Poly Info Glut: Where's the Index??

Yesterday, I typed the word "polyamory" into that little box on the google start-up page. 

Way too much stuff came up.

Which was odd, because one of the reasons I'm writing about my experiences as a person-who-reluctantly-identifies-as-poly (see my very first post, "Hello, My Label Is..." for my reservations) is that I have this goofy notion that there's a lacuna out there, an information void just waiting for me to come along and fill it up with my penetrating insights.

Go ahead, ask me what planet I've been living on.

There might not be a shelf dedicated to polyamory at the local bookstore (if you're lucky enough to have a local bookstore!) but there are virtual bookshelves aplenty in the poly library on the web.

However, after a couple of hours of wading through various online discussion forums, blogs, a poly weekly, etc., I hadn't found what I was looking for.

And what was I looking for?  I didn't know, precisely, but it seemed like there might be a discussion, somewhere, of poly ideology (other than my own post by that title, that is).  I was looking for statements that toed the poly "party line" -- but I didn't find any.

There were details of various people's journeys -- their hookups, their jealousies, the mind-boggling complications of their relationship dramas, plus, for good measure, descriptions of their adorable fluffy kitties.  There was a lot about unicorns, a.k.a. the hot bi babe who is completely unattached because she's just dying to devote her entire life to the right MF couple who needs her to spice up their marriage.  There was also a lot on kink.  I was introduced to the term "bukkake," and although I'm still not entirely certain what it is, Cunning Minx describes it as "a sea of cock," so it can't be all bad, right?

The point is, none of what I found seemed particularly relevant to me.  Not given my specific aim (which was that I wanted to write a "devil's advocate" sort of blog entry, using the poly party line as a springboard) -- and not given my general concerns (the recurring questions, philosophical debates, ethical dilemmas, etc.) that keep coming up for me, my partners, and the other poly people I know.

Relevant-to-me information on polyamory exists, I'm sure -- but how to find it?

What we need is a team of lightning-speed, like-minded poly indexers.

Or, failing that, an exhaustive scholarly compendium.

Or maybe just a well-written, thoughtful book.

You know why there are so few actual books written on polyamory?  Because most poly people don't have the time or the singleness of purpose necessary to write a book and get it published. We're all too busy with our multiplicities. 

Poly Woman, Single Man: A Problematic Pair

Let’s say you’re a poly woman who discovers that your lover has joined a dating site, without telling you he was planning to do so, or even giving you any indication that he was having an urge to date other people.  The picture he’s posted happens to be one that you took, but other than that, there’s no evidence of your relationship anywhere in the profile – in fact, he’s identified himself as Single.  And when he talks about what he’s looking for in a woman, what he wants out of a relationship, it’s the standard monogamous stuff.

 

I don’t know about you, but I’d be tempted to end that relationship immediately, no matter how gaga I was over the guy.

 

Wait a just sec, you might reasonably say, Isn’t that going overboard? I mean, what’s he done that’s so terrible? So he joined a dating site. You’re poly, remember? What’s good for the goose should be good for the gander.  Yeah, maybe he should have talked to you about wanting to date other people before joining a site, but shouldn’t you just assume that he’s going to want someone else in his life eventually?  And isn’t it his right to advertise his availability however he chooses?  I mean, he’s not married to you, so technically speaking, he IS single. Right?

 

Yeah, exactly: he’s leaning pretty hard on that dubious technicality.  And something’s gonna break. Probably someone’s heart.

 

Travis and I met on a dating site, and he never removed his profile. I knew he was still on OKCupid, and it didn’t bother me.  After all, my husband has an active dating profile, too.  Since the advent of internet dating, just about everyone I know – including all my partners and ex-partners – participates in that scene, at least periodically.  My agreement with Travis was that he could do whatever he wanted on the site, and that he needed to check in with me about it only if he was feeling seriously interested in someone and there were plans to meet her in person.

