Have My Posts On Relationships Helped You?
So I’m thinking about pitching a polyamory-themed self-help collection of my best relationship essays, tied together in some overarching form, and the problem is that, well, I’ve written a lot of them over the years. So rather than going through ten years of a very blabbery journal, I figured I’d see what’s sticky by asking you all:
Which polyamory/relationship essays of mine have helped you?
It’d help tremendously if you could give me a link to said essay, but it’s not necessary. You can list as many as you’d like; I figure if you remember them a few years down the pike, it’s probably a thought worth including.
I don’t know whether I can get such a book published, but it’s certainly fun to think about… and if you’d like to see it in print some day, then helping me now would be a definite boost. Thanks.
A Beautiful Annoyance
I went to a party last night, and every conversation went something like this:
“Hey, Fred! How are you – ”
“Ferrett! You look so good! Oh my God, it’s so good to see you!”
“I know! I’m standing! So what’s new with – ”
“We were so worried about you. How are you feeling? You okay to be out here like this?”
“Yes, of course, I wouldn’t have come otherwise. But on Facebook, I saw you were – ”
“I am so glad you’re okay!”
At which point I sighed and gave into the flow, realizing that I would have to tell an accelerated version of How I Discovered I Was Having A Heart Attack before we could proceed with the conversation. Which, given the quick pace of party conversations in a place suffused with distractions, often meant telling my tale was all the time I got to talk with some very wonderful people.
(And I hate just telling tales. I mean, I know my stories. I come to hear yours.)
So as Gini drove me home, I said, “It will be nice when I can attend a party and the first thing I have to talk about is not my heart.” Because it’s a story I’ve told many times before, and will doubtlessly tell many times after, and it’s not even a fun story.
But still. It’s an annoyance, but a beautiful annoyance. Because it’s an expression of people caring about me, and wanting to know how I am, and looking after me. They all held such love for me in that moment, and this wasn’t about me – I was finally strong enough to reassure them, because they were scared, and didn’t want to lose me, and now I’m here and they want to touch me and hug me and ensure that I’m going to stay with them for a bit longer.
So yes. I’ll talk about my heart as many times as I need to. Because their concern is an outpouring of love, and I’d be churlish not to respond.
In the meantime, a young girl I didn’t know came up to me last night and said, “I painted my nails for you!” and it was all I could do to choke out a heartfelt thank you before I teared up. She wandered away, happy to have been of service, but it’s the little things that mean much. Oh so much.
Friend Fruit
After my surgery, I received many wonderful gifts. And I still plan on thanking the folks responsible for those things, for they were each treasures; on days when I felt like I wanted to give up, I’d get a card or a drawing or a video, and suddenly I was reminded why life was worth living. And that was beautiful, and I can’t let it go unpassed.
But there’s one gift that arrived afresh today: Friend Fruit.
You see, when I fell sick, my online critique group was deeply concerned for me. Which was sweet; we’d all done Viable Paradise together, we’d somehow kept in touch and kept critiquing the shit out of each other. I’d read their novels, their stories, pumped the fist at their publications.
And being creative writers, they devised a thoughtful gift to keep me around: a subscription to the Fruit of the Month club. First month: oranges.
The thing is, I still don’t like fruit all that much. But every morning, when I woke up, I thought, “My friends want me to eat healthy.” And so I ate an orange, which I labelled “friend fruit.” My family shared in my fruit, and together we ate well, and that made me happy.
Yesterday, the second shipment of friend fruit arrived: grapefruits. I’ve never had grapefruits. I don’t know whether I’ll like them. But I do know that I’ll smile as I eat them, because it was a gift given by some thoughtful buddies of mine. And that makes these fruit all the sweeter.
So thank you, Lara, George, Miranda, George, Sean, Christian, and Eric. I’m gonna eat some grapefruit today. For you.
Shaving With A Straight Razor For A Month: A Report
If you take out the eight weeks of post-heart attack recuperation, I have been shaving with a straight razor for a solid month now. And I must say, the biggest appeal of it all is how toyetic the process is.
“Toyetic” is a made-up word that explained Star Wars’ appeal; it made lots of cool toys. Whereas while, say, Independence Day is a fine movie on its own merits, there’s only one alien and it’s kind of ugly. (Seriously, who wants to play with the Jeff Goldblum doll?) And shaving with a straight razor appeals to men because it is not only stupidly dangerous and useless, but it is marvelously toyetic.
