The story of Spork.

What a lovely tribute Spork.

And, yeah, time to disengage with Tantrum Man. (That's how I think of him when you write about him.) And if he does end his friendship with Zen - which would be a shame as nobody actually wants that - it would be on his head. He will never acknowledge it but his actions have consequences. Trust Zen to do what he needs to do. He seems to have a very clear idea of exactly who his friend is.
 
Talked a bit to Zen yesterday about what's going on with his friend. I don't necessarily want to keep him stressed out with a play-by-play, but I did feel a need to give him a head's up that there was activity on that front, and he says "let him stew for now" which is what I would be doing regardless. The guy won't get the satisfaction of provoking me to hot-headed engagement.

To be clear...the friend replied to me and I have not yet replied back again, and unlike the first time when I was pretty sure I needed to do so sooner or later, I am now feeling like "I've said my piece." His insistence that I meet with him to defend my position doesn't sit well with me. I re-read his reply several times yesterday to get the full effect of it, because there were a few inflammatory words and sentiments that were designed to provoke a reaction. And I did react...just not AT HIM. Here, and in my head, mostly.

I'm sorting ideas. Some of them feel like they go together.
-Several accusations of cowardice and running away instead of facing him.
-Ongoing insistance that I not "hide behind" word docs and 3rd parties, but meet in person.
-Talk of meeting on "neutral turf where we can't attack each other"

And other similar sentiments. It's this demand for a confrontation, but it's pretty clear to me that he just wants to have his way, and the best way to do it is how he normally does, which is this in-person shock and awe business he uses to overwhelm people. These little things are buried in saccharine talk of how wonderful I am and how much he admires and respects and likes me...but I made the point, we barely know each other. And clearly we make one another uncomfortable in various ways.

I can respect his place in Zen's life and he can be happy that his friend is happy, and that does not mean to me that we've got to bond.

But...I said that. I shouldn't have to repeat it.

An additional thought has been that his wife has had limited interaction with Zen, and with me although I have had limited contact with any of 'em...he never lets her talk to Zen alone, and seems to have a negative reaction to her having any social connections that he doesn't control. He tells everyone that she is reserved, private, shy, and so on...but to me it just looks like, HE will allow her to interact without a fuss, once HE feels confident that the person will only feed her the party line and will take his side, and won't sympathize with any idea she might have that isn't complimentary to his side of things.

He doesn't allow her much privacy. His friends go have talks with her and report back to him. He snoops her phone.

But then he tells the rest of us that it's HER preferences at work, that keep us all at this awkward distance. He says, "she's like a vampire, she has to invite you in." Well, I think that she is so burned by people who report back to him and cause fighting between them later, that she is probably very cautious and shut down because she can't trust anyone.

I sometimes wonder if this is projection or assumption...but this is what my gut tells me loud and clear, and there are real facts I've seen, words I've heard from him, that reinforce this idea.

But let's go with that for a moment. His wife isn't comfortable being pals with Zen, according to him, and not yet with me either. We all have to wait for her, and maybe she'll get there, maybe she won't. Zen most certainly doesn't get to demand any one-on-one meetups and conversations with her, which frankly, there has been a lot of curiosity for her perspective that has gone unsatisfied. Yet despite my discomforts and clear statements that I don't need this in my life, Tantrum Man (let's go with that) gets to demand that I meet with him and be his friend.

Big double standard, in that he gets to demand things and must have his way, and other people's discomforts be damned...but the same cannot be applied to Zen and the guy's wife. And it's not like Zen would seduce her, that's a silly idea that even an insecure man shouldn't fear...I had to come out and state in the plainest of language that I wanted to be intimate with him, he is the last person on earth to put the moves on someone like that.

Basically I want to say to Tantrum Man "So your wife's comfort is important and dictates interactions, but mine doesn't matter?"

But yet...again...I said my piece.

So, here, I am just venting. Here, in my own space, I will say the things that I'll restrain myself from saying to the dude. Oh, and his cop buddy has a name that starts with F, and I mentally amuse myself with the notion of him having fits of the vapours over a message containing mention of a BDSM relationship, and this morning it occurred to me, I've got nicknames for friend, and cop-friend now... Fitz and the Tantrum Man? lol!

(After the band "Fitz and the Tantrums" if anyone is unfamiliar...)

Yeah so anyhow. It's snowing here! What the hell... Like an actual winter storm with accumulation and everything. Madness. Colorado, where even the weather is on the drugs.
 
So I guess Chris Cornell has died, and also people on my FB are hinting that ~something~ is happening on the "get rid of trumpo" front...but I don't know what's in the news right now.

I went to run a quick errand on my lunch break, and we had this extremely heavy wet snow, and I had to shove and fight it off my windshield, which I did, and got my wipers all clear...then switched 'em on, and one of them had this bizarre SPAZ ATTACK where the wiper blade was flopping around all over the place. OK, dammit...so I took it off the arm, and examined it, there were all these weird little fiddly plastic bits that had come all askew and had to be reassembled just so...it was a complete pain in the ass. So I was pretty sure I had it fixed. And I took off up the road. And just as I was at a light to get on a big, busy road, the damn thing wonked out on me again. I couldn't run my wipers at all, because parts would flop around and the metal would scrape my glass... And it's heavily snowing wet, wet stuff. So I can kinda see through it anyways and there is a gas station just a block away. I get through the light onto the big road and I've got my hazards on, and I'm going slow-ish, because I can barely see. And then suddenly a PILE of snow falls from off my roof, down onto my windshield. WONDERFUL. I am now blind. I roll down the window and lean my head out so that I can sort of see to make my turn into the gas station. Christ on a bike.

So I get out, clear the 60 pounds of cold watery slop from my windshield, and fix the wiper again. I think I have it set now. But it's possible I do not. I was able to get my errand taken care of and back to work, but I used my wipers sparingly.

