Random raves

The women I fancy often seem to have one of two main musical genres they like:

• Heavy metal/rock; OR
• the Leonard Cohen/Nick Cave/Elvis Costello/Johnny Cash/Tom Waites intersection

However they often cross over with liking one or more varieties of classical music.

(And of course there are umpty billion other genres they like - one likes new age, another likes classic funk, another lounge music. But I can divide nearly all of them between those two major groupings.)

At least I like some of the more accessible - but not overly cliched or soupy-romantic - varieties of classical music. The two major categories there, not so much at all.

Obviously I like women who are quite different to myself in some ways (although very similar in terms of politics, feminism and sexuality), and music is definitely one of those distinguishing factors.

So yeah, narcissism ISN'T the reason I'm queer. lol.

I was about to go insane from the steady pressure of the last few weeks at work, and took Friday off and went to Melbourne for a couple of days. The initial plan was to rendezvous with an ex-colleague of mine who was going to be over for a training course, but we somehow managed to miss each other in our preparatory email interchange. I decided to go anyway due to the preceding work insanity.

Melbourne is one of those places, like Wellington, San Francisco, Brussels and Hawaii, where I immediately felt that it was my kind of place on first going there. You can walk across the CBD in a bit more than 1/2 an hour. There is a CBD. There are cool and funky inner-city suburbs. There is decent public transport. There are tall buildings (which I can take or leave, but they also give a certain density of people in the area), the river (nice for lunching by), the dinky little alleyways, swanky shops and grungy shops, people from zillions of cultures, fantastic food, and great coffee. Other than the ethnic mix, there are recognisable queers and goths and students and arty types and the lot wandering around and mixing and matching. There are even shops selling clothing I'd like to wear (suits! pretty pretty shirts!). There are lots of very attractive women in their suits roaming the streets in the lunch hours. Getting back to the coffee, it amuses me that I found no less than 3 cafes serving Coffee Supreme, which is based in Wellington. I think it's the best commercially-roasted coffee in NZ at present. It appears that they've started another roasting operation in Mebourne, and the stuff here tasted just as good as the coffee brewed in its city of origin. So I overdosed a bit, oh well.

I realise that I'm experiencing the place as a tourist, but some places are more "homelike". As I mentioned, I had that feeling about Wellington the first time I visited, and when I finally got to live there, I loved it. So, yay for spending time in a place that just fits.

I got to spend some excellent time with damned_colonial and her SCA buddies. It was probably a little bit bad of me to take over the stoking and feeding of the experimental pizza oven that a couple of them had built, but it was a cool contraption, and well, I can't help myself around fire. And being controlling about properly-cooked food. :-) Also, it was nice to have an appreciative audience, and anything that gives me scope for my butchly liking of fixing things is good. Heh. damned_colonial and I also hit the Victoria Markets the next morning, which is the best indoor food market I've encountered here in Oz so far. I admit to being biased towards places which have a good deli section. Sydney seems to have a much better seafood selection, interestingly enough. So, yay, hanging out with groovy people who like doing fun things is always a bonus. I will be doing it more often.

I also got to meet the charming goatsfoot yesterday, which was fab. It's nice to put faces to names (and L/Js), and it's even nicer when they're people you hit it off with. I did my usual shy-and-talking-too -much thing, but oh well, that's better than the opposite problem. I'm looking forward to catching up again in a month and hopefully in a more leisurely fashion. Also, Plans were Being Hatched.

After getting home again (I made the airport with 5 minutes to spare, due to being engrossed in conversation with goatsfoot, bad me) and having some decent sleep, I got to spend some nice quality time with the CDL today, which involved some good and affirmatory "checking-in" conversation, healing massages, inspection of a few purchases I made in Melbourne, and other excellent stuff. Fucking yay. You know, this weekend, I pwned the world, and it was good.

I had a really nice evening with the OGF last night, thank god. It consisted of kid-wrangling, cooking my own dinner (since I have vowed never to eat spag bol with mince, ever again), drinking 1/2 a glass of wine, watching a movie while the baby refused to go to sleep, and then giving the OGF a shoulder rub until she passed out on me. I seem to have this effect on women, heh. Except babies.