 

Maybe eight or nine months after Travis and I began dating, my friend Georgia was showing me some of her matches on OKCupid, and there was Travis – with a new picture, one I had taken.  And, of course, he had not changed his status.  This bothered me, although I couldn’t articulate why. 

 

The next time Travis and I got together, I felt a bit prickly, and I acted the way I felt.  I finally coughed up the fact that I’d seen his updated profile, and that it had rubbed me the wrong way to see him advertising himself using that photograph.  It was a great picture of him.  I’d taken it on a spring day, not long before: we’d been walking through masses of wildflowers – the hillsides were covered in poppies and lupine – and we were feeling very much in love.  The look on Travis’s face in that picture had been for me, and now that very same look was being used as a lure in a context that erased me: I was not part of the picture. 

 

It seemed irrational to be upset about such a small detail, but I was hurt, and Travis said he understood.  He said he would remove the picture.  I said it wasn’t necessary, that the picture was a gift, that it was now his to use however he wished.

 

We also talked about why he still listed himself as single, and I said I understood why: if you’re a guy on a dating site, you’re pretty much shooting yourself in the foot if you cop to being involved with someone already. 

 

Poly women don’t have a whole lot of trouble attracting interest from single men. The average single guy is likely to think, “There’s no reason why I can’t have some fun with this crazy poly chick while I’m trolling around for Miss Right.”  If said poly chick is married, he might feel a little anxious about acting on his bravado, yes, but as soon as he’s reasonably sure that her hubby isn’t going to show up with a shotgun, he’s cool with taking whatever pleasure is afforded by this somewhat novel situation.

 

Poly men, on the other hand, don’t spark a lot of interest in women who aren’t also poly themselves.  The average single lady is likely to think, “Lame! What makes this creep think I would settle for just part of him?  Does he think I have no self-respect? I’m good enough for the whole enchilada, and I’m determined to get everything I deserve.”

 

Notice that A.S. Guy and A.S. Lady are coming at this from very different places.  Guy is thinking of the poly woman as a pleasant contingency, whereas Lady is thinking of the poly man as a poor substitute.

 

What this means is that a poly man who attracts the attention of a single woman can be reasonably sure that she’ll stick around: after all, she decided he was worth bothering with, even though she has to share him.  A poly woman who attracts the attention of a single man, on the other hand, has to worry that she’s going to be ditched if someone more attractive comes along. 

 

In fact, when a poly woman is attached to an otherwise unattached man, there is only one way to guarantee that he won’t ever exchange her for another woman, and that is to make sure there never IS another woman. 

 

Of course, even if it were practical for a poly woman to keep a man – any man, whether husband or lover -- all to herself, it would be totally unfair, unethical, and in all other ways completely un-okay.  It’s possible, in theory, that a poly woman could become involved with a very monogamous sort of man, and that he might choose never to explore a romantic relationship with anyone else, but that would have to be something he chose freely.  And frankly, I don’t know that we could say it was really 100% his choice to remain “faithful” to his poly partner unless there were all kinds of beautiful, thoughtful, interesting folks milling about him on a regular basis, all of them willing to jump into bed with him at a moment’s notice, and, hmmm, strangely, he just never felt like taking any of them up on their eager offers of romantic companionship.

 

So there’s no way around it: the poly woman who dates a “single” man is signing up for grief.

 

Or, to be more accurate: a poly woman who is involved with a man who persists in thinking of himself as single, who tells himself that a relationship with a woman who isn’t HIS, and HIS ALONE, doesn’t count as a relationship, is signing up for grief.

 

Some people are worth the grief they’re going to cause you.  Some are not.

 

I still think it’s a bit problematic that Travis’s dating profile says he’s single. We’re approaching the 2-year mark, after all: at the very least, I ought to be an indelible part of his romantic history. An intimacy founded on a lie, or even a huge omission, isn’t really intimacy, and Travis knows that.  At the moment, he’s not taking this whole internet dating thing very seriously, so it probably doesn’t matter how he’s representing himself.  If – or rather, when – he feels like actively dating, though, it’s going to make a real difference to me whether he lists himself as single or not.  If, at that point, he insists on representing himself as completely unattached, it will mean only one thing: he has decided that I am expendable. 

