I tend to fall in love with ideas, especially if they're transgressive. I also tend to be a bit pedantic, which is unfortunate when I'm exploring new concepts with enthusiasm, because I sometimes write with a voice of greater authority than is warranted by my knowledge of the subject. (Also known as "Talking out my ass.")

Fortunately, this medium allows me to take a couple of steps back and reconsider or expand on something I've written if I'm not entirely pleased with it. Such clarification was the genesis of this past Saturday's post ("All Frubbly-like") and will also serve as the starting point for this one. Regarding the difference between the swinging and polyamory communities, I wrote,

The critical difference between the two communities depends entirely upon the definition of "love." If you're attending monthly wife-swapping gatherings (and why is it never "husband-swapping," anyway?) for the purposes of bringing a new toy and a different joy into your marriage, then what you've got going on there isn't love, at least not among all parties concerned. That's Serial Monogamy Pro (Service Pack 1). If hubby or wifey falls in love with a weekend paramour, there's going to be a problem. The "seriousness" of the relationship remains reserved for the binary couple.

My thinking this evening is, Says who? Me?

If my straw couple has set certain rules, to wit, "Falling in love isn't allowed," then there would be a problem. But what if they haven't? It's just as reasonable to consider that these hypothetical swingers have set the opposite rule, or that they've elected to deal with such situations as they arise, or even that they've set no rule at all. In each case, I suggest that proper handling of the situation and maintenance of their relationship would depend entirely on their commitment, not to each other, but to honesty, integrity, and self-knowledge.

When thinking about the language this culture uses to frame intimate relationships, particularly with regard to marriage, the core concept seems to be "Commitment to each other." But what does that mean, exactly? We can unpack it, and discover regard for the other's well-being and happiness, a pledge of loyalty, friendship, and support, even the aforementioned honesty. But those ideas aren't really inherent in the idea of commitment to another person, as it is expressed in those four simple words. They're add-ons. What does it mean to be committed "to" another person?

You can commit yourself to an effort, such as a project at work, a course of academic study, or perhaps the creation of a sculpture or some other creative pursuit. You can commit yourself to a cause. You can commit yourself to being in a certain place at a certain time. You can commit yourself to an idea. But the primary meaning of the word "commit" is "To give in trust or charge, to consign." It seems to me, then, that our ultimate cultural ideal of commitment to another person is being expressed as a kind of transaction: I give myself to you, you give yourself to me, and we'll seal the deal with this loop of shiny yellow metal topped with a chip of highly compressed sparkling carbon, and perhaps a herd of goats for your family.

It is, essentially, a sort of joint ownership, rather like two cars purchasing each other.

What accompanies such a transaction? Ownership of each other's slippery bits, for starters. More ethereally, there is also an expectation of limited affection...ownership, essentially, of each other's roving eyes and hearts.

Forget wondering about how polyamorous people make their relationships work...how the hell do monogamous people make theirs work? Sneak on over to this page of infidelity statistics to find out.

Back? Good. The answer, it would seem, is "Very often, they don't." ("By the grace of God" isn't an answer I'm even remotely interested in exploring here, thanks.)

We live in a society that values comfort over truth. The truth is, hearts and eyes do rove. As individuals in intimate relationships with one another, we* can either accept that, and deal with it, or deny it, and deal with that. The generally accepted vows and sexual practices handed down to us by our Victorian and agrarian forebears were intended to establish patrilineal succession and the orderly transfer of property. With the passing of those needs, what modern needs are served by this cultural ideal? What is it that we seek, when we vow "'Till death do us part?" What is the purpose of this promise?

From where I'm sitting, theorizing with my laptop, there's one obvious answer: the mitigation of fear. Fear of being alone. Fear of being abandoned. Fear of being hurt. It's as though, with one ceremony, we can avoid confronting our human natures for the remainder of our lives, safe in a state-sanctioned bubble. And from this flows a host of taboos, lies, and half-truths. One partner keeps quiet about the cute new hire at the office. The other is hurt by a lingering glance after the departing waiter that lasts a bit too long. Sexual boredom doesn't get addressed. Affairs of the heart, body, or both ensue. Deception follows, with guilt hard on its heels.

All because vows were made that were supposed to take care of that sort of thing, forever.

None of this is restricted to formal marriage. But that idea forms the template for all intimate love relationships in our society, and perhaps it shouldn't. Perhaps, instead of being committed "to each other," we should be committed to ideals of integrity, honesty, and awareness of our selves. What might such a relationship look like?

What if, as one small example, the truth had primacy over keeping secrets to avoid "hurting his/her feelings?" Examine the motivation behind such an act. What's actually going on, when we stuff down a burst of emotionally intimate or erotic feelings for someone other than our partner, rather than expressing it? Ostensibly, this is done out of concern for the partner's feelings. But who is so threatened by an idea that they can't bear to hear it? And if they are so threatened...what trust is there? A whole realm of experience becomes walled off, a minefield smack in the middle of the relationship where no one dares to tread. And why? Again: fear. We don't know what will happen if we attempt to work our way through that uncomfortable, pock-marked territory. He or she might be angry. They might be hurt. They might leave.

Is it necessary to consider the feelings of another? Of course it is, that's obvious. My contention is that rather than genuine concern for another, it is often the avoidance of complication, discomfort, and fear that drives such secrecy. Weigh silence so motivated against the benefits of being totally open, and against the potential rewards of letting another person know exactly who you are, and having them accept you. Furthermore, consider the depth of a relationship where both partners can be so open and accepting of each other. Is such honesty a risk? Yes. No question about it. But so is living in fear.

Getting from the expression of such ideas to acting on them is, I think, a long journey, but the principle remains the same.

There is actually one type of relationship in which "committing to another person" makes unqualified sense to me: the parent-child relationship. That is the one place where the idea of a person being "given in trust" to another is appropriate, and the mitigation of the fear of being alone, abandoned, or hurt is justifiably paramount.

I don't think I really want my intimate adult relationships to be so closely patterned on those of my childhood.

*Yes, I'm using the inclusive "we," but this is all my stuff, your mileage may vary, etc. and so on. All of this is basically a theoretical exercise at the moment, and, like most such exercises, it could all just be a load of overwritten, overgeneralized nonsense. Perhaps, at some point, someone will step in and actually argue with me, and thus improve (or destroy) whatever arguments I've managed to make thus far. In the end, though: nothing about polyamory is necessarily superior to monogamy, and its workability depends entirely upon the folks involved and their own desires. As always, everything I write here is first and foremost from my own perspective, and any judgmental overtones you might detect are failures on my part.

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I've discovered the outlet mall in Camarillo.

Long story short: one (1) white cotton suit by Calvin Klein, from Saks Off 5th Avenue. I won't tell you how much, except that it was $200 less than it would have been on 5th Avenue. (It wasn't much. Really.)

Calvin Klein has always been good to me. Back when I was almost, but not quite, in the big & tall category, I found an excellent navy pinstripe suit of his that was the only suit in all of New York that would fit me. His shirts also treat me nicely.

The new suit is at the tailor's up the street, being made perfect. I think I might bring the navy pinstripe to him as well, along with one or two of my Oscar de la Renta jackets, just to see if it's worth having them altered to fit my smaller frame.

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To start with, something disturbingly normal happened today: I overslept. Until 11:30 in the morning, to be exact. This might not seem like a big deal to you, but for the past two months, going to sleep and staying asleep didn't happen, and I usually gave up between 4:30 and 5:30 in the morning. Granted: I did take 1mg of Xanax before going to bed at around 1:00AM last night, but prior to last night, even that didn't help. I'd still snap awake at some ungodly hour, and be out of bed well before 6:00AM.

So: this is one of those small yet important victories. My sleep in general has improved over the past four or five days, but this...11:30 in the morning! I can now enjoy the feeling of having too much of the day gone because I'm a lazy oversleeping bastard. Happy happy joy joy!

But that's not what this collection of words is supposed to be about, that's just what happened to me a mere twenty minutes ago, and I thought I'd share it with you because I know you're all so very interested in the minutiae of my exciting and stylish life.

No, what I'm supposed to be writing about is that Santa Barbara, the "American Riviera," is actually a very Small Town, and I suddenly feel like I'm living in the outer provinces. Good weather, ocean, palm trees, and so on. But try to find a gay club. Go on, I dare you.