As witness! Before, my entire shaving kit consisted of this pathetic set in a shower:
Now, it consists of this fine, intimidating regiment:
And all of those items, my friends, are the topic of stupid debates, which men naturally love. What brand of shaving cream should you use… or should you use shaving oil? Is that badger hair brush really top-of-the-line? How many times should you apply the hot towel to your face during a shave? What grip should you use? All of these allow a man to have firm opinions about something that matters really not at all, which is of course a fine thing to have.
The thing is, I find myself shaving for pleasure, which is odd. Yesterday, I completed work and went into the bathroom to treat myself – yes, to treat myself! – to a nice long shave. I call it my “blood meditation,” because you cannot shave quickly with a straight razor, and you’d be foolish to try. No, no matter how hectic your life, you must slow down to match the pace of the shave – holding the hot towel to your face, lathering up in the cup, smooshing the lather into your face.
And, of course, the shave. The shave teaches you to pay attention to your face with strange detail. Before, if you’d asked me about my face, I’d have told you it was, well, a face. But now I see it in angles; there’s my sadly soft cheeks, which tend to mush under the blade, and the treacherous hollows under my jawline, and the underside of my neck. I pay attention to the directions my facial hair grows, for I must shave against the grain for the closest cut – and that, my friends, changes from inch to inch. I now occasionally just touch my face gently, with the tips of my fingers, trying to recall which way my beard grows.
So much of the shave is in that approach. Which way do I cut? I keep changing my approach, looking for the perfect set of swathes that lead me to a face with no stubble whatsoever. I haven’t found it; I think I’ve mastered it, then as I apply the post-shave witch hazel I find another thatch of cut, but not perfectly cut, hair. And there is pleasure in seeking that perfection.
Do I cut myself? Yes, of course. And almost always in the same place. For as I try to cut against the grain (which is to say, towards my ear) along my right cheek, I always find this awkward moment where I can’t cut all the way smoothly with my right hand. It’s my elbow, my damnable elbow. So I slow down, and slowing down lets the razor bite, and as such I not only have this same cut but you can actually see where the stubble is thicker after it. I have to find a better approach, even as I am terrified to switch to try to use my trembling left hand, as others have suggested.
As for the name of my razor? Well, many suggested – ha ha! – Sweeney, even though I said I do not want to cuddle up with a bloodthirsty razor. No, I want a comforting razor, a razor that is redolent of 1950s barber shops and men in nice fedoras getting a fine shave before they head off to the office. As such, several people wisely suggested “Floyd,” as in Mayberry’s own Floyd the Barber, and I think that is a most, most excellent name for a razor. Floyd never wanted to cut anyone; he just wanted to even out your sideburns.
How My Mind Works: The World's Perfect Couple?
Okay, while doing research I really had no right to be doing, I discovered the fact that in 2006, a woman called the Scorpion Queen held the record for holding a live scorpion in her mouth. Two minutes, three seconds, seven inches of venomous scorpion between the teeth.
That’s not the cool bit. Who placed the scorpion in her mouth?
Her lover, the Centipede King.
Now, these guys are serious. The Scorpion Queen – or so it was reported – lived in a house with 5,000 scorpions for 32 days. Her husband lived in a cage with a thousand centipedes for a month. (Though this gives me the delightful image of the Scorpion Queen, sitting in her writhing chitinous house, with her husband popping by from time to time, stepping carefully amidst the sea of stingers to bring in the tea.)
And, in 2006, they wed.
But then I wondered: are they still together? What kind of marital disharmonies would they face? I mean, clearly they spend a lot of time apart, what with their living boxed up with bugs all the time. One hopes they can manage to get past the inevitable conflicts that arise when one starts comparing the merits of centipedes to scorpions, and make it up with insect-filled kisses.
Alas. The Internet fails us here, as I can find no update on the Scorpion Queen and her fine, verminous husband. They have dropped off the ‘net, having gone dark – a thing that seems supremely appropriate, yet is maddening in its absence.
I need to know how they are today. Have they managed to grow their love like the larvae in their walls? Are they still magnificently into multi-legged creatures? Has the Centipede King become some sort of hipster, having declared centipedes to be so 2006 and moved on to stinkbeetles? Or are they cuddling among the bugs, wreathed in many-legged bliss?
Please, please tell me they have not divorced. I could not bear the news.
For if the Scorpion Queen and the Centipede King cannot make it work, what hope is there for the rest of us?