On nights like this one

On nights like this one, I miss you. I breathe deeply, and let it wash over. I feel the remembered warmth of your gaze, and bask in the sweetness.

I am grateful for the outcome, and watch history recede. I think about reaching out, and let the thought go by. 

I am grateful. 

And yet, if I touch it, it's like a loose tooth, or a fading bruise: the hurts are there, but they're transmuted by time into a place where reality and fantasy merge: a remembered ecstasy, an act of creation, a place where my heart, my essence, my is-ness, said yes, and you did too.  I thought, in that moment, how sad that people live so long without this. 

But here I am, without you, gratefully. 

And sadly.

tiny nibbles

Today she sent me a link to a pinata maker, for a project we're working on.

Amongst the gallery of pinatas available, this:

It's a vulva pinata. In case that wasn't obvious.

I sent her a bevy of stylish, hip, tasteful, pinata options (yes- this is truly possible- there's a company out there dressing Barney's windows with pinatas..).

She sent me this, cc'd to the group (who were not privy to the original note):

"Yes these are quite exquisite compared to the rawness of the vulva."

Gawd I love my friends.

To the gods of small things,

My day... starts with kisses and coffee, and progresses to laughs and croissants; a song whose pain is forgotten; time served in community endeavors; perfect timing on a silly joke; enough work to feel productive; a donut in a true diner; running through rain with children on bikes; a glass of wine and roasted cauliflower; giant squids on tv ...and it ends late at night in a secret bar, with an LA surf cowboy playing 40's western swing...
A smokey hit hanging with the band; christmas lights; (reprise); the dance floor is crowded, playful and polite; an Indian man with shiny black hair; my badass girlfriend drinking it in.

Outside: the street is quiet and the rain goes hard.

Thank you.

Sex-positive

What is up with the sex-positive community that the term "making love" causes severe heebie jeebies- or worse- downright revulsion?  At risk of appearing to be a middle-aged emo, WTF?   I don't entirely get it. I mean I do, but I also really don't, 'cause sometimes "fucking" just doesn't cut it.

I've been thinking about my truths lately- considered writing a screed or manifesto (yikes-can you imagine?).

But this is true for me: sometimes sex is making love.  Not always, and not actually all that often.  But when it is? When it's an actual simultaneous act of deep emotional bonding coinciding with the ol' in-out?  Then it's holy.  It's hot, and bare, and thoroughly present.  It's vulnerable and sweet, and silly and playful and soulful and INTENSE.  It IS an act of creation.  And I don't mean babies- I mean a release of love, or positive energy out into the universe..
Or it's some combination of those things and others... but it is surely "making love," not just fucking.  'Cause "fucking" isn't a big enough word.

Sometimes I think it's a failure of language- English doesn't have the right word.  In Portuguese there is a word that kills me: saudades- it means longing, incompleteness, and desire, all at once.

I wonder if some other language has better terms for sex?  Like the Inuits and their plentiful words for snow, does some language express the complexities of sex-fucking-making love better than we do?
If you know of any, help me out.

Other times I think it's fear or embarrassment- that we'll be caught out feeling something deeply and have to live with the discomfort of being seen to be, well, loving.

And here's the thing: there have been very few occasions when someone has used the term and it's made me want to fuck him- usually it creeps me out too.  But sometimes, every blue moon or so, that is what the sex is- full out making love, and to express it differently feels like a hedge.

So, every now and then, I might say "making love", trying to get that mealy flavor out of my mouth as I do, squicking be damned.  And you'll know what I mean when I do.

Neurosis

Or hormonal fluctuations?  There is always a day or two in the cycle that show up like this one:  I hate everyone. I'm depressive, prone to tears, and attaching meaning to things that probably don't have any.

Blaming hormones always seems like a cheap way to shirk responsibility.  So there's that.  And then there is an invisible possibility- maybe, just maybe..

N's posts on his new toy irritated me to an extreme.  To the point where I was unkind.  I ain't over it yet.  I have barely contained snark giving me itchy fingers and a wealth of drafts I'm NOT GOING TO SEND.

And it's totally a neurotic response.  I can see it.  The urge to sabotage the friendship with him is strong.   I could shut it down. Stop reading the blogs, stop writing this one- or at least change its name.  Kill off ol' Lizzie Grey.  It would take me a while to flush it from my system- I'm an addict.  But I could do it.

So what exactly did I find so offensive, you ask?  I'm not entirely sure.  It was a visceral response.  I felt angry, and cheap, and like I'd been a fool (AGAIN).  Why, you ask? Here I will demure... I don't trust myself right now.

The posts are hot, to be sure, as I imagine the experiences were.

I was hot too, with a righteous, disproportionate, anger.  I didn't wait long enough for it to disperse.  I'm fairly certain it would have, or at least I would have had a more measured response. Maybe the happy chemicals would have kicked in in time to rescue me.

So... Is this all mine?? Was there a part of him getting back at me for no longer being available to him in that way- a little rubbing my nose in it that precluded a "hey- heads-up, this is happening".
Or maybe it's just that he doesn't even think of me that often...