 

If he’s upfront with me about WHY he won’t commit to “owning” me – namely, that he’s not owning up to my existence because he plans to sever the sexual part of our relationship if it proves to be an obstacle in beginning another romance -- I will do my best to support that decision.  Although it’s hard to deal with jealousy when you KNOW there’s a good chance that you’re going to be abandoned, I may choose to choke it down.  I may choose to stay in the relationship until he meets someone else, even though I will struggle with feeling like a second-class citizen. I might even go so far as to agree to be “on call,” depending on how things are going in his dating life.  I’ve done it before.  Some people are worth it.

 

On the other hand, if your lover is hiding his true intentions from everyone, sneaking around with a “Date Me, I’m Single” sheet over his head, either A) he is already done with you, although he may want to trick you into sticking around for a little while longer, as his short-term plaything, or B) he’s a liar and a cheat.  In either case, it’s probably best to cut your losses and run.

Repetition Compulsions

“The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluable. They must be so, for they express the necessary polarity in every self-regulating system. They can never be solved but only outgrown.” – Carl Jung

I forget where I ran across this Jung quote, but I remember writing it down in a little book with a rose on the cover when I was eighteen. I've repeated it often since then. It's repeatedly relevant.

Each of us seems to've been put on this planet to work on a particular problem or set of problems. My own perpetual issue has something to do with external vs. internal. Inside out or outside in? Where is the locus of control? What is Self, and what is Other?

Like a person, a relationship is an entity that operates according to its own logic. The only difference is that the “necessary polarity” gets enacted between people. All their interactions are expressions of that polarity. Which is not necessarily a problem.

There are all kinds of things worth doing, and doing again. And yet again.

There are other kinds of things that were stupid once, and just keep on getting stupider.

A lot of repetition compulsions fall somewhere in the middle: whatever it is, I keep doing it because... I Know What's Best for Me (or whatever pat on the back you like to give yourself) – that is, except when it becomes clear that I'm stuck in a pattern that just doesn't work, in fact it totally sucks, but here I am, doing it again anyway, because...God Hates Me (or whatever despairing this-is-my-fate explanation you wish to invoke in these situations).

In any case, whether or not we experience something as a problem seems to be largely a function of attitude.

In a negative frame of mind, we see ourselves as cursed with a Sisyphean task, compelled to keep rolling the same huge boulder up the same unforgiving hill. And every time we think we've finally made it to the top for good, the damn thing flattens us as it rolls back down the slope.

Splat. Whoops. Did it again. Somebody sure screwed up.  Was it me?  Was it you? 

In a more positive frame of mind, we see some improvement. Pick your cliché: Two steps forward, one step back; Variations on a theme, with each repetition incorporating some essential change, a tonal shift in the burden of the song; A seasonal progression, in which each revolution around the same sun brings us to a new place, further along the spiral of possibility.

I think what Jung was getting at was this: We may be stuck with the same boulder and the same hill our whole lives long, but it is in our power to decide that it's a fine day for a little exercise. And as soon as we're not focused on our own resentment, lo & behold: the unexpected pleasures of a pleasant breeze, birdsong, alpine flowers....

Now, what was the problem, again?

Human Dramas, Major and Minor

This morning I got up at six-thirty to go for a walk with my friend Cate. When we set out, the sun was just coming up, and there was an unaccountable smell of campfire smoke in the air. We passed by a homeless person sleeping under the bridge. At least, I hoped he (she?) was simply asleep – his face was covered by his sleeping bag, and only his boots were showing, so it was impossible to tell for sure.

These kinds of details are totally irrelevant to this blog, except insofar as they communicate something about my actual experience, about what's relevant to me. So: the smoky smell, and a cast-off person who may or may not have been asleep. More important than what I'm going to recount next, which is a bit of silliness -- and yet, even minor dramas illustrate important themes.

