Doing All The Things: Mediocre Ramblings About Stuff

Morning,  Today's Heading: On Breakups When Polyamorous. Very fortunate to have partners like this. My husband Alex and I opened our marriage in March, and over the course of these nine months, I've already experienced multiple separations from partners ranging from "Meh." to "Excuse me while I sob in the car." I'm currently working through one now, and it got me thinking about how different this experience is, and how ill equipped I feel to handle it. There is no road map for how to handle breakups in general, but when you add in the complexities of multiple partners, this has been a whole new realm of, "I have no idea what the hell I am supposed to do right now." As per usual, when I am trying to understand how I feel, I turn to writing. I hope to come at this from a few angles, simply because there is more at play (at least, for me) than when going through a breakup when I was monogamous. More than anything, I'm hoping to...

Good Afternoon, Trigger Warning: Rape/Sexual Assault/Consent Conversations. Today I listened to an extremely interesting podcast called In The No. It is a three part commentary on consent, what it means, and how complicated it can be for people to navigate it. Parts One and Three were particularly interesting to me. Number One deals with the grey areas in sexual assault, Number Three talks a lot about consent in the BDSM community. People get confused about this, and it matters, so I want to be clear about the difference between rape and sexual assault, as it would be defined by the law. Rape: Forced sexual intercourse, including vaginal, anal, or oral penetration. Penetration may be by a body part or an object. Sexual Assault: Unwanted sexual contact that stops short of rape or attempted rape. This includes sexual touching and fondling. Consent: Informed, freely and actively given, mutually understandable words or actions which indicate a willingness to participate in mutually agreed ...

Morning, Trigger Warning: Suicide. Today marks eight years since my Grandfather's suicide. Every year on this day I try to set aside time to say something thought provoking, funny, heartfelt, anything at all to show him that I'm thinking of him and encouraging others to think of him as well. This year's reflection is going to be a bit of a mess. It's ugly, and raw, and jarring. It's mostly for me to be able to sort out my feelings and process them. If you're looking for a sweet remembrance, you won't find one this year. One year after he passed, I held my baby shower for my son Wesley Joseph. He loves being referred to as Wesley Joe, and each time I call his name, my Grandfather is there like a quiet whisper.  As much as it's a tribute, it's a self imposed penance. No one has pointed their finger at me or held me responsible, nor would they. I didn't do anything. I wish that I could make people understand that not doing anything is e...

Afternoon, Today's Title: When You're At A Crossroads (and there's no Crossroads Demon to grant your wish.) Too many ways. This may come as a surprise to you considering that I have my life completely together and know the answer to all important questions (HAH), but I am currently struggling to come to a decision about something in my personal life. This lead me to think about decision making in general, and what factors we most take into account when weighing pros and cons when we're met with complicated choices. It's never as simple as a list, and I'd like to talk a bit about giving yourself permission to make choices. Now, I should say, I love a good hand written list. There's something very satisfying to my anxious brain about feeling the paper underneath my hands, having the pen slide fluidly over the page, and getting that smudge of ink on my pinky knuckle because I hold my pen like a weirdo. The problem with lists (of the pros vs cons va...

Afternoon, Hello, friends! It has been too long, I know, I know. You have been impatiently tapping your toes at me, and I am here to once again delight and astonish you with nonsense. I have some things to unpack today, so let's get started.  I miss you, Ellen. Jealousy: The ol' green eyed monster. We all experience it in different ways, and have different methods for handling it. He creeps in and doesn't even bother making himself comfortable, because he just wants to burn everything to the ground. Rude. I specifically would like to talk about jealousy in the context of polyamory today because I imagine most of you have pretty established opinions and feelings in regards to jealousy in monogamy and the source of that. Why not expand our mind frames a bit, yes? Although, if I say any of this right, it could probably shine some light on jealousy in general. Let's not get our hopes up though. One of the most intriguing things about polyamory to me is how ...

Good Morning, If I had a second title for this that went against the grain of my numbering system, this entry would be called, "Love Isn't Pie." This is pie. I'm not much of a believer in monogamy being taught as the default option for relationships. However, I have lived in relationships set up as monogamous my entire adult life (until now), so I am sure that elicits some head scratching. After beginning to deal with my anxiety and attempting to take my mental health as seriously as my physical health, I began probing around in my mind a lot more and reflecting on my feelings for people and about love as a concept in general. I'd like to begin this discussion with saying- this is in fact a discussion , not a sermon, not a how-to guide, not anything like that. I do not pretend to have all the answers, or that the answers I do have are answers for anyone but myself. My views are constantly evolving, and that's the way I prefer it. When we become stagnan...

Good Afternoon, This will be relatively short, but there has been something pattering around in my brain the last couple of days, and I think I have finally figured out what I am interested in saying- and that is: we should say more things. In my journey to adulthood, I'm realizing that we all have secrets simmering just under the surface. There are so many reasons why keeping our emotions to ourselves is commonplace- fear of rejection, restrictions based on circumstance, general inability to emote, inability to handle change, etc. We've all experienced one or more of these moments in our life. Perhaps you want someone in your life, perhaps out of your life. How our thoughts and emotions will be received by the recipient can be terrifying, no question, but ask yourselves this: What will happen if I don't tell this person how I feel, what I need? Swallowing how you feel will only build tension and frustration within yourself. You may not be able to control the response o...

Good Morning, There used to be a six part story here, but I recently reverted it to a draft because I felt it needing fine tuning. It was quite cathartic going on my tangent, and perhaps I will have more multi-part stories in the future, but they will mostly be stand alone entries. Since writing out that story, however, I was inspired to write several poems (not all about those events) which was very bizarre. In high school, I used to write poetry a lot. They offered many creative writing courses, and I took most of them. We were encouraged to write a poem every single day, even if it turned out to be garbage. Oh, the garbage I created. Like a lot of hobbies though- if you don't use it, you lose it, and I lost my passion/pension for creating things. It has been many years since I've written a poem, so this feels scary, but also exciting. New words seem to be surfacing each day. I shared these with a couple friends before posting them here to make sure they weren't trash, ...

Why, hello! If you found this, it is probably because you know me and inquired about the location of my musings. If you don't know me, congratulations or... I'm sorry, you're about to. (I overshare.) A bit about me, so you can decide if you care or not: I like to talk about real things, and hear you talk about real things. If you're more of the, "I don't like to feel feelings" persuasion, this is not the blog for you. Sorry, man. I'm probably just talking about food on Facebook, so you could just swing back that direction. I love creating things- silly things, beautiful things, eh-ver-ry-thang sort of things, hence the name of the blog! I would like to take you on an adventure where I show you how I make art projects, talk you through uncomfortable subjects, share music that I think will move you, or whatever pops into my mind that particular day. When will I update, you ask? Uhhhhhh when something worthy of posting comes to fruition, I guess? I...