As he points out, "I feel as if we go through something like this every time there's an intense sexual or female involvement in my life. That's fine. But it's worth noting...."
This clearly isn't new territory.

And if it's all mine, what then?? I should assume this is the case. Am I caught at a bad moment in my cycle, or procrastinating things I need to do, and letting myself make drama where none need be?  All of the above?  To what end?
It's not wholly unfamiliar to me, this place, with and without N.

And back to his new toy: bless her.  Bless him.  In my heart (and in my sanity) I'd rather he had the things that give him pleasure.  I'm just not so sure I want to know all the details.

neu·ro·sis  (n-rss, ny-)

n. pl. neu·ro·ses (-sz)

Any of various mental or emotional disorders, such as hypochondria or neurasthenia, arising from no apparent organic lesion or change and involving symptoms such as insecurity, anxiety, depression, and irrational fears, but without psychotic symptoms such as delusions or hallucinations. No longer in scientific use.

Happiness runs in a circular motion...

I just looked this up... wondering where it originated (looks like Donovan, who knew?).  I learned the song at summer camp when I was about eleven.  And as many things do, it just kinda shows up in my head every now and then.

Circles circles circles.

I love it when the universe (my universe) loops back on itself in a recognizable pattern.

But maybe it's actually a spiral? It loops back but has expanded, it's the same, only broader, encompassing itself and still growing.

Yesterday I went to a museum to see a show, itself a kind of expanding circle.  Because the show is closing soon, and it's school vacation, I took my kids.  And the world looped back for me as I watched them with Andy's giant silver balloons.  The purity of their glee, and with their consciousness of becoming a part of the show itself, they became art in it its best form.  Does this sound like momma bragging?  It's not what I mean.

(And I was sentimental as hell.)

I can't say exactly what it is- only that that period in art and culture was deeply important to me, and is part of why I live here, moved here.

I'm endlessly interested in the mesh points- the places where art, craft, fashion, music, popular culture,... humanity, collide and become something bigger than what they started as... You know, the place where the circle finds itself and opens and expands to include, well, more.

So anyway- I hope you find many of your happy places in the coming year, and that the spiral of your universe keeps expanding.

xx Lizzie

(yeah, and at camp, you sing it ...ahem... in a round)

Happiness runs in a circular motionThought is like a little boat upon the seaEverybody is a part of everything anyway
You can have everything if you let yourself be
You can have everything if you let yourself beYou can have everything if you let yourself beYou can have everything if you let yourself beYou can have everything if you let yourself be

Monogamy-ish

Let's first say, I know I'm often responding here to questions or subjects raised on N's blog.
I appreciate his honesty, and willingness to declare out there in the blogosphere how he sees things, and explore, and even occasionally amend, his reasoning for those perspectives.  
And, he gets me thinking.

His Safer Sex posts have been interesting- as are the discussions that followed them.  N.'s sexual practices, and his assessment (or rationalization) of the health risks of sexual contact with multiple new partners raised some hackles.
I generally agree with his perspective, primarily that oral sex without protection is not prohibitively risky, not that it doesn't have risks.  I will also say I am relieved that I am not driven to want or need many new partners- I'm glad the question of risk of STI (or pregnancy) isn't central to my thoughts these days...  even if I am not entirely free of all risk.
And please use sound judgement for yourself, with all the attendant personal considerations well considered.

One of the last points he made, that people no longer feel at risk when they are in committed monogamous relationships, was not well received.  But it seemed to me a "shoot the messenger" kind of reception.
Infidelity happens to other people, right?  The thought that we may not be safe from all risk when we are home in our own beds with a committed partner is threatening, no?

Statistically, 30-60% of married individuals will engage in infidelity during the duration of their marriages.  This number is probably conservative, and doesn't include the many nominally  monogamous relationships between unmarried people.  And all those adulterous partners?  In theory they're out there fucking other people too...It evokes those old Faberge Organics shampoo commercials (OMG it's Heather Locklear) you know, "she tells two friends, and she tells two friends, and so on and so on" and suddenly the screen is exponentially full of shiny-haired girls.  I get visions of multiplying sex partners that creep me out just a little.  Obviously we marrieds are not immune to risk.

While I know the definition of monogamy, in practice it is not always quite so perfect.  I've been married for thirteen years.  We've both had at least one other partner in that time, sometimes openly, other times not necessarily.  Does this mean I'm no longer in a monogamous relationship?? Maybe... depending on the precision with which you use the word.  Do we consider ourselves monogamous? At this point, yes.  And truly, in spite of brief flirtations with the world of polyamory or whatever the fuck label I'd need to put on the adventures I had with N, I feel like we've been pretty true to each other.
As far as I know, we were 100% monogamous for at least 14 years (we were together for a couple of years before we got married).  But the longer I'm married, the older I get, the more compassion and understanding I feel for all of us.

Monogamy looks more and more like an unnatural state- all across the spectrum of life- a fascinating discovery.  Is it any wonder that in spite of our best efforts, we sometimes fail?

So, do my husband and I, in our monogamous relationship, practice unsafe sex?  Hell yes.
Is it a risk, even a little one? Sure, but honestly, it's one I'm happy to take.