A Conference with Myself, Part Four: Saying Goodbye Lying Down

            After The Professor and The Kind Ma’am left the Cuddle Party, I asked a nice woman I’d met at one of the workshops earlier (She was the one to whom I’d exclaimed “I just got a goooood phone number!” About The Professor.) if she would like to snuggle in behind me. I’ll call her Soulful Lady, because who knows, she may be in future stories.

           

            She spooned up to my back and I held onto Mr. Shiny Eyes from the other side. I missed The Professor but also felt lucky to be so deeply ensconced in the lovey-dovey vibes of the room. I’d talked with Mr. Shiny Eyes about meeting up at The Recurring Character’s room party later on (Just being invited made me feel like I was home.) but I was pretty sure I’d end up happily on my own instead. Everyone was soft, warm, lovely, and I felt full. I untangled myself from the pile and said softly that it was time to go.

            As I hugged Soulful Lady goodbye, she said “Remember, you are not too much. You are exactly enough.”

            “Thank you so, so much,” I gushed. “I’ll really try to remember.”

            Saying goodbye to Mr. Shiny Eyes, I put my cheek against his like a happy kitten, overjoyed to have reunited. After we kissed goodbye, his face was flushed with playful vitality, a sunbeam of a person, a natural resource. We both glowed with belonging and peace.

            I hugged the Cuddle Facilitator and thanked her for her help—she is really, really good at her job. On the way to my room, I ran into The Professor and The Kind Ma’am and told them I was in blissed-out solo mode for the night, and they said be sure to let them know if I changed my mind.

            One important thing about the Kind Ma’am: She has ropes. That just makes me feel optimistic about life in general.

            I was getting off the elevator to my room when I heard a “psst” and looked down a floor to see The Professor holding the pink water bottle that I’d left in the Cuddle Party. I motioned for him to toss it up, but he said “Just come down.” in a way that was just Dommy enough for me to do what he said.

            I was SO GLAD that I’d left my bottle, because as soon as I walked back off the elevator onto the first floor, he wrapped me up in his arms and we made out like teenagers, which you may know is my favorite thing in the universe. The chemistry/Energy between us made me dizzy, as if I’d been struck by warm, fuzzy, pink lightning. I think we might’ve been a little more affectionate than some not-with-the-conference passersby may have been expecting, and I loved that—I’m still a showoff at heart.

            I got to my room (still somehow by myself), cranked up the heat, took off everything but my socks, got into the big fluffy white hotel bed, and felt myself in every sense of the word. I loved the Energy, light, and lust sparking through me—very similar to the sensation of having had ropes on, except that I hadn’t. My skin was hot and tingling, my nipples hard—I felt like I’d spent the day being naked and admired in the sun. I ravished myself and slept an angel’s sleep, forgetting to even set an alarm.

            I woke up later than I’d meant to, almost missing a chance at breakfast. The Professor had texted to see what I was doing, so I set out to find him and it was easy. He and The Kind Ma’am were having breakfast with a bunch of friends and there was a spare seat for me. I dreamily ate french toast and bacon, leaned my head against his strong, warm shoulder, and got to know the two of them a little better.

After breakfast, The Professor asked if we could go up to my room for a bit and yesyesyes. When he told The Kind Ma’am “We’re just gonna go say goodbye for a bit.” she smiled big and teased us-- “Yep, just going to say goodbye, alone, in a room, lying down…”

Checkout time was looming, so we set a timer for ten minutes. I’d forgotten the joy of setting a timer for snuggles at The Big Poly Conference, but then I pretty much love setting a timer about anything.

            Those few minutes alone with him, in bed, being held, were the sweetest and best. He put his hand on my heart and it felt like a direct line to the divine. He caressed my breast and it became the moment I refer back to the most during personal time.

When the timer went off, I reluctantly went to turn it off, but he had other ideas. While my phone merrily chimed away, he not-quite roughly pushed me into the wall, took my face in his hands and kissed me deeply. I could feel him hard against me and I wished that we had hours. Days.

            All riled up and goddessy, I regained control and pushed him onto the bed, climbed on top, and pushed myself against him, enjoying his startled pleasure.