Can't be done. Because there aren't any. A co-worker and I were talking about that last week, and this week's Independent--the local rag with bits of news and a What's Doing In Town section--had a cover story about where to "Eat, Drink, and Be Merry." The full-page photo on the cover was decidedly full of men dancing with other men, and, sure enough, the first section of the story inside was subtitled, "Where Have All The Gay Bars Gone?" The short answer was "Away."

In fact, there is only one gay bar in the tri-country area, and it's 30 miles away in Ventura, a place called Paddy's. So, I put on my face and a decent set of clothes--not too flash, but not California casual either, because I don't do California casual--and drove down to check the place out. I decided that I would have one--count it, one--drink, and made it a gin and tonic...they never make those strong because no one really drinks them anymore.

Maybe the place picks up later in the evening. But when I arrived a bit after 9:30 there was a random queer assemblage of young men in baseball caps, old men drinking smoothies, and various gatherings of women around the bar and the pool table, with music thumping into two empty dance floors and a lot of boy booty shaking on the flat panel screens above the bar.

So, I sat at the bar and watched the video booty, sipping at my drink (not strong, as expected) and occasionally writing my impressions down in the Moleskine notebook I carry with me because I Is A Writer. After about 20 minutes, I finished said drink, got up and wandered about the place, checking out the vacant dance floors. I said hello again to a guy who probably thought I was cruising him (I most decidedly was not), and headed home.

When I was living in Jersey City and Queens--even in New Brunswick--it was easy to go where the gay was when I decided I wanted to. In fact, I think the gayest thing I ever did was grab my copy of Martin Duberman's Stonewall and head into New York to have a drink at the Stonewall Inn on June 28, the anniversary of the 1969 riots. I suppose I could've made it gayer...but was mid-afternoon and the place was mostly empty, so I just read my book about the events that happened right where I sat, drank my drink, and soaked up the history of the place.

It was the same in my early twenties in Philadelphia: find the club, go to the club, have fun. I was never a particularly cruisey type of guy, but I did enjoy the atmosphere, and yes, I did like being cruised. It's a straightforward (if I can use that term) process, very above board, and if you demur, it can turn into a fun bout of flirting. It is, in fact, my exposure to the honest, uninhibited, and unashamed pursuit of sex found within the gay community that makes what I'm discovering about the polyamory community so appealing right now. Not the "endless flow of meaningless sex" part of it, but the "direct" part of it, in this case communicated with the eyes, gestures, perhaps a touch or two. "Hey--wanna fuck? No? OK then, I'm going to take my shirt off and dance right over there, so you'll know what you're missing. Kiss!" The application of that sort of uninhibited honesty to the more intimate parts of a relationship has great appeal to me.

Unfortunately, just as I'm starting to re-explore my lavender side, I find myself in a place where the sort of atmosphere I could readily find back east isn't prevalent. I suspect that, even if Paddy's does pick up late at night,* as the only game in town it might resemble Cheers for queers more than a well-populated urban club where anonymity is yours if you want it. Not that I need to hide anything (obviously), but at a big city club you don't need to break into a clique to enjoy the place or the evening. Plenty of whatever for everybody!

At a party last Sunday I talked for awhile with S., a fellow my age who moved here from San Francisco and is a refugee from its leather/BDSM scene. He needed a place that was slower, because his social life was starting to grind him down. I need, I think, a place that's somewhere in the middle, and this town may yet provide that. S. works for the local gay services organization, and they do a monthly sunset gathering gathering atop the Hotel Andalucia, which I will attend. There are also people--mostly DJs--who organize "gay nights" at various clubs, so the scene, such as it is, may be one of rotating venues and odd nights during the week. There is, for example, Sunday night at the Wildcat Lounge, which I may float through this evening if I feel like it.

But even here in supposedly liberal California, there are issues. Some organizers complained of hostility on the part of the venues' staffs. Money is paramount: if your queer event doesn't bring in enough cashflow, you're not invited back.

It's a strange place, it really is. What I've discovered over the past six months is that if I really want something, I have the ability to make it happen. So, I'll see whether this situation in particular requires the application of that newly-found mutant power.

*I have since been told, on good authority, that it does.

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Well, that was certainly a pisser of an afternoon, wasn't it? Not that you'd know, because you weren't there. Honestly, you never call, I haven't seen you in months, what the fuck.

Anyway. I come not to abuse my readership (either of you), but to entertain it, or something. I'm sitting on the couch, fending off a needy cat who doesn't quite understand the concept of laptop and wondering just how far into the shoals of bitterness I've actually wandered. It's difficult to tell, sometimes, whether I'm producing posts as part of my regular everyday processing or I'm actually striving for something completely different. Or, perhaps, some combination of the two.

It does seem a bit of a stretch, doesn't it? I mean: one month I'm high as a limerent kite and the next I'm decrying not only my own foolishness but everyone else's. Really, it's not your fault, and I certainly don't mean to be bashing you about the head with my antinuptiality if that's what you're happily aiming for. Different fucks for different ducks and all that (is that my "fuck" quota for this post? It might be; I'll check.)

I've got three books lined up in my reading queue, one after the other: Easton and Liszt's "The Ethical Slut," Tennov's "Love and Limerence," and Lewis, Amini, and Lannon's "A General Theory of Love." This is on top of the book I'm reading for the book club I started a couple of weeks ago: Daniel Gilbert's "Stumbling on Happiness," which takes as its basic premise that humans are stupendously bad at predicting what will make them happy, and attempts to explain why.

See a theme here? I knew you could.

Despite having been a bit of an asocial introvert for much of my life, I am in fact an acute observer of people and their behavior, and nine times out of ten if I'm asked to explain what the hell's going on with someone, I'll get it right, even if they insist to the sky that I'm wrong. This might be the kind of objectivity that one obtains as an observer of and not a participant in the odd dance of primates we're pleased to call society, but nevertheless, it's a useful skill that I really need to value and trust much more than I do. The trouble is, I end up gathering a lot of data but fail to present it to my decision-making committee in a handy executive summary which they can then use to make recommendations to the action committee, so while they're hemming and hawing over the Powerpoint slides being projected against my frontal lobes, the impulsive bastards in my limbic system are charging full-speed ahead without even so much as a preliminary budget, and god I really do work in corporate America again, don't I? Jesus. Stop that.

The other side of this particular psychological coin is that, like Clarice on the other side of the ventilated plexiglas, I have difficulty getting the keen observer in the cell to apply his skills to himself. (Did I just compare a part of myself to a psychopathic cannibal? Why yes, you did. Have some Chianti.) The cobbler's children have no shoes, and the acute observer of human behavior has mixed success in sussing out his own motivations.

In real time, that is. I can roll the tape and see exactly what I was doing and why I was doing it, but my in-the-moment processing is often sorely lacking. Part of that, I think, is due to the fact that I'm used to being pickled, and I'm not now. It's frustrating, though, and I do occasionally beat myself up about all the time I've wasted in my life attempting to bludgeon myself into mental health with bongs, bottles, and pills.

Still: I'm better at it this month than I was last month, certainly better than I was the month before that, and entire galaxies better than I was this time last year. There is progress, and part of the lesson plan (Part III, actually) is learning to cut myself some slack and stop treating time and love alike as though they're vanishingly rare commodities in a starvation economy. Yes, yes, live every day as though it's your last, but frankly, I know what it's like to think upon waking that this day or that day might be my last, and it's not helpful. It doesn't lend daring and vim to the diurnal anomaly; it creates fear and paralysis. If I get nailed by a bus tomorrow I won't spend my last millisecond of awareness regretting that I didn't call the personal trainer at my gym who wrote her cell number on her business card after our "free session" for no reason I could identify until a week after the fact. I'll spend it getting hit by a bus. Very Zen, that.

Despite my mad skilz and best intentions, the lumpen fist of cognitive obsession still manages to put a good squeeze on my heart at least every few days, and this afternoon was no exception. From a strictly empirical standpoint, it's actually quite fascinating: Observe the monkey. Notice how, despite his accumulated knowledge, hard-won, he is powerless against the onslaught of his own desires and their accompanying neurological states. Look! He's discovered websites he probably shouldn't read...and there he goes! Let's give him a food pellet and a shock to the ankle.