As we walked, Cate was speculating about what it's going to be like when Luke, a man she met on OK Cupid some time ago, comes to visit next month. Luke lives on the east coast, and neither he nor Cate has the money for frivolous travel, so their interactions have all been over the phone until now. I don't know how likely it is that anything “exciting” will happen, as the tenor of their conversations has been more friendly than romantic, and Cate isn't the (only) reason he'll be in town. Nevertheless, she finds herself wondering if they will perhaps hit it off.

“I hope Harry gets really jealous,” she said.

WTF?

Why would anyone wish jealousy on someone else? It's like hoping someone gets the flu.

I was reminded of something Denali was telling me about Montana, his ex-girlfriend, who apparently attempted to make her current boyfriend jealous by making out with some other guy. Typical fourteen-year-old shenanigans.

Okay, I'll just say it: I had a judgmental moment. Attempting to manipulate others' emotions is something we all do, but flirting/making out/having sex with someone in hopes of making someone else jealous is a pretty childish maneuver.

I used to make a point of telling my high school boyfriend, Jack, about any interactions with other boys that pleased me. I shared every compliment and innuendo – not because I wanted to make him jealous, precisely, although I didn't especially mind if that was the result, but because I had something to prove. I wanted Jack know that he was dating a valuable person, someone who excited desire or admiration in others.

I guess I do understand the motive behind Cate's little “let's make him jealous” game. She doubts her own worth. As do we all: it's part of the experience of being human.

However, my experience of jealousy – my own and others' – has shown me that it's not something to mess around with. I can honestly say that, at least in my post-adolescent life, the only times I've ever been tempted to make someone jealous have been times when I was feeling really jealous myself. 

I chalk that up to the fact that human beings tend to visit Planet Tit-for-Tat whenever we feel we've been wronged. You hurt me, so I'll hurt you back – then you'll see how I feel! Never mind that this approach rarely results in us getting what we really want, which is empathy. We may understand, intellectually, that “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” but we often can't restrain ourselves from hurting those we believe to be the cause of our own pain.

Chronic low self-esteem – which is something most adolescents experience, along with a fair number of adults – is a kind of chronic pain. It causes a person to behave badly, in all kinds of ways. Sometimes it causes a person to hurt someone she loves, in a misguided attempt to feel better about herself. Sometimes, it causes a person to end up alone under a bridge on a frosty night.

My Unconventional Valentine

The first Valentine I ever received from Parker was a bright yellow posterboard heart, about ten inches across. No text. We were seventeen.

Other memorable Valentines from my quintessentially quirky husband:

• I came home for lunch to find a plate of pickled beet (cut in the shape of a heart) surrounded by artichoke hearts, all artfully arranged: “beet 'n' heart.”
• I got a series of 20 messages in my email inbox, back when email was still something of a novelty. They ran the gamut from sincere to sexy to self-deprecating to sappy to silly to sarcastic. Here's the final message, titled “A summary”:

So you read them, twenty messages of love, and where was all the love?
In the text?  In the moments of expectation between subject and message
body? (try different readings of that one!)  In the information it asked
you to look up at its location in the outside world?  About two and a
half inches in, on the front surface?  Somewhere in the library of
valentine's cards? In your heart?  In mine?  In the more effective
messages before #1 or after #20?  Nowhere, but it was a nice try?

• He gave me a bouquet of flours. You know: barley, rye, spelt, whole wheat.... And this was before Stranger than Fiction. Anyway, his bouquet actually looked like a bouquet, because each kind of flour was in a little dixie cup on a long metal stem.
• Then there was the clever but slightly cruel box of home-made chocolates. Have you ever bitten into a chocolate-dipped cotton ball? Initially, it has a texture rather like a Butterfinger bar...and then you realize that what you're chewing on just isn't edible.
• In 2008, when I was having little bit of a self-esteem crisis, he presented me with a round mirror on which he'd painted a spiral list of all the things he appreciated about me. It was called “The Many Faces of [Viny]-Beauty.” I'm not generally a crier, but this gift made me cry. I felt very loved, very known. This was his list:

golden bird * golden shadow * 1000-mile hiker chick * relationship therapist * burnout velvet model * pastry chef * high-heeled gardener * chili pepper professor * letter-writing bombanat * baby-journalist * wine consultant * confidante * telephone Brunhilda * bad bad black sheep * all-star evolutionary deconstructionist * poet querciate * unforgettable lover * translator * mediator * girl in the rain * the chamrealeon