And a friend has tagged me and 48 other friends in a Facebook status, and man do I hate it when people do that. WHY. It's probably some adorable motivational stuff, and I appreciate his good intentions, but I hate being gang-tagged on something that is usually not even extremely relevant to me.

If I'm at the event of a lifetime with 48 of my friends, and it's an actual photo of us, then yeah...go for it. If it's "the sunshine I like best is the sunshine that shines out of your bunghole, you're beautiful today, don't stop smiling"

Dude...plz...stahp....

EDIT: He tagged me in an ad for some new Netflix series that he thinks I'll like. Meh, whateva. I found the thing to turn off notifications. Minor annoyance: THWARTED.
 
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Man, yesterday evening was another one that made me feel MIGHTY for the things I got accomplished. I ran home to grab some things, then down to the south side of town with three missions to do.

1. I needed to visit the household of friends who are keeping my older son, and talk to the boy about taking summer credits so he can finish high school. Give him the form and make the arrangements. It looks like I'm going to reclaim him for the 8 weeks of June and July basically, and I'll probably have to dial back my social life to spend more evenings hovering around him MAKING him do what is needful. We still need to get him through the "learning to drive" and licensing process too, and try to get him motivated in the direction of a summer job.

2. I needed then to head to the home of another friend, who had a reformat on his computer (that I built for him some years ago) and needed a little tech support in recovery of some of his software. It was good to see him and his...partner? Girlfriend turned roommate? Whatever. Good friends, but part of the old chapter that included my ex, and so I don't see them nearly often enough anymore. They took in the dog that my ex had, one of the ones that came with the "woman from Tennessee" that he (my ex) had moved into our home in early 2016. She has since, by the by, moved back to Tennessee and the husband she had fled. Her Colorado Experiment was nothing but a huge hassle and a failure. Anyhow, my ex was never a responsible pet owner. He had this dog in the backyard, even in winter, and she had a doghouse but she isn't a long haired dog and even if she were, it's just cruel. She's a sweet, social animal. She should not be outside by herself. His friend is a much better dog keeper. Gretchen the dog is happy and healthy now.

And they did some research on her likely breed mix, she is actually an Aussie dog with (so they believe) a goodly dose of dingo in her. Which doesn't surprise me even a little because she looks the part, but she's a sweetie. She's got some odd habits though, like she enjoys sitting in the windowsill like a cat, looking out the window. It's a big windowsill. Anyhow, great to see those folks.

3. Then off to the house I used to share with the ex, where our poly friends and their menagerie dwell. She has had her twins, and I got to enjoy these little 2 week old tiny babies for a little bit. And a little bit is...well...enough. Fussy little squeaky creatures. Cute tho! I had a gift for her, I'd tried to order her this nappy bag from her Amazon wish list...first the mailing address was wrong, then we got that sorted, but they sent the wrong product, then I was like "what the hell, third time's the charm" and finally got the item I was trying to buy. Nightmare Before Christmas waterproof nappy bag. So I delivered that.

Factor in a nice little visit with each of these families, and you have a pretty busy evening. Yet somehow I managed to get home in time to not only do my dishes and clean the litterbox, but even play a little bit of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on my trusty old PS1 before bedtime, with my fluffy cat curled up by my side.

***

I read a recent post in icesong's blog about how with one of her partners, she has a lot of passion, but no declarations of love...the other, she feels perhaps more secure in their love, but not enough passion. How she wishes she had the passionate lovemaking and engagement with the one, in the more established relationship with the other.

I refrained from responding, though she has my sympathy in this. I have felt for partners past, including my ex before things got bad at the end, a lot of legitimate love but not enough passion. I loved Old Wolf like FAMILY and maybe some part of me always will. But for a time, before those last few years, I really sincerely wanted to give him the kind of passionate love that he wanted and craved. But it was like trying to run a current through nonconductive material, you just can't make it work. There is no forcing that. I never felt that way for him. I tried "fake it till you make it" and never was able to make it. That made me very sad. I did love him. I really did. But it was neither the kind of love that he needed, nor wanted, even during the years that I believed it was the love he deserved in a partner.

I don't know what you do about that.

I feel like if we could have both accepted that deep, earthy familial love without him desperately begging for something I could not give, and me feeling always guilty that I was a failure of a wife...if we could have been somehow content without passion, maybe it could have worked. I tried to get by with that for a long time. But he felt very unloved, and once in a while my passions were stirred a bit by an outside crush, and even if I didn't act on it, it would shine a bit of light on a missing ingredient for us.

When icesong talked about how she and Artist would spend time in bed, with lots of connection and snuggles and all... I think of some of the times, Zen and I have spent all day almost in bed, and it feels like we spent the entire time making various forms of love even when we were asleep. Being with him practically always feels so intimate and loving, even when we're watching a movie or out to a meal or talking or sleeping or anything at all. We are driven always to touch one another. I have not the faintest idea why it is so rare to find such a high degree of intimate connection with another person. In my experience, it really is VERY rare. This of course speaks to icesong, and to polyamory itself. Because if it is so hard to bond so deeply, if that kind of pairing and deep intimacy and connection is so hard to find in a partner...does one merely need that in one's life, or does one need that in all relationships? Is it a hallmark of a romantic/sexual relationship that is worthy of nurturing and trying to sustain over time? Do some people find it more easily than others?

I have sought to do the poly-minded thing of dismissing the concept of scarcity, and embracing more expansive notions of love. In my world, that looks like viewing many different forms of love (including a wide array of non-sexual friendships and "chosen family" models) as not less valid or significant or needed, yet not a threat to any other relationship as such. But if one person achieves such singularity of place in my life, and I have never found such a resonance anywhere else, does that not reinforce the concept of scarcity and monogamy, as intended, if not as usually practiced in our society? Somehow, trying to extrapolate information about my relationship with Zen onto theories of human social and relating models, feels a lot like trying to explain magic with science. "Stop thinking so much and just enjoy it."
 
