Maiden Voyage

It is a new year and I have a new computer. My beloved Steve shared his wealth with me by taking me shopping for a laptop for Christmas. (Yes, I am Buddhist and he is an uncommitted atheist, but we still celebrate the universal practice of giving.) A while back he'd asked me if I'd like a laptop. I said something like, "A laptop? Yeah, sure I could use one, I suppose." He took that to mean I wasn't particularly excited about the idea. But how do you respond to the prospect of an expensive gift when you don't concern yourself too much with having things? I started to think of the ways I could use the flexibility and mobility. Sometimes I spend a lot of time at my computer and I don't get out of the house all day. With a laptop, I could go to a neighborhood cafe and be among people, and stretch my legs with the walk to get there. As I am doing now, sitting in my favorite coffee shop (Stumptown), taking this my maiden voyage of blogging while sitting in public. A month or so after Steve asked me what I wanted for Christmas. "I thought you were getting me a laptop?" He said, "You didn't seem very excited about getting one." We dispelled that notion and now here I am.

I like my HP Pavilion dv6130, Intel inside of course, duo core processor. That stuff means more to Steve than to me, but what I like is the wide screen and the touch pad mouse. For those of you who care: Duo Processor T5200 (1.6GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 533 MHz FSB); 1024MB system memory; 120GB hard drive; LightScribe Super Multi 8X DVD R/RW drive with Double Layer support; Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with up to 128 MB shared video memory. (I only know that because it's right here below the keyboard.) I worried about the laptop mouse, thinking they looked so fragile and would wear out quickly, but this one has a metal pad. It's so easy to use the scroll bar on the side, and I've learned the easier way to use click-and-drag.

But enough boring electronics talk. A big thank you to my best friend and lover, my sweetest of sweeties. If we had to cut coupons and buy cheap beans to get by, he still would be the best, but it sure is nice not to have those worries, and to receive perks like this.

Let's see, what's been on my list to talk about? This is not my maiden voyage in a cafe, but first for blogging while out and about. My first wireless experience was Friday at Sckavone's. That's my day I get off work early. I hadn't felt hungry around lunchtime, but was ready for a veggie burger or something and they also have happy hour. I hardly ever drink, but sometimes the lark of the happy hour experience appeals to me more than the drinking itself. I noticed as I went to the fish store next door that Sckavone's now had wireless, so it all added up. Later it occurred to me that it's now perfectly acceptable for a person to be alone in such a place, it's not automatically seen as "Oh, how lonely." Now, all one needs is a laptop, and it's perfectly legitimate, really almost required, that you be alone. Not that I worried about such things anyway, but I thought here's yet another way in which computers connect us and bring us in a more public space, rather than than isolate us from each other.

Sometimes mysterious things happen with my new computer. My palm brushes the mousepad as I type, and suddenly the cursor is in a different spot. Or I think I'm nowhere near the pad, but the web page has suddenly scrolled to the bottom. On that day, when I connected to the wireless, my yahoo messenger logged in with me as visible. I never do that, have the settings on 'invisible' and rarely sign in. Once upon a time I did that stuff, and met some people online. They've apparently faithfully kept their eye on me, and I was promptly pounced upon by a young man from Chicago who's sent me dozens of offline messages over the past year or so "You online?" "You there?" I was flattered and while I meant to write some other email, decided to chat with him. A few minutes later somebody else found me too. Here I was trying to eat, telling the one he could talk to me but to be prepared for long silences, that I had stuff to do. Told the other I had stuff to do and made myself invisible again. T. in Chicago talked me into running my webcam. He only could because I wanted to try it out anyway...it's right there at the top of the widescreen monitor. My food came, the webcam sucked my battery dry, and that ended the conversation, 1 hour online. Today I am testing the battery (but brought my cord) to see how long it lasts without webcam. 2 hours and still going.

So T. in Chicago is polyamorous and for some reason really wants me to be his long distance girlfriend. I'm bemused and baffled, why me? I don't know him, he doesn't know me, apparently doesn't read this (though maybe he does and pretends not to). Maybe it's a case of liking the chase. I've pretty much been uninterested in long distance friendships, much less ldrs. He used that term, ldr, and I had to ask what that meant, what with shuffling food, computer, vodka-spiked raspberry italian soda. I've replied several times to his offline messages, said that if he really wants to get in touch with me, he needs to email me. Hasn't yet. I don't understand why some people will never use email, only IM, unless there's something to hide. He was at work. Maybe that has something to do with it.