Awaiting Judgment

The last 24 hours went something like this:

Yesterday, 10 a.m.:

My father and I are walking back from the scene of my car accident.  No, no, not another accident – I’m referring to the fender-bender I got into on November 30^th (also, coincidentally, my father’s birthday).  He is giving me advice about how to handle my court hearing.  “Now, I’m a chronological guy,” he says, “and the judge may or may not be chronologically inclined, but I think you ought to just give him the facts as they happened: ‘Your honor, I was traveling northbound, when I saw – or heard –‘ did you say you heard the sirens first, or saw them? ‘—an emergency vehicle traveling southbound, at which time I began to signal to change from the left-hand lane to the right-hand lane. There were two cars stopped in front of me, and I could not maneuver around them to complete the lane change. I came to a complete stop and then, two to three seconds later, this lady pranged me…”   

I’m  kind of pleased by the word “pranged,” but I don’t comment.  My father continues on, obviously relishing his role as legal counsel (he’s a retired attorney).  “Now, how fast does your turn signal blink?  How many times per second?  I think you ought to know that before you go in tomorrow.”

Yesterday, 11 a.m.:

My father, in a truculent snit, has just trucked the suitcases out to my car.  I’m giving my parents a ride to the airport.  My mother is explaining to me privately: “It just turns me right off to see him being emotionally manipulative like that.  Sienna is only three.  It should be about her needs, not his needs.  He doesn’t realize what he’s doing. But I’m probably just making things worse by telling him what not to do, ordering him around.  It doesn’t change his behavior, it just makes him feel like he’s being criticized.”

Yesterday, noon:

I’m on the freeway, driving back from the airport, when a marble-sized rock comes flying at me, hitting my windshield with a sickening “crack,” and leaving a series of tiny gouges in the glass.

Yesterday, 1 p.m.:

Having considered eating leftover pizza (Denali would be mad if he came home to find it gone) or leftover pot roast (I had that the previous day for lunch) or making myself some salmon salad with celery and green onions (Jesus, meat, meat, meat!), I finally settle on a hot dog (microwaved for thirty seconds, then dipped in ketchup).  Then I have some honey yogurt and two slices of toast, and think about how there’s probably not enough fiber in the bread to make up for the lack of vegetable matter in my meal, and make a mental note to change my diet drastically in the near future.

Yesterday, 2 p.m.:

Sienna and I return the guest room keys to Georgia.  “Your parents are gone!  You survived the visit!”

Yesterday, 3 p.m.:

I’m revising the Chairman’s Letter for a fiscally conservative foundation.  Every time they send me something to edit, I feel a little bad.  What am I doing, sprucing up rhetoric about the importance of taming government spending?  My own children don’t have health insurance, because the governor of our fair state instituted spending cuts that directly affect my family.  I’m a liberal and an eco-freak.  I think all this stuff about the protecting the ideals of the free-market system and empowering people to develop “personal initiative” is an just an excuse to justify corporate greed.  In short, I’m this foundation’s worst nightmare.  But here I am, taking their dirty money, simply because I’m personally acquainted with the vice president, which means he’s a person to me, not a faceless corporate entity. I once edited an entertaining and slightly racy novel he’d written in his spare time.  He’s a decent guy, and it would feel shitty to tell him No, I can't support your freakin’ foundation: please get someone else to fix your "lack of flow."

