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Our Anniversary Is On – When Exactly?

Do you guys ever argue about when your exact anniversary is? I mean sure – if you get married you’ve got a “date”. But what about if you met each other through the internet. And then in real life.
And things kind of expanded faster in some ways than others? I am a saver – so I know to the date when we first spoke on the internet. But according to a certain someone – that doesn’t count. So then I count our first “date” – although she was here a full day before that. And according to her – that’s the date. Uh oh. I can see this causing trouble down the line. “No dear, our anniversary is tomorrow.” “No, it was yesterday and YOU forgot!” Also – I admit I’m crappy with dates. Totally. ADHD. Which leaves it up to the OCD one to use the wrong date. Um right date. Sorry dear.

And dates aside have you all noticed that it HAS been a year almost?? Which leads to my quandry – what to get as a gift for someone who has made such a huge difference in my life in a little over a year (since I’m counting to the day we first started speaking and you missed our anniversary dear). Also I can hear her now, “You said you were trying to save money. That means not spending money on an anniversary gift.” “Yes dear. Now shush and let me figure out what to get you!” So I did what I’m good at and hit the internet. Some of the great ideas – recreate the first “date”. Make a collage of your first year together. Great ideas – except we don’t get to see each other on a frequent basis. And I keep forgetting to take pictures of us when we do! And since we just had a visit, that nixes doing anything ON the anniversary.

So – I’m putting it out there. I want something that says just how much she means to me – that she can enjoy there while I am here. Help me come up with a really great anniversary present! Or I will be forced to sing her a song and record it for her. Trust me, that will make it the last anniversary present I have to give her! And I don’t want that!

Love you babe. Whatever the date!

Well Hello There!

You know – it’s funny how things change slowly and you don’t notice the change until one you look up and go “Wow, what happened to that old me?” It’s like an old friend that you think of every once in a while. You miss that friend, you see their image in your mind, but it gets foggy as time goes by. Something brought me by today, brought me back to the blogs I’d read. I peeked in at a few, not enough to catch up, but enough to realize that I’m in a familiar place that I missed. Then I peeked in here. Oops. Last post, November. And a lot has changed since then. Yet, this feels like coming home.

I’m not sure how it faded. I stopped having these “great ideas” that seemed worthy of having a blog post. I lost my inspiration. Maybe I just got comfortable with where I was. I’ve got my baby – and she rocks. But maybe I’m not pushing my own edges because she makes me so happy I don’t need anything. (You do baby.) I stopped going to the local munches because really – they did nothing for me. And seriously – the change in bus schedule (which happened in October so that could be an issue!) making me leave anything on the weeknights by 8 p.m. – that made a huge difference. I’m a member of two different local LGBT groups but have yet to actually DO anything. Because of the bus. And they do fun things! So there goes my kink side and meeting other local women.

And yes, my writing kind of dried up. Not that the characters aren’t there. I’ve got my story to finish, and I’ve got this sexy gypsy witch in a covered wagon who will pair up with a biker babe in an urban fantasy setting. Oh a cop who’s got a bit of an addiction with anonymous sex that has made things a tad hot for her on the job. See! But I’m not writing. Maybe it’s that I’m such a multi-tasker and I need tasks to multi in. It got busy at work so I really had no down-time to anything. Which was a good thing. Until I got laid off. Yep, got laid off December 15th. Merry Christmas. So I’ve got all this free time. And still not writing. Although I hand-wrote out part of a story during a seminar I went to. See, I need to attend more boring things like that. Then I’d write more.

So – nothing exciting. No crazy angst to share – unless you want to hear about my daughter. No, probably best not to go there. She’s 21. She acts 12. She has one 2 year old and a kid on the way. Ugh. That is more than you all wanted to know I’m sure. I’m playing more D&D!! And it was very amusing to try and explain that to my baby over the phone. I could hear her eyes glossing over. But she does listen. And then tells me – you can stop anytime now. God I love her.

I could tell you lots about her. I know I try and remember to tell HER how much she means to me. She makes me smile is just the tip of the iceberg. Really, this is the first time I’ve had someone truly want good things for me. Someone who wants to support me and help me. Who worries about me. And that is counting friends in too. And family. I’m not that close to the family I have left. I mean, I am to my dad. But he’s one of those non-verbal kind of guys. We don’t talk much. My daughter I’ve already explained, although when she was younger we were close. I don’t have girlfriends that I call up and chat with. Not that I don’t have girlfriends – I’ve discovered some really great friends through twitter. People that do care. But we still don’t do that chatting on the phone, how are things, you make me smile kind of stuff. Even the fact that I have friends is awesome. Not to sound pathetic – but I don’t have that locally. Oh I have people I like, that when I spend time with I have a great time. But people that go out of their way to spend time with me or text and call me? Not so much. Could be the not having transportation thing. Hard to be impulsive. I’m kind of used to it though.