Eventually, we did have to heed the silly timer. Saying goodbye took a lot of time, a lot of lap-sitting, a lot of kissing with one sneaker on because it was very hard to finish getting dressed.

As he stood in the doorway almost leaving, he said: “Just know this: you are loved.” It was the perfect thing to say, and it felt both from him and not from him, like love was radiating from the whole building, from the whole universe of interconnected souls, is all. It was something I really needed to hear, a sentiment I want to take good care of.

When I returned to the default world, I found the contrast too great. I resolved to make my everyday life more loving, more gentle, more hospitable to my sparkly heart and hungry spirit. I’m not sure what that looks like yet, but I like the changes I’ve made so far.

The Professor has been in touch every day since. He is just as good in the everyday as he was in the land of magic, and I appreciate him more and more with every text, call, and picture. He feels steadying to me, and I feel hopeful.

A Conference with Myself, Part Three: Hugging Heartbreak, Embracing Joy

“Even if you feel overcome with nihilistic thoughts, your body is still alive with an optimism of its own.  Join the thoughts of your body.” –Yoko Ono

            When I first started adventuring way back when, I decided to use cuddle parties as a benchmark for how far I’ve come in inhabiting my body and letting go of grief. The first one, way back in 2012, I spent crying over my struggling marriage and unexpressed bisexuality. The second one, I spent mostly on my own despite the puddle of people, enjoying all of the lovey vibes in a very surprising new self-contained way. This time, I dove all the way in, tapped into my body’s optimism as Yoko suggests, and was blessedly immersed in the easy, soft connections with and among my fellow lovey-dovey souls.

            Still, sadness did need to have its moment. As I lay curled up and relaxed in the afterglow of The Kind Ma’am’s sweet/hurty attention, the loss I’d been trying to deny for months crept in and I just ached for Mr. Makeout Music, for all of the November grief. Since one of my New Year’s resolutions is to ask for help when I need it, I asked the Cuddle Facilitator to disentangle herself from a beautiful-looking embrace so we could talk for a minute. (I’m not a monster, it’s part of her role. But I still feel bad for interrupting snuggles!)

            I told her the story, the story my friends and I are all sick of, and she had an idea: “Let’s try this. I’m going to hold you, and you’re going to just feel it all. Feel it as deeply as you can, and then we’ll see if you’re ready to go back to playing.”

            So she put her arms around me, and as she held me, her heart against mine felt like MM’s heart, from those twice-a-day hugs that I missed so much. The connection I still felt to him was keen and wrenching and real, and I loved it so much. (I still do, though thankfully it feels much less claustrophobic/painful now.)

            I almost cried, but didn’t. I thanked her mistily and went back to the party, joining a cuddle pile with a few nice strangers who’d seemed fun during consent practice.

            I was blissed out and petting the hip of a nice woman from Colorado when (Hooray!) The Professor appeared above me and asked if he could join us. I was spooned in behind the nice woman, and he spooned in behind me, a friendly wall of warmth. I asked if he would pull my hair (or he asked me, I don’t remember) and he was such the perfect balance of gentle and forceful that I whooshed down into subspace, for the first real time in years. The weightless, beatific feeling of being relieved from control, turns out I’d missed it so much. I feel like I’m using the word “blessed” too many times in this story, but it keeps being necessary.

            I asked if I could turn over to face him, and the resulting embrace was one of the most comforting places I’ve ever been. I’m trying superhard not to get carried away here, of course he’s maybe just really good at hugging, but the way he fit with me had a teensy bit of destiny to it.

            At cuddle parties, you’re supposed to look for specific permission every step of the way, and for every request he made, I gave an emphatic “Yes!” especially the “May I kiss you?’ part—the Professor is really, really good at kissing. Just like with the hair pulling, soft and urgent, emphatic and sweet. There’s nothing like being really just thoroughly kissed.

            “Will you put your leg between mine?” He asked and oh yes, I just wanted to find a cuddle party loophole and just give him permission to do every. Single. Thing.

            “May I put my hand of your chest?” He asked, and that meant heart, not boob, and yesyes, it’s time to go ahead and believe in Energy, because this guy has ALL OF IT.

