Just watch this.
On Sunday Missy and I drove up to see our girl Katie, her partner Leah, and help celebrate the birthday of her son, C. Katie really, really, really likes balloons.
You can tell from this picture of her holding the balloons for the party, in the back seat of my car.
They only even fit because Missy was able to get the lions share of them in the hatch, in the back. She squeezed, pushed, pulled, and shoved balloons around until the four of us and the copious amount of balloons fit in the car. That was the first moment of balloon ingenuity.
I had my own moment of it later, when we were trying to tie up some balloons outside the hall where the party was going to be. I'm no boy scout, but I do know how to make a slip knot, because reasons.
"The party is that way!"
I was proud of myself. The party was great too. At one point all the kids played a game where they kneeled, sat on, leaned against, or just outright stomped on balloons to pop them. (Did I mention we had a lot of balloons?) It was hysterical.
Turns out the convenience store near my mechanic sells fresh, hot pupusas!
It also turns out that my car passed its annual inspection, and only need a very tiny amount of maintenance work.
It's entirely possible that my enjoyment of said pupusas was in part driven by being ravenous, and also in part by being releived about the car. I don't care. Those things were delicious!
I'm fortunate that sometimes I'm able to telework. I really value it. I've had jobs that were 100% telework, and others that were none-at-all. The contrast is what makes it great. It reminds me of an art term, chiaroscuro, the heavy contrast of light-and-dark. It gives a painting or drawing depth.
My telework is like that. When I'm in the office, I work in this sort of shared space where I have no privacy whatsooever. Sometimes the room gets very noisy, and drives me a little bonkers. On the other hand, it's a great place to share something I'm working on, solicit feedback, and have camraderie.
But then on those telecommute days, they're filled largely with silence. I'll get up early, go for a run, and be at my desk in my home office working, while the morning is still fresh, and the neighborhood around me is quiet. It feels luxurious.
Wow, I'm 9 days out of whack with the blog. It's not that I haven't been grateful. Rather, just busy.
So, 9 days ago or so, my friend Onii shared this wonderful thing with me, which I hung onto, so I could share it with you:
It's a reference chart for the kinds of ways people are attracted to one another. I love this thing. Since I have some visually impaired readers, I'm going to type them out here, but also talk about examples of them I have in my own life, too. So, value-add! I've got all of these kinds of attaction going on in my life, for which I'm grateful.
- Sexual Attraction - Sexual attraction is a feeling that sexual people get that causes them to desire sexual contact with a specific other person.
This might seem sort of "duh, obvious!" but actually, it's not. It's sort of mysterious, really. I'm sexually attracted to lots of wonderful folks, in lots of different ways. "Sexual contact" can mean so many different things. I have people in my life I want to touch, lick, smell, fondle, rub my various parts against and put inside their various parts. But also people I want to spank, diaper, lay all over, cuddle, grope, stroke, and maybe masturbate until they can't stand it. One thing they all seem to have in common is that we have some degree of emotional intimacy and connection. The more their happiness and pleasure matter to me, the more I want to share it with them.
- Romantic Attraction - Romantic attraction is a feeling that causes people to desire a romantic relationship with a specific other person.
Missy for the win, here. I love being romantic with Missy. I like sharing a sunrise, walking on the beach, stopping the car besides some beautiful spot so we can just share it together, cuddling and laughing as we watch our cats do some ridiculously adorable thing. Just about my favorite thing to do in the world is anything that lets Missy know just how much she means to me.
- Crushes - A crush is a romantic attraction to someone, a desire for a romantic relationship of some kind, a desire that is possibly temporary in nature, possibly never to be acted upon.
This one is super complex for me. I'm polyamorous, and many of those poly relationships started out as a crush of one sort or annother. I remember a long while back falling in love with my ex, Kacie because I fell in love with the way her mind worked. We would send these texts back and forth, talking about things which we found arousing, and I remember thinking, "Wow, in this way, we're the same!" and it made me just want to be around her.