Yesterday, 4 p.m.:

It’s become clear to me that the entire day is going to be a disaster: first the green bananas for the banana-chocolate mousse – I went to THREE different stores, and no one had ripe bananas! – then the rock chip in the windshield, not to mention the “Maint Req’d” light blinking on the dashboard, then there’s the house, it’s a mess, and that court hearing hanging over my head, ugh, I’m a basket case, an absolute stress fest, and the best thing I can do is get myself, my physical person, fixed up a bit, so here I am, in the shower, attempting to shave my legs, something I do maybe once a week if people are lucky, and having to steer clear of the 3-inch scab over the tendon of my right ankle, which happened last time I shaved my legs, obviously in too much of a hurry….

Yesterday, 5 p.m.:

Denali gets home, stashes his bass and backpack in the corner of the living room, and begins rummaging through the fridge. 

“Who ate my pizza?” he wants to know. 

“Don’t look at me,” I tell him.  “Parker ate it.” 

“What?!? I’m starving! I didn’t have any lunch!” 

“Why not?  Why didn’t you eat lunch?”

“Because it was absolutely inedible. Because there are two things they serve that are inedible, and today was one of them – I would have thrown up, literally, if I’d tried to eat it.”

“It’s five o’clock.  We’ll be having dinner in an hour and a half.”

“I’m going to DIE of hunger before then.  Besides, I don’t like what we’re having for dinner.”

“There are a couple of hot dogs left.”

“AAArgh!  I can’t believe someone ate my pizza.”

Yesterday, 6 p.m.:

It’s hard to maneuver around the kitchen.  A new neighbor of ours decided to come over – why now? – and Parker’s let him in – can’t he see that this is not a good time? – and this very likable but oblivious neighbor has got a folder of his photographs and art cards on the island, right in the middle of my mess of open recipe books and squash skins.  He’s prattling about all his artistic remodeling projects while I’m trying to mix up the custard-topped spoon bread around him.  He seems not to notice that he’s standing in the way of every single kitchen implement I need access to: “’Scuse me while I just reach around your hip here to get at my beaters…”  I should have had this thing in the oven half an hour ago.  Fuck, where’s the 13x9 pan?  I’m going to have to use the bigger one.  Fuck, this batter is really runny, it isn’t usually this runny, is it?  It’s never going to cook if I pour two cups of cream over it.  And there’s still the salad to make, and the soup to puree….

Yesterday, 7 p.m.:

I have just sat down with my dinner: butternut-pear soup (Parker: “I guess it’s as good as this kind of soup can be expected to be.”), custard-topped spoon bread (Neighbor: “It doesn’t look cooked through in the middle.” Me: “That’s the custard.  It’s supposed to be like that.”), green salad, and green, green enough to be astringent, banana-chocolate mousse.  There are thirteen other diners.  The lady across from me says, “Have you put out the water pitchers yet?”  “No,” I say, getting up, “I have not put out any water pitchers yet.”

Yesterday, 8 p.m.:

I’m doing up the dinner dishes at my house, because the dishwasher in the community kitchen is on the fritz again.  Parker is off helping water-pitcher lady get herself set up with a new Yahoo account, and Travis is helping – or attempting to help – me with the dishes.  As he puts it later, I am kind of like a steamroller run amok: the message I’m sending, loud and clear, is “Get the hell out of my way!” Sienna is underfoot, as usual, but she’s doing a fairly good job of dodging me.  I suggest to Denali that he might think about helping out, seeing as how everything is such a mess.  “Is there anything I can do that doesn’t involve cleaning or watching Sienna?”

Yesterday, 9 p.m.:

I’m at Travis’s house. (Denali: “Of course you’re going to Travis’s tonight. It’s Tuesday.  What I want to know is, why Tuesday?  Travis, do you have a “Tuesday” fetish or something?”)

Travis has put me on the couch, covered me with a blanket, and made me some tea. “Babe,” I say to him, “I feel bad for being another needy person in your life.”

Yesterday, 10 p.m.:

“Do you just want to go to sleep?” Travis asks me.  We’re in bed, with the lights out.