He tells me he wants to meet me, asks would I ever be in Chicago. In my slightly vodka-spiked state I tell him he is in luck, I have family in Wisconsin, and I wish to visit my Grandma more often as she nears the end of her life. Another present Steve gave me is an upgrade to my Art Museum membership. I now can go to several museums around the US without having to pay admission. When Steve gave it to me, he said, "Now when you travel, if you travel, you can go to these museums. Some of them cost a lot." And I said, "Well, maybe that will be a reason to travel." I've already been thinking of visiting Wisconsin again, my Grandma keeps asking. I could go to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, visit a friend of Steve's, and visit this insistent younger (16 years younger) man, and drive to Wisconsin for family.

I'm not so closed to the idea of a long distance relationship anymore. I still talk to my friend in New York. That's not quite what you could call a relationship, but I'm still waiting and seeing. I used to think an ldr would be expensive, that I didn't have time for such a distraction, that whether friend or lover, somebody that I could see close by was more worth my time. I've lost a lot of my judgements about love and the possibilities of love. Similar to my thoughts on monogamous thinking, I was judging ldrs with the same stamp of monogamous thinking. Maybe some relationships don't take so much effort, maybe some have short sharp bursts of flow, and long slow hidden waves of ebb. Ebb and flow can be very different for different interconnections. As I said to Steve, I've thought perhaps the reason why I persist with Mr. NY is that I don't have to be too serious. Rather than too expensive, an ldr can be an excuse to travel. I am thinking about visiting NY again despite the long plane trip...so many sights there I haven't seen, and maybe I could meet Mr. Paine, or even better, Mr. Paine and his lovely wife.

(time to plug in, 7% battery remaining. 2.75 hours on battery. Hmmm, suddenly the screen is brighter.)

I went to Darklady's Pirates and Ninja NYE party. Not all fun and games (though I did have fun, yes sir)...I got the cloakroom off to a good and orderly start, and met more of the volunteers. Have I mentioned before how gratified I am to witness the willingness of volunteers for these parties? Much harder to get such commitments with peace and Buddhist stuff. ....nothing like sex to unite us all. Make love not war! (I just noticed a guy reading the paper but actually trying to look up my skirt without me noticing.) I couldn't think of a costume, so I wore a sweet new top with see through and velour pattern and skirt, nothing under. I told people that when I can't think of a costume, half-naked works. They liked that. A young woman reminded me later, "Hey, it's the half-naked lady." There were a lot of beautiful big buxom women in kimonos, and dashing, randy pirates. It didn't occur to me I could just do something Japanese for the "Ninja" part. Not that I had something like that anyway. I got into a conversation with a couple of other Darklings about how we couldn't imagine going to a regular party or club on NYE anymore. "What, we can't get half-naked? What kind of boring party is this? Where's the play space?" What if we went and did that anyway? It's not illegal in Oregon, we discussed, just as long as we don't create a traffic hazard. Inside I knew though Darklady's party would still be it, may it live long, because as a large woman, I feel quite welcome and sexy at her parties, and I have made some good friends I could count on in hard times. Oh, and for hard times....

HNT #6: Eyeglasses

I was feeling sort of narcissistic and silly about posting another HNT, but I clicked through the 122 HNTers before me, and I felt better about it. What is blogging but at times silly and narcissistic? Certainly some of my resistance may be because I feel like hiding a little, still licking my wounds a little. But, looking through the others, I am inspired to be silly and to come out of hiding.

I got new glasses this week. Another HNTer posted eyeglass pics here, so I thought, why not, we've got our mini-theme for the week. It took me a couple of days to get used to the ground appearing closer to my face. My vision took on that warpy feeling like when you're just starting to get tipsy. I could see individual leaves at the tops of trees. My prescription didn't change much, they say. In fact it's wobbled back and forth the last ten years. I've wondered if there's really been no change, and it just depended on how awake I was at the time of the vision test.

My frames have also wobbled back and forth for the last 5 years. You see, in 2002 I discovered rhinestones. I felt the need for a peace pin, being surrounded by so many flags on lapels, cars, windows, homes, etc. I found a rhinestone peace pin on ebay. Peace pins weren't easy to find at that time, apparently others had the same idea. The sparkle caught my eye in the mirror one day, and I had to get more. Who knew I had some crow in me, I don't really wear jewelry.

