#gratitudeNow: On Cats and Submissives

This is my boycat, Yang.  I've had him and his sister, Yin almost 13 years now.  They've been with me their whole lives.

There's this routine they do with me, every single morning.  Part of that routine has to do with when I get out of the shower, and I'm getting dressed.  I lay my clothes out on the bed, sit down and begin to dress.  

Yin sits nearby and begins to meow at me, urgently, so I don't forget that this time is also, crucially, mere moments before the high pinnacle of the day, the moment at which I give them wet cat food for breakfast.

Yang plays a part in this ritual too.  He sits next to me, and butts his head against me, rubbing it into my arm, my back, my side, my leg, any part of me he can get at, in an earnest effort to let me know, just in case I didn't know, how very much he loves me, how great he thinks I am, how he wishes me joy and sucess and good fortune all day, and... to not forget to give him and his sister their breakfast.

I turned to him this morning, and petted him, and reassured him, "Oh buddy," I said, "I know, I already know."

Yang looked at me earnestly and kept on head butting me.

This is when I was struck with a powerful epiphany.  There is a giant venn overlap between my cats, and my own submissive tendencies.

My cats are beautiful, graceful, powerful creatures.  They can run fast, leap high, (granted, not as fast nor as high as they used to), are alert, clever, wholly magnificent creatures. At the same time, they are neurotic, insecure, peculiar, and very funny.  No matter how many times (thousands) we have repeated this morning ritual, they are never blasé about it.  Each morning they're this heady mixture of anxious, nervous, fearful and excited for their breakfast.  They go from graceful to goofball.

I am just like this about the things that Missy and Alissa do with and to me.  

Every time Missy is going to spank me, or I think I might need a spanking, I become this hesitant, excited version of myself.  

Every time I want Alissa to change my diaper, I rub against her like one of my cats, get all clingy and up in her business.

At the prospect of physical intimacy it's like this switch flips in my head, and all the other things I am recede, fade.  My lifelong obsession with writing? Off.  My daily practice of mindful contemplation?  Nowhere.  

I broadcast to my partners, loudly, about these pending and very necessary things.  The familiar dance we are potentially about to do again becomes EVERYTHING.  In that moment, what I am with them, to them, it's all that I am.

Powerful.

It gives me maybe just a little more patience with the cats, and with myself.

#gratitudeNow: Close it down, open it up

So I haven't blogged in about a month, but didn't want to let December, and 2017 come to close without one more.  Today what's on my mind is well... everything.

The ouroborus symbol shows up in a lot of mythologies, and means a number of different things including, "the infinite cycle of nature's endless creation and destruction, life and death."  (Thanks, Wikipedia.)

I have a funny relationship with that idea.  As I've mentioned lots and lots of times on this blog, every single day of my life I wake up and think "oh good, another one."  I'm firmly of the belief that this moment, is the only moment, that we live in the eternal now.  Think of a desert highway stretching out to infinity, or an endless wake left behind a boat that's always on the move, and those ideas come close.

That doesn't mean everything stands still.  Far from it.  This has been a tumultuous year for me, personally.  

I've weathered some misfortunes, including my wife Missy having a health crisis (that she seems to thankfully be out the other side of), having a very long relationship end (gracefully), supporting family members through some trauma of their own.  

I've also had some great things going on.  My relationship with my girlfriend Alissa is stronger than ever.  I started a business that's still in its infancy (shush you), embarked on a new way of writing and getting it out there that is looking very promising.

Last night, Missy, Rachel, and I went to a birthday party for an old Camp Crucible friend of mine, Pete, down at The Crucible.  I saw lots and lots of folks I haven't seen in ages, because I have been sort of isolating myself.  It was kind of magical how evergreen many of those friendships have proven themselves to be.  People greeted me warmly, and were genuinely thrilled to see me, as I was to see them.

Which is not to say "same as it ever was."  Because that's not how it works.  I can see differences in myself, and even people I've known over a decade, see our growth in different directions.

Things are always on the move, people are always changing.  Things end, start, morph, grow, die.  It's this endless dance, that I don't get to sit out of, even when I sometimes have wanted to.

But today, as I consider the year coming to a close, I feel really good about this serpent eating its own tail.  The year's coming to an end, and to a beginning, too.  Just like me, just like you, just like everything.

I'm grateful for that.

#gratitudeNow:Craved

I was talking with my girlfriend Squee this morning, something I do most mornings.  I really miss her.  

She misses me, too.

This morning we were flirting with one another.  It was a funny sort of flirting.  Was there intimate, sexy stuff to it? Yes.  But also just... comfort and company.  We love being immersed in one another's everything.

It feels so good to crave and to be craved.

#gratitudeNow:A Little Less Meaning

So, I have this sort of dirty confession to make.  

I'm mean.

But the trick is, it's really only to myself.  I grew up with a lot of pressure to excel, had a very typical preppie/jewish/success-oriented sort of childhood.  I was a smart kid, and my mom and dad were both proud of that, but also rather unrelenting about it.  If I brought home a B, that was fine, but how about an A?  And if I brought home an A, how about an A+?  And if I brought home an A+, well, that's living up to my potential.  