On passionate relationships, I wonder if they are sustainable long-term?
Especially while cohabitating? My relationship with my ex-husband was extremely passionate (does it work to use extremely instead of very? Maybe I'm unimaginative in that I can't think of one word that conveys the level of passion I felt?!) Anyway, it was a passionate relationship...well into our marriage (which occurred several years into the relationship.) The problem with the relationship is that we weren't functional together. My flaws were accentuated by his flaws and vice versa. And he was an alcoholic. And I was very codependent. Lots of fireworks in our relationship, unfortunately the bad kind as often as the good kind. The irony is though, that even in the end, even as vanilla as it was, and as sporadic as it was, our sex life was always really passionate and really good (there I go again :rolleyes:). Just, by that point the rest of our relationship had become lukewarm. OTOH, my entire relationship with Blue was passionate up until the end, but the sex was not always so passionate. It tended to be phenomenal when he had other lovers, and inconsistent when he didn't (he was/is a bit of an NRE junkie.) The sex I've had with the handful of other lovers I've had, has been less intense than with Blue or ex-h. Since Blue and ex-h are my only lovers that lasted long-term, I just wonder if passionate love and passionate sex are both sustainable long-term. Or, maybe I've just not encountered the intensity of passion that you and icesong are referring to?

On the kid thing. I feel for you. Emerald is home from college. His grades really tanked (in comparison to high school) and he has applied for maybe 5 summer jobs so far....despite having been home two weeks. I do not know how to motivate that child. So different from Jade, who usually has multiple jobs lined up before school ends.
 
Well, like trying to do an experiment with a crapload of variables that you're not able to factor in properly...

It's like asking if a seed will grow in dirt. What kind of seed? What kind of dirt? What kind of environment, climate, sun and rain? Is the dirt contaminated or stripped of nutrients?

In so many longterm relationships that include cohabitation, there are lots of other life factors going on. Financial or health crises, children, and just the humdrum of keeping basic LIFE in order, even if you don't get into substance abuses, or codependency, or anything else.

My marriage was tested by:
Credit problems, debt, and struggles to keep employment
General poverty conditions (early on)
Birthing two children into those conditions, early on, when I was very young.
Me being literally a clueless kid at 18, and him being a pretty clueless adult.
Major health crises (him.)
Ongoing addictions to drugs and alcohol (him.)
Conflict between him and my family and friends.
Major unresolved childhood baggage (both of us)
Military service and all that entails (him)
Codependency from hell.
And frankly sexual/kink needs that I didn't even know I had, let alone how important they were to me...and later as he discovered his own, it is now clear that our kinks would have never been compatible.

So I was willing to consider myself lucky in the years that we were "OK" because hey...we had plenty of reasons why we COULD have been screaming and throwing things at each other. I always thought it could have been worse. But I had no idea how much BETTER my love life could be, until after we broke up.

Thing is...cohabitating was the least of our problems. He used to say, "we make dysfunctional, functional." It was true.

I have a strong personal determination to have a harmonious home life. I can't control a lot of the stresses that may happen at work, things that happen in life...but I can keep my home pleasing, a relaxing and nice place. There can be no screaming or fighting in my home! Discussion, fine. But no CONFLICT. I have no idea if that is "healthy"...but it's me. Home is my safe place and haven.

And I am good at dismissing things that are petty and knowing what battles are worth energy and which are not, when it comes to in person interactions. So I have a cat who might be a risk to Zen's valuable collectible figures, if he can get to them and knock them over (and the little villain nibbled the tail off of one of my beautiful McFarlane dragons)... And so Zen has a habit of keeping seasonings and sauces that I might think should be in the kitchen, in his computer room where he eats. We have different schedules and need to set up our home so that we can both get needed sleep, when we live together. I am not sure how he'll cope when my kids are difficult, or how they will cope with having him around.

But I can say... on behalf of my kids and myself... We have certainly lived with worse. If Zen can deal with us, we can deal with him, I'm pretty sure.

Will we always be so passionate? I don't know. He is approaching his sixties, maybe if things "mellow" to a point, that could still be happy and comfortable and good. I've only ever had one longterm relationship, and it had such a host of problems, I can't use it to illustrate any sort of expected normalcy, except to say that if I could deal with that and still have a reasonably happy home (until the end of it) for some 15-odd years, I imagine that it will work out well for Zen and me.

Hope so!

At this point, I'd just like for us to reach the goal of being ready and able to move in together. The delays have been a bit frustrating.
 
Spork said:
I have not the faintest idea why it is so rare to find such a high degree of intimate connection with another person. In my experience, it really is VERY rare. This of course speaks to icesong, and to polyamory itself. Because if it is so hard to bond so deeply, if that kind of pairing and deep intimacy and connection is so hard to find in a partner...does one merely need that in one's life, or does one need that in all relationships? Is it a hallmark of a romantic/sexual relationship that is worthy of nurturing and trying to sustain over time? Do some people find it more easily than others?
Click to expand...
I also wonder to which extent this can be worked on. Idealist? And your Zen? They are people who have actually done work on understanding how intimacy works, who maybe didn't have a lot of experience, but have put thought into it and are able to bring some of their self-awareness and meditative practice into conscious touch.
I am pretty sure I can't do passion and deep connection with every person, but I am also pretty sure I'm way better at intimacy then a few years ago. So yes, I do think passion rests partly on your awareness and skills.
 
There might be something to that. Zen has certainly done more self-work than any other person I've ever known. It's nearly super-human with him, at least in my eyes, the lengths he has gone to seeking wisdom and better inner balance and health.

I think also for me and maybe him, too, is that you've got to be ready to embrace vulnerability, for passion and intimacy to exist. Let down walls and really let someone in. And for any number of reasons that can be incredibly hard. For me, those walls were built to protect myself. I've made a lot of progress, but I am still dismantling them, and learning who I might be, without them standing between me and the world, and especially those closest to me.