From a subjective standpoint, however, it blows yak dick. It's one thing to be jerked around by someone else, but quite another to realize you've been pulling your own damn strings all along, and are still doing so. Figuring out how to disentangle yourself from your own manipulations is bloody difficult at best, and a fount of misery at worst. Yet: I see people in the same situation who've got no idea that they've got their own strings clutched in their own two fists, and are puzzled every time they kick themselves in the face. So perhaps I'm ahead of the game, even though some days it feels like I've lost it entirely.

Fuck.

(I had one left.)

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No, yesterday’s post wasn’t addressed to or about anyone in particular (except me, of course). I use the collective “you” to address my readership (which is legion, I tells ya) in a kind of perverted folksy fireside way, not as a means of communicating with individuals. I have a telephonic gadget, e-mail, IM, and an Aldis lamp for that sort of thing. The blog is more like a radio broadcast, not suitable for interpersonal communication at all, and I don’t use it that way.

I do have the equivalent of a bank of phones, though, which no one is using. Go ahead. Really. Reggie Bastard is waiting to put you through.

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The yak eatin' mountain madman has returned to these western shores with tales to tell. He makes a point with which I emphatically agree:

The subject matter will, at its very core, be me and the unique feelings, visions, actions and interactions I had (and am still having) as a result of going on this trip. To me, most travel books are unreadable because instead of giving you a glimpse into the mind of the author they are loaded with chronological facts that end up being a rehashed, first person versions of the travel brochure. This isn't to say it won't be informative or sometimes deliberately chronological (this isn't Pulp Fiction, you know), but what it will be is a clear and unabashed look into my head and heart, which was considerably warbled over 20,000 feet. So maybe you should click the "Back" button on your browser and get the hell out now before it is too late.

Hell no, we won't go. The individual authorial voice is all that's left to us in this prepackaged shrink-wrapped off-the-shelf culture. So go check him out.

How Many Heads in the Commentarium? (2)
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Oh yes. The wind is here, rattling my windows and bending palm fronds back into whickering submission. And we all know what that means. I've got three or four posts in my head, incubating...but I'm just not in the right frame of mind to work on them. Which is a good thing, as they're mostly All Serious and so on. Right now I'm a bit giddy.

Must be the wind.

Giddiness aside...no, wait, to hell with that. Giddiness will stay right here, on my lap. Or in my pants. On my head? Draped about my shoulders. In my chest and on the soles of my feet! Oh my, yes.

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While wandering through the theoretical wilderness over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been reading the online and offline words of those engaged in the actual practice of polyamory. As an outsider and observer of the community, I’ve noticed a few things, which I shall now share with you on the weak premise that they might actually be of interest.

To begin with: polyamory is a big tent. There are as many ways of doing it as there are people doing it. There is not much orthodoxy, and what few principles are regarded as “fundamental” are often challenged by folks who do things differently but still claim the polyamorist label. This makes it a bit difficult to arrive at any definition of that label except a personal one of my own, and I’ve found that many people have reached a similar conclusion.

That said, there seem to be three main “camps,” with, of course, significant overlap between them, various outliers, and so forth. The first, and most easily Googled, are the free love, earthy-crunchy, Gaia-worshipping neopagan types. These I will place towards the end of the spectrum I have affectionately named Flaky. (As both an ex-Jesus Jumper and an ex-New Age Pagan-Style Person, I retain a bit of residual fondness for each clan.) Here you’ll find talk of infinite love, lots of spiritual woo-woo, and more than a whiff of the 60s.

The second camp occupies the Geek portion of the spectrum: sci-fi/fantasy/comic fanboys and fangirls, gamers, SCA types, and the Ren Faire crowd. These are my people, although I have long been separated from the tribe. You will find poly folk at almost any con, tournament, or faire.

Finally, there are the Literati, heirs to the 19th-century Romantics. Their practices owe more to the “free love” of that era and its Wollstonecraftian critiques of the institution of marriage than they do to the promiscuous counterculture that popularized the same term during the last century. I haven’t found too many of these yet…just enough to convince me that there are probably more of them out there.

There is a steady current of feminism that runs throughout, best exemplified in modern times by sex-positive Grand Dames like Betty Dodson, Susie Bright, and Annie Sprinkle. Although I don’t consider myself a feminist—I’m a somewhat lapsed humanist—I can certainly see how the claiming of male sexual sovereignty and the redefinition or rejection of marriage would be attractive.

Another common element for all involved is the professed tripartite foundation of communication, integrity, and honesty. So much so that almost any post to the LJ Polyamory blog requesting advice on one complicated relationship problem or another will invariably receive multiple replies containing some version of the chant: communicate, communicate, communicate. This is obviously a required element for any relationship, but the point made by the polyamorists is that the complexities of multiple intimacies require more of it, with a greater degree of deliberate intention, if there is to be even the slightest chance of success.

Like everything else, the definition of “success” varies, but it generally seems to involve the avoidance of having relationships that turn into smoking craters. And there are a lot of smoking craters to be found surrounding the polyamorist tent, along with a complement of wounded people staggering about, some of whom are quite clearly working out (or avoiding) serious personal and interpersonal issues. However, I remain unconvinced that these craters and walking wounded are proof of the non-viability of the practice, any more than the shattered wreckage and bloodied survivors of failed monogamous relationships prove the non-viability of that practice. Again, the success or failure of any kind of relationship is entirely dependent upon the people involved.

Pea recently remarked, “You know, you’re not in a state now—and perhaps never have been—where you can handle a relationship with one person; what makes you think you can do this? Why is this your perfect solution?” Leaving aside for the moment how grateful I am that I can even have such a conversation with her (despite the fact that she thinks this is all bullshit and that I'm out of my gourd): polyamory isn’t a solution for anything. Part of what I was alluding to in "Polyamorous Perverse?" is that I believe that love, poly or mono, ought not to be a matter of completing a partial self or resolving psychological problems. Having recently gone through a frenzied attempt at love as a life raft, that's clearer to me than anything else has been in my life.

I can’t speak for my erstwhile lover, obviously. But for my part, that experience was an exercise in the unintentional avoidance of the truth. Not just about my own emotions, but about what was driving those emotions: a desperate effort to avoid going where I needed to go. Another gem from Pea: “You can’t really hit bottom when you’re in a relationship.” She’s right. You have to arrive at that place alone.

When I peruse the well-meaning advice offered online to those in need, or read entire book chapters that are devoted to the intricacies of polyamorous communication, I am aware of the difficult, frightening depths which underlie that simple word. Drawing from my own experience, it’s just not enough to say “We shall be open and honest with each other, and create a safe space for ourselves.” You can feel as though you’re being absolutely forthright, speaking and acting from a place of integrity, but if you are not explicitly aware of your self and your motivations, you’re just play-acting. That’s why my own definition of what’s essential for any relationship—mono or poly, gay or straight—begins with acute self-knowledge. Without that, I can’t communicate, I don’t have integrity, and I can’t be honest. Worse yet: without that, I might actually believe that I can do and have all those things.

Communication involves fearless expression, open negotiation, and crystalline boundaries: what do you need to know about me? What do I need to know about you? What are you comfortable telling me? What am I comfortable telling you? What are your limits? What are mine? As you can see, none of this means a thing if I don’t know my own answers and, I would argue, why those answers are what they are. If I tell someone I need to know details about their relationship with a third party, I’d damn well better know why. Is it jealousy? If so, what’s it rooted in? Fear? Fear of what? Abandonment? Being lied to? And on and on.

This is work. Real, hard-core, mind- and heart-popping work, with no guaranteed reward whatsoever. I might express a need, only to be told that it can’t be met. Then I have to decide how important that need is and, if it’s important enough, walk away from something that’s incandescently appealing. Or I might decide that it’s worth negotiating a compromise that everyone involved is happy with. Even then, what worked for awhile might not always work, and I’d have to go through the same thing all over again.

That’s difficult enough with one other person. But to maintain communication, integrity, and honesty in intimate partnerships with two or more? The mind boggles and flops on its back, gasping for air.

So why bother?

Because radical trust appeals to me. Because every idea is worth exploring. Because it’s transgressive. Because there are possibilities here to which I have never given serious, concerted thought.