My relationship with my wife Missy started like this too. We both had an interest in, and an attraction to spanking, discipline, and accountability, and she was just so damn adorable, to boot. I met her at a spanking party, and she was dressed up as a schoolgirl, but I saw her give someone an absolutely ferocious spanking. I was instantly smitten. I remember feeling that there was just something in her, about her, that was the same in me, and I wanted to be around her because of it. We've been together over a decade now, so it looks like I moved past crush stage pretty well, doesn't it?
My relationships with the Ghidrah heads started like this too. I felt this intense burning feeling of oneness with each of them, and then both of them together. I suppose crushing is a sort of affection on-ramp for me.
- Squishes - A squish is an aromantic crush, a desire for a strong platonic relationship with someone.
Again, this one is complex for me. I have a lot of squishes. And they're not mutually exclusive things. My friend Frankie is like this. My friendship with him is one of the longest and most enduring relationships in my life. I've known him actually just a tiny bit longer than I've even known Spacey. I love him. We are jazzed by so many of the same things. We talk about nerdy projects, ageplay porn we like, dream about paramotoring together in the sky over Burning Man, EL wire projects, our relationships, our partners, movies and books we like, too. Sometimes we do this while cuddling (which makes him more than a squish, but as I said, not mutually exclusive.) My little boy Richard is like this with me, too. Come to think of it, all my ageplay "kids" are. They're my family. I love being a part of their lives. I enjoying taking a sweet cuddly nap with any (and sometimes all of them, if I can work it out - it's one of the reasons I have an enormous bed.) These are people I can have a cuddle pile with, while we talk about our jobs, and maybe our diapers, together. It's not necessarily about gropey-get-off-stuff, it's about just emotional intimacy.
- Sensual Attraction - A desire to do sensual (but not sexual) things with certain people, especially relating to tactile sensuality, such as cuddling.
Yet more complex for me. What the heck is "sexual" anyhow? I have friends I play with, where we do all sorts of erotic things together, but don't really care about "The Big PIV." Often the people I crush or squish on are also in this category. One of the best examples of this I can think of is something about The Ghidrah, my polyamorous triad relationship with Pene and Spacey. When the three of us are hugging, there's this scent I absolutely cannot adequately describe to you, it's the mingled scent of their hair, as I bury my face in it.
I love that scent. It's very familiar, and comforting, and pleasing to me. It's a physical manifestation of a relationship I don't have adequate words to describe. It's joyful, enfolding, infinite, and warm. I can recall exactly what it smells like, right now, but no words I have to speak of it will do it justice.
- Aesthetic Attraction - An attraction to other people that is not connected to a desire to do anything with them, either sexually or romantically. They simply appreciate their appearance.
I have little moments of this all the time. I'll give you some examples. I hope the folks I write this about aren't too embarrassed by them.
- My friends Nayland and Whitney have these amazing beards. They're gorgeous. I could look at them all day.
- My little girl Vee's skin, which is very smooth. When we cuddle, I love the feel of it againt me.
- My friend Miss Jessica's very sensual mouth. She has these super well defined lips. They're mesmerizing to look at.
- My friend Dawn Marie's eyes. They glow.
- Richard's diapered butt. I love pulling him over my lap and rubbing his bottom for hours. Like seriously, hours.
- I have this thing for non-poker-faces, that show joy easily. I love eyes and mouths and noses that crinkle with smiles and laughter. So many of the people I'm attracted to do this. Off the top of my head, here's a short list: Maddy, Devin, Ella, Monika, Peanut, Aiden, my brother Spacey, my sister Pene, Andrea.
- I'm really into the union of opposites thing of smaller folks than me. My *complex-relationship-word* Maya is super tiny compared to me. We have this thing where we dance together while she stands on a chair at weddings we've attended. I love that. Missy is a lot smaller than me too and I get a lot of juice out of this. She's an absoutely champion cuddler, and I'm often the little spoon to her big spoon, even though I'm so much bigger than her. I get so much joy out of this. I like being the big spoon sometimes too. It's all good.
Anyhow, I'm grateful for all these various attractions in my life. (Please do note, this is by no means a comprehensive list of people I'm attracted to. Some I've left off because they're shy, and many because I'm going all stream-of-consciousness here. I have so many people I'm attracted to who I have affectionate connections with, that maybe that's the essence of my gratitude here.)