinked my eyes and shook my head because I could not believe what I was reading. I relay it here in all its resplendent glory because it’s just too painful to attempt a summary of what is so heartbreakingly, exhaustingly, word-by-every-last-word wrong:

U know u wrong for wantin anything to do wit him now after all you done. U gave his kids up to strangers instead of there own dad. U lost him when U signed those papers to give up those kids!!! He has always been there in one way shape or form for his kids but no one has given him a chance to prove himself til now.

As we’d been raising his sister⁶ for the fifteen previous months one could hardly make the case that we were strangers. And in both instances I watched months pass with no move on his part to assert his parental rights, not even after being informed in excruciating detail of the free or almost free steps he’d need to take. Believe me: I watched. I watched in both cases where N. was concerned but with the utmost interest where my son was concerned, and I watched him do absolutely nothing. I knew every step he’d have to take. He took not even the first.

Becoming the single father to children who sprang into existence through a woman he no longer loved would be nearly intolerable for anyone. Add poverty, underemployment, lack of education and a host of other issues too painful to address to the mix and it’s no bleeding wonder he chose to allow the decision to be made without his participation. I blame him for this not at all.

Do I blame him for not shutting down the comment above? Yes, oh yes. And at some point I may decide to take ovaries in hand and tell him that in the future I’d very much appreciate him tossing in a few kind words in the direction of the “strangers” who raise his son and give him every possible chance to be involved in his life.

There is no lasting benefit in going toe-to-toe with his friends on Facebook, and commenting solely for the sake of drama holds no draw. Yet I cannot stay quiet, so when even a night spent performing dramatic readings from his Facebook wall is not enough and the words have no place else to go I write them here.

You don’t mind, do you?

And no doubt future [↩]
This is number eight, if you are counting [↩]
Most days, and fret over the rest [↩]
or as good as they get [↩]
Or grammatically [↩]
his biological half sister [↩]

Supafly

Dec 162010

Not long ago the following image was unearthed and posted on Facebook. It is your humble narrator at the tender age fifteen.

My friend shared her thoughts:

Her: That’s one kickass band uniform.

Me: Isn’t it though?

Her: Supafly.

Me: Maybe it’s not so much of a shock that I stayed a virgin ’til I was 21, eh?

Her: You are very cute there! And the first time I had male-female sex I was 28, nearly 29! No, scratch that, I was nearly thirty!

Me: Why are you limiting it to male-female?

Her: Because it’s the kind I wanted the most then.

Me: If that’s the criteria then I was a virgin ’til I was 38.

Actually, I think that sounds pretty reasonable. Yes?

The Blogger Anonymity Project: Post #5

Dec 152010

Do you know about the Blogger Anonymity Project, or AAG’s Home for Wayward Bloggers? Want to get something off your chest? Read up, then leave some love for today’s Wayward Blogger in the comments. –aag

My husband is on his first date. Well, his first date since we have been married. Well, his first date with someone other than ME since we have been married. Confused? Let me start from the beginning.

I have known my husband since I was 14 years old. He was in the first class on my first day at a new school. I did not notice him, but he said my combination of a huge rack and hair to match made me impossible to miss. We became friends, and I was wearing his Swatch Watch before long.

We dated some in junior high, and also in high school. Eventually, we broke up because of sexual pressure. Wait, wait, wait – before you jump to conclusions, I was the one pressuring HIM to have sex. He was not ready though, and although we remained friends, we broke up. I sowed my oats, and he drank his.

I saw him occasionally throughout high school and college because we shared common friends. I graduated a year early from college, and moved home to figure my life out. He was also back in our hometown, interning with a manufacturing company. One day, out of boredom and loneliness, I called him and invited him to a movie, JUST a movie. Not a date. It was Forrest Gump. He fell asleep half way through, and when I got home I called my best friend and told her that I had just gone out with the man I would marry.

After six months of friendship, we became lovers. In fact, I was his first lover, just 6 years later than I had hoped! ! We broke up a few times, and during one of those times he had another lover, but I remained the majority of his sexual history.

We married, had children, and were the best of friends. Such good friends that when I felt the need for extra-marital sexual exploration, he agreed, albeit with gritted teeth. I was determined to do it ethically, (shout out to Janet Hardy and Dossie Easton!), and went at a pace that made him comfortable. It was counter to all of my instincts to go so slowly with a new exciting adventure, but my goal was to help make this as easy for him and as fulfilling for me as possible. He remained skeptical that my need for additional lovers was not a failing on his part, but I knew time would show him that I was going nowhere.

We were not without bumps. There were stormy arguments, threats of divorce (on his side), threats of shutting down sexually (on MY side) and general passive aggressiveness all around (on BOTH of our sides). We sought the help of a therapist, and were lucky enough to find one in our small town that did not immediately brand a scarlet letter on my forehead.

My first experiences with other lovers were mostly good, although the rush of falling in love with someone had a horrible coincidence of happening at the same time my father passed away. I am pretty sure I was emotionally checked out. Still, my husband was there for me. It hurt him to see me get hurt by a lover, but he was there. How much love do we take for granted just because we think someone is going to be there.

For the first two years, my husband did not express any interest in dating other women. In fact, he was against it. He was convinced he was monogamous, and that I was the one who was polyamorous. Therefore I dated and he did not. Until he met someone who shared more of his common interests than I ever had.

How much of a successful marriage is based on sex? On shared values? On shared activities? My husband and I had never enjoyed the same activities, other than sex (does that count as a hobby?) but we both treasured our independence fiercely. He likes to drink, I am a teetotaler. He likes live music, I would rather listen on my iPod. He’s a little bit country, I’m a little bit rock and roll. Ok, the last part I made up. But we have always had the same basic values.