But mostly because I simply must know.

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After a long period of poor quarterly results, smashing parties where not-at-all-discreet things were done atop the photocopier, and a rousing investigation by the SEC, we here at Astonished Head are moving boldly forward with a fabulous New Plan for realizing bullet point two of our Mission Statement, namely:

• Create a publication that is mostly entertaining except for the times when it isn't.

In fulfillment of our obligations as handed down by the federal courts, we gave Company Secretary Reginald Bastard a selection of marital aids, a bottle of port, two budgies and a whack upside the head and sent him out to talk to the mighty Viewing Public.

This year's Man On The Street question: Hasn't this gone on long enough?

-----

Alfred "Giggles" Molinari, Segway Dealer

"Depends on what you mean. Have I had an orgasm? No? Then the answer is no. If, on the other hand, you're asking about the pasta, it'll just be another minute or two."

Ken Hatrack, Systems Administrator

"It done already gone on too long before it started."

Captain Buford T. Rousler, Crab Fisherman/Sommelier

"Can't a man enjoy his smooth and creamy Orange Julius in peace?"

Edna May Cricket, Football Hooligan

"Too long is never long enough, and I'm sure that I've had much more of it than you have, so I would know."

Winston Throckingsgate, Tobacconist

"You gonna sell any of those dildos? Or are they mostly for show?"

Homer Simpson, Important Cartoon Man

"This has gone on just long enough!"

-----

And there you have it. Next year, our man Reggie Bastard will be skydiving over Maldives wearing nothing but a supermodel and a smile as part of a documentary about puffer fish and Japanese impotence.

How Many Heads in the Commentarium? (3)
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There was this bunch of well-dressed pirates, who were going to mess with this guy's casino, you know? Only one of the pirates, he was, uh, dead, so they had to go get him, only there was this other guy, who was only mostly dead, right? So the pirates all got together and decided to go get the dead guy, so that their friend the mostly dead guy would get better. And they got a ship from Singapore, and they got one of the big drills they used to dig the Chunnel with, and they took the ship to get the dead guy, and used the drill to make it seem like the...wait, no back up, the casino was owned by this guy who was, like, an Admiral? In the Royal Navy, you know? So they used the drill to make it seem like there was an earthquake, and then the casino got sucked into this vortex in the ocean because they had to free the sea goddess Calypso, and then Matt Damon had to wear this fake nose and seduce her with this guy named Gilroy so that the well-dressed pirates could steal the diamonds and stab this squid-faced guy's heart. Which he kept in a box...with the diamonds...I think. And there were lots of cannons. And slot machines. And...uh...

Maybe I saw two movies yesterday.

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I ventured forth to the Wildcat Lounge last night, wearing my freshly-tailored white cotton CK suit, and was rewarded with a mini-spectacle that recalled the mild debauchery of my earlier years. I arrived too early (as seems to be my wont), but after an hour or so things picked up, and by 11:00PM the dance floor was packed, the patio was likewise full, there was a matching set of low body fat dancers—one of each gender—dancing on small raised platforms, the music was loud enough to flutter my pants, and I had met A., N1., N2., and J. (girl, girl, boy, girl, respectively). Over the course of the evening, three out of these four new acquaintances inquired about my orientation. “You’re gay, right?” was the first such query, from N1. “Not entirely, no,” was my unplanned response, which was met with, “Oh, so you just like sex.” That seemed fair enough, so I let it stand.

My impression—which may or may not be accurate—was that the two women who asked had no trouble at all with the concept, while N2. seemed to find it somewhat confusing. I could be wrong, of course…it’s hard to pick up subtleties in a crowd awash with club tunes. N2. had overheard the question when J. asked it, and responded to my “weighing of the scales” hand gestures by saying, “That’s too complicated for my head right now.” Later, as the two of us sat at a table alone (and after his head, presumably, was ready) he asked again. “So, what was that? You’re gay, but not sure…?” My canned response to that question has always been some flavor of “No, I’m quite sure. Not really a ‘choose one’ sort of guy.” So that’s what I said, more or less. I found it interesting, though, that the first thing that had come to his mind was that I was uncertain about my preferences.

I noticed the same thing when talking to S., who I met at a Memorial Day barbecue. When describing the crowd at the Wildcat, he mentioned that there were a lot of UCSB students there and that, “Of course, everybody’s ‘bi,’” to which I immediately replied, “So am I.” I knew what he meant—there is a bit of faddishness surrounding the whole bi thing which tends to increase with youth, especially around college age. There’s even a term for it among women: LUG, for Lesbian Until Graduation. There may be a gay equivalent (GUG, I guess), but I haven’t heard it used. Still, S. backpedaled a bit, saying that while he was sure there were probably a few who were “really” bi, these were young folks, etc. I let him off the hook by letting him know that I knew what he meant.

I was expecting to encounter some of this when I stepped back out into the gay community: the notion that bi people are a) confused b) “really” gay or c) “really” straight. I wasn’t expecting to encounter the gender difference in terms of immediate acceptance, although it does make sense…based on what I’ve encountered while lurking in various online poly groups and through my other readings, there are many more women in primary relationships with men who take on other women as partners than there are men who take on other men. There’s a certain fluidity to attraction among females that just doesn’t seem to be as prevalent among males, and I suppose I’ll discover whether my ongoing experiences lend more support to that theory.

The problem I have with a, b, or c is the same problem I have with certain popular brands of sexual identity politics: the idea that sexual preference is necessarily hard-wired, biological, and binary. There is no doubt in my mind that my own preferences are choices. I don’t have to step out into the gay scene here, but I choose to do so. I’m currently so far off the market that I’m not even in the same building, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy flirting over the rim of my glass and watching the dancers dance. Last night, sitting at my table just off the dance floor, with the music hurtling against my ribs and the lights turning my white suit into an ever-changing kaleidoscope, I threw back my head and laughed into the revelry. The whole scene was so rich, so full of life and detail, that I could feel my Writer Gremlin™ pulling all of it in and filing it away for later use. I soaked up the sensuality of gut-thumping bass, bodies in motion, and incipient sex.

I chose to put myself in that place, to have the conversations I had, and to identify myself as I identified myself. My choice is no less valid for being a choice. I am sexually sovereign, and that sovereignty deserves as much respect as the choices of those who were born as they are. I see no reason to regard the compulsions of biology as superior to the rational pursuit of transgressive pleasures.

It is this quality of transgression that gets short shrift in today’s sexual climate. That’s a shame-based attitude, I think…the notion that whatever you’re doing has to be somehow normalized in order to be a valid sexual expression. This is what drives the search for “gay genes,” prenatal factors, and other biological determiners of sexual orientation. If such factors can be identified, then homosexuality definitively becomes a part of the fabric of Nature (or, if you prefer, Creation) and undermines arguments against it that are based upon ideas of sin, unnatural behavior, and so on. But it would still be a short step from there to arguments that vaguely resemble, "OK, maybe God made them gay...but you, you're choosing, and that's just wrong."

Furthermore: it’s certain that, should such biological factors be found, many people who have identified as gay or lesbian—perhaps for their entire lives—will discover that they don't have them. Would these people suddenly become straight? I don’t think so. The only reason to search for these factors is to normalize homosexuality because choice alone is regarded as insufficient...certainly by the Christian right and their ilk, but also, I suspect, by some supporters and members of the gay community itself. This diminishes the validity of individual sovereignty in matters of sexual practice.

It also leads to nonsense like this: "Pentagon Confirms It Sought To Build A 'Gay Bomb'". Silly or not, this is based entirely upon the idea that you can alter a person's sexual orientation physiologically. And yet, in the article's final paragraph, we find this:

"Throughout history we have had so many brave men and women who are gay and lesbian serving the military with distinction," said Geoff Kors of Equality California. "So, it's just offensive that they think by turning people gay that the other military would be incapable of doing their job. And its absurd because there's so much medical data that shows that sexual orientation is immutable and cannot be changed."

If orientation is immutable, it's biological (unless you want to argue that psychological drives are cast in stone, which you might). And if it's biological, then, at some point, our knowledge of biology might increase to the point where we can change it. Which, paradoxically, suddenly makes the idea of a "gay bomb" or some other agent of change a bit less silly.