But, we talked. And it was nice. She's having four new people move into her house. Her hubbies have gotten involved with another woman, and she and her husband and their two children are officially moving in this weekend. Dear lord - five adults and five children, all in the same (admittedly large) space. I'm just relieved I can visit.

Due to the fact that all of these rumptions had been going on while I hadn't spent any quality time with her in literally months, I was feeling a certain degree of insecurity about the whole thing, but she made a couple of observations that were reassuring. Firstly, it appears that there are limits to Puppy Pile Polyamory, at least for her. She doesn't want to majorly bond with the two new additions, especially the "other woman". Of course, the (well, my) definition of PPP is that you want to snuggle up with all your loved ones. These two additions are not her loved ones. Yay boundaries. Secondly, she said this morning that she doesn't have mental or emotional room at all for another woman. This is the first time in her life that that's been the case, since she's apparently always had at least a couple on the go up until I came along. But it seems that I take up as much mental space as any two other women.

Regarding that last, I'm a little unsure what to think. The reason I'm happy she's not all "boots in" with the new additions is time. She and I don't have enough time as it is, and I was quite wibbly about the idea that someone else was going to make it shrink even further (rampaging orgies would be fine, since, you know, that wouldn't impinge on our quality time; emotional investment would be something else). I said that I don't know how I take up so much "mental space", since we hardly see each other, but I apparently "just do". Actually, I do know what she means in terms of thinking about loved ones constantly - I certainly do nearly all the time - and I think that's pretty much what she was meaning. I didn't want to pursue the topic too much, and sound all neurotically demanding about "What exactly do you mean?", so I think I'll ruminate on it a bit further myself.

Why is this niggling at me a wee bit? It's because I tend to get involved with ambitious, go-getting and busy women. And since I'm not particularly those things myself, I like to take on a nurturing and "cheerleading" (if you like) role where I can. [How butch am I? Hah.] And if I'm taking up someone's mental energy, am I being more a drain than not? Because I cannot bear to feel that that might be the case. I'm actually quite sure I'm not, on a gut-instinct basis. All I need to do is sort out in my head what the implications are, and I'll be groovy.

And this is really the point of the post. While I don't think I tend to intellectualise my (and others') emotions much, I obviously do have to make logical sense of them - as much as possible - before I trust my instincts. I'm surprised as to how much it makes a difference to my inner feeling of security - and it's something I wish I'd realised about myself a lot earlier. I might be fairly trusting on an emotional basis, but my poor brane needs some assistance, evidently.

ETA: And I forgot to mention Mistress Matisse's latest column on poly in The Stranger. Leaving aside the primary/secondary terminology, I think it should just about be required reading. Especially, "When you say, "it's fine," really mean that it's fine." And, "Don't stick your dick in crazy."
I liked her thoughts about queerness in relation to poly as well - mainly because it's exactly what I think.

I was just reflecting on the fact that I've been unusually diffident in pursuing my lust objects these last few years. I burbled on about that here quite recently. Since I am most certainly more confident and sure of I want in a lover, I started to wonder just why that has been the case lately.

I was reminded of being in my early twenties... not sure what the rules were and not knowing how to put myself forward. Since I'm now in my late 30s, and actually, I think I do have a reasonably decent grasp of those two things (when I am consciously out to impress someone), it seemed odd and back-slidery.

So, just now (ruminating on stuff when you're trying to sleep is silly, really), I got it. Claiming the poly label is a relatively new thing for me. I really don't suffer jealousy myself, and I also think I have a pretty good set of boundaries when it comes to handling my relationships. However. All the people I've been interested in over the last few years in the poly context have been involved with someone else. And that's my sticking point.

Even when I was trying the mono thing, and yet still having stupid affairs (which caused breakups, since I am not a liar in that sense), there was no way in hell I went after someone who had a partner. The one time I did sleep with someone who was still involved with someone else, I felt as sick as hell when I found out. And that was a boundary I was extremely vigorous in policing. There is an ex of mine I still find attactive, and again, I feel guilty about that because she is with someone else. The biggest thing for me to get over the poly sense has been just that; that it is ok to be with someone who has another partner.