While I was lying there in The Professor’s arms, Mr. Shiny Eyes crawled over and asked for a kiss and I was happy to give it. The three of us chatted until it was time for The Professor to go have a late supper with The Kind Ma’am. I kissed him goodbye and settled into a new cuddle configuration with Mr. Shiny Eyes and the interesting strangers.

Next: More cuddles, more kisses, and saying goodbye lying down.

A Conference with Myself, Part Two: Mr. Shiny Eyes! Cuddle Practice! Hair Pulling!

Before I float back into all the awesomeness, I should backtrack a little bit to say that Mr. Shiny Eyes was one of the guy pals I reached out to after my New Years resolution to remember how to have guy friends. In the thick of divorce grief a couple of years ago, I’d broken things off with him for no good reason, and I was superworried that I’d hurt him—and I had. I’m sad to say that I haven’t always been fully conscious of the fact that I can affect men’s feelings, and I was glad I asked him about it. We had a really nice call a few weeks before the conference, so it only took us a few minutes of being in the same building to get in kiss/cuddle/flirt mode that day. A day where I kiss three worthy men is a good one.

Also, I can’t overstate how much of a difference my extra introvert time made. It had been such a long time since I’d felt like I was on a magical adventure with my cute, slutty self—this was a reunion within a reunion.

Anyway, back to being excited/nervous/fluttery to meet up with The Professor at the Cuddle Party. I got into my PJs and nice warm socks and brought pillows and blankets downstairs to the party room. I was one of the first to arrive, so I made a little nest within the bigger nest of pillows and blankets and I stretched and breathed. The Cuddle Facilitator stamped my hand with a red heart that meant I could come and go as needed.

When The Professor showed up with The Kind Ma’am, I felt surprisingly shy for someone who’d spent the day raising my hand emphatically like a smutty Hermione in the workshops and smooching old and new pals. It was both like a first date and not a like first date at all. If all first dates involved wearing soft pants, (and like an hour of consent practice) the world would truly be a magical place.

Once The Professor was in his plaid flannel pajama pants, he sat down between me and The Kind Ma’am, his arms around both of us. They talked and I snuggled up against his shoulder, feeling the warmth that radiated from him all over. And who should sit down next to me on the other side but Mr. Shiny Eyes! Without much preamble, we started making out gleefully, and I got to feel the glow of being between two beautiful men, of being in a chain, no, a net of soft, snuggly vibes and comfy touch. The perfect mix of kissing and friendship, safety and adventure.

For technical stuff about Cuddle Parties this is a good post:  but basically the first loooooong time of the party was consent practice, practicing asking specifically for what we wanted and saying and getting nos and yesses. (Not doing the things yet, just the asking and answering.) We even had to say no to things that we really, really wanted and yes to things we hated—that way you can really feel what a no or a yes feels like in the body, the Cuddle Facilitator said, and I think it was true. I LOVE consent practice and often wish the world were more Cuddle Party-esque.

When the cuddles finally started in earnest, The Professor was occupied in a sort of two-person-seeming snuggle so I sat down on one of the chairs at the side of the room, breathed and waited to see what would happen next. I felt hesitant, but warm and hopeful. I was so pleased when The Kind Ma’am sat down next to me and asked “Can I put my arm around you?” Yes! I felt protected and friended, taken under her wing. I wondered aloud if she might be willing to pull my hair and guess what! She said yes!

Having been spinstering it for a couple of years, I hadn’t been too sure where I stood with my kinks, though I suspected they were still there. With her, it was as if no time had passed since my last adventures, like I always have been and always will be getting my hair pulled, forever and ever, amen. When she grabbed the hair near the nape of my neck, I let out a fairly un-Cuddle-Party-like groan/purr/wail. I tried really hard (and fairly unsuccessfully) not to disrupt the proceedings with my caterwauling, but no one seemed to mind.

I wound up sitting at her feet, feeling little and adored and silly. She arranged my hair into pigtails, played, pulled, and (after I asked very nicely) called me “Good girl.” Swoon. The Kind Ma’am was perfect and careful and sweet, but I got a little overwhelmed from the burgeoning energy of the room and the new/old/hurty/lovely sensations, so I thanked her and said I needed a little time. I curled up on my own for a bit, letting the relief and happiness and complicated homecoming emotions swirl around me and within me.

Next: Cuddling heartbreak a little, cuddling joy A LOT.