The true investment in the idea of the inherence and immutability of sexual identity, as confirmed by "medical data," is simply this: in the more orthodox forms of sexual identity politics, you cannot choose to be a member of an oppressed minority. That's whole point. Oppression depends on factors over which you have no control, like skin color, gender, and (supposedly) sexual orientation.

As for myself...I don't like the idea of being so powerless, any more than I like the idea that my deliberate choices are evidence of a lack of self-awareness.

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Andrew Sullivan’s “Scripture and Homosexuality” post perfectly illustrates the point I was attempting to make yesterday in “Choice.” In it, he quotes from Luke Timothy Johnson’s article in Commonweal ( “Homosexuality and the Church”):

We appeal explicitly to the weight of our own experience and the experience thousands of others have witnessed to, which tells us that to claim our own sexual orientation is in fact to accept the way in which God has created us. By so doing, we explicitly reject as well the premises of the scriptural statements condemning homosexuality-namely, that it is a vice freely chosen, a symptom of human corruption, and disobedience to God's created order.

I have a problem with this. Johnson may be explicitly rejecting certain scriptural premises, but the implication is that free choice—the deliberate seeking out of sexual experience—is morally corrupt when it falls outside the bounds of an inherent, God-given orientation. I find that no less oppressive than a gang of Fred Phelps' thugs picketing Matthew Shepard’s funeral.

Paradoxically, Johnson then writes:

I will say a further word about “experience,” a term that without careful discernment may become simply an excuse for irresponsible behavior. First, though, it is important to acknowledge that terms like “sexual orientation,” and even “heterosexual” and “homosexual” are themselves distorting oversimplifications of complex human realities. One reason for paying attention to specific human stories, in fact, is that they so often prove more complex and obscure than the categories that polarize debates and block discernment.

Later, he expands on that theme, and increases the paradox:

These are significant recognitions, ones that arise from hard-fought daily experience. It is extraordinarily important, however, that those of us who base our convictions on experience do not make the category of experience a form of cheap grace, as though whatever feels good is morally acceptable. By “experience” we do not mean every idiosyncratic or impulsive expression of human desire. We refer rather to those profound stories of bondage and freedom, longing and love, shared by thousands of persons over many centuries and across many cultures, that help define them as human. The church cannot say “yes” to what the New Testament calls porneia (“sexual immorality”); but the church must say yes to the witness of lives that build the holiness of the church.

The image Johnson creates of human sexual desire is one where sexual activity is only appropriate within the context of “profound stories of bondage and freedom, longing and love.” He claims that the concepts of heterosexuality, homosexuality, and sexual orientation itself are “distorting oversimplifications,” while simultaneously equating “idiosyncratic” expressions of human desire with “sexual immorality.” Why does he find it impossible to be both sexually idiosyncratic and moral?

Commonweal interviewed Sullivan 14 years ago, and he quotes a portion of that interview as commentary on Johnson's piece:

"(The Roman Catholic Church) defines Gay people by a sexual act in a way it never defines heterosexual people, and in this, the church is in weird agreement with extreme Gay activists who also want to define homosexuality in terms of its purely sexual content. Whereas being Gay is not about sex as such. Fundamentally, it's about one's core emotional identity. It's about whom one loves, ultimately, and how that can make one whole as a human being ... a single person's moral equilibrium in a whole range of areas can improve with marriage ... because there is a kind of stability and security and rock upon which to build one's moral and emotional life.

Thus: sex without love is immoral, and binary marriage is a means of moral improvement. This is the stance that Sullivan must adopt as a Catholic and a homosexual. I am neither, and so I seek another way.

The sticking point is the definition of love. For Sullivan, love is that which “can make one whole as a human being.” As I’ve written, I reject that entirely. I am not half a person who needs another person, male or female, to make myself complete. This idea is rooted in an ancient Near Eastern myth of binary creation that is no less ridiculous than Aristophanes’ tale of humans created with four legs, four arms, and two-faced heads, then split asunder by Zeus. For Johnson, love’s ultimate expression is found within a “long-lasting and fruitful marriage.” Why are sexual relationships that I enter into as a whole person with no expectation of marriage inferior? Why is there no middle ground, no third way?

I do agree with Johnson when he writes that doing “whatever feels good” isn’t necessarily morally acceptable. Likewise, I agree with Sullivan’s idea that defining homosexuality (or bisexuality, or heterosexuality) solely by its sexual component is “extreme.” I find these things to be true not because they violate “God’s created order,” or because they don’t “build the holiness of the church,” but because they involve two or more human beings in intimate relationship with one another. They are true because engaging in sexual behavior without concomitant respect, integrity, and honesty causes pain. I don’t need God or the church to tell me that hurting someone else just to satiate my own desire isn’t a good thing, and ought to be avoided.

Doubtless, there are many people who can and do engage in all sorts of sexual activities on a “whatever feels good,” sex-only basis, and have found partners that can do the same. Still, that only really works within the framework of respect, honesty, and integrity. If I go to a bath house, for example, it’s reasonable to expect that everyone else there is on the same page, and that our mutual responsibilities to each other begin and end with physical contact and the health issues surrounding that. If I end up meeting someone there and getting to know him more fully outside of that environment, my moral obligations will change and expand. If I cannot bring anything more to that relationship than I brought through the bath house door, it is my responsibility to fully communicate that fact, so that we can negotiate and he can make his own decisions.

But is it enough to just communicate that fact? Needs vary from person to person, but for my part, I know that I expect and deserve an honest “why” with my “what.” A truthful why is far better than a lie of omission (as I described here) or some version of the dreaded “It’s not you, it’s me.” It’s better because it means my partner is self-aware enough and respects me enough to give me the full truth. Not only does it provide all of the information I require to make decisions about the relationship, it also validates my own choices: Perhaps this isn’t going to work out the way I hoped, but at least I’m perceptive enough to pick a person who meets the standards I hold for myself.

Those are standards, I’m sad to say, that I have failed to meet on numerous occasions, and I know how difficult it can be to give a truthful why. Lack of self-awareness and fear are the primary stumbling blocks: I have to realize that I actually have a high standard before I can meet it, and once I’ve explicitly formulated that standard, I have to accept the consequences of holding myself to it, no matter how excruciating they may be. I can’t always be as brave and insightful as I’d like to be, but I still consider myself ethically bound to meet those standards no matter how uncomfortable it makes me. Repeated failure doesn’t release me from that obligation, nor does it mean that the standard should be weakened because it is too high. In my experience, failure, properly observed, throws the consequences of not upholding my own principles into sharp relief, and is a lesson of its own.

I believe that freely-chosen relationships can and do work outside of the established boundaries of monogamy and inherent sexual orientation. I believe that such relationships—in fact, all relationships—do not depend for their success upon the grace of God or the morality of the church, but upon the awareness, integrity, and honesty of the people involved. Bringing the supernatural into the matter, with its attendant burdens of corruption, disobedience, and guilt, adds a thick and unnecessary layer of complexity and obfuscation to the already complicated territory of the human heart.

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Next week (next week!), starting on Friday, I'll be volunteering at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. It's a good deal: 20 hours of work, I get access to workshops and whatnot for free, and I get to spend seven days in a hotel full of writer types. It. Will. Be. Good.

And, if that wasn't interesting enough: the day after the conference ends, I'll be heading up to San Mateo for Westercon, where I will spend four days in a hotel full of sci-fi geeks. That won't be free, but will also be good. (And yes, I have a costume: Simon Tam. He basically dresses like I do, anyway...all I needed was the vest and tie, which will be here Friday. I won't really be Simon, because I'm not going to shave or take the loops out of my ears. I'll be some other Core World scion, I think.) And before anyone gets all snide, I'm not going just so I can find a bunch of poly folk and attempt to get my freak on. My freak is over there in the box with the big DO NOT OPEN 'TILL HEAT DEATH OF UNIVERSE label on it. I'm going because I haven't been to a con of any sort in well over 15 years and I'm due.

So: I am essentially going to spend eleven straight days in the company of a whole bunch of brand new people who are all obsessed with many of the same things I am.

W00t, I say. W00t. Now, you must excuse me: I am a mere two discs into the 40-DVD set of the complete Buffy.