“Yes,” I say.  Pause.  “Do you just want to go to sleep?”

“Well,” he admits, “I could probably be convinced to do something else.”

I laugh.  “Seems to me that I’m the one who needs convincing.”

Yesterday, 11 p.m., through today, 6 p.m.:

I’m asleep, and thus completely unaware that Travis has been dealing with insomnia all night.  Right before waking, I have the following dream:  I’m doing laundry, and for some reason, I’m putting food in with the clothes.  I pull out a clean blanket, one of Sienna’s, and I spread it out on the lawn.  There are four girls at the playground, probably 13 or 14 years old, and one of them – the ringleader, who reminds me of a particularly snotty girl who called me names in junior high – comes over and steps on the blanket.  I try to get her to stop, but she’s not listening to me.  She and her friends are alternately picking on me and ignoring me.  I storm onto the playground and tell them I’m going to call their fucking parents.  I’m kind of shocked at myself for using profanity, since my own parents are there observing this scene.  Feeling frustrated and impotent, I leave the playground with this parting shot: “This is just retarded.”  My father mimics me, derisively.  My mother tries to tell him that my behavior is understandable, given the circumstances.  I walk back over to the blanket on the lawn, feeling like I’ve got to come up with some way of dealing with those girls.  I realize that my parents can’t do anything about them.  I wonder if I can get my cohousing community to sign an agreement stating that they have to leave me alone – it’s not as if I’m asking for them to like me and include me! I’m just asking them not to bother me! – and, if they can’t comply, to get off our property.

Today, 7 a.m.

Me: “For someone who didn’t get any sleep last night, you can certainly put out!”

Travis, mock-modestly: “Thank you.”

Today, 8 a.m.

Travis and I are eating our breakfast of oatmeal, blood oranges, and tea.

Today, 9 a.m.

I’m driving Travis to work, a bit late.  We’ve spent the drive talking about trust and how it relates to jealousy.  As is often the case when Travis is my passenger, I’m not paying enough attention to my driving.  I’ve apparently just run a stop sign (luckily, on a dinky little back street: no traffic of any kind).  “Um…try not to get a ticket today, okay?” 

Yeah, that would royally suck. Ironic, too. Because believe it or not, I am normally a very conscientious driver. I have gotten only two tickets in twenty years of driving. The first ticket was for speeding.  I got it for going 80 on I-80, trying to get home from Scott’s in time to take Denali to preschool.  I took a defensive driving course online, and the ticket was dismissed.  I’ve been hyper-vigilant about staying within the speed limit ever since. The second ticket was issued to me after I got in the only accident I’ve ever been in – yes, the aforementioned fender-bender.  After waiting for three hours in a vacant lot in the cold (see my post “Love and Other Accidents” for the longer story), I was cited for an unsafe lane change.  Talk about adding insult to injury. I don’t know in what universe pulling over for an emergency vehicle -- after checking my rear-view and signaling, then coasting to a stop, then sitting there at a dead stop for 2-3 seconds -- counts as an unsafe lane change, but it’s beyond sucky -- in fact, it's retarded, and I’m determined to do something about it.

Today, 10 a.m.

After making myself another pot of tea, I sit down at the computer.

And that’s the story, Your Honor -- in chronological order, just like my father told me to tell it.

Remodeling My Parents' Kitchen

If I were you, I'd change the paint 

to buttercream, sweet potato,

lemon, lemongrass, sugared violet, 

and the kind of turquoise that looks edible.

As for the flaw in the gleaming granite

of your counter top, your milky spill

that can't be mopped: frame it

with cinnamon sticks and marmalade.

Then hang the place with chili ristras

and garlands of bay and laurel 

woven through

with so many twinkling lights

that neighbors, peeping in through windows

you have scattered everywhere,

find their kindled envy ecstasy.

That's my advice.  But I'm just a loud voice

in your empty house, the prodigal daughter

afraid she's only dreaming you awake.