That sort of thing.  My dad, who was a pretty bad guy, was also a very wealthy, self-made sort for many years.  There was this unspoken thing between him and me - that it was my job to improve on what he had done, to seek and go beyond his level.

He's long since left the planet, and as my partner Maya likes to say, I'm my own "grown-ass mandog" now.  But there's stuff written down in my BIOS or whatever, that remains.

I tend to push myself.  I always have a lot going on.  I'm ambitious.  And frequently, I am the very worst critic of my own efforts.  It's a weird mix, because at the same time I can have almost rocket-powered levels of self-esteem to the point of arrogance.  I know when I'm good at something, because I'm used to advocating for myself.  It's exhausting.

But I'm lucky.  I surround myself with people who love me, and who go out of their way to tell me I mean a lot to them, or that my efforts or character are worthwhile.  My wife Missy, my girlfriend Alissa, my girlfriend Maya, my brother Spacey, my sister Pene, all regularly shower me with love and affection and validation.

But this post, it's not about them.  (Except to tell them that I love them.)

It's about a friend of mine, Dixie.

We've been friends for years.  She's an age player like me.  She's witty, silly, and smart.  We're book friends, and nerd friends, and just like one another enormously.

I think the world of her.  And recently, she wasn't feeling so hot, and asked folks to post why they liked her.  So I told her.

 "You're insightful and thinky in general and about fiction in particular. You have strong, passionate opinions, because you're a person of deeply held convictions. I love that. 

Also, you're really cute."

(This is true, she's adorable.)

She wrote this thing back to me, that just utterly took my breath away.

"You have one of the biggest hearts I've ever known, and you are constantly looking to better yourself and become even more self aware, which is amazing"

I'm honestly a little teary over it, in the best way.  Thank you, Dixie.

I can feel myself loosening that white-knuckle grip I keep around myself so often.  I feel a little more worthy of my own love today.

#gratitudeNow:Some cutting remarks on privilege

So, here's a picture of yours truly, prior to getting some surgery, yesterday.  

I was in the hospital to get a vasectomy.

It went really well for the most part.  We showed up. I gave my name. They asked me some questions, I took off my clothes, put on a funny hat and the hospital-gown-what-makes-your-butt-hang-out.

One thing that did come up was people kept asking me, and Missy, if we had children, if we wanted children, were we sure about the procedure, etc. etc. etc.  It got asked a lot.  I kept saying I was sure, no we didn't have them, no we didn't want them.  It was honestly kind of upsetting.  

I could tell that much like the silent e that follows some words what they were really asking was either, "So you're not going to change your mind in a few days, right?" or maybe, "After you sign these consent forms and we invade your body to cut you up a bit, you're not going to come back with a lawyer and sue our pants off, right?"

There was even this brief bureaucratic mix-up, where the normal hospital policy is that you can't be scheduled for a vasectomy until 4 weeks after you've made the decision.  I was clocking in at a way-too-fast-for-their-comfort three weeks.  Because I'm so in a rush, right?

Actually, this is a decision I've been considering for the better part of a decade.  I'm 46 years old, recently started a new business which is very likely to make me travel a whole bunch.  Plus, I'm polyamorous, and have loving connections with my partner Alissa's children, whom I'm not exactly a parent to, but not exactly not one either.  I already raised my ex's kid, my stepson T. for the better part of nine years too.

So I'm pretty set on my choice.  Which is good, because it happened yesterday.

The reason I'm talking about it here, where the gratitude comes in, is because the whole experience made me aware of just how much agency, how much control I have over my own body and my own life.  Yes, the hospital administration and staff, and my own urologist got all up in my business about my choice.  But in the end, I signed papers, and they shut right the hell up and did what I wanted.  

My co-pay for the hospital stay was twenty bucks.

I have a female friend, L., who never wanted to have children, and was looking to have some sort of procedure to do something about it.  I can't exactly recall whether she wanted a tubal ligation or a full hysterectomy, but she spent the better part of her 20's trying to find a doctor who'd agree to do it, and coming up empty.  

Frankly, that ticks me off.  

Sure, as a polyamorous, kinky person I'm not quite like most folks. But I do have good "vanilla" face.  From the outside, I sure look like a typical cisgender white middle class male.  And it comes with a lot of privilege.  

It's got me yet more cognizant of how other people who are not in my same demographic don't have the advantages I do.  

There's already stuff I do to try to help with that.  I'm a big old lefty when I vote.  I actively give money to the ACLU and do micro-loans through Kiva.org.  For which I want no pat on the back whatsoever.  

This is why universal, single-payer healthcare is a deciding issue for me.  It's why I understand reproductive health isn't a luxury, it's a right.  

EVERYONE should have the power and ability to make the choice over their body, their life, that I made over my own yesterday. I think part of the purchase price of having agency over one's own life is making sure society changes to give it to everyone.