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The manifold differences between exploring ideas and putting those ideas into use in daily life are axiomatic. I demonstrated this to myself yesterday on the LJ Polyamory blog: I posted a comment or two in response to a couple of posts, and subsequent comments made by others were so much more sophisticated, aware, and useful that I deleted my comments and resolved to remain a lurker. I’ve got no business offering any advice in that community. Where I wrote general, pat-on-the head platitudes, others brought the kind of specific, targeted, practical advice that can only come from experience. I was embarrassed by my naïvete.

Which brings to mind the question: what, exactly, am I seeking here? (It brings it to my mind, anyway; your mind, most likely, doesn’t care so much, but this is my wretched patch of IntraTube, so it’s my mind that gets to decide what gets brought up and what doesn’t.) Clever turns of phrase aside, I’m quite serious when I say that, relationship-wise, I’m not looking and don’t want to look. I’m benched. I may go to clubs and ogle the boys and girls, but I wouldn’t go home with any of them. I may browse the poly sites and journals, but I’m not cruising for a couple. All I’m doing is gathering information.

Someone commented recently that polyamory is the “Parris Island of relationship skills,” and that makes sense to me. The truth is that there are no skills that are unique to ethically nonmonogamous relationships. The main difference is that the complexity of multiple intimate relationships requires, if you will, a more rapid deployment of these skills. A poly person might be dealing with two types of personalities at once with differing levels of intimacy, and learning as he or she goes, whereas a serial monogamist has to wait until the next person comes along. Those who are suited for it learn fast, or fail. Sometimes both.

Jealousy management, for instance. In a monogamous relationship, you might go for years before you have to confront that issue. In a poly relationship, it’s right there, in your face, and if you can’t meet your partner’s needs for reassurance and safety, that’s it: you’re done. A misconception I’ve encountered is that polyamory takes as its premise that jealousy “can be eliminated,” but there is nothing I’ve read anywhere that indicates that this is the case. The premise is that jealousy, if it arises, can be dealt with.

I’m not oblivious to the fact that there are probably many excellent reasons for me to stay far away from this ragtag utopian assemblage of free lovers, neopagans, and overeducated sensualists. I find what I read on the journals of poly practitioners to be immensely valuable, but I also find accounts of situations that seem incredibly dramatic, wrenching and—in a word or two—fucked up. Situations that I would never want to find myself in. I am not so naïve that I don’t recognize the increased probability of such drama, were I to move along from theory and into practice.

However, I am a person who is not afraid of ideas, and wants to discuss them as nonthreatening abstractions. This is, in fact, a litmus test for my relationships, one of a whole set of personal standards that I have been discovering and developing over the past year. The ability to freely discuss anything, whether it’s bisexuality, polyamory, some odd philosophical tenet, or states of mind and heart, is a requirement for me...not necessarily in friendship and acquaintance-type relationships, although friendships are certainly the richer for it. Such depth of discussion, however, is certainly a requirement in intimate relationships. Ideas are ephemeral things that can’t hurt anyone, and should be treated as playthings, brightly-colored conceptual Tinker Toys that can be intricate, simple, fun, dark, illuminating, or a host of other descriptors, but never a threat. It is only action that can cause harm.

True: ideas can trigger emotions, but emotions can be dealt with. The emotional subtext of such abstract discussion is simply another form of communication, and a rich one at that. I’ve discovered that if I pay attention, I can often learn more about a person from this subtext than I can from their overt words. An emotional subtext that is grossly at odds with the words being spoken or written will contain volumes’ worth of important information.

That much, at least, is no longer theory for me. That’s practice.

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Every so often
I realize
that what is me
isn't.

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Now I can upload my unique brand of freaked-out dreck even faster.

You may dance.

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Quiet that mind down for a spell. You been runnin’, son, full on, for a long time now. Make yoself easy. You don’t got no call to be in such a rush. Can’t get yoself all sorted out today, or tomorrow, or even this month. You keep goin’ eight mile a minute the way you are, you gonna burn yoself up. You hear what I’m sayin’ son? Git along, now.

Those of you who’ve been reading this conceptual train wreck since 2002 (I know you’re out there, and if we had the budget I’d have special decoder rings made for you) know that in addition to Your Humbly Tweaked Narrator, there’s an ensemble cast of eight or nine other voices that make periodic appearances here. They’ve served as characters in several ongoing series of short tales, fictional mouthpieces for me, or just opportunities to run with a silly idea or three.

I’ve always been cognizant of my own internal dialogues, to the point where I did some research awhile back on the phenomenon of “hearing voices” just to reassure myself that I wasn’t crossing a more serious boundary of mental health than I typically do. I concluded that I just pay a lot of attention to my thinking…the dialogues are in my head, they’re with myself, I’ve never confused them for external voices, and they usually shut up when I tell them to.

That said, I’ve found value in allowing the various members of my internal chorus a certain independence. The windy day voice, for example, is about the closest thing to the quiet voice of god that I’ve got, and although I know it’s an expression of the intuitive part of myself, listening to its urgings has put me through some harrowing experiences. Absolutely necessary experiences, and I’m grateful for them, but harrowing nonetheless.

Treating my internal dialogues in this way has also benefited my fiction writing…it’s a short step from independent dialogue in the head to a character’s lively dialogue on the page. My characters, like the internal voices, are all aspects of myself, but the more independent they are, the better they’ll read.

Very rarely, I’ll sit down to write a random post about nothing in particular, and a new voice will pop out. Some are named, some aren’t. The one at the top of the page doesn’t have a name, and maybe he’ll never show up again. But I wrote out those sentences, then sat back, and read the words to myself.

Damned if he isn’t right.

I’ve got to slow down.

How Many Heads in the Commentarium? (2)
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I saw that on the license plate frame of a white SUV this past week. Like this:

It wasn't entirely necessary to give you that breakdown of exactly how the phrase was laid out. I just wanted to type it again.

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How Many Heads in the Commentarium? (1)
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The playing is mediocre at best, the mix is crap, I have no idea how to use my production software, it's got no chorus, no hook, four chords, a scratch vocal track, and it sounds a bit like early Yanni. But: it's the first thing I've actually recorded and turned into an .MP3 since I plunked down a billion dollars on my studio over two years ago, so I'm pretty damn happy about that. I've got 18,000 drum loops on order (really), and I'm hoping to use some of that as a foundation for tunes that aren't for robots, so much. No, that is not a contradiction. Real drum bits recorded by real session drummers, artfully arranged, will beat the chips out of the Korg Karma's rhythm section any day.

You can listen to "Limerence (Falls In Waves)" right here, if you dare. Probably best listened to through headphones, as I don't know how to do any of the stuff I'm supposed to do it make it sound less like crap through speakers. It also sounds better louder, which is another consequence of my utter lack of mixing skilz.

How Many Heads in the Commentarium? (2)
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Ever get the urge to strip down to your skivvies, cover yourself with axle grease, dump a box of Cap'n Crunch on the floor then roll around in it and go running pell mell out into the streets screaming about the...ah, fuck it. Never mind.

I'm just not in the mood for gratuitous weirdness today.

Sorry.

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I’ve been annoyed with myself over the past few days. Maybe I shouldn’t have been. Maybe I should have been all easy with myself and inwardly nurturing and all of that healthy therapeutic palaver. On the other hand, I was a bit fed up with getting knocked on my ass by unexpected emotional hammers. Then there’s my tendency to fall into the old “coincidence = causality” trap. I know that it doesn’t. Really. Nonetheless, I’ll pick myself up off the floor and look around with a “Guh?” expression on my face while thinking, Guess I had too much decaf. Or, Really need to get back to the gym. That’s a consequence of my overly materialist attitude towards my state of mind. If it all reduces to the neurochemical soup, then it makes sense to seek out the chemical cause of a blindsiding partial meltdown: two big mugs of decaf is still too much caffeine for my sensitive noggin. Not enough exercise reduces the levels of happy brain juice. Or maybe the planets aren’t properly aligned.

There was quite an alignment last night, as I paced around the parking lot smoking a cigarette I wasn’t enjoying. Bright white Venus, a thumbnail moon, and two other planets I couldn’t identify, all in an aesthetically pleasing line canted at about a 30 degree angle from the horizon. Like a celestial bat swinging at my skull.