A Conference with Myself: Part One

After all the heartache of the election and Mr. Makeout Music, I decided that my poly self needed to be as spoiled as possible, so I decided to make the Big Poly Conference into a mini-vacation. For the first time ever, I had my own room, and I planned to alternate learning and socializing with swimming and lounging around by myself. I stocked my mini-fridge with good sandwich stuff and strawberries and brought a Valentine heart of chocolate and Amy Schumer’s memoir. I packed two bathing suits, new pajamas, and cute underpants.

After the various fuckups of my past poly adventures, I was a little nervous about all the reuniting, but before the keynote address even started, The Recurring Character sat down next to me and said “Welcome back!” so I thought it might be okay.

Per Fireguy’s instructions, I was more there to make friends and reconnect with my poly self than to flirt, but I glanced around the assembly to see if anyone caught my fancy, and someone did. He wasn’t even in the room yet, he was still out in the hall getting checked in, and I thought “Jeez I hope he likes girls.” He was tall, broad and looked authoritative and also like he might know everyone there. As tends to be my preference these days, he was African American. I basically had to have him.

I found him after the talk. (Which was about diversity and inclusiveness but was given by a skinny, straight, able, cis white woman.) (Whom I adore, but come on…) He was standing around with a mutual friend, everyone trading stories about their respective Woman’s Marches. I found an excuse to high-five him (I love high-fiving so much.) and we struck up a conversation. Like the third thing he said to me was “Do you hug?” After months of feeling like I was Entirely Too Much around Mr. Makeout Music, that question was a balm, and yes, of course I hug, and this was one of my favorite hugs of all time.

It’s these moments when I want to start talking about that Energy thing that I don’t quite believe in but always that I seem to be able to feel. Wrapped up in his big strong arms, I forgot all the sadness and heartbreak, all of the trying to be less than I am. I felt accepted and I felt blessed. I was going to need to keep hugging him. I learned that he’d just finished his doctorate so I’ve decided to call him The Professor.

The next time I saw him, I was headed out after a somewhat-harrowing workshop on intersectionality. The Professor had his arms around a tall, cuddly, prettily-intimidating woman, but he reached out and pulled me into their hug. It felt like what life is supposed to be like, warm and beautiful and bi.

After Kind Ma’am went off to talk with some other people, The Professor sat down and I snuggled into his lap. I made apologetic noises to one of the women from the workshop (my whole strategy as an activist and an ally is to always be ready to apologize) and he said all kinds of encouraging, comforting things that my heart had been waiting broken-white-lady decades to hear. In no universe was it his job to take care of me in those feelings, but he did, and it was wildly generous.

            We exchanged phone numbers, emails, mailing addresses. I wrote mine on one of the many Pokémon Valentines I’d brought for just such a purpose. We kissed lightly and sweetly and hugged goodbye and I walked into the next workshop with a happy dance and an “I got a GOOD phone number!”

Instead of meeting anyone for dinner, I had a little introvert party--went swimming on my own and then ate dinner in bed, listening to the Bunhead Bros podcast. (It’s by the same guys who did all those three-to-five-hour Gilmore Girls recaps, can’t get enough. Okay I did get enough during the revival, but still.)

Joy of joys, The Professor texted and asked what I was doing with my evening, and we agreed to meet up at the Cuddle Party. I was very glad I’d brought cute soft new purple flower pajamas. I COULD NOT WAIT to get cuddled.

No Longer Performing Over-It-Ness, A New Hope

 It’s vexing that I spent part of last week marching on Washington with 500,000 amazing people in one of the most meaningful and fulfilling experiences of my life and then a good chunk of my time crying about a boy. Love is resistance, I guess.

Mr. Makeout music and I really, really tried to be friends. A few times it got too hard and I tried to get away, but I kept getting pulled back in, once by an eight-page Post-it note letter that he left on my desk inside my Bon Iver CD. (Maybe the most emo thing that ever happened to me, and that’s really saying something.)

I wanted to be over it so we could be friends, but I’m still in love with him, still heartbroken. When we were trying to be friends, I performed a flirty, lightly-slutty, carefree version of myself. He let me think we were somewhere between friendship and the other thing. In fact, he explicitly said so, and that was enough to keep giving me hope. It gave me enough of an excuse to keep on (and I say this only a little bit sheepishly but mostly self-compassionate) making a fool of myself over him.