But I never knew how lonely he was. When I would travel with a lover, usually related to my work or a hobby I enjoyed, I never thought about what it was like for him at home. What he must be imagining. What he thought I was doing. I would call when I said I would call, and try to keep him in the loop, but still I had no clue.

It turns out he was missing companionship, he was very lonely. So when he met this woman, there was an instant attraction based not only on common interests, but also a shared need for companionship. She too was feeling lonely. She too had a spouse that was not “there” for her.

Now this is the point in the story where most people will shut down and assume that this is the end of the road for our marriage. After all, he said he was monogamous, and now he found a monogamous woman who not only shared his interests but also a desire to share those interests with someone they love. Surely this means he should divorce me, and marry her, right? And surely that would serve me right for being a greedy whore who wanted to have her cake and eat it too!

But no, that is not the ending to this story. He came to me, told me about her, and told me he wanted to explore it. At first, I was the perfect poly person, and told him to “Go with my blessing! Enjoy yourself!” Then I found out there first date would be an entire weekend. And I fucking flipped out. “What the hell, my first date was three hours!” “You made me wait a year before I even FUCKED another person!!”

I was so certain that my feelings were justified, and then I realized I was just jealous. Plain and simple jealousy. I was not mad at the “unfairness” of it, I was just using that as a justification to feel angry. I was angry because I was jealous, and I was jealous because I was scared.

What if he was no longer “there for me”? What if I made a huge mistake opening this door into our lives? What if he has more fun with her than with me? WHAT IF SHE IS THINNER AND SHAVES HER PUBIC HAIR??????

Once I admitted those feelings, I shared them with him. He reassured me that he was going nowhere, had loved me since he met me, and that he would be coming home after his trip. And I believed him. I did not need a big argument on rules and fairness, I needed love and reassurance. And I got it.

And now the day is here. He is on the trip. He did not call when he said he would, but txted only. I felt the insecurity rise again. When he did call, he sounded distant and I knew she was in the room. Again, more insecurity. I wanted to yell and scream at him for NOT CALLING WHEN HE SAID HE WOULD, as if that was the real reason. I asked him if they had slept together, and he said we would talk about it when he got home. I felt gross and as separate from him as I ever had.

But instead of flipping out, I txted him. I told him I felt distant and weird, and he said he did too. We txted back and forth for a while , and I realized that I did not need anything from his behavior with her, I needed something from his behavior with ME. I needed a connection, I asked for it, I got it, and was once again happy for him to be there, and wished them both well. For real this time.

Non-monogamy is not more enlightened than any other conscious choice one makes in their life. I think that CHOOSING monogamy is better than just blindly accepting societal standards, but I am a believer in making fully aware decisions on everything in life. I see the positive sides to monogamy, especially now that I am not the totality of my husband’s sexuality. I had been struggling for years to help him see that, but it was threatening. I had literally been “the one” for so long that the idea of someone else peeing on my tree (hey! Don’t you judge me!!) shook me. It shook me so hard that it made me realize that my idea of us together forever based on love was bullshit.

We are together because we CHOOSE to be. And it is a choice we make every day of our lives. My husband’s monogamy allowed me to live with the illusion that I was a “special snowflake” to him, based on nothing more than his lack of fucking other snowflakes. But now, it is about us, not fucking. When fucking is not THE tie that binds us together, we have to examine what IS. Why am I with him? Why is he with me? What do we bring to each others lives? What is the unique connection that he and I share?

To be honest, I am scared to death. I feel a bit like I am tempting the fates. But I don’t believe in fate. I believe in choice, responsibility, and trust. And I know that know matter WHAT the future brings, I can handle.

Non-monogamy gave me the chance to choose my husband again and again. And I trust him enough to let him make that same choice.

The Flow of Time

Dec 142010

As I had other plans that night and my children were with their father it seemed wasteful for my friend to hire a hotel room when my house was right there standing empty. “I don’t want to be any bother,” she said just hours before the date. “Are you sure it’s ok?”

I was sure. It gave me an excuse to dust and change the sheets; when I was through I topped the pillow with a cheeky note that read Have fun.¹ If I’d have thought of it in time I would have left mints or a towel animal. But when I arrived home it was clear the note had not budged. What happened, I asked her the following day. Why didn’t you spend the night fucking yourself silly all over my bedroom?

They’d had dinner and talked, she reported, but her suggestions to retire to someplace more exclusive fell on deaf ears. “I don’t think he likes me,” she said. “At all.”

If he didn’t like you he wouldn’t have gone out with you, I pointed out. How many times have you seen him so far?

Two, she told me. Only two.

Later that morning I went to brunch with a friend whom I’ve known in a naked sense for three and a half years — since, in fact, the very first time we met. “Was your bedroom roundly abused last night,” he asked, and in response I related the story above. “You really should remind her that not everyone moves as fast as we do.”

He handed me a Christmas card as we parted that featured a picture of him engaged in one of his favorite activities². After a brief glance at it and my thanks we went our separate ways. It wasn’t until later that I looked closely enough to see that he’d added a holiday wish and his signature to the bottom of the card and I realized that in all the time we’d known each other I’d never until that very moment seen his signature or in fact any example of his handwriting.

I call these things neither good nor bad. It’s just surprising to be shown such clear evidence of how differently time flows in my little world.

There might also have been some hearts. And a crude drawing of the male anatomy. With wings. [↩]
No, not fucking, geez [↩]

Older Entries

A Story That Reflects Poorly Upon Your Humble Narrator

A Welcome Change From Past Disasters

Merry Everything!

It Never Ceases To Amaze Me

A Moveable Feast

What They’ll Remember

On the Occasion of My Son’s Father’s Birthday

Supafly

The Blogger Anonymity Project: Post #5

The Flow of Time

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