When you’re popping a bunch of officially licensed pharmaceuticals designed to tweak your head, it’s a bit difficult to avoid the reductionist model of emotional turmoil. After all, the pills’ theoretical efficacy is built on that very structure, and it seems odd to color outside the lines. But I know that’s exactly what I need to do: color outside the lines, off the page, onto the floor, up the wall and all over the goddamn ceiling.

Hey, sweetheart, he said to himself. You’ve gone through some seriously weighty emotional experiences over the past year or so, and you’ve arrived at some conclusions about who you are, and what’s important to you. Bearing that in mind, you might want to think about looking at the obvious and immediate cause here, rather than the derivative and theoretical ones.

The point I’m circling and poking cautiously with a stick is that there’s only so much reductionism a guy can take before he becomes an assemblage of carbon and dihydrogen monoxide stumbling randomly through time and space at the whim of its own chemistry, devoid of free will and intention.

I wrote awhile back about the “holy trinity” of qualities I believe are requirements for an intimate relationship, polyamorous or otherwise: self-knowledge, integrity, and honesty. I’ve written a fair amount about the first one (because, you know, I am just so self-aware I can’t stands meself), but I haven’t explicitly dealt with the other two. So, if you’re interested—and even if you’re not—I’m going to do that now.

First, to summarize, self-knowledge is the foundation, the keystone, or any other structurally significant metaphor you care to choose. I need to know what’s important to me about myself and why it’s important. I need to know what my hard rules are: standards for my own thought and action that I will not compromise, for anyone or anything, as well as the standards of thought and action that I'm willing to accept from others. I need to know what my desires are, and what truly motivates those desires at the most fundamental of levels.

From that follows integrity. Not only does this indicate rigorous adherence to the ethical principles realized through self-knowledge, it also means being whole and complete as an individual.

Finally, there is honesty. Honesty is the outward-facing manifestation of the integrity that is built upon self-knowledge. What a person defines as honesty will depend on what they know about themselves, which means that a person who is somewhat lacking in the self-awareness department will not have the same standards of honesty as someone who isn’t. Fortunately, it also means that time and experience can change those standards, hopefully for the better. For me, honesty within relationships simply means telling the truth about my thoughts, my emotions, and my intentions, without fail.

I know from bitter experience that if the first principle is not a central tenet of my life, the second and third are unobtainable. As a practice, working within this trinity requires constant re-evaluation to make sure that all three principles are informed by each other and are, in fact, being observed. Which doesn’t mean that I’m a paragon of virtue—far from it. But it’s only as a consequence of failure that I’ve gained even the slightest hope of figuring any of this out.

Here’s one set of such consequences (and it's by no means the only or most important set I've got in my file cabinet of failure): a lack of self-knowledge, a blind spot, can mean that I might want something without knowing precisely why I want it. This is, I think, especially true in intimate relationships, which are fertile grounds for fear and self-deception. For example, charging hard after exclusivity and commitment in order to quell the fear of loss or loneliness causes all manner of quirky and downright unappealing behavior. Without self-knowledge, there is no check on my desire or my behavior because there can be no integrity: nebulous ethical principles offer no corrective, and a sense of being incomplete only adds neurotic fuel to the grasping fire. Finally, in the midst of such confusing internal turmoil, there is no possible way for me to be honest and forthright about what I’m thinking and feeling, particularly regarding my intentions.

So what does all this have to do with unexpected emotional hammers, planetary alignments, and crayons?

Simply this: I’ve discovered that if I don’t adhere to these principles, I go crazy. Which is unfortunate, because I wasn't aware of them for most of my life, except as vaguely-formed abstractions.

However, as causes of crazy go, this isn't such a bad one. If I’m willing to do the work, it puts more control of the contents of my skull back in my own hands. As far as the contents of my heart…well, I’ll just say this: it’s possible that I might not need to be benched for long. I might need to get off the bench, hike across town, and play in an entirely different ballpark.

And that’s about as specific as I'm willing to get right now, and as far as I’m willing to take a baseball metaphor.

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...maybe I just need to be locked in a trunk with a tub of jam and a loaf of bread for awhile.

That'd be a hoot, I think.

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Sometimes it’s tough to be alone, particularly if you used to deal with said toughness with variations on the mix-Absolut-with-orange-juice-and-repeat method. This is something of a personal paradox, as I was an introverted boy who spent more time with books than with people. At least, that’s my recollection of it…I am often an unreliable framer of my distant past, and it occurs to me now that there was school, and summer camp, and I do remember actually hanging out with people. So maybe that’s just the lens of my present refracting my memories. None of which really changes the truth of the first sentence of this paragraph.

For nine years, I wasn’t alone. Which is not to say that I was always present, but I had company. Good company. Pea knew me as well as anyone ever has, and stuck with me long past the point that she should have. Me? I vanished. Withdrew into a haze of PTSD-fueled drinking, unresolved anger, depression, and general unpleasantness. Grew fat with it. Became unable to communicate. Emotionally unavailable. A basket case. And I stayed that way for years, until she couldn’t take it anymore.

I think it’s usual, after a breakup, to feel rejected, at a deeply personal level. I don’t. I would have rejected me, too. My behavior was atrocious, and even the knowledge that she’d leave if I didn’t change it wasn’t enough to convince me to crawl out of my hole. It’d be a lie, a pristine example of Sartrean bad faith, to claim I was “someone else” back then. I wasn’t. I’m not proud of myself, mostly because I was unable to muster up the courage to either confront my demons or definitively tell Pea that I wasn’t going to, and that maybe she should move on. The truth is, I was terrified of being alone, and—in a pattern that may be familiar to some of you—it was simpler to stay in the comfort of a bad situation with someone than to be by myself with my demons or work to resolve the issues in a way that would allow the relationship to grow. It’s a terrible way to live…terrible for me, terrible for anyone around me.

Circumstances count for a lot, in such situations. After September 11, Pea and I walked eight miles back to Queens, crossing the Queensboro Bridge with 40,000 other New Yorkers in a post-apocalyptic scene that haunts me still. Her apartment was by the UN in Manhattan, and I never let her go back to it, except to pack her stuff in boxes which we stacked in every corner of my apartment. My thinking was that her place was too close to a potential target, but there was more to it than that. I needed her around me, and not just because I didn’t want to be alone. If I saw her, I knew that she was safe. The days when she biked to work downtown without me, I made her promise to call me when she got there. If she didn’t call when I thought she’d had enough time to arrive, I called her instead, to make sure she was still alive. If she was out of my sight, anything could happen, anything at all, and in that time of savage loss and uncertainty I couldn’t bear the thought.

After a year of being crammed in the apartment with my stuff, her stuff, and Bob the Cat, we finally found a house, 65 miles away from the city. Shortly before closing, Pea finally found out about the nature of my drinking—I don’t remember whether I told her, or it just became apparent. We had a lot of momentum at that point, and I convinced her it would be okay. “It’s the city,” I told her. “I need to get out of here. I’ll be fine once I’m out of here.”

But I wasn’t fine. I got worse. And when you’ve gone through shared trauma like Pea and I did, when you’ve gone through house-hunting and getting a mortgage, when you’re trying to build something resembling a life together, it’s easy to give it time. Another year, or another six months. I’ll quit, Pea, I promise. Or Here, I’ll try these anti-depressants. I’d fuck up, apologize, and fuck up some more. It wasn’t working. I knew it wasn’t working, and I didn’t know how to fix it, because I couldn’t fix myself.

After awhile, without even being aware of it, we became room mates and, eventually, strangers. The memory of her sitting downstairs by herself watching TV while I was upstairs, ostensibly “on the computer” but actually drinking, breaks my heart. In many ways, I left her alone, long before she left me.

Sometime in October of 2005 she told me that she couldn’t be around while I sorted myself out. I still remember the numb, cold ball that formed in my gut as I realized that I had finally broken the relationship. It was over. If there was a time to make a desperate, last effort to salvage what we had, it would have been then. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was mentally and emotionally exhausted from wrestling pointlessly with myself, and I just let it all go. It seemed easier. And it was—easier, that is, than doing the work that an intimate relationship requires.

Oddly, things improved over the next seven months or so. We still lived in the same house, still shared the same bed. I think that the admission of failure took the pressure off of each of us. We knew, more or less, what was next, and the last thing we had to go through together was selling the house, packing up, and moving out. She got a new place to live. I got a tricycle, and hit the road.