For Zen, I think, first of all he is an introvert, second, he has had his self esteem battered by various experiences over the course of a lifetime, and third...as an introverted empath, he feels that he sometimes says and does things that are misunderstood or that offend others, and he can sense the disapproval that generates when it happens. It's a form of social rejection and it hurts, especially when he meant no harm. So he tries so very hard to handle others socially around him with kid gloves, his walls of formality and polite unobtrusiveness solidly in place, but it sometimes makes him a little awkward.

I will never forget the first few times I went to his house, and he started letting me inside of those walls. I felt pretty sure I was seeing things that either very few, or maybe no one, had ever seen about him. The man behind those walls is the man I fell in love with. All deep and complex, wise and caring, compassionate and soulful. I think this is one reason why even having a conversation with him feels like intimacy for me. It is. Because those kinds of conversations with his real self, he does not do just casually with anyone. He is trusting me with that side of himself. Which, to me, feels like a very significant honor.

I on the other hand, am so extroverted, and I'm willing to gamble sometimes that I'll be misunderstood or upset people, I do try to smooth things over and I don't try to be unkind...my east coast "tell it like it is" is tempered by a little midwest "be nice" and a dash of west coast shmooze. I've spent enough time in a lot of places to have had my personality reshaped by regional attitudes a few times. And, in a way, my oversharing and putting everything on blast, is also a defense. No one can shame me for anything, if I've already demonstrated that I simply feel no shame for things that they expect me to. It disarms certain kinds of attempts at cruelty that others have aimed at me in life. But of course, while I act like I don't care what anybody thinks...that isn't true. Vulnerability for me, is letting myself be invested enough to CARE. If someone can hurt me, I have let them in, at least to some degree. It's actually a very rare person whose opinion REALLY matters to me.
 
Fun weekend! I enjoyed Friday night with Zen, we had dinner together and watched a documentary, and went to bed early. But I woke in the middle of the night to his touch, and it felt good, so I touched him right back, and we ended up having sex for a while before going back to sleep for another span of several hours.

(And yes, I have seen the article theorizing that historical man slept in two sessions, and woke in the middle of the night to tend livestock and have sex or whatever. If you haven't and you care...well...Google it. I don't find it riveting enough to search for a link right now.)

My cat was not pleased that I was out all night. Creatures of habit, are cats, and don't like disruption of their routine. I visited my apartment to change clothes on Saturday, and when I went to my bedroom, I found my floor thickly carpeted with plastic Walmart bags. I keep them in a cabinet in the kitchen, for use as trash bags and such. Nimbus the cat, can open cabinets, and he did and dragged bag after bag down the hall to my room, and scattered them everywhere.

I suppose there are worse surprises that a cat can give you, to indicate that they are bored or displeased.

I've recently realized that he has seriously destroyed a corner of a living room chair, which I knew he was scratching on and I let him (love the cat, more than the furniture, which was cheap and secondhand anyways)...but I like this chair. So I'm trying to contemplate how to repair or salvage it. I might try to find fabric to stitch into place and pieces of carpet or something that he can continue to claw on, but might last longer than the upholstery of the chair has.

Saturday was lovely. Zen and I went to a class at Voodoo Saturday afternoon, on the subject of mindfuckery in scenes (taught by a magician with an Aussie accent)...really mindfuckery is misdirection, it's pretty much the same as magic. When the bottom is deceived as to what is happening or is going to happen. The class was...ok. A fun thing to go to, but I don't feel full of new information that I just can't wait to deploy, or anything like that.

Then we had dinner with Hefe and Reecy (I'm gonna have to think of a nickname for her, feels funny using somebody's real name in my blog and I only did it originally because I want to promote her music.) at this nice Italian place in Old Colorado City, which is a nice little artsy district. We love our funky like arts and shopping areas in this town, we've got downtown, OCC, and Manitou, getting progressively more quirky as you wander westward.

Later on, at the party, Zen and I enjoyed a scene. We did some stuff different than we've been, and I thought it was a bit more intense. I mean, even if he didn't use the dragon tail which I think has produced some of the more dramatic moments in our scenes, there was a sort of depth and strength to our energy that night in my opinion. Different furniture, different selection of implements, excellent use of hands. It was a great scene. It was an excellent night.

Yesterday, I took Q downtown for a walk and a bit of shop-wandering. I probably spent a little more money than I ought to have done, but I don't spend time with my kid enough. Once in a while, in the name of a good day out, I can loosen up a little.

Then in the evening there was a hypnosis discussion group. Hypnosis...I'm still not 100% convinced it's for me. I have been in some altered states, triggered by the kinds of things that induce hypnosis, but I have yet to experience any time where I truly felt that my mind was under the control of another. I have existed in a state of relaxed agreeableness, but always my mind saying, "Hm, she wants me to raise my arm now. Meh, why not. Let's play along." Like the question was asked of an experienced hypno bottom if she forgot or remembered things, and she said that she used to have a lot get away from her, but now she remembers because her top (husband) has commanded her to. Well... I just don't feel like my mind is altered enough for remembering or forgetting to be any more or less than ordinary events. I don't feel extremely "weird" after I've participated in this. But there is another phenomena called ASMR that I have talked about here, where something like a particular background noise or soft touch or something can trigger intense euphoria. Like if I imagine someone braiding my hair, in a room where there is a loudly ticking wall clock, and maybe a talk radio, or the sound of an appliance running in the background... All of those stimuli put together would make me zone out in complete bliss. Now, I believe that is a form of hypnosis, or tangentially related, it's some kind of the same thing that hypnosis tries to achieve. I think that I'm probably very suggestible in that state, though I'm so lethargic that I don't want to actually DO anything.

I wish I had more opportunity to experience that, honestly. I love that feeling. It's wonderful.

I was really hoping that after the hypnosis thing, and after Zen was off work, we might get together, but that did not work out. He had a meeting that kept him late after hours. Ah well. I cannot get enough of my beloved, but I will look forward to tomorrow's lunch date.