But my baby makes up for all that. I smile when I think about her at odd times of the day. (No dear, I didn’t say when I was odd at times in the day.) She finds me quirky and a LOT outside of her comfort zone. And she is soooo anal sometimes it takes me outside of my comfort zone. But somehow it works. And I love her very much because of it. And now I’m rambling. But hey, I caught you up on my life! But she obviously deserves her own post so I’ll have to think about that.

I’m not promising I’ll be back to “regular” updates. But I’ll try to get some writing done. I’ve got the time. Maybe I need to get my novel written. But either way – I haven’t forgotten you all. I’m still around. Just quiet. I’m trying to hop on twitter once in a while. And you can find me on facebook. If you REALLY want to find me – send me a message. I’m on my “vanilla” facebook more often than anywhere and I’ll be happy to add you. *hugs to all my lesbian friends* because yesterday was hug a lesbian day! And I really didn’t feel comfortable walking up to all the cute possibles at Border’s and saying “Hi, are you a lesbian? I’m looking for one to hug!” But I had a great time thinking up all the lines that could be used to get hugs from cute lesbians!

Circles and Little Boxes

It’s a funny thing about labels. We have a tendency of making them exclusive. We make them very small, and tightly defined. Labels like boy, girl, mother, green, black, smart, stupid. Oh you have a y chromosome? Step over there. That’s where all the people like that go. I’ve always thought of labels as a way of defining just who we are. And I’ve even had classes about how labels can be a very bad thing. Such as labeling someone a “slow-learner”. Labels tend to stick and stick well.

There are different kind of labels. Labels we use to define ourselves, and labels we use to define others. But remember, when you label someone, it’s very hard to change that label. We often see ourselves as mutable – a label for us today may not define us tomorrow. Today I am young, tomorrow I will be not young. Wait, let’s look at that one. Okay at 20 I am young. Someone else may label me youthful, or impetuous, or foolish, or childish. And I may in turn label people much older than I as old, pointless, out of step with the times, boring.

But then I suddenly find myself that person who I saw when I was 20 as old. Maybe I’m 40, or 50, or whatever. Now suddenly I am wise, steady, mature. Unless I’m talking to a 20 year old. Funny thing about labels, there are many different perspectives to each one. And sometimes we need to look from the other side before we decide on those labels.

Why am I talking about labels? Because I realized that when I use labels to define myself (maybe that’s just me) – I’m not really telling you what I am, but rather what I’m not. For instance – I am femme, polyamorous, switch. But that does not tell you who I AM – it just tells you who I am NOT. I am not butch. I am not monogamous. I am not vanilla (although vanilla is not a bad thing!), I am not master, I am not slave. But really it doesn’t tell you much about me. And that’s my key point.

We need to think more about labels as defining what we are not. So if I meet someone that says they are butch – it should resonate in my head that they are not femme. I’ve been given a hint as to who they are not. This leaves behind the ability to see butch as a very large encompassing paradigm. Until you tell me, by whittling away the things you are not, I can’t know who you are as a butch. I just accept the fact that you are not femme. And leave it up to you to define your butchness.

I don’t know about you – but this was a wow moment. I tend to take labels as oh, that’s who you are. And make a small circle in my mind for who you are. And you are stuck there. In that label. It floored me to think that’s not what it should be. You are a very large circle – when you give me that label it just chips away a little edge. The edge that could have been femme. There is still a whole lot of you left to discover. You are not in a box labeled butch. You are out of the box labeled femme. The box is – over there, in the corner. With all the other very small boxes that are not you.

This can be applied to everyone and every piece of who they are. Slow learner? Maybe – but then I can take away the small part that says doesn’t learn quickly and work with that without sticking a kid in a box that will hold him for the rest of his school days. Okay so maybe it is just me that is wowed by this, but I leave you with a favorite quote and remember – big circles leave room for everybody.

“He drew a circle that shut me out Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout But love and I had the wit to win; We drew a circle that took him in.” -
— Edwin Markham