Well, I thought that having identified that issue, I was alright with it. However, I just twigged that I haven't just suddenly lost my knack of taking the initiative in the last 3 years - one person in particular I had no problems making a pass at, but, hahah!, she wasn't involved elsewhere. So, there you go, there is some wierd guilt thing still operating on the subconscious level somewhere. Once I've gotten over the "yeah, I fancy you too" hump, and it's all on, I'm fine. It's an odd place to have residue, though.

One of the nicer things about having groovy people in your life is that they take an interest. And taking an interest means that they can point out some ways in which there is room for improvement.

So, when I did some bed improvements a few weeks back, the CDL took the opportunity to point out that my bedding could be somewhat better too, so off shopping we went. Having 1000-count cotton sheets is very bloody nice, actually. Adding extra incentives for someone to share them with me from time to time is great too.

I've also resisted top sheets for years, since I used to have horrific problems getting tangled up in them - it seems that the heavier sheeting, not tucked in so I can stick my feet out, doesn't cause the same hassle. So, yay, good experiment there, and that also means much less duvet cover washing. Which is a good thing.

Next, wine glasses. I had none. I've had a habit of saying to various flatmates when moving countries, "You want my crockery and glassware? Great, have it." - which means that I buy everything new when I need to. Depending on how settled I feel, I get more or less stuff beyond the bare basics. Because I hadn't been feeling particularly settled, bare basics was it. But now, I have some v. nice crystal wine glasses, which, of course, I had to take for a test drive.

The first wine I tried is an Australian (McLaren Vale) Cabernet Sauvignon by Hugh Hamilton, called The Villian. I bought it because it's an Adelaide wine, it cost between $20-25, and because it has a picture of a black sheep on the front. Yes, I buy books by their covers too. Bloody nice, actually. Sniff it, and a Ribena-like smell hits you. Then there are blackberry, slightly musty leather, and hints of nutmeg and bacon flavours. It's a 2003, but it's a little bit astringent and tannin-y. Very nice, though, and not too overpowering. Maybe another year or so in the bottle to round it out a bit?

I bought the second one today, because I had somewhat draining afternoon, and I'm knackered. It's a good-old Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc from Ata Rangi. It's this year's vintage, so very fresh, and would be better next year or the one after. Still, it's bloody yum. Passionfruit and lime flavours, but nicely (and not too) dry. Very quaffable.

Anyways, nice sheets and nice glasses. Lovely in themselves, and the associated other parts are fab too.

Just to let everyone who might be the slightest bit interested know, I am officially "seeing" someone else.

And it's Very Nice, thank you. Really, how else can it be with a witty, intelligent, astute, politically-bloody-onto-it, genuinely poly, open, local, sane, and *gasp* attractive woman?

My original girlfriend (you know, the one with the two blokes, three kids, dog and cat) - who will hereby be known as the OGF - is happy about the whole situation. Everything's great on the home front there - we are not parting ways in any sense. In fact, she feels more secure (yes, poly people are strange). And since I like the "new person's" current partner, that's just groovy all round.

Oh, and the "new person" will be known as the CDL, for reasons not to be divulged here. The last component of the acronym is "lady", just to annoy you. :-)

So, I hope that's all queerclear. Any enquiries may be placed in writing and will be answered at the discretion of management.

So, I had a dream about one of my exes last night.

( TMI, but not graphically so )

But, you know, that doesn't justify or explain the dreams and associated emotions. I wish to fuck it would stop. Maybe I'll grow out of it. :-)

So. My g/f finally came round last night. We went out for yummy Vietnamese - there's a whole suburban shopping centre just up the road with TONS of Asian restaurants - I had no idea! Came home, kneaded sourdough, stuck it in oven, gave my g/f a massage which she desperately needed, retrieved sourdough, which turned out not-so-great (I needed about twice as much leavening in it. My recipe specifies white flour, but I did 1/2 rye flour and increased the leavening, but evidently not enough). And so to bed.

( Somewhat TMI )

She left happier, more relaxed and rested, with loosened muscles and smiling that gorgeous smile I haven't seen enough of lately. And, I too, I have a smile on my face that can't be moved.

Off to the gym then. Tra la la!