I'm trying to think of a nickname for Reecy, this is gonna be hard! She's like a wandering Gypsy troubadour minstrel. A hypnotic Who fan, a migratory western sagebrush songbird, a "Calamity" something, a Vaudeville Maude and a Rocky Mountain Flirt, but they love her in New Orleans...The perfect thing feels like it's just barely out of my mind's reach. Hopefully it will come to me out of the blue later on or something...
 
Here are some more pictures of the Nimbus cat, because hey...can't have too many cat pictures, right??

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Hrm hm hm... Where I work, we have a good view of the Air Force Academy, and today they are practicing maneuvers with the jets for the graduation tomorrow, the Thunderbirds will be out um...thundering. It coincides neatly with Zen and I having our usual weekly lunch date, so I thought perhaps we could eat outside and watch.

But I was just out there, and the air is pretty brisk. A cool breeze is blowing and it's just barely cold enough to make my nose run and my fingers chill. Though it is sunny, so that's something at least. Very Colorado weather, warmish sun and coldish air. I'm not sure if I want to sit outside in it. I wish I could think of a restaurant around here with a good view of the jets though.

See, Zen loves aviation, it's an interest of his, and I think that is really cool. He says he is trained in flying small gliders, and he downplays this as being any big thing really, but I've never done any such thing at all, so to me it's kind of impressive. Funny, I imagine him in a role in a survival film where the only escape from doom is getting some janky found aircraft off the ground, and that one guy in the group has a LITTLE experience, just enough to pull it off... I think Zen would be that guy.

I am full of love and happy feelings today.

I wish that I could find a way to make a living doing more things that make me feel this way, not stuck at a desk. I know that for many, Zen included, a desk job would seem like a big improvement in their circumstances. And I know I should appreciate what I have more than I do. But I wish I could make things with my hands, and sell them, and feel confident in my ability to make enough to live.

I've always thought, that once my kids were grown I might try something like that. I don't think I need to amass tremendous wealth, just enough to make ends meet and to afford a home and a life. With kids in the picture, I have to worry about a lot more, like making sure that not only do I have health insurance, but they also do. This pretty much necessitates a job on the payroll of a company of some size with a group health plan. Affording it independently has never been easy and it isn't now, and it wasn't under Obama near as I could tell. I thought, at one point, about what I'd have to make and sell in order to afford to live. And it seemed doable...until I looked at healthcare. Adding on several hundred dollars a month, I think the cheapest I could find for just myself was over $400 a month...there is just no way. So I sit here instead. Doing things that feel rather meaningless in the grand scheme of my life even on a good day.

I am normally pretty libertarian in certain ways, I do place a lot of value on personal freedoms at least, but I think that in a perfect world, healthcare would be a socialized thing. If only I could trust the government to use taxpayer funds wisely and honestly, and that the care could still be of high quality. But this government...OUR government...sadly, one need only to take a close look at the VA health system, to see how healthcare managed completely by the government might wind up looking. Which had its pros and cons I guess, but it sucks compared to civilian medicine. I mean, not looking at it from a soldier's perspective but a family member's...every time I had to get prescriptions refilled for my son when he had asthma, it was a pain in the rear. Involved multiple phone calls and often doctor visits. Going to the on-base pharmacy was a hassle and a long wait, but the drugs were free (no copay, even.) So if I had a whole day to spare... It was like bureaucratic hell, more often than not, trying to accomplish almost ANYTHING, even things that should be easy and routine.

I remember when I was a young teen, my Mom had me go to "The Health Department" clinic for my ob/gyn stuff, STD screenings, and get my birth control pills. I guess now people go to Planned Parenthood? I mean, is the Health Department even still a thing?

I'm just rambling now. Point being, I wish I could spend more of my life doing the things that fill me with joy, and I can only hope that maybe one day I'll get there. There are a lot of risks I won't take, such as with the need to provide for my loved ones. Taking a gamble on my own would be one thing, but if it's my kids or Zen who would suffer if I failed, then I know I can't take chances.

Anyways.

Q says that the girl who used to be involved with his brother, and tried to "date" him, is still "stalking" him and has threatened to hurt herself if he doesn't "help her" (presumably by being her boyfriend? I don't even know anymore.) I told him that if she has actually really threatened self harm, he needs to let the school administration know. Not only because she might need help, but if she is just being manipulative, she's got to learn that there can be consequences to that, or at least it won't work to get her what she wants. If nothing else, I guess, the school year is nearly over. His last day is Friday.
 
We ended up at a sub shop up the street that has a patio, and got to see the Thunderbirds practicing their maneuvers for tomorrow. Zen explained a lot of how it all works to me, how it is coordinated, told me stories of a few disasters in the history of these aviation shows.

A coworker of mine apparently was there, but I did not notice her. She said that we were "so cute."
 
My younger son, Q, is performing with his school orchestra for graduation today (he is only in 9th grade, not graduating, but they are performing for the event.) This is happening at a bit event center, which is pretty cool. I wish I could have taken the day off to watch, but I am trying to limit the paid time off that I use.

The good thing is, I had to drop him off really early this morning, so I was early to work, which is a good thing around here.

So Zen is going on Friday evening to take some photos of his friend's wife. (Tantrum Man.) I knew this was happening, but not how late in the day it was set up for until yesterday. I normally would head over to Zen's place after work, but I will go home and work on some stuff instead until he is available. Thing is, I am going to throw down a gut guess on something, and I hope that Zen will just wait and see how things play out and if I am right or wrong about it. Tantrum Man knows that Zen and I usually spend some time on Friday evenings. This scheduling of the photo shoot just worked for everyone's schedule, and that is cool. But I am betting that he will invite Zen to dinner afterwards. And that, should Zen say anything about having plans with me, he will make a THING of it and try to say that I should come and join them, which I won't, and he knows I won't want to and Zen knows I won't want to. He will try to demand that Zen text me and make me come out or something. He will make it hard for Zen to refuse him, and while he might fuss a bit if I don't come, he will fuss a LOT if Zen tries to also say no.