So then I found vintage unused frames on ebay, the first pair black. Two years later, the same seller still had some. The second pair same style but brown:



I figured he was going to run out soon, so I bid on another pair, black again, this one a quarter inch smaller. (I paid less than $25 for each unused frame.) Sometimes I think maybe I'll turn into one of those old ladies that still has her same eyeglass frames from the fifties, or the seventies. People won't be able to recognize me if I actually change my frames. Shouldn't I branch out, change my style? I work half-time in a library, and I would say at least a couple times a month somebody tells me, "I love your glasses." A couple more times a month, some stranger on the street says the same. So I keep them. I glanced around at the eyeglass shop. All the frames looked exactly alike. Who's going to say "I love your glasses" to that? Nobody notices the switch, black to brown, to black:



The first photo is cropped from this in my hotel in Flushing, Queens. Do I look sad, or just serious?



Felicityattheling with her artwork inspired me to start talking about it here. This is what I do, get emotionally naked. So often we humans carry around our despair, our unhappiness, our fears, our anxieties, all alone, and we think we're alone in our experience. In the past I hid from others and myself, this out of fear. I came out of hiding among the right people and in the right place, and that fear lost its grip on me. I resonated with Felicity's art: I too felt the fear of being alone. I felt what I thought was love, but really it kept me from loving fully. When I no longer was afraid to be alone, that is, when I had enough confidence and love in my own self, that fear no longer blocked my full loving potential.

Now, many years later, I love to love. Each new experience teaches me how I can love without expectation, without conditions. If violence begets violence, love can only beget more love. I have faith in that. So when I met someone in New York that seemed to have the possibility of a deeper connection, I couldn't turn away even though I am wary of long distance relationships. Well, I hadn't seen all I could see in NY either. And airfare was so cheap. So I went. And he spent some time with me, but he blew hot and cold. He would say he would meet me, and not show after all. That evening I had a choice, to become angry and bitter over being hurt, or keep my heart open to love. I chose love. The moment we met we touched something greater than either of us. I would not spoil that by closing off my heart. I wouldn't let him either. At the Polyween party, Darklady pointed out that people are skittish when encountering polyamory for the first time. I was forgetting while I wasn't completely trusting him, he is probably not trusting me either. She counseled patience.

The great thing, keeping my heart open, not closing off, I come home to my best sweetie with more love than ever.

Poly Role Models

A smart young poly woman encourages us to be more open about being polyamorous: In a Poly Perfect World. We do have a tendency to hide, especially with the US being taken over by conservative religious throwbacks. I am still selective about who I come out to, but go public here and there and let circumstances do what they will. I worry that some conservative Buddhists will come across my relationship status and my activities in the sex-positive world of Darklady and get upset that I've been in such a leadership role, and that I may even be asked to step down. Heh. Step down from volunteer roles. I also figure that if I do not hide who I am, that my actions and my good relations will speak for themselves.

Part of why I came out to my sangha several years ago is so that they would have my back. I thought they would. I know some of them would. I'm not so sure everyone would. If someone accuses me of being immoral and how dare I represent Buddhism, will my sangha be there for me? This is not a small fear for me. Elizabeth at poly positivity is right, we need positive polyamorous role models. It's not easy though, when even among trusted community, some will see this choice as more threatening morally than an adulterous mistake. Perhaps it won't be long and more people will understand we are not mistaken to choose this. The more we love, the more we find we have love, kindness, and compassion to give. I'm a good example. Elizabeth is. Wendy-O Matik is...the list could go on.

At some point I hope we in this poly world will especially be recognized for our skills in loving. Of course some of us will catch on better than others, and some not at all. I'm not saying we're inherently great at loving, but we definitely get to have much more practice at getting it right.

Life Happens

Life happens, and a month and a half goes by!

I finished this book: Pucker Up: A Hands-on Guide to Ecstatic Sex by Tristan Taormino. Taormino does a regular column for the Village Voice on sexuality. I love this book. I read it on my palm, usually while on the bus, so I've started to get turned on by riding transit! If there was any doubt in my mind, I now know I have strong submissive tendencies. (mmmm, the section on spanking and flogging) Taormino writes from a compassionate view of helping individuals and people in relationships explore their fantasies and inclinations. No judgement, either from the prudish end, or the kinky end (like assuming everyone's a top or bottom.) She writes with a sensitivity for the shyness people can feel about their hidden inclinations. She gives tips on how to broach the subject of fantasies with a possibly reluctant lover.

I went to Fat Girl Speaks, and wrote this poem while still drunk from the many drinks I imbibed with my husband, his girlfriend, and her friends:

i went to 'fat girl speaks' tonight.
and wowed
steve's girlfriend's girl friends.
(they said i'm 'good people')
and got
so fucking turned on
by all the sexy
fat girls
struttin their stuff.

so fuckin incredible
to see fat women
dancing burlesque
and stripping
without that
tentative fat girl
'may i exist?'
body apology.

so fuckin sexy
they were on stage
flabulous
and sexy
(and there were so many lesbians there,
why didn't i get any phone numbers?)