I so wanted to skip ahead to friendship that on Friday, I made him take out his phone so we could put a friend-afternoon on the calendar, and in the course of that conversation I found out that he had plans for Valentine’s Day.

I’d sort of seen this coming since she’d been visiting the library almost daily, though I’d asked him about it a few weeks before and he’d said it wasn’t a thing. (Why he has to date her at work is beyond me and feels (probably unintentionally) cruel…) My first reaction to finding out they were together was “Yesss!” because I was genuinely happy for him.

So compersion may have lent me some dignity in that moment, but it couldn’t save me from the fact that right after he told me he couldn’t date me because of family obligations, he almost immediately found a serious-enough-for-Valentine’s-Day relationship. I’d sort of known for a while but love-goggles weren’t really letting me confront it.

It doesn’t always occur to me that people sometimes don’t tell the truth, and I guess I’m glad that I took him at face value. Awesome Genderqueer Librarian says she thinks he was telling the truth, that he wasn’t ready for his world to become bigger and he was ready for something that fit his idea of the world. Maybe, but I knew I couldn’t keep pretending to just want friendship I felt hurt and humiliated that he hadn’t told me the truth in the first place.

So I sent him a last text saying that friends don’t lie to each other and that I’d deserved so much more honesty and respect than he’s given. I told him to leave me all the way alone. I gave him back most of the artwork that he’d made with me and the library kids (I kept the one he’d told me was called “Ms. ______ in Autumn” because the colors reminded him of me.) and he gave me the Postal Service album (“Give Up,” it’s called, I think it was really just a message to myself.) that I’d lent him in a last ditch effort to be at least Cute Music Friends.

It’s sad not to talk to him, not to get at least two hugs a day from him. Saturday afternoon when I walked into the library I just mortifyingly burst into tears, thank god it wasn’t in front of him. I just love and miss him so much and I’m so sad that he didn’t choose me. It’s hard not to compare myself to her and not wish I were easier, more monogamous, more whatever-she-is-that-I’m-not.

But also, I feel relief. I don’t have to date like crazy to prove that I’m over him. I don’t have to push myself into a friendship that doesn’t feel right. I don’t have to fight to stay on his radar or compete with her for attention, because that’s really, REALLY not my thing.

And Saturday, the Universe was so kind as to send another handsome security guard to my department. I hope to never crush on someone at work ever again, but it was comforting to chat with a nice man about art, life, feelings, and politics while I made self-Valentines with the kids. Mine said:

Dear Me,

I love you because you love with your whole heart.

            Even after all of this foolishness, it’s still true.

            Way back in November when Mr. Makeout Music and I had our “We’re not gonna be a thing” conversation, I realized I’d better figure out where I stand with kink and poly. I signed up for the Big Poly Conference and reserved a room for the whole weekend. I also reached out to Fireguy and asked him to mentor me through the process, and he said yes!

            Talking with him has been healing in many ways, making me feel stronger and more able to take risks. He gave me a couple of directives that I’m really enjoying:

1.      You have to know someone to love him or her, so instead of dating, concentrate on doing what I love and building my social circle.

2.      People will show their worthiness by making an effort.

The second one seems like a nicer version of the “He’s just not that into you” philosophy, which I already kind of believe. It’s hard to hold out for real effort, though, because I want so much to serve the ones I love. But looking for those worthy of me, expecting honesty and enthusiasm and communication, is working out very well so far and gives me such a sparkly glimmer of hope and faith.

I may have to watch Mr. Makeout Music’s romance blossom at our workplace every day, but a future of being my real, deep, loving, transparent, poly self will hopefully give me the power to move past him.

This Is Your Brain on Love, an Awesome Talk by Ginny Brown

Since the project that emerged for me at the conference was to learn how not to panic when I get excited about somebody, I was superexcited to go learn about NRE and neurotransmitters. I guess naming the talk kinda gives away which conference it was, not like it was such a big mystery anyway. If you ever get a chance to see this talk, I couldn’t recommend it more. If you're headed to Atlanta Poly Weekend, you'll be able to see it there!