It would be lovely to be proven wrong. So I am curious if this will happen. I just suspect set-ups like this after how the dude has behaved toward me, and toward Zen, in the recent past. EDIT: I realize that I am annoyed with the possibility that Zen may have to enforce my boundaries for me. I wish/hope that his friend would not push this.

I meant it when I said that I don't mind doing my own thing while Zen spends time with his friend. I would like it if his friend would chill out and stop trying to force things and just let me have my boundaries, though. At least, after the one night where he sent me the long messages, and I did not respond, there has been nothing further.

I can recognize and appreciate that he probably believes he has bent over backwards to accommodate me and reach out, and be my friend. I do think that his heart was in the right place as much as he knows how to interact with people. I have just become used to a different style of friendship with my "kink scene family" and heck...even my regular family and other friends...and I don't like how uncomfortable and forced everything feels with regard to him. So I hope that he can step back over to something comfortable with Zen again and stop trying to insist on my inclusion in his world. At points, Zen and I (independently) have had thought processes of setting up situations that prove our points about his behavior, but I've checked myself on that, and also said to Zen, "See, this is thinking in terms of manipulative behavior, setting him up to do predictable things, to try and prove something..." It feels like sinking to a level of behavior that personally, I don't want to do, regardless of intent. I'll let him set himself up to prove me right sometimes maybe if it happens that way, but I won't engineer those kinds of situations, and I don't think it's a good idea.

So anyhow. All that stuff.

I have discussion groups at the club tonight and tomorrow, that is nice. I always enjoy them.

And I am trying to read the first Game of Thrones book, and I have to admit I'm finding it less riveting because I've watched the show already and I know what is going to happen, in general, at least for a while.
 
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Wow, last night was pretty great! I love my Voodoo fam. I was at a discussion group last night and will be down tonight for a different one. We had some excellent talkies and I may have been helpful to a friend in telling her a method I have used to ground my mind when I am struggling with difficult feelings and the thought processes that feed into them.

And before I went down there, I had to get cat food, and the girl at Petsmart who rang me up, was wearing a locked collar. So I pointed at hers, and at mine, and she was happy to chatter on about how her husband got it for her and so forth, and I asked her if she had heard of Voodoo, and she said no. Hah! This is why I carry the business cards. I handed her one. She was excited and said she would talk to her husband about it.

Yay, me, being a good ambassador!!

Oh and only just now, I was hungrily chowing down on leftover tacos for my lunch, and went to pop the last bite into my mouth, and bit down on my finger hard enough to break the nail (not in an "injury" way, just in a "oh, poop...clip it off..." way.) But I feel a bit savage for having done so. Out of control beast like mandibles and all. Rarr! Taco vengeance!!

Well. Clumsiness in all fairness, more like. I forgot where my face was or something. DON'T YOU LOOK AT ME!
:p

Nimbus the cat was inspecting the bathtub again this morning after I'd finished my shower. He seriously gets in there, and sits his fluffy little arse down in the still-wet tub, and stares at the drain. I think he hears the sounds of water or suds moving in there, but he just looks so silly, and he gets his butt and his tail all wet, which does not seem to bother him one bit.

I was thinking about a friend once who complained that cats were too aloof to be proper pets, not loving and companionable like dogs. He was so wrong. My cat is thrilled when I come home. He is happy to see me. He follows me around, and looks up to make eye contact with me. When I scratch him on the top of his head, he actually smiles. He closes his eyes, tilts his head up, and shows just the tips of his lil fangie teeth. He is very affectionate and he most certainly does not wish to be alone, and he needs a certain amount of human attention. I don't find him to be aloof or independent in the slightest, he always wants to be wherever I am, involved or at least supervising whatever I am doing. And he's funny.

Zen told me that his photo shoot with Tantrum Man's wife has been postponed (for the second time) on concern of possible thunderstorms. While I am mildly disappointed that my curiosity won't be satisfied regarding my hypothesis about the course of behavior I expected from him, I also am happy that there could be some thunderstorm sex in my near future, which is kind of a favorite thing. And the Game of Thrones trailer is out, and I will let Zen share with me whatever interpretations and breakdowns he finds to be good. We have a relatively chill weekend ahead with no big plans for parties or anything, and I've got off Monday for Memorial Day. Which I may celebrate by doing laundry.
 
I am so happy about something...

I subscribe to a credit report service thing. It mostly is worth the small monthly charge because it gives me unlimited, easy access to my up-to-the-moment credit report and score at any time, and checking my own credit is of course not an actual inquiry and doesn't affect my score or anything. So I can watch it as closely as I like. And they email me if anything of significance changes.

Well it has just happened in the last couple of days, that my credit cards have started to go from showing their full balances to zeroes and saying "included in bankruptcy" on them. Three days ago, when the cards were maxxed out and past due since February, my score was tanking. It was depressing to see. Today, with those balances and past due payment statuses knocked off, even though it's because of bankruptcy, my score is up by 146 points! I know it's probably far from done shifting around due to all this, but it feels like I'm already starting to recover, it feels...hopeful.

And my installment loans, especially my student loans, aren't going anywhere and they have a positive payment history. It isn't as though every responsible thing I've ever done is being flushed down the toilet.

So that feels encouraging.

I had a long phone conversation with my ex yesterday. Interestingly, I am the more emotional and less rational one at this time. I would bet money that they've put him on antidepressants again. He has not sounded so calm and reasonable in years, since they had him on Wellbutrin. Unfortunately back then, it also did give him suicidal ideation pretty badly, and he does sound...sad. So I have a mild worry about him in the back of my mind, but I know he isn't really "my problem" necessarily. It's a small worry. Not a big worry.