3 versions of 'fat-bottomed girls'
oooooo yeeeaaahh
that's ok
it did not get old

Other things that happened this month:

The new Central Seattle Public Library opened, and I must go see it. I cannot fathom this building until I experience it in person, it's so different.

My husband's birthday came and went. He, his girlfriend, and I went out to dinner at a fabulous restaurant.

My birthday came and went. I got my birthday spanking early at the Masturbate-athon. I organized the cloakroom volunteers and planned the party games, more volunteering than I've done for a Darklady party before. Several of us were quite happy to play Spin the Bottle, having missed our chance when kids. Truth or dare was a hit. My husband and I went to another pretty damn good restaurant on the day of my birthday.

Writing on my novel has taken a back seat to the work behind Change Your Mind Day in Portland. After all that work, I'm hoping a lot of people show up, and I'm nervous that they won't.

On Volunteering

I have often done volunteer work. When I graduated from college, somehow I had acquired a notion it was important to give to society. It's important to pay my taxes without a quibble, and important to help make the world a better place. At the same time, I fretted over doing volunteer work that I thought ought to be paid work. I volunteered for a women's crisis line, which does have some staff, and as the staff reminded us, if it was ALL paid work, the revolutionary aspect would be lost. Instead of kindness driving the labor, it would be money.

OK, I could see that. Another place I volunteered was a family center, sort of related to Head Start, now expanded. Now here, clearly volunteers were needed because funds were finite, and this bugged me. Why does our society fund the atrocities of war and militarism, but can't make sure all families get the health care, parent training, education, food, and shelter that they need? We could pay for all these things ten times over if we didn't have the war machine guzzling all our labor's fruits. I am pissed off that my tax dollars are paying for bombers that are killing people RIGHT NOW, yet non-profit organizations struggle to provide enough meals for the needy, and must rely on donations and volunteers.

I work at the library and people volunteer there. Often the work of volunteers cuts into the work of paid union labor. We are told they're there for that extra "push", and because people love the library and want to volunteer there. That work should be done by paid labor, there's no reason we shouldn't fund our libraries to the point of gluttony. So that yes, we can hire teen interns who can get that valuable work experience while at the same time no union labor is lost. Yet even in a town that is known across America for loving its libraries, we don't have enough funds to meet with rising demand.

Now more than ever I am doing volunteer work, but I don't count the hours for "recognition" as I did at those previous non-paid jobs. Now there are certain things I see as valuable labor that should be a labor of love, such as helping to organize peace rallies, or teaching people about meditation. (It always makes me squeamish to see fees for workshops on teaching meditation.) I remember reading in an alternative newspaper that one should always get paid for writing, yet I can't imagine being paid for the gig I have for a Buddhist newsletter--reporting on Oregon Buddhist news. I do it out of love for the subject and to meet the people, and sure, it'll help my writer's resume. I also can't imagine being paid to do the networking and clerical things and meeting of people that I do as a contact for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. I rather selfishly want a chapter here, so I do it.

This volunteering that builds community is essential. At my zen center, it is part of the spiritual practice to take on tasks, to help the community become larger than us individual parts. There is the idea that if you give more than your 'fair share' then there is never a lack. There is tremendous generosity to be found in selflessness, something zen is all about. Funny thing, I find that same sort of selfless generosity in the alternative sexual/ sex-positive community. On New Year's Eve I attended a Darklady party. Name the alternative sex scene, Darklady has contacts. So this is a pansexual party, friendly to all, including the shy. There's a 'play' space, and a 'dungeon', well in this case since it was a prom theme, 'detention'. There's space to socialize and meet people, space to dance, space to be a wallflower. Darklady parties have been a first encounter for many into the sex-positive world, the polyamorous world, the kinky world. Several dozen people helped to make it happen, and didn't expect to receive anything but a good time. Many of those same several dozen people came back to clean up. They put my puny cloakroom shift to shame, in the generosity department.

Here's the thought I'm beginning to form then: volunteerism is essential when it comes to matters of selflessness. Building community. Revolutionizing community. It's not about the money, it's about the greater good, and it;s about friendship. The women's crisis line folks were right: we weren't just there to help people in crisis, we were there to help people in crisis realize a different world is possible. Sometimes people joke about the Church of Darklady (who loves to mess with churchy types), but joke aside they refer to a better sex-positive pan-sexual world. With this type of volunteer work, society is changed, people are changed. Helping out at the soup kitchen is compassionate, but it doesn't change the person or society. It's simply needed, and it should be paid. Revolution on the other hand, when has it not been tainted by money?