I think most poly folk are familiar with the brain processes of love, but looking at the list of “symptoms,” of being in love made me realize there’s some overlap with anxiety and even depression. (Perseverating, obsession, jealousy…) But the biggest flash of insight came from learning that, during the early stages of passionate love, serotonin levels drop! As a (now pretty mildly, I’d say) depressed person who’s been treating herself with non-medicine fixes, that was the most helpful possible tip! If I’m going to wade into excellently lovey-dovey emotions, I have to make sure to take extra care of my brain first with as much sunlight as possible (rare these days but I’m hoping the sun will be back…) don’t skip the gym, eat lots of produce, etc, and slow down enough so that anxieties don’t snowball and turn something cute into something overwhelming.

As with the advice I got in the previous post, I got a chance to test this theory right away. On Tuesday night, I was planning an ironing-some-things-out talk with the fantastically NRE-ful Mystery Man, so I took care to put writing and getting to the gym first. Probably we’d’ve done fine anyway, (We’re very cute.) but it was a lot easier to talk past sticking points and be open with my needs when my brain was all thankful and calm.

Since I’m still mostly a single girl (Well, as single as a girl with about five Valentines can be…) a lot of what I’ve experienced in the past couple of years has been the wonderfully anxiety-producing new parts of relationships, and to some degree I have used it as a (somewhat ineffective, it turns out) mood elevator, but also it’s just how I am.

I probably will always get very enthusiastic about lots of people, but I look forward to eventually seeing what comes after the “Call Me Maybe” phase of things—what happens when I’m calm and slow enough to ask for what I need and be able to hear what other people are asking for, too. I’m starting to feel like I can feel safe forming real attachments. As a lot of my snuggle pals are long distance, I’m clearly in a needing-some-elbow-room phase, but I’m curious to see which folks will end up evolving alongside me, becoming lasting bonds.

One thing that bothered me about the audience of this talk (Not the talk itself—seriously, see it.) was that even in this most poly of poly settings, people were still approaching outside relationships as potential problems, NRE as a threat to the existing structures. Nice poly person after nice poly person talked about “making it up to” the existing partners, with extra chores and hugs, as if excitement about somebody else were something to atone for rather than drink up and share.

It was kind of interesting to watch even the most seasoned of poly folks still separating themselves out into disparate relationships rather than feeling like a network of connections. When I love somebody, I love their whole thing, and to me that means loving their partners too, even if I don’t want to smooch them. (Probably I want to smooch them, though.) I guess not everybody wants to smush all their people together into one big pile, but that’s how it looks in my ridiculous heart.

Anyway, that day was one of the most illuminating learning experiences of my nascent sex geek career, and I’ll think about it all the time.

A (Naked and Sexed-Up) Rare Occasion Wherein I Enjoy Getting Advice

Almost as soon as I got to the Big Poly Conference, this conversation happened:

Mr. Shiny Eyes: “What are you doing at lunch?”

Me: “You?”

After a night and morning of snuggles with the Sweethearts, I couldn’t believe my luck was still this lavish. I felt like Wonder Woman for asking him and had an inner fireworks display when he said yes.

As I say every time I have it, I never get enough PIV sex, and even though a timer was set so he wouldn’t miss the next workshop, this was fantastic enough to hold me for a WHILE. (Okay, ‘til the next morning. But still.)  He has such a very very nice penis and he knows all the best ways to bend a girl around. It was so easy and bright and unselfconscious and special-occasiony. This was sex that made me feel like life wants to give me absolutely everything.

After we were spent, as the timer was snooze-alarming, we had a conversation that ended up being a bigbig breakthrough.

I mentioned an unspecified conference attender with whom I’d recently broken off a flirtation because he triggered some yucky feelings, which of course is a reasonable and necessary thing to do, but Mr. Shiny Eyes, having some insight into what it’s like to be told by me that he’d not a match, had this to say:

“You get really upset when you feel like someone might be seeing you out of a sense of obligation rather than desire. People jump to “not a match” sometimes when they could just share their emotions about the thing that triggered them.”

This was partly what I’d done in this recent situation, but I couldn’t quite get past the stomachache with the person, probably because it reminded me of the Steampunks among other things.