Anyways, I still get upset at my post-divorce circumstances. He was trying to give me credit for having gotten him so far, telling me to have faith in my ability to climb out of all this bankruptcy stuff and recover. Said "When we met, my credit was as bad as yours is now, and look at me, I'm now in the high 700's! I did not do that. YOU did that." And I replied, "Well yeah, but you have to understand, it feels like I just shifted it. I didn't clean up the mess, I moved it from your plate onto mine, and now I'm sitting here alone staring at a shit sandwich in front of me, and I don't like it one bit." And he said that was true, but that nonetheless he felt I was doing the right things and just need to be patient and everything will get better. Well, whatever, his heart was in the right place. Where we continue to disagree is that he wishes I'd broken up with him back when I first knew I was not "in LOVE" with him and I still think that I had damn good reasons for my choices.

If I can point to specific regrets, I might say... Meeting him, getting involved with him, letting him get me pregnant...and then fast forward to the recent past, and "not leaving at the moment all the credit cards were paid off in 2014" or letting the events occur that caused things to get very bad and led to the divorce itself. Had I the ability to let my kids finish growing up with my "lukewarm, not great, but ok" mode of marriage happening, I'd have chosen that.

What I do not regret, is how I managed things between getting pregnant in 1998, and all the way to late 2014. Those years were not a grand love story, but I was able to very convincingly keep a highly functional illusion of happiness and harmony locked in place for all involved. He says that he suffered so much when that illusion shattered for him, and he would not suffer under a false reality for a few more years, not even for the kids' sake. To me, that is saying, "my feelings are more important that my kids' lives, success, survival, security, and future." So we won't agree.

And frankly, the "what if's" are absolutely utterly pointless. I can discuss them as a matter of personal philosophy, but it would probably be better not to discuss them at all. It hardly matters how you would edit and reconstruct your personal history, had you the power to do it...since none of us do!

Wouldn't it be a riot, if when we died, we got to do it all over in a parallel universe created by the slightest alteration of one of our choices, leading to a different path? If our journey weren't over until we'd explored every possible permutation of life choices and alternate realities? I often just wish we could create a very sophisticated computer simulation, where all of reality and history as we know it is programmed in as a full picture of the world, and we can then plug ourselves into it and upload the entire memory of our entire lives, and then once that is in place, change just one decision and run a "what if" scenario that would give us the most probable result of the change in our path... It is not always that I would certainly change my past choices or that I have regrets exactly, as I burn with curiosity to know, "if I'd done that differently, where might my life have gone?"
 
Regret and curiosity. We all have that in varying degrees. But as you said, Spork, the future is before us and the past is unmalleable, so forwards we go sailing towards the setting sun.
 
True enough.

I think I just get snarly and defensive, because I put a lot of time and effort into what I saw as...a Very Important Job I had to do. So when I get others saying that I should have abdicated my responsibilities the moment I realized I was not IN TWUE WUV... It is almost as though I'm being told that all of that hard work was a big stupid mistake and it makes me angry. It's like imagine if you worked your way through elementary, and middle, and high school, and six years of college on top of that, and had a 4.0 average, because you worked SO HARD, and you made tons of sacrifices, you didn't party when your friends partied, you kept your nose to the grindstone and you did your best. And then the world around you acted like it was worth absolutely NOTHING. You get no credit for any of it. Not one bit. In fact, it was a stupid mistake, ha ha!

I put up with my ex for 18 years, and some were better than others. No, I didn't completely sacrifice myself, I still found time to get involved with GWAR and do some traveling and some things for me...but there were other things I could have done for my own self and my own future, which I did not, because my family was a higher priority. And yeah, I did give my kids some good years.

I have to hold onto that. As much as I agree that the past is the past, I have to keep what I need of that, which is, if nothing else, some validation I give myself that I am a decent human being who has done some good with her life. Because otherwise, how can I have any faith at all in my own ability to do anything now? It's hard enough as it is, with everything seeming in ruins around me, to believe I can pick up and keep going.

Saying that keeping my marriage together for the kids, was a mistake, is to completely invalidate literally everything I have done since I became an adult. Everything. To say that none of it had any value at all. So do I push back against that? Yeah. Yes, I do. It matters.

But what my ex thinks... Well again, I know I have said this before, but I think that once in a while I need an earful of his foolishness because I need a reminder of why we DID break up, and why a continued effort to keep the "lukewarm" harmonious illusion going, even a few more years, was just not going to be possible. Talking to him, even at his most calm and reasonable and even when he is trying to be nice...it always serves to remind me of the rightness of our divorce.

But I did not talk to him again this last weekend really, not after Friday, so those mental processes are...SO four days ago. SO last week. lol

**********

So there have been movies that I always meant to see, on that mental list of "everybody I know refers to this film and I need to get around to watching it." Zen helped me cross one of those off the list this weekend, we watched "The Big Lebowski" together.

It occurred to me, to ask Zen if he liked bowling. I am not really a fan of it myself, and I was a little relieved when he said, "No." We both like to shoot pool. See? Meant to be, I tell ya.

We had another Friday night and Saturday of lovings and snugglings and hours of just indulging ourselves in one another and it was relaxing and wonderful. Though of course I don't really get "enough" of him (if there is such a thing.) Sunday night after he got off work, he came over for ice cream, and some time in the community hot tub, and we watched a documentary I'd wanted to share with him, and a few episodes of South Park together. And it was time for the weekend to be over, and I did not want to let him go, and I wished I had another few hours to spend and we could make love some more...but he needed to get home and sleep and go to work the next day.

Sunday (before Zen came over) and Monday, were about half and half relaxing and doing housework. I had other projects that I could have (and maybe should have) spent my time doing, but it really did feel good to take it easy, and to have a nice clean home. My apartment is lovely. I really enjoy being there. If only it were big enough to house all of the humans I would like to be sharing my life with, to include Zen and (temporarily) Ninja, I would be happy to stay there for a very long time. But it's not the home itself that counts, it's what I do with it. I took the time to put up a lot of stuff on my walls and it's got the lighting and the colors that make me happy, so it FEELS like my home in ways that places I have lived before, often did not.