“Pea” wasn’t just my pet name for her, it was also hers for me. That’s why we called our little house Peapod. I’ve written already about her continued, and undeserved, emotional support of me while I was traveling. On a beach somewhere in Oregon, with the wind blowing dunes into my hair and the sun setting into the sea, I called her. In tears, as was often the case throughout much of my four-month journey. “I just wanted us to be happy,” I told her, barely able to force the words out through my tightened throat.

And I did. I really did. Wanting isn’t enough, though.

It never is.

We still talk. Or rather, we did. I’m in such a shattered, tumultuous place right now that just hearing hints about what’s going on in my life can be painful to her. “Emotional Russian roulette,” is how she referred to it. Never knowing what would happen if she IM’d me or called me on the phone. Trying to fit all the energetic weirdness I’ve been spilling onto these pages into the context of our relationship, even if it doesn’t necessarily belong there, was difficult. Even my music is hard for her to hear (and not just because I’m a hack).

So, finally, this morning, she drew the curtains and turned out the lights. She can’t talk to me any more, and I’m alone.

I’ve been going through a metric assload of chaos over the past couple of months because, I thought, of a two month, ill-considered rebound relationship (aren’t they all?). I’ve been downright tortured. The obsessed, punched-in-the-chest, can’t sleep kind of tortured. The emotions have been baffling, infuriating, tiring, and, ultimately…misplaced.

Nine years is much longer than two months. So much longer, and so much more meaningful. I stand amazed at my capacities, not only for self-deception, but for denial, avoidance, and emotional transference. It’s no wonder that my turmoil hasn’t made any damn sense to me. I don’t know why it is, exactly, that I couldn’t admit what has really been going on, to myself or to Pea. I'll figure that out, eventually. But I know, now, what's been going on. I feel it.

“Go where the fear is,” I say these days.

I’m there.

I’ll miss you, Pea.

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Recently a friend remarked to me that there was one superstition current among even cultivated persons. They suppose that if one is told what to do, if the right end is pointed to them, all that is required in order to bring about the right act is will or wish on the part of the one who is to act. He used as an illustration the matter of physical posture; the assumption that if a man is told to stand up straight, all that is further needed is wish and effort on his part, and the deed is done. He pointed out that this belief is on par with primitive magic in its neglect of attention to the means which are involved in reaching an end. And he went on to say that the prevalence of this belief, starting with false notions about the control of the body and extending to control of mind and character, is the greatest bar to intelligent social progress.

Of course something happens when a man acts upon his idea of standing straight. For a little while, he stands differently, but only a different kind of badly. He then takes the unaccustomed feeling which accompanies his unusual stand as evidence that he is now standing right. But there are many ways of standing badly, and he has simply shifted his usual way to a compensatory bad way at some opposite extreme. When we realize this fact, we are likely to suppose that it exists because control of the body is physical and hence is external to mind and will. Transfer the command inside character and mind, and it is fancied that an idea of an end and the desire to realize it will take immediate effect. After we get to the point of recognizing that habits must intervene between wish and execution in the case of bodily acts, we still cherish the illusion that they can be dispensed with in the case of mental and moral acts.

John Dewey,
Human Nature and Conduct

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That's right. All me. All the time. That's what I'm writing about now, and that's what I told B., one of the people I met today on day one of the writers conference. I've had new cards made, that include this site's address and my astonishedhead.com e-mail address. I've got another set of cards as well, and they use another e-mail address with no connection to the site. Those are for vaguely professional contacts, or other people that I don't necessarily want to easily find all the freak I've got going on here. I've got nothing to hide, really, but in some cases a certain amount of circumspection seems in order. If someone wants to poke around on Google long enough, they'll find it, I suppose, and that's fine.

As for the writer folk I'm meeting this week--no need for such circumspection. This is writing, after all, and there are plenty of folks at the conference who are writing memoirs of equal or greater nakedness. So, any new acquaintances who care enough to follow the link on the card, and are bored enough to read what they find here, will get an unapologetic self-portrait. Might even save me some time...anybody who's inordinately disturbed by what's here is probably not someone I'd make much of a connection with. So it's kind of a sorting mechanism.

There's a lot of this kind of content out in the tubes, and I've got no illusions that what I spew here is unique or particularly noteworthy. Lottelita, for example, wrote this evening about some of her own therapy stuff, without much detail, but like me she's writing mostly about herself, her life, what's going on in it, and so forth. "Dumb and unpleasant shit" is the key phrase that seemed to flash out at me, along with:

That's what's behind so much wank, I suppose: the inability to let it go, because the consequences of letting it go seem terribly frightening. Of course they aren't so bad. But they recall things that were so bad, and we react through the time-warp. And look batshit insane to anyone who isn't inside our head.

Hell, sometimes I look batshit insane to the person who is inside my head.

When I arrived in Santa Barbara eight months ago, the only real emotion I had was a dense, undifferentiated ball in my chest. As I've worked, and slogged over various cataracts of crap, that leaden sphere has come apart. It fractured into grief. Into fear. And, finally, now...fury. Pure, unadulterated anger. I find it interesting how much, physiologically, those three emotions have in common. But the similarities end there, and they serve very different purposes.

Like Lottelita, I won't go into to much detail about the particulars (a fellow has to have some boundaries, even if they're a few continents wider than most). In an acting context, anger is never the entirety of what's being expressed by the performer. There's always a subtext...anger is just the most visible manifestation of an underlying wound, or fear, or indignity. What underlies my anger is simple: I know when I've been treated shabbily...and no one gets to decide what that means but me.

Why should you care? No idea, really. I'm not writing this for you. I'm writing it because it helps me sort out my shit. And, probably, because somewhere in my psyche is an exhibitionist streak as wide as the sky. The subtitle of Lottelita's blog is "We speak little if not egged on by vanity" because, she writes, "I don't pretend this journal is anything but a source of attention and validation." I've pretended otherwise, at various times, but there's certainly no point in doing so now. Eventually, this solipsistic frenzy will probably fade. But for now, this is one long Ianfomercial. If you call within the next 30 minutes, we'll double your order.

Now, I'm going to go smoke a fucking cigarette and smash something.

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That is all.

Oh, and I met Ray Bradbury today.

Insanely busy, more later, kiss.

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It's Day...um...well Four, I guess, of the conference. It started on Friday, technically, although workshops didn't begin until Saturday. So far, my schedule has been a morning workshop from 9:30AM-11:30AM, an afternoon workshop from 1:00PM-3:30PM, and pirate workshop from 9:30PM till one or two in the morning. I've got my pace set, and I'll see whether I can keep it up for the rest of the conference. There's the volunteering bit, as well--right now I'm in the Marketplace, selling SBWC swag to passers by, and tomorrow I'll help wrangle several hundred writers who will all be trying to pitch their Big Idea to an agent so that they can sell their book and get rich by Friday. The success story from last year was a fellow who pitched on Agent's Day and eventually sold his book to Dutton for $750,000, which makes him an object of admiration, envy, and hatred.

My pieces have been fairly well received so far, which is gratifying, and I was invited to join one of the Super Secret local writer's groups that I couldn't find when I started my own back in late December. I'm going to do that, because I need the regular input and motivation that comes from hanging around like-minded people. The group I started has dissolved, basically due to time constraints on the part of three out of the four members (the fourth would be me...that whole "Not having kids" thing is really paying off right about now). It's actually a relief to join something that's already in place...my furious burst of extroversion during the first part of the year, while necessary and productive, was a bit tiring. I'm starting to settle in, which means the thought of being alone in my apartment with nothing scheduled is no longer terrifying. I write, I make music, I watch Buffy, I read. And that's good.

I'm handing out cards like a madman, meeting folks, having interesting conversations about interesting things, and being pissed off at my general level of anxiety. Honestly, can't I just fucking relax? I mean, I'm mostly relaxed in my head, but my cursed corpus, as usual, really wants me to flee into the jungle and hide under a rock. Very irritating. I have decided that a five PM glass of what I know only as "the good Chardonnay" is an ideal remedy. And the occasional Bloody Mary for breakfast. I've also got a Camelbak full of gin, a salt shaker of cocaine, and a bag of some dried exotic South American fungus that Stan the Bat swears is so