He continued: “And I notice that you tend to come from a place of self-deprecation, like whatever the person is doing is confirming the fear that they couldn’t possibly have wanted you in the first place.”

Uh, okay dude, thanks for workshopping my emotions while I’m still naked and tingling, but dangit if he didn’t have a point.

I ended up doing a lot of thinking on this trip about why I tend to break up with (and then unbreak up with) people I like, and he definitely had his finger on part of it. When somebody likes me, there’s still a big part of me that feels like it must be a trick, and I’m always kinda waiting for that trick to reveal itself. But the fact that so many of these breakups didn’t take is proof that the liking is genuine.

I have to stop and appreciate the characters who stuck with me as snuggle friends even as I went through such an ugly and harrowing year, even after they had to deal with rejections and (sometimes) overreactions. Sometimes someone isn’t a match (like when they use the “R” word while sexting and it’s not “ravish”) or isn’t a match right now, but it’s very good advice to slow down time, breathe and reflect when an alarm gets tripped, not just automatically run.

Almost immediately upon returning home, I had an opportunity to try this, and I like the results so far. So high five, Mr. Shiny Eyes, and thanks for being such an excellent 

Poly Conference as Benchmark: Very Good Progress

When I first attended the Big Poly Conference the year before last, it was almost like research as an outsider. I found many different kinds of comfort and acceptance (especially in my first nudist experience) but by the end of the day I was hurting and crying in the cuddle party, being comforted by the facilitator (who is, incidentally, now Showtime famous) and feeling like I should never be near such nice people, like I was just to rotten inside for all this togetherness. I cried my heart out all the way home that night, consoled by Sweetie in that toxic way we had, half-knowing that my relationship was part of where the rottenness was coming from.

Then last year I attended with much more experience and a few more good connections, spent the day mostly catching up with friends and being proud to find out where the big party was being held. That was the night I first really connected with the Sweethearts, Mr. Shiny Eyes, and the Recurring Character. Because Sweetie was staying in the hotel with me (though not attending the conference) I still felt separate from the poly folks and strangely protective of her, like I couldn’t give all the way in to everything that was going on around me.

This year, I shared a room with my favorite snuggle-couple, the Sweethearts, whom I’m still learning, of course, but thoroughly and emphatically enjoyed in both pants-off and pants-on ways. They feel like home to me, a physical and spiritual comfort to be near whether we were mid-scene or not.

As with last year, I spent a good amount of time catching up with the Lady of the House, who decided that wherever we are together talking is actually the nude beach--it’s exactly that sunny, embracing, and free.

I got to devour Mr. Shiny Eyes for lunch and have some emotional breakthroughs with him during postsex cuddles. (I’ll elaborate on all this as the week goes on…)

And yes, I did know where the party was, but I chose instead to curl up in a comforter and enjoy the warmth of my own company.

For all of the happiness, there was grief, too. I miss having someone to whom I could confess everything and be (until the next condemning fight, at least) absolved. And since last year’s party was all about Sweetie’s ropes, I missed the heck out of those too: I love that we were able to create such beautiful rope-magic even as we were falling apart. I miss the home of her even as I rejoice in finding and founding new person-homes.

This was also the weekend in which I finally admitted to myself that I believe in Tantric energy—I’ve experienced it enough times, I might as well. The first time I tried Tantric breath (at that same sobby conference cuddle party) I experienced it as stabby, almost debilitating pain, a grief-cramp that didn’t go away until I cried it out. This time, just after I left the Sacred Sex Puja, I felt such a warm, sunshiny glow move through me, and keep moving. Though I’m still facing some roadblocks and daunting obstacles, on some fundamental level I’ve come unstuck. There’s so much more work to be done, but sometimes I feel my body, mind, and heart giving me time and space to relax into the flow of whatever comes next.

Song of the Week: No Matter What

Yesterday the Cutest Boy at the Party texted to thank me for still mentioning him in the blog and it was the second conversation I had in as many days about how some people will just always be mentioned. With the Big Poly Conference and its attendant reunion-snuggles coming up tonight, it's really sinking in that I've made some true and lasting connections. So yesterday when I was driving around singing in the little red car, I decided I had to dedicate this song to all the nice characters I'm still heart-hoarding, which is to say, all of them.