I hope that when Zen and I are ready to move, that we find someplace that is suitable for friends to visit. I have not been able to persuade many people to visit my lovely apartment, but in truth, it's so small that it's hard to host more than a couple of visitors anyways. Not enough room, really, to play card or board games comfortably. That is something I'd like to be able to do.

Now, to tie together the two thoughts that I have written about...my past, and my present... And why I do, at least to some extent, hold onto thoughts of my past somewhat... I want to give Zen so much. I know he is happy to have me in his life, and it's already great, but there is so much more that I CAN give a partner. I know, because I have. In good times I can feather a nest like nobody's business, and in bad times and hardships, I'm loving, and supporting. I know how to be a good mate. I love the fuck outta this guy, and I want to give him every possible gift I have in me to give. I wish I could share with him every single thing that has ever brought me joy. I am sometimes a bit restless for the future that I believe lies ahead. I think it's gonna be good. Really, really good. And the only reason I have, to think that, is looking back at where I have been and what I have been able to accomplish, even towing the anchor of a bad relationship with an often very difficult partner. If I can accomplish so much under those kinds of circumstances, how much can I do with someone I really love? Someone who is reasonable and sensible and wise and loving?

It is this kind of thinking that keeps me optimistic, even though things keep cropping up that eat up my money and make it hard to see how I'm going to achieve my goals.

Speaking of which, my younger son has broken his phone...it lasted a good long while, but it's well and truly destroyed now. His timing sucks. *sigh* Well he is gonna get the cheapest "Go Phone" that I can stick his AT&T SIM card into, and he's gonna have to deal with that. If he wants a nice phone, he can get a job and get one himself.
 
Oh, I forgot. Zen also had me watch a movie called "True Stories" that was made by, and sort of...narrated by, David Byrne, of the Talking Heads.

It was exactly as weird as you would expect.

Then I made him watch a Youtube video of a mutual (female) friend performing an Elvis impersonation.

It was also...exactly as weird as you would expect.
 
About books

I just finished (last night) reading the first Game of Thrones book.

It was recommended to me, since I love Jacqueline Carey's "Kushiel" books, so I decided, well...between that and my love of the show series, I ought to read 'em I guess. Now I need to get a cheap paperback of the second book in the series and have a go at that.

Thing is...my favorite authors, for years, have been women. Jacqueline Carey and Juliet Marillier. I also like some work my Sara Douglass, but I have mixed feelings about her main series...it starts good in the first trilogy, and then I hated the second trilogy that came after. But she's admitted that she was in a dark place with a lot of depression and bad life stuff going on, and her writing reflects that somewhat. But the thing with the way these women write, is that they seem to love the language and have a gift of really spinning lovely descriptive scenes with wordplay. Really setting the tone beautifully, with the way they choose words and phrases. The characters feel more real, like I really have a strong sense of their motivations and voices. The settings are so well described that I can really feel like I'm there.

Male authors on the other hand, in particular so many fantasy authors I have read, even the best in their fields...they do a thing where in my mind, the characters are more like a character sheet in a D&D game, or cardboard cutout placeholders. The settings are sketched, not painted in oils. It feels more like a series of facts and happenings, rather than a rich flow of realistic story. I feel that so many male written books just...lack depth and color, to some extent, that I find with female authors. They aren't as immersive, to me.

I think, from some of the criticism I have read of the Kushiel books, that this is more a matter of preference, than one of objective quality standards. Some have been a bit harsh on Carey for her "lofty prose" and called her use of language pretentious. I don't see it that way, but I love language for its own sake. I read and write for pleasure, so (obviously) words don't bother me. One has to go pretty far into the weeds (or the dirt, as the case may be...Jean M. Auel, I am looking at you) to make me want to yell "Get to the damn point already!" But I guess if you're going to get into meandering descriptions of details, I want there to be some clever and creative use of language involved, which is one of Carey's strengths. And she's very good at avoiding tiresome repetition, which was a major flaw with a male author I found to be utterly insufferable, Robert Jordan. Yes, I was one of the ones who gave up when the Wheel of Time was a wheel spinning in the mud and driving the plot absolutely nowhere. I'm told I should revisit the series, since after his death it finally did get finished...but I can't bring myself to do so.

Well, I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions so I cannot call this any sort of a rule. Melanie Rawn writes your typical flavor of fantasy and doesn't especially grip me, though it's acceptable light reading, and Anne Bishop's characters are not only two dimensional, they are disgustingly representative of her own severely gendered biases and stereotypes, I wanted to enjoy them, but I can't...she's got all of four character types...good male, bad male, good female, bad female, and those cross even the barriers of SPECIES for heaven's sakes. Anne Rice was good to a point, but she's got a really annoying habit of, after bringing the reader into a magical place, eventually dicing it up like a frog in a high school Biology lab, and explaining how vampires and witches could be totally feasible as some kind of scientific anomaly. Gimme a break, lady. Stephen King writes a good character, but he tends to leave me feeling emotionally...trolled. I can acknowledge his skills but I prefer not to read a book that actually makes me feel anxious, at best. And I'm sad to say that I can't even read Tolkien anymore, though he'll always be sort of the standard, the yardstick by which others in fantasy are measured, as far as I'm concerned.

There are just certain structures that have been done to death, tropes of their genres...how many times can I find new pleasure in the tale of a band of humble characters, and a reluctant hero, off to have grand adventures, trek through the wild, recover or destroy magical artifacts, defeat the Great Evil, save the world, win the girl, etc. Yawn. Oh, he is actually of noble blood?? YOU DON'T SAY. The trope is dead. Long live the trope.

Maybe I should write books myself. Though I'm not sure if anybody would pay to read 'em, might be fun to do one day.
 
Have you yet encountered the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson? That was an interesting and non-cliché fantasy world.
 
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