Today's Special: What's Cooking in the Poly Kitchen

I’m spending the morning alone, in Travis’s empty house.  The space is both mine and not-mine.  The time is all mine.  It’s luxurious.

I’m enjoying an almond croissant I bought at the French bakery, a cup of Travis’s tea, and Pandora playing ATB on Travis’s computer.  I’m wearing my writing sweater and my cozy slippers. I get to write whatever the hell I please.

As much as I like my business-as-usual life, it’s nice to have a break from it every once in a while.  I’m glad Travis has his own place, and that he doesn’t mind me using it as an occasional retreat.

Which brings me to our topic du jour.  It’s hard to distill into one catch-phrase, because it’s a bunch of discrete but related ideas.  And the previous sentence basically enacts, and therefore encapsulates, the conundrum I’m getting at: what to do with multiple-but-related?

Another way of putting it: How close is too close? And when does separation result in too much distance?

Let’s say we’re talking about people.  Do they all live in the same country, the same city, the same house?  Do they all sleep in the same bed?  If so, do they sleep together every night?  How much of their time do they spend together, anyway? 

There are culturally sanctioned answers for these questions in the case of a traditional couple.  In our culture, the default assumption is that a married couple shares pretty much everything: house, bed, meals, finances, child-rearing responsibilities. Some couples also share the same workplace, the same circle of friends, and the same hobbies. But we’d probably look askance at the couple who shared the same underwear, and not just because of gender norms.

To a lesser extent, there are also cultural expectations for extended families. In WASP culture, for example, children over 25 generally don’t live with their parents, and elderly parents don’t usually live with their grown children.  In more collectivistic cultures, one often finds three or four family generations living in the same house together, along with the occasional aunt/uncle/third-cousin-twice-removed.

However, there are no cultural guidelines for expanded intimate networks.  If you’re poly, you’re on your own: it’s up to you – and your partners – to create a situation that will work for all of you.  And the more of you there are, the more difficult that task is going to be.

I remember talking to Lilianna back in the early days of our acquaintance, when she was flush with the possibilities presented by poly-in-theory.  Her dream scenario was to live in one huge house, with a separate bedroom for each adult, some spaces for parents and children in the same nuclear family to share, and some common spaces that would be shared by everyone.  

I like Lilianna’s dream house.  It was a nice place for a mental visit, and, had it existed, it would have been a nice place for the occasional real-life sleepover.  But I didn’t want to live there then, and I wouldn’t want to live there now.

For starters, I don’t want my own bedroom.  I like sleeping with someone.  If the bed were big enough, I’d be cool with sleeping with several someones on a regular basis, provided that everyone’s sleep schedule was a rough match.

However, the idea of a communal kitchen strikes terror into my heart.  I don’t want to share a kitchen with any group of adults, no matter how much I might adore each of them.  Truth be told, I don’t like sharing a kitchen with Parker: he clutters the countertops with his batik supplies, spills wax on the stovetop, and splashes dye everywhere. 

Ideally, I’d like to have my very own kitchen: my own pretty plates, my own cheerful teapot, my own vase of fragrant freesias in a patch of sunshine on my spic-n-span countertop. 

Since I can’t have my own kitchen, though, I content myself with cooking in other people’s kitchens every once in a while.  Georgia has the freesias, Cate has the clean countertop, and Travis has the skylight.  Lilianna & Rick have that cool thing for rolling out pastry, along with the best collection of cookbooks ever.

I guess what I am trying to say, in a roundabout way, is that the appeal of multiplicity, for me, lies in difference.  Since we’re hanging out in the metaphorical kitchen of my dream house, I guess you could say I prefer the smorgasbord approach: enjoying a variety of choices, getting to savor distinct flavors, trying unusual combinations, going back for seconds and thirds of my favorite dishes.  Yeah, you could also take all those different foods and put them in a blender.  You could then drink the same 100-ingredient shake morning, noon, and night – but why would you want to?

On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to separate a chocolate chip cookie into its constituent components.  Pinch of plain baking soda, anyone?